Gili waited in her tiny room until late into the night. She had heard her brothers and mother go to bed hours before and her Uncle Thorin shortly thereafter. Well after midnight now, she crawled from her bed, dressed warmly and found a blank piece of parchment in her desk. She penned her goodbye to her brothers, explaining briefly the conversation she had overheard earlier that night between her mother and uncle. She declared her love for them both unreservedly and begged their forgiveness, telling them that she simply could not face a life married off to a dwarf she could never love.
Gili quickly packed a bag for herself, including one of Kili's tunics and breeches which she would have to roll the sleeves and legs up, and an extra day dress and corset for herself. Extra small-clothes, her brush and money pouch completed her pack.
She took the letter without hesitation and crossed over to her brothers' room. She gazed down at their sleeping bodies entwined around each other and agonized at how much she longed to be there between them once again. She noticed that they slept fitfully, one turning, the other reaching out for his brother and vice versa.
She slipped the note under Fili's pillow, knowing that he would find it eventually. She touched his golden hair lovingly one last time before kissing her fingertips and placing them softly against Kili's temple. She crossed back over the room to the weapon rack and took one of Fili's daggers, sheathing it in the belt at her waist. She slung the bag over her shoulder and left the royal quarter without looking back.
Gili made her way through the corridors and up to the secondary hidden entrance to Erebor which was known only to the royal family and their personal guard. She pulled up the hood to her thick cloak and began the slow descent of the Lonely Mountain to the village of Dale below.
Upon reaching the stables in Dale, she knew the stablehand was likely long-since bedded down for the night. So she slipped silently inside, saddled a pony quietly and then led it out into the night. She walked the pony slowly, keeping to the backstreets until she came to the alleyway behind the village inn. She had not had a chance to get any food before leaving so she slipped silently into the back kitchen and pilfered a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese and two wineskins from the counter, leaving as quietly as she came.
Gili gave one last glance toward the Lonely Mountain, the only home she had ever known, as she rode away from Dale. The moonlight shown on the great gates of Erebor and Gili fancied she saw her brothers above on the balcony, on their balcony, waiting for their sister as they had earlier. It was silly, she knew. She was too far away now to even make out the balcony, much less her brothers were they truly there instead of tucked into their warm bed, but she would see them in her memory every time she closed her eyes.
"Come on now, girl," Gili whispered as she mounted and kicked the pony into a trot. She would find somewhere safe to pass the night and then try to think of somewhere in Middle Earth that she could venture where her uncle's anger would not penetrate and his arm would not reach. Where that might be, she could not tell but she whispered a prayer to Mahal and ventured forth into the unknown.
Gili found a small copse of trees between Dale and Laketown the night she fled Erebor, leaving her heart behind with her beloved brothers. She hobbled her pony, taking the blanket from beneath the saddle, laying down upon it, resting her head upon the saddle and curling into her cloak. There would be no warm fire this night and no food as she knew she must ration her small stash sparingly. When she reached Laketown, she would buy more food and necessities with some of her pocket money. She knew that Laketown would never be far enough from her uncle's reach, so she would not tarry long there.
Gili's mind looked back to earlier in the night on the balcony over the front gates of Erebor. She and her brothers had fully realized their true feelings for each other and spent a few sweet moments exploring their love. Her body still sung with the sensations her brothers had given her. Her lips still tingled from their kisses. Their scent still clung to her skin and her hair. She knew that she would regret when she finally had to bathe that heady fragrance from her body.
Sleep was not easy coming to Gili that night. She had never been on her own, never alone and the night sounds of the wilds were entirely foreign to her. No one would understand, unless they had been born to it, how utterly quiet the mountain was.
Her pony snickered lowly, munching on the sparse grasses of late fall. The wind blew gently across the leaves of the bushes wherein she hid. And her small shoulders shook with the silent sobs of fear and loneliness.
Slowly, but surely, sleep finally took hold of Gili. For a few blissful hours she had a reprieve from missing her brothers. But as the sun began lacing the sky above her with streaks of pink and gold she awoke to a pounding in her head and a rumbling in her stomach. Both of those sensations were infinitely preferable to the ache in her heart as she thought of how the streaks of gold in the sky couldn't hold a candle to the gold of Fili's hair and the pinks paled next to the endearing blush on Kili's cheek as she tickled him mercilessly during their play-fights.
Gili took a bite of bread and cheese and a long tug on the wineskin before standing and stretching her cold, stiff limbs. She performed her morning ablutions and set about saddling her pony and breaking camp. By the time full-light was upon her she was well on her way to Laketown.