You know I couldn't kill them... yet ;)
Thorin heard a low buzzing, but he thought it was just him. Ori started pawing at his ear, and even Oin looked confused, bringing down his ear trumpet and looking at it oddly.
"We are nearing our destination!" Gandalf announced. "Here lives Beorn, and that buzzing you hear are his bees. He has an abundance of animals, so be careful."
They passed the bees, and found a huge man standing at an entryway. Several deer and horses stood around him, glancing at the strangers warily. Thorin couldn't but notice that they looked intelligent, and he hoped that Gandalf was right about coming here.
"Gandalf, haven't seen you in a while," the man said, peering down at them. "What brings you to my land?"
"Beorn, I apologize for the short notice, but we are on a journey and we are a bit short on food and supplies. We lost it in Goblin Town."
"I see. And who are your companions?"
"Well, here's Nori, Ori, Dori, Bifur, Bombur, Bofu-"
"Slow down wizard! I'm not as young as I once was. So you're Ori..." he said, pointing at Bifur.
"No, master Beorn that's Bifur!" Gandalf corrected as Bifur started protesting in Dwarvish. "These are Nori, Ori, Dori, Bifur, Bombur, Oin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin, and where is he... oh, there he is! The leader Thorin Oakenshield, and our burglar, Bilbo Baggins."
Beorn seemed to quiz himself, and then grumbled. "Very well then, follow me."
Thorin shot a glance at Gandalf, and reluctantly followed the rest of the dwarves into a yard filled with more animals. They went into a huge house, and everything was scaled up. The seat of a chair was level with Thorin's head, the table even higher.
Beorn yelled something in a different tongue, and animals started dancing, horses and deer and mice, pushing in dwarf sized chairs and benches. Some set the table, heaping platters of food and they rolled out barrels of ale and wine. The animals sang, but Thorin and the dwarves weren't cheered up by it. They all knew too well that Fili and Kili would have joined the singing, and it wasn't the same without them.
The table was soon set and the animals left. The dwarves climbed up into their chairs and benches, Gandalf and Beorn at the heads. Thorin sat beside Dwalin and Balin, all the other siblings and kin sitting together as well. Balin and Dwalin were family, the line of Durin, but distant. Fili and Kili were the two closest relatives he had, but he did have one other nephew that he didn't see that often.
Thorin picked absently at his food while Gandalf told their story. He could tell that Beorn didn't believe them, and he didn't blame him that much. He didn't believe it.
He felt the man staring at him, and he met his gaze. "I am sorry about your nephews and the girl," he said.
The king shook his head and looked back down at the table. He stayed quiet the rest of the night, only sharing a few words with Balin. They settled down to bed, and Beorn promised them a supply of food and goods, along with ponies they could borrow in the morning until they got to Mirkwood.
Thorin settled down on the floor, in the back corner of the room. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, the loss still fresh. But still, he willed himself to try, for the Company's sake. He was even grumpier when he was tired, and he didn't want to make it worse for them.
Ori laid a few feet away, shoulders shaking as muffled sobs leaked out of him. The younger dwarf had been good friends with the brothers, although he seemed more reserved. He did write down everything they said with particular care, for he was the chronicler of the journey. Thorin had read his book, and while he generalized everyone else, it was Fili and Kili, more recently Ronan, that he shone the spotlight on. Happy, young heirs, caring about each other more than anything else in Middle Earth.
Ronan woke the brothers as the sun started to rise, handing them each a leaf filled with berries she had gathered. She stumbled into a patch of bushes loaded with blueberries when she went to pursue the sound, and decided that they would give them more energy than something she would have to hunt. Besides, they might not find any more bushes of fruit the more they ventured into the darker places of Middle Earth.
"You should've woken me up," Fili grumbled. He still looked dead tired, Kili even worse, but they knew the sleep had done them well.
"You needed the sleep," she said. "To heal faster."
"You need it too," he muttered, turning away and putting out a hand to his brother, helping Kili to his feet.
"How do you two feel?" She went over to Kili, putting a hand to his forehead. It was cool, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Oin and the leaves she found must have fought off a fever. He flinched away from her touch, grumbling about how everyone was overreacting and that he was fine. "Please, Kili, just let me look at your wounds."
He sighed and Ronan went to work unbuttoning his shirt and coat, and then removing the bandage. It stuck to his wound and he hissed as she peeled it off, the cotton stained with brown blood. The actual wound was still covered in blood, so she couldn't get a good look at it.
She had been prepared, and had boiled a pot of water. She took a rag and wet it, wringing it out over the pot and bringing it up to Kili's shoulder. He winced as she gently rubbed at it, clearing away the blood. The large gash was enflamed, red around the edges. It didn't look infected, but it needed stitches.
"It needs stitches, Kili. You moving it would just keep it open, and it would probably get infected, which we don't need right now."
"Do you have what you need?" He grunted, glancing down at the wound.
"Yes. Fili, sit him down against that oak over there while I get everything ready." The elder dwarf nodded in agreement, putting a hand on Kili's uninjured shoulder and shuffling towards the tree.
Ronan dug around in her pack for the basic kit she had, pulling out the needle and thread. She dipped the needle in the water, cleaning it. The string followed, and she squeezed all the water out with her thumb and index finger. After threading the needle, she went over to where Kili was sitting against the tree and kneeled down next to him.
"All right, several things. First off, Fili get his hand. This will hurt. Second, Kili, I'll need you to relax. It will hurt less and I can't do it if your muscles are all tensed up. I'm not sure how many it will take, but it's a big gash and its deep, so probably quite a few. You ready?"
Fili grasped one of Kili's hands. "I guess," he said, shifting his weight a little bit.
As gently as she could, she began the stitches. Kili bit his lip, trying his best to stay still but not quite succeeding. "Relax," she murmured, sliding the needle in and out. "Relax, it will be over soon." She was almost halfway done, about fifteen stitches in already. Blood ran down his arm and she paused to put the rag above where his clothes stopped so that they wouldn't get any more ruined than they already were.
She must have poked something she wasn't supposed to, because Kili let out a scream, his body arching off the ground and rolling a bit towards Fili. The movement pulled the needle out of Ronan's hand, tightening the stitches, which made him howl some more. She swore under breath curses in ancient dwarvish, then reached over and grasped his good arm. "I'm sorry, Kili, I'm sorry," she whispered, brushing his hair off his face. "Just calm down, I'm almost done."
Once he had settled down enough for her to continue, she quickly finished and tied off the thread. She wiped the blood off his arm, and rebandaged it. Kili kept a hold of Fili's hand, leaning on him more than the tree.
"You sure you're okay Fili?"
He shrugged. "I guess. My leg still hurts, but I should be fine." He stroked his brother's hair some more, and whispered in his ear.
"We need to go soon; we've been here far too long. Knowing Thorin, they would have started moving again hours ago." She turned to the pot that still rested over the embers of the fire. She put in their water skins, filling them with the clean water, until the four they had were full. She set them aside next to their packs, and picked up the pot and brought it to the brothers. "You can clean up with this. Or drink it, whatever you choose, but I filled our skins."
"You're amazing," Fili breathed, taking the pot. He wiped down Kili's face and then his, scrubbing to get the dirt off. She smiled weakly at them, taking the pot back and attaching it to Fili's pack.
The brothers stood, retrieving their walking sticks. They took their packs, which Ronan had lightened for them. Her own felt like a million tons, and she knew that she would regret taking the load.
They did encounter a slight problem with Kili. The pack put too much weight on his arm, but they adjusted the straps so that most of the weight was on his good shoulder and all was well.
"We're going to have to cut straight to Mirkwood, through it and to the path," she said, leading the group. "Thorin and everyone else will probably make it there tomorrow or the day after. We might beat them there. I have a good idea of where the eagles were taking them."
"If Thorin's alive," Kili muttered, limping along behind them. Her stomach churned. How could she forget? Fili looked distraught as well, looking down at the ground.
"He's strong. He'll be fine."
Kili snorted and they walked around a boulder. The small exchange had dampened their spirits, and the day of walking dragged on. If an orc pack found them, they would be dead. With no energy and the heirs of Durin injured, they could barely even fight back.
"There are footprints here," Fili murmured, stopping. Ronan turned around.
"Elves," she said, stiffening. "We're nearing their territory. We should be just outside of Mirkwood by nightfall."