"Come on, Lad," Balin said gently trying to get Kíli to his feet so that they could return to camp. "We need to see to the cut on your face. We need to stop the bleeding. Get it bandaged up."
"No," Kíli said, his voice a low whisper as he refused to allow Balin to draw him to his feet.
"Kíli," Balin said reaching for the young heir again. "We have to treat it, lad. If we don't . . ." he trailed off unsure of what he should say next before he decided that they couldn't allow it to go unsaid. Too much had been left unsaid and had caused nothing but trouble. They couldn't pretend that this hadn't happened. Fíli had attacked Kíli. He had drawn his brother's blood. There was no way to avoid admitting it and it would be wrong to try.
"I know that it could probably wait a bit. Fíli keeps his weapons clean but . . . it could still get infected. And—"
"Good," Kíli snapped cutting Balin off. "If it gets infected it'll be his fault. He meant to kill me before you all stopped him. If that's what he actually wants I'll let him have his way. I'll die of the wound that he gave me. Let's see if he likes that!"
"Kíli—" Balin began only to be cut off once more.
"What!?" Kili sobbed. "He tried to kill me, Balin. My own brother. Fíli . . . he . . . It hurts."
"Your cheek?" Thorin asked quietly as he slowly and painfully knelt beside his nephew. He placed a gentle hand on Kíli's chin and angled his head so that he could better see the wound. It ran along his cheekbone with about a finger's width of unmarred skin beside both his nose and hairline. Had it have been much higher Kíli might have lost his eye. Kíli flinched when he pulled the skin apart to check the depth of it but didn't pull away. Thorin sighed. It was deep. To the bone in places. There was no way that it wouldn't leave a scar. He only hoped that by the time Kíli saw his mother again he wouldn't tell her what actually happened if she asked. Dís would kill Thorin for letting her boys come to blows like this.
"Does your cheek hurt?" Thorin repeated when Kíli didn't answer him.
"A bit," Kíli replied quietly, looking at his uncle for the first time since he had left the clearing they had made camp in. Thorin flinched at the lack of life in his brown eyes. Kíli was in shock over what had happened and was beginning to withdraw into himself. Thorin only hoped that he would come back out of it.
"It's starting to sting," Kíli said in a dead voice as he reached up to touch it only to have his hand stopped by his uncle.
"You don't want to do that," Thorin said gently. "The more you touch it the more it is going to start to hurt. Leave it alone if you can."
"Thorin," Balin said looking down at the two of them with regret, "we need to get back to camp. It's already growing dark and I'm not sure that I can keep both of you safe by myself if goblins do come. I know that the boy needs a minute but . . ."
"I understand," Thorin replied. "Come Kíli, back to camp." Where Kíli had resisted Balin, he didn't have it in him to fight his uncle. His anger was beginning to fade and leaving in its place sadness, weariness and an underlying question of "why?". He couldn't understand how things had escalated quite so quickly with his brother. One moment, Fíli had been there, hugging him, crying and seeming like they were going to reconcile and then . . . his brother had been gone. Kíli hadn't even recognized the dwarf that had attacked him. He had looked like Fíli, but he hadn't been Fíli.
That's what he tried to convince himself of at any rate as he watched Balin help his uncle to his feet. That hadn't been Fíli that attacked him because his brother could never do that to him. It kept repeating in his mind. Fíli hadn't done it. Not Fíli. He was almost desperate to believe it because the alternative—that Fíli hated him enough to try to kill him—didn't bear consideration. But a small, poisonous voice within himself said that he was a fool. Fíli had done it. If he needed proof he only had to look to the blood still pouring from his face and the ache building in his cheek. He suddenly felt very cold. It was almost nice because with the cold came numbness and the throbbing of his back from where Fíli had tackled him onto his wounds and the building ache in his cheek faded. Even so, it scared him and he wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to fight it off.
When Balin took his arm gently and began to steer him back to camp he didn't resist him but allowed himself to be led into the firelight. He didn't even protest when Óin began to stitch the wound on his cheek. The sharp pains as the needle passed through his flesh were nothing compared to the ache that was beginning in his heart. He just sat there silently and stared into the flames.
Balin watched as Kíli's face was stitched closed. There had been a brief argument about whether to cauterize it to stop the bleeding or to stitch it to minimize the scarring and in the end stitching had won out. None of them wanted to have to look at the ugly scar that cauterizing the wound that Fíli had left on Kíli would cause and the blood flow was already beginning to slow. But what worried him more than the wound was Kíli's stillness.
He had always been an active thing, even as a babe. He never held still for long and even when he did there was always a kind of nervous energy to him that showed that it was only sheer force of will keeping him in place. That or fear of punishment if he ran out on his lessons again. But now . . . there was none of that. He was perfectly still, almost as if he had been carved from stone, and didn't even move—didn't even flinch—as Óin sewed. It was unnatural.
It was also unnatural for him to be without Fíli. They had never been truly separated before. Not since Kíli was big enough to leave his mother's arms. They had eaten together, trained together, slept together. One was never without the other and the sight of Fíli's unconscious form next to Dwalin—with his brother clearly acting in a jailor capacity—and Kíli's still, expressionless form at the fire . . . it was wrong. He took a deep breath to combat the anger it awoke in him before he set off to find Thorin.
He knew that Thorin was both their king and their uncle but he was at least partially to blame for this. Balin had seen it for years—the way that Thorin held Fíli at arm's length while pulling Kíli in—but had said nothing. He had always tried to convince himself that Thorin had done it to teach Fíli that as a king he would never have the luxury of allowing others too close. He had disagreed with such a lesson, but it wasn't his place to say so. But if Fíli had ever shown even a hint that it bothered him, Balin would have thrown propriety out the window long before. Until that day he had never even realized that Fíli had noticed the difference.
But now that he knew, he could stay silent no longer. He had held his tongue both out of respect for Thorin as his king and to avoid causing his friend to relive painful memories but the time for that had long since passed. He needed to find Thorin to do now what he should have done years before: confront him about his treatment of his heir.
ooOO88OOoo
After Thorin had made his way back to camp, he sat under the same tree he had sat at when the first got there with his head in his hands. He didn't want to watch as they tended Kíli's wound. He also had a painful question pressing on his mind: what was he going to do?
What Fíli had just done . . . Thorin's heir or no, it could not go unaddressed, unpunished. He had drawn a knife on his brother in an argument. Even if no one had said it, Thorin had no doubt in his mind that there had been an argument. Kíli had tried to reconcile, Fíli wasn't ready, they had fought and blood had been shed. Even so, an argument, no matter how heated an argument, did not excuse his actions. If he had just hit his brother . . . that would be something different and Thorin might have been able to brush it off as boys being boys, but drawing a knife and cutting him before holding it to his throat. Thorin let out a sigh that was nearly a sob. As both his King and his uncle Thorin had to address this transgression. However he was at a loss at how to do it.
It was too severe a transgression to ignore but how could he punish his nephew. Even if he had been one of the others it was not severe enough of a crime to merit the harshest of punishments—death. If Fíli had truly tried to kill his brother they would have found him sitting on a corpse. It took them a moment to find the brothers and Fíli had had more than enough time to do it had he have wanted to. He had always been stronger than Kíli and had had the better position. From how they were, Fíli could have killed Kíli even if Kíli wasn't already injured. No, he hadn't actually meant to kill his brother, no matter how it had looked. It didn't merit anything nearly so harsh as death.
But it was also impossible for Thorin to punish Fíli as they had when he was an errant child.
It was too great an error for that. Drawing a knife on your brother merited a harsher punishment than being confined to your quarters without dinner—not that they had quarters to confine him to at any rate. And Fíli was far too old for a spanking, even had Thorin been in any condition to do it. There was only one thing that he could do to punish his nephew for this and it broke his heart. The Uncle in him argued that it was too harsh. That Fíli was broken and that Kíli had most likely goaded him into it but the King in him knew that it was the only just thing that he could do. He had to order it. He only hoped that in the end Kíli's softer side would win out and he would show his brother mercy.
No sooner had he come to his decision than he heard Balin's voice calling his name. He looked up wearily at his friend and confidant with a sigh. He wasn't sure what this was about but he could see the fire burning in Balin's dark eyes. The other dwarf was furious and that fury was directed at him. He felt a silent sob rise up his throat. Why did this have to happen now? Right after he had decided on a punishment for his nephew that had broken his heart.
"Please, Balin," Thorin breathed, emotion choking his words and making them nearly inaudible, "I don't know what you want from me but can't it wait? Please?"
"No, Thorin, this can't wait," Balin replied sharply. "It's waited for more than seventy years. It can't wait any longer and has probably waited too long as it is." Thorin was confused by his words. What had Balin held on to for more than seventy years that now needed to be addressed so urgently? Part of him knew that it nearly had to have something to do with Fíli and Kíli but he wasn't sure what it could be. What had Balin waited seventy years to tell him?
"In that case, speak," Thorin replied with a resigned sigh. "I will listen."
"It's about the lads," Balin said his voice as hard as his eyes as he glared down at his wounded king. "About Fíli in particular. You have done wrong by that boy, Thorin. His entire life. I know why you did it but that does not make it acceptable. I've never said anything before because how you conduct your private life is not really any of my business and I didn't think that he realized it. But he did, Thorin. He realized it. He noticed that you treat Kíli and Dís differently than you do him."
"I do not treat him differently than I do them," Thorin snarled. He had heard that for the first time from Fíli himself and had believed it to be the hurt his nephew felt lashing out and saying things that were untrue in an effort to spread his own pain and make it more bearable, but for Balin to say it. He was old enough to know better.
"You do," Balin snapped back, uncowed by Thorin's rage. He knew it to be impotent and even as a part of him screamed that it was wrong to attack Thorin with this while he was wounded and weary, part of him knew that this would be the only chance that he would get to make Thorin listen.
"You always have," Balin continued. "It's not his fault, Thorin. It's not the boy's fault that he looks so much like Frerin." Thorin flinched at the name by Balin carried on unperturbed. "He doesn't even know why you treat him the way you do. It's unfair, Thorin. Fíli isn't Frerin and even if he was it wouldn't matter. Both of them loved you dearly. Are you willing to lose Fíli's love because of the past? Are you willing to lose him because you still haven't forgiven yourself for Frerin's death? Because that's what's going to happen. If you don't talk to him about this, and soon, you are going to lose Fíli. Can you bear to have that on your conscience as well?"
"If what you say is true," Thorin said slowly as he looked back over his interactions with his eldest nephew in his memories and realized that there always had been distance there that wasn't present with Kíli, "how can I fix it? How can I apologize for a lifetime of distance? Am I supposed to tell him that I'm sorry and that it was nothing he did, that there was no way that he could control the fact that he looks too much like my dead brother for me to stand? Is that what I'm supposed to tell him?" By the end of his speech, Thorin was glaring up at Balin, and his voice had gained strength. He sounded much more like himself than he had all day.
"You're supposed to tell him the truth," Balin replied gently. His anger was appeased at the fact that Thorin was trying to think of what to say. It meant that he would do it. "You can't do anything else. What comes from it, that's for Fíli to decide, but you can't not tell him. You owe him that much."
"I will talk to him," Thorin replied sadly looking away from Balin once again. "If he will listen to me, I will talk to him." Content that he had done what he came to do, Balin turned to walk off. "Balin," Thorin called. "May I ask one more favor of you tonight?" He waited until the white-haired dwarf nodded before he continued. "Ask Dwalin . . . ask him to put the keenest edge on a knife that he is capable of. It needs to be perfect." As soon as he finished he question, he lowered his eyes, it was almost as if Thorin was ashamed of the request. As if it were something dirty and vile.
"And what do you intend to do with this knife?" Balin asked shrewdly. He had an inkling about what Thorin had decided to do about Fíli's assault on Kíli and hoped to Mahal that he was wrong, though Thorin's behavior told him that he wasn't.
"What must be done," Thorin replied levelly looking back at Balin with indescribably pain in his eyes. "Will you ask him for me?"
"I will," Balin replied. "I just hope that you know what you're doing. If it's what I think it is, you're playing a dangerous game." With that Balin turned and walked away. Thorin's reply, when it came, was so quiet that Balin never heard it.
"So do I," Thorin whispered closing his eyes once more and running a hand through his hair in frustration. "So do I."
ooOO88OOoo
Fíli awoke slowly. His head ached. A dull throbbing ache originating at the back of his head. At first he couldn't remember why but then it all came back to him. His confrontation with Kíli in the woods . . . cutting his brother's face . . . attacking him . . . holding a knife to his throat as Kíli looked up at him in fear and begged him to stop. .. and then Dwalin and Glóin and then nothing. It wasn't hard to piece together what had happened next. Dwalin had knocked him unconscious. It fit and it made sense.
He groaned as what he had done settled into his mind and tried to open his eyes, wondering if they had brought him back to camp or left him where he had fallen, only to close them just as quickly. The light from the fire had hurt. But at least it answered his question: he was in camp. He let out another groan and decided that he would sit up and then go from there.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he heard Dwalin say from beside him. "I hit you fairly hard. You might want to just lay there a while longer." He tried to nod to show that he understood but the movement hurt and he moaned in response instead. With his eyes closed, he could hear a strange rasping sound. It was familiar and he knew that he should be able to place it but he couldn't get his mind to work properly. It almost sounded like a . . .
"Are you sharpening something, Dwalin?" he asked quietly. He knew that he could just open his eyes and look if he really wanted to, but it was easier this way. Less painful. Not that he didn't deserve the pain that he was in. He had attacked his brother after all.
"Aye lad," Dwalin replied in a tone that Fíli couldn't place. It almost sounded like regret. "Your uncle asked my brother to ask me to sharpen a knife for him. I almost told him to do it himself, but . . . he's in no shape to be doing any of what he's tried to do today. He needs to be in a bed resting not traveling and looking after fighting nephews."
"So he saw that?" Fíli asked, opening an eye to look at Dwalin and gage his reaction to what Fíli had done. He halfway expected to see anger or hatred but instead he saw sadness and regret in the older warrior.
"Lad . . . everyone saw that," Dwalin said with a sigh. He was pleased to see that Fíli's gaze contained none of the rage that had been there since their escape from Goblin Town but it hurt him to see it as well. Like his brother, he had an idea why Thorin wanted such a keen edge on a knife and he regretted that he would be the one to do it. Fíli . . . what Thorin had planned might just destroy him more than he already was. It would have been easier for Dwalin to carry out his task if Fíli was still possessed by rage, but to do it knowing that it would be this Fíli, the one that he had had a hand in raising, that it was meant for . . . he was greatly reconsidering his first impulse to tell Thorin to sharpen the knife himself.
"I thought so," Fíli whispered. "Are they angry with me? Is Kíli . . . is he alright?"
"They're confused," Dwalin replied. "We all are. Why? Why did you do it, lad?" Fíli sat up slowly and turned away from the large dwarf, unable to look at him and see the confusion and disappointment there.
"I . . . it doesn't matter," Fíli whispered disconsolately. "It doesn't matter why I did it. I shouldn't have. There's nothing that I can say to justify it."
"So you won't even try to speak in your own defense?" Dwalin asked incredulously. He knew that Fíli was right. There was nothing that he could say to erase what he had done, but that he wouldn't even try . . . that didn't sit well with him. The boy should at least try. Perhaps then Thorin could be persuaded to do something less drastic.
"What's the point?" Fíli asked, looking at Dwalin again to give him a small, sad smile. "Nothing I can say can erase what I did. Kíli will still have the mark from where I cut him. Odds are that he'll have it forever. I didn't get a good look at it, but I think it was deep."
"It was," Dwalin responded. "Óin stitched it shut a bit ago. He'll carry a scar from it." He watched as Fíli's head came to rest on his knee with a sob. He ached to reach out and comfort the boy but he wasn't sure how much Fíli would appreciate it. And as little as he wanted to watch this version of Fíli undergo punishment he wouldn't do anything to risk bringing back the other.
"Other than the . . . the wound," Fíli asked without raising his head. "Other than that, how is he?"
"I don't know," Dwalin replied honestly. "I've been here with you. I haven't had the opportunity to talk with him."
"Uncle asked you to guard me, didn't he?" Fíli said swallowing a lump at the idea that his uncle had felt that he needed a guard. For the first time he also realized that the now familiar weight of his weapons was gone as well. He had been disarmed and put under a guard. His uncle no longer trusted him, not that he was deserving of trust at the moment. He had just attacked Kíli in a rage. If he could attack his brother could any of them truly feel safe with him?
"He did," Dwalin agreed giving into his urge to put a hand on the boy's shoulders. Fíli flinched at the unexpected touch by didn't rage at Dwalin for it. It was a good sign.
"But," he continued almost as if he had heard the rest of Fíli's thoughts, "he also told me not to bind your hands. That I was to disarm you and keep you here but not to tie or harm you. He still loves you, Fíli. He just . . . you put him in a difficult position with that stunt you pulled."
"I know," Fíli replied looking at Dwalin with eyes that were filled with abject sadness. He knew that he had placed his uncle into a position he should never have been in. He knew that there was retribution coming for his actions and he would not fight it. It would be difficult enough for his uncle to pass judgment on him without him begging for mercy like a child. Even though Kíli had been right. It would have been better if he had never come. So many things would have gone differently. He wouldn't have hurt everyone that he loved in the same day if he had just stayed at home.
"I don't think that you do," Dwalin said, shaking his head and placing a gentle hand on the boy's face to force him to meet his eyes. "Fíli, I can only think of one reason that your uncle would want a knife this sharp. What he's got planned for you . . . it's drastic. Do you understand me? You need to think of an excuse for your actions and an amazing apology. If you can do that and throw yourself on Thorin's mercy then—"
"No," Fíli said, the same sad smile on his face and a gentle shake of his head. "No matter what was said, no matter why I did it, I still did it. I still drew a knife and cut Kíli in anger. It doesn't matter that it was an accident or that it was done in blind panic, I still did it. I'll endure whatever punishment Uncle feels is just."
"You're a brave lad," Dwalin whispered closing his eyes and wondering if Fíli would be so calm if he actually knew what was coming. "I only hope that you don't regret your decision not to plead for mercy." Once he finished speaking he withdrew his hand and turned his attention back to the knife in his hands. If Fíli was intent on enduring whatever Thorin could throw at him, Dwalin was going to make sure that the indignity would be carried out as quickly and painlessly as possible. As little as he liked what he was doing, the only mercy that he could offer the boy was to ensure that the weapon used to do it would be as sharp as possible.
As Fíli watched Dwalin's face as his hands worked the knife, he realized with sudden cold dread what was coming. As Dwain had said, there was only one need to have a knife that sharp. He watched as the large warrior tested the edge against a patch of hair on the back of his hand with horror flooding his veins. He only hoped that it wouldn't hurt even as a part of him almost hoped that it did. At least then it might help ease his guilt at what he had done.
ooOO88OOoo
It happened after dinner. Thorin called the company to assemble around the fire to witness the punishment of his nephew. Though he was weary beyond endurance, Thorin stood. He felt that if he was going to pass judgment on his nephew it should be in the most official manner possible. After all, this wasn't an uncle punishing a nephew; this was a king punishing a subject for a transgression. Or at least that was what he tried to tell himself as Fíli was brought forward into the light of the fire between Dwalin and Glóin. He offered no resistance and walked between them as docile as a lamb, his blue eyes filled with regret, sadness and a hint of fear. Thorin could barely stand to look at him. Fíli looked so small and scared between the large forms of his cousins. It broke his heart. And his eyes . . . Thorin couldn't look at them. Not with what he was about to say. Instead he focused on the tip of Fíli's nose as he pronounced his judgment.
"Fíli, son of Dís, daughter of Thráin," Thorin began trying to keep the quiver from his voice as he pronounced his nephew's fate. He had to stop to swallow heavily before he could continue. "This day you have dishonored yourself and your family by drawing a knife on your brother and shedding his blood. As much as it pains me to do this, such an act cannot go unpunished." He took a deep breath. What he had to say next . . . he had no desire to say at all. He looked at Fíli once more and realized that his nephew was weeping. Fíli knew what Thorin had decided and it was making him cry before the sentence had even been delivered. The king felt tears come to his own eyes as his heir stood there awaiting judgment without offering a word in his own defense. He heart begged him again to stop this but he ignored it. This had to be done.
"I-I have thought long and hard on . . . on an appropriate punishment for such a . . . a transgression . . . and have come to the decision that there is only one just thing to do," Thorin continued beginning to lose the battle of keeping emotion from his words. "As you raised a knife to your kin so shall he do to you. Where you drew his blood, he will take something different from you." Again Thorin had to pause, it was only Balin's steadying hand on his arm that allowed him to continue and even then he had to close his eyes and take several deep breaths before he could continue and deliver his final judgment. "You drew his heart's blood and spilled his life-force in an argument and in the process lost honor. In recompense, Kíli, your brother, will be permitted to take the symbol of that honor in front of the assembled company. As your victim, he may take your beard."
ooOO88OOoo
There we are all. As soon as this story lets me sleep things will go back to normal on the updates (In other words I've been spoiling you with the daily update thing and it won't keep up forever) Not sure when that will happen but I do know that after today the next possible update will be Monday :) I work all weekend so no updates while I'm at work (though I can write on pen and ink) Also a note, my laptop screen died and I'm using the TV as a monitor so .. . yeah. I have a new one ordered but until it gets here it might throw a wrench in the updating works :/
And for those of you following my other stories, they HAVE NOT been dropped, they are in the works this one has just consumed me for a moment. There are fragments of chapters for both of the others done and they will be up on schedule next week, I promise :) It just felt cruel to hold this once I already had it done. I hope that you can forgive me :)
That said, I hope that you all enjoyed this one (if enjoyed is the right word anymore :/ *shrugs*)
As always, thank you to everyone who took the time to read this chapter or to add it to your alerts or favorites.
And again, a special thank you to those of you who reviewed, you all really make my day :)
Shanynde: there is much more :) worry not!
Guest: Thank you so much! I'm glad that you are enjoying it!
Well, that's all for now folks! I hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear what you thought (even if you hated it) so please leave me a review if you have time and/or feel so inclined.
Stickdonkeys.