Chapter 28:
Kili's forehead banged into my nose, and I winced as I heard a muffled crack. Not painful enough to be broken, though. Then I cried out as I felt a huge jolt run through the attached barrels, causing them to roll over and over on themselves, splashing me with water and nearly drowning me.
I shrieked, practically flipping out and clinging to Kili's huge leather coat that he had somehow managed to squeeze into his barrel with him, trying to make sure I didn't fall out of my barrel.
"You okay, Freya?" asked Kili with a smirk as the ride smoothed out.
I stuck my tongue out at him. "No, my nose is bleeding." We couldn't really do anything about it, though. So I just stayed there and felt it drip and we floated in silence. I didn't relax very much. I eventually fell asleep, but the dreams weren't great.
I was sitting in a tree, whistling to myself. I didn't really get what I was doing, but it seemed like something better to do than what was going on below.
My tree was high up on a mountain, and beneath me the ground writhed with different bodies. Orcs and Wargs against dwarves, humans, elves. I frowned, sharpening my sight at the ground, seeing a small hole in the fighting. I gasped as I saw Fili and Kili, side by side, yelling and slicing their swords all over the place. Behind them, against the foreboding wall of a cliff on the lower mountainside, was Thorin. He was in a bad way, with a mace-wound to his head and a sword wound that looked like he'd held a sword between his ribs and his arm – except that there was too much blood.
I looked back at my princes, only to see the lighter one be speared through the stomach. Kili blanched and fell to his knees beside his dying brother, only to have a knife thrown through his heart.
And just like that, the three dwarves of the line of Durin died.
I opened my eyes to find tears streaming silently down my face. The sun was still up, and I had only been asleep for about a half an hour. The paddling of others was still going strong, and Kili was in charge of steering our barrels.
I glanced at my hands, noticing that the red had stopped from my nose. It was all dry now, which made me a little happier. Then I touched my cheeks, feeling wetness and wondering why.
And then I remembered my dream, and I broke out in a sob. Kili's head jerked in my direction, his brown eyes widening as he realised that I was awake. He ripped a strip of fabric off of his shirt and held it to my nose. "Blow," he ordered. I obediently did as directed. "You okay?" he asked quietly, in a voice completely different from the last time he'd asked me that.
I swallowed a few tears, succeeding in stemming the flow. "I – had a dream."
"Guessed that," he pointed out.
"Um...not a nice dream."
"What happened?"
I turned away. "I – it – you died." Way to be subtle. "Thorin died, Fili died, and you died. All of you. At this huge battle -" I broke off. Nobody but me knew about that battle yet.
"We died, and you cried," Kili said by way of recap.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"That sucks, Freya. But you know what? I'm still here, and you're still here. For now, let's just enjoy that."
I gazed up at him, feeling much better. "Kili, by the Valar I have no words to describe how much I love you."
He smiled at me. "Right back atcha, Frey."
What words do I have? This is too short. Many sorries, longer ones a'comin'. Please review!
