Today I leave for Uganda for a two and a half month outreach! :D I have a few chapters written up ahead of time, but I cannot promise how often the internet will be available for posting. I will try and update once a week for as long as I can. For now, enjoy this wonderful chapter! (And watch Desolation of Smaug! Kili!angst and Protective!Fili abounds!) XD


Three hours into their march, on the nineteenth day of their journey through Mirkwood, the trees at last parted to reveal a sight Fili had thought he would never see again.

Sunlight. Honest, warm, cheerful rays of clear glory springing through the leaves overhead and shimmering in threads of spider silk around them. Like children Bofur and Bifur ran ahead, Bofur cheering wildly and turning somersaults while Bifur waved his fists energetically in the air. Ori sank down in awed silence while his brothers clasped one another's shoulders and rejoiced that the worst was behind them. Kili sank down beside Fili, trembling in wonder and relief as the sun gently kissed his thin, dirt streaked face.

"W-we're free?" he asked, scarcely daring to hope.

In spite of his hunger, thirst and near despair, Fili could not help but smile. "Yes, Kili… it's over."

He looked back to Thorin, following the elder's gaze to Dis, nestled gently in her brother's arms.

"I think she is breathing easier." There was a faint smile on Thorin's face as he looked up. Hope.

Fili would have thrown himself into a wild dance of joy if he had had the strength. The worst was indeed behind them. They had all survived the forest and the dangers within, and the end lay just within their grasp.

The 'snick' of jaws behind him alerted Fili with cold warning that he might have spoken too soon. Creaking limbs splayed out on either side of him and he whriled with a yell, whipping out his sword as a massive, bloated body filled his vision. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth as the largest spider he had ever seen latched onto him with beady eyes.

Oh, Mahal, tell me this is another nightmare...

Thorin shouted and rushed forward, Gloin following closely on his heels. Kili... simply vanished. One moment Fili glimpsed the fear in his brother's eyes, and the next Kili had disappeared. Then the spider's jowls zipped around and latched onto Fili's sword arm, and the forest spiraled until his vision darkened and he knew no more.


The moment the giant monster unfurled behind Fili, Kili's hand lashed into his pocket for his hiding place. A spider larger than any in his worst dreams writhed in midair, and when Kili's mind screamed Danger! Danger! he did not hesitate. Cool metal clapped into his palm, almost as though the ring was as determined to be put to use as he. Kili sucked in a breath as his brother whipped out his sword, but he was not afraid. Fili could take care of the monster. Fili was brave. All Kili had to do was hide and the foul creatures would be gone in no time.

As the ring practically leapt onto his finger, Kili's eyes were drawn to the side. In that moment he caught Bilbo's eye and a sudden, sickening sense of devestation filled him. Bilbo knew. Kili saw the hobbit's eyes widen and he felt horrible, because he knew he was escaping with Bilbo's magical ring and now his friend would have no way to escape the horrid thing that was creeping up behind him. Kili gulped convulsively, lisping one last heartfelt 'I'm sorry…'

...And then the forest plunged into a faded great and white world and Kili could only clap his hands over his head to block out the sound.

Fili screamed and Bilbo cried out, and Kili knew they had not gotten away and it was his fault. He was weak, he was useless, he couldn't lift a sword or axe and even if he could he didn't know how he would fight the enormous spiders with their sharp, weaving legs and clacking jaws. Everyone was going to die now, but he would live and he would be all alone and the gods help him he did not ever want to be alone again…

One massive foreleg slammed into the earth beside him and Kili scrambled back with a scream as a writhing, screeching anarchid pounced towards Thorin. Kili fell back and curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around himself and peeking out from behind the curtain of his hair

Like elongated shadows the monsters launched forward, their bodies slow and ponderous as the forest of pale lights drew them out in sharp, terrifying detail. Kili gasped as he saw Thorin whirl around to skewer one monster between the jaws, shaking it aside before turning back and severing the darting legs lashing towards him. Even in the colorless blur of the wraith world the leader's eyes blazed like fiery metal. He roared in outrage, drawing the creatures further away from Dis.

He was fighting for them, Kili realized with a wave of guilt. Thorin was risking his life to defend them all, while Kili was cowering away, hoping that all the monsters would be killed and he would be protected just as Fili said.

But Fili is gone now, he realized with stabbing grief. He was protecting you, and they got him instead.

He was a coward. He was a weak, flimsy, worthless underslave who did nothing but sit by uselessly an watch his family die. His family – they had protected him and said they loved him for so long… and he was watching them fall one by one to the spiders' wrath. He was losing them!

With a strangled cry Kili scrambled forward, grabbing one of Nori's knives as it clattered out of the Dwarf's limp hand. He saw his mother, lying pale and lifeless in the middle of the clearing, and he looked in terror at the spider rearing above her. Something dark and angry snapped inside of him and with a snarl he lunged forward. Kili felt like he was slogging though mud as the pale forest wavered around him. He stumbled to a halt before the massive creature and raised Nori's knife high, telling himself that it was nothing worse than the shin-high scuttling things he had seen in the caverns. The spider bore down upon him and Kili felt it crack and crumble as the knife pierced between its jaws and stabbed up through the cluster of enormous eyes. Fluid bubbled out and gushed over Kili's hands, hot and stinging like a stream of bubbling oil.

Rage flooded him and Kili howled, the pain and terror and despair and anger over the past few weeks overwhelming him in one final outpour. With curdling satisfaction and loathing he stabbed again and again into the twitching mass, shouting every curse and oath and insult he had learned as he pulverized the corpse into a mass of crunched shell and fluid. The whispers surrounding him raised in a crescendo of voices, cheering on the violent bloodshed. Exhilaration filled Kili and he gazed at what he had done, triumph and a sense of being in total control making him feel taller than the Goblin King himself. Suddenly he dropped the knife and shakily backed away, revulsion filling him as he examined the mangled corpse. He looked at his hands, covered in translucent liquid and the darker stains of blood, and he abruptly fell to his knees and dry heaved as his empty stomach rebelled against the atrocity of what he had done.

If it had been something else – a man or another Dwarf who wanted him to fight... would he have done any differently? Would he have killed without a thought… and liked it?

Creaking limbs alerted Kili that he was not alone. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he looked around and shivered as he realized he was surrounded by a ring of the largest spiders. Silent and watchful, they clacked among themselves and hissed in a tongue Kili could not understand.

Warily the spiders eyed the bloodied corpse and the knife that had plunged out of nowhere and hacked it to pulp. They had seen the delightful, motionless Dwarf on the ground, waiting ever so peacefully for them to spin it up and slurp the warm inner juices. This one would not fight back and sting them like the others. It would be a luscious meal, a delicacy after all the sharp things had been put away.

Then suddenly a knife had leapt out from empty air, stabbing above the Dwarf's body in a viscous, relentless assault. The spiders had watched one of their own fall, screeching and kicking out feebly to slay its attacker, but no killer was to be found. In brutal deliberation the knife stabbed again and again until nothing but the spasmodically flaying legs were left in one piece. Only then did the knife fall straight beside the hand of the sleeping Dwarf.

The spiders knew wizardry when they saw it. They had lived through many centuries of men. They knew the darker powers and they were terrified of the ancient magics greater than their own. Slowly they backed away, hissing and clicking to one another in dire warning. This Dwarf could not be touched. An evil as powerful than their own creator surrounded it, and they would surely all die if they came near.

"Leave us… leave us be…'" they hissed to the unseen attacker. "We leave you in peace… Slay no more"

In numbed disconnection Kili watched as the spiders scurried away, leaving him and his mother alone. He fell back on his hands, shaking uncontrollably as the blood lust faded.

What happened to me? What have I become?

The ring. It would not stop speaking to him. Evil speech like the language of the orcs that visited the caverns filled Kili's head, and he could not see anything but shadows and wraiths and phantoms of darkness mocking his dismay. He wanted to take it off. He wanted to throw it away.

But he couldn't - not yet. Bilbo. He had to give it back to Bilbo.

But Bilbo was dead…

"Not dead…" Someone's voice rose sickeningly in Kili's mind, accompanied by a shadowed, tall form. He couldn't remember who it was. Someone important. Someone evil. Someone his instinct told him he should never have forgotten. "See the little rat, Dwarf? Twitching still. The spiders keep it warm and alive until they feast. Might be hours, week even before they suck it dry and leave the bones. …. I'll put you in a spider's web, if you betray me, urchin. There's darker things than goblins slinking beneath these caverns…"

Not dead, Kili realized, shaking out of the memory with a start. Just not waking… like Mom. I … I can find them. I can help!

The spiders had not seen him. They had run away. He could follow them back and find the others, and he could let them go and they would look on him as a hero and they would never, ever think of making him leave again.

I can do this… I can do this!

Kili lurched to his feet excitedly and then paused, his hands falling lax as he looked down at his mother. She was a like a fairy from the stories an Elf had told him once… colorless and frozen, perfect in a wasteland of ash and snow. Kili knelt down and shook her one last time, silently begging that she wake.

I can't leave her here – not alone. They'll come back and hurt her if she's alone.

Kili shuddered violently, his heart racing at the thought. He couldn't let them find her. He would sooner go back to the darkness and the fire and the pain than let them hurt her. He had to hide her somehow – somewhere where neither goblins nor spiders would ever think to look.

"It'll b-be okay," Kili whispered, mimicking the words Fili used to calm him down. "I – I'll keep you safe… th-they won't find you… I – I won't let them harm you…."

There were no caves or dark caverns for him to hide her in. Kili did not like hiding in trees, and he did not think his mother would like that either. Besides, the spiders were in the trees now. In the end, Kili could only drag Dis to a cleft between two rocky sledges, where he laid her gently and pulled off his coat, bundling it beneath her head. He didn't need it now anyways… he was giving his hiding place back.

Last of all Kili grabbed handful after handful of leaves, showering them over Dis until not a scrap of her light blue cloak could be seen. He stared for a moment, wondering if he should do something more. The heroes in stories always left a token – something to let the wounded one remember them in case they never came back. Rummaging through the pile again, Kili slipped out his coat and removed Fili's pendent before returning it beneath Dis' head. He laid the chain and pendant in her palm and after a moment's thought snagged the little melted bead that Dis had woven into his hair that morning. Placing the two tokens inside her palm, he closed her fingers over them gently and then finished covering her with leaves.

A dull, heavy weight filled him and Kili staggered back slowly, realizing for the first time that he was afraid. He did not want to find the spiders. He did not want to fight them alone, without Fili or Bilbo at his side.

But Fili and Bilbo are gone, he reminded himself harshly. You have to go and get them back.

They had saved him again and again, and Kili had done nothing but watch in fear and wait to be rescued. Not his brother and friends were the ones in trouble. It was time for Kili to return the favor.


Lol, I wrote this two weeks before Desolation of Smaug came out. I feel like they stole my spiders-vs-ring scene! ;D