Billana screams.
She screams until she cannot scream any longer and yet her cries of grief do not seem to stop. An army of goblins stream by underneath her as Azog grins down at Thorin's stricken face.
Still Billana screams.
She screams as her grief and rage flow over the battlefield, goats and boars break from the control of their dwarf riders to stampede over orcs, the wargs which had been so impossible for her to exert any form of control over only months before, turn upon their masters, tearing into orc and troll flesh with abandon as the orcs are forced to slaughter their own mounts lest they be slaughtered themselves.
And still she screams.
She screams as she leaps from her perch.
She screams as she drags her talons over Azog's scalp.
She screams as the warg that Azog's mind has been linked to rebels against the connection, tearing into the orcs at the top of the tower as they frantically hack at the beast.
Her screams stop when Azog's flailing arm clips her, batting her delicate bird's body against the rubble of a half collapsed wall. She crumples, pain forcing her back into her own form, glaring defiantly at the white orc as he falls to one knee, his hand clutching his head as the warg breathes her last, taking the remaining orcs with her. Amber eyes fall on a dagger, the opal on the hilt cracked but it is one that she knows well, she carries one like it after all. It can only be Fili's and she reaches for it as Azog straightens, spitting words at her that she knows she doesn't want to understand, laughing as she reaches for the little knife. He probably won't even feel it, not unless she manages to throw it just right and she isn't sure that she has the energy. She needs to have the energy, Fili may have been killed but Kili is in this tower somewhere and she has no intention of losing her other husband, no intention of leaving him alone.
She should feel cold, she thinks as she reaches for the knife. She doesn't. She isn't sure that she knows how to feel at the moment. Azog is at his full height now, black blood spilling into his eyes from the scratches she gave him and she smirks, tugging the blade from where it has been thrust between two stones, turning it so that she can take the point between her fingers. Throwing knives isn't something that she has had a lot of practice with, the bow comes more naturally after all, but Azog is distracted and blinded and this might be her only chance, though there will be no time for careful aim. She takes it, watching the blade spin as it flies towards the orc and realising that it will not strike high enough, watching as it embeds itself in the orcs shoulder, close to his neck but not close enough. Azog laughs and Billana knows that she has failed as she watches him move slowly towards her.
There is a blur of red and gold, the orc stumbles and a sword, her sword, emerges from his neck, run clear through from behind. Not even a creature as large and powerful as this one can survive that, and he topples forward as she scrambles backwards, looking up to see who it is that has saved her life, expecting to see Kili and feeling her heart shatter when she sees that it isn't Kili at all.
It's Fili.
She lets out a broken sob, because it can't be Fili. She watched him die. She saw him fall. She felt her heart tear in two and grief engulf her.
It can't be Fili.
Yet he is dragging her sword from the orc's neck, pulling the little dagger free of Azog's shoulder, approaching her with an expression so utterly furious that she wonders if she has died and they are little more than spirits on their way to the gardens and halls of their ancestors.
"What were you thinking?" He demands, fury rendering him terrifying in that moment and she shouldn't be this frightened of her husband.
But this cannot be her husband.
Fili is dead.
"I saw you fall," she whispers. Or maybe it's a sob. She doesn't know. "I saw you fall." She repeats. "You're dead, you can't be here."
His expression shifts, changes into something broken and devastated, the knife and her sword clatter to the floor and he collapses to his knees in front of her. He reaches for her, his movements as slow and careful as she might use to approach an injured animal. They're covered in blood, she notes, the black of the orcs mixing with the red of the other races. Is it his? Do spirits wear the blood of their deaths for all of eternity?
His hands are warm when he touches her, gentle as he pulls her to him and wraps her in his arms against the chill of the air that she still doesn't feel or notice. He is warm, the heat rolling off him in waves that carry his scent with it. The smell of sweat and blood and leather and that slight spice that is uniquely Fili that not even the smell of battle can mask completely.
"It wasn't me," he whispers, his breath warm as it passes over her ear. "I swear to you, Kitten, it wasn't me you saw." The sound of the battle has fallen away. All she hears is Fili, all she feels is the impossible strength of his arms around her as he clings to her. "Remember what Kili and I were making in Rivendell?" He asks and she frowns.
"The sim-" she hesitates.
"The simulacra," he nods. "We used the stone in your dagger to make a shield to protect you. We used the stones in ours to anchor the spell for the simulacrum."
"But it looked so real," she breathes, indeed the same head injury that she saw bleeding so freely on the simulacrum is visible under a mass of blood soaked hair on Fili's head now. His face is streaked with the same bright blood and he looks as exhausted as the image did. She turns away, unable to look at it without seeing the memory of him falling and dying once more.
"It was complicated to do, Kili and I made sure that it would take on the appearance of us in the moment we used them," he says. "When the orcs captured me they brought me here, took all my weapons except your sword and that knife. When they threw me to the ground in front of Azog I used the spell and slipped away under the veil of a cats eye agate." He tilts her chin so that she has to meet his eyes, so that she can see the desperate plea that she forgive him for giving her that memory. "If I had known that you were there I would have given you some sign, some signal, I just needed Azog to drop his guard enough. I'm sorry, Kitten, I'm so sorry." Then his lips are on hers and it is desperate and warm and everything that Fili's kisses have always been. She clutches at him, her fingers tangling in his hair and she tugs, perhaps a little harder than she means to, and he flinches away with a hiss.
"You're alive," she gasps, his reaction to that tiny amount of pain enough to convince her beyond any words he might have said, "you're really alive."
"I am," he assures her, releasing her and yanking his coat off. He wears heavy mail scavenged from the armoury underneath, something she should have remembered when she watched Azog kill him, the other him, and he wraps the coat around her, securing it in place with his belt. "You're freezing, Billana," he mutters, then kisses her again. She could stay like this forever, basking in her relief that he's alive, but there are other factors to take into account.
"Kili," she says when they part again and sheer relief is no longer clouding her thoughts. "Where's Kili? Did they-?"
"No," he shakes his head, "we separated, he went further in." She looks at him in horror.
"There's a second army," she tells him, "they were passing through this tower." He stares at her.
"Can you shift?" He asks, and she shakes her head uncertainly. Fili curses softly. "Stay behind me," he orders.
She nods and they race back down through the tower, pausing only to grab the pair of swords that he prefers so that he can pass her tiny blade to her. She clutches it as they go, though there is no real sign of life, and she touches at her magic to see what, if anything, there is left to her. Her wellspring is low, dangerously so, but she suspects that if she really has to she could shift once more. She would need to be desperate, as though she hasn't spent most of the day in a state of panic and desperation, and she knows that she will spend even more of it like this until the battle is over. It doesn't show any sign of ending at all, even though Azog is dead and no longer relaying orders, and she remembers what Gandalf told them; Azog wasn't the one in charge here. He was merely the figurehead.
The sound of fighting reaches them from ahead and the round a corner carefully, in time to see Elladan and Elrohir flung away from another massive white orc. Elladan slides against a wall and slumps, unconscious, but Elrohir vanishes over the edge of the tower, disappearing where a wall once stood and Billana would cry out but for the fact that Fili pulls her close and silences her. They cannot afford to draw attention to themselves. She recognises this orc, it was the one that had laughed at the trees when she and Kili had spotted the marching army and even in her natural form it is far larger and more intimidating than Azog. Which is when she spots Kili, charging the orc almost desperately, and had this been any other creature she suspects that her other husband would have made quick work of it. Indeed for a moment she thinks that he might succeed where the twins did not, until she realises that this one is toying with the dark-haired mage and she sees the moment that Kili comes to the same conclusion as his attacks increase in power. His sword starts to crackle with his gift and the orc laughs, reaching to grab it in his hand and there is a flash of something painful as he does it. Fili and Billana both fall to their knees, but she hears Kili scream in agony as the orc tears the sword away.
"Stay here," Fili whispers, "and if we both-" he pauses. "I love you," he says finally and rushes out to hack at the orcs back as the massive thing takes Kili in its grasp, raising Kili's own sword to strike.
It roars when Fili's sword connects with its back, flinging his hand out and grabbing Fili's arm to toss him away. Her husband hits a nearby wall with a sickening thud, though he tries to struggle to his feet. Kili, she is relieved to see, takes advantage of the moment of distraction to change, to force himself into the form of a raven and make an attempt to escape. It isn't quick enough and the orc manages to grab one of his legs as he tries to flee. Billana's heart seems to stop, time seems to still. She cannot live through this again, she cannot face the thought of losing one of them because this time it will not be an illusion, this time it will be real and she won't survive it.
Her shift, when she performs it, hurts, she knows that she is drawing too much of her magic, that she is probably taking from her own life force, but she cannot lose either of them, she will die first. She is mid-shift when she leaps, just enough the wolf to open her jaws and clamp them around the wrist of the orc as her shift is completed. She bites down again and even dense orc bones cannot stand against the power of a determined wolf's jaws. The orc screams as she successfully manages to remove his hand, the appendage falling as Kili is released from its hold. It lands with a thud, a sound far heavier that it should be, the last rays of the day's light glinting off a golden ring on one finger, as Kili flies at the orc's remaining eye. It is enough to give Billana the time to leap once more and she doesn't hesitate, tearing into the orc's neck in a sickening spray of black blood. This time is doesn't get a chance to roar, slumping and falling as Fili hobbles to them both and Kili lands on her shoulder.
There is nothing more that they can do. All three of them are spent. All that there is left is for Billana and Kili to change back and then to find somewhere else to hole up until the fighting ends.
"Billana," Fili mutters, wrapping his arm around her and yanking her back.
She looks down at the orc's hand, her change wasn't complete, she realises, she still sees as a hobbit would, and she can see a pool of swirling red and black and orange spilling out from it. She flinches back, noticing how close it has come to her paw as she hears a voice that makes her fur stand on end begin to chant and call. It is hypnotic, tempting and terrifying and she skitters back towards Fili when Kili pecks at her head.
The pool swirls, growing and shifting until it has taken the form of a great figure in black armour and Billana feels despair take her. They barely managed to beat the two great white orcs. How are they supposed to manage this?
A.N: I honestly would have left you all with that cliffie until Wednesday, but I'm in a benevolent mood, and latitudinal circulation has broken my brain for anything assignment shaped. Not, though, for resolving the thing with Fili. Did any of you REALLY think I would kill him off? Really? Because my catalogue of fics should speak for themselves. Like I'm killing off either of the younger Durins…
