A/N: Since most of you were disappointed with Fíli at the end of the last chapter, I felt the need to have a closer look at what is going on inside his head right now. So here's a shorter chapter, followed by a longer, more action-packed one. As always, thanks so much for your feedback and encouragement!
Day 141
"So – the rumor would have it that you have decided to undertake a journey to Ered Luin."
"We're coming, obviously. When are we leaving, precisely?"
When Thad and Flad corner Fíli after dinner on the one hundred forty-first day, he glares at them for bringing up this hated topic so late in the day.
"Not yet," he answers evasively and tries to sidestep the brothers in order to be able to return to his quarters where he might find an hour or two of peace before someone else is bound to come pestering him about the same matter.
His answer when pressed about his decision regarding the journey proposed by Balin has, for the past two weeks, remained the same. Not yet.
When Balin inquired as to whether he had made up his mind regarding his proposition.
When Dwalin began making suggestions as to whom they might approach about remaining in the Blue Mountains for that first year.
When the topic how governance of his kingdom ought to be organized during his absence arose among his council members.
Not yet. Yes, it's cowardly and probably more than a bit selfish to keep avoiding a confrontation with the issue, but he just cannot seem to help himself.
Oh, it's not that he hasn't thought about it. He has turned the matter over and over in his mind until it has begun to fester, poisoning both his waking and sleeping hours. And whichever path he tries to take in the labyrinthine corridors of his mind, he always finds himself at a dead end before too long.
Go, and risk damaging his relationship with Sigrid beyond repair. Stay, and endanger not merely the stability of his reign, but also the safety of his people. Ask Dis to join him here, at Erebor, and drag her halfway across Middle Earth to the place where her brother and youngest son met their ruin. Let her stay at Ered Luin indefinitely and deny himself the comfort of having the one person close by who will stand by him no matter what, who might even be persuaded to see his attachment to the daughter of the King of Dale not as a sign of their impending doom, but for the wonderful thing it really is. Make that journey back to their old home and accept the fact that Kíli is gone forever by undertaking it without him. Remain in the place where his brother allegedly laid down his life and be haunted forever by the ghosts of those whom he already failed to save.
It's hopeless, really, and since Fíli cannot even begin to put those conflicting thoughts and feelings into words – not without risking to permanently discredit himself in front of everyone else – he has evaded discussing the matter at all cost.
Thad and Flad, unfortunately, are not as easily put off as Balin, Dwalin, or the Dwarves on his council. The brothers fall into step beside him, keeping up with his deliberately brisk pace with a nonchalance that irks him beyond what is reasonable.
"You mean you have not yet decided that you are leaving or that it is not yet time to start preparing for that journey?" Flad asks lightly.
"Or," Thad adds to his brother's question, "that you haven't had time yet to inform all the relevant parties of your intentions?"
Fíli glowers at Thad, who returns his gaze wearing an expression of perfect innocence – too perfect, as a matter of fact. Insightful little bugger. "All of that, I suppose," Fíli admits grudgingly.
"I see." Thad shares a meaningful glance with his brother. "He's doing it again, it would seem."
Fíli stops, turning to fully face the blonde Dwarf. "Doing what, exactly?" His tone is sharp, much sharper than when he normally speaks to the brothers.
"Yes, you are right," Flad pipes up from behind him. "He is definitely doing it again."
Whipping his head around with enough force to cause his neck to give a disconcerting pop, Fíli turns his glare on the redhead. "Excuse me? I'm standing right here. What is it that I am supposedly doing?"
"You are once again letting your guilt get the better of you," Thad says calmly while Flad steps around Fíli and comes to stand at his brother's side, nodding emphatically.
Fíli snorts. "I assure you that I am doing no such thing. I don't know where you—wait, what do you mean, 'again'?"
Again, the two brothers exchange the sort of significant look that makes Fíli want to kick them both in their balls.
"Oh, I don't know," Thad says innocently. "Like the time you almost married a murderous maniac just because you believed that you owed it to your people to form a strong alliance, maybe?"
"Ooh, yes, that's a good one," Flad mutters and then shudders. "That was madness."
Well, Fíli cannot deny the truth in that, can he? Now that he knows what it is like to be with Sigrid – to truly be with her – just the thought of tying himself to another seems outlandish at best. Still, that does not mean that he is inclined to agree with the brothers' assessment of his state of mind.
"You do not know what you speak of," he says. "So until you carry the responsibility for a whole bloody kingdom on your shoulders, please refrain from passing judgment on my actions – or lack thereof, for that matter."
He tries to brush past them, but Flad stops him with a hand on his chest. Fíli tries his most murderous glare on his friend, but neither he nor his brother seem particularly impressed by that and refuse to move so much as an inch. By his beard, he really has lost all authority he ever might have held over those two, hasn't he?
"Look," Thad says in a less teasing and more diplomatic tone than before, "we are not pressuring you to make a decision. We merely wanted to remind you that you don't have to be ashamed of yourself for feeling all torn up inside. That it is not really a sign of weakness, but proof, rather, that you care so much that you want to make everyone happy. Even if that is never going to work out."
Flad nods his agreement. "We will not say anything to Sigrid, obviously. But you must tell her. Keeping this from her won't do."
So far, Fíli has been listening to what they have to say with as much calmness as he can manage nowadays, reminding himself that those are his friends and that he owes it to them to listen. However, his capacity for patience is not what it used to be, once, before things became so terribly complicated, and at the mention of his mistreatment of Sigrid's confidence he throws up his hands in defeat. "What do you want me to say? That I am a coward? That you are right? Will that make you happy?"
"Yes," Flad says solemnly at the same time that Thad exclaims,
"No! Why would it? This is not about us, but about you. Your sanity. Your future. And Sigrid's for that matter."
Flad nods his agreement. "She's a nice enough lass. Scarily tall, I'll grant you that, and a bit too hairless for my taste, but we've come to like her. And we don't want to see her get hurt."
"Which is exactly what will happen if you continue on this course," Thad adds.
Fíli heaves a sigh and ceases his attempts at running way from this very strange conversation. The two brothers stand and face him with matching expressions of concern while he leans against a stone pillar for support, his shoulders sagging.
"Do you really believe that I am so deluded as to not realize that?" He stares past them through the wide arch which opens into the entrance hall. People are milling about, all of them eager to begin their day's work. None of them are hesitant or doubtful when it comes to the duties that are to be paid by them. None except him, it appears.
Thad and Flad exchange another worried glance. The fact that these two mischief makers are taking this quite so seriously weighs heavy on Fíli's heart.
"Then why make such a secret out of it?" Flad asks softly.
Fíli sighs again. "I wanted to tell her, but then I found I did not have the heart to do it. I cannot look her in the eye and see the disappointment that being with me is destined to bring her over and over again."
"Perhaps you do not give her enough credit, there," Thad returns. "She understands enough about duty to not hold the decisions you are forced to make on behalf of your people against you."
Fíli mulls this over for a moment and then gives another sigh. "With regard to most circumstances that may be true. But this – leaving her for so long without any sort of reassurance, without even a proper promise..." He shakes his head, sadly. "She may never forgive me for that."
"Should you not let her be the one to decide what she will and what she won't forgive?"
Fíli blinks at Flad, but before he has the chance to respond to his question, Thad speaks up again.
"You are making this unnecessarily hard for yourself. Speak to her. You have barely seen her in—what? Two weeks? She misses you, I'm sure, and you miss her. Get this over with and you will have more time to spend with her before you go - if you go."
Still, Fíli merely gapes at the brothers. Put like that it all sounds awfully easy, but it cannot be, can it? If it were, he wouldn't have lost so much sleep and almost all of his appetite over it in the last couple of weeks. With some words of protest ready to tumble off the tip of his tongue, he opens his mouth to speak, but is silenced once more by Flad slinging his arm over his shoulder.
"Come now. We'll have a couple of drinks, purge your head of some of those guilty thoughts, and get you to bed early. As you may recall, Bard is set to leave for Mirkwood today, which means it should not be too difficult to bring Sigrid up here tomorrow. You'll talk, you'll argue, you'll reconcile, and you'll feel much better."
"Don't forget a bit of action between the sheets," Thad adds, wriggling his pale eyebrows suggestively.
"Ah, yes, we wouldn't want to forget about that, obviously," Flad agrees quite earnestly. "If nothing else, that is certainly going to make you feel so much better."
While they march him into the direction of their favorite tavern, Fíli is torn between scolding the brothers for their insolence, protesting their plans and outright laughing at their ridiculous simplification of his situation. In the end, he merely opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, no words making it past his lips. Did he really just get bullied into confronting his fears and finally ending this strange limbo of indecisiveness? It appears that he did.
"Who proclaimed you the experts in such matters of the heart?" he asks grumpily as they draw close to the entrance to Erebor's largest and most frequented tavern, the sounds of raucous laughter and the fumes of ale and spirits filling the air.
"We did, of course," Thad answers cheerfully, his strides quickening at the prospect of a large, heavy jug of ale.
"There are, however, a few ladies down in the kitchens and at the stables who would surely be happy to vouch for our... competence," Flad adds with a bit of a leer.
Fíli cringes as he steps aside to let his friends pass through the entrance to the tavern in front of him, but then he shrugs. He did ask, didn't he?