Chapter 9

"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."
Roy Disney

oOoOoOo

October 12th, T.A. 2941

The afternoon stretched on in the little room under the roof, endless and idle. It seemed like the beginning of a bad joke, Kíli mused: a single bed, a dying man and three dwarves. A pack of cards was missing from the picture, but none of them had the heart to play. They'd been jumpy and restless ever since Brea had left the house that morning, flinching at the slightest sound that came from below, fearing betrayal. But no threat had come to interrupt their wait, not the slightest event to distinguish one hour from another save for the infant's wails.

Just as Kíli was starting to itch for something to happen at last, the house door squealed open under their feet. Dwalin grabbed his axe, Bofur his mattock. They slid into a battle stance, ready to defend their king from whoever came up the stairs. Kíli remained behind but kept his hand on his bow, preparing himself to fight for Fíli's life till the end of his own, as his brother would've done for him. Yet it was Brea who appeared in the doorway.

Bofur relaxed, swinging his mattock over his shoulder, but Dwalin remained on his guard. His muttering about humans and treachery plainly showed he didn't trust the woman, and only stayed because of his loyalty to the line of Durin. Truth was, Kíli himself didn't know what to make of her. She'd not ratted them out yet, but Fíli's state hadn't improved either since she'd bandaged him up. Kíli was beginning to wonder whether he'd made a mistake in coming.

"What did he say?" he asked at once, pushing past Dwalin.

"He refused."

Both his companions exploded with curses at the ill news. Kíli suddenly remembered how much Thorin had despised vulgarity, reprimanding anyone who'd let himself go in such a manner within his earshot. Kíli realized that both men had accepted his death in their own way. Not to say they didn't grieve for their leader, but they'd at least acknowledged that he was gone.

Kíli balled his hands into fists, sorely tempted to give way to his anger as well. His rage and pent-up grief were begging for release for too long now, ever since that cursed moment on Ravenhill. It was then that he noticed that Brea was watching Fíli and toying with something in her pocket, her face a mixture of hesitation and, strangely, hope.

"What's that?" he said, nodding towards her. With some reluctance she produced a vial of transparent liquid. The bottle was delicately sculpted and shiny, marking it as an elven token.

"Poison!" Dwalin roared, jumping in front of Fíli's bed and causing Brea to scuttle back in alarm. He raised his axe. "You're not coming near him!"

Downstairs, the babe woke and began to cry again.

"It's not poison!" Brea protested. "Well, it shouldn't be."

Bofur's face lit up with hope. "Is it the cure?"

He'd been the one who had located Brea after they fled Erebor with Fíli, and the one to suggest they sought her out in the first place. For some obscure reason, he'd seemed to trust the woman from the start. Yet Bofur was no fool, and if he saw something in her that Kíli didn't, it was worth trusting.

Kíli stepped forward and pushed the axe down, much to Dwalin's disappointment. "If it's not poison, what's it then?"

Brea held it out gingerly, examining its contents. The frail bottle caught the light of the candle, casting multicolored glimmers onto the walls. "The Elvenking refused to help," she explained, "But one of his healers gave me this. It's a remedy that should stop the bleeding for a time."

"I don't trust her." Dwalin lay a hand on Kíli's arm. "Kíli, your brother hasn't been better since we came to this wretched town. She didn't cure him, did she? Then she promised she'd find a healer, and now she's back with an elven potion?" He spat. "I say, we break this thing and return to Erebor."

"Don't you dare!" At Dwalin's words Brea stepped back, clutching the vial to her heart. "Thranduil's a churl, but that doesn't mean all elves are like him." Her eyes blazed with anger. "I sure hope all dwarves are not as charming as you, and yet I still tolerate your presence."

Dwalin turned a shade of crimson, the veins on his neck throbbed in fury. Before he had the chance to retort, she continued. "This may be Fíli's only chance to survive. Kíli, I know you have no reason to trust me but I swear, I'd never hurt your brother."

The responsibility for the decision was his, and Kíli hated it. So far he'd led a simple life, leaving choices and politics to his uncle and, if necessary, to his brother. With three living heirs, the line of Durin had been sufficiently certain in its survival not to train him for the throne. He was a warrior, he liked to say, not a thinker.

If it'd been his life on the line, he would've drank the potion without blinking. Their mother had called him reckless, wrenching out a promise to return unharmed, but Fíli hadn't needed to make such a vow. Kíli wished he knew what his brother would've done, had the roles been inverted.

Though he shared Dwalin's contempt for elvenfolk in general and their king in particular, he needed to believe there was still hope for Fíli. His only certainty was that Brea cared for him. He'd witnessed as much when she thought he wasn't looking, her touches innocent enough and yet not quite so. Her eyes had been wistful when she'd contemplated Fíli's body, despite the wounds and bruises that marked it.

"Give him the potion," he said.

"Kíli, no!" Dwalin protested at once. "Thorin would never have approved of this!"

"Thorin is dead." Kíli raised his chin in rebellion. He could feel tears stinging his eyes as he said it, for the first time in days. "But he's taught me to trust my guts. Right now they're telling me that her intentions are good, and that Fíli needs our help." He looked at Dwalin, then at Bofur. "We've tried everything, and everything failed. I'll face the consequences if he dies by my fault, but I can't live with myself if I do nothing."

Bofur lay a hand on his shoulder. Kíli could see that he too was tearing up. "We're with you, lad." He shot Dwalin a look. "Aren't we?"

Dwalin stood aside, his shaven head hung low.

Brea scuttled to the bed and perched on the edge of the mattress before uncorking the potion with trembling hands. A clean herbal scent filled the room. It smelled of green meadows in the summer, of sunshine and joy. It reminded Kíli of their games as children, home in the Blue Mountains. The exhaustion that weighed him down disappeared for a second, and the grief he'd felt lifted from his heart.

Brea poured the liquid down Fíli's throat and wiped the droplets from his beard. Kíli watched her gentle movements, feeling like an intruder.

"And now?" Bofur asked.

"Now we wait."

oOoOoOo

As the evening turned into night, Brea granted Bofur's request for the story of her visit to the elven camp, and her discussion with their king. She related the offer the Elvenking had made and watched their reactions with apprehension.

"It's impossible," Dwalin professed. "The white gems are the property of the King under the Mountain, and that elfling has no right to them." He stood with his arms crossed and his back against the wall, as far as he could from Brea without being too distant from the bed. He guarded his king without even thinking about it, Kíli realized.

"It's the only way Thranduil will agree to send someone to help Fíli," Brea argued from her corner of the room.

"But do we trust him?" Bofur mused. "How do we know he won't take the gems and kill us?"

"We don't," Kíli replied somberly just as Brea said, "Bard will hold him to his word."

Dwalin scoffed. "Your king is a commoner, he rules over a ruin. He doesn't have the power to oppose the elves."

Brea seethed. "You are forgetting yourself, master dwarf. Bard killed the dragon your company has unleashed. He's brought us here, and saved the folk again when the orcs attacked. He's earned the respect of all, the Elvenking included."

Dwalin opened his mouth again but Kíli intervened. "Enough!" he snapped, rubbing his eyes. "Enough." He glanced over to the bed, where Fíli lay motionless, his state unchanged. "If that's the only way to save my brother, I'll fetch the gems myself."

"Dáin won't let you," Bofur whispered. "Remember what he said…"

"I remember."

Kíli was reluctant to think of their last exchange, that night in the gloom of the mountain, when the cries of the dying echoed under the stony vaults. Remembering exhausted him even more, bringing back the grief, the pain and the worry as he relived those moments. How he'd shouted for help, bleeding from a stomach wound but refusing treatment until Fíli had been taken care of. How helpless Oín had been, how ashamed he'd looked. How Dáin's brows had knitted at the mention of seeking help outside of the mountain.

"We are the dwarves of Erebor," he'd glowered, waving his hammer. "We are the line of Durin. We live and die amongst our kin, and don't need meddling from the other folk."

Kíli had stayed just long enough to get himself bandaged up, then fled with those closest to him in the middle of the night. Dwalin and Bofur had offered to carry Fíli to the one person who they thought wouldn't refuse to help. And all of it had been in vain. The potion didn't work.

A soft moan startled him, almost undetectable but still there. He looked over at his brother to see him move slowly, emerging from unconsciousness. Fíli's fingers twitched, as though trying to grasp the hilt of his sword. His eyes fluttered open.

"Fíli!" Kíli rushed to his side at once. "How are you feeling, brother ?" Dwalin and Bofur gathered around as well, their eager faces welcoming Fíli back into the world of the living. His own heart swelled with hope and joy.

"Like I've been crushed under Mahal's hammer," Fíli muttered. He struggled to swallow, his lips parched. "Where am I?"

"In Dale," Kíli replied. "We had to smuggle you out of Erebor after Dáin declared no dwarf should receive foreign help."

Fíli struggled to rise and winced in pain as the wounds made themselves known. Kíli intervened, pushing him down by the shoulders. "Oh no you don't. You've got a few holes in you that need to mend before you can get up."

"Where is Thorin?"

Kíli had dreaded that question. He'd tried to prepare an answer that would best spare his brother from grief, yet now the words refused to come, and he struggled to get them out. "He's… He's gone, Fíli." He choked. "I am sorry."

His brother's face went white. He didn't try to rise anymore, letting himself fall down onto the mattress in despair.

"How?" he whispered. When Kíli didn't answer, he insisted: "How?" And then he growled, remembering. "Azog."

"Our uncle defeated the Defiler once and for all," Kíli muttered, not finding any comfort in that knowledge. "He slew him on the frozen lake, atop Ravenhill, after you… fell."

Fíli closed his eyes, swallowing hard. "I was ambushed," he whispered hoarsely. "I should've escaped. I could've helped Thorin fight, and maybe…"

"Don't blame yourself, lad." Dwalin's gruff voice interrupted him. The burly dwarf lay a hand on Fíli's arm as gently as he could and patted it. "I was there, and I couldn't save him either." Kíli saw tears in the corners of his eyes.

"I was his kin. I should've protected him with my life." Fíli's hands clenched into fists in rage as he lay helpless. "I failed him." He looked at Kíli. "I failed our mother. She'll never see her brother again…"

"But she'll see her sons." Kíli smiled through his own tears. It was painful but he knew he had to try, if only not to lose the habit. "Our mother will get to see both of us again."

"No thanks to me." Fíli insisted.

Bofur coughed gently, rolling his eyes towards Brea. Kíli took the hint. The sight of a familiar face was like to lift his brother's spirits, if only for a moment. She was watching them with attention, but lingered in the shadows, hiding from his brother's sight. Whether it was decency or cowardice, he couldn't tell.

"Well, I'm not the one our mother should be thanking, either." He motioned for to Brea to step closer.

She obeyed and came forward, her arms wrapped around her body as if to protect herself from their gaze. She was biting her nails again, a habit Kíli found baffling in someone so determined when it came to defending those she cared for.

"This is whom you need to be grateful to," Kíli smirked.

Fíli glanced up and his eyes met hers. He didn't speak, but Kíli saw something soften within his eyes. His hands relaxed against the sheets.

"How are you feeling?" Brea asked, hovering uncertainly by his side. "Are you in pain?"

"It's nothing," Fíli said. Kíli suspected that he was boasting, pretending to feel better than he really did.

Brea shook her head. "I need you to be honest with me. You're gravely wounded, and not out of danger yet."

Fíli squirmed in the bed, assessing his wounds and capacity of movement. He bit back a cry of pain and she hurried to his side.

"Don't," she instructed in a stern voice, but the hand she lay on his arm belied her severity.

"How bad…?" Fíli breathed out, still reeling from the pain.

"You've got what I believe to be a punctured lung, and half your bones are broken…"

"I've been worse," he quipped.

"…Including your leg. I need to set it straight. I don't know…"

She hesitated and Fíli noticed. Before Kíli could intervene he grabbed her wrist, grinding his teeth at the pain the movement provoked. "Tell me," he pleaded, his eyes locked on hers. "Please."

Kíli could tell that Brea was unwilling to answer. Whatever her reasons were, she yielded to his brother's plea. "I don't know how it'll heal… If it ever heals completely."

Fíli swallowed hard and looked away. A crippled king was unheard of in all of dwarven kingdoms, where strength and battle prowess, not wisdom, were what rulers were known for. Brea bit her lip, her body language responding at once to his brother's distress.

She lay her hand on his shoulder. "You must rest," she implored, "and believe in your strength. Your brother needs you…" She hesitated. "Your people need you."

Kíli watched them both from his side of the bed. There was an intimacy in their gestures neither of them realized yet, and he understood that it was time for him to go.

He caught Brea's attention. "You did your part. Now it's my turn to do mine." He leaned towards his brother and touched his forehead to Fíli's. "Rest, brother. Heal. I'll return soon."

Fíli frowned. "I'll come with you," he protested in a weak voice, and Kíli understood it was abandonment he feared, the uselessness of those wounded whose only life is to fight. He could still taste his own despair, back in Laketown, when Thorin had ordered him to remain behind.

He shook his head. "There is something I must do to ensure your recovery." He grasped Fíli's shoulder, squeezing it gently to emphasize his words. "You would've done the same for me, brother. I am leaving you in good hands, and you must promise me that you'll listen to her until my return."

Fíli stayed silent before responding. "I promise," he nodded faintly.

"Good." Kíli gestured to his companions who bowed, taking their leave of their king. "When I return, we'll ride to Erebor together."