If they survived this, Kili had no doubt tales would be told of the fearless hobbit and her dwarven companions who carried the ring of Sauron to its final fate in the fires of Mount Doom.
He fully expected he would hear of their bravery, courage and determination.
He did not expect that they would sing of his getting lost while running from a massive spider, because he had absolutely no plans of ever telling anyone.
Ever.
For the love of Durin, not even his uncle got lost inside a mountain. Only outside where the natural sense of direction Mahal had gifted the dwarves with no longer worked. No, leave it to him to get lost inside, surrounded by stone, when he should have been able to navigate it with his eyes closed.
He officially had a poorer sense of direction than his uncle, and naturally it had chosen the worst time to assert itself.
It had gone well at first. He and Fili had both landed some solid blows on the foul creature before realizing the thing was simply too big, and their fighting quarters too narrow and cramped, to give them the edge they needed to win.
Fili had shouted for retreat and they had both broken in the direction Bilba had gone, hoping to meet up with her again.
Well, correction, Kili had tried to break in the direction Bilba had gone. The idiot spider had unfortunately been in the way, legs blocking his path as it scrambled to orient itself in the tight passage. Kili had been forced to run in another direction and, as pitiful as it sounded, he'd been far more focused the act of fleeing itself than on where he was fleeing.
It got worse when he finally risked stopping, only to realize the thing wasn't chasing him, and apparently never had been. It had chosen to go after Fili, and possibly Bilba, instead.
Even the Mahal damned spider knew he wasn't worth it.
Pathetic.
The spare indeed, and not even a particularly good one. He hated that his family treated him like he was incompetent, but what he hated even more was that they had cause to do so.
He'd found his way out eventually, recovering Bilba's sword along the way. The sight of it sent a chill through him and he picked up the pace, hoping to catch up with her and his brother. He had no doubt Fili was already out by then, probably waiting on him to show up and wondering if he'd need to come back and lead him out by the hand like the child they thought he was.
Like the child he might actually be.
Mahal, but he was angry. At himself, at never being given a chance to prove himself, at never having been worthy of a chance.
It was the sound of that damn spider, coming from ahead of him that had him breaking into a full out run. He bolted out into an area where the path he'd been walking widened into an almost bowl like space, just in time to see the spider sending Bilba flying like a gnat flicked off a giant.
It was a sight he was sure would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.
His body was moving before his mind was done processing what he was seeing. His hands, by instinct, threw her sword down to draw his bow off his shoulder. He had an arrow nocked to the string just before she landed.
He was gratified he'd managed to correctly judge where she'd hit. Her body caught up against his legs and he braced himself to stop her forward momentum. By then, he had his arrow up and was sending nearly all the arrows he had left at the spider. The greater distance and better lighting allowed him to improve his accuracy. Several of the arrows struck home and the bastard thing shrieked in pain and retreated.
Keeping an eye on it, Kili knelt to help Bilba who'd been struggling to a kneeling position. The spider, making whimpering sounds and scuttling in a way that suggested he'd struck a serious blow, vanished into some hole or another, hopefully never to return.
Confident it was now gone, Kili turned his attention to Bilba, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
She looked battered and bruised, and he dearly hoped that was as far as the injuries extended. "Sorry, I'm late," he said tensely, "Are you all right?"
For a few seconds, she simply stared at him and he began to worry she'd struck her head when she'd landed, or before he'd arrived. Then, before he could ask, she suddenly lunged at him. Kili tensed in surprise, only to relax as she threw her arms around his neck and collapsed against him. Her grip tightened and then one of her hands vanished from around his neck to wind up under his arm, fingers digging into the muscles of his back.
He felt her shudder, pressing even closer, and he immediately returned the embrace. "Hey, it's okay. You're safe now."
He frowned, looking past her. "Where's Fili?"
Bilba stiffened in his arms and then jerked back to look at him. Her eyes were watery and panicked looking. "He -" she stammered. "He - the spider - and there were orcs, and I-" Her eyes went almost impossibly wide and her breathing increased, and became ragged. "I tried-"she insisted, twisting her hands into the front of his shirt. "Kili, I tried but he -" she looked over her shoulder, toward where the path restarted on the other side of the bowl. "I tried-"
Kili grabbed her shoulders, grip firm, and barked out a sharp, "Hey!"
Bilba jerked, sucked in a breath, and focused on him, eyes still wide.
"All right," Kili said, keeping his voice short and firm enough to hold her attention. "What happened?"
She told him, shakily and with a few false starts, but she got it out. As she spoke, her hands came up to wrap around his forearms where he was gripping her shoulders, fingernails digging into his arms through the sleeves of his tunic.
"His eyes were open," she said, voice wobbling. "I think - Kili, I think-"
"He isn't dead," Kili said simply. He would know if his brother was dead. He didn't care how absurd it might sound, or that someone might accuse him of wishful thinking.
He would know if Fili was dead.
He would feel it.
He didn't; therefore, Fili wasn't dead.
Period.
The panic in Bilba's eyes eased and she took a deep breath, calming herself. Her hands were still tight on his arms but she forced a shaky smile. "Okay. What do we do?"
Kili felt a rush of adoration for her. It was this attitude of hers, treating him like an equal, not looking at him as if he were any different than his uncle or brother, that had first endeared her to him.
"Come on." He got up and held a hand out to her. "Let's go get him."
She gave him an odd look but then readily took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. "Your uncle always seems to do that," she murmured as she gained her footing. "Show up right when I need him the most with a hand out and a conviction everything is going to be all right." She gave him a more genuine smile and then let out a breath, shoulders slumping in obvious relief. "You must have inherited the trait."
A warm feeling he couldn't quite place spread through him and he smiled as he retrieved her sword to return to her. Her pack had been torn off during the fight and neither of them saw any sign of it, or wanted to waste time looking. Every second they spent here was one more the orcs had to drag Fili farther away Kili still had his own pack so they'd at least have some supplies left.
They moved as fast as they could while trying to remain quiet, and stay far enough back that they didn't round a corner and stumble on the creatures. According to Bilba, the orcs far outnumbered them. Kili didn't have enough arrows to deal with more than a handful, which meant they were going to need to think of some way to rescue Fili that didn't involve a full-frontal assault, or any assault at all for that matter.
Bilba walked along quietly beside him, arms crossed and eyes fixed on the ground. She looked exhausted, and the tightness around her jaw and stiffness in her posture betrayed the pain she was in. Several of the marks he could see on her face and through tears in her clothing would turn into truly spectacular bruises. The sight made him wish he could go back and shoot the damn spider all over again.
Aside from all that, however, her demeanor was surprisingly calm. Her breathing had slowed, the panic had left her eyes and her shoulders had lowered from where they'd been bunched around her ears.
"Why do you trust me?" Kili suddenly blurted out, only barely remembering to keep his voice low. That would be just fantastic, he thought in annoyance, if he were to give away their position because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
Bilba gave him a startled look. "Why wouldn't I?'
"No one else does," he muttered, looking away. He hadn't meant to tell her that.
"That's not true." Her voice had an oddly faraway quality and he looked back to see her gazing fixedly at a point a few yards away from them.
"Bilba?" he asked in concern. "Are you okay?"
Her footsteps slowed until she came to a stop, still staring at that spot. A strange, almost longing look entered her eyes and he saw one of her hands come up slightly as if reaching out for something.
"Bilba?" he asked again.
She jerked and shook her head sharply, before turning to look at him. "Sorry, what were you saying?"
Kili hesitated. "Nothing," he said finally. "Come on, let's keep going."
She nodded and they continued in silence.
As they rounded a corner, the pass opened and straightened out, allowing them to see farther. They were heading toward a tower, Kili realized, built in such a way it was nearly hidden from sight until one was almost on top of it. As soon as he saw it, he uttered a short curse and grabbed Bilba by the arm, jerking her to the wall of the passage and pressing them both flat against it.
"Wonderful," he growled. "How much do you want to bet they've got sentries watching from the windows up there?"
Bilba chewed on her lower lip before finally saying, "They're orcs. We might get lucky."
"We're never lucky," Kili said, almost to himself. He let out a huff and said, "Okay, as close to the wall as we can, put the hood of your cloak up. If we move slow enough, and carefully, they may not notice us. If they do, hopefully they'll think we're an oddly shaped bush or stone."
He expected Bilba to point out there were no other bushes in the passageway but, instead, she simply nodded and did as he said, crouching low and pulling her hood over her head. Kili made the decision to remove his supply pack and hide it behind a stone, hoping it'd let him appear small and stand closer to the wall. They'd return for it later, hopefully.
They didn't talk much after that. She went first, with him close behind. When he thought they needed to stop or shift position, he'd touch her lightly on the hip or the lower back. Each time she stopped instantly and waited until he gave the sign for them to move again.
"That's not true."
Her words ran through his mind again and his jaw tightened. She didn't mean that. She'd barely even been listening and had said the words by rote, to placate him.
She trusted him. He didn't know why. He wasn't sure if she even should, but she did.
But she was the only one. When he'd gone on the quest to reclaim Erebor, his mother had dragged Fili to the side when she thought he was asleep and made his brother swear to look after him. His uncle treated him like a child and his brother acted like he was liable to wander off a cliff if he wasn't supervised. The rest of the company had behaved like he was a tagalong and to the rest of his people?
His uncle was the strong and capable leader, who'd marched to Erebor with a band of merry idiots and took back the mountain for no other reason than they were all too foolish to realize it should have been impossible.
His brother was the intelligent, witty and bright rising star who assured the line of Durin would one day pass into capable hands.
Kili was simply the spare.
Impulsive.
Immature.
Incompetent.
"Thank Mahal we have the older one."
He'd heard the words when he'd been small, just after he'd done something or other he shouldn't have. They'd been said by two of the nobles who served on his uncle's council. It wasn't the first time he'd heard such a sentiment, or even the worst he'd ever heard, and it certainly wasn't the last.
He'd tried as he'd grown older. He'd trained, studied, volunteered to escort caravans to show his bravery and courage. It never seemed to stop the whispers, or the lack of faith. It never seemed to convince his family that he could stand on his own two feet.
When he'd volunteered for that caravan his mother had insisted his brother go with him, unpaid, to look after him.
Kili had been hired as security, and had to bring his brother to look after him.
Mahal, but it had been humiliating.
Bilba came to a stop so suddenly he bumped into her and nearly knocked her flat. He managed to catch her at the last second and stopped her forward momentum, holding them both in place.
They'd arrived at the base of a sharp incline. At the top sat the base of the tower, built from thick blocks of stone. It was in another bowl-shaped area, surrounded by rock on all sides, situated in the dead center with flat dirt all around it. Windows ringed it at intervals from the base all the way to the top. Directly in front of them was a set of double wooden doors, closed and barred with thick iron.
From inside he could hear the shouts and cries of many, many orcs. There was no sign they had been spotted and he doubted the orcs would bother to lay a trap for two people when they could just walk out and overwhelm them by sheer force.
"What are the odds they're holding Fili outside somewhere?" Bilba asked. "Maybe by himself and lightly guarded?"
Kili snorted. "Zero."
"Yeah," Bilba whispered. "That's what I figured."
Kili carefully made his way past her and nearly crawled up the incline and around the corner, keeping against the rock. Bilba followed and, together, they made their way to a spot on the back side of the tower, far from the door and between several ground level windows.
He couldn't see any sign of movement coming from the upper level windows. He shot a look at Bilba who simply nodded, trust in her eyes. Kili shook his head, let out a breath and whispered, "All right, here we go."
In unison, they darted out from the wall, keeping low and moving as fast as possible. They slammed into the wall of the tower and dropped down, holding as still as they could.
For several long minutes they held completely still, not even daring to breathe. Over their heads, and to both sides, they could hear the orcs in the tower but there was no sign anyone had spotted them.
Bilba raised an eyebrow and Kili nodded. Against all odds, and certainly against the sort of odds they normally had, it would seem they'd made it without being seen.
Bilba was still looking at him and Kili could practically read her mind.
So now what?
Kili studied her, and felt the that same sensation again, a strange warmth running through his veins and a desire to hold himself straighter and raise his chin the way his uncle did when he was being particularly regal. It took him a few seconds to process the feeling, and even longer to put a name to it.
Pride.
He felt pride at the way she looked at him, at the faith she had in him.
It had been a long time since he'd felt that way, since anyone had let him feel that way. He knew logically that his family loved him and didn't treat him like a child from any sense of animosity. He also knew that, if they found out how some spoke about him in Ered Luin they would handle it, fighting yet another battle for him that they felt he couldn't fight for himself.
He knew all that and of course he loved his family, but that didn't mean he didn't resent it.
"You should just say something to them," Bilba whispered, and he frowned at her in confusion.
"What?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's been pretty much the three of us together, exclusively, for what, two years now? Longer? You're not that hard to read."
Kili gaped at her, but all it got him was another eye roll, which was rather unnecessary he thought.
Bilba nodded her head up, toward the windows. "What do you think?"
She was letting the rest go because it was not the time or place, but Kili knew full well she wasn't going to let it go forever. She was right. They had been together almost exclusively for a couple years now and she wasn't the only one who knew the other almost better than they knew themselves.
Carefully, he turned to face the wall of the tower, pressed a hand against the stone and rose just enough to allow him to peek over the windowsill. He only stayed for a brief second, long enough to get a glimpse and then drop down again. The brief sight he got was of a large, open room filled with benches, orcs, food and what he dearly hopes were tankards of ale.
He chewed on his lower lip for a minute, a bad habit he'd picked up from someone who had an equally bad habit of rolling her eyes at him, and his uncle now that he thought about it. An idea presented itself and he gave her a slow grin. "Weren't you crowing about your throwing arm at some point?"
She gave him an indignant look. "Excuse me? I wasn't crowing about anything. I was factually informing you about my exploits during the fighting at Erebor."
"Right," Kili teased, nodding toward the many loose stones scattered about them on the landscape. "I'm going to give you a chance to prove it."
Bilba looked blank at first, only to slowly smile herself as realized what he was planning. "You're on."
