Chapter Eighteen: Kili
T.A. 2906 Ered Luin
Kili kicks irritably at a rock as he walks through New Belegost. Things have become so much more dull since Frerin disappeared. There's no one to spring them from their lessons when all of Thorin and Amad's expectations seem to be getting too much. No one to tell them stories of the world beyond the mountains. He knows that Fili has it worse. His brother is so angry these days, no fun at all when Kili just wants to hide away from Thorin and Balin and Amad and all the boring things they want him to do. It isn't like they actually have a mountain or a throne. There isn't any point in all of this when Fili will never be a king in anything but name.
He's made his way to the edge of town by the time Fili finds him, likely sent to retrieve him for whatever chores Amad has found for him now. Fili's face is set in a scowl as he marches towards his brother. If Kili weren't as bored as he is, he might turn and walk back towards his older brother. But he is bored, and Fili has been spoiling for a fight for days. It might ease his boredom just a little to indulge his brother and so Kili decides to be difficult instead. He scrambles up into the nearest tree and waits.
"Looking for me?" He calls down when Fili passes.
"Get down from there, idiot," his brother shouts up. "Amad wants more wood and you're supposed to be at Rijka's this afternoon."
"I thought I'd skip it," he replies, twisting to hang upside down by his knees. Fili's scowl gets darker.
"You were lucky to get this apprenticeship, Kili," he snaps. Kili knows that, Rijka is the best jeweller in New Belegost and he never takes apprentices. Only Kili's keen eyes, fine fingers and status had persuaded the dwarf to see his natural talent and take him on. He has no intentions of missing his afternoon of work, but he knows just how much the thought will annoy Fili, who looks set to spend his life as an architect or a miner. Kili actually thinks Fili would be a fairly decent jeweller himself, he certainly showed some aptitude for it before his Stone Sense manifested so spectacularly.
"Shouldn't you be off studying?" Kili asks instead. "You know, turning into more of a mini-Thorin than you already are."
"Better than turning into Frerin," Fili growls and that pulls Kili up short for a second. His brother always adored Frerin, they both do.
"What does that mean?" He asks and although it is curious rather than confrontational, he sees his brother's face twist. He scrambles from the tree so that he can catch Fili if he tries to bolt, his brother doesn't like to discuss his feelings on these sorts of things.
"You know what I mean. Always rushing off places, vanishing without a trace, shirking his duties to our people and our family." Fili sounds an awful lot like Thorin right now. Kili's fairly certain he's heard his uncle saying similar.
"Someone needed his help," he replies. Frerin's disappearance hurts, of course, for a long time he and Thorin have been the closest thing to a father Kili has ever known. He, however, has always been aware that someone else has a pull on Frerin's heart. Maybe Fili and Thorin didn't see it, or didn't want to, and Kili doesn't want to waste time being angry with Frerin when he has so many other things he could be doing. Or avoiding doing.
"How can you just let it go?" Fili demands. "How can you forgive him?"
"I haven't!" Kili yells. "But what's the point? He isn't here to be angry at and it isn't going to bring him back! It's just making us miserable. Why are you so angry with him?"
"We need to get home," Fili responds, much as Kili suspected he would.
"No," Kili darts in front of him. "This has been eating at you for months. You need to get it off your chest."
"Talking about it won't bring him back either," Fili deflects.
"But maybe it will make you less of a miserable bastard!" Kili shouts. The punch is hardly a surprise, he's been trying to goad Fili into a fight after all. Amad will be angry when they finally go home, but Kili is more concerned with his brother and he can always just say he needed to work off some energy and Fili was an easy target. He's always known how to annoy his brother just the right amount to get the reaction he wants.
"He abandoned us!" Fili snaps as Kili ducks another hit. Just because he's taunted Fili into it (not that it took that much) doesn't mean he's just going to let Fili hit him.
"I know," Kili replies, dancing away and trying to drive down the sting of his brother's words. It isn't like he hasn't thought the same.
"He didn't tell us why."
"I know."
"Or where."
"I know."
"Why aren't you angry?" Fili demands.
"I am!" He shouts again. "But there's no point. You're miserable, I'm miserable, Amad and Thorin are too! He isn't coming back and the sooner we just get on with our lives the better!"
They both slide to the ground in silence. The problem isn't solved, Kili knows that, but they'll have to learn to live with it.
T.A. 2941 Goblin Town.
Kili barely feels the goblins that grab at him as he fights his way to the edge of the chasm his brother just fell into, taking Bluebell with him. Dimly he hears screaming, so focused on fighting the hands that hold him that he doesn't realise he is the one doing it until one of the goblins hits him hard enough to daze him.
He's dragged along, frantically searching for his uncles, Ori and Belladonna. He has lost Fili, lost his brother when they have always promised it would be them together in everything. He can't lose anyone else. He isn't even sure he'll survive this in any case. In the crush of goblins and the dwarves they're herding he finally spots Frerin. His uncle's eyes are hard and dangerous, Kili thinks he would still be fighting if he didn't have Belladonna to take care of.
He finally finds Thorin when they're all gathered in front of the most grotesque creature Kili has ever seen, and he's had the misfortune of sharing a room with Fili for most of his life. The thought, familiar as it is, brings a stab of grief with it. It's a grief that opens a pit in his stomach and sets his ears to ringing. His brother is gone and, at a glance, Thorin doesn't even know it yet.
Kili wants to blame Bluebell, if she hadn't been with them or had been better at protecting herself, if Fili wasn't so head over heels for her (and Kili knows he is even if his brother is too much of an idiot to realise it) this may not have happened. He can't. this is no more Bluebell's fault than it is his or Fili's. Fili had known there was something off about the cave, Bofur had said the same, but Thorin hadn't wanted to hear it and they were all so tired and cold they were willing to trust to hope.
It takes a brilliant flash of light from Gandalf to bring him back to the present. His brother is gone but he can still fight. He can fight to escape, fight to live and take some small amount of revenge for that which has been taken from him. It's odd, fighting without Fili beside him when they have always worked together. He has always been able to rely on Fili to fill the gaps he leaves, just as Fili should have been able to rely on him. The sword has never been Kili's greatest strength but the goblins are pressing too close for him to use his bow. His postion among the Company changes constantly but Frerin always finds him. Frerin fills the same spaces that Fili would with his hobbit at his side. It should be comforting but it only makes grief flare brighter and hope dwindle.
Finally, finally, after running and falling and fighting and being crushed they find their way out of the mountain and pause for breath. Kili slumps against a tree, his eyes searching for his brother automatically even though he knows he won't find him.
"Where are Fili and Bluebell?" Gandalf demands, apparently the first to notice that the pair are missing.
"They fell," Frerin replies, his voice as hollow as Kili feels. "Just as the goblins took us. Fili was stabbed and they fell into a chasm."
His words are met with outcry, horror, and eyes enough turn to Kili to make him want to shrink into the earth. Thorin's devastation is clear, finally, and much as Kili knows his uncle loves both of his sister's sons he has to wonder how Thorin could have lost track of Fili so easily that he didn't even notice the other was missing.
"I'm going back in," Kili mutters, pushing away from the tree he's slumped against.
"You can't, lad," Gloin stops him. "You'll be running straight into a nest of goblins."
"We have to go back!" He shouts. He can't let go of his desperate hope and he can't face moving forward until he knows his brother's fate. "Fili and Bluebell could still be alive!"
"They could both be hurt, please, Thorin," Belladonna adds, the other shift and begin to add their own arguments.
"Enough!" Thorin roars over them. "We cannot," he continues, "by nightfall the mountain will be overrun with goblins. We must move forwards. Fili would not want us to sacrifice ourselves for his sake."
"How can you say that?" He demands. How can Thorin possibly know what Fili wants? It isn't like he has ever asked him.
"That's our sister's son in there, Thorin," Frerin snaps. He's holding Belladonna tightly but it's reassuring to know that he, at least, will always think of them. "Your heir," as though Thorin needs reminding. "And my daughter." If Fili were here, Kili thinks absently, he would owe his younger brother a nice amount of coin. Everyone knows Frerin has named Bluebell his daughter but it's never been said.
"You think I don't want to?" Thorin asks, stepping closer to his brother. "You think I don't want to keep the promise I made to our sister and bring Fili home safe? I cannot always be a brother or an uncle, I do not have that luxury. I am king. You will never know the agony that responsibility brings."
He truly means to leave them behind, Kili realises. The uncle that they have always been able to rely on, the nearest thing to a father Kili has and Thorin is going to abandon Fili and Bluebell to die in the goblin tunnels. If they aren't dead already. He wonders if this is how Fili felt when he realised Frerin wouldn't always be there.