Chapter Fifty-Six: They All Fall Down
"Hello?"
Silence.
Emelia couldn't hear anything but the sound of her own rapidly beating heart and shuddered breathing. She tried to move, but with the weight on her back and the decreasing amount of oxygen, she could only make it a couple of inches before she was too exhausted to try again. She collapsed back onto the ground, face pressed against the cold stone, and struggled to draw in even the shallowest of breaths.
It would be easier, she thought, if she didn't try at all, if she just laid there and let the weight keep pressing down until she was nothing left put a speck.
She wouldn't have to face the reality of Balin being dead, or deal with the fact that Fili probably wasn't waiting for her when she finally managed to dig herself out of the rocks.
Emelia had had those kind of thoughts before and she had quickly overcome them.
It was different this time around because she realized, as she lay there staring at the rocks, that she would lose so much more if she managed to escape the rock prison. She didn't have the time to feel guilty about that. She knew her parents and even her brother, who had always been so bright for his age, would understand.
She just didn't have it in herself to start over again.
Really there was nothing else to do but take the small moment to reassess. She tried to move her hand, only to find that it was trapped underneath one of the rocks, pinned in place. She turned her attention to the other, happy to discover that was able to tap her fingers, giving her hope that she might be able to do more than that. She pulled it towards her chest, fighting with every little blip of energy she had left in her body, until she had it curled up next to her like a chicken wing. After another moment of assessing and trying to move her body, she realized the only space there was really was down by her hips, giving her just enough room to wiggle her backside and pop it upwards.
When she did so, the rocks immediately shifted, some falling forward and onto the others already crushing her chest. The movement forced what little air she had left out of her body and made her situation all the more serious. Although, she could hardly image how it could be worse. Still, the pressure on her body and the pain in her lungs spurred her to move her hips again. Up and down, riveting back and forth until there was enough room for her to pull her knees up underneath her thighs. She could feel the dirt and rock shards digging into her thigh wound, parting the skin and muscles in such a way that she thought she might pass out from the pain, but she pointedly ignored it, too focused on getting the rocks off her body so she could finally breathe again.
Finally able to press completely up with one hand and both her legs, she gave one final push. Screaming with the effort, she lifted herself up until she finally felt the pressure on her back lessen and the rocks fall away.
Emelia sat back, gasping for air. The fraction of a fraction of joy she felt was short lived however, when she realized her other hand was still trapped underneath one of the rocks. She tried to pull it out, only to realize that it was hopelessly stuck. She tried to wiggle her fingers one more time before she gave up entirely and shifted her weight and pressed both of her feet to the rock. She took another deep breath and kicked, once again letting out a small noise of pain as the rock finally dislodged and she was able to pull her hand back to her chest.
Emelia didn't want to look down, knowing that she wouldn't like what she saw. At first it didn't look so bad, she still had all her fingers and nails after all, but then she flipped it over and saw the damage it had done in full.
On the fatty part below her thumb, the skin had split straight down and was now bleeding profusely. More troubling than that, which was a sign that perhaps she had seen herself bleeding far too many times that it now didn't even bother her, was the fact that when she tried to move her hand, she found she wasn't able to. She was almost afraid to touch it, to see if it was as crushed as she thought it was, but still reached down her other hand and tentatively touched her pointer finger.
The pain was hot and sudden, practically knocking her back on her ass. Tears sprang up and she didn't try and push them back like she normally would.
Cradling her hand to her chest, she sobbed uncontrollably for a moment, her other hand supporting the bones in its bum counterpart. She didn't know if it was dislocated, broken, pulverized into mush, or just in shock, but she knew she couldn't move it and that it was all her own fault. For a moment the pain was all she could think about, but then she started to feel angry. Emelia was mad at herself. What little demon of bad ideas had possessed her, she wasn't sure, but it had somehow managed to convince her that it was a good idea to cause a collapse while they were standing there.
Fili.
She hadn't forgotten about him, but the panic that flooded her chest at the thought of him caused her to stumble back and catch herself on the wall with her uninjured hand.
It became hard to breathe again.
"Fili," She whispered after a moment, voice coming out weak like she had been wrung around the neck a few times. She wiped her face with her good hand and stumbled to a standing position, looking around at the rocks a bit frantically when he didn't respond right away. "Fili, can you hear me?"
She almost fell over the edge in her search, scanning where Fili had been not two minutes before.
Her panic built, edging into something she wasn't sure she was going to be able to control.
"Fee, please say something to me!" She shouted, looking at the same rocks over and over again. "Don't do this. Not right now, not after Balin."
Emelia collapsed onto the ground next to the edge, afraid to look over but knowing full well that she had to do it. Her injured hand shook against her chest, the movement threatening to spread to her entire body if she didn't catch a hold of herself. She steadied her gaze and her breathing and plucked up the courage to look at the ground for whatever she might find.
At first, all she could see was rocks, large and hiding the one thing she wanted to see. It took her far longer than it should have to start making out the shapes of the orcs crumpled up. Arms, legs, twisted backs, even a few crushed in faces, all reached up towards her, smelling of dirt and blood and something a bit worse than death. There was no blond hair, no brown coat or mustache braids. She searched harder, leaning out until she was practically hanging over the edge.
"Fili!" Her shout echoed for a moment, and she realized that she should have been smarter about it, but she just didn't care.
She leaned down, eyes straining to make him out against all the chaos, before she realized that he just wasn't down there. She didn't know if she should be relieved. On the one hand, he wasn't crushed to death under a pile of rocks and dead orcs. That was always a positive. On the other hand, however, she still didn't know here he was.
She stood up and began pacing, checking over the rocks that had been piled on top of her with each pass. Even when she didn't see him, still she passed over and over, looking for even the smallest sign.
Emelia felt a fresh wave of tears coming over her when she came up empty once again. She dropped her head into her hand and cried, harder and more uncontrollable than she had ever recalled doing before. Her emotions were getting away from her, just when she needed to control them the most. It was too much, the lot of it. The orcs, Balin, Fili, the trolls, her hand, Lake-town, Smaug, her family. It all hit her at once, every last thing that had gone wrong seemed to spring back up and slap her in the face.
Even though the rocks were no longer on top of her, she felt their crushing weight all the same. She struggled to breathe, stuck between sucking in shallow gulps of air and trying to quell her now almost violent crying. She failed. She found herself longing for the quiet dignity of her mother in times like this and that only made her feel worse.
Her uninjured hand tugged at her shirt, pulling it away from her body in the vain attempt to cool her chest. It felt like fire, her stomach like ice water, and her body like nothing.
It was closing in around her. Everything was on top of her back, smushing her, folding her in half, until she felt like there was nothing left.
She shouldn't have wished for that, she shouldn't have put it out in the universe. She should have known that this would be the one time it decided to open its ears and actually pay attention to her.
Emelia dropped to her hands and knees, gasping and choking as she fought against herself. The room spun around her, forcing her to look down to keep from throwing up on top of everything else. She looked at her hands to focus on something, the one good one that, despite still being completely usable, was covered in so much blood and dirt she couldn't see paleness of her skin anymore, and the one that was all but useless to her now. It was bruised and swollen, reminding her of a balloon filled with beef chuck.
Just next to her line of sight, hovering next to her bum hand, she caught sight of something distinctly body-shaped dangling off an outcropping of rocks. How she missed it before, she wasn't quite sure, but she immediately shot up, ignoring the fact that the tightness in her chest and the pounding in her head didn't go away, and shuffled along three or so feet until she was directly above it.
"Fili?"
He didn't answer her, but she was certain it was him. His gloved hand was the only thing sticking out from the pile of rocks, but she would know it anywhere. Short fingers, wide palm, worn from years of use. She had looked at his hands more times than she could count over the last six months. Dwarf hands were one of the only things that really reminded her that they were a different race. Where human hands were slender and spidery, dwarf hands were more life ovenmits. They lacked grace, she had come to realize, but they were strong and steady. Never once had she seen them shake, something she could never even begin to claim for herself.
Emelia turned around and grabbed onto the edge of the ledge she was perched on, bracing herself for the inevitable pain that was about to occur, before she started lowering herself down. Her feet dangled, knees banging into the side of the cold stone as she struggled to cover the six feet between the ledge she had been on and the one Fili was currently on. It was a miracle, really, that it was there at all and she wasn't having to navigate her way down to the bottom, if she even could at all.
Her feet landed with a thud and she nearly crumpled in on herself once again due to the strain on her thigh. Forced to catch herself against the wall, she took three large breaths before she turned to the pile of rocks and began digging.
It was slow work, using one hand and her hip, but she was able to make enough progress that she could see that she wasn't wrong about assuming that Fili was under there. She dug faster, pawing frantically at the stone until she could finally see his face.
"Thank god, Fee." She didn't look at him for too long, too busy trying to get rid of the other rocks that covered his body. She freed his chest first, dumping the rocks unceremoniously over the edge and onto the dead orcs below. One collided with one of their skulls, resulting in a sickening crunch that sounded like a watermelon being trod upon. She moved to his legs next, and then his arms, before she finally was able to see all of him.
And still he didn't move or give any indication that he knew she was there.
"Fili?" She reached up and touched his face, looking at him in full for the first time.
His very distinctive nose was caved in, so smushed and bloody that it didn't look like much of a nose at all. More concerning than his nose, although he might not think so, was the very deep cut just above his left eye. It was bleeding profusely, as most heads normally did when hit by a large rock, and spread from through his eyebrow and all the way up to his hairline.
There were a great may things that Emelia didn't know, such as quantum mechanics and how dogs could be so universally wonderful, but she did know enough to know that head wounds, especially ones like that, were not something to be taken lightly.
"Fili, you have to wake up." She shook his chest, tapping it softly in a vain attempt to appear calm. Although, she didn't know why she even bothered anymore.
She scooted a little bit closer to him and pressed her ear close to his mangled nose, not quite sure what she would do if she didn't feel any breath.
She couldn't stop herself from letting out a small noise of triumph when she felt the slightest breeze, causing her to smile down at her chest and sit back. It still wasn't good, but he was breathing and she would take that any day over the alternative. She lifted one of his eyelids and took note of the size of his pupil before she did so with the other. She then opened his mouth, making it a little easier for him to breathe.
"You scared me, Fee." She didn't expect him to respond, although it would have made her feel immeasurably better. Her relief was short lived, however, as she started to think about the logistics of actually getting him up and off the little ledge that had saved his life. He had a good 100 lbs on her, perhaps more, and it wasn't like when she pulled Balin across the small distance to allow him to see Erebor. She had two good hands then and a thigh that wasn't infected. She still thought she could save him, and there was a distinct emotional advantage in that a bit like when a mother lifts an entire car off their trapped baby.
She would need to go get help.
"I'll have to go get someone to help you up, but maybe you could wake up in the meantime?" She said, bending over his face to look at him one more time before she left. "You better be here when I get back." Emelia touched the side of his face, fingers trailing over the skin that wasn't covered in blood. "I promise I'll be quick. I'll bring Kili and Thorin and we'll get you out of here and it will all be okay," She said, probably more for herself than him.
She felt horrible standing up, but it was nothing compared to how bad she felt turning around and starting her climb.
Logically, she knew she was doing the only thing she could. She wasn't strong enough to lift him, not even on her best days, and she had no hope of ever being able to heave his entire weight up over her head and up onto the other ledge. The only thing she could do was try and find someone else, even if the thought of leaving him lying there made her feel worse than she thought she ever had. She tried not to think about it too much, tried not to focus on the deep feeling of shame that built up in her gut that made her feel like she was abandoning him.
She sniffed, shaking her head once again and continued her climb.
When she crested the top, she only allowed herself half a moment to catch her breath before she shook out her limbs and started running towards the stairs her and Fili had used to come down there in the first place. Cradling her hand against her chest in an attempt to not move her fingers too much, she took the stairs two at a time, forcing every last bit of energy she had into her tired muscles to keep from slowing down. Even if Fili was still breathing, she didn't very much like the idea of leaving him without help for too long. Head wounds were tricky things and the longer he went without someone like Tauriel or Oin, or literally anyone else but her, looking at him, the more likely it was he would have some sort of lasting effect, if he didn't already.
Going back the same way they came, Emelia couldn't stop herself from slowing down. She cradled her hand against her chest, trying not move her fingers too much as she sprinted up the stairs. Every single inch of her body hurt. She tried to ignore it, but she just couldn't any more. She couldn't ignore how much it hurt to do such a simple action as walking, she couldn't ignore how she was acutely aware of every sight injury she had, every pain and every sore spot, and she just couldn't bring herself to mentally push it aside anymore.
She bent at the waist, breathing deeply as she tried to keep from keeling over.
Emelia gave herself a minute of weakness before she stood back up and continued on her way.
After three more flights of stairs, each of which made her feel like she was going to die, she finally made it back to the straight hallway Fili and her had walked down when they were first sent to check the lower levels out. In front of her she could see the straight shot across the ice.
All she needed was one of them. Anyone but her would do.
Running on the ice was even harder than the stairs but she didn't stop. She left behind little drops of blood, creating a trail that, if orcs weren't dumb as sin, they could easily find her with.
"Sho gad adol!"
Emelia froze for only a moment. The orc's shout came from somewhere to her left, but she couldn't place it if she tried. She looked over her shoulder as she kept running, hoping that she didn't see any orcs that would slow her down. When she made it back to the other side she scrambled over the rocks of the ridge as quickly as she could, opening her mouth to shout for someone.
"Khozd-buzbi!"
Emelia nearly collapsed once again when she saw what was on the other side of the rock wall. Orcs, so many she couldn't even begin to count them, sprinted towards a pinned down Thorin. He looked up briefly, scanning the orcs one by one. It's what a professional fighter would do. She had never been able to get a handle on things long enough to assess her options before acting. Everything she did was tinged with desperation, every action she took seemed to hurl her closer and closer to finally making a mistake that she couldn't take back.
She thought she might have reached that point with Fili.
Thorin finally noticed her after a moment and she had never seen him look so horrified.
Emelia and Thorin stared at each other.
He paused, sword dipping ever so slightly as he allowed himself to be distracted by her for the briefest of moments. His mouth quirked and she would have sworn he was attempting to smile at her, but even that came across as forced. There was no love between them, she knew that and he knew that. Even so, six months as companions had forced her to have an amount of respect for him that would otherwise have been reserved for people she actually liked. The orcs racing towards him didn't seem to notice her at first, too focused on getting to Thorin to see the shaking woman hovering just above the ridge.
More and more streamed in, surrounding him until it was hard to her to make out his shape.
She thought, if she waited another moment or so, there wouldn't be much left of him at all.
And, as much as she disliked him as a person and on principle, she couldn't stand the idea of losing him as well.
She was not blind to the choice that had suddenly been thrown in front of her. If she did nothing to help Thorin and continued on her way, unseen by the orcs and unburdened by the need to try and help, then she would be able to find help for Fili. If she stopped and tried to help Thorin, then she might not even make it long enough to do much of anything other than be a distraction. It didn't escape her, however, that there were currently only four other people on Ravenhill with her that were even capable of helping him, and if she allowed one of them to die when she could do something about it, then she might not be able to get help for him at all.
The thought spiral was maddening.
Emelia thought a big part of what she couldn't make a decision had to do with the fact that she had never quite felt so guilty in her entire life. It was her idea, after all, that they trigger a collapse. It was stupid and immature and exactly the kind of decision that she shouldn't have made this far into her time with the dwarves. Everything about the idea should have screamed red flag to her, but the idea of a quick fix had seemed so inviting to her. The idea of a being able to kill them felt too good, felt too right after what happened to Balin, that she hadn't been able to see the very clear flaw in her thinking. That was on her and she would have to live with it.
The more her head cleared, the harder that idea became.
Fili was her best friend.
She didn't like to admit it, but she had never had one of those before. There was a girl that lived about a mile and half from her family that she was friendly with, but that had never turned into anything more than a person to sit next to in all her classes and someone to share in the typical high school misery. Fili wasn't like that girl, whose name couldn't have remembered in that moment if someone had a gun to her head. He understood her, cared about her, made her laugh, and made her feel like she was wanted. Part of the appeal of being with Kili involved knowing that she wouldn't have to say goodbye to Fili.
And then she had gone and expedited the process in a way that only she could manage.
She sighed and shook her head, shaking out her muscles to prepare to run again as she cleared her throat.
Emelia had already made up her mind, although she didn't realize it at first. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't the kind of person who could just walk away from someone she cared about, even if that person was Thorin and therefore at the very bottom of her pyramid of concerns.
Help Thorin and she would help Fili.
Her first attempt at a scream was more pathetic than she ever could have imagined. A bit like someone had squeezed the air out of a used squeak toy, if she was being honest, it petered out almost the moment she opened her mouth. It wasn't loud enough to get the attention of a dog two feet in front of her, let alone twenty or so orcs bearing down on Thorin. She shook her head and massaged her throat, knowing that it probably didn't help but liking that it made her feel better all the same. She took in another deep breath and screamed again, making as much noise as humanly possible.
At first, she thought it wasn't going to work.
The orcs didn't turn around, making her almost give up entirely. But then, the first one noticed her.
It turned its head, knotted grey hair swinging around in an arc that she would think beautiful in any other circumstance, and looked for the source of the noise, nostrils flaring. His dark eyes searched the ridge where she was standing, bouncing from rock to rock until he finally zeroed in on her.
He immediately growled, swinging his sword as he turned around and started lumbering towards her.
That was exactly the sort of thing she had wanted to happen, the sort of domino effect she was looking for.
As the orc changed his path, a few of the others started to look around, searching for the thing that had distracted their companion. Soon enough they started running towards her as well, clearly distracted by the thought of getting to kill an easier target. She thought she should be offended by the fact that they deemed her such easy pickings that they would willingly abandon their task of killing Thorin to get some kind of thrill from getting her, but then she remembered that that was exactly what she was aiming for and started throwing her arms around wildly, grabbing the attention of even more.
Eventually, around fifteen of them were running towards her, leaving only seven or eight still going towards Thorin.
The gulf that was created allowed her to see Thorin once again. She let out a little puff of air, relaxing ever so slightly when she saw that he was no worse for wear than he had been.
His eyebrows knit together as he noticed the sudden lack of orcs. He looked up at her and shook his head, clearly understanding what she was trying to do. She was surprised to see that he looked genuinely upset at the idea, but she didn't have time to ponder what that would mean, because the first orc was now only ten feet away from her and advancing faster than she would have thought possible.
"Oh shit," Emelia said, stumbling backwards as she tried to turn around.
She started running, awkwardly at first due to the cut on her leg, but then she got her grove and was able to actually make a reasonable amount of headway.
She hadn't thought about what she was going to do once they started chasing her. She hadn't actually thought that much at all about any of it beyond her initial thought that she didn't want anything bad to happen to Thorin. He was a bastard, disagreeable at the best of times, and all around miserable by her estimation, but she would never forgive herself if something happened to him and she could do something to prevent it. She had already screwed up with Balin, and even worse with Fili, she didn't think her soul could take another hit.
Emelia darted between the rocks, moving much slower than she would like. She wouldn't be able to run forever, but she knew that with each step she took within the orcs sights she drew them further away from Thorin.
The first orc that noticed her got closer, growling loud enough that she thought he was directly behind her. She dared a quick glance over her shoulder and immediately regretted it. He was now barely a body's length away from her and closing in fast. All it would take would be a quick swipe of his sword and she wouldn't be able to feel anything anymore, she wouldn't be able to think.
An arm reached out and grabbed her suddenly, yanking her sideways and out of the path of the orc just as it finally caught up with her. It slammed its sword down on the ground, missing her by inches.
The person stepped in front of her and she finally saw that it was Kili.
She had never been so happy to see him in her entire life. She thought that quite often, but she knew it was absolutely true that time around.
He pushed her back with one arm and put his entire body in front of her, keeping his hand pressed against her stomach. He made quick work of killing the orc with the sword in his other hand, stabbing it through the side of its ribcage. The bone crunched as Kili pushed the sword deeper into its chest. After another moment Kili pulled his sword back, leaving to orc to collapse to the ground with a grunt.
"Emelia," He started, rounding on her with an incredibly angry look on his face.
"Thank you," Emelia said, wrapping her one good hand around his middle so she could press herself against him.
"What are you doing?"
"Running." He pushed her back and glared at her, although he still reached his free hand down to her waist and squeezed. "Kee, I need your help." He moved his hand to grab hers and she thought she might pass out from the sudden onslaught on pain. She yanked it back and cradled it to her chest, fighting off the fresh tears that sprung up. "Don't," She said, pulling herself back from him, just in case it happened again.
"What happened?"
The other orcs that had been chasing her finally caught up to them, interrupting her before she could tell him about the cave in and, more importantly, Fili. Kili pushed her back again and stepped out from their little hiding spot, shooting her a concerned look over his shoulder as he held his sword up and rolled his shoulders, bending his knees ever so slightly. Emelia immediately retreated back to press her herself against the stone wall and popped a squat, perfectly content, if that was ever the right word, to wait for him to take care of them.
And he did, well enough that he killed five of them in quick succession so fast she almost would have missed it if she hadn't been looking. The sixth gave him a bit of trouble, pushing him back just a bit so that he was no longer hiding her from them.
Every time she thought he had made a decent dent in the numbers, more showed up. More and more, coming from the side of the rocks and behind him, jumping down at him from above, swiping at his ankles from below. He killed them all, never missing a beat, never failing to dodge an incoming sword.
Until he did.
The sword pierced his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
Her mouth fell open as she watched him stumble, falling back from the orc as the sword fell out of his hand and tumbled to the ground.
"No."
Emelia sprinted over to the orc and kicked it directly in the knee cap, not bothering to slow down when she heard the crack. It stumbled to its other knee, slashing its sword out at her out of anger. She jumped back and punched it directly in the fact, putting all of her weight behind it. It hurt her knuckles, but she didn't really care. Blood sprouted out of its nose, spraying over her face. She punched it again, practically pulverizing it. When she was certain it wouldn't try and stab her again, she wrenched the sword out of its clenched hand and drove it through its neck without even bothering to think.
It gurgled a bit, coughing on its own blood.
Balin had done the same thing. She found that she didn't have any ounce of compassion left in her body for them.
They were alive, but they weren't living, not in the same way everything else was. They killed without thinking, destroyed everything in their path like an atom bomb, leaving behind nothing but broken bones and scorched earth.
She had killed too, though, and she didn't care anymore, so perhaps she was the same as them.
Emelia blinked and turned back to Kili, not prepared for what she might find.
She hopped over the bodies, now quite good at that particular skill, and ran over to him, feet slipping over the puddles of blood. "Kili?" She shoved her knees under his chest, tapping the side of his face to get his attention. For a moment, if she just looked at his face, she could pretend that there was a giant hole in his shoulder that was currently gushing more blood than she could even process. "Kili, look at me," She urged, rubbing his chest.
Her eyes trailed down to his shoulder and she felt her chest convulse like she was having a heart attack.
Emelia wrapped her arms around Kili's shoulders and lifted him up into her arms, cradling him against her chest as she started sobbing.
"Don…Don't cry, Em," He said, voice thick with blood.
"Don't tell me what to do," She said back as she pressed her face into his hair, breathing in the smell of him while she could. After a moment the usual smell of leather and the liquid he used on his bow and arrows to keep them clean and usable, all she could smell was blood. She pulled back and looked at him, smoothing the hair down next to his face as best she could. "You can't do this to me, Kee."
Despite the fact that she thought he probably had a hundred pounds on her, she used what little energy she had left and lifted him up higher until their chests were touching. He gasped at the movement but otherwise kept staring directly at her.
"I love you, Em."
"I know," She said back and finally let him drop back so she could begin to strip off what little fabric she still had on her, leaving her in nothing but the pathetic remains of the bra she had put on all those months ago when her and her family left the house to go ice fishing. The straps were holding onto her shoulders for dear life and the cups, now so brown and stained they were unrecognizable, did nothing but cover the flat area of skin where her nice sized boobs used to be. Just another casualty, she supposed. Emelia lowered Kili carefully to the ground and hovered over him, balling her shirt up and setting it to the side. "This would be less complicated if you weren't wearing so many layers," She said it more to herself and didn't mean for it to come across as the least bit put out, but it did and she realized it a moment too late for her to take it back.
She slid her hand underneath his chainmail and peeled it back, cringing when one of the jagged edges got caught in his wound. He gasped but didn't move to stop her from continuing. He even managed to move his arms so that she was able to get it off his chest entirely, although she could tell the movement caused him an indescribable amount of pain. She moved to his coat next and pulled it back as well, leaving behind only his thin blue shirt. It was coated in blood, but she was able to peel it back just enough that the wound was visible to her. If she hadn't already seen the one that took Balin, she thought she might have vomited.
"Don't."
"You dwarves are all the same," She said, reaching over to her shirt to size it up against his wound. He had a barrel chest and her arms were more hobbit sized than anything else. She could make it work, however. She wadded up the large part and pressed it to the wound, staunching the blood flow ever so slightly. She then extended the sleeve out as far as it could go and pulled it tight. "I'm going to flip you over."
He didn't respond and for a moment Emelia feared the absolute worst. But then he took a gasping breath and looked back at her again, eyes unfocused. "Em?"
"I'm here," She said, pausing in her actions. "I'm not going anywhere. You stay, I stay."
"I don't think I'm staying this time, love."
Her chest hurt at the very idea. She felt his hand on her thigh, fingers rubbing the exposed skin of her leg in an erratic motion. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead, still pressing the fabric of her shirt to his chest.
"We were supposed to get married," Emelia said, turning her gaze away from his face so she could concentrate on what she was doing.
"Saying yes now are you, just as I'm about to die?" Even though it sounded like he was upset, he still managed to make it come across like he wasn't blaming her. "That's wonder…" He coughed, spewing a little spittle of blood onto the side of her cheek. She ignored it and continued working. "That's wonderful, Em."
"What kind of wedding do you want?"
"Something small. Just me and you."
"Do I get to wear white?" Emelia bent down and propped him up on her arm, tuning out the intense groan of pain he made as she did so, and did her best to roll him sideways without jostling him too much.
"Dwarvish women don't wear white."
Emelia stopped breathing for a moment when she saw his back. It was covered in just as much blood as his front. The ground beneath them was coated it in, the dirt congealing like little cakes in the spot where the cut had been. Just as with Balin, she could tell when she was in over her head, although she adamantly refused to admit it. Because unlike with Balin, as awful as it sounded, she absolutely refused to accept his wishes.
Because she had realized along around the time that she loved him more than anything that he was the one person she couldn't live without.
Not her parents, not her brother, not Fili, not the entire company, but him.
"I'll wear blue. It's your favorite," She breathed, trying not let it show on her face how scared she was.
"I prefer you in green. It brings out your…" He trailed off, coughing even more. "Mahal, this feels bloody awful."
Emelia managed a strangled laugh. "I'm going to roll you back."
She did, getting it over without any more preamble. Every moment counted and she didn't think he needed to sit and think about how much whatever she was about to do was going to hurt. He didn't make much of a noise when she put him back on his back but he did close his eyes and bite his lip. She yanked the arm of her shirt out from under him. "Tell me more," Emelia requested, pulling the fabric of her shirt tight across his chest. "Tell me anything."
He said nothing.
"Kili?" She shook him but he said nothing. "No. Not now." She shook him harder, hovering over him as she touched the side of his face. He was clammy, but still warm, and ashen. When he didn't respond she pressed her finger to his nose, feeling for any sort of breath. "No, Kee. No, no, no."
She repeated it until her throat felt hoarse. Emelia lifted up his chest and supported his weight on her legs, pressing her face into his hair, fresh, violent sobs wracking her body. She stubbornly clung to Kili, refusing to let go of him, to release the pressure she was putting on his injuries. She had the wild idea that if she could just hold onto him a little longer, if she could just put enough weight behind her arms, that he might not slip through her fingers.
And he was.
Every moment that passed Emelia could literally feel him, everything that made him, him, leaving his body. His laugh, his occasional moodiness, the way he would scrunch up his nose, his stupid dimples, all the little details she loved, she could feel them getting away from her like water through a tightly clenched fist.
"Please don't leave me," She begged, squeezing him ever tighter.
No matter how much she begged, he still didn't respond.
Emelia closed her eyes, rocking him back and forth, sobbing finally subsiding ever so slightly. The numbness that she had been feeling ever since she watched Balin die right in front of her started to creep back. It started in her fingers, making it harder for her to hold onto him as it spread up her arms and shoulders. Little dots danced across her closed eyelids and struggled to keep herself sitting upright. She lost feeling in her legs next, followed by her stomach and neck and face. It hit her chest last, spreading in from the outside like someone had dumped cold water all over her and then shoved her outside in the middle of Alaska in December.
For one final moment she could feel all the pain in the world.
But then, blissfully, she couldn't feel anything at all.
Part 3 of 3. The last three chapters have totaled over 30K words alone. I would say something cheerful, but I highly doubt anyone is feeling very good after that.
If it seemed confusing, it was written that way on purpose with the intent. Battle happens so quickly, there isn't time to think, or to overthink in Emelia's case. I've been trying to show that her mental state has been deteriorating for quite some time and this was the final nail in the coffin, if it isn't too soon to say that.
Now, once again, not everything is as it seems. I would urge everyone to keep reading.
It gets better.