Two Years of Scars

Thorin was far from being comfortable as he watched the bargeman's children flock to his nephew. "Mister Kili!" The smallest of them, a little girl in a dirty white and blue dress, burst out of the rickety house and grabbed him around the shoulders. His lost relative inhaled sharply, but smiled in spite of himself. It was difficult to watch him interacting with the child as if he was his own. Kili rumpled her hair, forcing a grin.

"Tilda!" He greeted. She was about his height, with light brown hair that was pulled off of her round face. "How are you doing? Taking care of your father?" She returned his cheery demeanor.

"That's Sigrid's job." Kili looked around at his family, his eyes lingering on Fili. "Why don't we go inside? See your brother and sister, yes?" The little girl took his hand, dragging him by the hand through the door. Thorin could see him trying to cover up his bad side with a hand. If he hadn't heard from Oin that the dwarf seemed to be unable to feel any sort of pain, then he would have guessed that he was in agony. Instead, Thorin got the impression that he was trying to hide the injury entirely. Before Fili could traipse after the group, his uncle grabbed him by the arm.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" The fair-haired dwarf nodded.

"He's given me no reason not to trust him." Thorin scowled.

"He was raised by the elf that left us all to burn in dragon fire. That's reason enough."

"I swear, uncle. Kili has no ulterior motives." The king stared back at the wooden house, the way the rest of the Company, along with Bard and his daughter, had gone.

"Keep an eye on him." Fili blinked in agreement, before leading the way into the home. After taking a few steps towards the door, however, turning back to his uncle. When he spoke again, it was in a hushed voice. "But, there is something off, besides the elvishness about him. He talks in his sleep. He got uncomfortable when I mentioned anything about Ered Luin, and immediately changed the subject. It's like he's afraid to remember anything about what happened before he arrived in Mirkwood. I'm…I'm worried about him." Thorin considered this for a moment. Two years gap in between the day Kili ran out the door and the day that his nephew arrived in Thranduil's domain. In that amount of time, anything could have happened. And now there was more proof that something worse than elves was affected his kin. Turning his attention back to his heir, he laid a hand on Fili's shoulder.

"Just watch out for him. Anything strange happens, you come straight to me. No secrets. You said he has started to trust you?" Fili shrugged, his eyes on the ground.

"We talked about him, not about us. He seemed happy where he was, with the elves. If he is really coming with us, helping us, then we have to be grateful for that. Have a little faith in him." Thorin exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself down. Though Fili was going to be his successor and had been groomed his entire life to do so, he was still lacking the iron fist that was needed to rule.

"Do you trust him? Fully?" The younger dwarf looked around everywhere except at his uncle's face, beginning to speak several times, but never fully forming a word. "Would you trust him with your life?" Still, no answer. "Fili!"

"He needs to trust us with his, first. If we want to make any progress, we can't be suspicious of everything he does." Thorin closed his eyes, trying to think clearly. It wasn't working. The closer they got to the mountain, the closer he felt to losing his temper at every altercation. He could not afford mistakes. Not responding to Fili in any way, he stormed into Bard's house.

The cramped room was full of dwarves, men, tables, chairs, and other clutter. Thorin supposed that raising a family in such a small space brought the mess with it, and couldn't exactly claim that his Company was at all helping the situation. It was one thing to have four people live in such a cramped area, but adding extra thirteen creatures was something else entirely. Bard was shouting over the tremendous noise, giving instructions for where the dwarves should go. "Kili, you and your brother can take the nearest room. Your uncle can take one with you two," he pointed at Balin and Dwalin. You three in the next one, and then you three in the farthest room. That leaves the children and I in here. The rooms are small, but they are the best that we have." Thorin soured.

"Bard, you can't possibly-" His nephew protested as many of them filtered kitchen.

"If all goes well, then they'll be gone by morning, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"You've done me many favors, representative, and it is time I returned some of them." Finally resigning to the bargeman's help, Kili began speaking animatedly with the other man in the home, Bard's son. Fili and Thorin stood side by side with one another, both gazing at the interaction with the same blank look on their faces. The attention that the human was getting from their family member rivaled any sort of affected that he had shown thus far.

"Look at you!" Kili exclaimed, having to tilt his head slightly up so he could see the taller boy. "Still growing like a weed I see. What does your father feed you?" Bain laughed, as did Bard.

"I just hit a growth spurt. It's perfectly normal."

"Perfectly normal? You made a pact with me when you were a tiny tetchy thing, that you would never grow taller than me. And now you've gone and broke it! I don't know who to trust anymore, Bain, this is very upsetting." Sometime during the conversation, Fili slipped away, disappearing into the room that Bard had indicated as his. That left Thorin, Bard, Kili, and Bain standing in the room all together. The minute that they became aware of each other's presence, however, was the moment when the air seemed to thicken. Kili' hearty laugh wore down, and they were abandoned, swimming in the silence.

"If you're seeing the Master today, you should change out of your robes," Bard finally pointed out. He wasn't looking at the person he directed the statement at, though. Instead he kept his eyes fixed on Thorin. Kili exited the room. If the king had been anyone else but himself, he probably would have found the man's stare intimidating at the least, and terrifying at the worst. But, he stared back. A mere bargeman could not scare the rightful King Under the Mountain, and such a person would not challenge him either. "Bain," the man said in a measured tone. "Why don't you go check on your sisters?" Getting the hint, his son ducked out of the kitchen, leaving the two to a conversation.

"What is it you want, bargeman?" Bard leaned back on the table that sat in the center of the room.

"I know that Kili is lying about who you are and what you are doing here." Thorin made no indication that he had even heard these words. Fili had told them of the concocted story they were feeding the man: Thorin had returned to reconnect with his nephew, and they were traveling to the Iron Hills to visit old relatives. If he wanted, Kili would accompany them there and would return home after that amount of time, though his relatives would visit him regularly. The best of lies were ones that contained truth. They were trying to reconnect with their lost family, and it was possible that the Company would see the dwarves of the Iron Hills, specifically Dain, in the next month or so, but Thorin had no desire to let his nephew return to Thranduil. They had also left out all the details of the quest itself, most importantly the ones about the dragon and reclaiming Erebor. Bard had not yet mentioned or shown that he had any questions about it, but he certainly had them now.

"And you suspect this why?"

"I doubt Thorin Oakenshield would travel all this way to Mirkwood, and pass through Laketown for the purpose of finding his assumed dead heir and visiting his cousin. I think it's pure chance that you found Kili in the first place, and you have a different reason for coming through here." Thorin crossed his arms, his eyebrows raised. He had never really considered lying to be both a talent and a skill before he had embarked on this quest. Now he was putting it to good use. It was at the point where he didn't even really consider it to be lying. He was…massaging the truth.

"You are free to think what you want, but you neither know me, now my companions, so you have little basis to make those assumptions."

"I know Kili better than you, and he wouldn't simply leave his home behind for some renegade dwarf vacation. You make him agitated." He could feel an odd cold feeling rushing over him. Thorin could not let himself get upset, for that was when trouble started.

"It was his own decision to come with us." Bard let out a great "ha" of laughter, shaking his head.

"And Thranduil let him come with?" Thorin darkened at the mention of the name. The way everyone spoke of his nephew and the elven king, it sounded like Kili was the property of Mirkwood. A dwarf as old as he had the right to make his own decisions, and he should not be possessed by some elf that shut himself up in his own castle.

"Why does it matter what the King of Mirkwood wants with him? He is nothing more than a temporary guardian. Kili belongs with his roots." Bard tugged at the ends of his rough coat, pulling up the collar. At such a time of year, the cold was just beginning to poke at Laketown like an attention-seeking child. Durin's Day was almost upon them, marking the end of autumn and the start of winter. The cold months had been a time that had sent the line of Durin into mourning all over again. The blizzards had brought with it the feeling of loss and broken futures once more. Fili could still barely stand the sight of snow, and the low temperatures made Dis as cold as the world outside their house in Ered Luin. Thorin had found himself easier to provoke and frustrated when the time of year rolled around again. But for the bargeman, the oncoming winter seemed to just be an annoyance.

"King Thranduil watches that dwarf like a hawk. Kili and I became good friends when he was on a team of Mirkwood guards that regulated the trade between their realm and Laketown. We would talk and he would visit all the time. That is, of course, before Thranduil found out about it. The King was upset that his adopted nephew was put in what he called 'the danger of men' and immediately moved Kili into the castle to act as a representative. The only time we got to see him again was when he would come with Legolas to speak with The Master. This is the first time I have really spoken with him in over two years. Now tell me, Oakenshield, does allowing that same dwarf to run off with his long lost family on a trip to visit other dwarves sound like something Thranduil would do? Not to mention the King's resentment for you, and your hatred of him." Thorin didn't speak for a moment, his blood heating up like water in a pot until he could feel it frothing in his veins.

"It is no business of yours what we do here, or what we are planning to do. And if I were you I would stop sticking your nose in our personal affairs, unless you want to get yourself in a world of trouble." The man took a step forward, no doubt to retaliate against such a comment, but was stopped as Fili stuck his head out into the hallway.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he announced, his eyes moving from Bard to Thorin, and then back to Bard again. The bargeman took a step away from the exiled dwarf king, a bitter look covering his face.

"No, no," he responded with malice. "Not at all."

"What do you need, Fili?" The blonde dwarf pursed his lips.

"I just need you to see this." Skeptical though he was, Thorin followed his nephew into the tiny room that he was to share with his brother. Fili shut the door the moment he entered, his eyes flitting around as if they were unable to focus on anything. There was clearly something he wanted his uncle to focus on, however, as Kili was hunched over in a chair across the room, huddled by a small crack of a window. He had partially changed out of the ruined elven robes, now wearing a gruff pair of brown pants that were slightly too large for him. However, while the robe lay discarded in a soggy heap under the chair, he had not put on a shirt of any sort. Instead, his bare skin was all he wore, besides a fresh set of bandages around his wound. Kili himself was glowering, staring into the opposite corner. He barely looked at Fili when he entered, but Thorin could tell that there was some sort of disagreement between them.

"What's going on?" The brothers exchanged a look, though it was to their uncle's surprise when it was the dark haired dwarf that spoke.

"Fili is getting worked up for no reason, and thought you needed to see me." Thorin turned to his heir, eyebrows raised in expectation of some sort of explanation.

"Is it the injury?"

"Not the current one, but I just wanted you to see his back." The fair-headed dwarf responded. Kili rolled his eyes, readjusting himself in the chair.

"His back?" Thorin was slightly confused. Fili was acting more like Dis than a brother. Actually, Dis would never be so hovering and nervous. He strode over to his brother, helping him out of his sitting position. Besides his bad temperament, Kili seemed fine, but that was before he turned around to show Thorin his back.

The dwarf king suddenly understood why his sister son been so anxious.

His nephew's back, though the skin was otherwise healthy and his muscular strength was obvious, was covered in scars. They weren't normal slashes either, but large wide marks that lined his shoulders like chain mail. They almost looked like decorations, lumps of pale tissue defining every muscle and bone that wound around his spine. Whoever had left them had gone through meticulous work in turning the flesh into an apparent dartboard. However, that was not where it ended. The scarring slowly tapered off as it reached the base of Kili's neck. There was a much larger and terrifying mark. It reached from the base of the neck to the end of the shoulder blades and was ovular in shape. The scar itself looked almost like a welt; the skin was shiny and the entire area was an indentation in the body. Around it, the skin was discolored, not like a bruise, but an almost blue black color, though it was subtle. Thorin could not stop staring, and could feel the two waiting for his response.

"Where did these come from?" he demanded of the injured dwarf. Kili turned around, snatching a thin blue cotton shirt from the bed that was pressed up against the wall. With very little difficulty, he pulled it on over his bare chest, so the scarring and his bandaged side were no longer visible.

"I don't know. Somewhere in between the time I left you and arrived in Mirkwood?"

"You don't remember getting any of these?"

"No." His voice stung, and it was clear that Kili was in no mood to talk about anything relating to these long healed wounds.

"Do you have any idea where they came from?" He shook his head. Thorin opened his mouth to ask another question and demand another answer, but before he could, a commanding female voice shouted from the hallway.

"Word from the Master!" Before Thorin or Fili could say or do anything, with a flash off cloth and wild dark hair, Kili was gone. The pair sighed.

"Write to your mother." Thorin instructed after a spare second without dialogue. "Tell her about the situation at hand. When you're done, run it by me." Fili nodded in perfect obedience.

"Anything else?" The king considered this for a moment.

"See if you can get word to Sagnus." The dwarf's pale eyebrows shot up.

"Sagnus? The old healer from the Blue Mountains?" Thorin nodded.

"I need you to get Ori to sketch out Kili's back, and write a description to put with the drawing. Send word to him asking what he thinks could have caused such an injury."

"You think he'll be able to tell us what happened?" The elder dwarf walked over to the window, staring out the small pane of glass at the town that once sparkled on the lake, but was now rotting into it.

"No. But and I hope he will. And right now, hoping is the best we can do."

So that was that. We have made it to Chapter 10. Yay! I plan for this specific story to be somewhere in the realm of 30-35 chapters in total, though I might have a possible plot for a sequel up my sleeve, depending on what you guys think. From here on out the chapters are going to be getting longer, so it won't be odd for them to be 3,000 words and up. I just want to take a minute here to say thank you to everyone who has been reading, following, and commenting. It means so much to me! If you haven't already, follow this story to be told when it is updated (still sticking to one chapter every other day, though I have been putting some up early, so stay tuned.) If you really liked it, then I encourage you to add it to your favorites list. Also, I love hearing your feedback, so post any predictions, critiques, etc. in the comment section. Until next time…