Just A Dream

Kili was fuming. While his face was placid and calm, nodding as the Master of Laketown and Thorin spoke about the plans for the quest to Erebor, inside he was smoking. He could feel his very insides roasting themselves on his own pure and unadulterated anger. It was over. He was giving up on these dwarves. They were just as his uncle had told him: greedy, double-crossing, stubborn, arrogant, fools. He had known that they were returning to some sort of family land, at least that was how Fili had put it, but he had never been told that they were headed to Erebor to slay a dragon and reclaim a horde of treasure and a throne. Now it all made sense. The deadline. The rush. The obsession. It was all part of Thorin wanting to get a position of power and riches beyond belief. And not even his brother thought he should be informed of this. Instead, they joked about the uptight nature of elves and the story of Thorin's relationship with Thranduil. Kili had been furious with the Mirkwood king. He had been almost ready to leave that life behind, to jump into one of lost family and lost memories. What a naïve, idealistic idiot he had been! They had been keeping secrets the entire time, disregarding his feelings towards what they were doing. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield did not care that he was alive, or that he treasured the life he was leaving behind. They had deceived him into giving them what they needed and wanted.

Betrayal.

Yet he sat there, listening to the two monarchs strike a deal to help them get back the dwarven gold, and he played along, encouraging it. The time to take back his help was long past. He was going through with what he had started.

"Marvelous," the Master announced. "Then you shall have what you want, dear Oakenshield." Thorin smiled, the only time Kili had seen him do such a thing thus far. Of course he was happy now. He was getting what he needed: clothes, weapons, and the Master's blessing. No doubt he would have the entire town on the dwarves' side as well. The Master was getting a reward as well: a part of the treasure to make up for the trouble they had experienced since the demise of the great dwarven city.

"I am glad you were understanding of our situation," Thorin thanked, as they rose from the large and well-furnished table. The man and dwarf shook hands, both with smug looks plastered across their faces. He wanted to shrivel up and disappear from the room, but the Master turned to him, offering a grubby hand.

"Kili," he rumbled. "You have always been the best representative we've had from Mirkwood, and I always knew that you had sound heritage. You come from a good family. Remember that." His voice was sickly sweet and covered in fake sincerity. The dwarf could barely contain his own grimace as he too shook the leader of Laketown's hand.

"I will, Master. Thank you for hearing our counsel." The disgusting man bowed his head, releasing the uncle and nephew from his chambers. It was a brisk evening, and Kili could see his breath hanging in the air as he slowly let out the air he had sucked in during the entirety of their meeting. Thorin seemed unfazed, relaxed even, as he watched Laketown prepare for the night to come. People began shutting their windows, looking out at the sinking sun and dimming light. They had been in discussion with the Master for over 3 hours, he realized. Most of it had been filled with pleasantries and questions about the Company and their relationship with Mirkwood. No doubt that such a bond between the men and elves would soon be broken, once Thranduil found out what they had done, but Kili hoped that his adoptive uncle would be more forgiving because of the dwarf's own blunder. Beside him, however, Thorin seemed to be completely unconcerned about the possible repercussions of his quest and insane goals. His nephew wanted to slap the cool and collected look off his face but kept staring straight ahead as they walked back to Bard's home.

Bard. He had ruined everything with his only human friend by helping his lost family go to anger and wake a dragon that could possibly set Laketown ablaze. And therefore he had ruined everything with Sigrid, Bain, and Tilda.

He felt like he was about to scream as they finally approached the house itself. Finally, Thorin seemed to be showing some sort of emotion on his face, his nostrils flared and mouth twisted into a sort of angry grimace. Perhaps, Kili thought, he has realized what his adventure is doing to the people here. But instead, he followed his true uncle's freezing eyes to the balcony, just outside Bard's door. There, shrouded in the shadows cast by the fading light, was a tall and graceful figure with long, flaming red hair that pulsed with the slight breeze. Thorin squinted, but Kili was able to almost instantly recognize the elven uniform and elegant posture.

"Tauriel," he breathed, rushing up the steps ahead of his uncle. She smiled, a real, genuine, smile that he saw very rarely from her. Usually, when around Legolas and Thranduil she seemed irritated and upset, but here she was happy and tranquil. "You found my message!" From out of her uniform she drew the strip and gold and green cloth, still left in the knot he had tied.

"You did a good job with it." The heavy footsteps behind them notified Kili that their reunion was about to be interrupted, but he couldn't help but continue to speak with her.

"You taught me well," he replied. The steps stopped, and he turned around to find Thorin Oakenshield, seeping malice and discontent as he stood at the top of the stairs, only to glare at the pair of them for a moment, before his voice broke through the quiet.

"You," he growled, directing his attention at Tauriel. "What are you doing here?" Kili took a step forward to reprimand the would-be king for such a comment, but Tauriel jumped in too quickly.

"I came to speak with Kili, and to ensure that he was safe. The king was under the impression that he had died on the river. Luckily, I was able to track you here and discover that was untrue. We had information from a surviving orc. I need to speak with your nephew about it," she explained. Thorin brushed past the pair of them, stomping into the house. They were left alone.

"What did the orc say?" he asked in a soft voice. Tauriel did not look at him, keeping her eyes on the darkening horizon.

"He claimed something about the Pale Orc, Azog, not wanting to kill you," she offered. "He said that they simply wanted to reintroduce something to you. We don't know what." Kili did not say anything for a moment.

"Why don't you ask the orc then? You know I don't remember anything about what happened before." His words hung in the air, more bitter than he intended them to be. Tauriel had been a friend of his since they first met when he was assigned to be a forest guard. She was the Captain. Unlike the other elves of Mirkwood, she seemed to be more than tolerant of his presence, even friendly. Eventually, this kind nature had evolved into a bond between them. Though he was always supportive of Thranduil, and would die for his adoptive uncle, he felt like the hotheaded elven Captain was the only one in the kingdom who truly understood him. They were both frustrated with some of the aspects of the fortress, and wanted to see the world, but were both restricted by the king's rules. Both were upset by Legolas' jealous behavior, but both pitied him for the lack of attention he received from his father. They were cut from the same cloth.

"Your uncle was upset by it, and slew the orc before we could get any other riddles from it," she said with a wince. The loss of such a source of knowledge was another loss that had been caused by Thranduil getting his emotions involved in decision making. Kili hated that such a habit had worn off on him. Elves were famous for their wisdom, yet the Mirkwood kingdom was far more driven by impulses, grudges and revenge, the only trait they really shared with the dwarves.

"A pity," Kili commented. She nodded, letting the various sounds of Laketown fill the gap in their conversation. Out of nowhere, she spoke again, this time her voice colder and more business-like.

"You need to come home, Kili." His head swiveled around, from where he had been watching the stars dissolve into the sky. "We have to check out that arrow wound of yours, and figure out what is going on with Azog. And…Thranduil insists on it." He looked away.

"He insists on it?" he chuckled. "You make it sound like an order." The elf shifted uncomfortably.

"It is." That strange warm feeling was rising in his stomach again, but Tauriel kept speaking. "I was sent here to take you home."

"Right. And I assume that nothing about my opinion in this situation factored into those orders." The brief calm he had gone through when Tauriel had arrived was no longer present, replaced with the frustration and betrayal he had been feeling during the meeting with the Master.

"Of course you would want to come home. Don't be ridiculous," she inferred. Kili turned around, meeting her green eyes with his brown ones. Her eyes widened in recognition, the moment she realized that he was not joking. "They're dwarves! You don't know them. How could you choose to stay when your uncle is waiting for you back in Mirkwood?" He considered this for a moment.

"This isn't a choice between you and them," he reasoned. "This is me wanting to figure out what to do with myself."

"Can't you do that in Mirkwood?" She was visibly flustered. He didn't care. Kili had come to a decision.

"I don't need either of you filling my head with opinions of the other people. I can stay here, in Laketown, and sort it out." He could hear his surprise in his own voice. "If I want to come back to Thranduil, I can do that at any time. If I want to see my brother, and my other relatives, I can pursue them." Tauriel shook her head.

"The king will not have it. I am to return with you so we can-"

"I don't care what the king will have, or what he won't! I am telling you what I need to do!" There was a strange clarity in his mind. He did not have to be stuck in the tug-of-war between elves and dwarves. He could remove them both from the equation and choose which way to lean. Once he found that, nothing that Tauriel could say would sway him.

She tried anyway. "Please, Kili. These dwarves only care about their gold. What do they know about you?"

"Twenty years more than I know of myself!" He snapped. Tauriel looked at him like he was some sort of undiscovered creature for a moment, before she began slipping away, off back to the streets.

"Your uncle will be disappointed," she pointed out, as a last ditch effort to convince him. Kili put one hand on the door handle.

"If it makes you feel any better, both of them will be." In a swish of red hair, she glided down the stairs and towards Thranduil's kingdom. He was left feeling slightly empty, but slightly liberated. This sensation was quickly crushed as he saw Thorin waiting for him at the kitchen table. Kili deflated.

"What did she want?" The dwarven king asked in a tight tone. His nephew strode past him, towards the room he shared with his brother.

"Nothing of your concern." He could sense his uncle following him into the hallway, and wanted desperately to ignore it. This turned out to be impossible.

"You're angry about the quest for Erebor. I understand that." Thorin was trying to sound fatherly, but it came out sounding forced and false. Kili paused outside the door to his borrowed bedroom.

"Really? There are a lot of things I don't understand. Like, why was I not informed that you are going to wake a dragon in order to take back a kingdom full of gold that has been long abandoned? Why did you allow me to help you when I had no idea what I was doing?" He was finally letting loose, and it was clear that Thorin was not exactly ecstatic about it. The king sighed, closing his eyes.

"I didn't know if I could trust you with that," he begged. Kili wanted to believe the dwarf, but found himself ranting on.

"I put all my trust in me, and you have been doubting me at every turn!" He accused. The king looked at the floor, but when he looked up, all attempts to be kind or understanding were gone from his frigid blue eyes, and his voice ran as cold as their color.

"So you're going back to pretending to be an elf? You're going to go back to having Thranduil whisper everything in your ear and believe everything he tells you," he shouted. "Is that it? Tell me I'm wrong." Thorin watched, waiting for Kili to challenge everything that had just been said. The dwarf prince ran his fingers through his dark hair, pausing before he answered.

"I am staying in Laketown to figure that out. I am not going to Erebor, and I am not going to Mirkwood. If I want to see you again, then I'll travel to the mountain and see you, on my own accord." The King lurched forward in siege of fury, halted only when a door across the hall slammed open, and a very disgruntled looking hobbit leapt out of it, a figure of pure annoyance.

"If I have to hear any more bickering on this damn quest, I swear!" Bilbo huffed. "I am sick and tired of you picking a fight with anyone who says anything that doesn't go along with your plans! Let Kili do what he wants. It's his life. And for goodness sake, let those of us who lost a considerable amount of sleep yesterday get some rest!" Kili hoped that his eyes could convey his great thanks to the hobbit. It seemed to work, as the smallest of the Company, nodded, before darting back into his room. "Confusticate these dwarves!" Bilbo muttered, shutting the door. Thorin was left speechless, also pleading with his own expression as he stared at his lost nephew. Part of him still yearned to embrace his uncle, to say that he was sorry, but the hardened side of him was more powerful, and he backed into his room, slamming the door in the exiled king's face.

Fili was sitting on the one bed in the room, and opened his mouth to say something, his pained expression making Kili want to melt. "Kee-"

"I'm going to sleep, Fili," the dark-haired brother announced, slumping, once again, in the chair. Silence filled the room like water, and the two were left to drown

~:~

It was dark, pitch black, and Kili was barely aware of his surroundings as he felt himself being lifted from where he hunched. The quiet of the night was no longer intact, as a low and rich voice filled the space that the darkness had provided. "Far over the misty mountains cold…" The words were familiar, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. The voice, too, was one he knew, but he was too tired to put his finger on whose it was. Panic. He felt dazed, unable to move his body, but able to think, to comprehend. "To dungeons deep, and caverns old…" It was a song, and the voice belonged to whoever was carrying him. The words, they seemed to be on the tip of his tongue. Who was singing, and why did it make him feel so horrifically empty? "We must away ere break of day…" The person gently laid him down, and unlike where he had fallen asleep, this was soft, and he was stretched out instead of collapsed. Kili closed his barely open eyes. It was some sort of bizarre dream. The song continued. "To find our long forgotten gold." The singer's voice and song brought him a bizarre comfort, though he couldn't understand why. A hand brushed spare strands of hair from his sweaty forehead. Just a dream, he told himself.

He felt a cold tear slip past his eyelids and onto his burning skin.

Just a dream

~:~

The morning was oddly somber, besides the fanfare of trumpets that informed them of the Master's kept promise. Kili was bleary, feeling more tired than he had been before he went to sleep. An odd ghost of a memory haunted him: a song, a voice, a tear. He shook it from his mind as he watched the other dwarves dress in the fine clothes that Laketown was providing them with, and armed themselves with the weapons the Master had given them. Both Fili and Thorin seemed oddly silent, Fili refraining from being his usual optimistic self, and Thorin barely speaking at all. A lump was slowly growing in Kili's throat. Internally, he was begging himself not to cry, though externally he was stony and angry looking.

They filed out of the house for the last time, only pausing a moment when Thorin thanked Bard for his kind hospitality. The mood seemed to affect the bargeman as well, as he responded in a blank voice, giving Kili a look of such disappointment that it made him want to disappear. Outside, the fanfare and celebration of the men of Laketown was blaring, forcing them all to put on a look of fake content and excitement. He felt like a fish slowly being gutted. The rowboats were waiting for them, a flock of nesting birds ready to whisk the Company away to their destination.

"Kee," his brother's voice whispered as the others began boarding. Kili could barely hear it over the cacophony, but could feel something smooth being passed into his hand. "Keep this with you." He peered down at the gray stone that was nestled in his hand. The rock was flawless, except for a large black inscription on the front of it in letters the younger dwarf prince could not read. He looked up into the melancholy face of his blonde brother, shaking his head.

"I can't read it," Kili pointed out. The amount of members in front of Fili dwindled, marking the moments they had until a farewell.

"Our mother gave it to me. It says 'return to me' in Khuzdul. I don't really need a reminder," the elder admitted, "but you do. I can't live a life where I don't see you again." Despite his best efforts, Kili could feel his eyes filling with tears. Stop it, he firmly instructed.

"I will see you again, Fee," he called as his brother stepped into the nearest boat. The noise was too great, and while he could see Fili's mouth moving, he could not hear what he said. "What?" He shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Promise!"

"I promise!" As the Company drifted away, he felt a rush when his brother smiled. Kili turned his back, weaving his way out of the crowds of men. Rubbing the stone between his rough fingers, he was comforted. He would see Fili again, no matter where he chose to live. Thranduil could understand the bond between brothers, surely. The stone would keep him company, remind him of the promise he made. Turning corners at random, the dwarf slowly found himself wandering through Laketown with no purpose, not paying attention to his surroundings.

He should have seen it coming.

With one hand he tucked his token into the pocket and rounded another corner, finding himself in a shadow. Not a shadow cast by the houses that were built overhead, or any sort of structure, but one enveloping him from the gigantic orc that stood in his path. It was massive, horrible pale skin that was melded with large pieces of crude and sharp metal. One eye was blank and expressionless, a milky color white, while the other was malicious and beady. It had lumpy shoulders and a face that Kili recognized. Why? He opened his mouth to scream, but was struck in the arm by one of its huge fists. He toppled over, fumbled, trying to get up, move, do something as the orc leapt on top of him, one hand clasped around the dwarf's mouth, and the other one holding a dull silver and murderous-looking sword. He could feel himself slowly seeping out of the realm of reality, his vision becoming spotty as the thing raised the weapon and slid it through his bandages and into his already existing wound.

Despite the hand, Kili screamed like he never had before. He had never felt pain like this before. He had never felt pain before. It was a sensation so cold that it was melting his flesh. Every nerve in his body felt like it was grinding against his bones, as he arched his back. His heart begged to stop beating, and mind cried to be put out of its misery. Escape was impossible. There was only agony.

His final memory of the event would be the orc's brutish and cruel smile as it drew out the sword and growled, "Kili."

Author's Note: Usually I would respond to comments in the comment section, but because this was a guest review, I was unable to do so. Guest, I am so sorry if any of my dialogue or parts of my story has been confusing or difficult to understand! I do have a beta reader, but I think the two of us have gotten so used to that habit of mine that we don't correct it any more. Thank you so much for pointing it out! From now on, we will be on the sharper look out for such mistakes. I hope that the rest of the dialogue is clearer. I am glad you are enjoying the story, and once again, apologize if any of my writing has been hard to read. Thank you for reading, and commenting to help make my story better.

Other than that, I hope you enjoyed Chapter 11, and thank you for all the support you have shown! If you want to be informed of when I post a new chapter, then please follow this story. If you really, really like it then I encourage you to favorite it as well. And as always, I love hearing your feedback, predictions, critiques, etc. What do you think is really happening? What does Azog want with Kili? Only I know for sure, but what do you think? Post in the comments! Until next time…