Wishes for the Lost Company

Trigger warning: the following chapter involves heavy emotional trauma, psychological and physical intimidation, and the injury of a young child. If you are not comfortable reading such themes, please begin reading at the bolded text inside the chapter. Thank you so much for your understanding.

"I wouldn't look at it if I were you," the healer announced for the doorway of the sickbay. Fili stopped for a moment, looking back. A small group of other dwarves had gathered around the doorway. Oin, his brother, and Bofur all looked at the heir with wide eyes, as if wondering what he was going to do next. Was he so unpredictable now?

"How bad is it?" The blonde-dwarf turned his attention back to the bed where his brother had been laid out. The dying dwarf barely breathed, but the most minimal rise and fall in his chest was visible, though his skin was as white as the sheets. None of them had let him into the room to see Kili after it had happened, preoccupied with removing Thorin, understanding the situation that was arising outside. Fili should be in charge now. He knew that. The orc army that had marched into their domain while they fell apart from inside out had formed its attack. Dain, Bard, and Thranduil were holding him, but not for long. The heir should have been coming up with some sort of battle strategy, but he didn't want to do any of that. It was all too real for him.

"If it were my brother, I wouldn't be able to ever forget it," Bofur answered, looking at Oin and Gloin. They seemed to nod in acceptance.

"Go to Balin," Fili ordered the pair. "Tell him I want a proposal for our involvement in this battle, and how we are to deal with Thorin. Tell him to make haste." The two nodded and slipped away, leaving Bofur, the member who usually brought the most joy, singing, and tomfoolery to the group. Yet he stood in the doorway, looking almost forlorn.

"Fili, don't look at it," the elder dwarf repeated. "You don't want to." The heir took a couple of more tentative steps towards the bed, pulling off the top sheet. "Seeing the wound isn't going to make your brother better." The blonde-dwarf shut his eyes for a second, before pushing the wrinkled shirt off of Kili's abdomen, revealing a sight he could have never imagined.

The entire side was swollen like a gigantic bruise, trailing off into smaller patches and sections off from the main area. The skin was deathly wan and sickly looking, standing out in stark contrast to the color of the swelling. The shard has moved at least three inches so it was positioned just above his bottom rib. The skin around the metal piece was a grotesque and unnatural black color that defined blood vessels and further spilling of the bodily fluid under his flesh. It faded too darker purples and finally to crimson edges. The internal injury was far worse than anything the blonde dwarf had ever seen. He had heard many a time of that sign of death, the side effect of internal bleeding. The bruising he had expected, but not on such a scale. He had never heard of the blood turning black either.

He was mesmerized, horrified to the core but unable to look away. The more he saw the injury the more he could see his brother's heart coming to a slow stop, losing him for a second time, never to get him back. His head began to feel like it was stuffed with cotton, his eyes unable to focus on the wound anymore, he stared at his sibling that looked more death than life.

"You need to sit down," Bofur demanded, a hand suddenly on Fili's shoulders. It was eventually the toymaker's surprising grip that tore him from the sight and into a chair facing the opposite direction. The heir could feel a bead of cold sweat sliding down his spine. Everything suddenly seemed very hot. At first, he didn't realize he was crying. He hadn't done so before, not when the dwarves thought they'd lost Kili's pulse, not when Thorin screamed when he saw what he'd done, not even when Oin had suggested driving a dagger through the heart rather than leaving the prince to slowly ebb away. But there the younger dwarf sat as Bofur pulled up another seat, tears streaming silently from his eyes.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Fili finally choked out, not looking into his friend's face. "Finding him in Mirkwood was supposed to be about second chances, to make up for what happened…before…" He hurriedly wiped his face with the back of his hand.

"You've never talked about what happened," Bofur mentioned tentatively.

"I made a promise," the heir replied automatically. "My mother told me we couldn't tell people what Thorin did." The Company member almost smiled, the expression dying on his face before it became fully realized.

"All due respect," he pointed out, "I've just seen the aftermath of your uncle attacking a dying family member when he did nothing wrong. I've seen that," the elder pointed to the bed, "and I've heard many stories about why your brother ran away. I'm sure reality can't be worse than all of that."

"It's different with a child," Fili refused. "An injured dwarf is still able to understand what's going on, realize the decisions that are taking place. A child can't do any of that, especially one as naïve as Kili." He looked expectantly at the toymaker and waited for some sort of advice or quip to come out of his mouth. It didn't happen. Instead, Bofur shrugged.

"If you want to tell me, do it. If not, send my somewhere else," the dwarf suggested. The golden prince took a couple of deep breaths. Never had he told such a story, and for good reason, not only to protect his uncle. He had come close, oh so close, to blurting the tale to Dwalin one night at training, but he had never let the words pass over his lips. Kili didn't remember any of it. It shouldn't have mattered. Yet…

"My mother treated my brother completely different than she did me," Fili began. "Thorin did too. Maybe it was because my mother thought I had grown up too fast. Maybe it was because he was naturally so different than I was. Maybe it was because they wanted a child to raise him like a child. I don't know. I was always spoken to like an equal. They liked to baby Kili, keep him ignorant to things as long as possible, and keep him his own playful self. And Thorin…he would fawn over him. I was treated more like the nephew, but my brother was like my uncle's son." The other dwarf didn't look at the heir while the story was told, simply stared at a spot slightly past Fili's face and nodded slightly.

"We'd moved around a lot before, never stayed very long in one place. That was, until Kili was born and in the same six months my father died. Mother and Thorin finally made the decision to stay in the house we'd used in the Blue Mountains. I never knew what we were running from, and neither did my brother, until he met them," the prince continued. The muscles in his jaw were starting to clench up, as if his very body was against him saying any more than the most vague of information. The heir bit his lip, looking up at Bofur, hoping for some sort of validation.

"Orcs. I know," he responded and looked at the blonde dwarf with an expectant look on his face. Fili took another deep breath before taking the plunge into the story itself.

"Thorin had come earlier that morning for Kili's birthday," the younger dwarf explained, "to give his well wishes for the twentieth year. He was supposed to come back for dinner that night to really celebrate, and that made my brother more excited than anything in the world." In spite of himself, Fili smiled at the thought. "Halfway through the day it started snowing, the first big snow of the winter season. We sat by the window and watched the flakes fall to the ground, and my mother read us a story. Kili practiced his writing for a while, copying the inscription on the bead that my uncle gave him. Everything was perfectly normal." He resisted the urge to look behind him at his dying sibling. "But my uncle didn't show that evening." The toymaker was staring at him again, and replied the moment the golden prince stopped for air.

"Is that why? Because your uncle didn't come?" he asked. The younger dwarf could sense the hope in the elder dwarf's voice, as if he wished that the answer was so simple, and the story wouldn't be one of pain and betrayal. But the heir could also see that his friend knew it was a false hope, the kind you have when a doctor comes back to you after a friend has ben grievously injured. Your friend is dead, and you know it, but you desperately wish the opposite, so much so that it almost comes true.

"My uncle came," Fili denied, the familiar tug forming at the base of his throat. "But not that evening. Kili made my mother and I sit at the table for ages, while he stared at the door, waiting for his hero to walk in. But Thorin didn't come. Mother tried to get my brother to eat something, but he didn't want to. He said that he wanted to eat with our uncle, and no one else. The sun went down, and the night got cold, colder than it had been all year. Eventually, my mother gave up waiting, convinced by brother to take a crust of bread and sent us back to our bedrooms." The heir could see the darkened room in front of him now, his brother sitting at the window sill, ripping off pieces of bread with his teeth as he watched the snow rise around their little house.

"Go to bed, Kee," the elder had instructed. "It's late. He isn't coming." When his brother turned around, the dark eyes of his were shining as bright as the sun.

"I know he will. He can't leave us. He promised," the dark haired dwarf quipped. The blonde dwarf sighed.

"Father made promises too, but he never came back." The moments the words were out of Fili's mouth he knew he shouldn't have said them. His sibling drew his legs up to his chest, framed in the moonlight, and nestled his head between his knees.

"Uncle Thorin isn't dead," Kili snapped, and didn't speak to him any longer.

Fili didn't tell Bofur about the exchange. Some things were meant to be saved.

"It was early in the morning," the elder prince continued, swallowing to send away the lump gathering in his throat. "Must have been past one in the morning when he came in. I knew because Kili jumped on top of me, and shook me awake, refused to let me sleep through the arrival. We snuck out into the hallway, and I damn near had to cover his mouth to keep him from squealing. Thorin was at the table, shaking off his cloak, coat, and jacket, all of them absolutely saturated with clinging snow. His boots were by the door in a big puddle, and his skin that we could see was either chapped red from the wind, or white and waxy." The heir began weaving his fingers in and out of each other just to stop from making eye contact with Bofur, who was watching with interested eyes. As the prince launched into the real part of the story, those eyes got wider and wider.

"I knew we shouldn't have gone in there, 1) because our mother would be upset we were up so late and 2) because I'd never seen my uncle like that in my life. He looked so angry, so scared. You can always see when he gets like that. Can't you?" The Company member nodded in agreement.

"Aye," the toymaker breathed, misty eyed. "I can tell."

"I found out later he had meant to come home as planned, but had gotten stopped in the snow, stranding on the outskirts of the forest. In the woods, there was a pack circling the village. Orcs looking for the survivors of the Battle of Azanulbizar, specifically my uncle and my grandfather. We'd run so far, been so careful, but they found our village," Fili explained. His hands were begin to shake.

"Why didn't they ever strike?" Bofur asked, as if scared for the reply.

"Because they still got something they wanted. When my brother ran, he ran directly into their claws, and they took him. And because my mother was smart enough to move houses several times after that. And after 4 years of movement, we came back to the same village. No orc pack would search a place they already found abandoned."

"But why would your brother run if there was a pack?" the toymaker inquired, shaking his head.

"We didn't know at the time," the heir muttered. "We weren't told anything. Thorin had crawled in the snow all that time, trying to make sure they didn't catch a scent of him, and to make sure he didn't lead them to us." The firelight had danced in the king's eyes and cast mirrors in his iris. Fili shivered. "He did it to protect us, but we couldn't know about that. Or maybe they would've said something about it. But Kili ran past me in the hallway, and called my uncle's name once."

"Thorin!" the child had cried. "You came!" Their uncle's eyes had snapped up, for a moment furious before melting away.

"I'm sorry I didn't come earlier, Kili!" he greeted with a tired smile. It was too forced, too perfect. "I got stuck in the snow. It's a blizzard out there you know."

"Fili says it's the gods celebrating my birthday!" the child responded with a cheeky smile. Thorin ruffled his hair.

"Perhaps it is."

"Where's your brother?" Mother demanded, whirling around from where she stood wringing out her own brother's clothes into a bucket. "Have you been up this entire time?" Fili had stepped out from the shadows.

"We just woke up from the commotion Khagan. I can take him back to bed-"

"No need for that," Thorin cut him off. "I've missed a very important day, and who knows what the next may bring." Dis gave him a cold look, her identical eyes filled with the same anxiety.

"We all sat around the table while my uncle ate. My brother and I both got bread, but we didn't touch it. Afterwards I was going to talk to him about whether or not Uncle had gotten frostbite," Fili stuttered. It was getting increasingly difficult not to speed ahead in his mind, bringing him to worse and worse folds of the same memory. The sides of his mouth started to tremble.

"Dwalin has told me your lessons are going well," their uncle had commented, trying to involve his elder nephew in the conversation. "He says you're quite good with a sword, maybe even skilled enough to wield two one day." The golden child hadn't known how to react, eager to get the conversation off of himself and back onto his brother. He'd said the worst possibly thing to get it there.

"Kili was been working with Mr. Dwalin as well," he had blurted. "They've already started with a weapon." His mother had inhaled sharply. Thorin let his spoon clank against the side of the bowl.

"I changed the conversation to something wrong, something that made my uncle very upset." Fili started to blink very quickly.

"I thought we'd agreed that I got to choose such matters, sister," their uncle had said in a voice of venom as he turned to their mother. She sat in her chair like a stone statue, stiff and rigid.

"My son wanted to start early. He got inspiration. I thought…you didn't have to know." The blonde prince froze, realizing he had made a terrible mistake. Thorin had insisted on picking the weapons that his nephews would use. So despite Fili's desire to wield an axe, his uncle had informed Dwalin to teach him swordsmanship. He thought of the weapon in Kili's room, the relic they'd found in the attic, the secret his mother had told him not to tell Thorin.

"Then let's see it," the would-be king growled. Kili was also stuck to his seat. "Go show me, Kili. I don't see why your mother kept it a secret from me." His brother hadn't moved. His mother looked terrified.

"You don't have to do it now," she whisper to her younger son. "It's late. Go back to sleep."

"I think my nephew wants to show me," Thorin had repeated, the mirrors in his eyes reflecting agitation and danger. Against all hope, the child had slide from his chair and crept back to his room.

"What had Kili done?" Bofur demanded. Fili rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.

He'd returned carrying it, a weapon almost a large as he was, but just small enough so he could practice with it, and pretend he was a warrior. It was a great bow, majestic and well constructed in the traditional dwarvish way: angular and strong, the string pulled tight enough to play like a harp. Under the notch was a large symbol made of handcrafted metal, a sigil for some sort of warrior past that neither of the brothers recognized. That didn't matter. It made his brother happy, and it taught him a skill he wanted to learn, and that was all the heir cared about.

"He'd been using the discarded bow of my uncle's dead brother, Frerin." Everything was becoming a blur of the times the elder prince had wanted to forget. Out of his control, the world was spinning, and he was barely aware of his wet cheeks, or the way his fingers tore at his hair.

Thorin burst from the chair, rising to his full height like a mountain erupting from nowhere. Fili's mother had shouted something he didn't remember. The golden child had grabbed the sides of his chair as some form of security. Kili had stood there, trembling, for the first time, looking petrified in his uncle's presence.

"That," the would-be king had shouted, "is not a toy! It is not yours to disrespect or break. I have seen it broken before, my sister-son, and if you don't give it to me now I will make sure to break it over your head." The dark haired prince flinched. His mother yelled.

"I won't let you come into my house and let you threaten my son!" she bellowed. Both the children were on the verge of tears, Kili clutching the bow and Fili his chair.

"He may be your son but he is my prince and heir!" Thorin roared. "And I will do with him, whatever I want!"

The heir was clutching his head in his hands, Bofur's hand on his shoulder as his mind spiraled out of control. "Breathe, Fili. You need to breathe," he comforted. It didn't work. In his mind, all those he loved were screaming.

"Give me the bow, Kili!" his uncle was demanding, his voice getting louder and courser. His mother pried Fili from the chair, dragging him behind her.

"Get away from him!" she shrieked. Thorin came closer and closer to the dark prince, who held the bow in tight white fingers, his knuckles glowing.

"Give it to me, and we'll forget you ever took it!"

"But Khagan says it's mine now! Why would you take something that's mine?" the child cried as he back into the corner.

"He was so angry. You haven't seen him like that before today. He was so angry, so angry," the nephew sobbed. His friend was trying to help him, drag him back to reality.

"Look at me, Fili," the toymaker begged.

"Look at me, Kili!" Thorin demanded, grabbing his sister-son hard on the cheek. The younger prince had smashed the bow against his uncle's arm. It had been a reflex, a fear, something the dwarfling couldn't have controlled. To their uncle it had been an insult of the highest nature.

Before Kili could run back into his bedroom, Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, raised an arm to strike his nephew.

"I can't tell you," the heir pleaded. It was a secret, he shouldn't have said anything. He was breaking his mother's promise like his uncle had broken her heart. "I can't tell you. I won't tell you."

"You don't have to."

Fili would never know if his uncle had actually hit his brother. Thorin had sustained that he had stopped the blow before it could be delivered, that Kili had pulled the bow in front of his face as defense, and recoiled, pulling the metal notch into his own skull. He hadn't been able to see the strike delivered from where he stood.

But he saw his uncle wind up and bring his hand down.

And he saw the bow collide with his brother's head.

Thorin had torn the bow away from the child, violently throwing it across the room.

It broke when it hit the wall.

For a moment, the world stood still. Kili clutched the side of his head, not knowing to scream or to cry. Thorin stood over him with wide eyes, not knowing what he had done.

"It wasn't meant to happen the way it did!" The golden prince whimpered.

"I believe you, Fili. I do," Bofur assured.

Then blood began to seep through Kili's fingers, and Thorin recoiled, and Fili stared and Dis screamed. Then his brother let out a wail that shattered the heir's life.

And then the prince with the dark hair like his mother and the heart like his uncle and the hope like his brother ran bolted past all three of them, and into the snow.

And he ran until they found his blood.

"I figured your uncle had hurt Kili like he did today, before," Bofur hushed. "You wouldn't have reacted the way you did if he hadn't." Fili was beginning to pull focus again, though his eyes still blurred his vision and his ribcage still trapped his heart.

"He promised me when he came back," the heir explained, "that he would never do something like that again. And he broke that oath. I can't expect loyalties from oath breakers." The toymaker shook his head.

"You can't refuse to forgive your uncle forever," his friend mused.

"I can refuse anything I want," Fili commanded, sitting up and rubbing his face with his sleeves. "When he is so unfit to take charge, the responsibility falls on me."

"It is not wise to hold grudges against your family in times of war," Bofur pointed out, eyes kind and soft.

"Why not?"

"Because death can take them at any time, and it won't wait for you to reconcile yourself with your uncle. Do you want to lose him, or have him lose you with words left unsaid?" the Company member reasoned. Fili sat for a second, finally casting another glance at his brother.

"I will speak with him," the heir decided. "If only for my brother." The toymaker nodded somberly as the two rose. The blonde dwarf turned back to his dying sibling, leaned down, and pressed their foreheads together. Kili's skin was both freezing and feverish. I swear, I will never let anyone hurt you again, he silently promised. And I promise that I will not leave you when you need me most, for you swore to me back when we were children that you would never let me walk this earth alone, and I swore the same to you. For a brief time, the heir could almost pretend the prince was sleeping. He drew up, nodding at Bofur, before striding to the door. Before they could exit, however, a distraught looking hobbit skidded to a halt before them.

"Fili!" the halfling gasped, breathing hard. "I had to find you as soon as possible!"

"What is it?" the heir snapped, immediately suspicious.

"Tauriel has entered the mountain. She has asked Balin for the honor of reading materials left in the library." Bilbo's copper-brown hair was unsettled, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

"What does she need them for?" Bofur inquired.

"She think she knows what's wrong with Kili."

AN: Hey guys. Thank you for reading this most recent chapter of my little story. Tried to develop some of the other dwarves a little more, specifically Bofur, who I have a deep respect for. He's really easily written off as the happy one, but I think he has a little more of a strong moral center, and I wanted to showcase that a little. I really hoped you enjoyed it. If you did, make sure you follow it so you are given a notification when I update it again. If you want to share this story with other authors, then please favorite it. And, as always, I love hearing from you guys so please put all comments, critiques, and feedback in a review for me. Not only is it great motivation for me to get chapters out quicker, but I also really value your opinions. Thanks so much, and until next time…