VII.
I am hanging above a ruined tower of stone and ice and snow.
Uncle Thorin and Dwalin - and curiously enough, Bilbo – are down below me, and everything around me is in fragmented shades of white against black, desolately silent. It's as if we stand on the edge of the world.
It's strange how I am not scared, now. Of course, I was scared when they caught me; I was terrified when Azog put the cold steel of his blade to my throat, dragged me by the hair.
But now, as he holds me above his head, I am not afraid. I look down at the ashen, painful look on my Uncle's face, Dwalin's look of despair – and I am strangely overcome by peace. It's alright,I want to tell them; they don't have Kili.
They don't have Kili.
I imagine Kili later in life, as Thorin's heir. He would be all the wiser, with a silver crown on his head, and his beautiful red-haired Elf-queen by his side, resplendent in their matching royal coats of midnight-blue trimmed with white fur.
I knew I would never be King. He would be a much better King than I could ever be.
He will not die here in the snow, like me.
I feel the blade pierce my back, rip through my stomach; I do not breathe as I feel the warmth of my own blood trickle down to my boots.
And then I'm falling. Through the whistling wind, through the snow, towards the meeting earth.
"Do you believe in love at first sight?" my brother had asked me, in what seemed to be an eternity ago.
Of course I believed in it - I believed in it the first moment I laid eyes on him, a baby sleeping peacefully in our mother's arms, so tiny and defenseless. I had sworn from that moment on to protect him from all harm.
I believed in it every time he looked at Tauriel, like I was slowly losing pieces of him with every lingering glance.
I believe in it as I stare up into an empty sky of falling snow, and feel the edges of my vision cloud and turn to black, and see my brother staring back, my little brother, Kili.
Of course I do, little brother.