Chapter VI

Kíli gazed up at the stars sparkling in the sky. It seemed as if now that Smaug's fires had been extinguished and the smoke had lifted, they were gleaming with renewed power in the clear air. He was lying on his back on the floor of the boat that his brethren were rowing across the lake towards the Mountain of Erebor. The movement of the water beneath him and the sloshing sound of the waves against the underside of the boat were oddly comforting in their regularity after the turmoil they all—and Kíli himself in particular—had gone through.

After the chaos of the preceding hours, their course of action now appeared to be blessedly simple and clear. They would arrive at the mountain soon and from that point in time there would be two alternatives. In one, they would find Thorin, the other dwarves and their burglar alive and well and would proceed to aid them in the reconstruction of the home of their forefathers and rebuild the civilization of Erebor. Which would not be an easy task, but one that Kíli had been preparing for all his life, after all.

In the other scenario—and Kíli hoped that this would not come to pass but had to acknowledge the possibility—their friends and family had not managed to escape the terrible wrath of Smaug. In that case Fíli would become king and they would have to somehow manage all of this on their own, without being able to look to Thorin for guidance.

If this were to happen, it would surely be a rocky road until they could live in peace. Negotiations with other peoples would have to be arranged—Elves, Men and possibly others—and Kíli feared that there would also be disagreement among his own kind whether Fíli truly was the rightful successor to the throne.

As he lay there, being gently rocked from side to side by the motions of the boat, he turned his head slightly to look at his brother, wondering whether he would be ready to take on such tremendous responsibility. Fíli's expression as he plunged the oar into the water and rowed was one of both anticipation and strong determination. In the white light of the moon and the silver gleam of the stars his features were emphasized sharply and despite their difference in type, the resemblance between him and his uncle was hard to overlook. He looked … noble. Yes, Kíli thought, Fíli was ready to fulfill his destiny if need be.

And he would stand by his brother no matter what. And maybe, one day, when everything and everyone had settled, he would ask to be relieved of his duties and remove himself from Erebor for a while to somewhere more remote, somewhere where he could breathe and find peace once again. Heal.

The events of the past few days had drastically changed Kíli's view on things. His thirst for fame and glory had subsided and while he was still ready to sacrifice everything for his kin and his family, the chance to prove himself in battle had somehow lost the appeal that it had held when they had set out on their quest. Kíli did not know whether it was the darkness that his orc-inflicted wound had temporarily pulled him into or the light that his affection for Tauriel had brought to his life for the shortest of times, but it felt as if he had aged a lot in only a few hours. He had experienced both the purest form of happiness and the most bottomless despair and somehow that had left him more aware of the things in life that really mattered. He could not suppress a sigh at the thought that, sadly, those things did not seem to be within his reach right now.

Upon hearing his sigh Fíli glanced down at his brother. "You alright down there, Kíli? How's the leg?"

Kíli mustered a smile. "Much better. Almost as good as new."

This was of course not entirely true. The pain in his leg had dulled and what remained of it was mostly a feeling of coldness that Kíli was not sure would ever entirely fade, the remnants of the fiendish poison still lingering in his body. He did not mind, however. As long as he could still feel his injury, at least he knew that he was able to still feel at all, that the emotional and bodily pain of the last two days had not made him go completely numb. And it served as a reminder of the one who had healed him…

Kíli was torn out of his thoughts when the boat suddenly scraped over gravel and the soothing, rocking movements stopped. They had reached the shores of Erebor. Now, only a few hours separated them from finding out what their destiny would be.

The sun was rising as they arrived at the foot the mountain and began their climb. In the golden light of the morning sun, the jagged grey stone walls of Erebor were truly a view to behold and for a moment Kíli was filled with a sort of giddy anticipation and forgot about the dark thoughts that had been troubling his mind. They had finally made it! The dream that had been present in his life ever since he had been a young dwarfling was finally coming true.

Dragging themselves up one last flight of stairs, they arrived on a small stone terrace on which, according to the map they had carried with them, the entrance that Thorin and the others must have used was located.

Before Kíli and the others had time to register much about their surroundings—let alone the magnificent view from the small terrace—a small person with light brown curls emerged from a crack in the wall, nursing a golden cup filled with wine.

"Bilbo!" Fíli and Bofur exclaimed simultaneously.

The Hobbit's eyes widened upon seeing them and he promptly dropped his cup. "Óin! Bofur! Fíli and Kíli!" He came running towards them to greet them. "It's so good to see you! We were hoping that you would come soon, but then of course we couldn't be sure…"

From his excited voice, Kíli could tell that Bilbo probably had many questions and would want to hear the whole story of their journey to Erebor, but this would have to wait. Leaning down slightly he took hold of Bilbo's shoulders and looked at him intently. "Bilbo, my friend, tell us, how are the others who came here with you? Are they… alive?"

Bilbo opened his mouth to answer, but before he got out a word, Thorin stepped out of the crack in the wall, which, as they saw now, was actually a secret door carved into the stone walls. He was followed by the rest of their company, all of them, evidently, unharmed.

Kíli would probably have found it difficult had he been asked to describe the emotions of this precise moment. But as Thorin stepped into the light of the morning sun, his posture upright and proud, a shiver went down his spine and he fully realized for the first time that they had really achieved their quest. They were home. And Thorin was their king.

A broad smile spread across Thorin's face upon seeing the four of them standing there with Bilbo. He strode over and immediately went to Kíli, clasping him to his chest. Kíli, stunned by this—by Thorin's standards—highly unusual gesture, simply returned the embrace. Then, taking a step back and holding Kíli by his shoulders at arm's length, Thorin looked at him intently.

"I am so glad to be able to greet you here, Kíli. I greatly regretted having to leave you behind." Thorin's voice was heavy with emotion, but Kíli also noticed that he did not say he was sorry for his actions. Well, after all he had been right, hadn't he? Kíli really would have slowed them down and he would be dead by now if he had not been forced to stay behind in Lake-town where Tauriel could find and heal him.

Kíli nodded, but found that he could not quite hold his uncle's gaze. Now that Thorin stood in front of him alive and well, the feeling of betrayal stirred again in Kíli's chest, despite all his reasonings. Thorin leaned down a little and forced him to look him in the eye. "We will speak more, later," he said, quietly, acknowledging the pain that his decision had caused his nephew.

After a few minutes of a cheerful exchange of greetings between the two groups, Thorin led the newcomers into the mountain, all of them eager to get inside and see with their own eyes what they had longed for for such a long time.

"Restoring everything to its former glory will of course be a lot of work, but some parts of the city appear to be almost exactly as they were left behind by the dwarves. We have set up our quarters for now in the northern part of the mountain…" Thorin's voice faded away as he and the others disappeared through the door.

Kíli lingered behind for a moment, turning to look at Lake-town in the distance and the lake itself below, shimmering in the sunlight. His thoughts went out to Tauriel, wondering if she, too, had returned home by now. He hoped she was well and that the blond elf prince and his stubborn father were not giving her a hard time.

He took a deep breath and told himself to push those thoughts from his mind for now. He would need to stay focused on their task of rebuilding Erebor. And it would also not do him any good to show his feelings in front of the whole company. It had been alright while he had been in Lake-town with the three others – they probably chalked his behavior up to his illness and while it somehow bothered him that they did not seem to be willing to take his feelings for Tauriel seriously, he was also immensely glad that that meant that nothing of his and Tauriel's story would be mentioned to Thorin or the others for now.

Thorin had never minded when he or Fíli—mostly Fíli—had developed an interest in someone and sometimes had even cheered with the others when their wooing had been successful. He could however not imagine his uncle coming to terms with an elf at his nephew's side. Kíli snorted. Not that this was a scenario that was very likely to come true.

"Kíli?" His brother poked his head around the door, looking at him questioningly. "Are you coming or do you need me to ask Thorin to issue a special invitation, just for you?"

Registering a hint of worry in Fíli's voice under all that teasing, Kíli did his best to put on a bright smile. "I'm on my way! Just enjoying the view from our kingdom for a moment."

Fíli returned his smile and disappeared back into the mountain. Inhaling the sweet air of the morning for one last time, Kíli followed his brother into the depths of Erebor.

Kíli slowly walked down one of the many hallways in the mountain of Erebor, idly trailing his hand along the wall. Thorin had asked to see him and for some reason Kíli felt reluctant to speak to his uncle. Why, he could not quite say.

He let his eyes roam the long corridor from floor to ceiling. Everything was so bloody huge in Erebor and always so elaborately decorated—almost out of proportion. While Kíli was fascinated by opulent architecture and magnificent gems and diamonds, he did not share the admiration that most members of his kin had for such things. It had always been the more intangible things in life he had loved the most—freedom, exercise, the feeling of his bow in his hand, the blurring at the edge of his vision as he ran through the woods. No, he was not a 'typical' dwarf—if such a thing even existed. Lately he had lost his faith in most of those labels.

Stopping in front of a door at the end of the corridor, Kíli hesitated briefly before entering. He found himself in a room that must once have been one of the private rooms of the former king, Thorin's grandfather. Thorin was standing at the far end of the room, studying an extremely large, richly embroidered tapestry that was hung on one of the stone walls. It covered the wall from floor to ceiling (which was quite a distance) and as far as Kíli could see from where he was standing, it depicted an intricate family tree.

Behind Thorin, Kíli was vaguely aware of a luminescent glow that seemed to originate from a small object on a round table carved out of stone. Kíli's eyes went wide.

"Is that it?" he whispered. "The Arkenstone?"

He wanted to step closer, but Thorin blocked his path. Slightly puzzled, Kíli looked up at his uncle and was even more confused when he noted the defensive, slightly aggressive look upon his Thorin's face. But that passed within a fleeting moment and Thorin's features softened.

"It is indeed, delivered to me by our dear burglar," he replied, and Kíli thought that he caught a slight emphasis on the words 'to me'. "But that is not what I wanted to show you."

Kíli was eager to get a better look at the stone, after all this stone was the reason they were here now, the reason why they had travelled halfway across Middle Earth. The reason why his entire life had changed. But he was acutely aware that Thorin seemed unwilling to discuss the Arkenstone—unwilling to share?—and so he decided to drop this matter for the time being.

With one last gaze at the stone that seemed so small considering what they had all gone through to obtain it, Kíli allowed his uncle to draw his attention away from the stone and towards the tapestry which he had noticed upon entering.

Thorin beckoned him over and laid his hand on his nephew's shoulder as he came to stand beside him. "This," he said, "is the family tree of Durin. Generations of kings from this line have sat on the throne in the halls of Erebor." He pointed to the bottom of the family tree. "I cannot tell you how glad I am that I am now able to continue this tradition. And one day you and your brother will continue Durin's line. Through you the family will prevail."

Kíli smiled slightly, not really knowing what to say to this. Also, he was not entirely sure anymore if he was even cut out to be an heir of Durin, seeing that he was suddenly having all those strange feelings, all those doubts…

Thorin squeezed his shoulder. "Kíli, if I have made you feel as if you are not a worthy part of this family when I decided to leave you behind in Lake-town then I deeply regret that. Because it is not true. You are of great value to this family. And to me, personally."

"No, Thorin, I understand," Kíli mumbled, touched by his uncle's words. "You did what you had to do. For Erebor."

Thorin shook his head. "Not just for Erebor. Also for you. I knew that you would not make the journey in your current state. I suppose I was hoping for some kind of miracle to happen, that somehow you would be saved. And it looks as if you were!" He smiled down at his nephew.

"Yes, I was spared by fate once more," Kíli said quietly, evading his uncle's gaze. He already knew what his next words would be.

"Tell me," Thorin said, "whom or what do I owe thanks for curing you so miraculously? When we left you at Lake-town you were so very ill, and now you appear before me in almost perfect health. How is that possible?"

Kíli hesitated. He was quite sure that Thorin would not like all the parts of the story. But then he decided that he would hear most of it from one of the others eventually and that he might as well tell him everything. Well, not everything, obviously, but the parts that his uncle needed to know about.

"Well…" He fumbled for words. "There is Óin, obviously, and Bard's daughters who also helped care for me…"

"And?"

Kíli's throat went dry. He immediately chastised himself for being so foolish. All he had to do was say her name. "Tauriel!" he blurted out, maybe a little too quickly, a little too loudly.

Thorin frowned. "Who?"

Kíli stared at some spot on the tapestry with the family tree as if it were terribly interesting to him all of a sudden. "From Mirkwood. The Captain of the Guard, remember? Red hair, quite good at killing those nasty spiders…" Skin like silk. More beautiful than all the stars that are in the sky.

"An elf!" Thorin exclaimed, perplexed. "But what was she doing in Lake-town?"

Looking for me, Kíli thought, but of course he did not say that. "She was hunting some of the orcs that attacked us when we escaped from Mirkwood," he said instead. "They followed us to Lake-town. I do not really remember that part, but Tauriel must have caught up with the orcs at the same moment when they launched another attack on us at Bard's house. The orcs were defeated or chased away, Tauriel stayed and healed me. End of story."

And yet only the beginning of another one…

Thorin remained silent for a few moments, his expression unreadable. "That elf…"

"Tauriel," Kíli interrupted him. "Her name is Tauriel."

Thorin looked at him suspiciously and Kíli quickly averted his gaze. Thorin continued. "Tell me, Kíli, are you under any obligation towards her? For what she did?"

Kíli looked at him, genuinely puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Did she specify any conditions under which she would help you? Were there … any requests from her side?"

Kíli understood then. "You mean whether she wanted anything in return for her healing? A payment?"

Thorin nodded.

Kíli was at a loss for words. And slightly offended at the suggestion that Tauriel might act out of such purely selfish reasons. "If it's your precious gems that you are worried about," he said, more sharply than he had intended, "do not fret. She never mentioned anything about wanting something in return to either me or the others. And either way, we are even now."

"What do you mean?" Thorin replied. "Didn't you say that her helping you was the end of the story?"

Shit. He had not meant to say that last bit.

"Yes, I mean, no …" Kíli found himself fumbling for words once again. "The dragon, you know… there was so much chaos and she ran into some difficulties and I… I helped her."

Thorin seemed surprised. "The elf was also involved in the destruction of the dragon?"

"We all were, Thorin." Now it was Kíli's turn to be surprised. "Uncle, the dragon nearly destroyed the town and all its inhabitants. There was so much fire, so much damage…"

"I understand that, Kíli," Thorin said gravely. "We did not plan for Smaug to escape. But once he had gone there was nothing that we could have done. It just surprises me that an elf of all people would stick around to help."

Kíli suppressed the anger that was rising inside of him at his uncle's words and tried to keep his voice level. "Is it really so hard to imagine that Elves, Dwarves and Men could fight side by side? Could help each other without any ulterior motives in mind?" Could become friends? Lovers, even?

Thorin maintained a stubborn silence, so Kíli continued. "Once other of our kin start arriving here, we could maybe send some of our men to Laketown, to help them rebuilt their city, couldn't we? After all it is sort of our fault that Smaug attacked them…"

Thorin looked at him, sharply. "As I said, there was nothing to be done once Smaug had made up his mind. This would have happened sooner or later anyway."

"But still…" Kíli tried to reason.

"The decision whether we support the people of Laketown or not will have to be made, but when it is made, it is made by me. Soon enough both men and Elves will start showing up on our doorstep anyway, asking for a whole lot of things."

Then why not just give them what they want? As far as I can tell we have more than enough here. Kíli would have liked to say this out loud, but felt that he had overstepped his bounds already. He could only hope that Thorin would make the right decisions eventually.

"Well, if you do decide to send some help to Lake-town, I would like to be a member of that party," Kíli said out loud.

Thorin did not reply. He had gone back to studying the tapestry, his hands clasped rigidly behind his back. Kíli took this as a cue that their conversation was over and slowly made his way to the door. He could not wait to get out of the room—the atmosphere had turned very tense very quickly.

Thorin's voice made him stop in his tracks, one hand already on the door handle. "You've changed, Kíli."

Kíli hesitated. "Not really, no. The last few days were just a little rough. I'm exhausted." He half turned and gave his uncle a small smile, trying to ease the tension between them.

Thorin did not return his smile and shook his head slightly. "No. I can see it in your eyes. You are not the same man you were when we left you in Lake-town."

Kíli did not know what to say to this. Yes, he was different. Felt differently. Thought differently. Had a different perspective on things. But how could he have explained any of this to his uncle? His uncle, who always seemed to know what was right and what was wrong, who only saw the black and the white and never the grey?

Thorin turned his attention back to the tapestry. "Just make sure that you do not forget where you belong."

He did not say anything else and Kíli quickly escaped through the door. He walked down the corridor as fast as he could without running and only stopped once he was at a safe distance from Thorin's chambers. Leaning against one of the walls, he tried to calm his pounding heart.

What had all this been about? He had never gotten into any serious disagreements with his uncle before. On the contrary, he had always admired him for his thinking, almost worshiping the ground that he walked on. Sure, more than once he had been reprimanded by Thorin for acting too rashly, for speaking without thinking first. But Thorin had always forgiven him very quickly. And Kíli had never—not once—had the impulse to talk back to his uncle. But that had been before Lake-town. Before Smaug. Before Mirkwood. Before… her.

Kíli sighed. Before he could do any more thinking, what he needed most was some rest. Sleep. Oblivion. His mood brightened considerably at the thought that tonight would be the first night in a while that he would get to sleep in a proper bed.