Chapter XXII

Tauriel stared in open curiosity at the dwarf-woman whom Kíli had just identified as his mother. Never had she seen a female dwarf up close. Since they had arrived at Erebor, she had caught glimpses of the few other dwarf-women that currently populated the city below the mountain, but, painfully aware that during those encounters she herself was the one being stared at, Tauriel had always hurried past quickly, casting her eyes down self-consciously.

Now that she finally had a chance to get a good look at one of the female members of Kíli's race, she was fascinated by the—for what her Elven eyes were used to—unusual and raw beauty that radiated off the dwarf-woman who had just barged into the room. She seemed strong, fierce, like a warrior. At the same time she possessed an inherent gracefulness and gentleness, her love for her sons written all over her face. Aside from a few very particular physical traits that had always drawn Tauriel to Kíli irresistibly, but which she was unable to entirely put her finger on, he resembled his mother, whose name Tauriel knew to be Dís, greatly. They shared the same hair, same eyes, same skin, and—Tauriel bit down on her lip to keep herself from smiling—beard.

Dís marched into the room purposefully, pushing Gandalf, who looked mildly amused, out of the way. As she advanced upon Kíli, Tauriel thought for a moment she might slap him—and both the look in his eyes and the way he ducked his head suggested that so did he. But instead she reached out and crushed him to her bosom, whispering words which Tauriel did not understand—but she did not have to, their meaning were clear. You are alive. You survived. My son has been returned to me.

When she let go of her youngest son, Dís held him at arm's length, studying his face, checking for any damage. She frowned a little when she gazed into his eyes and seemed about to remark something, when Gandalf cleared his throat.

"I will leave you to it," he said, making for the door, "I am sure there is a lot you need to discuss."

At that Dís immediately flared up again. "Oooh no, you won't. Neither of you leaves here, not before you have explained to me the meaning of all this—" She vaguely gestured around the room with her hands, looking from her son to Thorin on the bed. Tauriel flinched when she so suddenly raised her voice to command Gandalf to stay and took a half-step back, knocking over an empty cup which she had previously placed onto the table behind her. The angry dwarf-woman whirled around when she heard the noise and noticed Tauriel on the other side of the room for the first time, her eyes narrowing in confusion. "And this!" she exclaimed, making Tauriel flinch once more and quickly lower her gaze to the floor.

"Mother!" Kíli cried indignantly when Dís addressed Tauriel like that and she turned back around to glance at him before returning her gaze to Tauriel, her expression softening.

"I am sorry, love, I did not mean it like that." Tauriel accepted her apology with a nervous nod. Dís looked from her to Gandalf to Kíli. "I just don't understand any of this. Dwarves are quarrelling over who should be King under the Mountain, my brother is afflicted by some disease no one really wants to tell me about… what mess have you gotten yourselves in, Kíli?"

Kíli bit his lip, looking at Thorin. "It will all be made right soon, mother. I… I cannot tell you everything that has happened right now, but I promise you, you'll understand eventually." He looked at Tauriel and paused, a slight blush coloring his cheeks. "As for Tauriel… she's with me."

Tauriel's heart jumped into her throat. This she had not expected. Neither had Dís as it seemed—how could she have?

"With you?" she asked, completely dumbstruck.

"Yes, with me," Kíli confirmed and smiled at Tauriel, who felt her own cheeks heart up, but returned his smile. If he could stand up for their relationship—in front of his mother, no less—then so should she. It was time. Too much had happened for them to pretend that they were mere acquaintances any longer. She did not think that anyone really believed them anymore either way.

After a moment of stunned silence, Dís broke into slightly hysterical laughter. She sank down on one of the chairs next to Thorin's bed, wiping tears from her eyes. Kíli and Tauriel looked at each other in concern.

"With you," Dís said again, gasping for air. "I suppose I should be surprised, but I can't say I am, son. You were always —" she broke off, shaking with laughter. "You were always—" she tried again, but this time she was interrupted by another voice, barely above a whisper.

"Little sister, is that your laugh that I am hearing? How—how is this possible?"

"Thorin!" several people in the room exclaimed simultaneously. Kíli and Dís rushed to his side, as did the two remaining dwarves. Tauriel took care to melt into the background, figuring that it might not be so good if one of first things Thorin Oakenshield saw when he regained consciousness was an elf in his bedroom.

"Thorin," Dís said again, reaching for her brother's hand. "Can you hear me?"

Tauriel could see the dwarf king struggle to keep his eyes open, but then he smiled, looking at his younger sister tenderly. "Of course I can hear you, even though I cannot quite believe my ears, nor my eyes. What are you doing here? And what is so funny?"

Dís returned his smile, slightly tearful. She looked at Kíli across from her, who also smiled, but shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Nothing really," Dís thus said in answer to Thorin's last question and continued to look at him happily.

Thorin turned his head and looked at Kíli, frowning. "What is going on? What happened?"

Kíli perched on the edge of the bed as his uncle struggled into a sitting position, the haze in eyes clearing gradually. After a couple of seconds of thoughtful silence, Kíli spoke, hesitantly. "What… what do you remember?"

Tauriel could sense the trepidation in his voice, brought about by the fact that no one could know to what degree Thorin had been himself during those past few weeks, and to what extent he had been controlled by the Arkenstone.

The dark-haired dwarf king seemed about to respond, but then paused, frowning. "I… everything is a bit… foggy, I suppose," he then said, visibly struggling to sort through his thoughts. "There's… I remember being angry… very angry. At everyone and everything." He looked at Kíli, his frown deepening. "At you in particular. What would I be angry at you for, Kíli?"

Kíli averted his gaze, hiding the pain that those memories had to bring him. Tauriel's heart ached for him and she wished that she could help him through this, but it was something that he had to do on his own—she might only make matters worse if she got involved now. Kíli seemed just about to reply when Gandalf jumped in.

"You were not yourself lately, Thorin. I have seen it with my own eyes—we were all very worried about you."

Thorin fixed the wizard with his gaze, horrified. "What happened to me? What did I do?"

Gandalf hesitated before continuing. "It seems that you were… influenced."

"Influenced?" Thorin exclaimed, his voice cracking slightly. He broke off, coughing, still weakened from what his mind and body had been put through. Then he looked around at the people gathered around his bed. "Would someone please tell me what is going on? Gandalf, what are you speaking off?"

"That's what I would like to know, too," Dís muttered, looking from Gandalf to Kíli with raised eyebrows.

Kíli nodded to Gandalf, asking him silently to continue. The wizard sighed. And then he told Thorin everything. Told him how, over the past couple of weeks, he had been deteriorating slowly until his final collapse a few days before.

When he paused, Thorin stared at him, the expression on his face one of utter desolation. "So they were all right," he said, his voice hollow. "Madness. It runs in my family. It has destroyed this kingdom once and now it will do so again.

"No," Kíli quickly interrupted him. "No, Thorin. We stopped it. Stopped it from taking over control completely. Don't you feel it? Don't you feel much better?"

Thorin blinked. "Yes… I feel… lighter somehow." Then he frowned and looked from Kíli to Gandalf and back, his expression growing skeptical. "What did you do?"

Kíli bit his lip while Gandalf sighed. "You are not going to like this, but understand that we did not have much of a choice," the wizard said.

"What did you do?" Thorin repeated, his voice strained. He tried to sit up further but then sank back into his pillows when the effort became too much at the moment.

Now it was Kíli's turn to sigh. Then, after a long pause, he reached out and pulled open the drawer of the nightstand. With curiosity and confusion written across their faces, everyone except for Gandalf and Tauriel watched him reach inside and gingerly pull out its content. Tauriel wished she could simply disappear into the wall she was leaning against, and Gandalf looked as if he, too, longed to vanish into thin air at this very moment.

Carefully, Kíli placed the stone that was from now on to pass as the Arkenstone even though it was only an ordinary jewel—pretty, but ordinary—onto the polished wooden top of Thorin's nightstand.

Dís gasped when she laid eyes on it. "Is that—"

"No, it's not," Thorin interrupted her, frowning. To Kíli he said, "What is that supposed to tell me? What is this?"

Tauriel watched Kíli take a deep breath. "The Arkenstone," he then said.

Thorin gave an incredulous laugh which quickly turned into another cough. "No, I believe not. I do not know what kind of game you are playing here, but please stop now. Where is the real stone?"

Kíli raised his eyes to look straight at his uncle. "Gone."

Thorin blinked. "Gone," he repeated flatly. Tauriel risked a glance at his face from her corner of the room, still trying to remain unseen. She saw a broad range of emotions wash across the dwarf kings face—confusion, shock, loss, anger (a lot of that, actually), fear, and something else, something Tauriel could not quite put her finger on. At the back of her mind she wondered what she would do if he were to attack Kíli after this revelation. Should she intervene or stay out of this whole business, let them sort it out for themselves?

But before Thorin could do anything, Gandalf took a preemptive strike by stepping forward and speaking in a persistent voice. "Listen to me Thorin. It was the stone that caused all of this—caused you to fall ill. And possibly also your grandfather before you. I did not entirely believe it myself until I saw what it could do with my own eyes. We had no choice but to remove it. Permanently."

Thorin let his head fall back against the headboard of his bed and stared at the vaulted ceiling. "And am I right to assume that this... thing here is now supposed to convince everyone as the Arkenstone? To ensure my reign over this kingdom? To ensure our peace?" he spoke through his teeth.

"I think it looks quite magnificent," Ori, who had until now kept to the background with Bifur, threw in, obviously trying to be helpful.

Thorin looked him, taking note of his presence for the first time since waking up. "You knew about this, too? Who else knows?" He sounded extremely distressed.

"Only those who love you most, Thorin" Gandalf answered. "They all took on a great risk to help you. Kíli especially."

Thorin turned his head in Kíli's direction. "This was your idea?" he asked, his voice hollow.

Tauriel's heart ached when she saw Kíli's shoulder's droop as he nodded in confirmation of his uncle's question.

"Out. Everyone—out!" Thorin suddenly commanded, making everyone flinch at the unexpected volume of his previously rather weak voice. "No, not you," he added, when Kíli moved to leave the side of his bed, causing Kíli to slump back onto the edge of the mattress in defeat.

The other dwarves left immediately, although Dís went hesitantly, clearly unsure whether she should really leave her son alone with her very upset brother. Tauriel tried to catch Kíli's eye, but he did not look up and she took that as a sign that it would be better if she, too, left.

And so she fell into step beside Gandalf, who, conveniently but probably not entirely coincidentally, shielded her from Thorin's gaze on their way out. As she stepped into the hallway, she spoke a silent prayer that her love would be returned to her in one piece after the conversation he was about to have with his uncle.

The silence in Thorin's room after the door clicked shut behind the others was oppressive and made Kíli's ears ring with a nasty, high-pitched sound. This felt a little bit as it had when he had been very young and his mother—at a loss at how to discipline him for whatever mischief he had gotten involved in—had sent him to his uncle to decide over his punishment. Only much, much worse.

He did not know what to say to explain his actions, did not know how he could make his uncle understand that they did not have a choice. "Look Thorin, I know this may sound awful to you right now, but it was really the only thing we could do. We just wanted to save you. I wanted to save you."

When he finished speaking, he dared to lift his eyes to look at his uncle. Thorin stared right back at him, sternly, steadily, and they sat like that for what seemed to Kíli like a long time. When Thorin suddenly shifted in his position on the bed, Kíli flinched, thinking that Thorin might punch him or something like that. But for what happened instead, Kíli had not been prepared in the slightest. Thorin—struggling to sit up— reached out to grab him by his shoulders and clasped him to his chest in a tight embrace.

"Thank you," his uncle whispered, "thank you for making them take that horrid thing away. Thank you for saving my life."

Kíli pulled out of Thorin's embrace and stared at him in shock, completely speechless for a few seconds. When he found his voice again, he stammered, "I—I don't understand. I thought you…" He trailed off, not really knowing what to say.

"Thought I loved the stone?" Thorin continued for him. "Yes, that is probably true. And I hate it just as much."

Kíli's eyes went wide. "Then you knew what it was doing to you?"

Thorin thought about this for a moment. "No," he then said, "not quite. But what I knew was that it was making my life utterly miserable, turning me away from the ones that I love. Sowing hate and distrust where there should be friendship and loyalty. I tried to block its influence, but at the same time I was drawn to the stone even more strongly. I simply couldn't leave it out my sight. And then everything becomes sort of blurry…"

Kíli nodded. "Give it some time. I am sure some things will come back to you eventually." Only he was not so sure whether he wanted them to, whether he wanted his uncle to remember everything that had passed between them.

Thorin chuckled, bitterly. "Right now there are only two things I want. One is to hold the stone in my hands again and protect it with my life against everyone who wants to take it away from me. The other is to never have to be even remotely close to it again, to know that wherever it is now, it will never touch me again."

Kíli shuddered. "I understand this feeling better than you probably think I do." When Thorin looked at him questioningly, he added, "You are not the only one who was touched by its power."

Thorin's eyebrows shot up. "You, too?"

Kíli nodded. "Aye. Only briefly though. Gandalf needed proof."

Thorin nodded gravely. "I am not sure whether I should be relieved or worried that I am apparently not the only one prone to its influence."

Kíli shrugged. "I did not realize until two days ago that I could feel something whenever I was near the stone. That is how I figured it out. Fíli feels it too, by the way."

"Hm." Thorin frowned. "Seems like it is true that this is something that runs in my family, then."

"I don't know," Kíli said honestly. "But it does not matter now, does it? The threat has been removed. And once things have settled down, everything can go back to the way it was."

"Yes. Thanks to you." Thorin smiled at him, the first genuine smile that Kíli had seen on his face since that fateful day in Lake-town.

"I am glad that you are not angry with me for what I did," Kíli said, his voice choking with emotion when he looked at his uncle and saw only love and gratitude in his eyes. If only this could last, if only they could go back to the way things were between them before any of this happened. But he would have to crush his uncle's faith in him and he would have to do it soon. Thorin needed to know everything, needed to remember.

As if his uncle had read his thoughts, his smile slowly turned into a frown. "No, I am not angry at you. But… but I was before, right? We—we were arguing, weren't we? Arguing a lot…"

Kíli dropped his gaze, resigned to his fate. Here it came. "Well…," he said, drawing out the moments before Thorin would learn the full truth. "You were… you stopped trusting me. Saw something in me that made you think I was not loyal to our cause anymore."

Thorin looked pained at that. "Yes, yes I remember. I remember feeling so…" he shuddered and did not finish his sentence. He leaned forward and caught Kíli's lowered gaze. "But this was only the stone. I am sorry if my actions hurt you—as I said, the stone planted suspicion in my heart. No one appeared trustworthy anymore."

Kíli looked at his uncle for a moment, but then tore his eyes away and got up from the bed, walking a few steps into the room. "That is not all that has happened, however," he said, turning back around to face Thorin.

"What are you—" Thorin broke off and Kíli could see from the look on his face that things were beginning to come back to him. That the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to put themselves together in his mind. "You went away, didn't you? That is why I was so angry." He looked at Kíli. "I drove you away from here. Kíli, I am so sorry—"

"No," Kíli quickly interrupted him, feeling sick. "No, I left on my own accord. For reasons that had nothing to do with you—at least not directly."

Thorin looked puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

Kíli sighed. This was proving more difficult than he had imagined—in his mind it had been a raging, accusing Thorin he had been confronted with, not one that was apologetic and blamed himself for what had happened. "Do you remember why it was that you did not trust me anymore? What made you doubt my loyalty to you and to this kingdom?"

Thorin mulled this over for a few moments. "I… I think it had something to do with—with Elves? No, that can't be right…" He looked at Kíli who stared at him intently. "It did? Yes… yes, I remember that I had gotten obsessed with the idea that you were in league with the Elves of Mirkwood. Which is nonsense, of course, it was only the stone that induced me to think along such lines…"

When Kíli did not answer, but merely crossed his arms in front of his chest defensively and looked straight back at his uncle, pursing his lips, Thorin frowned. "It was nonsense, wasn't it?"

"That I was 'in league' with the Elves? Yes, that was and is nonsense," Kíli replied. "That something ties me to them—or rather to one of them—is true, however."

"What do you mean by that?" Thorin asked, looking appalled. "What did you do?"

Kíli walked over to one of the windows and looked out into the early morning sun. He hugged himself tightly in order to keep his hands from shaking with nervousness. "On one day after the great battle, Legolas—Thranduil's son—came here and told me that one of his own was in danger. Tauriel, the elf who had saved my life when I fell sick from that poisoned arrow. I returned to Thranduil's halls with Legolas in order to help her."

"You went to—Why, Kíli? Why would you do such a foolish thing? To repay your debt?"

Kíli squeezed his eyes shut at the sheer disbelief in his uncle's voice. What was going to come now would be even harder for him to grasp.

"No. Or yes, but there is so much more to it." He turned around to face Thorin again. There was no more dancing around this. If he ever wanted to have a chance at living a life in which both Tauriel and his family had a place, he needed to get this over with now. No matter how much it hurt. "I love her, Thorin. And she me." Despite the awful situation he could not suppress the ghost of a smile when he said those words, the thought that she felt for him as he felt for her still surprising, still making his heart sing with joy.

"You what?" Thorin shot up from where he had lain back on his pillows. The sudden motion caused him to cough heavily, gasping for air.

Kíli quickly hurried to his side and handed him a glass of water from which he drank in careful sips. When his breathing had calmed down, Thorin sank back against his pillows, looking a little pale. "This is not some cruel joke, is it? You are serious?"

Kíli sat back down on the bed. "Yes, completely serious," he replied, trying to keep his voice level, steady, trying to convey to his uncle that there was no point in questioning his feelings.

Thorin fixed him with a cold stare. "So what it going to happen now? You are going to live with Thranduil and his elves in Mirkwood?" His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Kíli replied with an ironic chuckle of his own. "No, by far not. If you think that Thranduil is any less adverse to this relationship than you are, you are very mistaken. I don't think that Tauriel can ever return to her home in the woods, he would not allow her to."

Thorin looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean, return? Where is she now?"

Kíli tried to keep calm, tried not to let his nervousness show. "She is right here. At Erebor. And she will not be going anywhere anytime soon—not unless I am."

Thorin sighed deeply, all energy drained from him for the moment. Then he looked at his nephew. "I will not pretend that I approve of this."

Kíli nodded. "I did not expect you to."

Throin turned his head away, gazing out of his window. "And yet it does not change the fact that you came back and, essentially, saved my life. I will not forget this."

Once more, Kíli nodded. "I understand. I only wish for you to not see this as a betrayal, as me turning my back on the fate of my family. Because I would never do that. I just couldn't help it. We couldn't help it." When Thorin did not reply but coughed again, he added, "You should rest now. I am sorry to have burdened you with all of this even though you are not well. I will send someone in to take care of you – and I am sure that Dís will not want to stay away for long."

Thorin smiled faintly, but did not look at him again. And so Kíli moved away from his uncle's bed and left the room slowly, wondering whether he had just made everything better or much worse for Tauriel and himself.