Part Three of Three – Many Partings:

Horns sounded in the distance.

Sigrid looked up, from where she'd been pressing a cloth to Bain's forehead. She caught sight of Kili and Fili, sitting in the corner of the makeshift tent – bits of cloth and rags thrown over broken timbers – whom also looked up.

"Elves," said Fili, face darkening.

Something churned in Sigrid's stomach, something that shouldn't have happened because elves meant help, more healers, more warriors –

"That means we should be moving out," Bofur was standing in the doorway. "Kili's leg has healed up nicely. 'Bout time we were joining Thorin, anyway."

"But wha' if he's –" Sigrid stopped herself, shocked at her audacity. She'd grown accustomed to talking to the dwarves as if they were her father or Bain, had forgotten that she was merely a peasant girl and they great warriors, some royalty among their kin.

"It'd be good to find out, then," said Bofur, perhaps guessing what Sigrid was going to say. But what if he's dead? She couldn't imagine anything surviving the dragon, especially if they had been the ones to wake it up.

"Canna ye stay here?" said Tilda.

"Elves and dwarves don't mix, lass," said Oin.

Sigrid turned away. Her eyes were suddenly burning. She'd forgotten that the dwarves were not there to stay, that they would sometime be moving on. She'd forgotten that they would not be there to help her with Bain, that Bofur with his kindly voice would not be there to help wind bandages because her father was not. She'd forgotten that Kili's leg would get better – had gotten better – that he, too, would leave….

She didn't know why it mattered so much, why she felt she would feel so keenly their absence. She wondered where they would go, after they regained their treasure, and what they would do with that treasure. Surely they would rebuild their kingdom. Surely they would bolster their city, so near this town yet so far away. They would live in grand halls and sparkling corridors overflowing with gold and jewels. And Sigrid would be left here, poor as always, a lowly peasant girl.

"The elf king is approaching," the voice of her father drew her out of her reverie. He was standing at the flapping entrance of the tent. "I suggest you leave soon."

"We were just thinking the same," said Bofur.

"I shouldna' mention it to you, but the elf king marches toward war. He believes the gold should belong to him. Some of the men in the town believe it as well. He's gathering forces here. We'll be leaving at dawn tomorrow."

"Why're you telling us?" Fili demanded, "Up to more tricks, are you?"

Her father did not appear bothered by Fili's tone. "Your leader is offered a choice. Bring him word that if he gives up a share of gold the elf king says there will be no bloodshed."

"Thorin won't give in to the demands of an elf," said Oin.

"There are only fourteen of you, many of us. You're outnumbered. If you don't give in you'll surely die."

Sigrid's heart was throbbing in her throat. She worked carefully so that it wouldn't show on her face.

"Then we'll die," said a voice fiercely. Sigrid's hand clenched on the cloth, cool water trickled down her fingers. It was Kili's voice.

It was their gold. The elves had no right. Her father had no right – Sigrid chided herself because she didn't know of such things. It was not her place.

"Yes. Then ye'll die," said her father. "Leave quickly. The elf king will be here in a matter of hours." Sigrid heard her father's footfalls crunch on the ground outside as he walked away.

"Pack up, then, lads," said Bofur. "Don't suspect they'll miss one of their boats gone, do you?"

"I'll get you some food," said Sigrid's voice in her ears, again sounding impossibly calm. She'd left through the other side of the tent before they had a chance to say anything or see her face.

When she returned with some provisions wrapped in a cloth she found the dwarves gone. Tilda pointed her in the direction they had left. Sigrid found Kili by the water, before a ruined dock, nailing a patch to a hole in the side of a row boat.

"Something for your journey," she said. She left her bundle near the dock, but far enough that Kili couldn't grab it from her. She didn't want to get too close to him. She didn't want their hands to accidentally touch and for her to do something foolish.

"Thank you."

"Where a' the others?"

"Gone scavenging. Fili left me here to repair the boat and rest my leg. We've a long walk ahead of us."

"Aye," said Sigrid.

"Your brother will be fine, Sigrid. I'm sure he will."

Sigrid didn't speak. She couldn't. Bain hadn't stirred yet that day. She'd done everything she could. She didn't know what else to do to help him. She'd never felt so helpless. She'd never thought something like this could happen.

Why did they have to come? Why did they have to come searching for their gold, waking the dragon, bringing Orcs, and elves, and other evils? They should have left them well enough alone. Why her family? Why her Da? Why her brother –

She was suddenly sitting on something cold and hard and was unaware she had sunken to the ground, unaware if she was even by the docks or still in the presence of Kili.

"I'm sorry. I wish it could have been different. It isn't fair, what's been asked of you."

"Ye don' hava go," she murmured. She put her face to her knees so he wouldn't see her tears. "Convince the elves not a' fight. It doesna matter. T's only gold. Doesna matter…."

"It's our home. We cannot not go."

"Then convince your leader a' give up. There's no hope if ye fight them. They – you're too few. They'll kill ye all…."

"Some things you don't understand, Sigrid. You're young."

"You're young, too. Younger than the rest of them. Ye – your too young a' die."

"I won't die," there was a smile in his voice. Something warm and leathery touched the back of her fist. She realized it was his hand. His arm was suddenly, unexpectedly draped over her shoulder.

She almost pulled away, because she was a young girl and he was a young man and it was the proper thing to do. But she enjoyed too fully the heat of his body seeping through her cloak, the roughness of his calloused palm on the back of her hand, the sound of his voice so close to her ear. Besides, she couldn't think for the patter of her heartbeat in her ears. She was so sure he could hear it, too.

"You're shivering."

"T's cold." Her voice was muffled, because her face was still pressed into her knees. She didn't trust herself to look up, even though she wanted to see his face, wanted his eyes to meet hers. But she was afraid – that maybe she would do something foolish.

"Is it always cold here?"

"Ney," she whispered, "only in winter. Summers are wonderful, warm, never a drop o' rain."

"I'd like to see summer here."

"Ye'll enjoy it. Beautiful here, in summer."

"Kili, time to be shoving off. You fixed that boat yet?"

Sigrid started, and jumped to her feet so violently Kili was almost unbalanced. She realized Kili's hand was still holding hers. Her arm tugged and his fingers were torn from hers, warm flesh disappeared to be replaced by cold, empty air. There was Fili, looked at them strangely. Sigrid felt her cheeks burn, heart sink in a horrible feeling of anticlimax.

"Sorry I held ye up," she mumbled, barely able to form discernible words. She stared at her feet, anywhere but at Fili – at Kili, whom stood to his feet beside her.

"Nearly done," said Kili.

"I wish'a luck," Sigrid whispered.

"Thank you for the supplies." She was never quite sure which of the dwarves had said it, for she'd darted away. She found solace behind a partially crumbled brick wall and felt her head burry in the thin layer of soot left there by the dragon's fire.

"She's a girl, Kili," said Fili's voice, carried back to her on a light breath of wind. Her heart pumped but no blood seemed to be getting to her head. She felt so curiously faint.

"Almost seventeen winters," said Kili.

"Can't stand to leave any female be, can you?"

"At least she's not an elf."

"Get back to work you lazy sod."

Sigrid felt her throat catch in the horrible preceding of tears and kicked her legs back to work. She didn't look back. She felt her heart flutter in fear, thought perhaps that this was the last time she might see – but she didn't look back.

The sun had not yet risen when Sigrid heard someone stir at the mouth of the tent. She sat up from the blankets they had laid on the ground, being careful not to disturb Tilda.

A large silhouette was bending over a pile of supplies. Sigrid watched it for a moment before the ebb and flow of his breathing became familiar.

"Da?"

"Hush, Sigrid, don't wake your sister."

Sigrid stood carefully from her wrappings and followed her father back out of the tent.

"I dinna mean to wake ye," he said.

"I wasna sleeping."

"T's almost morning"

"Aye. Wher'a ye going, Da?"

"The elves are gathering what townsman are left and want to fight. I'm their leader now, Sigrid."

"Your leaving fo' the mountain?"

"I'll be back. Won' be more than a few days."

"You're gonna kill the dwarves 'cause they won' give ye their gold?"

"Ney, Sigrid. We won't kill anyone if we don't have to. There's a wizard with the elves. He's a friend of the dwarves. He won't let them die. He's brought tidings of a band of Orcs – an army."

"Ye go a' war, then?"

"I havena any choice, Sigrid. I have to protect the town, its people."

"You're leaving again?"

"Yes, Sigrid. I must –"

"Aye, ye must," her throat was burning, voice was curt. She thought perhaps she might start screaming. "Go then, if ye must. Your son may be dying – my brother may be dying – but go if ye must! Go again, if ye must!"

"Hush, Sigrid!" her father's voice was almost fierce. His eyes glinted at her strangely. Sigrid couldn't come to care. She didn't – nothing mattered – nothing mattered.

"Why?" the words ran off her tongue. "Why must it be you? Why always you, Da?"

"I'm sorry, Sigrid." His arms were suddenly wrapped around her shoulders, pressing her face into his chest as she often held Tilda when she was scared or upset. "I've always tried my best. For you, and Bain, and Tilda, I've always tried. I've tried to be a good father. Above all tried to keep you safe…."

"I know, Da. I know."

He kissed her atop her head. She closed her eyes against the fabric of his tunic. The cloth left her cheek and she listened to his footsteps as he, too, left her.

"What is a'?"

"Not a cloud," said Sigrid, looking up from the twine she had been winding absentmindedly into a fishnet, staring across the lake, whispering back to Tilda because somehow whispering felt more appropriate. "Surely not a cloud. T's moving too fast."

"Do you think a's on our side?"

"No," the answer was inexorably true, but Sigrid chided her tongue for speaking out of turn. Tilda huddled next to her, shivering. "But naught to worry abou', Tilda, I'm sure. Da an' the others'll be able to stop it, whatever a' is."

The swirling darkness was winding its way around the mountain, the mountain that was too far away to see anything distinguishable, to see the battle that raged at its roots. Because things echoed around the lake, Sigrid could often times hear the battle, the crash of falling stones and leap of flame, the ring of swords, even occasionally and in startling clarity a raised voice, chanting a war cry or screaming in agony….

Sigrid yearned to cross the lake herself, to see for herself what was happening, who was winning, who had died. She ran her fingers over the rough twine, feeling its fibers prick her skin.

She wondered if perhaps he had wanted to kiss her, that day when Kili sat so near with his arm around her at the dock. She had wanted to kiss him. She'd never been kissed by a boy before. She would have enjoyed it, she was sure. She would have felt confused and guilty, but she was sure she would have enjoyed it, would have liked him to be her first.

It felt like ages away now, although it had not even been two days. He seemed leagues away, not just across the lake, so reachable yet so intangible.

"Bain isna going a' die, is he, Sigrid?"

"No, Tilda," Sigrid whispered. "E's better now. He isna going a' die."

"And Da? Da isna going a' die, either?"

"No, Tilda. I promise Da won' die, either."

"It won' be like Mam, will a'?"

"No, Tilda, not li' Mam." Her fingers entwined with her sister's, forgetting their work on the net. Work was good. It kept her mind off the pressing things of the present, kept her mind from wondering to horrible, terrifying alternatives.

She discarded her work and sat side by side with her sister, stared across the lake and worried.

"Where ar'a going, Sigrid?" said Tilda.

"Stay here, Tilda. Stay with Bain. Ye'll be fine."

"But where ar'a going?"

"They need help – the battle's over –"

"Where's Da, Sigrid?"

"E's alrigh'. I'm sure e's alrigh'."

"Don' leave, too, Sigrid. I'm frightened. Don' leave, not 'gain like ye did after the dragon –"

Sigrid felt her heart leap into her throat, struck pointedly by how familiar this conversation was.

"I hav'a, Tilda. I won' be long. Ye'll be alrigh'."

"Don', Sigrid."

"I'll be back. I'll be fine. You stay with Bain. I won' be but a little while."

"Please, don'." And her face was pressed in Sigrid's stomach, tears leaking through her blouse again.

"I'll come back. I will. I promise, I will."

"I know."

Sigrid clambered out of the boat that had scraped on the opposite side of the lake. The other women who had embarked to help with the dressing of the wounded climbed onto the shore as well.

Signs of the battle were almost immediately apparent. Blood stains sprinkled the yellow grass underfoot. Sigrid could smell it on the air again, mixed with scent of smoke, just as the town had been after the dragon's attack.

The air was hazy. From the clouded sky above snow began to flutter.

The camp, tattered sheets strung over sticks to make tents, appeared in the distance. Sigrid almost tripped over a twisted, bleeding Orc carcass as she forget to look where she was walking. She stumbled forward, unaware that her pace had changed.

"They're na' going anywhere, Sigrid," said one of the older women. Sigrid didn't hear her. The cold air stung her cheeks and whispered through her hair. Snow lighted on her face and melted into little beads of water that stung as if they were pinpricks.

Moans of the injured were lifted into the air. Clanking armor and whinnies of horses, stomping boots, the ruffling of the tent flaps, all joined to make an underlying chorus, something that sung of death.

Sigrid wove through the soldiers, whom wandered about the camp, carrying wounded or dead, or on some other mission. She peered through the smoke and fog, looking for any familiar face.

She thought she noticed the little Hobbit-something that had been with the dwarves, walking with a tall, bearded man whom was more than twice his height. Before she could make up her mind to get closer they'd disappeared into a tent.

She saw another man, short in stature and she immediately thought of the dwarves. She approached him, heart leaping into her throat, but when she got close enough to see his face she saw that it was a dwarf – but none that she recognized and certainly not Bofur, Oin, Fili, or Kili. She then noticed that he was clustered in a group of his kinsman. Now that she was aware, Sigrid could see many more dwarves about her, flitting in the shadows, nursing wounded of their own.

"Sir," she stopped a passing soldier, whom looked at her. He might have been any villager, someone whom she had passed day after day at the market or on the docks, but now he looked utterly unrecognizable. His face was halfway hidden behind a helmet, which was sitting crooked on his head. "Bard the bowman, do ye know where he is?"

The soldier gestured gruffly further into the camp, "With the lot of them, I suppose. I havena seen him."

"Was he injured?"

"I dunno. I havena seen him." the man pressed on and Sigrid felt her way forward. The snow was beginning to fall in earnest, making it even more difficult to see.

She pressed closer to the head of the camp, closer to the battlefield and closer to the mountain, which loomed above her and cast the whole camp into shadow. A lone, more complete looking tent appeared out of the haze. Tattered flags were stuck in the ground by its side, the flag of Lake-Town, a silver strap of fabric that was embroidered with a crown and a branch of a tree, and another streamer that was dark and emblazoned with a battleax.

And sitting by the side of the tent, ruffling their wings and clicking their beaks, were three enormous eagles. Sigrid's breath caught in utter shock, amazement, awe. She had never seen beasts more beautiful, had only heard of such things in legend. One of the eagles made a screeching, grating sound, and adjusted itself from its perch. Sigrid faltered backwards, not knowing what to think or do, being sure that she could not approach the tent with such sentries.

Footsteps behind her warned Sigrid of someone approaching. She shot a glance over her shoulder and saw a tall shadow looming out of the snow and fog. Suddenly she was stumbling forward toward the tent, afraid perhaps it would be a guard warning her away.

She held her breath as she past the eagles, unable to tear away her eyes. They looked at her as she passed, eyes glinting in the poor light and clicking their beaks. She fumbled for a flap of the tent and backed into its shelter, forgetting whom she might be walking in on, thinking only of the eagles, of not looking away from them –

"What of my son?" said a haughty, regal voice, and Sigrid's heart stuttered. She whirled around, and became aware she had backed into a tent housing several people. She was partially concealed behind a large shield, which had been propped in the ground against a post.

"He has been found, Sire, alive and uninjured. He inspects the dead," said a tall, armor clad elf to the first who had addressed the question. He was even taller than his subordinate. His face was set with gleaming silver eyes, golden hair was pulled in a tail behind his back.

"Bring him here."

"He will not come."

The two elves were not the only in the tent, a burly, wide-shouldered dwarf was skulking in a corner – again Sigrid looked for some kind of familiarity and did not recognize his face, and then there was her father.

Sigrid's father was standing against the wall of the tent, looking surly and impenetrable. His dark eyes looked almost afire. Sigrid's voice disappeared down her throat because he was – did not look at all like her father. He looked unnaturally tall and strong, regal, almost kingly….

Suddenly Sigrid was struck poignantly at how desperately she did not belong in this tent, did not belong on the scene she had trespassed upon.

Before she could slink away unseen, her father's eyes drifted over to her, found her, held her. His brow darkened. Sigrid felt her face burn and she stumbled backwards, prepared to flee –

The tent flaps rustled, Sigrid felt her back hit something. She glanced up, saw that it was another tall, impossibly powerful figure, one clad in gray, with a silver beard and hair, and a crumpled, pointed hat atop his head.

A part of her far away and unrelated remembered that her father had mentioned something about a wizard. Sigrid did not allow herself to reflect. She skirted him, who glanced at her in gruff surprise, and left through the swinging tent flaps.

She tottered away, thinking vaguely and irrationally of hiding, or running, avoiding her father certainly….

"Sigrid."

"Da – I – I only wanted to see you –"

"What ar'a doing here?" his eyes were stern, mouth set in a deep line. She had never seen him so imposing. He was so dark, so different. The part of her who had thought of the wizard remembered him right after Mam –

"I came with the women. To tend the wounded –"

"The wounded are being gathered in the camp."

"I – I know, Da. I – wanted to see ye were alrigh'."

"I'm alright. Get on with ye."

"Da, the dwarves –"

"Are scattered about, more dwarves than you could ever want."

"But the – the ones from town."

"I dunna know, Sigrid."

"I – yes, Da. I'm sorry."

"T's alright, Sigrid. What about Bain?"

"E'll be alright."

Her father brushed her cheek with his finger. Momentarily his eyes softened, "Good, then. Get along. They'll need your help."

Sigrid hadn't any chance to say anything else, even if she'd thought of something else to say, for her father had walked back into the tent. Even his walk was unrecognizable, touched with a slight limp so that it was jerking and unbalance, but somehow all the more imperial.

Sigrid turned away and back into the midst of the camp. She didn't know where else to look. Her stomach churned, not only with the smell of blood. She hugged her cloak closer to her chest, trying to close out the snow and chilled air.

"Sigrid," it was another of the village women, calling for aide. Sigrid rushed forward, hoping she might be lost in work once again.

Her fingers fumbled in the cold, wrapping bandages, holding down arms and legs, and pushing linin to bleeding wounds.

She was rushing to another tent, carrying scraps of torn away cloth for bandages when she heard a familiar voice, addressed toward her, "Shouldn't have come, lass."

Sigrid whirled around, the scraps of linin slipping out of her fingers in surprise. It was Oin, limping toward her, dried blood on his cheek and tangled in his beard.

Thousands of questions pounded in her brain, struggling all at once to usher from her lips so that she could hardly breathe.

"Battlefield's no place for a wee one like you."

"Where are they?"

Oin looked at her. She realized his eyes were glinting brightly from within his tangle of hair, swimming with moisture so that her throat was suddenly burning, and fists clasped at her side.

"Who?" her voice tripped. It was a valid question, an important question, to which the answer was important, imperative, frightening. She didn't want to know the answer.

"The two lads," he choked, voice thick, water trickling over his beard from his eyes. "They and Thorin. Poor lads jumped in to save him, they did. Right into a wall of Orcs, no chance…."

His lips still moved, undulations of sound continued to issue, but his voice had ceased to matter. His words, the answer, disappeared on the light breeze that swept over the field, ruffled the chainmail and stirred the pools of blood.

"They're over there. Laid with all the rest. Side by side, they are."

Sigrid stumbled forward without feeling the frozen ground beneath her feet, unaware if the blur before her eyes was because of the snow or the sudden stinging in her eyes.

"Don't go, lass. Tain't any sight for you," said Oin's voice behind her, calling her back, warning her not to proceed but Sigrid didn't listen, could barely hear.

People passed her as she walked. They tossed no second glance to her face, perhaps too accustomed to the expression of dull grief, shock, and unbelief to pay it any mind.

The dead were piled in rows, side by side, packed close together, in the immediate field right off the camp. Hardly anything stirred, neither searchers nor mourners, not yet. Not when there was such work to be done, wounded to be tended, things to be tidied and cleaned. The dead could wait. The dead would not get up and walk away.

Because they were already gone. They were already gone. He was already gone. Only days ago he had lived and breathed, held her in his arms –

It was strange that he was so easy to find. She saw him almost immediately, on the ground with all the rest, eyes closed, still….

Something stirred. Sigrid faltered, feet tripping to a stop. There was someone else there – someone else living. He was crouched near the ground, not far from where Kili lay. Sigrid had not noticed him before because he had sat so still, the muted grays and greens of his cloak and armor had disappeared amongst the confusion of the falling snow.

Now she saw that it was a young man. Shining gold hair strayed down his back. His face was cast mostly in shadow but a glint of light caught the tip of his nose and curve of his jawline, enough that Sigrid could recognize him. It was he, the male elf whom had barged into their cottage to fight the Orcs – surely it was he, Sigrid could not forget a face like his.

He was bowed over another still body. It was the she-elf. It was her. Sigrid could tell from the auburn tresses splayed on the ground about her shoulders, and the forest green robes pooling on the ground around her. Sigrid could tell she was dead for the stain of dark brown spread across her breast.

Sigrid hadn't thought elves could die.

Sigrid watched the male elf as he knelt by her side in utter stillness and utter silence. She felt as if she had trespassed upon something private, something somehow indecent. Her feet were moving backwards, perhaps thinking dully of leaving, of letting him grieve alone with his dead.

But she – Sigrid – she had a right to grieve, had any right as precious to grieve for her lost, too, for her dead. As much right as he….

The elf did not show any sign she was anything more than the stirring of the wind as she approached again. The she-elf and Kili were lain close together. Sigrid wondered if perhaps it was because they had died together, she saving him or he her – but it didn't matter, didn't really matter….

Kili was at her feet now, arm to arm with his brother. Her knees touched ground at his feet but she was unaware of having made the decision to kneel. She didn't know what she was supposed to do.

The male elf had his palm pressed against the she-elf's face, fingers brushing her cheeks, her eyes and lips. Sigrid thought perhaps to reach out and touch Kili, as well. Her eyes found his hand, lying bent and empty on the ground at his side.

Her fingers inched forward and stopped, like the breath coming up her throat. She did not want to touch him. He was dead, and cold, and gone, and she did not want to touch him because death was ugly, and rotting, and defiling. Bile rose in her throat, to think of him – no, not him…not him….

She thought of that night, in the darkness while he muttered in his fever, how she had thought to take his hand then, too, but hadn't, how she somehow couldn't now. She looked at his face and saw that it was almost untouched, except for a long, jagged cut that had dried to a crumbling brown. His face was calm and gray. He might have been sleeping in his sickness except that no sweat beaded on his brow and no breath leaked from his parted lips.

His dark hair was turning gray from the fluttering snow. It lighted on his face and did not disappear into water as it did on Sigrid's own.

She felt the wind tear at the tears that trickled slowly from her eyes, freezing the water to her cheeks. She became aware that something else was muttering in her ears, other than the stirring breeze and the repeating salutations of disbelief and pleading in her mind.

It was the elf, murmuring beneath his breath, just loud enough that the whisper stirred the air at Sigrid's ears, so that she could not grasp his words but that the constant ebb of his voice felt as if it was coming from inside her own head. It sounded like a prayer or a song, or perhaps something of both. It bent and wavered, undulated and wound through the air, completely consumed her as if it was her own grief relayed audibly through verse.

And suddenly her fingers hit something hard and rough, as if they had crept subconsciously against her will. They caressed Kili's fingertips, moved to his palm, massaged the cold hard skin, trying to work warmth back into the crevices. She realized her nails were caked with blood from the wounded.

She had seen mothers and wives, even fathers and brothers throw themselves bodily onto their dead, to hold and caress, as if to wring them back to life, but this was all Sigrid could manage. Her hand against his, meaningless and distant as he was from her – because what had he been to her anyway? What had he been?

Surely not a hope, never a prayer, surely he had been nothing. Their paths had brushed, never crossed, never entwined, never could. Surely he was nothing – she was nothing. She was not pretty, was plump and short and a meager village girl. He had been a warrior, not fit for her dreams –

Suddenly the elf's muttering stopped. The wind itself seemed to forget to whistle in the silence that was left with the closing of his voice. Sigrid looked up to see the elf had bowed further over the she-elf, perhaps to brush his lips against her brow, and then he stood. He did not see Sigrid. Surely she was nothing to him, too. His legs carried him away swiftly and he did not look back over his shoulder.

And then Sigrid was left alone. All around her there was death, hundreds of bodies laid side by side – and before her was Kili, dead too. She became aware that she was trembling, shivering with a cold more penetrating than just the wind and snow.

She stood with difficulty. Her legs had gone stiff, as if the hardness of death had begun to creep to her, as well.

She stared at Kili's body before her feet and realized she did not know how to say good-bye. There were no words fit – at least not from her tongue, no solute she could think of. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from rattling, held her arms over her breast to try to restore something reminiscent of heat, stared for what seemed like an eternity at his cold and lonely, calm but lifeless face, and finally tore away.

Sigrid held her knees to her chest and stared across the lake to the mountain, which rose in the distance and disappeared amongst the clouds. Her breath came in a fog from her lips, drifted past her face and was carried away on the wind.

She could not remember if this was the same dock she had sat side-by-side with Kili, where he had put his arm around her shoulder and felt so warm and close. The town looked so unrecognizable that it was impossible to tell. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it wasn't. It didn't matter.

She was not supposed to be there. There was much work to be done, wounded to be tended, things to be rebuilt. Work was good, there was much distraction….

But she didn't think she could ever be distracted from the way his face had looked, pallid and gray and utterly still. It would be hard to be distracted from his hand, that had lay so lonely and empty at his side, how it had felt when she caressed his fingers with her own, cold and stiff when she had been expecting heat and pulsing blood.

Her eyes stung, perhaps from the wind or chill air. Sigrid had never been a girl to weep, to sob. She had not cried, not fully, had not felt but one or two tears trickle down her cheeks at a time. Tears were weak, were a nuisance because they made it hard to see, now blurred the distant mountain and the lake that Sigrid watched.

He, such a dashing, handsome young dwarf whom she had helped nurse back to health. Tilda would have called it romantic, except that the dashing young dwarf was dead now, and that wasn't romantic at all – had never been romantic, had never been a fairytale because – because….

Because he was dead now and that wasn't a happy ending, never a fairytale, never romantic. Sigrid's hands clenched into fists at her side, nails bit into her palms, and tears trickled down her cheek and neck, wetting the collar of her blouse and chilling her to the wind.

End.

Author's Note: I thank everyone for all their support; your feedback has been unutterably appreciated. I'm off to check the last few chapters of The Hobbit, to see if I've made some sort of mistake about Kili dying….