Sorry it's short. The next one will be longer, I promise. But here you go (probably could be better, but again, the next one, I promise).

Chapter 12: Disturbed

There was nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all, save for the fact it was his brother wielding the knife instead of the orcs. He knew it was the orcs fault, yet it was Fili who was the one causing him pain.

"Kili," a voice said next to him.

He tried not to wince as he felt the knife descend upon his flesh for the third time, but he could not help it and his mouth soon filled with the coppery taste of blood as his teeth sunk into his lower lip in order to stop himself from crying out. Fili looked at him through apologetic eyes, eyes which showed he regretted every moment of this. Yet Kili was afraid for when he stopped, knowing that he would have to inflict the same amount of pain on his brother.

"Kili," the same voice repeated with slightly more urgency and a little fear.

The knife glinted in the dim light from the sun as his brother drew it out of yet another wound, the liquid glowing a deep scarlet as Kili squirmed against his bonds and the weight pinning him down. The orcs looked on with a gleeful gleam in their beady, black eyes.

"Kili!"

The brunette turned his head to face Ori who was situated next to him, Fili still supposedly asleep, though Kili could tell from where he was that it was more likely his brother was just thinking.

"You zoned out for a moment there," the scribe informed him, looking somewhat relieved that the archer had returned back to the normal world. Kili just blinked his eyes slowly closed as he turned to assess the cave around him, not really wanting to converse with anyone besides his brother.

Bofur and Dwalin were sharing a round of banter, Balin and Thorin talking in low voices beside them, their words hidden by the noise made by the rest of the company. Nori was sitting in a corner by himself, like Kili inspecting those before him with an observant eye. The dwarf's older brother and Oin were conversing rather loudly, the former on account of the latter dwarf's deafness, chatting away about certain ways to do things. Gloin, Bombur and Bifur were stationed behind his field of vision, and Bilbo was staring almost wistfully out the mouth of the cave. Not that Kili was interested in anything that was occurring, save for what his uncle and Balin were discussing, and even then, it was only a passing curiosity.

"Do you need anything?" Ori asked, seemingly eager to do something or to at least fill in the silence with words. Kili, however, shook his head. Then he paused and nodded.

"Water," he asked, his voice scratchy and throat sore. The timid dwarf behind him instantly leapt to his feet, immediately running to fetch what Kili had asked for. The brunette watched him go, the pain from his wounds causing his head to throb. At this point in time, however, the pain was manageable, as was the effects from the fever that still had hold of his body.

"Here you go," Ori said upon his return.

Kili thanked him with a fake smile and allowed the older dwarf to place the cup holding the liquid in his hands, the beardless dwarf then drinking deeply from the vessel. Satisfied, Kili allowed the ginger dwarf beside him to remove the cup from his hand, after which Ori took out his journal and began to sketch.

"You know, it's quite easy to become parched, and Dori always says…"

The scribe began to ramble on, talking about nothing of great importance, or nothing of great importance to Kili anyway. The brown haired dwarf wanted his brother to awake so he could help chase away the horrific visions as he had with the nightmares Kili had when he was younger, but the blonde slumbered on, almost blissfully unaware of his brother's plight. Instead Kili laid his head back down, closing his eyes inconspicuously as he listened to his friend talk. His breathing slowed, but he had not yet fallen asleep, for he was afraid to because of the images which had haunted night after night after their rescue.

Thorin watched as the blank look his youngest nephew had been supporting vanished, the brunette drawn back into reality by Ori as the latter tried desperately to get his attention. The brunette had zoned out a short while ago, Thorin first noticing as he watched Kili stare into nothing, Ori realising when the beardless dwarf didn't respond to one of his questions.

The time the youth had been out of it had been long enough for several dramas to unfold within the company, most dwarves not taking kindly to being cooped up for so long. Dwalin and Nori, as could have been predicted, had broken into a heated argument after one of the two (no one had any clear idea who) had accidently tripped up the other. Their voices had risen in volume until Balin had snapped at them to either take it outside the cave or shut up. The two chose to take the second option, but even now they were still sending each other ill hidden black looks. How Kili had not noticed that was beyond Thorin.

The other incident that had occurred was between Bofur and Oin. The former had asked the latter a question and, due to the healer's deafness, it had been misinterpreted. The toymaker had asked how he could deal with Gloin as a brother. The old dwarf had thought Bofur had inferred his mother was something particularly insulting. The older of the two had then stated this very loudly, taking the insult as any dwarf would and trying to vow to defend his mother's honour, all the while the toymaker and Gloin trying to tell the enraged dwarf that Bofur had not actually said this. The incident was resolved, and now the two were laughing over it quite heartily.

It was only after these two cases that Kili came back to himself, and this had Thorin worried. He wondered if he should say something to Oin, but then again, he had seen it with a few warriors after the battle of Moria, them detaching from the world without ever realising it. This was especially concerning when it happened on patrols and during mock fights, for if it happened then, it would certainly happen in a real battle of life and death. Even in the wild, especially with Kili being untrained, Thorin was uncomfortable.

The exiled king watched as his nephew closed his eyes, seeming as if he were trying to block out the tirade of words that Ori was spitting out. This was also fairly concerning, the great king thinking back to the conversation he had had with his blonde nephew, trying to find answers that Fili refused to give. It seemed that they did not want to communicate with the members of the company, or the outside world in general, spending almost half their time asleep even though half of their 'sleep' was probably an act. After all, one could only handle so much sleep. There was no doubt the pair were avoiding something. He just didn't know what.

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