I really hope you like this chapter (this is what happens when I listen to sad music while trying to write a good chapter...). Enjoy and I will try to update soon. (and, as always, my chapter title doesn't really fit - doubt they ever will, or at least half anyway).

Chapter 15: Reality

Thorin watched his two nephews closely, still unsure of just how changed they were, though if their reactions to a simple questioning that afternoon were anything to go by, the exiled king would say that the pair had changed a lot. The whole company was sleeping with the exception of him, who was stationed on watch with Dwalin - or was supposed to be anyway but the other warrior seemed to have somehow dozed off - and Fili, who was staring broodily into the night, still seemingly upset by what had transpired earlier on during his outbreak.

Kili's head remained pillowed on his brother's crossed legs, his brow slightly furrowed as he fought off the nightmares that were invading his mind. Nightmares of what Thorin didn't want to know, but whatever they were, they could not be good. Still, he was not thrashing around or crying out which was a good sign, yet every now and then a small whimper escaped from his lips only to die back down as Fili unconsciously rubbed his hand comfortingly on the back of his brother's shoulders. This sound tore at the exiled king's heart like nothing else had. It just sounded so…broken. And Fili, his eyes were too old for one his age.

They had been through so much it simply wasn't fair. But then again, life was never fair.

As the time wore on, Thorin could only think of the life his nephews should have had, the first starting with a father. They had known him for only a short time, Kili barely even at all before he had died. So he had to step in as a father-like figure. Yet he was certain that he had never been able to fulfil that role properly, especially not with the fact that he had so many dwarves to look after. And that was the crux of the next problem; all they would inherit when he passed from this world would be a displaced people if their quest to reclaim Erebor was unsuccessful.

Erebor.

Fili and Kili should have both been raised like the princes they were in the great city, but it was not to be. Instead they were raised in a town far from reaching the grandness of Erebor. But for now that did not matter; he was lucky that they were still alive after what they had been through.

"Are you not going to sleep?" Thorin asked his nephew when the blonde showed no signs of tiring. Fili shot him a hard look, but his gaze softened under the concern his uncle was showing freely.

"Sleep, at the moment, is a little out of my grasp," he replied, turning back to look outside the mouth of the cave and into the starry sky. Thorin allowed silence to stretch between them for a while before speaking again.

"Are you alright?" he asked, watching Fili closely to try to gain an idea of how his oldest nephew was fairing.

"Oin says I'm healing," the youth answered, fingering his sleeping brother's hair gently.

"No," Thorin said, shaking his head, "That was not what I meant. Are you alright?"

The exiled king watched as Fili contemplated his brother, tracing a finger lightly down a long but shallow gash stitched closed on his younger sibling's face, a wound which would no doubt scar over. The brunette shivered at the touch but did not cry out as his eyes flickered rapidly beneath his closed eyelids and his expression became one of discomfort. His brother placed a hand on his head, thumb stroking his left temple as he thought.

The dark haired dwarf awaited his heir's answer patiently, unable to see the blonde's blue eyes, but knowing that there would be many emotions struggling within them as Fili thought about what to say.

Kili was staring at him with an expression of determination, but his eyes contradicted the brave face he was putting on. The brunette's eyes cried out for Fili not to do it, for the blonde not to hurt him anymore, for this all to end, yet the both of them knew that Fili had no choice in the matter

"Well," sneered the orc above them, "Get on with it." Fili swallowed silently, praying to the gods to help both him and his brother through this ordeal, to send someone to save them from these monsters.

Slowly the blonde dragged the knife in his hand down the length of his brother's face, drawing the tip from the top of the archer's cheekbone to where his jaw began to curve into his chin. Scarlet beads of blood welled up along the precise line which had barely dug into the flesh it ran across.

"Deeper!" the orcish leader above them screamed. Fili bit his lip the same time Kili closed his eyes.

The pair let out a deep, but quiet breath in unison before Fili moved in with the knife again, making the wound deeper but avoiding going too deep in order to keep the knife from hitting bone. Still, the scarlet beads of blood from before were now a deep, gushing red. The blonde watched, heartbroken, as Kili held back a whimper at the pain that he was being caused.

Finished, Fili pulled back the knife, his hands shaky and half covered in his brother's blood. His captor, realising that he would gain nothing more from his new entertainment for the time being barked several orders to those under his command and Fili soon found himself bound again, next to his brother, but unable to touch him properly to provide any comfort.

His own hot and sticky blood dripped into his eyes from a cut made by his brother. The wounds that they had been forced to give each other had not been that crippling however, but Fili had an apprehensive feeling that all that would soon change come the morning tomorrow or a few days after. Orcs were bloodthirsty creatures and thrived on cruelty and the pain of other beings, including animals. In the time that he had been stuck in the cave, the blonde had witnessed many a hare have both hind legs crippled before the monsters allowed it to try and hop away, all while it was bleeding slowly to death from a deep gash in its throat that failed to kill it straight away. And when the animal finally gave up and laid down on the ground, the orcs tore into it raw, almost always fighting each other to get the best bit.

It was revolting and beyond cruel, yet Fili wouldn't be surprised if he and his brother were crippled and then forced to run until they gave up where they would then just become another slab of meat for the orcs to use to feed themselves or their wargs.

He could only hope they would escape the clutches of these horrendous beings before such a fate came to pass.

Blinking away the memory, Fili continued to stroke his brother's head, eyes fixated on the line puckered red line running down the left side of his kinsman's face.

"We are as fine as we will ever get," he answered, "With everything that happened, I doubt we can ever go back to how we were." The blonde knew his uncle knew he was not merely talking about himself.

The cool night air drifted around the three heirs of Durin, two of which were still awake. The hoot of a barn owl sounded overhead and Fili smiled at another happier memory, remembering the incident with the trolls. They had been lucky that Bilbo had been able to think straight and use his wits to help get them out of there.

"You should get some rest," Thorin said from across him, his face kind and expression the same as when the great king had allowed Fili to cry himself to sleep on his shoulder as a child. Fili nodded and obediently laid down and shut his eyes, pleased when the pain that lanced up his side at the movement was only small considering what it had been. Unknown to him, however, was the fact that Thorin continued to watch him with the same expression, the proud dwarf's mind racing as he tried to think of a way in which he could have rescued his nephews sooner, in which they would have not had to experience the pain that had befallen them.

"You know, you can be soft when you want to be," a voice said behind the dark haired dwarf. Thorin did not turn around.

"I thought you were asleep," he replied. Dwalin's mouth twitched in the darkness.

"Resting maybe, but not asleep. Never when there could be a danger lurking out there, an evil waiting to strike." That was true enough. The seasoned warrior cared for the members of the company, though in varying degrees, and would not allow anything to befall them on his watch.

"How can we protect them from other evils if we could not protect them from this?" Thorin questioned, his old friend knowing full well who he was talking about. Dwalin sighed.

"We may not have been able to protect them before, but now it will be virtually impossible for anything to harm them," the dwarf said seriously, "And I swear on my life to be sure that nothing ever does." Thorin felt slightly better at his friend's oath.

"I know you will," he said, "You have always been there to keep them from the most serious of harm. I just wish we were able to keep them from this."

The two friends stared into the darkness, one at two broken brothers, one at the world outside.

"All I know is," Dwalin grunted in response to his king's last words, "That if those bastards try to even come at either of the lads, I will not rest until every one of their skulls has been crushed beneath my boot."

Did you like it? Review and tell me (and thanks for all the reviews so far).