Kili, son of Dis, was scared.

He had never truly been alone in his life. He would usually have Fili by his side nearly all of the time, or his mother to talk to when he was feeling particularly down, or Thorin to hear stories from and to train him, or even Dwalin to be there. He had many figures in his life who made up the busyness and the voices that seemed to cause a constant something that always ensured that he was never scared, or never alone.

Upon arriving at Bag End those months ago, he'd found another person to be there. And, with Millie, his life was filled to the brim with those that distracted him from the foreign idea of being alone. From the moment they began their journey, she was there.

Kili was brave, and he prided himself in that fact. He prided himself in the fact that he was never so easily scared, though he knew that others did not see this as a good thing for him. He would rush into situations without thinking first. That's what his Ma would say, anyway. She'd slap him with a dishcloth and tell him to think one once, for Durin's sake.

Kili had survived the Battle, yes. But he was alone and that made him scared.

He was aching with the injuries that he had acquired. An arrow had scraped his cheek, and one had pierced his hand, which he now held to his stomach, curled and stinging. He felt weak, tired, grimy and, if he did not seek help soon, his hand would surely get infected with the dirt and Orc blood that had seeped beneath his armor.

But that was the furthest thing from his mind, because he was alone. He...he knew his Uncle Thorin was dead. He had stood beside the body and he had defended it, knowing that Thorin was not breathing anymore. Blood had seeped through his Uncle's clothes and patched at his skin like paint. There were lots of wounds upon his Uncle's body. Messy. Harsh. Warg bites, Kili knew.

Fili had fought beside Kili too, and Kili thinks that Fili knew the truth of Thorin, though he had ignored it. He had kept fighting with Kili.

But Fili had disappeared when the Orcs had coming hurtling toward them, and Kili could not find him. He had stayed beside Thorin's body, fighting and fighting with Dwalin and Dori closest to him. When the Battle had died out, Kili had still stayed near Thorin. He had cried and crawled and stayed at his Uncle's side, the only one who had been able to.

Cold and hurting. That's all he could feel.

As he stumbled through the bodies, he looked around him. The Battle field was thick with arrows pointing from the deceased, staring eyes and just...just the dead.

Kili could not even comprehend the fact that his brother could be dead. It was not fair. It could not be. He should have stayed beside Fili; he should have been there with his brother. But they had been separated, and to think that his brother might have died alone-

No. Fili was alive and so was...so was Millie.

He could not bare to think of what he had seen in that moment when she had come hurtling from the midst of the Battle toward Fili and he, so scared and so defeated and so ready to die. He had seen it in her eyes, and for the first time since meeting her, Kili had hated her a little. Because she was going to leave him. She was considering leaving him so that she could die instead.

He tripped over a Warg and coughed, his throat parched and dry. The sky above looked grey and miserable, mirroring how so many felt. Others wandered around him, searching for fallen friends and those still living beneath the piles of bodies.

Millie Fournier was his betrothed and Fili was his brother and Thorin was his Uncle. Kili could not have been the only one to have survived - it was not fair for him to lose all of them in one day. He refused to.

Kili remembers the first time he saw Millie Fournier. She was so soft looking, so hairless and small compared to everything that he had seen of Dwarves. At first, he had thought that she was a very short, very pretty Women. But no, she was a Dwarven Lady through and through, no matter what tales she told of her past life. And she was his. He'd never thought that he would find a real, proper woman to agree in marrying him, but he had.

And that's why he refused to lose her. She was his and he was hers and that's how it would be until they died in their old age, happy and surrounded by children and Fili.

'Fili! Millie!'

To his own ears, Kili's shout sounded raw, hitching in the very depths and driest most painful parts of his throat.

And, by Durin, he heard a groan. Not ten feet away from him there was a masculine, distinctive sound that was so Fili that it had Kili near sobbing as he staggered through bodies, fallen helmets and arrows, over to the mass of messy, matted blonde hair and the nose that stuck above it all.

'Fili,' he rasped, hands fluttering around his brother who did not reply. There was an arrow sticking out of his leg and a nasty cut going along his right eye, bloody and open and marring the skin there. Kili, for a moment, considered whether Fili would go blind because of this. A blue eyes snapped open and a gasp came from his brother, whose back arched in utter, terrified pain.

'Fili, no, no - don't move!' Kili didn't care that his hand was screaming in protest, the dried blood cracking and bending as he pushing his brother back down onto the filthy floor, ensuring that he would not move.

Fili grabbed onto Kili's arm and groaned yet again, teeth bared at the utter pain that he was enduring. His teeth were stained with blood. Kili started. 'I know, I know!' Kili shouted for help, waving his arms and getting one of the Healers to notice him. The Elves would help his brother - they would have to. He had found Fili and, thank Durin, Fili was alive and breathing. 'I won't leave you, Fee. I won't'.

And despite how his hand throbbed and bled and how heavy his heart felt, Kili meant it.

'Mi-' Fili opened his good eye once again, and it found Kili, wild and desperate and pain filled. 'Millie,' he choked out, and his lips were tinged with red. 'Millie,' he repeated, as if to get it through to Kili, who was watching for the Elves as they wove through the dead to reach Kili and Fili.

It was Millie's name that had Kili looking wildly back to his alive brother. 'Where is she, Fee? Fili, did you see her after she-'

But he was being pushed out of the way by the Man and the Elf that stooped low to reach the Heir of Durin and, upon recognizing who Fili was, they went about checking over his body and calling for a stretcher so that they could take him to the Healing Tent. Kili watched, half on his knees, and clenched his jaw. He wanted to reach out to his brother, grab onto every part of him and breath in the fact that Fili was alive.

'You are hurt, also,' said the Elf, a male with a curved sword at his hip and a quiver of bows at his back. Kili had lost his. 'You should-'

Kili shook his head, watching as a stretcher was brought for his brother. 'No. I need to find someone, but-' He looked at Fili, who had passed out yet again as they pushed him onto the stretcher. His brother was safe, he was in good hands. One half of Kili's whole was safe.

'He shall be taken care of,' replied the Elf without much emotions. Kili had never known whether to like Elves. He knew that he shouldn't, but he didn't understand why the actions of one Elf should affect his opinion of them all. But his Uncle didn't, therefore he didn't.

Thorin.

Thinking of his Uncle only made Kili want to find Millie more. It was a desperation to see her face, to see her chest rise and fall, to feel her heartbeat beneath his palm. He needed to feel the same relief that he had felt when he had laid eyes on Fili. He needed to see her and to touch her living body and know that she was alive.

He stood finally after watching Fili be carried away, arguing with himself of whether his brother would be safe in the hands of strangers. He then reminded himself that he should not waste time and had started forward. Fili would, of course, be fine. He would be looked after by the highest of Dwarves and Elves. Because...because Fili was King Under the Mountain now.

Kili tripped more than usual as he took steps forward, away from where Fili had lain. He felt tired, achy. His hand still clutched to his chest, and suddenly he felt the pain so much more than before.

It was after six steps that he had trampled over Snowthorn.

The sword was filthy with blood and gore, right down to the hilt. Kili didn't dare pick it up, having known what it felt like to be burned by the sword that was so fiercely loyal to Millie.

But- but if Millie was dead then it would not burn, would it?

Kili stumbled back from the sword, too terrified to even attempt it and too terrified to even wonder why it was there and on the ground and not in Millie's hand. Had she been left without a weapon, had she been alone with only her hands to defend her?

It was two more steps until he found her.

He knew it was her, despite the fact that she was face down. Her hair was falling from it's braid and so matted with blood and dirt that Kili felt his stomach drop at her being so dirty and defiled. He dropped to his knees and, without really thinking, pushed her by her shoulder until she lay on her back.

He did cry then, a heaving, loud sob that racked his frame, his hands darting away from her.

There was an arrow in her abdomen, an Orcish arrow, for sure. It stuck out from a slither of skin, covered by the chain mail. The breastplate, of course, had not covered this crucial part of Millie, and the chain mail had not been strong enough to withstand the force of the metal arrowhead. Her eyes were closed and three small cuts reigned her cheeks. A trail of dry blood fell from her mouth, and tears soaked her cheeks. Still wet, he realized.

'...Millie?' He reached forward, touching her cheeks. She was cold, still. 'Millie?'

He couldn't see her chest rise and fall, there was no colour in her cheeks, there was no twitch of her familiar lips, nor the blinking of her eyes. She looked dead. So horrendously, horribly dead. The blood was a stark contrast with the absolute pale of her cheeks.

'Millie'. Her name tore through him like a blade, cutting at the rawness of his throat as tears spilled from his eyes, leaving trails through the blood and the dirt.

She was dead. She had gone with Thorin to somewhere where Kili could not follow. His Millie, his fire and his spirit and something so purely good and innocent - gone. She had only seen the bad of Middle Earth, a place so new to her, how could it be fair that she could leave now? He hadn't shown her the Blue Mountains, Dwarven feasts, his mother-

'Oh, lad'.

He did not look away from Millie. He could only see her face, dead and blank. Gone. So entirely gone. Thorin and Millie. How many others had left without a goodbye?

'Oin-'

It was Bofur's voice that spoke, and Oin's hand that shoved Kili so roughly out of the way. He stumbled from his knees onto his feet, growling and going to push Gloin away from Millie because he was touching her and he might hurt her.

It didn't even register to him that his friends were alive.

'No'. It was Bofur who spoke, holding firmly onto Kili's shoulder to ensure that he would not move. 'Let Oin do his work'. Kili looked to Bofur, who was dirty, held his arm at an awkward angle and had a split lip, and let out a sharp, dreadful sound of complete despair. 'I know, lad. I know'. And with that, Bofur squeezed his shoulder.

Oin was equally as awful looking as everyone else that Kili had seen. The way he held himself suggested an injured ankle, but he appeared to be ignoring the injury pointedly. Instead, Kili watched as he drew a hand over Millie's neck - pale, stiff - and, quickly, ordered,

'Give me a piece of fabric. The cleanest you can'.

He sounded desperate, urgent. Kili's heart leapt in his chest, his mouth opened in a comment of hope, of question. Bofur chucked Oin a dingy, crinkled flannel from the depths of his coat and armor-

'She's not dead,' said Oin, grappling at the cloth and hand surrounding the tip of the arrow. 'Not yet. If this arrow went an inch deeper, I wouldn't be saying that. Bofur, call over a Healer and a stretcher. I'm going to have to get started on this here and now if we want her to survive'.

Kili near sobbed once again. He fell to his knees, crawling up beside Millie and just staring at her. All in one moment it had all changed, every doubt and every curse. Let her live.

'We're going to have to take this arrow out'.

And he did, with a twisting, sharp pulling motion straight upward. Immediately, blood gushed like water from the puncture in Millie's abdomen, and Kili clenched his fist and started forward. Oin held the fabric in his dirty hands and pressed it firmly onto Millie's stomach, and the already tinged cloth began to turn a startling shade of scarlet.

And Millie's eyes flew open with a drawn out, heaving gasp.

The Elves are pressing clean cloth to Millie's bleeding wound and holding down her arms as she sobs and scratches. They say there might have been poison in the arrow, and that just makes the situations so, so much worse. They say that she is in so much pain, that it is the pain itself that might kill her, before the blood loss can even begin to take effect. They are blunt, these Elves, and Kili appreciates that.

But still, he lingers by the side of the stretcher as they carry her, and he can feel the colour drain from his face and the utter horror of Bofur as they watch Millie Fournier weep with pain and death. Because she is fading, and they just need to save her. So, they hurry toward the tents, eyes staying ahead and never straying to the dead.

When they make their way over to the tent of healing, Kili sees Thorin with his eyes open and his mouth drawn into a long, painful grimace. He is where Kili left him, hand out toward the figure in front of him and, Mahal, he had not been dead when Kili had left him.

And he knows from the tears that spill down Bilbo's cheeks that his Uncle is dying.

He staggers over the company that surround his Uncle, some already bandaged, some not. Aside from Millie and Fili, they are all here, including Gandalf. They are grim, they are grey looking. A Healer hangs back and Kili knows that it is too late for Thorin Oakenshield.

And then he is feeling the loss of his Uncle all over again and, with one glance, he is leaving Millie's side. Only this once, he promises himself.

'-There is more good in you than you know, Bilbo Baggins,' said his Uncle, voice hitching and eyes sparkling. 'More good than I knew'. He breathes in deeply then, light eyes looking up the sky and he then he looks, finally, to Kili. The rest of the company do too, and Kili can see them nod a little, noting that yet another member is alive.

'Your brother?' Thorin inquires, voice loosing it's life and, Durin, Kili knows that there is not long. He only nods. 'Millie?' Kili falters, for a moment, but nods once again.

Thorin takes in a shuddering breath and the Healer starts forward, but is stopped by Thorin's quick growl. Kili has never admired his Uncle more than he does in that moment, because his Uncle knows that he is dying, and his facing it and he is welcoming it. He can't move, Kili realizes, watching the blood trickle from the drying, yellowish wounds that seeps through his clothing.

'The Line of Durin has not been broken,' Thorin clarifies. He his going, fading. Soon he will be gone - Kili watches the muscles relax, the eyes flutter, the chest barely rise and fall. It had been, perhaps, why he had thought his Uncle dead. He was so used to seeing Thorin with life in him, not like this. Not so still and so hurt.

'No, Uncle,' Kili clarified, and there are tears in the companies eyes, glistening and shining because never did they consider that their King would die here, just when they had found their home. And it is so unfair. So wrong for this to happen to Thorin, who had only ever wanted to see Erebor as it should be.

'Good'.

And Thorin Oakenshield died with a sense of relief in him, a ghost of a smile in his minds eye. Kili likes to believe so, anyway. He likes to believe a lot of things about his Uncle, to only cover up for the fact that, had he stayed a little longer and felt for the heartbeat of Thorin Oakenshield, his Uncle might not have died at all.

Sometimes I don't like it when stories change POV, but I had to do it in this sense. It just felt right, you know?

Thank you for the ever-so-slightly abusive reviews that involved burning down my house with lemons etc. They made me laugh and admire your creativity, guys. Cheers.