Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!
Fili took hold of his brother's shoulders and shook him, but Kili's eyes stared up at him, blank and unseeing; there was no sign of life in his body
"Wake up, Kili!" Fili shouted, pulling his brother into his arms and holding him tight as if he thought that by strength alone he could hold his brother's spirit inside his body.
Betta stood by and watched them in silence while tears burned in her eyes from the pain of her injured arm. When she saw that Kili would not wake, her bow fell from her hand into the snow, and she turned her back to give Fili his time alone to grieve. She knew that he would not want her there, and she did not wish to be told again that she was not a dwarf and would not understand them – she understood the pain of loss too well and had seen all to much of it in her time.
Fili had not cried since the death of their mother, but he felt the tears falling wet and cold upon his cheek. He cursed in every language he knew and wished that he knew more, but there was no balm for the pain in his heart.
"Wake up, Kili, or I swear by Durin I will kill you myself!" he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, but the hills were silent and his only answer was the sighing of the wind and his own panting breath.
And then, Kili coughed. His body shuddered and his legs kicked out as he woke from unconsciousness. He gasped and clutched at his brother's arms, but at the same time struggled to break free of the tight embrace.
"You shall certainly kill me if you do not give me room to breathe! Loosen your arms, brother, I shall not slip away," he gasped.
Fili gave a startled cry and let go, dropping his brother into the snow. Betta heard Kili's voice and spun around to stare in amazement at the living dwarf. Surprise and relief battled each other until she was too tired to feel both and only smiled and shook her head. She refused to question their good fortune.
Fili helped his brother to lie down, and his hands shook with gladness as he loosened the belts and buckles of Kili's weapons to help him rest comfortably and breathe easier. Kili's face was yet pale and there was blood on his mouth, but it was only from a split lip and nothing more serious. The impact from the wolf had stunned him badly and nearly killed him, but only nearly. It had not killed him.
He lay still for several minutes to catch his breath, and then with a groan he sat up. After the ground stopped spinning, he stood up, holding tight to his brother's arm for aid. His breathing was labored and he winced at the pain that seemed to wrap around his chest and shoulders as tight as his brother's arms had held him, but he had suffered only a few bruised ribs and a torn cloak.
"I thought that you were dead," Fili said, not yet able to believe his eyes. He refused to take his hand from his brother's arm, afraid that Kili would fall down again and this would have been a dream.
"I am not dead, though I cannot understand why not. I feel as if I have been crushed under a very large and heavy coin-press." Kili looked at the dead wolf and frowned. "Was that creature not larger before?" he muttered, feeling the bruises on his back.
"You might have been, if the coin-press had fur and teeth" Fili said, laughing with relief and not hearing his brother's question, "but you are not a coin, and you will get over any mark that this press has left upon your body." He kicked the dead wolf and laughed again. "I think that we have seen our first bit of sorcery in these haunted hills," he said. "I, for one, have had my fill and do not wish to see more."
Kili quite agreed, but he was in no laughing mood. Never before had he been so near to death, and it shook him deeper than he cared to admit. He recognized the arrow in the wolf's eye and looked around for the woman who had shot it.
Weak and exhausted from the strain of the night's battle, Betta had gone to sit among the baggage while the brothers had their tender moment. She would have rushed to Kili's side, as well, to touch him even as his brother had and be sure that he was indeed alive and whole and not a trick of the imagination, but she knew that Fili would not want her there. He would consider her an irritation, and she would rather step aside than be turned away.
She sat on one of the bags of corn that they had brought for the ponies and held her injured arm close to her chest. Her right shoulder had been wrenched during the ponies' escape, and then the old orc-wound had torn open as she bent her bow. The pain made her light-headed, and she closed her eyes, seeing again the impossible shot that she had taken.
Her shoulder had been weak and her arm already bleeding by the time she released the arrow. Pain had blurred her sight and made it difficult to aim, but she had clearly seen Kili lying unconscious and the wolf leaning down with jaws opened wide to tear out the fallen dwarf's throat. Not hearing her own cry of pain, Betta had let fly the arrow even though her heart told her that she had a better chance of hitting Kili by accident than of killing the wolf. Grief and anger had instructed her, not reason, and indeed, until she saw the arrow in the animal's eye, she had believed that she had shot and killed her friend instead.
She heard shuffling boots approaching and opened her eyes.
"I know who I have to thank for saving me from the coin-press," Kili said. He had picked up the bow that she had dropped. He offered it to her, but she could not move her arm to take it. He set it across the bag beside her.
"That was a good shot," he said. "I shall never again speak against your arrows after this night."
"It was a lucky shot," she told him.
"Perhaps, but if it was then I wish that I had a piece of your luck. It would do more to help my aim than a hundred years of hard work and practice."
"You may think so, but I hope that I have not spent all my luck on you, Kili," she said. "Next time, do not turn your back on a live wolf." But she could not help smiling at the living dwarf that she had thought dead. She reached out with her good arm and took his hand to prove that he was not a ghost. Kili pressed her hand in his and returned her smile, then he released her and she sat back with a sigh.
"I had barely the strength to bend my bow before pain loosened my hand. I could have just as easily shot you," she said as she flexed her right hand and winced. Her whole arm felt as if it were on fire.
Kili shook his head. "You may say so if you wish," he said, "but I know that is not true."
Fili had been checking the body of the wolf, making certain that it was dead and looking for clues that might explain where the others had gone. He joined his brother beside Betta, and Kili was not so dazed from the fight that he did not see that Fili's emotions were still raw. He knew that this was the best time for him to have a heart-to-heart talk with Betta. If they waited until morning, it would only give him a chance to make excuses again.
"We need no more fire," Kili muttered and left them quickly.
Fili frowned at him, but he knew his brother's mind. Fili would have rather stayed close beside Kili, cared for his wounds and not let him out of his sight until they were safely back at Ered Luin, but those were foolish thoughts that stemmed from one bitter root: that he had failed to protect his brother. It was Fili who should have guarded Kili's back, not a woman who was neither a dwarf nor his kin. But Kili was determined to have him make peace with her, and Fili's guilt would not let him refuse his brother anything tonight.
He sighed and knelt down beside Betta. "Did I not tell you to go easy on that arm," he said to her. "It was not ready to be used."
"Would you rather I had not used it?" she asked.
Kili heard and shook his head at them both as he went around to the fires and stamped out what was still burning. He salvaged as much as he could of the half-burned wood and gathered a pan of snow to set in the embers of the largest fire to melt. They would all have wounds that needed washing.
"No," Fili said. "I am glad that you did." He reached for her arm to tend the new injuries, but she pulled away. She was not eager to have his hands on her; if he had forgotten the harsh words that had been spoken earlier in the night, she had not, and she was still angry.
"I must see to that wound," Fili said, impatiently, "or you may not use that arm ever again."
"See to your brother first. He is hurt, even if he is not bleeding."
Fili looked at Kili and watched him limp between the fires. He felt the guilt gnawing at his belly and knew that he deserved hard words and anger from his companions. He was their leader, and yet he had allowed himself to lose hope and be distracted in the heat of battle. And what had distracted him but the very woman who sat before him now, bitterly refusing to let him bandage the hurt that she had taken while defending his brother's life!
"Kili would be ashamed to have his wounds tended before those of the woman who saved his life," he told her. "He would be willing to do this for you, if you will not suffer my touch. Shall I call for him even though he is injured? Is that what you would prefer?"
"No."
"Then let me do this…" He unfastened her coat and cloak, and she let him.
"We should move on," she protested. "We will need better cover if the wolves return."
"It was some magic that made them appear. Now, they are gone. I do not think that they will be back tonight," Fili assured her. "And I will not allow any member of my company to march injured through the snow still bleeding. No more arguments. I will see to your wounds and then, if you still insist, we will look for different shelter and once there you can be angry with me for as long as you wish."
Betta bit her tongue and said no more. She allowed him to help her out of her coat and then, not for the first time, to ease her bare arm out of her shirt's sleeve. She clenched her fist and closed her eyes at the burning pain when he rotated her swollen shoulder. Fili winced to see the bruised flesh, remembering her pale arm that he had held to bandage that morning, but at least it seemed only wrenched and not broken or pulled out of joint.
The night air was bitterly cold and her skin was white where it was not red with new blood. She shivered and held her shirt closed under her right arm, holding in as much heat to the rest of her body as she could. Still, she shivered, and Kili appeared with warm water and a blanket to drape around her, but he did not stay. He gave his brother a pointed look, and then left to gather arrows from the snow, each time bending down with a groan for the pain of his sore ribs.
Shaking his head at his brother's less than subtle sign, Fili took off his gloves and held Betta's arm in his bare hands, chaffing his warm fingers against her skin to stave off the worst of the cold. He was glad to find that the orc-wound was not as bad as he had expected it to be. Most of the deeper cut was still closed and only the outer edges had been reopened. Her shoulder had swollen larger than his fist, and the flesh around the joint was dark blue and purple with new bruises, but around the open cut the bruises were old and yellow, healing well.
Fili washed away the blood with lukewarm water from the pot, but used a wrap of cold snow to ease the swelling of her shoulder. Betta winced and sighed, feeling the pain of her wounds but also the comfort of his healing. Fili cast anxious glances at her face and was careful not to cause her more pain than was needed, but her eyes were on his hands and she did not look at him. If she noticed that he was gentler tonight than he had been on any of the other many occasions that he had cleaned and bandaged her arm, she said nothing about it. Her face was unreadable to him except for the pain in her eyes.
Fili had not forgotten the words that he had spoken in their argument, and he regretted them more now than before. What other proof did he need that she was a part of their company than that she had stood by him and his brother in battle? She had saved Kili's life even after she had lost hope of saving her own.
He finished wrapping her bandages and eased her arm back into its sleeve then he fashioned a sling from cloth that would fit under her coat. He had done all that he could for now, but when she moved to take her hand from his, he held on until she looked at him. "Thank you," he said.
"I have done nothing for you."
"You saved the life of my brother," he told her. "No one would call that nothing."
She looked at Kili, standing in the snow examining the tip of a broken arrow and pretending very hard not to be listening to the words they said. "I think that he is worth one poor arm of mine," she said.
"Perhaps," Fili agreed, "but I am glad that you still have both. And, to me, this hand is worth more than gold. Without it, my brother would be dead." He looked down at her right hand; suddenly and before she could be surprised, he bent his head and kissed her fingers. He did not know why he did it, but in that moment it felt right and justified.
"I did not save him," Betta insisted. "Your brother never lost hope. He kept us fighting. It was he who saved us when we would have failed."
Fili nodded. He was glad to see that she did not blame him for giving up hope. They had both continued to fight the wolves for the sake of Kili, just as they had sworn not to fight each other for his sake. Looking up at her, Fili wondered if Betta would have taken the same risk if it had been Fili's life in danger, but he was not jealous of the affection that she so clearly felt for his brother. Kili had a good heart, and he deserved it.
"Whether you believe that you deserve my thanks or not, you still have them," Fili told her. He let go of her hand. "And you are free to remain angry with me for the foolish words that I have spoken in the past, but I now owe you a debt that I do not ever hope to repay."
"We have no more need for a truce between us," he added, "for I will not fight nor scorn you any longer. If I do, then let my beard be plucked out hair by hair and I will walk in shame among my people. I was wrong to blame your race for my own doubts and fears, and now I say that you are worthy of being counted among the dwarves of this quest."
Betta frowned at him, working her way through his elaborate oath but where he stood apart from them, Kili snickered to himself. He heard in his brother's long-winded speech the same over-wrought style of their uncle.
"I suppose that it is a compliment," Betta decided. "I will take it as one, but you owe me no debt. I did what I did with no thought for you, only out of concern for your brother, and for the safety of our company. I have never considered us anything but equal partners on this journey."
She nodded to him and then pulled herself to her feet. She made as if to leave him there, crouched down beside the corn bags, but he looked up at her. "Equal partners only?" he asked.
"What else?"
He shrugged. "I had hoped, perhaps, that now we might be friends."
She stared at him, and it was her turn to be surprised. She looked at Kili, but he had his back to them and stood rocking on his heels, humming to himself. "I suppose that we could be friends," she agreed.
Kili grinned so wide that he was glad the others could not see it, but he also could not see the genuine and unguarded smile that Fili gave to the woman of their company. Betta was amazed, for in it she saw his brother's good-humor and a sparkle in his eye that was both mischievous and kind. But also, because this was Fili, there was something more serious to the turn of his lips that made his look not at all frivolous the way that Kili's smiles often were.
She remembered what Kili had said about the worth of Fili's rare smile and, as with his younger brother before him, she could not help but smile at Fili in return.
By the time Kili turned back to them, they had moved on to other chores, but the night seemed less dark and there was no more feeling of tension between them or of eyes watching them from the hills.
"I think that for all our trouble, this battle was well worth the effort," Kili said, as he sat down for his turn at being bandaged. He looked around at the disheveled campsite, and his mirth was lessened more than a little. "Even if it has cost us our ponies..."
That was quite long, but there was no easy way to break it up for you. I think this was my favorite chapter, and certainly my most favorite one to write. I hope you liked it, too, but we're not out of the woods (or out of the snow) just yet!
Oh, my gosh! We've almost reached 100 reviews! Which one of you will be the lucky one to hit the triple digits first? You all should get a prize ;-).
-Paint