Dearest readers, I'm really sorry for the (once again!) delay. All I can tell you is that it is not every day you have to deal with the stuff my family has been through. But we strive. Love y'all! Reviews are my fuel and are always answered!

Keep the Faith

Fíli had been trained as a warrior for as long as he remembered being alive. When he was too young to wield a sword, throwing daggers were his daily affair. When he was too young to use real daggers, wooden ones served him well - to train his skills, at least.

He had been trained to rule, too. Reading, writing, in the languages of dwarrow and men, and even - Mahal forbid Thorin finding it out – some elvish. To read between the lines, not only of what was written, but of the wrinkles on someone's forehead.

That's how he knew, when Thranduil showed up, that things were really, really serious.

He had seen the elven king in all his haughtiness when they were made prisoners, in all his presumptuousness while discussing conditions in front of the blocked gate of Erebor, and in all his prowess in the Battle of Five. He didn't expect less than what he witnessed then.

But the Thranduil that rushed through the fight between orc, men and dwarrow as if it were nothing but a nuisance was a novelty. Other elves followed him close, engaging in the fight with gusto, and some were clearly his personal guard. The elven king's efficiency put in doubt the necessity of such personal guard, but so did Thorin's, and still Dwalin insisted in having some trusted staff around him.

What Fíli saw was fury and method mixed in perfect proportions. What he reckoned as being Thranduil's guard moved inconspicuously around him, making space for their king to follow Thorin and the others but also guarding him from any orc who could be a possible threat.

Fíli's closest relations in personal life and royal responsibility had moved away with the elven king, leaving him surrounded by said king's elite fighters. Contradicting his belief that those marble-faced dolls were dull and centered only in their own race's needs, the one closer to him spoke in a heavy accented Westron:

"We must grant our kings' respite so they can rescue the hostages; shall we just cut the yrch off their way or make them rethink their purpose in Arda?"

Fíli didn't have to think much to know what yrch meant, moreover recalling his lessons on foreign languages that could (or not) be useful for commercial purposes.

As if talking to people were supposed to be solely for commercial purposes...

And about the current situation, the swift glide of one of his twin blades along the other elicited tiny sparks and lust for fight.

"Let's make them rethink!"

=^.^=

"And then we set fury loose and blocked any and every blow the orcs directed at us, for a while."

"For a while?" Kíli frowned.

"For a while." Fíli brought the sights of said fight to his mind, and it didn't make any more sense than it did then. "Something happened... I don't know what, or how, but I can only assume something happened... And then they just... left."

"Who left?"

"The orcs."

Kíli's relief was evident, but then, would he be alive if the ones who left were the elves? But Fíli had more information than Kíli expected.

"All of them. All the orcs. It was weird, as if someone just put it into their minds that they had to leave Dol Guldur and they obeyed. They just left, leaving everything behind, some of them even dropping their weapons. And it was in a hurry, not completely disordered, mind you, but in a hurry. They quit the fight and got away as if they lives depended on it. Me and Thranduil's guards just moved aside, we let them go, it was faster for us to go forward without fighting, what should we do different from letting them go if all we wanted was to..."

Fíli's moment of wavering voice was everything Kíli needed to know, to ease the guilt that festered his soul.

"You came for me."

Fíli considered hitting his little brother's head with the back of the spoon he'd been using to feed him, but just gestured his intent.

"Of course we came for you! When, tell me, when – in this Mahal's blessed life – did we not come to rescue you from all trouble Sulladad (*) bestowed to your plate?"

Kíli frowned but had the answer.

"Well, that time I broke the thin ice on the lake while skating..."

"I yelled at you before you broke the ice."

"Aye, but I was too far to understand what you were yelling."

"Me yelling at you should be warning enough."

"Right, today it is, but I was in my swaddles then."

"Nah, you were fifteen. And Uncle heard me yelling and came running to rescue you."

"He just broke the ice and dropped into the lake too, it was not an actual rescue."

"He almost drowned trying to save you and you complain it wasn't an actual rescue?"

"Of course it wasn't, who rescued us both was actually Dori. And Bombur."

Fíli humphed an amused complaint at the anecdotal story.

"Only because Bombur was the only one heavy enough to anchor Dori from skating down to the crack in the ice, and Dori the only one strong enough to pull you, Uncle and Dwalin out of it."

Kíli half smiled at the old memory. Self esteem issues were something he worked on for the last few decades, since he realised not everyone felt undeserving when being praised for his true achievements. But, even now, people making something to help him or, in the case he found himself in now, and several cases before, moving out of their way to help – no, Durin's beard anointed with chervil balm, save him! - was still something he found hard to believe.

And after he ran away from his duties like a dwarfling from veggies...

Fíli's expression showed how it hurt being not counted on as a sure source of support.

"We would never let you down, you know."

Kíli's downcast gaze was revealing of how he felt.

"I know."

"The music preceptor was a..."

"An unfortunate incident, a mismatch of information, I know. Uncle could not have known." Kíli pursed his lips at his brother's acknowledgement of that case, now distant in the past. "And it could have been you to be kidnapped instead of me, just the same."

Fíli frowned.

"Which time?"

"Oh, just any of them."

"Oh." It took some seconds for him to finish the recalling of all the times his little brother had been the target of people's hate, distrust, or greed, be it known or foreign people. "I see."

Kíli left his eyes wander from his brother's face to the camp. If he was looking for someone, he masked it well.

"Anyway. Thank you for coming for me."

The older brother could not take any of it. Gentle, yet steadfast hands grabbed Kíli's face and made the younger one look into his eyes.

"Kíli son of Dís and of a lineage long enough to reach our forefather Durin, but that I prefer to stick with my brother; listen here and listen well: I'll always come for you. Always. Whenever. Whatever. Recent years have got us half Middle-earth apart, me learning to rule Erebor and the Seven Clans, and you ruling the Blue Mountains, but..."

"Not the Blue Mountains. Just our settlement, you know."

"Whatever!" Fíli threw his hands up in the air, defeated. "Kíli, just listen! I'm not asking you to listen to Amad, or Uncle, the Council, or whomever fancies to control your life. Just... listen to me. Your brother."

Too weak to do anything else, Kíli obliged with a nod, yet focusing his attention on bringing a water bottle to his lips.

"Of course we came for you. If Amad and Uncle didn't find out your escape – and I made my best to cover you, even if I didn't know what in goodness was happening – I'd find a way to follow you, and find you, and check if you were all right; and if you were and didn't want to come back, I'd leave you alone and pretend to everyone I never found you."

Coincidentally, that was the moment Kíli's eyes finally focused on his preferred target, thanking Mahal and the Powers for her being alive.

The sight of Tilda brought him new courage, and everything he and his brother had been bickering about was, suddenly, reduced to cinders.

"Would you, Fíli? Even if it would cost you the - mind it - righteously yours - crown?"

"Are you kidding me?" Having Kíli quasi lucid, trying to bargain logic, was a gift he wouldn't reject. "Remember I stayed behind when Thorin and the Company left for the Mountain and you were ill with your leg? What did I say?"

The younger dwarf bowed his head.

"That you belonged with me."

"And what did I do?"

"You stayed with me."

Fíli silenced, allowing his brother to process the later statements. Ten years might be long for human standards, but to dwarrow it wasn't as if such thing happened a long, long time ago. It was clear that that behavior wasn't a distant thing in the past, but something real and veritable.

What Fíli couldn't know was that Kíli's train of thought wasn't following the same tracks. The younger dwarf couldn't take his eyes away from Tilda.

He knew he belonged with Tilda.

Would his brother – and the remaining of his family, clan, and people! - acknowledge it for what it was? Kíli moistened his dry lips, aware that his mouth craved the taste of Tilda, and that nothing else would quench his thirst.

"Fíli... If I'd take a path that led me away... away from you, from our family, away from Erebor... would you still... be my brother?"

"You're thicker than a mountain troll, ain't you?" Fíli mock-whacked his brother's neck with care enough so the bandages weren't moved. "Now tell me, what mischief are ye up to now? To tear Dol Guldur down is already done. To make Uncle and Thranduil shake hands too. Oh, and I forgot to tell you, Amad and Bilbo are courting."

Kíli shook his head with a slight smile, amused.

"I was sure it would happen. Just didn't know when."

"I just wasn't sure if it would be Amad or Uncle who would take the first step. Actually, it was Bilbo."

"Good for him."

"So. What is this grand mess you think I'll not put up with?"

The younger dwarf kept his mouth shut, but his eyes told everything.

Fíli followed the gaze, now sure it was what he just suspected not log ago. He narrowed his eyes, keen on something more than what his brother was looking at.

"Wasn't Tauriel your One?"

"Tauriel is my one."

"Oh." What else could Fíli say about he deceased she-elf? "So, then, what... Now, Kíli, really? Bard's little lassie...? Óin's apprentice?"

"She has a name, you know."

Fíli shook his head, trying to put all pieces of the puzzle together. What the Council demanded from Thorin, and what he agreed with Bard, and what was decided despite the most interested parts of the deal...

"Tilda."

"Tilda." Kíli echoed his brother, yet his voice had another tone to it, and Fíli heard it. "I... I can't explain. It's just something that... is... and it isn't different from what it is – aye, it is, it is not something that just was! - with Tauriel. Maybe someday some sage might find an explanation. For those who need it. I don't. I just know what I feel."

"And her...?"

"I..." He cast his gaze down, defeated. "I don't know anymore. She said... I understood that... but it was before we were... rescued. And all that befell us before it. Now... Now she barely looks at me. I don't know what is happening."

"Kíli..." Fíli tried to find words of comfort for his younger brother, still befuddled by the coincidence and not sure what to do about it. One thing he was certain, that any diplomatic development wasn't his to disclose, be it to Kíli or to Thorin and Bard. They messed it up, it was their place to fix it. "She was badly hurt, as you were. Sweet Mahal, you both, no, you three, almost died, even the elf wasn't whole when you came out of the fortress!" The blond dwarf shoved a spoonful of broth into Kíli's mouth, just to make a point. "Maybe she just needs some time to regain her strength?"

"Weakness wouldn't keep her from looking at me. There's something else going on."

"So, maybe there is. But we don't know, because we don't know what is going on between her and Bard."

"I know. She doesn't want to get married to and old haggard noble, that's what's going on."

"What?"

"She overheard Bard and Bain talking about and arranged marriage to an eighty-eight old guy. She managed to flee, and I can't blame her. No human in their right mind would."

Fíli started to understand the depth of the whole picture. Definitely, it would not be him to fix the mess.

"I... I think I understand. But she made some weird movements to flee, so to say. Did you know we believed she had been kidnapped by orcs?"

"Did you?"

"Aye! Now, looking in retrospect, I can see there was something off."

"But we were kidnapped by orcs!"

"But she wasn't kidnapped from her personal quarters by orcs. It happened way after, if I still can do my maths."

"Oh, that!" Kíli bit his lower lip, remembering the twist and turns of her account on why she left Dale, how it was supposed to be just a 'confidential issues' trip to New Lake Town and how it all turned to them traveling together through Mirkwood until...

"Kíli? Are you allri..."

The younger dwarf shook his head as if to dispel a bad memory and signal his brother he was actually alive.

"No. I'm not, and Tilda is not, and even Legolas is not, and I don't know if any of us will ever be." If the way she avoided him was to send any message, it did, in the most hurtful way. Tilda's trauma of being tortured along him and Legolas made her associate them with the pain she felt. She'd never be at easy by his side, she would never feel safe. How could she? The elf he claimed was his One died at the hands of Bolg right before his eyes, and Tilda knew it. How could she trust him after he failed to rescue her from all the torment she had been put through?

The quality of Kíli's silence didn't go unnoticed by his brother. Even ten years of distance, if compared to the decades of the closeness they shared since birth, weren't enough to make Fíli forget how his younger brother's mind rackwheels worked. So, his response was only true to the brother he knew, and cherished above any title, treasure or truth.

"Kíli... Don't overthink. If Mahal put you two in the same path, if it is His purpose, then you'll reach the end of said path together. Keep the faith."

nadadith – brother that is younger

Sulladad – Khuzdul name for Erú Ilúvatar