and a swelling rage [1/?, Hobbitfic, Durincest, NC-17]
Here we go.
Title: and a swelling rage
Author: free_pirate
Pairings: Kili/Fili, Fili/Thorin
Words: ~6000 (this part)
Warnings: Incest, angst, major character death, King Fili (is this a warning?)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: He feels the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking.
He hears the impact before he feels it, a loud, sickening crunch that reverberates in his teeth. Thorin meets the ground before he realizes that the source of the noise was something making contact with his own body, gasping for air before he feels the exquisite, mind-numbing pain breathing brings.
There is no sound for a moment, only some large and incomprehensible hurt licking at his skin, at his insides, everywhere. His back must surely have been the point of impact because it feels as though someone’s lit a fire in the skin around his spine; it’s the only distinguishable feeling, separate from the larger pain that’s spreading through him.
Thorin’s sword slips from his fingers but he doesn’t feel it do so, only watches it hit the ground when he finds the strength to open his eyes. He slumps forward, breath coming short and ragged. The command to stop him before he hits the ground goes unanswered by his arms, and he’s left lying in the mud of the field, trying to breathe around the tightening constriction in his chest.
His eyes attempt to flutter closed but he’s determined not to let them. This is the one focus he keeps in mind as he watches feet stomp past, goblins with their pale skin almost transparent in the dying light, Dain’s men in their heavy boots. It seems like ages pass while his limbs slowly go numb, watching the fight raging on around him but unable to do anything other than attempt shallow, broken breaths.
And then he hears something above the clash of steel to steel, above the guttural battle cries of goblins and dwarves and the delicate, musical lilt of Sindarin almost lost within the din. Someone is calling his name from very far off, and he wants to lift his head, cry out, something, but trying any of these things only brings panic; he can’t lift his head, can’t gather enough breath to cry out.
There is no warning beside heavy footfalls behind him, the soft thump of a weapon hitting the ground. There are hands on his shoulders, pulling him over, and just the touch drives what precious little breath he has out of him again.
It takes Thorin a few seconds to recognize the one holding him, and when he does it’s another pain, something smaller but above his own suffering. He won’t make it - the clarity of that thought is startling compared with the blur every other thought has become - and here is what he will leave his heir; a kingdom torn by negotiations he won’t hope to understand, a tradition he knows nothing of and the support of a scattered few. He has Erebor, its endless riches, the crown and throne that his title will demand. Everything else will be hard won.
He recognizes Fili, so much like Frerin - golden-haired, easy to smile. Frerin was more like Kili in disposition; as second born, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden that Thorin always carried, the weight of the mountains on his shoulders. Sweet, brave Frerin, who never wanted anything but his approval.
And he’s back at Moria then, with Frerin’s hands hovering over him, not Fili’s. There’s blood matted in his brother’s hair but he looks unhurt; it’s Thorin who is spread on the ground, blood bubbling up from between his lips to stick in his beard. Frerin’s come for him at last. He only spent a precious few years with his brother, but Thorin feels the ache of loss now as keenly as he has every moment since his death.
There’s a look in Frerin’s eyes that Thorin can’t place, doesn’t want to - he is the cause of this look and he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone; he just wants to stop hurting.
He wants to reach up and touch Frerin’s face but his arms won’t obey, and then Frerin says, “Uncle,” small and ragged, torn from his throat - and there are eagles wheeling overhead, like there never were at Moria. He coughs, air pushing out from lungs that have nothing left to give.
“Fili,” he says, voice not his own, barely more than a whisper. There’s another cry from somewhere to the left. Thorin’s eyes are fixed on Fili’s face, but he knows from the look he finds there that Kili is safe, that Fili was in doubt about it, and that his fears have been assuaged.
There’s a small sound on the air, and a solid thump behind Fili, and an orc falls over screaming. There’s a dark-fletched arrow buried in its thigh, which moments before was inches from Fili’s ear. Kili joins them, kneeling in the mud with his bow tossed aside. If he wasn’t hurting, if he couldn’t feel the life leaving him in bits and pieces, he would urge caution.
Kili is close enough to touch, but trying to reach out to him proves fruitless. He watches Kili’s face for a few moments, watches the shock and hurt play over his face, and before he has a chance to summon the strength to say anything Kili is up again, screaming out a battle-cry in unbroken Khuzdul. He picks his bow up and slings it across his back, unsheathes his sword and holds it ready in front of him. Something pulls at Thorin’s chest that has nothing to do with physical hurts.
Above him, Fili lowers Thorin’s head to the ground with the utmost care, strong, gentle hands on the back of his neck, combing one last time through his hair before they grasp swords again. Fili echoes Kili’s cry and launches himself into the writhing horde of goblins and wargs.
The last thing he sees before his eyes slide shut is the arrow that buries itself in Fili’s shoulder, catching him mid-swing and sending his sword clattering to the ground. It gives the orc that he’s fighting enough of an opening to bury his blade in Fili’s side.
The last thing he hears is Kili’s roar.
*
As Fili rises to consciousness, he feels light and heavy at the same time. For a long time he can just lie there, can’t feel his body at all, can’t see or hear. He just exists, and for a long time that’s all there is.
And then he feels pain.
First there’s the deep ache in his right shoulder. It comes on suddenly, so suddenly it feels like he’s been shot a second time. And he can’t cry out in pain because his mouth isn’t working, can’t thrash like he wants to because he can’t move.
And then feeling seeps downward, reaching a critical point - his right side, and then he can’t feel anything but pain. It’s sudden and intense, feels like something vital is missing. He begins to twitch as much as he can manage, flicking his fingers in small motions that go seemingly unnoticed.
The next thing is hearing. It approaches him cautiously, like he’s getting closer and closer to people conversing even though he himself isn’t moving. He hears a voice - the first he’s heard in a long time, and it’s… the hobbit’s? But… didn’t Thorin exile him from the mountain? Are they in the mountain at all?
Where is he?
He’d ask if he could, but until he can speak he holds the question in the back of his mind, burning and festering.
After some time of just hearing, fading in and out of sleep, he hears Kili’s voice. It’s calming, just about the best thing he’s heard since he’s been able to hear again. But Kili doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds gruff and too-short with Oin, who Fili’s been able to identify as the voice he hears most often, muttering to himself as he tends to the pain. He likes Oin. Oin makes the pain go away, at least for a while.
But Oin leaves the two of them alone, him and Kili. He wants to twitch his fingers, do something Kili will understand, but at the moment the strength is just outside of his grasp. He’s wasted it all on listening.
He listens still, listen to Kili’s sigh. He feels Kili’s fingers in his hair, at first just running through, then undoing the braids in his hair, and redoing them carefully, weaving them together with care. “Fee,” he says, name he hasn’t used since they were younger. Fili wishes he could do anything but remain impassive. “Please, please,” Kili gasps, voice husky. Fili tries so hard to break through the heavy blanket of immobility that’s holding him down, but he’s stuck. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t move.
“I can’t do this on my own,” Kili continues, fingers tightening in Fili’s hair. “I won’t.”
It’s so characteristically Kili, stubborn and determined, that Fili wants to smile. His mouth doesn’t respond, but it’s not for lack of trying. “I need you,” Kili says, voice only wavering slightly. Fili wants to tell him that he’s here, that everything will be okay, that he wouldn’t leave without Kili anyway.
He wiggles his fingers.
Kili lets out a strangled noise of surprise. “Oin!” he calls, touching Fili’s hand. Fili wants to crawl into the warmth that is Kili and never come out, never let him feel this way again. How did he get hurt? Why can’t he wake up?
*
Kili doesn’t leave his side after he finds signs of life. He talks sometimes, and Fili looses track of the conversation, weaving in and out of consciousness. He feels Kili touching him, a constant pressure on his hands, in his hair. He has his braids redone so many times a day that he doesn’t understand how Kili isn’t tired of it yet. Other people come and go, but Kili is always there.
Fili is constantly trying to get his body to respond, to do more than move his fingers - he tries in vain for what feels like days. His pains have faded to dull, constant annoyances. Part of it is not moving, he supposes, but if he could move he’d gladly deal with the pain.
His frustration peaks when Kili is fiddling with his hand, just pressing the tips of his fingers into Fili’s palm for the contact and Fili tries to clench his hand around his brother’s fingers, catch them and stop them from moving. When his palm encloses skin, Kili makes a triumphant sound and calls for Oin again.
A few moments later, Fili opens his eyes and is immediately blinded.
There is only torchlight in the room, but even that is too-bright. Faces swim into focus above him, Oin and Kili and Bilbo lurking worriedly out of the way. The wild, happy grin on Kili’s face looks a bit strained like he hasn’t had cause to use it lately, but it’s the most beautiful thing Fili’s ever seen. His own mouth twitches up.
“You’re awake!” Kili says, happier than Fili’s heard since he could hear again.
“I’ve been for a while.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, scratchy and hoarse. He remembers wanting to ask for what feels like forever, so he does. “Where are we?”
*
It’s six days before Fili can walk again without the immediate, disabling pain flaring in his side. There are no windows here, and being unconscious for so long has ruined his sleep cycles; he only knows the day at all because Kili tells him faithfully, sitting by his bed day in and day out. There is no cheerful chatter like there should be. Kili is still and quiet as the stone around them most days, eyes distant unless Fili is addressing him directly.
It’s a change from the way Kili was when he first opened his eyes. He was more like himself then. But Kili’s been through so much in Fili’s time recovering. He isn’t surprised, just wishes he could make his brother carefree again.
He feels guilty. This is his fault, letting his concern for Thorin to distract him, get himself hurt. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid it. Six days he’s been lying on this cot with his brother despondent beside him, and he occupies himself with imagining the tongue-lashings Thorin would give him for being so slow. Fili can imagine them easily enough, but the knowledge that he’ll only be imagining them sets off a deeper ache, something unrelated to the gaping wound in his side or the constant twinge in his shoulder as the muscles knit themselves back together.
He’s worn himself out hobbling around the room, and he’s back in the cot for now. Kili hovered over him like a mother hen, and Fili is only a little ashamed at having to rely on his brother’s help to get around. At the same time, it’s the first time since he woke up that he’s seen Kili present, really present.
He won’t stay there long; despite the protests he faces when he does anything that could possibly injure himself further, there are things he needs to tend to. He’s been laid up for too long already.
The first among these is something he and Kili must do alone.
The crypt is deep in the mountain, so deep that not even Smaug’s corruption could reach it. When he makes the suggestion, Kili immediately refuses, shoulders stiffening. “There are too many stairs, you can’t possibly make it,” he says, but the look in his eyes tells Fili that the stairs aren’t his concern.
In a different time, he might have teased his brother about being afraid of ghosts to get Kili to agree, defensive and eager to prove him wrong. The words fall to ash on his tongue now - he knows it’s nothing to do with childish fear.
“That’s what the stick is for.” The knobby walking stick leaning in the corner was a gift from Bilbo, who suggested it might be useful for getting around when Kili wasn’t there to help. The unhappy set to Kili’s mouth afterwards and the way he glared at the hobbit made something long-forgotten stir in Fili’s chest, something that burred there and stuck, rubbing raw against his lungs. “And that’s why I’ve got you here.”
Kili looks away, fastens his gaze on a spot on the far wall. From where Fili’s settled back against his too-flat pillows, he can’t see Kili’s face, doesn’t know if he wants to. He wishes he didn’t have to make Kili do this.
But they won’t let him go alone, and chances are he couldn’t make it back without help. Taking anyone else seems wrong, doesn’t settle right. It should be his brother.
“Please,” Fili says, and Thorin’s voice rises at the back of his mind. Kings don’t beg. But he isn’t a king, not yet, no matter how much everybody seems to be acting like he already wears the crown. There are ceremonies that have to be undertaken to secure his title, and as soon as he can stand on his own without falling over they will be prepared.
But this is something he has to do before then, something they both have to do. Fili needs to see Thorin’s effigy, carved in the cold stone, needs to prove to himself that his uncle is gone and the responsibility of leading their people falls to him. There’s an ache deep inside that should be proof enough, but he’s not going to take that at face value.
Next to him, Kili lets out a shaking breath, fingers gripping the sides of the cot too tight, blankets bunching. “We should wait until your strength has returned.”
Fili’s been hearing that for days now, since he showed interest in getting up and moving around, in fulfilling his duties. He breathes in and out, once, twice, and keeps his temper under control. “There are other things that will need my attention when my strength is returned.”
Kili’s fingers flex in the blanket, digging his heels in.
“If you won’t help me,” Fili says, keeping his eyes riveted to Kili’s ear, the only bit of his face he can see, “I’ll call Dwalin or Bofur. I’m sure they’d be more than willing to-“
Suddenly, Kili is on his feet, chair moved back from all of the tense energy leaving his body. Fili doesn’t let himself smile, doesn’t let himself win, because this isn’t a victory. If Kili never had to go down there, Fili would be happy. But this needs doing, and he needs Kili there with him. It’s selfish but it’s the only way Fili knows how to be when it comes to his brother.
“Come on then,” Kili says, and Fili can hear how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “We should go before someone tries to stop us.”
It takes Fili full minutes to lever himself up, trying to bend only one side of his body and not succeeding overly well. His legs feel loose when his feet hit the floor, more water than solid, and Kili is by his side a second later to bear his weight as he gets to his feet.
This is the part that hurts the most, really. He can feel the stitches pulling at his skin when he moves too quickly, and that’s uncomfortable, but his entire left side is a mess of indistinguishable pain.
He bites the inside of his cheek and breathes in, out.
Kili brings him a sheet of paper, insists they at least leave a note. It wouldn’t do to have what remains of their company out for blood if they find them missing. Fili scratches out a short explanation as best he can; his hand fumbles over the shape of the letters, unused for so long, but in the end it looks legible enough. Kili lays it on his pillow and returns, slinging Fili’s left arm over his shoulders, pressing the wound tight and immobile against his side.
The pull stretches a bit, hurts at first, but when they start walking they establish a rhythm that doesn’t hurt as much and gets them moving faster. The stairs down to the crypt are going to be painful, as it should be. Every sharp pain is repentance.
Making it across Erebor without being seen is wishful thinking, they both know this. Neither of them are surprised when they run into little Ori, tucked into a corner near the entrance to the mountain with a dusty tome opened in front of him. Fili’s momentarily glad it’s Ori and not Dwalin, but there’s still a ways to go yet. He shouldn’t count his blessings.
Ori almost doesn’t look up, too absorbed in whatever he’s reading, and they can almost slip past.
And then Kili’s foot shuffles too loudly across the dirty stone floor, and Ori looks up, startled. It takes him a moment to speak. “Fili! I mean, Your-“
“Don’t,” Fili says, wincing as Kili shifts wrong against his side. “Not you too.”
Ori flushes and looks down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at them. “I don’t want to offend, or - be presumptuous, but shouldn’t you be resting?”
“He should be,” Kili mutters, casting a dark look at the floor.
“I’ve rested long enough,” Fili says, dropping his arm from Kili’s shoulders and hobbling embarrassingly slowly across the small room to where Ori is sitting. “We’ll be back, and if you could just please not tell anyone about this? I’d be very grateful.”
Ori nods, watching him oddly. “Of course. But where are you going?”
Fili stops for a moment, catching his breath and trying not to sigh. He was dreading this question. “It’s not important. We won’t be in any danger, okay? We’ll be back in a while.”
There’s a stubborn little line between Ori’s eyebrows that reminds Fili too much of Dori for his liking, but in the end he concedes, returning to his corner and the book that’s barely keeping itself together. “Just be careful,” he says, watching them. He keeps watching them until they’re gone from sight, Fili nestled back against Kili as they shuffle out into another long, straight corridor.
Navigating Erebor is treacherous business, with so much of it destroyed by the dragon or falling apart from disuse. They only hit a couple of rough patches, places that fill Fili with a sort of terrible awe - stone melted from the heat of dragon’s breath, entire walkways knocked out from the force of a well-placed tail thrash. Mostly, the dwarves who built Erebor built it to last. The dragon has had more effect in some places than others, and the further they get from the treasury the easier it becomes to move freely.
The stairway down to the crypt is narrow and dark, and he’s left leaning against an intact pillar while Kili finds a torch. He lights it with a quick flick of the flints in his tinderbox, and tries to direct the light towards the stairs.
“Is it mostly still intact?”
“It’s solid,” Kili says shortly. “All the way down, it’s good. There are more torches at the bottom.” He looks down at the opening like he wants it to swallow him up, and Fili tries to grasp his shoulder, ends up with a hand pressed to the back of Kili’s neck instead. There’s cold sweat forming there under the heat of all of Kili’s wild hair, and Fili rubs little circles into the place his pulse pounds with a thumb, trying not to press too hard or too sharply. Kili’s breath catches anyway, fingers clutched tighter around the torch in his hand, and Fili pulls his hand away.
Kili starts down the stairs first without another word, face unreadable in the torchlight. Fili moves toward the first step as easily as he’s able, side already throbbing from the exertion. He doesn’t want to think about how it’ll feel when they reach the bottom, or on the path back up.
The first few steps are a fumbling attempt to get it right, to put each of them in as much comfort as possible while still making progress. After those first few, a routine develops where Kili steps down first and Fili grips onto his shoulder, using him as leverage so his feet don’t give way and his side doesn’t split open when he makes the step down.
Never in his life has Fili been somewhere that was made specifically for their kind. He’s used to having to navigate the streets and steps of the men in the places they’ve stayed, his smaller, stouter legs unable to make many of the large leaps that men made so effortlessly. Here, the steps were made to accommodate shorter legs, Fili finds himself immensely grateful for it as their journey into the dark of the mountain wears on.
Midway down the stairs, they stop for a short break. Kili insists on checking Fili’s wound, pulls away shirts and bandages until the ugly mark is visible to the torchlight.
“Oin’s going to kill me for taking you someplace this dirty,” Kili says, looking at the gash intently. “I’d hate for it to get infected from all the dust.”
“If you’d cover it back up, you’d have nothing to worry about,” Fili says, more irritated than he means. He’s tired of having people poking at him, tired of being scrutinized like this. He’s tired of having the wound at all, a constant reminder of his own stupidity. Having people constantly pointing it out is wearing on his nerves.
Kili doesn’t seem to be listening. “You’ll have a huge scar,” he says, moving the torch to his other hand and moving his fingers over the wound, a suggestion of a touch. Fili can’t feel the heat from Kili’s fingers like he knows he should, whole area alive with tenderness.
He allows this for a few moments before he steps back a half pace, uses his right hand to secure the bandages and lets his shirts fall back over it. “I’ll be fine,” Fili says, more quietly than he wants to. “Let’s keep going.”
They continue in silence, descending into the oppressive dark.
The staircase ends abruptly. There is a long dusty corridor leading deeper into the mountain, and there are carvings on the walls. Fili touches them, running his fingers over symbols he doesn’t know, so ancient that no one alive would probably know them. But even without knowing what the symbols mean he can tell what they say - words of esteem, words of honor, merit, and courage. Odes to the House of Durin, every one, and Fili has never felt less worthy to sit the throne of Erebor, to share blood with the ones these words were written for.
There are more torches along the walls, and When Kili starts lighting them with his own dwindling flame Fili can make out impressions in the thick dust layering the ground, fresh boot prints and long scrapes where the floor is bared.
When they brought Thorin down, of course.
“There’s a,” Kili starts, clears his throat. “There’s an even passageway where they brought-not down the stairs.”
Fili nods, tearing his eyes away from the marks and back to Kili, who’s standing down the passageway, stopped halfway to another torch. He looks over his shoulder, waiting, and Fili makes his way down the corridor until he’s again by Kili’s side.
“How much farther?”
“Just down here.” Kili continues lighting torches until the very end of the passageway, where lurks a large, dark doorway. It’s a strong arch, carved directly from the stone, with runes framing the opening. They’re etched deep, still legible after all this time; some ancient Elvish tongue that he can’t read, and dark, bold Khuzdul that he can.
His eyes sweep over the runes and a lump rises in his throat. He pushes it down and steadies himself with a hand against the stone passageway.
It’s utterly silent down here, and dark beyond the spread of the torchlight. Kili hesitates uncertainly before the door, shoulders set, bracing himself. Fili takes a deep breath and pushes himself off the wall, ignores Kili’s offer of help . He will stride into the resting place of his forbears proud, tall, and without assistance.
Fili can’t see how long the room is, only that it is lined by more heavy archways on each side. Each of these archways have inscriptions over them, the names and words of respect for the dwarves resting within. Kili is careful with the torch, resting it in the bracket present in each tomb when they step inside. Fili waits for his brother to be beside him before he starts the ritual bowing process. It pulls at his stitches, and by the time they reach the end of the room they might very well pull out, but Fili doesn’t care. He will bear this without a flinch of pain, and possessed of all of the nobility his House demands of him.
It’s a long process, making their way through the tombs of their forefathers. In each archway, they stand and, in unison, read off the Khuzdul inscribed above before paying their respects. It’s a tradition they’ve never had to partake in, but one Thorin made sure to teach them.
Fili feels his stitches pop long before they reach the end of the room, and he’s mid-bow when it happens. He almost, almost gives himself away, but outside of a small intake of breath he keeps silent; even that is enough to make Kili’s eyes snap to him, but Fili doesn’t acknowledge it, continues with the ceremony without pause.
Each effigy along their journey has been different - at first, the changes were stylistic only. The faces on his far ancestors were chiseled very square and heavy from the stone, like the statues that guard the entrance to the mountain. They aren’t realistic countenances, but meant to impart the strength and honor within each ruler buried here. As the years wear on, entire generations passing before their eyes, it changes; the figures become more realistic, more detailed.
The farther they walk into the mountain, the heavier Fili’s shoulders feel.
At last, they reach the tombs of Thror and Thrain, empty but no different than the rest of them; dressed elaborately, and the style in the stone carvings is the most realistic he’s seen yet. They spend more time here, perhaps delaying the inevitable.
These tombs are left the same they were the day the dragon attacked - there is no date of death carved into the archways, no words of great deeds. Fili has heard enough stories about his grandfather and his great-grandfather that he will make the trip down again and add them himself. It doesn’t do for a dwarf lord’s resting place to go unadorned, not like this. Perhaps Kili will assist him, and they’ll work out the indelicate, thick lines of the most esteeming things they can think of together.
Fili lingers in Thrain’s tomb longer than he should, looking down at the face of their grandfather. Mother always had such nice stories about him, told only on dark, fireside nights when Thorin wasn’t at home, off to secure trade with another settlement or settle a dispute in a neighboring house. Thorin never spoke of him more than was strictly necessary, and when they were small Fili remembers asking his mother why, remembers the look on her face that made him immediately wrap his arms around her neck and apologize for asking.
When he tears his eyes from the stone likeness of their grandfather, Kili is watching him, eyes wide. Fili nods and turns, slowly, mindful of the burning in his side. There’s a lump rising in his throat, a heaviness on his chest, and he doesn’t want to keep going. He doesn’t want to see the effigies for their uncles, the one they never got to know and the one that he, at least, knew too well.
Across the corridor is Frerin’s tomb, the arch bare. There’s nothing to read out as they step inside, and once there they realize that they should have known; Frerin was too young to have an effigy carved when Erebor fell. Thorin’s might have been done before, crown prince and older besides, but there is no stone face on Frerin’s tomb. There is a plain rectangular casket where his body might have lain if it hadn’t been burned at the gates of Moria with Thror and the countless warriors who fell there. He was younger than he and Kili are now.
Fili’s been told many times since he woke that he is young, that he’ll pull through. That his wounds will heal. But Fili feels shattered, old, as he pays his respect to the blank slab that is all remaining of their youngest uncle.
He feels older still when he straightens, now-wet bandages sticking to him, and with the knowledge that he doesn’t want to step into the last tomb.
They leave the memory of Frerin behind as they step into the corridor, the last archway yawning huge and dark before them. The torch is shaking, Kili’s hand unsteady, and Fili puts a hand to the bandages at his side, pressing the wet cloth into the wound to try and stanch the flow of blood. It’s a distraction, sharp bite of pain that stops the lump in his throat from bursting into a cry, into traitorous tears. He is one of the last remaining heirs of Durin. He and Kili, standing here at the mouth of something large and terrible, are all that are left of the dwarves they’ve been paying respects to.
He takes the torch from Kili’s shaking hand, his own not much better, and steps into the dark opening of Thorin’s tomb.
The dust has been cleaned from the floor. The torch bracket is new, fashioned of shining metal instead of the dull, rusty counterparts lining the corridors. Fili keeps his eyes riveted to it, mind focusing on his task as he attempts to fit the torch in with hands that feel suddenly large and useless.
Kili steps in behind him, his breath heavy and thick, clogged in his throat. Fili turns to look at him first. Kili’s eyes are sparkling in the light of the torch, face open and hurt. He’s shaking, minute little shudders running the length of his body as he very carefully doesn’t look any farther into the tomb, eyes fixed on Fili.
Fili wants to say his brother’s name, wants to cross the small space and make that look go away, but he can’t do either. His feet are rooted to the floor, watching his brother slowly fall apart at having to face this again.
When he finds his voice, he croaks out, “I’m here,” around the thickness in his throat, and at the look on Kili’s face he can’t hold it anymore. He feels the prickling behind his eyes and doesn’t try to hide it. Kili steps closer, in Fili’s space, and Fili moves aside, turns, and looks at Thorin’s effigy for the first time.
It’s not a perfect likeness. He looks incredibly young and peaceful in stone. This is a Thorin they never knew, before the dragon, before the weight of the world. It’s not a realistic depiction; they don’t have his nose right, eyebrows a shade too thick, and in the effigy his beard is longer, longer than they’ve ever seen it. Fili wonders if he might have grown it again when he reclaimed the throne, no longer in mourning for those lost to Smaug.
Kili’s shoulder presses into his uninjured one, needing the contact, and Fili leans into him, responding as he always does.
He remembers, suddenly, the battle. The moments before the arrow in his shoulder and the blade in his side, before he hit the ground and woke, days later, without knowing where he was. He remembers Thorin lying in the mud of the battlefield, unable to move, muttering to his dead brother. He remembers the look in his eyes, the apology there, and the ragged sound of Kili’s battle cry when he found them, Thorin’s head cradled in Fili’s lap.
After that there is only pain, dulling all of his senses. He remembers lying in the mud next to his uncle, watching his eyes flicker closed for the last time. He remembers wanting to do something about it, but his lifeblood was rushing out of his side in great gushes. He felt oddly at peace until he heard Kili’s cry, breaking through the haze of pain; he couldn’t leave Kili alone, not like this. He’s too young, it’d be too much for him, he’s not been groomed for it the way Fili has. No, he…
Kili’s hand on his arm breaks him out of his memories, and he realizes that tears are falling freely from his eyes now, leaving clean streaks on his face, dirtied from the dust. He bows as low as he can without completely opening the wound in his side again, and next to him Kili does the same. They stay bent for longer than they have before, and when they straighten, Kili sags.
His shoulders fall, and he breathes out in a quick whisper, “I. I washed the blood - it was everywhere, so much of it.” He turns to face Fili, pleading with his eyes. “His hair needed - I redid his braids, added a few with new clasps they gave me. I wish-“ He takes a breath, sucks in a lungful of air before continuing. “He looked like a king, Fee. I wish you’d have seen him.”
“Because he was,” is all Fili can say, raises his hand to tangle in Kili’s hair, rubbing at his scalp the way he used to when they were children. He’s holding himself together with threadbare rope, feels like his entire body might break from the force of what’s weighing down on him. He feels, keenly, the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking. “I’m so sorry,” is what he says, but it’s not what he means to.
Kili nods, buries his face in Fili’s shoulder and sobs, sound loud and echoing in the quiet. Fili holds him as best he can without falling over, not tearing his eyes off Thorin’s heavy stone likeness. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and this time he doesn’t know which of them he’s talking to.
Title: and a swelling rage
Author: free_pirate
Pairings: Kili/Fili, Fili/Thorin
Words: ~6000 (this part)
Warnings: Incest, angst, major character death, King Fili (is this a warning?)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: He feels the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking.
He hears the impact before he feels it, a loud, sickening crunch that reverberates in his teeth. Thorin meets the ground before he realizes that the source of the noise was something making contact with his own body, gasping for air before he feels the exquisite, mind-numbing pain breathing brings.
There is no sound for a moment, only some large and incomprehensible hurt licking at his skin, at his insides, everywhere. His back must surely have been the point of impact because it feels as though someone’s lit a fire in the skin around his spine; it’s the only distinguishable feeling, separate from the larger pain that’s spreading through him.
Thorin’s sword slips from his fingers but he doesn’t feel it do so, only watches it hit the ground when he finds the strength to open his eyes. He slumps forward, breath coming short and ragged. The command to stop him before he hits the ground goes unanswered by his arms, and he’s left lying in the mud of the field, trying to breathe around the tightening constriction in his chest.
His eyes attempt to flutter closed but he’s determined not to let them. This is the one focus he keeps in mind as he watches feet stomp past, goblins with their pale skin almost transparent in the dying light, Dain’s men in their heavy boots. It seems like ages pass while his limbs slowly go numb, watching the fight raging on around him but unable to do anything other than attempt shallow, broken breaths.
And then he hears something above the clash of steel to steel, above the guttural battle cries of goblins and dwarves and the delicate, musical lilt of Sindarin almost lost within the din. Someone is calling his name from very far off, and he wants to lift his head, cry out, something, but trying any of these things only brings panic; he can’t lift his head, can’t gather enough breath to cry out.
There is no warning beside heavy footfalls behind him, the soft thump of a weapon hitting the ground. There are hands on his shoulders, pulling him over, and just the touch drives what precious little breath he has out of him again.
It takes Thorin a few seconds to recognize the one holding him, and when he does it’s another pain, something smaller but above his own suffering. He won’t make it - the clarity of that thought is startling compared with the blur every other thought has become - and here is what he will leave his heir; a kingdom torn by negotiations he won’t hope to understand, a tradition he knows nothing of and the support of a scattered few. He has Erebor, its endless riches, the crown and throne that his title will demand. Everything else will be hard won.
He recognizes Fili, so much like Frerin - golden-haired, easy to smile. Frerin was more like Kili in disposition; as second born, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden that Thorin always carried, the weight of the mountains on his shoulders. Sweet, brave Frerin, who never wanted anything but his approval.
And he’s back at Moria then, with Frerin’s hands hovering over him, not Fili’s. There’s blood matted in his brother’s hair but he looks unhurt; it’s Thorin who is spread on the ground, blood bubbling up from between his lips to stick in his beard. Frerin’s come for him at last. He only spent a precious few years with his brother, but Thorin feels the ache of loss now as keenly as he has every moment since his death.
There’s a look in Frerin’s eyes that Thorin can’t place, doesn’t want to - he is the cause of this look and he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone; he just wants to stop hurting.
He wants to reach up and touch Frerin’s face but his arms won’t obey, and then Frerin says, “Uncle,” small and ragged, torn from his throat - and there are eagles wheeling overhead, like there never were at Moria. He coughs, air pushing out from lungs that have nothing left to give.
“Fili,” he says, voice not his own, barely more than a whisper. There’s another cry from somewhere to the left. Thorin’s eyes are fixed on Fili’s face, but he knows from the look he finds there that Kili is safe, that Fili was in doubt about it, and that his fears have been assuaged.
There’s a small sound on the air, and a solid thump behind Fili, and an orc falls over screaming. There’s a dark-fletched arrow buried in its thigh, which moments before was inches from Fili’s ear. Kili joins them, kneeling in the mud with his bow tossed aside. If he wasn’t hurting, if he couldn’t feel the life leaving him in bits and pieces, he would urge caution.
Kili is close enough to touch, but trying to reach out to him proves fruitless. He watches Kili’s face for a few moments, watches the shock and hurt play over his face, and before he has a chance to summon the strength to say anything Kili is up again, screaming out a battle-cry in unbroken Khuzdul. He picks his bow up and slings it across his back, unsheathes his sword and holds it ready in front of him. Something pulls at Thorin’s chest that has nothing to do with physical hurts.
Above him, Fili lowers Thorin’s head to the ground with the utmost care, strong, gentle hands on the back of his neck, combing one last time through his hair before they grasp swords again. Fili echoes Kili’s cry and launches himself into the writhing horde of goblins and wargs.
The last thing he sees before his eyes slide shut is the arrow that buries itself in Fili’s shoulder, catching him mid-swing and sending his sword clattering to the ground. It gives the orc that he’s fighting enough of an opening to bury his blade in Fili’s side.
The last thing he hears is Kili’s roar.
*
As Fili rises to consciousness, he feels light and heavy at the same time. For a long time he can just lie there, can’t feel his body at all, can’t see or hear. He just exists, and for a long time that’s all there is.
And then he feels pain.
First there’s the deep ache in his right shoulder. It comes on suddenly, so suddenly it feels like he’s been shot a second time. And he can’t cry out in pain because his mouth isn’t working, can’t thrash like he wants to because he can’t move.
And then feeling seeps downward, reaching a critical point - his right side, and then he can’t feel anything but pain. It’s sudden and intense, feels like something vital is missing. He begins to twitch as much as he can manage, flicking his fingers in small motions that go seemingly unnoticed.
The next thing is hearing. It approaches him cautiously, like he’s getting closer and closer to people conversing even though he himself isn’t moving. He hears a voice - the first he’s heard in a long time, and it’s… the hobbit’s? But… didn’t Thorin exile him from the mountain? Are they in the mountain at all?
Where is he?
He’d ask if he could, but until he can speak he holds the question in the back of his mind, burning and festering.
After some time of just hearing, fading in and out of sleep, he hears Kili’s voice. It’s calming, just about the best thing he’s heard since he’s been able to hear again. But Kili doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds gruff and too-short with Oin, who Fili’s been able to identify as the voice he hears most often, muttering to himself as he tends to the pain. He likes Oin. Oin makes the pain go away, at least for a while.
But Oin leaves the two of them alone, him and Kili. He wants to twitch his fingers, do something Kili will understand, but at the moment the strength is just outside of his grasp. He’s wasted it all on listening.
He listens still, listen to Kili’s sigh. He feels Kili’s fingers in his hair, at first just running through, then undoing the braids in his hair, and redoing them carefully, weaving them together with care. “Fee,” he says, name he hasn’t used since they were younger. Fili wishes he could do anything but remain impassive. “Please, please,” Kili gasps, voice husky. Fili tries so hard to break through the heavy blanket of immobility that’s holding him down, but he’s stuck. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t move.
“I can’t do this on my own,” Kili continues, fingers tightening in Fili’s hair. “I won’t.”
It’s so characteristically Kili, stubborn and determined, that Fili wants to smile. His mouth doesn’t respond, but it’s not for lack of trying. “I need you,” Kili says, voice only wavering slightly. Fili wants to tell him that he’s here, that everything will be okay, that he wouldn’t leave without Kili anyway.
He wiggles his fingers.
Kili lets out a strangled noise of surprise. “Oin!” he calls, touching Fili’s hand. Fili wants to crawl into the warmth that is Kili and never come out, never let him feel this way again. How did he get hurt? Why can’t he wake up?
*
Kili doesn’t leave his side after he finds signs of life. He talks sometimes, and Fili looses track of the conversation, weaving in and out of consciousness. He feels Kili touching him, a constant pressure on his hands, in his hair. He has his braids redone so many times a day that he doesn’t understand how Kili isn’t tired of it yet. Other people come and go, but Kili is always there.
Fili is constantly trying to get his body to respond, to do more than move his fingers - he tries in vain for what feels like days. His pains have faded to dull, constant annoyances. Part of it is not moving, he supposes, but if he could move he’d gladly deal with the pain.
His frustration peaks when Kili is fiddling with his hand, just pressing the tips of his fingers into Fili’s palm for the contact and Fili tries to clench his hand around his brother’s fingers, catch them and stop them from moving. When his palm encloses skin, Kili makes a triumphant sound and calls for Oin again.
A few moments later, Fili opens his eyes and is immediately blinded.
There is only torchlight in the room, but even that is too-bright. Faces swim into focus above him, Oin and Kili and Bilbo lurking worriedly out of the way. The wild, happy grin on Kili’s face looks a bit strained like he hasn’t had cause to use it lately, but it’s the most beautiful thing Fili’s ever seen. His own mouth twitches up.
“You’re awake!” Kili says, happier than Fili’s heard since he could hear again.
“I’ve been for a while.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, scratchy and hoarse. He remembers wanting to ask for what feels like forever, so he does. “Where are we?”
*
It’s six days before Fili can walk again without the immediate, disabling pain flaring in his side. There are no windows here, and being unconscious for so long has ruined his sleep cycles; he only knows the day at all because Kili tells him faithfully, sitting by his bed day in and day out. There is no cheerful chatter like there should be. Kili is still and quiet as the stone around them most days, eyes distant unless Fili is addressing him directly.
It’s a change from the way Kili was when he first opened his eyes. He was more like himself then. But Kili’s been through so much in Fili’s time recovering. He isn’t surprised, just wishes he could make his brother carefree again.
He feels guilty. This is his fault, letting his concern for Thorin to distract him, get himself hurt. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid it. Six days he’s been lying on this cot with his brother despondent beside him, and he occupies himself with imagining the tongue-lashings Thorin would give him for being so slow. Fili can imagine them easily enough, but the knowledge that he’ll only be imagining them sets off a deeper ache, something unrelated to the gaping wound in his side or the constant twinge in his shoulder as the muscles knit themselves back together.
He’s worn himself out hobbling around the room, and he’s back in the cot for now. Kili hovered over him like a mother hen, and Fili is only a little ashamed at having to rely on his brother’s help to get around. At the same time, it’s the first time since he woke up that he’s seen Kili present, really present.
He won’t stay there long; despite the protests he faces when he does anything that could possibly injure himself further, there are things he needs to tend to. He’s been laid up for too long already.
The first among these is something he and Kili must do alone.
The crypt is deep in the mountain, so deep that not even Smaug’s corruption could reach it. When he makes the suggestion, Kili immediately refuses, shoulders stiffening. “There are too many stairs, you can’t possibly make it,” he says, but the look in his eyes tells Fili that the stairs aren’t his concern.
In a different time, he might have teased his brother about being afraid of ghosts to get Kili to agree, defensive and eager to prove him wrong. The words fall to ash on his tongue now - he knows it’s nothing to do with childish fear.
“That’s what the stick is for.” The knobby walking stick leaning in the corner was a gift from Bilbo, who suggested it might be useful for getting around when Kili wasn’t there to help. The unhappy set to Kili’s mouth afterwards and the way he glared at the hobbit made something long-forgotten stir in Fili’s chest, something that burred there and stuck, rubbing raw against his lungs. “And that’s why I’ve got you here.”
Kili looks away, fastens his gaze on a spot on the far wall. From where Fili’s settled back against his too-flat pillows, he can’t see Kili’s face, doesn’t know if he wants to. He wishes he didn’t have to make Kili do this.
But they won’t let him go alone, and chances are he couldn’t make it back without help. Taking anyone else seems wrong, doesn’t settle right. It should be his brother.
“Please,” Fili says, and Thorin’s voice rises at the back of his mind. Kings don’t beg. But he isn’t a king, not yet, no matter how much everybody seems to be acting like he already wears the crown. There are ceremonies that have to be undertaken to secure his title, and as soon as he can stand on his own without falling over they will be prepared.
But this is something he has to do before then, something they both have to do. Fili needs to see Thorin’s effigy, carved in the cold stone, needs to prove to himself that his uncle is gone and the responsibility of leading their people falls to him. There’s an ache deep inside that should be proof enough, but he’s not going to take that at face value.
Next to him, Kili lets out a shaking breath, fingers gripping the sides of the cot too tight, blankets bunching. “We should wait until your strength has returned.”
Fili’s been hearing that for days now, since he showed interest in getting up and moving around, in fulfilling his duties. He breathes in and out, once, twice, and keeps his temper under control. “There are other things that will need my attention when my strength is returned.”
Kili’s fingers flex in the blanket, digging his heels in.
“If you won’t help me,” Fili says, keeping his eyes riveted to Kili’s ear, the only bit of his face he can see, “I’ll call Dwalin or Bofur. I’m sure they’d be more than willing to-“
Suddenly, Kili is on his feet, chair moved back from all of the tense energy leaving his body. Fili doesn’t let himself smile, doesn’t let himself win, because this isn’t a victory. If Kili never had to go down there, Fili would be happy. But this needs doing, and he needs Kili there with him. It’s selfish but it’s the only way Fili knows how to be when it comes to his brother.
“Come on then,” Kili says, and Fili can hear how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “We should go before someone tries to stop us.”
It takes Fili full minutes to lever himself up, trying to bend only one side of his body and not succeeding overly well. His legs feel loose when his feet hit the floor, more water than solid, and Kili is by his side a second later to bear his weight as he gets to his feet.
This is the part that hurts the most, really. He can feel the stitches pulling at his skin when he moves too quickly, and that’s uncomfortable, but his entire left side is a mess of indistinguishable pain.
He bites the inside of his cheek and breathes in, out.
Kili brings him a sheet of paper, insists they at least leave a note. It wouldn’t do to have what remains of their company out for blood if they find them missing. Fili scratches out a short explanation as best he can; his hand fumbles over the shape of the letters, unused for so long, but in the end it looks legible enough. Kili lays it on his pillow and returns, slinging Fili’s left arm over his shoulders, pressing the wound tight and immobile against his side.
The pull stretches a bit, hurts at first, but when they start walking they establish a rhythm that doesn’t hurt as much and gets them moving faster. The stairs down to the crypt are going to be painful, as it should be. Every sharp pain is repentance.
Making it across Erebor without being seen is wishful thinking, they both know this. Neither of them are surprised when they run into little Ori, tucked into a corner near the entrance to the mountain with a dusty tome opened in front of him. Fili’s momentarily glad it’s Ori and not Dwalin, but there’s still a ways to go yet. He shouldn’t count his blessings.
Ori almost doesn’t look up, too absorbed in whatever he’s reading, and they can almost slip past.
And then Kili’s foot shuffles too loudly across the dirty stone floor, and Ori looks up, startled. It takes him a moment to speak. “Fili! I mean, Your-“
“Don’t,” Fili says, wincing as Kili shifts wrong against his side. “Not you too.”
Ori flushes and looks down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at them. “I don’t want to offend, or - be presumptuous, but shouldn’t you be resting?”
“He should be,” Kili mutters, casting a dark look at the floor.
“I’ve rested long enough,” Fili says, dropping his arm from Kili’s shoulders and hobbling embarrassingly slowly across the small room to where Ori is sitting. “We’ll be back, and if you could just please not tell anyone about this? I’d be very grateful.”
Ori nods, watching him oddly. “Of course. But where are you going?”
Fili stops for a moment, catching his breath and trying not to sigh. He was dreading this question. “It’s not important. We won’t be in any danger, okay? We’ll be back in a while.”
There’s a stubborn little line between Ori’s eyebrows that reminds Fili too much of Dori for his liking, but in the end he concedes, returning to his corner and the book that’s barely keeping itself together. “Just be careful,” he says, watching them. He keeps watching them until they’re gone from sight, Fili nestled back against Kili as they shuffle out into another long, straight corridor.
Navigating Erebor is treacherous business, with so much of it destroyed by the dragon or falling apart from disuse. They only hit a couple of rough patches, places that fill Fili with a sort of terrible awe - stone melted from the heat of dragon’s breath, entire walkways knocked out from the force of a well-placed tail thrash. Mostly, the dwarves who built Erebor built it to last. The dragon has had more effect in some places than others, and the further they get from the treasury the easier it becomes to move freely.
The stairway down to the crypt is narrow and dark, and he’s left leaning against an intact pillar while Kili finds a torch. He lights it with a quick flick of the flints in his tinderbox, and tries to direct the light towards the stairs.
“Is it mostly still intact?”
“It’s solid,” Kili says shortly. “All the way down, it’s good. There are more torches at the bottom.” He looks down at the opening like he wants it to swallow him up, and Fili tries to grasp his shoulder, ends up with a hand pressed to the back of Kili’s neck instead. There’s cold sweat forming there under the heat of all of Kili’s wild hair, and Fili rubs little circles into the place his pulse pounds with a thumb, trying not to press too hard or too sharply. Kili’s breath catches anyway, fingers clutched tighter around the torch in his hand, and Fili pulls his hand away.
Kili starts down the stairs first without another word, face unreadable in the torchlight. Fili moves toward the first step as easily as he’s able, side already throbbing from the exertion. He doesn’t want to think about how it’ll feel when they reach the bottom, or on the path back up.
The first few steps are a fumbling attempt to get it right, to put each of them in as much comfort as possible while still making progress. After those first few, a routine develops where Kili steps down first and Fili grips onto his shoulder, using him as leverage so his feet don’t give way and his side doesn’t split open when he makes the step down.
Never in his life has Fili been somewhere that was made specifically for their kind. He’s used to having to navigate the streets and steps of the men in the places they’ve stayed, his smaller, stouter legs unable to make many of the large leaps that men made so effortlessly. Here, the steps were made to accommodate shorter legs, Fili finds himself immensely grateful for it as their journey into the dark of the mountain wears on.
Midway down the stairs, they stop for a short break. Kili insists on checking Fili’s wound, pulls away shirts and bandages until the ugly mark is visible to the torchlight.
“Oin’s going to kill me for taking you someplace this dirty,” Kili says, looking at the gash intently. “I’d hate for it to get infected from all the dust.”
“If you’d cover it back up, you’d have nothing to worry about,” Fili says, more irritated than he means. He’s tired of having people poking at him, tired of being scrutinized like this. He’s tired of having the wound at all, a constant reminder of his own stupidity. Having people constantly pointing it out is wearing on his nerves.
Kili doesn’t seem to be listening. “You’ll have a huge scar,” he says, moving the torch to his other hand and moving his fingers over the wound, a suggestion of a touch. Fili can’t feel the heat from Kili’s fingers like he knows he should, whole area alive with tenderness.
He allows this for a few moments before he steps back a half pace, uses his right hand to secure the bandages and lets his shirts fall back over it. “I’ll be fine,” Fili says, more quietly than he wants to. “Let’s keep going.”
They continue in silence, descending into the oppressive dark.
The staircase ends abruptly. There is a long dusty corridor leading deeper into the mountain, and there are carvings on the walls. Fili touches them, running his fingers over symbols he doesn’t know, so ancient that no one alive would probably know them. But even without knowing what the symbols mean he can tell what they say - words of esteem, words of honor, merit, and courage. Odes to the House of Durin, every one, and Fili has never felt less worthy to sit the throne of Erebor, to share blood with the ones these words were written for.
There are more torches along the walls, and When Kili starts lighting them with his own dwindling flame Fili can make out impressions in the thick dust layering the ground, fresh boot prints and long scrapes where the floor is bared.
When they brought Thorin down, of course.
“There’s a,” Kili starts, clears his throat. “There’s an even passageway where they brought-not down the stairs.”
Fili nods, tearing his eyes away from the marks and back to Kili, who’s standing down the passageway, stopped halfway to another torch. He looks over his shoulder, waiting, and Fili makes his way down the corridor until he’s again by Kili’s side.
“How much farther?”
“Just down here.” Kili continues lighting torches until the very end of the passageway, where lurks a large, dark doorway. It’s a strong arch, carved directly from the stone, with runes framing the opening. They’re etched deep, still legible after all this time; some ancient Elvish tongue that he can’t read, and dark, bold Khuzdul that he can.
His eyes sweep over the runes and a lump rises in his throat. He pushes it down and steadies himself with a hand against the stone passageway.
It’s utterly silent down here, and dark beyond the spread of the torchlight. Kili hesitates uncertainly before the door, shoulders set, bracing himself. Fili takes a deep breath and pushes himself off the wall, ignores Kili’s offer of help . He will stride into the resting place of his forbears proud, tall, and without assistance.
Fili can’t see how long the room is, only that it is lined by more heavy archways on each side. Each of these archways have inscriptions over them, the names and words of respect for the dwarves resting within. Kili is careful with the torch, resting it in the bracket present in each tomb when they step inside. Fili waits for his brother to be beside him before he starts the ritual bowing process. It pulls at his stitches, and by the time they reach the end of the room they might very well pull out, but Fili doesn’t care. He will bear this without a flinch of pain, and possessed of all of the nobility his House demands of him.
It’s a long process, making their way through the tombs of their forefathers. In each archway, they stand and, in unison, read off the Khuzdul inscribed above before paying their respects. It’s a tradition they’ve never had to partake in, but one Thorin made sure to teach them.
Fili feels his stitches pop long before they reach the end of the room, and he’s mid-bow when it happens. He almost, almost gives himself away, but outside of a small intake of breath he keeps silent; even that is enough to make Kili’s eyes snap to him, but Fili doesn’t acknowledge it, continues with the ceremony without pause.
Each effigy along their journey has been different - at first, the changes were stylistic only. The faces on his far ancestors were chiseled very square and heavy from the stone, like the statues that guard the entrance to the mountain. They aren’t realistic countenances, but meant to impart the strength and honor within each ruler buried here. As the years wear on, entire generations passing before their eyes, it changes; the figures become more realistic, more detailed.
The farther they walk into the mountain, the heavier Fili’s shoulders feel.
At last, they reach the tombs of Thror and Thrain, empty but no different than the rest of them; dressed elaborately, and the style in the stone carvings is the most realistic he’s seen yet. They spend more time here, perhaps delaying the inevitable.
These tombs are left the same they were the day the dragon attacked - there is no date of death carved into the archways, no words of great deeds. Fili has heard enough stories about his grandfather and his great-grandfather that he will make the trip down again and add them himself. It doesn’t do for a dwarf lord’s resting place to go unadorned, not like this. Perhaps Kili will assist him, and they’ll work out the indelicate, thick lines of the most esteeming things they can think of together.
Fili lingers in Thrain’s tomb longer than he should, looking down at the face of their grandfather. Mother always had such nice stories about him, told only on dark, fireside nights when Thorin wasn’t at home, off to secure trade with another settlement or settle a dispute in a neighboring house. Thorin never spoke of him more than was strictly necessary, and when they were small Fili remembers asking his mother why, remembers the look on her face that made him immediately wrap his arms around her neck and apologize for asking.
When he tears his eyes from the stone likeness of their grandfather, Kili is watching him, eyes wide. Fili nods and turns, slowly, mindful of the burning in his side. There’s a lump rising in his throat, a heaviness on his chest, and he doesn’t want to keep going. He doesn’t want to see the effigies for their uncles, the one they never got to know and the one that he, at least, knew too well.
Across the corridor is Frerin’s tomb, the arch bare. There’s nothing to read out as they step inside, and once there they realize that they should have known; Frerin was too young to have an effigy carved when Erebor fell. Thorin’s might have been done before, crown prince and older besides, but there is no stone face on Frerin’s tomb. There is a plain rectangular casket where his body might have lain if it hadn’t been burned at the gates of Moria with Thror and the countless warriors who fell there. He was younger than he and Kili are now.
Fili’s been told many times since he woke that he is young, that he’ll pull through. That his wounds will heal. But Fili feels shattered, old, as he pays his respect to the blank slab that is all remaining of their youngest uncle.
He feels older still when he straightens, now-wet bandages sticking to him, and with the knowledge that he doesn’t want to step into the last tomb.
They leave the memory of Frerin behind as they step into the corridor, the last archway yawning huge and dark before them. The torch is shaking, Kili’s hand unsteady, and Fili puts a hand to the bandages at his side, pressing the wet cloth into the wound to try and stanch the flow of blood. It’s a distraction, sharp bite of pain that stops the lump in his throat from bursting into a cry, into traitorous tears. He is one of the last remaining heirs of Durin. He and Kili, standing here at the mouth of something large and terrible, are all that are left of the dwarves they’ve been paying respects to.
He takes the torch from Kili’s shaking hand, his own not much better, and steps into the dark opening of Thorin’s tomb.
The dust has been cleaned from the floor. The torch bracket is new, fashioned of shining metal instead of the dull, rusty counterparts lining the corridors. Fili keeps his eyes riveted to it, mind focusing on his task as he attempts to fit the torch in with hands that feel suddenly large and useless.
Kili steps in behind him, his breath heavy and thick, clogged in his throat. Fili turns to look at him first. Kili’s eyes are sparkling in the light of the torch, face open and hurt. He’s shaking, minute little shudders running the length of his body as he very carefully doesn’t look any farther into the tomb, eyes fixed on Fili.
Fili wants to say his brother’s name, wants to cross the small space and make that look go away, but he can’t do either. His feet are rooted to the floor, watching his brother slowly fall apart at having to face this again.
When he finds his voice, he croaks out, “I’m here,” around the thickness in his throat, and at the look on Kili’s face he can’t hold it anymore. He feels the prickling behind his eyes and doesn’t try to hide it. Kili steps closer, in Fili’s space, and Fili moves aside, turns, and looks at Thorin’s effigy for the first time.
It’s not a perfect likeness. He looks incredibly young and peaceful in stone. This is a Thorin they never knew, before the dragon, before the weight of the world. It’s not a realistic depiction; they don’t have his nose right, eyebrows a shade too thick, and in the effigy his beard is longer, longer than they’ve ever seen it. Fili wonders if he might have grown it again when he reclaimed the throne, no longer in mourning for those lost to Smaug.
Kili’s shoulder presses into his uninjured one, needing the contact, and Fili leans into him, responding as he always does.
He remembers, suddenly, the battle. The moments before the arrow in his shoulder and the blade in his side, before he hit the ground and woke, days later, without knowing where he was. He remembers Thorin lying in the mud of the battlefield, unable to move, muttering to his dead brother. He remembers the look in his eyes, the apology there, and the ragged sound of Kili’s battle cry when he found them, Thorin’s head cradled in Fili’s lap.
After that there is only pain, dulling all of his senses. He remembers lying in the mud next to his uncle, watching his eyes flicker closed for the last time. He remembers wanting to do something about it, but his lifeblood was rushing out of his side in great gushes. He felt oddly at peace until he heard Kili’s cry, breaking through the haze of pain; he couldn’t leave Kili alone, not like this. He’s too young, it’d be too much for him, he’s not been groomed for it the way Fili has. No, he…
Kili’s hand on his arm breaks him out of his memories, and he realizes that tears are falling freely from his eyes now, leaving clean streaks on his face, dirtied from the dust. He bows as low as he can without completely opening the wound in his side again, and next to him Kili does the same. They stay bent for longer than they have before, and when they straighten, Kili sags.
His shoulders fall, and he breathes out in a quick whisper, “I. I washed the blood - it was everywhere, so much of it.” He turns to face Fili, pleading with his eyes. “His hair needed - I redid his braids, added a few with new clasps they gave me. I wish-“ He takes a breath, sucks in a lungful of air before continuing. “He looked like a king, Fee. I wish you’d have seen him.”
“Because he was,” is all Fili can say, raises his hand to tangle in Kili’s hair, rubbing at his scalp the way he used to when they were children. He’s holding himself together with threadbare rope, feels like his entire body might break from the force of what’s weighing down on him. He feels, keenly, the weight of the mountain on top of them, millions of tons of stone bearing down, pressing him to breaking. “I’m so sorry,” is what he says, but it’s not what he means to.
Kili nods, buries his face in Fili’s shoulder and sobs, sound loud and echoing in the quiet. Fili holds him as best he can without falling over, not tearing his eyes off Thorin’s heavy stone likeness. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and this time he doesn’t know which of them he’s talking to.