19A/N: So whoops this happened. As many of you are probably aware by this point, I've been working through some prompts I've received on tumblr... my username is mistergandalf if you feel like adding to the burden. :P But I got one from FiliToYourKili suggesting "a post-Bofta fix it where Fíli the last to wake up, and Kíli is there to help take care of him," and I could not resist making it into a Ghost of Erebor prequel. I had a lot of fun with it, experimenting with the writing style in order to... well, you'll see what I did.
So, if you have not read The Ghost of Erebor, you can read this first, or you can read that first. It doesn't matter, though if you read this first, you'll sort of have the mystery of that fic spoiled for you. So my recommendation is to read GoE first, but you can do it either way. It's up to you.
And the title is NOT a reference to any work authored by a certain George R. R. Martin. Ahem. Anyway. Read on.
It is cold. Everything is white. Snow is falling. Is snow falling? Fíli cannot tell. His eyes rove, his head pounds, his body aches. His leg is on fire. Why is his leg on fire if it is cold?
Then he remembers. Cruel laughter. The pale orc. Pressure, and then a thick, sickening crack. Flames spread through his leg, and he shudders. Where is Azog? Where is he? He wishes his eyes would focus, but they refuse to obey him. Where is Azog?
Terror spreads through Fíli's veins like ice. He cannot see—he does not know if he is safe or in danger. He does not know anything. He does not even know how he ended up here, wherever here is. Freezing wind blows in his face, and fear chills him from within. He attempts to move, but his arms flop uselessly, and his leg is still burning, burning, even with the wind and the snow the fear, it burns and it won't stop—
"Fíli!" cries a voice—a familiar voice. "Fíli!" it calls again, and he realizes that it is Kíli's voice. No, no, not Kíli, he has to leave, before the orcs get him too, before Azog tortures him too. The thought sends chills down Fíli's spine. He tries to look for his brother, but his eyes still will not obey. Then a blur of brown and gold fills his vision and hands are touching him. He recoils from the touch with a gasp, his eyes widening, though it does nothing to help him see and the hands are still touching him, and he waits to be picked up and thrown again, over and over until he cannot see or stand and his pride is forgotten. He is shaking now and he does not know if it is because of the cold on his skin or the ice in his veins.
But the hands do not pick him up and throw him, and he realizes they are not orc hands at all—they are Dwarf hands. They are Kíli's hands. Kíli is speaking to him, but Fíli cannot hear him over the wind rushing in his ears. He tries to focus on the brown and gold, which he faintly recognizes as his brother in armor, but his mind refuses to focus on anything. He needs Kíli to leave. He needs Kíli to be safe, but he cannot think and he cannot speak and he does not know from which direction danger will come.
Suddenly his arms are being pulled, and he is moving; it is too late now. It is too late, for Azog has come again, come to hurt them both, to humiliate them both, and Fíli cannot bear it any longer. He cannot fight—that much has been proven to him. He weeps and waits for his end, but it does not come. It is dark now, there is dark stone around him—he thinks it is stone—and whoever was pulling on him is gone. It was not Azog—it was not even an orc. The idea passes through Fíli's mind that he must have been pulled to safety, though he does not feel safe.
He feels afraid.
He does not know how long he lies there in the dark corner, shivering and whimpering pathetically. He knows it is pathetic, but he cannot stop, and he closes his eyes, waiting for the end to come. Surely the end is coming still—it is only a matter of time.
Then he hears it—the unmistakable scuttle of an orc coming closer, and he knows it is over. He has no weapons, no way to stand, and no way to fight. He cannot face his death like a hero, and he does not try. He curls into a ball and covers his face with his hands, weeping, waiting for the end. But the end does not come. There is a clang and a thud and he lifts his arms to look, only seeing brown and gold. He reminds himself that it is Kíli, it is only Kíli, as the blurred colors move closer.
There are more colors now, green and red, and Fíli furrows his brow—they are too bright, and they hurt. He closes his eyes. Then hands are pulling at him again, and this time he is being lifted into the air. His breaths quicken and he struggles, icy torrents of terror coursing through him once again. Voices are shouting at him and his arms are held still, and he feels as if he does not even need to be killed by another in order to die—this fear is enough. He is drowning in it, his heart pounding hard enough to burst and his chest frozen with ice. The harder he struggles, the stronger the grip on his arms, and he can hardly breathe.
A voice—Kíli's voice—breaks through the wind and the terror. "Fíli, stop fighting!" he says. "Listen to my voice. You are all right. Tauriel and I are taking you to safety."
Fíli wants to believe his brother, but he also knows that he has hit his head far too hard and whatever is happening may or may not be real. But he stops struggling, and the grip on his arms loosens. Kíli is speaking to him again, but it is in the distance, and Fíli feels himself drifting.
Everything is fire.
Fíli awakens to burning, burning, flames are crawling up his leg, and he tries to sit up, to find something to put out the flames, but hands push him back down. He fights against them, feeling the ice in his veins again, though he does not shiver now; there are more hands on him, and he knows what is happening. The orcs. They have come back for him, to tear him apart, to serve him up to Azog again, as if his shame is not yet great enough. He wants to scream, but he will not. He will not give the pale orc the satisfaction of hearing him scream, no matter how much he wants to. But he does fight. He is still afraid—more afraid than he ever thought he could be—but he feels a renewed drive to fight to the bitter end, to die like a Son of Durin should.
But the hands hold him down still—he cannot win against them. One of the orcs grabs his broken leg, and fresh fire courses through it, so hot that Fíli's mouth opens involuntarily and his back arches. It takes everything within him to keep quiet, but he does.
"Fíli, please, stop struggling!" Kíli cries, and for a moment Fíli does, confused. Why is Kíli here? Why does he ask his brother not to fight? It is a trick. They have Kíli, too, now, and they want to take both of them down. He struggles anew, and the hands press down on him so hard that he can barely breathe. He grunts.
"Out of the way," calls a clear, unfamiliar voice. It is not an orc voice—no orc would sound like that. But he is not comforted, especially when bright, shining gold comes into view and new hands take hold of him, pulling his head up. Suddenly there is liquid pouring down his throat, thick and sickly sweet, and he gags, fighting to keep from swallowing it. But his mouth is being held shut, and though he holds out as long as he can, eventually he is forced to swallow; tears roll down his cheeks as he accepts his fate.
Within moments, fog rises, and the colorful shapes around him begin to fade. He is afraid—he is so afraid—but he cannot move any longer, though no hands hold him down. Then a sweet, absurd calm spreads through him, thawing the ice in his veins and quenching the fire in his bones.
The world disappears.
Fíli opens his eyes to green marble and low light. Fire crackles somewhere close by; he can smell the woodsmoke, familiar and calming. Warm blankets are piled on top of him, as well. He blinks lazily. Where is he?
"Fíli," says a voice to his right. He turns his head and then winces as his head pounds and the world goes white. When color returns, he sees Kíli, sitting in a chair beside the bed and smiling brightly. Erebor. That's where he is. Nowhere else has marble like this.
"Hello, brother," Kíli says. "Welcome back."
Fíli blinks again, but he says nothing. Muted emotions are stirring in his heart and mind, and he knows that when they surface, they will not be pleasant.
"We won the battle," Kíli continues. "We did it."
They won the battle. Fíli feels sick. He has not won anything—he has lost. He has lost far too much. He closes his eyes, and the last thing he hears before he drifts away is his brother calling his name.
Orc hands are grabbing him, pulling him, ripping away his weapons. He is defenseless. They laugh as he struggles. There are too many of them. He cannot get free. He does not want to die.
Azog has him now. He hits the wall once, twice, three times. He hits the floor. He cannot fight back. He cannot stand. Azog forces him to his knees.
He hangs in the sky, too high, high enough to die if he falls. He looks across the way; he sees Thorin and Dwalin and Bilbo looking back at him. It is a trap. It is a trap. They cannot stay here.
He opens his mouth to speak, but no words come forth. He tries again. They must go—they must run. But he cannot speak. His voice does not work.
He does not want to die.
Fíli starts awake, gasping for breath, and hands are suddenly upon him. He swats them away as fear chokes him, draws the air out of his lungs. He cannot breathe.
"Fíli, it's Kíli," a voice calls. Fíli stops and searches for the source of the voice. He sees Kíli above him, frowning, and he relaxes back into the pillows beneath his head and breathes in. His body aches and his head throbs; a dull pain resonates from his leg. He watches Kíli settle down beside him on the bed, his brown eyes studying his brother's face intently. He looks serious, more serious than usual—not that that is saying much. Then he smiles, and it is genuine.
"Hey," he says. "About time you woke up. How do you feel?"
He feels horrible, but he does not want to say that to Kíli. Not when his brother is smiling like that. He has not seen his brother smile in weeks.
"I don't know how much you remember," Kíli says, "but I've been instructed to tell you that you are not to get out of bed. You have a severe concussion and a broken leg, and Óin says you are not to get up unless absolutely necessary for at least three days."
Fíli hears him, but he is not listening; he is staring at the gash down the left side of Kíli's face. Then he sees the bruising on his brother's throat, and his heart sinks. He should have stopped this—he should have kept him safe. But he had not. He had mucked it all up.
"I'm fine," Kíli says, lifting a hand to cover his throat. "Damned orc tried to kill me—he didn't succeed, though. Obviously." He surveys Fíli for a moment and then straightens. "Here, let me help you sit up—you've been asleep since yesterday night, and it's almost dinner time now. I brought you some soup."
Fíli allows Kíli to help him sit up; the change in position makes his head spin and his stomach churn, but he is sitting now. Kíli carefully lowers a tray laden with a bowl of soup and a spoon onto his lap, and Fíli stares at the food. His stomach is still churning.
"Eat," Kíli instructs, but Fíli is not thinking of food anymore. He is thinking of orcs and snow and tall towers and a confused, inexplicable terror that still hovers on the edges of his mind. It is hard to breathe.
"Fíli?"
Fíli blinks rapidly and looks up. He grimaces as his head throbs and his vision wavers. Kíli is frowning.
"You haven't said a single word since—well, since the battle," Kíli says. "What is the matter? What happened?"
Fíli's eyes widen as a storm of horror and shame begins to rage inside him in an instant. He remembers what happened, but he does not want to. He does not want to think of it. He feels sick again, and he swallows. He was foolish and he was weak. That is what happened.
"Can you not speak?" Kíli says, eyeing him carefully.
Fíli realizes that he cannot. He will not. He does not want to remember, and he does not want to tell. He wants to run away, but he can still feel the throbbing in his leg. He is not running anywhere.
"Fíli, you're scaring me," says Kíli, his voice wavering. "Please say something."
But Fíli cannot say anything. He tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and his heart pounds. Kíli stares at him pleadingly, but not a word comes forth from Fíli's lips.
He realizes that this is his nightmare. He is awake, but this has followed him into his waking hours. He cannot speak. His shame is too great, his fear is too deep, his pain is too real.
He cannot speak.