23A/N: Hey, long time no see! My page may look like nothing is going on, but there's a lot going on over here... I'm working on a new multichapter fic, and Lost in the Dark is on hiatus while I work on that, because it's super interesting and I want to write the whole thing out before I post any of it (it's a mystery story). So plenty of writing happening.
This oneshot is a dream I had about Fíli the night before last, and you can thank Pericula Ludus and Mhyin for encouraging me to expand it into a fic. It is grittier than my other fics, so fair warning... you'll see what I mean in just the first few paragraphs. Beta'd by madammadhatter, as usual.
The smell of it is wet, warm, metallic. Fíli has smelled it before, but it seems different this time, stronger, somehow, wetter and warmer. Perhaps it is because the other smells enhance it… or, really, make it worse. The thick smell of days of filth and sweat, arising from himself as well as what lay before him, and from a distance, the stench of feces and rot, sticking to his nostrils. He wants to vomit. He feels the need to vomit, but he will not—he learned his lesson the first time. He can still smell that, too, ground into his clothes, his skin, his hair.
It feels warm at his feet, and he looks to make sure he has not lost control of himself; he has not, but the warm, thick red is pooling between his bare toes, and he swallows hard and takes a slow breath to ease his stomach. He cannot look at the eyes. He knows they are open, because they were open when he fell, and they are still open now. He cannot look, he cannot look at empty, dead eyes. They were alive before him. Before this.
Perhaps it smells so strong because he is the one who spilled it.
A wave of weariness sweeps over him, and he closes his eyes and staggers, his blade slipping from his fingers. He does not fall. He will not fall on the Man in his pool of blood. He will not dishonor this Man's body any more than he already has.
Defense, his mind tells him; It was only in self-defense. But he cannot believe that. He could have let the Man win, let himself be killed, but he had not—he had decided, he had finally decided after far too long amidst the cheers and jeers, that his own life was worth more than this Man's. Worth more than the Man's the day before, and the Man's the day before that.
Is his life worth more than three Men?
Grasping, scraping hands grab his shoulders and jolt him back into reality, and he pulls away instinctively, his lip curling. The orc's hands grab him again and drag him away from the body of the slain Man, forcing him to face the crowd; Fíli has not noticed until now that they are cheering and laughing, pleased with his performance. He stares down the orcs, his face blank, but his stomach boiling with hatred. He wishes he could slay them all, but he is too tired, too weak, too hungry, to take down all of them. He would surely die.
The orc drags him out of the arena, paying no mind to how much he stumbles. He is thrown back into his new home—a small cell, practically a cage. Fíli reaches out frantically for the bars, trying to keep himself from that corner. The door slams shut behind him, and he turns, fixing a burning glare at the orc.
"Ish kakhfê ai'd dur rugnu," he says roughly. Then he spits at the orc's feet.
The orc chuckles. "So you can speak," he says. Westron sounds wrong on his tongue, like a dirty language. "Keep your insults to yourself, Dwarf."
Fíli bares his teeth and growls, but the orc simply chuckles again and ambles away. When he is gone, Fíli drops himself to the ground with a huff and pulls his knees up to his chest. He wonders when his family will find him—if they will find him. He tries to think of ways to escape, but all of them involve strength he no longer has. Besides, he has already tried what comes to his mind now, and none of it has worked. There are too many of them and only one of him. He is trapped.
He runs a hand through his hair, and suddenly tears spring to his eyes. He keeps forgetting that his long, golden hair is now short, just above his shoulders, roughly hewn; his braids are gone, the valuable beads that held them stolen, along with the ones that kept his mustache braids in place. He grits his teeth and sucks in a breath, fighting to keep his emotions in check. He will not give these orcs the satisfaction of seeing him mourn something as paltry to them as his hair, even if it means much more than they could imagine.
Fíli jolts awake. He looks up blearily; the sun is midway through the sky, and he grimaces. Another day in this filth. At least he can still sleep, albeit poorly. And at least they do not bother him most of the time—only when they want sport, which he richly supplies. He looks out at the camp in the daylight. The orcs are nowhere to be seen. They cannot abide the daylight, this he knows, but he does not know where they go to sleep—close by is all he has gathered. He found that out the hard way, after calling out for help and receiving a bruised face for his efforts. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that it had pained the orc to come out into the light to silence him.
Hours go by, and Fíli whiles away the time thinking of home, of his family, of anything but where he is now. He fights to keep his thoughts away from the fight. It has been a week now since the ambush that separated him from his kin, when orcs came upon them suddenly in the night, miles from home at the foot of the mountains. He killed two of them before there was suddenly a bag over his head and rough hands on his wrists, binding them together. He had fought against the hands, but then more pulled at him, and he was dragged away, still fighting. An indeterminate amount of time passed, and then he was thrown into this cell, built out of rock and wood into the underside of a cliff.
And here he is now, a week later.
There have to be other cells nearby, but where they are, Fíli has no idea. But the other people—the Men he has killed—looked haggard and disheveled, as much as Fíli knows he must himself. He wonders how many people those Men killed before they put them up against him. They never stood a chance. The eldest must have been ten years younger than him, with crazed, desperate eyes, at once begging for both life and death. He knows that feeling. He feels it, too.
Fíli shakes his head. He is thinking too much about it. He forces his mind back to better things, happier things; he thinks of his mother, with her dimpled grin and her kind blue eyes. But then all he can see is her tears, crying over a lost son, another loss in her already loss-filled life. He remembers her crying over his father. He does not want her to cry over him.
He shakes his head again. Pleasant thoughts are hard to come by when locked in an orc cell, waiting to murder the next innocent victim. He hopes they will spare him tonight, or maybe give him an animal again. The animals are not so bad, though he remembers the wrench in his heart when he killed the lion, a beautiful creature, clearly starved and abused. He wonders where they got it, if they brought it with them from whatever land they have come from. Orcs do not usually live in this part of the Blue Mountains, and there certainly are not lions this far north. The bear and the wolf were easy, though. He has slain plenty of them in the past. He would even slay another lion over a Man—or, he fears, a Dwarf.
That is the question that burns in his mind, day in and day out. Is he the only Dwarf they took that night, or did they capture anyone else? What if Kíli is in this camp somewhere? He cannot bear the thought and dismisses it quickly. Something in him says that if they had two Dwarves from the same group, they would put them against each other immediately. Then again, they could just be biding their time, having their fun, before throwing them at each other and seeing which one emerges the victor. He knows from the past week that only one is allowed to come out alive, and until then, the fight continues. His fight against the first Man lasted hours. The Man could not best him, but he came awfully close, and Fíli had to make a choice. He shudders at the choice he made. The three choices he has made now.
He wonders if he will ever be able to live with himself after this.
Day slowly turns to night, ever so slowly, leaving Fíli sitting listless and aching in his cell. He dreads the night and desperately hopes someone will come for him before the sun has set, but it does, and still he is alone. His stomach growls fiercely; he has not eaten in over a day. At first, they were feeding him, but it seems they want him weak now—his constant winning probably bores them. He cries quietly as shadows fall over his cell, drying his face as well as he can before the orcs come for him again.
And then they come. He will not go voluntarily, even if they beat him. Let them—he deserves it at this point, and it will delay the real torture for a little longer. He will gladly take torn flesh and broken bones over one more innocent life on his conscience.
Eventually the orcs grow weary of jeering and kicking him, and they drag him out, forcing him to stumble with them. That is all he is capable of at this point; he can tell that at least one rib is cracked, and warm blood runs down his forehead and nose. He can barely breathe. Maybe he will be the one to die tonight.
They drop him into the arena, and he curls into himself, lying in the dirt and dried blood from yesterday, breathing lightly as his chest burns. He hears the clatter of a blade and then the locking of the gate. He does not get up. He does not want to get up. He does not want to do this. Not again.
"Get up!" calls a grating orcish voice. "Get up, scum! Give us another show!"
"Urus d'zun!" Fíli spits back.
The orcs start to laugh, and he glares at them and reaches out for the blade beside him. He imagines using it to slice off each of their filthy heads, and a smirk fights for presence on his lips; then he looks up at his opponent of the day, and his blood runs cold.
The boy cannot be more than twenty at most, a tall, skinny child, and he is clinging to his short sword, pointing it at Fíli, terror in his wide eyes. Tears run down his thin, dirty cheeks, and he cannot hold back his sobbing, though he keeps his blade relatively steady. He has disheveled, dark brown hair, greasy and lank. Fíli's heart begins to pound powerfully in his chest. This boy is clearly a son of Men, but he looks like Kíli, so much like Kíli, and Fíli knows that he cannot kill this boy, but he also knows that this boy does not want to kill him.
Please, someone, come.
The boy charges at him, and Fíli rises to his feet and easily blocks the boy's first blow, his ribs burning fiercely. He grunts at the effort, but blocks another blow with ease. There is no way this child can beat him in a match—even exhausted and in pain, Fíli is far too advanced at fighting.
But at least his defense is good sport for the orcs. They laugh and cheer as the boy tries to win this fight, but the boy has noticed he is not striking back. His attempts are halfhearted now, and Fíli can tell the orcs are growing impatient. Well, they will have to wait. Forever, if he can help it. He will not have this boy's blood on his hands. He cannot.
Many minutes pass, and neither Fíli nor the boy are anywhere close to killing the other—just as Fíli would have it. His hands are shaking in his hunger and pain and exhaustion, but he does not need to try hard to keep himself safe. Why did they give him this boy? Why not someone stronger, someone who is actually a threat? He cannot see the reason in it. If it is sport they are looking for, why give him someone who offers no sport at all?
Then it hits him. They don't just want to see a kill. They want to see him break.
Resolve hardens in him, and he sets his jaw, determined not to let them win. The boy misinterprets his expression, however, and is suddenly attacking him wildly and haphazardly, and Fíli struggles to stay on the defense without moving into offense, as he has been trained. He tries to catch the boy's eye, but the boy is hacking away with abandon, desperate to keep his own life.
"Stop," Fíli grunts, blocking another blow. "I don't want to hurt you, boy."
But the boy either does not hear him or will not listen. Fíli grits his teeth and fights off another blow; he sends one back, aiming for the boy's blade, and the boy jumps back, startled, and looks up at him.
"I don't want to—"
A sharp pain in his side cuts off his breath, and he steps back hastily, staring incredulously at the boy and slapping a hand over his side. The orcs cheer, and the boy keeps his blade pointed at Fíli, but he does not stab again. Fíli looks down at his hand; it is covered in blood. The wound does not feel very deep, but it hurts, and Fíli is already exhausted. He wants this to be over, but he cannot end it. Frustration and desperation rise in his gut, and he keeps his sword at the ready in case the boy gets any more ideas. Mahal's beard, his side hurts. He has never been stabbed before. Nicked, yes, but never stabbed. He can feel his flesh opening and closing as he moves, and he feels sick.
Suddenly, the boy screams and drops to the ground; an arrow is sticking out of his leg. Fíli's eyes widen, and he looks for the culprit in the darkness. From the trees around the area emerge Dwarves, many Dwarves—Fíli sees Kíli, he sees Thorin, and Dwalin and Balin and many more. The orcs are caught by surprise and, for the most part, weaponless, and many are slain as they scramble to defend themselves. Fíli drops his blade and lowers himself to his knees, crawling towards the boy, who is weeping openly and clutching at his leg.
"Let me see," Fíli says, taking hold of the boy's leg. The boy cries out and tries to pull away, but Fíli grabs his foot and looks into his eyes.
"I will not hurt you," he promises. "Let me see."
The boy's eyes are wide and brown like Kíli's. He nods, and Fíli comes closer to inspect the wound. The arrow has gone cleanly through the muscle; one of his kin will easily be able to remove it. He looks up at the boy and smiles.
"You will be all right," he says. "Hurts though, eh?"
"W-why didn't you kill me?" the boy says, and his voice is deeper than Fíli expects. "You are a warrior—I can tell. Why wouldn't you kill me?"
Three dead bodies of Men flash before Fíli's eyes, and he grinds his teeth and closes his eyes. He opens them again and looks at the boy.
"Because you did not want to die," he says.
"Neither did you, though," the boy replies.
"You can see my dilemma," Fíli quips, looking around. The nearby orcs are slain, and he can hear cursing and shouting in the distance. He wants to cry—out of relief, horror, exhaustion, he does not know—but he holds it in for the boy's sake. His thoughts turn momentarily to his cut hair, and he cringes and wishes he could hide away; he does not want anyone to see. He spies Kíli coming out of the trees. His brother runs to him and falls to his knees, immediately wrapping his arms around his brother.
"Fíli," he says, holding him tightly. "Fíli, Fíli, Fíli, oh, Fíli, I thought we'd lost you…"
Fíli says nothing, only hugs Kíli back and presses his nose into his shoulder and breathes in, though it hurts to breathe and Kíli is crushing his bruised and cracked ribs. His brother smells like green wood and sunshine, though tainted with orc blood. Suddenly he feels tired, so tired, more than he ever has in his life—he wants to fall asleep right then and there, right against his brother's shoulder, and he slumps against him. Kíli starts and pulls away, studying Fíli's face.
"You need attention immediately," he says.
"Take care of the boy first," Fíli replies, surprised at how slurred his words are suddenly. He feels drunk, somehow, and he wonders if this is poison or relief. He cannot bring himself to care anymore. "Don't tell him it was you," he whispers.
"I can only put them in a live person, not take them out," Kíli replies, casting a sidelong glance at the boy. "The rest of us should be back soon. We weren't prepared last time, but they are no match for us now. We brought forty with us."
Fíli furrows his brow. "For me?" he asks.
It is Kíli's turn to furrow his brow. "You are our family, Fíli. Of course we came for you. We have been searching for a week. We would never give up on you."
You would leave me if you knew what I have done, Fíli thinks, but he says nothing. Instead, he rests his head against Kíli's shoulder and closes his eyes. He feels Kíli's head turn towards the boy.
"What is your name, boy?" Kíli asks.
"Colborn," the boy replies. "And I'm not a boy—I'm seventeen."
"I'm seventy," Kíli replies. "You're a boy to me. I am Kíli, and you have met my brother Fíli here. My family is the royal family of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains, and we will make sure you are taken care of. I am sorry you were shot, but my brother's life is precious to us."
"I am sorry I hurt your brother," Colborn replies. "I-I thought he was going to kill me."
"Fíli would never kill an innocent Man," Kíli says confidently.
Suddenly, the world spirals, even though Fíli's eyes are closed, and then he feels sick. He retches a moment later, vomiting nothing but bile onto the ground; once he is done, he feels the sudden burn of his cracked rib, and the stab wound on his side radiates heat. It is too much. It is all too much. He lets the sound of Kíli's frantic voice fade from his hearing.
Voices surround Fíli when he wakes, and when he opens his eyes, he finds himself surrounded by several of his kin, still lying on the blood-soaked ground, his head in his brother's lap. He looks around for Colborn.
"The boy has been taken care of," a voice assures him. He meets eyes with Thorin. "We will have a guard escort him home, along with the other prisoners we found. Do not worry about him anymore."
Fíli is only glad he did not have to kill the boy—or be killed by him. He closes his eyes again. Guilt rolls through him, and he feels sick again. He can still smell the blood, the filth, the vomit. Someone brushes hair out of his face. He is unworthy of such affection. They should let him be.
"I wasn't sure if you'd fainted or fallen asleep," Kíli says. "You look so…" He doesn't finish. Fíli can think of plenty of words to fill the silence. Tired. Worn. Haggard. Dirty. Disgusting. He has not seen himself, but he can make a good guess at what he looks like. He is amazed that his kin have not abandoned him simply due to his smell.
"Anyway," Kíli continues, "you're awake now. Don't worry—it hasn't been that long."
Fíli would take a few years, if he could. Piercing pain pulses in his side, and he remembers that the boy—Colborn—stabbed him. He looks down and touches the wound, feeling something soft underneath the bloody fabric. So they have already bandaged it… at least it won't get infected. It still hurts, though. He grimaces.
"Several cracked ribs, small stab wound, various cuts and bruises," says Óin, and Fíli looks up at his cousin. "Nasty, but you'll live. It's a good thing we found you, lad."
You should have found me three days ago, Fíli thinks, but he does not say it. They cannot know what he has done, and a chill of fear goes through him at the thought that they may ask. He looks around, searching for the others.
"Who did you bring?" he asks.
"Everyone we could," Thorin replies. "We are a bit far from home, and we have been searching ever since the skirmish. We would have found you sooner, but this valley is a good hiding spot, and we looked three times before noticing signs of habitation. I am sorry, lad."
Fíli thinks of all the agony he could have been spared in the past few days, and anger rises in him. He cannot shout at them for searching, though, and he directs his attack at his brother instead.
"Why did you shoot the boy?" he says. "He was clearly not with them."
"He stabbed you, Fíli," Kíli replies, nonplussed. "I didn't kill him."
"He was no threat," Fíli argues, wincing at the stab of those words.
"Once again, Fíli, he stabbed you," says Kíli. "You were not fighting back. I wasn't going to let a boy kill my brother in desperation."
Fíli wonders what else Kíli would have done—if he would have killed the boy, had he proved threatening. He wants to ask, but he once again keeps silent. That topic is not one he wants to address. He wants to sleep. He wants a bath and a good meal. He wants to forget the past week for the rest of his life.
"Take me home," he says.
The journey home is long, and Fíli reaches the end only because he does not have to walk the whole way. When he finally steps into his home, he sees his mother sitting at the table, her head in her hands; she looks up at the sound of his entering and cries out.
"Fíli!" she shouts, rising and dashing to him. She wraps him in a crushing embrace, and he grunts at the pain, but still hugs her back. For a few moments, he lets the world dissolve into the sweet smell of woodsmoke and soap and berries.
"Careful, Mum," Kíli says behind them. "He's been injured—you're probably hurting him."
"Of course," Dís says, and she steps back, sniffling. She holds Fíli's face in her hands and looks him over, frowning, and then takes lock of dirty hair in her fingers.
"They cut your hair," she whispers, looking at him mournfully.
Fíli cannot find the will to respond. They have done worse, far worse than that. There is silence between them as she searches his eyes.
"I'll draw him a bath if you get him a meal," Kíli says suddenly. "Goodness knows he needs both."
"Of course, of course," Dís says, still looking into Fíli's eyes. He looks away; he cannot bear her searching, and he fears what she will find. She leads him to the table and sits him down, and he drops his dirty head into filthy hands. His mother is humming, a sweet melody from childhood, and it numbs the ache in his soul for a little while. His mother can always tell when he wants to speak and when he does not, and he is grateful she honors his silence now.
"The bath is ready," Kíli calls as he comes down the hall. Fíli looks up; his brother looks unsure, uncomfortable.
"Do you, uh… will you need…?"
"No, I'll be fine," Fíli says, rising and grimacing. "Thank you, Kíli." He pats his brother's shoulder as he walks by and pulls himself into the prepared room, where a steaming bath waits for him. Just the sight of it releases some of the tension in his shoulders, and he disrobes as quickly as he can without causing himself too much pain and unwraps the bandage around his chest. He will have someone look at that again later. Climbing into the tub proves a challenge, but he accomplishes it and sinks into the hot water. Filth floats off him immediately, and he dunks his head in before the water becomes too dirty.
I could drown right now, he thinks, and the thought sounds almost peaceful; he keeps his head under longer than he needs to, and soon he is running out of air. His lungs begin to pulse, and his chest erupts in pain—not peaceful, then. He pulls his head out of the water and takes a deep breath, which hurts worse than the pulsing, but then he feels the relief of air in his lungs again and relaxes. He wipes hair out of his eyes and peers at the water. It is already cloudy. He wonders how his family's eyes did not water when they came close.
Then he starts scrubbing. He scrubs and scrubs at his skin, his fingernails, his hair, until his flesh is red and his scalp tingles, but still he feels filthy, filthy, filthy—he will never be clean again, he could scrub until he bled and still he would be filthy, he knows it in his heart, and soon tears are falling from his eyes and it takes everything within him to keep himself quiet, lest someone come see what all the noise is about. He presses his palms into his eyes and sobs silently; dead eyes stare back at him in his mind, and the warm water feels like hot blood, freshly spilled. He cannot abide it any longer and draws himself out.
Quickly he dries off, feeling cleaner on the surface, but still no cleaner inside. The wound on his side aches, and it is seeping water and blood. It was foolish to put it under the water, but he does not care. He wraps himself in a towel and heads for his own room, rubbing his miserably short hair; he hears the low rumble of his uncle's voice in the kitchen, but he does not bother to listen. He wants clean clothes and a soft bed.
Clothes are already laid out for him, and he slips them on and lowers himself onto the bed with a groan. The thought occurs to him that he needs to re-bandage his wound, but the bed is too comfortable to move; he lies still, debating his options.
"Kíli," he calls finally.
A few moments later, Kíli is in his room. He smiles.
"Feeling better?" he asks.
Fíli only looks at him blankly, and Kíli's smile falters.
"Are you all right?"
Fíli ignores the question. "I need help bandaging the stab wound again. I put it in the water."
Kíli nods and disappears, and a minute later he returns with wrappings and a salve of their mother's. He helps Fíli with his shirt and then takes care of the wound in silence, every few moments looking surreptitiously at his brother. When he is done, Fíli slowly slides his tunic back on and lowers himself until his wet head rests on his pillow, facing away from his brother. Kíli does not move.
"Mum prepared food for you," he says.
"I'm not hungry," Fíli lies. He is starving, but his stomach is churning. He will eat later, after he has slept.
There is silence for a minute, but Kíli has not left. Fíli attempts to ignore his brother's presence.
"Fíli, what happened?" Kíli asks finally.
For a moment, Fíli forgets how to breathe, and his heart starts pounding in his chest. He frantically tries to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind. Kíli shifts behind him.
"There was a lot of blood in the arena," he continues. "Neither you nor the boy bled that much. It was dried blood."
Tears well up in Fíli's eyes, and a lump grows painfully in his throat. Please stop, he thinks. Please don't. Please let it be. Please don't try to figure it out.
"We found some caged animals," Kíli says. "And… caged people."
Fíli squeezes his eyes shut, and tears roll down his face and onto his pillow. He feels Kíli rise, and when he opens his eyes, his brother is kneeling beside the bed, his chin resting on his arms. His eyes are soft, but there is apprehension tightening his features.
"I know what it looked like," he says. "But I don't want to… to assume… you would…"
"Please, Kíli," Fíli whispers. "Please forget."
Kíli blinks rapidly, and tears spring to his eyes, as well. Fíli cannot abide the horror on his brother's face, but he cannot look away, begging silently with his gaze.
"I-it was in self-defense," Kíli whispers. "You didn't have a choice."
Fíli swallows and shakes his head slowly. He wishes he could believe that.
"There is always a choice, brother," he says.
Kíli looks down at the bed, his eyes flickering back and forth as he thinks. He glances back up at Fíli, and then looks away.
"You're not a bad person," he says, rising. "We'll talk about this later. Get some rest—you've earned it."
"Would you have done it?" Fíli asks.
Kíli stops and looks down at his brother, his countenance unsure. He shakes his head.
"I don't know, Fee," he says. "I can't say."
It's not the answer Fíli wants to hear—really, he does not know what he wants to hear—but at least it is honest. He looks down and breathes in gently. His ribs burn.
"Don't tell Mum," he says. "Please."
"All right," Kíli replies. He pauses. "You're not a bad person. You know that, right?"
Fíli does not respond. Kíli leaves, shutting the door behind him, and Fíli closes his eyes.
Please review! And if you liked this, mosey on over to Pericula Ludus's "Keeping Your Loving Brother Happy." You'll love it.
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