✓ | Forget-Me-Not ~ Fili FanFiction / Hobbit FanFiction / Fili FF

「 Chapter 16 」

The descent from the rock on which the eagles had set down the company turned out to be less difficult than everyone had initially assumed.
Gandalf had explained the further course of action and, together with Thorin, led the dwarves and the hobbit ever further towards their goal. Meanwhile, wizard and dwarf king in particular were constantly engaged in serious conversations and did not talk to anyone else. The rest of the group was a little more talkative.
Ori had actually managed to get Ilèyn to learn the names of the dwarves and to show her his travel book. Even if she did not expect it, she got on well with the youngest of the company. She reassured Dori as he joined the conversation at some point and asked whether his brother wouldn't get on her nerves either. Ilèyn said no in a friendly manner and Dori pulled his brother with him.
She welcomed the fact that neither Fili, nor Kili, nor Thorin or Gandalf wanted to involve her in a conversation and so she walked alone for a long time until Thorin announced that they would take the first rest.
The company had hiked a few meters again and was now on earthy ground, surrounded by a ring of rocks. Here and there a tree had stretched up into the sky.
Some of the dwarfs fell asleep immediately after Gloin made a fire. Kili announced that he would take the first watch, which everyone accepted benevolently.
The young archer was now sitting close to the fire, playing with his arrows and looking around again and again. Every now and then he got up and took a few steps.
Ilèyn sat away from the fire and away from the sleepers.
She wasn't tired. She had too much to think about.
So, everything as always.

Kili was getting up for his next tour. Shortly afterwards, he was swallowed up by the dark.
Ilèyn's gaze rested for a moment where Kili had just disappeared, then she rose quietly. She crept over the soft earth, past the sleeping dwarfs. She passed the hobbit, who slept curled up like a cat in the slipstream of a rock. She came to a stop half a meter from him. Thorin Oakenshield lay at her feet. Asleep, covered with his heavy coat.
She crouched quietly next to him and looked at the face streaked with the injuries from the last fight.
Ilèyn slowly drew her sharp knife and held it tightly in her right hand, while she did not move her gaze away from Oakenshield for a second.
She had done something like that before.
Secretly, quietly, quickly and fast.
Nobody had ever heard or seen it.
She had always known exactly what and how to do it.
She moved the blade to the artery of Thorin's neck and her gloved left hand to his mouth.
She would easily be able to be gone before Kili came back and found his decapitated uncle here.
Come on now!
Ilèyn's grip on her knife tightened and tightened.
But why?
Why did she find it so difficult to tear this one life out of this world?
She screwed her eyelids together tightly, as if someone was slicing her skin. She staggered backwards, fell to the ground with her back against a rock. The strength in her hand gave way and the knife fell to the floor. She let out a long breath, exhausted, as if she had run for 3 days.
What was the matter with her?
She hit her head with her hand. Her thoughts would eventually kill her.
She took off her hood, picked up her knife, and slowly rose to her feet.
She crept away from Thorin's body, past the fire and onto a small path that ran between the rocks. The path ended only three meters further on in a kind of clearing. No rocks, no stones, a square surrounded by trees. And the silvery moon in the sky, whose light shines brightly down.
Ilèyn stepped slowly into the middle of the clearing. She folded her fingers behind the back of her head and closed her eyes.
Slowly she inhaled the cold night air and felt how it spread in her lungs.
The expected disappointment that she hadn't managed to finish this job just didn't come.
For the first time in a very long time, the dwarf felt... light.
And free.
Like a feather in the wind, but with an own will.
She didn't know what she had to think of this feeling. It was strange to her to be satisfied. You could even say she hated it. All this happiness and contentment, everything is going perfectly...
In fact, that was never something Ilèyn had strived for. But she felt how all these non-existent qualities were missing in her life. And how to deal with it was completely a mystery to her.
But the feeling of this company, this security and the protection they gave each other. She had truly never seen that before.
Was this a life worth striving for?

"Why aren't you sleeping again?"
Ilèyn whirled around, had a bow and arrow at hand and was ready to fire. Fili raised his hands with raised eyebrows and a small smile.
"You are quick." he admitted and approached. Ilèyn took a deep breath and put the arrow back in the full quiver.
"Sorry." she said.
The dwarf stepped up beside her and followed her gaze into the starry sky. The light from the moon was so bright you might think it blinded your eyes.
"Almost like a déjà vu..." Fili said quietly "Only this time we are not looking into a valley, but into the sky."
"And I actually don't plan bunking tonight." Ilèyn replied dryly. Fili turned his head to her.
"Why did you come back?" he asked directly.
The dwarf looked down and sighed. Then she took a few small steps.
"Gandalf..." she lifted her head so that she looked the blonde in the eyes. "He caught me... at the entrance to the secret valley. I hadn't left it yet." She paused for a moment, as if to sort her thoughts.
"Then he persuaded me to come back with him because he firmly believed you were in trouble."
From the way Ilèyn said it, it sounded like she felt extremely uncomfortable because she hadn't just left.
"You worried?" the dwarf asked.
"I wasn't worried!" Ilèyn protested "No, I... just didn't know where to go next anyway."
"That sounded very different in the Elven Valley." Fili said and looked carefully at Ilèyn. Her eyes darkened.
"I had my reasons." she replied dryly. Fili chuckled softly in response.
Ilèyn looked up again, towards the moon. Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair. The long blonde strands around her ears disappeared to the back and a pointed auricle emerged.
Fili's gaze rested on Ilèyn's profile for a long time.
"What are you?" he asked quietly at some point, frowning.
Ilèyn laughed ironically, exhausted.
"Trust me." she said, "You don't want to know."
She had never loathed herself as much as she did at this moment.
She took a deep breath. She had just been on the verge of completing that one assignment. So close to it.
Fili put his arms on his hips in resignation.
"Whatever concerns you, I'm sure there is a solution." he said after a long pause. She just shook her head.
"I don't think so. It's not as easy as you think." Ilèyn pulled her cloak tighter.
"Why are you so worried about me?" Asking this question was anything but easy for the dwarf. But there was something she didn't understand. There was something about this young warrior that tied her to him. This feeling of dependency on one another, even if they didn't know each other.
It made Ilèyn feel so powerless that she didn't understand. She had never felt so powerless in the presence of anyone.
So weak.
But weakness had no place in her life, never.
Most of all she wanted to get as many miles as humanly possible between him and her.
But she couldn't.
"I worry about you because you are one of us." the dwarf replied to her question and looked at her intently "You are a dwarf, like you always said. It is the duty of our people to take care of one another."
Ilèyn nodded slowly. The two stood next to each other for a while. The moonlight was reflected in the brooch that held Ilèyn's cloak together. When the wind got up, the dwarf grabbed her hood to cover her head and ears again.
She closed her eyes and pulled on her hood.
"Take this off." Fili said at that moment "Please."
The dwarf opened her eyes and looked skeptically at the blonde next to her.
"My ears..." she just said blankly.
"You wear that hood far too often." Fili smiled and carefully reached out to take the piece of cloth from Ilèyn's hands.
"As you think." she said with a critical undertone. She resisted the powerlessness that flared up because of him. Wherever this feeling came from, she didn't want that. It felt different. And she was suspicious of that. She quickly took a few steps away from him.
Fili felt that Ilèyn was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He couldn't say why that was, but it made him... sad, in a certain way. Again he had been unable to find the answers to his questions.
"Go to sleep, Ilèyn." he said calmly, "We'll be traveling much longer tomorrow. You need sleep."
The dwarf nodded and turned away from him without another word to go back to the camp. Fili watched her go for a moment until he turned his gaze to the stars again. A big cloud had drawn in front of the moon and brought out the true darkness of the night. The dwarf followed Ilèyn back to the others.

When he arrived at the fireplace, his brother was sitting next to the flames, poking around with a twig. Neither brother said a word as the older one sat down next to the younger one.
Fili's gaze fell on Ilèyn, who had settled in a gap between Bofur and Bombur and had already fallen asleep.
Kili followed his gaze, nobody said anything. The faint crackling of the campfire drove the silence between them.
A short time later Kili wanted to get up to wake Dwalin for the next watch, but Fili indicated that he would take over the watch. He would probably not be able to fall asleep today. The younger patted him on the shoulder as he got up and sat down to sleep next to Oin and Gloin.
Fili stared into the flames until his eyes ached.
He added a large log.
Then he went on the first tour of the guard.