How I Leave You

How You Leave Me

His eyes, open and unseeing.

His arm, bent in an unnatural angle.

And the blood.

Oh, gods, the blood.

From everywhere it seeps. The wound in his stomach must be large enough to tear him in two. And though he was dead before he hit the ground, the blood keeps pouring out of him, the last evidence of life leaving him right before our eyes. It stains the snow a deep red.

But the worst part is seeing Kili fall to his knees. The worst part is how he scoops the darkened snow onto his hands, trying to push it back into his brother. Like it might patch him up, Kili repeats the same movements again and again.

"Can you do nothing?" he cries, for he cannot fix his brother.

He can only let him go.

"Kili," I say, because while I understand his grief, I need his attention.

"Do something."

I put my hand on his shoulder.

"I cannot save the dead, Kili. Only help the living."

He pushes me off him, turning back to putting the blood inside his brother again. But it has no home there anymore.

"Then you're useless."

I hear it, then. The sound of footsteps in the fortress' halls. It must be the owners of the torches which warned us earlier.

This time, I'm not so certain their warning will be as kind.

"Maybe so," I say, getting my sword ready, "but right now, I need us to get out of here."

"Move all you want. I am staying here."

I think a part of me knows, then, that he would rather follow his brother to the realm of the dead than follow me as much as a step away from him.

That's when I notice it.

The figure standing atop of the tower. The tower from which Fili fell.

Bolg.

Kili turns to the orc the second he starts speaking his vile language. They are guttural, the curses he throws at us, but even they fade in comparison to what he holds in his hand.

The head of Nori.

I almost have to hold Kili back to stop him from running up the stairs and ending the life of that filth of a creature.

Bolg throws the decapitated head at our feet, followed by another series of threats.

"Scum!" Kili screams.

This only makes the orc smile. It is what he says in reply that makes everything in me tense.

"What?" Kili asks, seeing the way the blood drains from my face. "What did he say?"

Only when Bolg has retreated do I dare speak the words.

"He said..." Slowly, I turn to Fili. To his brother by his side. "...He said that you will be next."

And that Thorin will be last.

Thorin.

Where is the dwarven king?

"Kili, where is Thorin?"

"Last I saw, he was still in the mountain, resolute on staying there. We snook out without him knowing, we--" Kili's eyes cut to Fili. "We wanted to fight, to..."

But his voice breaks before he gets a chance to finish what it was he wanted to say. What it was they wanted to do.

Azog and his spawn made sure of that.