for all the gold || hobbit {completed}

chapter fifteen - in sickness and in stealth

There was no way I could have fallen asleep. Not when I had spent the last few hours keeping Kili's hair free from his sick bowl and fetching this bit and that thing for Oin. There was no way I had the time to sleep, let alone the right frame of mind. Yet, before I knew any better, Bofur was shaking me roughly awake by the shoulder and pressing a mug of the bargeman's daughter's weak broth into my confused hands.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," he said, as I started awake, having found myself curled up on a spare chair and under a blanket.

"What- what time is it?" I groaned, struggling to remember just how I had ended up here.

"Sun's nearly set," the other dwarf said, fiddling as ever with his hat, before adding: "The last light of Durin's Day." He nodded to the window where, sure enough, the sky outside was just starting to grow dark.

"Happy Durin's Day then," I grumbled. "You reckon they made it in time?" Rubbing my eyes, I sat up and freed myself from where I had got caught in the blanket.

"Who knows? As long as they don't forget about us lot down here."

He still seemed peeved then about being left behind, even with all the worry about Kili. Looking past him, I spotted the bargeman's bed in the corner and Fili's golden head bent over it still; Oin having left then, probably to fetch some more water without Bofur and I on hand to help him. The bargeman and his children were not too far off from the makeshift infirmary- not that their house had the room otherwise. His daughters were cooking dinner: yet more broth if my nose wasn't mistaken. His son was fixing something or another on the kitchen table alongside the bargeman, who, every now and again, would look up from his work and frown at the scene in the corner.

"How's he doing?" I lowered my voice, conscious of the others in the room and the lack of space between us.

"He's no longer vomiting, but..." This was where Bofur decided to lower his own voice, leaning his head in closer. "Oin reckons his fever's on the rise. Unless... Unless we can bring it down soon... It... it won't be so good."

Mahal, no, I thought, turning away from Bofur and watching the bed-bound figure toss and turn, groaning still as he had done all that afternoon.

"Does Oin have anything for that?" Just as I was asking, the Company's medic reappeared, pulling the bargeman to one side and saying something in a low voice to him. Whatever he had said got the bargeman up and off looking for something. The medic then returned to his patient's bed and began again the process of wetting his forehead with a cloth.

Setting aside the blanket and leaving Bofur to his own mug of broth, I left my corner and returned back to my old position at the bedside beside Fili. He barely looked up; his gaze fixed still on his sick brother's face. Oin however noted my reappearance.

"Awake now, are you?" he said, before handing me the water bowl and cloth. It seemed as if I was back on nurse duty, if not completely forgiven for dozing off at such a crucial time.

Even through the damp cloth, Kili's skin felt like it was on fire. Just to be sure I left the cloth in the bowl and pressed my own hand against his forehead; I may as well have stuck it into the cauldron of broth. With his face as red as it was and a sheen of sweat clinging to it, it seemed Oin was right about the fever. We could only pray that he had the skill and equipment to bring it down.

Groaning and writhing, shivering and burning, Kili was oblivious to the rest of us around him. He was mumbling something, something low and under his breath. Something about...

"Starlight?" I whispered, confused. What had starlight to do with any of this?

"Can you not do something?" Ignoring this, Fili turned to Oin, his voice pained.