So Comes Snow After Fire

15.iv

Listening to the fading echoes of his own angry screams, Kíli was glad he was far enough down an ancient, abandoned mining tunnel that no-one on the council could hear. Twisted and warped by the irregular walls of stone, his voice truly did sound like the bellowing of a madman. His throat now raw, but his fury hardly spent, he caught up a pickaxe that lay at the side of the tunnel, forgotten here years ago by some long-dead miner.

He slammed the axe against a rough outcropping of stone until the rusted head snapped and a piece flew back and struck his face. With a curse, Kíli threw the splintered haft away, wishing he hurled it into Jari's smug grin, and then stood still, panting for breath.

Bloody hell. How had things turned out like this? How had he gone and lost the most precious thing he'd ever found, and in the process destroyed his brother's hopes for happiness and nearly lost the kingdom, as well? What had he done wrong?

Was it wrong to love Tauriel? Was it wrong to pursue her openly and honorably? Should he have hidden their love, as if he had been ashamed, or even pretended that he didn't care for her? They said he was mad, and yet what was mad about loving someone who so clearly deserved all the good he could offer her?

No, they were wrong to see no further than what Tauriel was not, wrong to think that because she had pointed ears and a smooth face that she was unfit to love him or marry him or bear his children. They were wrong, not he, and yet he must pay the price, he and Tauriel, and now Fíli and Sif.

It wasn't fair.

If he were the only one to suffer from this, he wouldn't care if they called him crazy or unnatural or whatever worse they could think of. He would bear it all to be with her. But if persisting in his choice would hurt his family— They were the only ones he could not ask to pay the price. And the worst of it was, he couldn't even spare them by running away with Tauriel. If he left with her now, people would say that his forsaking everything for her only proved his madness. He would leave Fíli no hope to salvage his claim.

It wasn't fair.

His cheek stung, and he brushed at it, only to come away with a handful of blood. He didn't care. What was a bit of scratched skin when his whole heart had been torn to pieces?

Kíli wiped his bloody palm on his trousers and then rummaged in a pocket for pipe and tobacco. He didn't really want a smoke, but he had to do something, and it was either that or batter his head against the stone wall.

Once he had filled and lit the pipe from his miner's lantern, he sank down against the wall, not noticing until he was sitting that he had landed himself in a puddle. He cursed again and shifted slightly to drier ground.

Maybe it was better this way, he told himself. Hadn't he been incredibly selfish to ask Tauriel to love him, when she was the one who truly had to pay the cost by losing him one day? He hadn't truly realized how much he was asking her, back before he had known for himself what it would mean to lose her, the one love of his life. Maybe this was a fitting punishment, that he should suffer now what he had been willing that she should in the future.

And yet again, it wasn't fair, because she was suffering, too; he was sure. Tauriel did not wear her emotions as openly as most mortals did, but Kíli knew his news tonight had grieved her. There had been a greater stillness to her bearing, and she had been far more free in her caresses than usual, as if she had known she would soon no longer be able give them. Yes, she had been as afraid and aware of an impending parting as he. But eventually—in a few decades or centuries or even millennia—couldn't she recover? She, at least, had an endless lifetime to replace him in her heart. He would not fare so well. Not two hundred more years, should he be lucky to live so long, would be enough to drive her from his mind, his heart, his soul. So maybe he would be the one to pay more dearly after all, doomed to a lifetime without the one happiness he craved. But with all of eternity before her, surely Tauriel would find another someone to love her as she deserved.

And so, shouldn't he be glad he could give her the opportunity to find something better? Shouldn't he rejoice that he could set her free, before he had irrevocably bound her to him and with him, grief unavoidable?

Yet—damn him!—Kíli still believed that she wanted what he could offer in his one mortal span more than she wanted anything she might—or might not—find with another of her own people. And so, had circumstances allowed, he would still have accepted her love, her sacrifice, even her eventual sorrow, without protest. For this reason the gods, in their infinite wisdom and mercy, were now saving her from him.

There it was: he had failed her. Tauriel had saved him so many times, from spiders, orcs, poisoned blades. But he'd never been able to do the same for her. Even last winter, when he'd brought her in from the snow, he hadn't been rescuing her. Oh no, she'd have been far better off shivering in deserted Ravenhill tower rather than invited into Erebor by a dwarf who meant to steal her heart and her happiness without a second thought.

So now why did it still hurt so much to do the one and only right thing he ever should have done for her?

Could he really refuse to do what was right—for Tauriel, for Fíli—just because it was painful?

He knocked the ashes from his pipe, long since gone cold. Then he drew himself stiffly up and brushed the dirt from his still-damp backside.

It must be almost morning by now, and he hadn't slept at all tonight, barring those few lovely moments with Tauriel nestled in his arms. He yawned, and the cut on his face pulled painfully. There would be no time to catch up on sleep now, if he wanted to find his uncle before Thorin met with the rest of his private council. And what Kíli had to say would be easiest without an audience.

He picked up the lantern and began the long hike back up to the royal quarters from the far reaches of the mines.