Hummingbird Heartbeat

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Kili stared.

He forced his mind to work.

That wasn't...

It couldn't be....

But she...

He had nothing to say. Nothing to say to this girl with one wing on her back and tears on her face. How do you console a bird that can no longer fly? How do you tell an amputee that life will be fine? That life is still worth living? How do you tell a teenager suffering from depression that their world is now an even smaller, darker box than before? How do you tell a girl she lost her everything in a ripping of bone and a spurt of blood? You don't. There is never anything you can ever say to someone that will make losing a limb, a right, a wing, anything, better. Ever.

Kili is always made out to be dim or childish. But he wasn't. He was older and wiser than most Human's he knew. So he knew the only way to handle this. He tugged down the cloak so her back was hidden from sight and folded her up in a hug. She cried quietly against his chest, the tears soft and cold and still. She had already screamed, but that was pain. She had already cried, but that was shock. This was letting it sink in. She was grounded. Forever, most likely.

She should have been screaming, thrashing and begging. But that would come later. Later when she and Kili went to search for food and she couldn't even catch a squirrel and she fell and hurt herself, then the screaming and sobbing. Now it was just silent tears. Silent tears as the Company sang, giving her time to think of what to say. Nothing came to mind. When Kili did let go, she almost dragged him back, but he was replaced with a bigger, more worried body.

"Mara?" the voice was a low rumble, thunder in the distance, promising rain and lightning to come. Mara fisted huge chunks of Thorin's warg-fur coat in her hands and cried, silent and still, into his chest, his arms wrapped around her back. He tensed once, then just petted her head. He could feel it. The missing wing. But now was not a time to rage and swear vengeance. That too would come later. Later when he was patrolling their camp in the woods because he was overcautious. Later when he realized his One was broken and empty, her smiles all weak and hollow.

Then he would grit his teeth and hack mercilessly at a dead tree. He would strike and beat until his fists bled and his sword lay in the grass coated in sap and sawdust. Then he would growl his vow into the night air and bind his hands. Then he would lie to the worried kin and kith that he fell and hurt his hands. He would clean his sword and hold Maranda close at night as she cried, begging her nightmares to stop.

Now he just held her close and let her still, tears stopping as sleep took her. Tucked under Gandalf's hat was the wing she had snatched up from the ground. Gandalf couldn't bear to look at it. He wrapped it in his scarf and tucked it aside. What a tragedy, truly and gruesomely. A horror to live like that. Soon everyone was drifting off to sleep, safe on the Eyrie, and Thorin still holding Maranda as she squirmed in her sleep, back cold, despite the cloak and Dwarf holding her close.

When they woke up, she was groggy, pale and quiet. Kili was beside her all morning talking softly as she sat looking wistfully towards the Misty Mountains. Fili was nearby, fiddling with something in his lap. Maranda eventually got to her feet with Kili's help and they followed the rest of the company down the Eyrie. The reached the bottom without incident, although Maranda had looked as though she might just jump off at one point, and started off. Bofur was trying to get them all up laughing and talking as they started off towards what Gandalf said, 'Seemed a sound direction'.

They were hungry, without gear, and exposed. Bofur was having trouble succeeding. Kili was busy trying to talk to Gandalf over something they shut up about whenever anyone got close and Fili was in the back, trailing slowly as he struggled with whatever he was working on. That left Maranda. She seemed a bit dazed, but she had a pensive look on her face that Bofur usually associated with her being bored.