![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonofdurinThe worst of it is, it had been such a nice day.
Granted, there was a tremendous hole in the sky, and there were two hours around midday where an entire block of High Street had started raining upside-down, but it had otherwise been a lovely sunny day, nobody had tried to kill, main, or otherwise attack him, and he'd called Shop to Smell the Roses and placed the most needlessly complicated order he could afford, just to annoy his brother, so by Fíli's standards, it had been a very nice day indeed.
And then he'd walked into his apartment and seen the stone sitting on his dining room table.
His uncle's proclamations to the contrary, Fíli was not actually an idiot - he'd never seen more in the stones than a glimpse caught over a stranger's shoulder (and that had been a perfectly innocuous image, just him grinning at someone he hadn't been able to see), but as far as he knew, everyone who'd looked into one of the stones properly had seen things, terrible things, things that left them shaken to their cores. The smart thing to do would have been to throw the damned thing away, or better still, try to destroy it.
But it was sitting on his table. Practically taunting him. And for all Kíli was the one in their family known to be too curious for his own good, Fíli had his own fair share of curiosity. Just a peek, he'd thought, surely that can't hurt. He'd picked up the stone, risked a single glance inside, and now...
The seeing stone drops from nerveless fingers.
Kíli. Kíli was dead. Kíli had been killed, most likely, during the battle - him and Thorin both, but Thorin was his own man - Fíli's brother was Fíli's responsibility, and he had failed. He hadn't been there, hadn't been able to protect Kíli, and Kíli had died.
Kíli is dead.
He must dial his brother's mobile phone (though he will not, later, remember doing so), because the next thing he knows, Kíli's voice is in his ear. He sounds - happy. Unconcerned. Blithely unaware of all that Fíli has just seen, and in that moment, Fíli cannot bear to take that away from him. Not yet. That time will come soon enough, he has no doubt - he could never dream of lying to his brother, not even in such a thing as this - but it can be put off a little longer. He manages some excuse - accidental dialing, you know I'm no good with these things - and hangs up on his brother's laughter.
Fíli wants to - he wants to run, to throw things, to seek out one of the creatures that lurks in Darrow's back alleys and fight until there is no room in his head or his heart for anything else. He snatches up the stone and heaves it at the wall with all his strength, but it disappears in mid-air, damnable thing that it is, as his knees go out from under him. He kneels on the floor, then, staring at his shaking hands through eyes blurring with tears, unable to see anything but those two names etched indelibly into stone.
And it had been such a nice day.
Granted, there was a tremendous hole in the sky, and there were two hours around midday where an entire block of High Street had started raining upside-down, but it had otherwise been a lovely sunny day, nobody had tried to kill, main, or otherwise attack him, and he'd called Shop to Smell the Roses and placed the most needlessly complicated order he could afford, just to annoy his brother, so by Fíli's standards, it had been a very nice day indeed.
And then he'd walked into his apartment and seen the stone sitting on his dining room table.
His uncle's proclamations to the contrary, Fíli was not actually an idiot - he'd never seen more in the stones than a glimpse caught over a stranger's shoulder (and that had been a perfectly innocuous image, just him grinning at someone he hadn't been able to see), but as far as he knew, everyone who'd looked into one of the stones properly had seen things, terrible things, things that left them shaken to their cores. The smart thing to do would have been to throw the damned thing away, or better still, try to destroy it.
But it was sitting on his table. Practically taunting him. And for all Kíli was the one in their family known to be too curious for his own good, Fíli had his own fair share of curiosity. Just a peek, he'd thought, surely that can't hurt. He'd picked up the stone, risked a single glance inside, and now...
He walks through a door somewhere in Darrow, not really paying attention to where he's going until loose stone slips beneath his feet. Fíli can see the exact second that his stone-self realizes he isn't anywhere in Darrow anymore, and when he realizes where he is, he whips around, grabbing for the door - but it's too late. The secret door into Erebor is shut tight, as if it had never been. Darrow, behind it, is gone.
The narrow view afforded him by the stone means Fíli has no way of knowing when in Arda's timeline this is, but it must be the future or the distant past, he realizes as his stone-self sets off down the mountain (shoulders set in a near-perfect imitation of his mother's 'act now, have emotions later' stance), because there's a structure on the mountainside that he doesn't recognize. The other Fíli must spot it too, because he picks his way over to it, and as he runs his hands over one side of the stone, frowning, the vision shifts forward until the runes under his stone-self's fingers are all too legible.
Fíli, son of Dís
TA 2859 - TA 2941
It's a tomb. His tomb. And not only his - the vision shifts again, and in the stone, Fíli rests his hand against a second set of runes - these taller, more prominent - and bows his head in what can only be mourning.
Here lies Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain
King Under the Mountain
TA 2746 - TA 2941
Grief is a dagger in his chest, sharp and cruel, and Fíli wants nothing more than to weep for the uncle who had loved him like a son - but there is no time for that, not yet, because there is still another set of runes carved into the dark stone, and Fíli knows, even before his stone-self falls to the ground with wordless cry of grief, knows deep in his bones what that third name must be.
Kíli, son of Dís
TA 2864 - TA 2941
The seeing stone drops from nerveless fingers.
Kíli. Kíli was dead. Kíli had been killed, most likely, during the battle - him and Thorin both, but Thorin was his own man - Fíli's brother was Fíli's responsibility, and he had failed. He hadn't been there, hadn't been able to protect Kíli, and Kíli had died.
Kíli is dead.
He must dial his brother's mobile phone (though he will not, later, remember doing so), because the next thing he knows, Kíli's voice is in his ear. He sounds - happy. Unconcerned. Blithely unaware of all that Fíli has just seen, and in that moment, Fíli cannot bear to take that away from him. Not yet. That time will come soon enough, he has no doubt - he could never dream of lying to his brother, not even in such a thing as this - but it can be put off a little longer. He manages some excuse - accidental dialing, you know I'm no good with these things - and hangs up on his brother's laughter.
Fíli wants to - he wants to run, to throw things, to seek out one of the creatures that lurks in Darrow's back alleys and fight until there is no room in his head or his heart for anything else. He snatches up the stone and heaves it at the wall with all his strength, but it disappears in mid-air, damnable thing that it is, as his knees go out from under him. He kneels on the floor, then, staring at his shaking hands through eyes blurring with tears, unable to see anything but those two names etched indelibly into stone.
And it had been such a nice day.
