we will all burn together [closed post]

[sonofdurin]

The last thing Fíli sees in Arda is his uncle's face, frozen with fear and grief and horror, and he isn't running, of course he isn't running, he will not dishonor his nephew by turning away now - and Fíli is afraid, more afraid than he has ever been, but he looks back into Thorin's clear eyes and knows that he was loved, that his family will survive this, and he finds that he can almost bear the knowledge of his fate.

The last thing he hears in Arda is the sound of his brother's scream, and that would be much harder to bear, if he had any time left to endure it.

 

+

He is moving at a great speed, far faster than any horse could run. Something rattles nearby, and perhaps he ought to look and see where he is, but opening his eyes seems like too great an effort. 

There is no more pain.

 

+

 

He thinks perhaps he wanders, though he knows not where, nor for how long, and when he wakes it is to the sight of trees. The sheer wrongness of it all propels him to his feet in an instant, sends him scrambling for any weapon he can find, and it is only when his boot-daggers are in his hands that he bothers to stop and take in his surroundings. He is standing in the sun, beneath trees that do not grow on the slopes of the Mountain, and he is utterly alone.

 

I died.

Fíli's conscious mind flinches away from the thought, but the knowledge is unavoidable. He died, he remembers dying, and now he is... here. Wherever "here" is.

 

If this is the afterlife, he thinks, it is nothing at all like I expected. 

These are not his Maker's Halls, and Fíli wonders, with a vague sense of hilarity, whether the Valar got mixed up in the chaos of the battle, and he is in the afterlife of Elves or Men, instead. It is certainly an afterlife, though, it has to be, because he feels no pain. If he was alive, he thinks, it would probably hurt.

 

It would hurt, and his brother would be with him, but Fíli knows with a bone-deep certainty that he is alone. He's never been alone before, not really - Kíli's always been somewhere nearby - and he thinks that, when he remembers how to feel again, he will probably hate it. His soul is screaming with his brother's absence, and all he can do is thank Mahal for that emptiness, because this is an afterlife and Kíli isn't here, Kíli is alive, and Fíli will gladly bear this pain until the end of days because it means his brother lives and he is... dead. He's dead.

 

All at once it is very hard to breathe. He stumbles backwards - falls - his knives slip from numb fingers - and he is on the ground, choking on tears, dead and abandoned and more alone than he has ever been.

Comments

[sonofdurin]

"You don't remember?" Even by recent standards, that's strange. Elves were supposed to have flawless memories, everyone said so. Of course, elves were also supposed to be the fairest of all races, so maybe the memory thing was an exaggeration as well. Or maybe she'd hit her head in the battle and forgotten, the way Fíli had that time he fell off the mountainside back in the Ered Luin.

"We made it to Lake-Town," he says. "You followed us there, you and that blond one, you... you saved my brother's life."

Something about the way she said 'brought here' tugs at his mind, and he frowns. She didn't sound like someone talking about her death, but... "Where is 'here', exactly?"

[strongerthanevil]

Tauriel could almost have wept with relief on hearing that she arrived in time to save Kili. Much as she tried to put it out of her mind these past few months, she would often dwell on it. Nothing here could be done about it but it was still difficult to not think of it.

"I am glad to hear that Legolas and I arrived in time. It is not that I have forgotten, it is that these events have not happened for me yet. This place takes people from all times and places. You are the only one I have met so far that is from our world. I am afraid you will find this world very different from our own."

[sonofdurin]

"This world...?" He supposes that could be how the elves speak of the lands in the West, but it doesn't really seem likely. More likely is the idea growing in the back of his mind: that he is somewhere else (somewhen else?) entirely. And that is...

He'd thought being dead was bad enough, but this, oh, this is far worse. If he'd been dead, he could at least have comforted himself with the knowledge that he'd died to save his family, and if he'd been in... wherever elves went, surely his Maker would have realized it eventually and brought him home. If he's right, though, if he's been spared, he's been snatched away from his friends and his family and everything he's ever known, perhaps forever... and maybe he could have learned to live with that, too, except his brother saw him fall. The cost of his survival is that Kíli thinks he's dead, his life bought with the sorrow of the one person in all of Arda Fíli would have died to keep from grief.

Oh, nadad, I'm so sorry.

He turns his face away so she won't see the look he knows must be there, and says, very quietly, "What is this world, Captain Tauriel? I had thought it was the afterlife, but it seems I was mistaken."

[strongerthanevil]

"It is unlike anything I have heard of," she said, noticing his sorrow. She did not feel it was her place to ask of it, though she hoped that it was not for his brother. It was a selfish thing, to hope that Kili was safe when it could be any of the company that were in danger. But it was not just any of the company that she had feelings for, whatever they may be. It was Kili she felt for.

"It is not so much a world as it is a city and the surrounding area. If you try to leave, some magic prevents you and you find yourself walking back into the city. There are those here from worlds not our own, worlds that are so very different from ours. It is a truly confusing but sometimes wonderful place."