Nothing Without You Part 10

Kili wandered through an unfamiliar place. The air was cold, like winter’s bitter breath and sent icy waves up his spine. The sound of his footsteps was all Kili was able to hear, they echoed as though he was walking through a great stone hall. Perhaps he was walking through a great hall, but if he was, he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see anything. He was shrouded in such darkness that his eyes may as well have been shut. Dwarves weren’t afraid of the dark, in fact they felt quite at home within it. But he felt unnerved and longed for some light to guide his way. Kili stopped walking, he tried to listen through the silence and see through the blackness. Where was he?
“Hello?” He called out. His voice bounced off unseen surfaces and came back to him. He called out again, louder this time. But once again, the only sound that came back to him was his own echoing voice. Kili wasn’t even sure who he expected to reply to him. But he couldn’t be entirely alone. There had to be someone else. But what if there wasn’t? What if he was alone? Then a sudden, horrifying thought filled his mind, pushing out all reason and sense. It froze his muscles with fear. This cold, dark, lonely place. He was dead, or dying. This wasn’t right, he wasn’t ready to die. He wasn’t ready. There was far too much of this world left to see, too much of this journey left, he promised, he swore that he would help his uncle reclaim Erebor. He would help him right until the end. And it was too early to be the end. And what about Fili? If Kili didn’t return to his brother what would happen to him? He would suffer. He would be alone in a world where it was always the two of them. His grief would destroy him, Kili knew that. For his whole life, Fili had always been there. His big brother, his strong, brave, over protective big brother. Kili had never said it, but he looked up to him as much as he looked up to his uncle Thorin. And Fili had never said it either, but he needed his little brother as much as Kili needed his big brother. And if Kili let go now, if he let death claim him, Fili would fall into ruin. A broken prince. Kili realised that he needed to live. Not only because he wasn’t ready, but because he had to return to Fili. But the darkness of death was beginning to swallow him, he could feel it clutching at his heart. “Look for the light Kili.” He said to himself. Some people say that when you’re about to die, you have to follow the light and run into it before you can let go. But Kili didn’t believe that, not at that moment. If he chased the light, he would return to his friends. “Look for it, search it out. There is always light. Even when it seems like there is nothing but pitch black, there is always, always light. Find it Kili!” He shouted an order at himself.  He sounded like Thorin. His eyes darted around him and he turned where he was stood. Then he saw it, as he knew he would. Like torchlight upon a mountain side. He ran. The darkness at his sides made him feel like his feet were taking him nowhere. But the light, growing with every step let him know that he was moving.



He burst through and into the light. It was like jumping into a pool of sun heated water. But that did not make the new world he found himself in any more pleasant. Now it was a forest, dense with thin, twisting trunks that reached up higher than he could see. Mist rolled in around his ankles so that even now, with white light blazing through the leaves, he could not see the ground he walked on. But there was sound. The sound of twigs and dead fallen leaves snapping and crunching beneath his feet, birds singing somewhere in the branches above. Suddenly he didn’t feel so lonely. This wasn’t death. But he was still lost amongst the trees. He moved forward, pushing low branches from his path, and into the mist.