So Comes Snow After Fire

19.iv

Fíli was stumbling back to bed from the necessary when he noticed a light under his brother's door. Kíli was an early riser, but it was still several hours till dawn in the outside world; surely he was not up so soon. Was he— No, of course Fíli knew better than to think Kíli meant to run away. If Kíli hadn't left before, he surely wouldn't now, when so much more depended on his loyalty.

Yet it was no stretch to guess that something was still amiss. Kíli had been understandably out of sorts and depressed in the sennight following the vote. Fíli turned back from his own door and rapped lightly on Kíli's.

"Hullo?" Kíli's sleep-muddled voice returned shortly.

"Kí? May I come in?"

"Yes."

Fíli opened the door to find his brother sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. The untrimmed lamp flickered fitfully on the bedside table.

"You all right?" Fíli inquired, realizing as he spoke what a stupid question it was. Of course Kíli was far from all right.

Kíli didn't move. "Will I dream of her every night for the rest of my life?" he returned. "It's killing me, but I think it would be even worse to stop." He looked up then to fix his brother with a beseeching look. The cut along his cheek, closed but not yet fully healed, lent him a particularly pathetic aspect in the uncertain light.

Fili sat next to him, and Kíli looked back down at his empty hands. They were trembling.

Kíli said, "In my dreams, I tell her I love her. And I wake feeling that I've betrayed her. Have I?"

"No. Nothing between you and Audha will ever change what you gave to Tauriel."

"Yes, gave," Kili said, emphasizing the past tense. "I've nothing more to give her, Fí. I had to let her go, because if I gave her any more of myself, I'd break her immortal heart. But I'm not ready... Not ready to let go of the memory of her. I don't think I can. She's graven on my soul. I can't lose her without effacing my very self."

"I think that's how we were made to love, Kíli." Fíli supposed he would have felt much the same way about Sif. It was merely a harsh twist of fate that had left this doom to his brother instead.

"Is it wrong to marry Audha if I can't forget Tauriel?" Kíli asked after a while.

"I don't know," Fíli admitted honestly. "But I was prepared to do the same thing."

Kíli sighed and drew a hand through his loose hair.

"Fí, was Audha in love with you?" he asked again, regarding Fíli earnestly.

"I don't think so," Fíli returned, glad he could give this answer truthfully. "I mean, she asked me to choose her but I think that was only because I offered her the things she wanted. It was still a contract to her, in the end."

Kíli's anxious expression eased somewhat in relief.

"Audha wanted someone who was honorable and gentle," Fíli went on. "Once she knows you, she can hardly be disappointed."

"I hope not."

They sat a while longer in silence before Fíli rose to go back to his own room.

"Just one thing, Fí," Kíli called as his brother was nearly out the door.

"Yes?"

"Do you think I should grow out my beard?"

"Hmm?" Fíli couldn't see what this question had to do with anything.

"Well, you've seen all the fancy beads and braids the Blacklocks wear. Maybe Audha'd like me better if I dressed that way." Kíli sighed. "It's the only thing I can think of to give her; I can change my looks, if I can't change my heart."

"Kíli, you're already good enough for her. But I suppose it is a thoughtful gesture." And a truly personal one, too: Kíli had stubbornly preferred the convenience of a trimmed beard for most of his life, despite the ribbing his choice had sometimes earned him (mainly from older dwarves of their uncle and mother's generation).

"Right," Kíli returned, looking resigned. "It's true I am a Longbeard, after all."

Back in his bed, Fíli lay awake for a long time. Of course this situation was not his own fault, and yet Fíli could not help feeling guilty that he got to keep Sif, while his brother would only see his beloved Tauriel again in dreams. And he knew that Sif, for all her assurances that she was happy, was troubled by the same fact; thanking Kíli had only slightly eased her heart.

Would he and Sif ever be free from this great debt, free enough to know the full joy that could be theirs? Fíli knew that he had been blessed to emerge from this recent controversy without losing his beloved or his birthright, but even so his life was altered. Yet he would not dare complain when he thought of what Kíli had lost.

Certainly there had been times in the past when Fíli had felt it was unfair that Kíli got to enjoy freedoms and privileges that his elder brother, as crown prince, could not. But even when Fíli had wished his brother would bear some of the weight of an heir's responsibility, he would never have wanted to see Kíli forced to give up so much. His loyal, loving little brother deserved better than this, and Fíli only wished Mahal, or Mandos, or the All-father had seen fit to give it to him.