Fili was pierced in the back, and on some nights he lay awake, eyes watering with the ache of it, even though he knew he was long healed. He did not know if it was real, this pain of his, or only a memory. He did not know if it mattered. And when winter drew near, a year now since the battle and the long, slow awakening thereafter, the ache only grew stronger, until some nights he did not sleep at all.

It was something he had heard about since he was barely able to walk. A scraped knee, a bruised hand, and his mother's voice, warm and gentle in his ear. And then, later, his uncle - stern as always, but his uncle nonetheless, feared and loved in equal measure - his uncle examining the injury with a sombre face and sitting back, fixing him with a steady gaze.

"You must be brave, my nephew," he would say.

And always, always, Dwalin beside him, black eyebrows bristling, laughing at his solemn face. "Wait till you're my age, laddie," he would say. "Then you'll be able to tell the weather from the aches in your body."

In those days, it seemed absurd to him, that his body, young and strong and so quick to recover from any mishap, would one day be so, that it would be hurt and would never fully heal. But now, on nights when Fili could not sleep, he would rise sometimes and go to look out at the sky, to see the clouds gathering and feel the breath of the coming rain in his aching back. He had not needed to wait until he was Dwalin's age to learn what it was like to be forever marked. He had always been a fast learner.

Fili was injured in the back, but Kili was injured in the belly and the knee. He complained no more than Fili did, but he limped, now, sometimes barely at all, sometimes - on days when the coming rain breathed its misty breath into Fili's wounds - enough that his footsteps made a strange, syncopated echo in the splendid passageways of their mountain. Oin frowned to watch him pass, and heated stones in the fire, wrapping them in towels and giving them not just to Kili, but to Fili, too.

"No sense suffering more than you need to," he said, and neither of them disagreed.

"If it didn't wake us up, we wouldn't be out here to see the stars," Kili would say, finding Fili on the balcony and pressing a warm hand to his back.

"I thought you didn't like the stars," Fili said. Kili had never cared to look too long on them when he was a child, saying that they made him feel small and cold and alone.

But they were not children any more, and now Kili gazed upon the stars with a strange expression on his face, not frightened any more, but eager and sad in equal measure.

"Things are different, now," he said.

And so they were.

Winter passed by, and spring came again to the mountain. The snows once more crept upwards, ever upwards, and the flowers of the upper slopes bloomed low to the ground, yet hardy and bursting with life, as if imitating the mountain's other inhabitants. The ache in Fili's back receded with the coming of warmer weather, but Kili still limped, as though the mists of winter had settled deep into his bones. He no longer looked to Oin to give him heated stones, for Fili kept a pile of them ever in the grand fireplace of their apartments, and gave orders that the fire should not be allowed to go out. It was a help at night, but there was no help in the daytime, not from Oin and not from Kili himself.

"You worry too much," Kili said, time and again. "I am hardly the first warrior to walk with a limp."

And it was true enough - Fili did worry, ever and always. It had been his burden, since first he grew to understand what it was to love someone and to lose them, to lie awake at night and fear that one day they might disappear. It had been his burden since the day his father left with a laugh and a kiss to his mother's bulging stomach, and never came back to meet his second son. Long had he struggled after the battle, after waking to watch his brother silently waste away, and he struggled still, struggled not to touch Kili at every opportunity, to assure himself that he was still there. And it was this, in the end, that led to Kili choosing to sleep in a room alone, he who had never done so through all of their lives; this that led to Fili holding himself back, biting his tongue, clenching his fists, holding his worry in check so as not to drive his brother further away from him.

It was this that led to Fili rarely touching his brother, and it was that, in the end, that led to everything else.

At night, Fili was awoken by the sound of Kili tossing and turning. Not one night, nor two, and not fewer as winter receded, but more. At night, Fili rose from his bed and went to the fireplace, wrapped hot stones in thick, soft cloth and brought them back to his brother. In the winter, Kili thanked him, but as spring came, his face began to grow stormy.

"It's nothing," he said, and later, "you don't have to always - I can take care of myself."

"Then why don't you?" Fili asked, temper worn thin by lack of sleep. "I can't help it if you keep waking me up."

And the next day, Fili came home to find that Kili's bed was gone, moved into a room on the other side of their apartments.

"I didn't mean that," he said when Kili came back. "I don't mind when you wake me up."

Kili nodded. "All the same," he said. He made for the new room - too big, unused for decades, cold and empty and not like Kili at all - and Fili rose to his feet, reached out to touch his brother. But Kili twisted just so to stay out of his grasp, and Fili felt something cold and unfamiliar settle in his gut.

"We're too old to sleep in the same room, anyway," Kili said.

Perhaps Kili was. But Fili, who had never slept alone in all the long years since his brother had been born, stared at the ceiling of his chambers that night and thought that he was not.

As spring grew bright and full and trailed its green fingers across the grey walls of the mountain, Fili's mother called him to her chambers. Rich they were, the same rooms she had had as a child, glittering with stones of all colours, warm with tapestries and a great fire roaring in the fireplace. They felt like her, felt like a place to live, in a way that Fili and Kili's apartments no longer did - and perhaps never had.

"You have quarrelled with your brother," his mother said to him.

Fili frowned at this. "No," he said. "Did he tell you that?"

"He tells me nothing," his mother replied. "As if he thinks, somehow, that I do not know him better than he knows himself." She fixed him with her steady gaze, the gaze he had known all his life, that told him she would not let him go until she had what she wanted. "So then tell me, my son - if you have not quarrelled, then why does he wander the world like a grim ghost? I have never known him to be so gloomy for longer than it took for you to forgive whatever foolish thing he had done."

Fili sank into a chair and shook his head. He had asked himself the same question, but had never yet found an answer. "I have nothing to forgive," he said. "We have not quarrelled. I think - he was displeased with me for being too concerned for his health. But that was weeks ago, now." Weeks ago, but Kili had not come back to sleep in the chamber they had shared for a year and more, and Fili had stopped reaching out to touch him for fear of kindling his anger against him.

"His health?" his mother asked. "But he is not unwell, I hope? I have seen no sign."

"His leg troubles him," Fili said. "Or did. Perhaps it is better now. We have not spoken about it."

They had not spoken about it, nor about any other matter, save the simplest and least interesting of topics. The life of a prince was a busy one, filled with responsibility and decorum - yet it was not busy enough for Fili not to notice what was missing from it.

His mother rose from her chair and came to him, bending low to kiss his temple and press her forehead briefly to his.

"Then speak," she said. "We are solemn enough without losing Kili, too, to frowns and dignity."

Fili nodded and rose, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.

"And see Oin," she said. "Your brother is too young and foolish to understand that there is no honour in needless suffering. He needs someone to speak for him, since he will not." She smiled at him, warm but sad, just as she had been all the days of his life. "You will speak for him, Fili."

"Yes, mother," Fili said. "I will."

"There is nothing more to be done," said Oin. "He is healed, as far as he will heal. He will always have a limp. There is no shame in it."

"But he is in pain," Fili said. He was sure it must be true, sure by the slow fading of the cheerfulness from Kili's face, sure by the way his brother grew quiet and grim and chose to sleep alone. "Can you do nothing for that?"

"He tells me there is no pain," Oin said. "Only stiffness."

"Do you believe him?" Fili asked. "He says what he thinks you wish to hear."

"And because I wish to hear it, it cannot be truth?" Oin asked. He shook his head and pressed Fili's shoulder. "You worry too much, lad. It is a warrior's wound, a badge of pride. And I dare say it will not be his last."

If it had been Oin's design to prevent Fili from worrying, this last pronouncement did little to accomplish it. He remembered, as he sometimes did when his aching back or his brooding mind kept him from sleeping, the stench of blood and death over the battlefield, remembered gazing down on his uncle and Dwalin and knowing as the blade pierced his back that there was nothing he could do to protect them. Dwarves were warriors all, strong and hardy, and the line of Durin more than most - yet Fili had no desire to see war again, not in all his days if he had his way. But for now, at least, they were safe, deep in their mountain, with a peace over the land such as had not been known for many years. It was this that he consoled himself with that night, as he lay and stared at the ceiling, alone in his room as he had never been all the long years since his brother had been born. There could surely be no war, and so they would all be safe, and the worst that could happen to Kili was that his leg would ache when the coming rain brought mists into his bones. It was the mark of a warrior, and Fili could have no objection to that.

But even if Fili had no objections, he was more than made up for by his brother. As summer began to spread out across the sky, blue and golden and clear, their mother's fear came true, and they quarrelled at last. Fili, who had been asked to speak to his brother, did not take the chance when he had it, and when at last he opened his mouth, it was not to make things better, but only to see them grow worse.

How it happened, Fili did not quite know. It seemed to him that Kili had been spoiling for it, picking at him for days whenever they were together, finding ways to take offence at imagined slights. He had taken the bait, a time or two, and there had been days when he had hardly spoken to his brother at all. And then, at last, Thorin had told them they were to go to Esgaroth, to witness the celebrations of the renaming of the town.

That night, Fili returned to his chambers to find Kili, silent and grim, packing. He was early to return, for he had decided that today he would speak to his brother, as his mother had asked. And yet, he did not speak, but only stood in the doorway of Kili's room, staring as he threw his clothes into a bulging leather sack. Gone was the cheerful, exuberant brother that Fili had known all of his life. Fili could not remember the last time he had seen him smile.

"It will be good for you," he said at last. "Good to get out of the mountain for a while."

Kili turned sharply towards him, starting as if he had not known that Fili was there, though he could hardly have been unaware of it. "Are you watching me?" he said. "Why are you watching me? I know how to prepare for a journey, I don't need you to watch over everything I do."

Fili frowned and shook his head. "I was not watching," he said. "I was only passing by."

Kili turned away again, turned his back to Fili. "You're always passing by," he said. "I want my own room."

"This is your own room," Fili said. He stared at Kili's back, willing him to turn around. Months ago - even weeks ago - he would have stepped forward, taken Kili's arm, pulled him round to face him. But Kili did not like to be touched any more - did not like to be fussed over, as he saw it - and Fili was wary of making matters worse.

"I mean, my own apartments," Kili said to the wall. "Why should we share? There is a whole mountain's worth of space. We're just tripping over each other all the time, it's so stupid."

"We're not-" Fili began, but the words Kili said sank in, deep into him, and he saw what Kili was doing - not packing for a journey, no: packing for a complete removal. Something heavy and cold settled into his gut, and for a moment he could find no words. "I don't trip over you," he said at last.

"I've already asked Thorin," Kili said. "He says I can have Uncle Frerin's rooms." He glanced sideways, not at Fili, but enough so Fili could see his profile, at least, see something of him other than the back of his head.

"You asked Thorin?" Fili asked. "When?"

"Yesterday," Kili replied. "I thought he would be happier. He always says I need to grow up. But he tried to talk me out of it." He turned back to his packing, shoulders hunched. And Fili understood why, all of a sudden, their uncle was sending them to Esgaroth together.

"We can talk about it," he said. "Kili, let us talk on the way to the lake. We will have days to decide what is the best thing to do."

Kili grew still, staring down into his bag. "I think you should go to the lake without me," he said. "There is no need for both of us to go. One prince of Erebor is enough to keep them happy, surely?"

"Perhaps," Fili said, trying to keep his tone light. "But two would be better, would it not? And besides, we have barely had a chance to see each other for weeks. It will do us good, both of us."

"You see me all the time," Kili said, and now he turned to face Fili, and Fili was dismayed to see accusation in his eyes. "You never leave me alone. You went to Oin about me, as though I am a child!"

Fili knew, then, that he had made a misstep. Kili had ever craved respect, demanded time and again to be treated as an adult, even long before he could claim to be one, even when he behaved like a foolish child. And Fili had learned - had tried to learn - to do just that, to be his brother's protector and yet to let him be his own dwarf. But he had gone to Oin, and Oin had gone to Kili, and Kili was in no mood to be coddled, not these last weeks.

"I see you limping-" he began, but Kili did not allow him to finish, snorting and jerking his bag to his shoulder.

"I had my knee laid open to the bone," he said. "I limp. I will always limp. It is nothing, Fili, nothing."

He turned, then, and shoved past Fili where he stood in the doorway. Fili turned, snatching for Kili's arm, only to have it jerked unceremoniously from his grasp.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Frerin's rooms," Kili said, already halfway to the door.

"And the lake?" Fili said, aware that his voice had begun to sound plaintive.

Kili paused in the doorway, but he did not look back.

"I have had my fill of that town," he said. "Go without me."

And so, Fili went.

The town was not the same one he remembered: that one was burned by the dragon, and what little was left of it was rotting beneath the waters of the lake. This town, built further north along the shores of the lake, was a rebirth. Bard, King of Dale, had chosen the site himself - there, where Esgaroth had been in the days of his ancestors. Lake-Town was gone, now, but a new Esgaroth would take its place, just as Dale rose from the ashes. Just as Erebor sprang once more to life.

The town was new, still half-built, the men toiling day and night for months, for years. And yet, there was something about the mist that rose from the lake, something about the dark water that reached up and made the town old before its time. The timbers, that not two years ago had been living trees on the edge of the Greenwood, looked old and weathered, like the hull of a ship. The town was hung about with dank, heavy air, and Fili's back ached without ceasing. He was glad that Kili had not come - so he told himself - for it would not have been easy on him, his knee already a weak point, a sore spot in more ways than one. And glad, too, because as he walked through the streets, he understood what Kili had meant when he said I have had my fill of that town. It was not the same town, not even in the same place, and yet everywhere he turned, Fili was reminded of the horror of dragonfire, and before that, the horror of watching his brother writhe and howl, watching his brother die by slow, agonising degrees.

Yes. It was better that Kili had not come.

And he thought so again the next day, when he attended the name-giving ceremony. After all the solemnities were done, and the festivities begun, he stood and smiled and spoke to those he had to speak to, and wondered how soon he could get away from this damp, grim little town, whether he could leave that day or whether he would have to spend another aching night listening to the town creak like a ship. And then he saw her, and all thoughts of anything else fled from his mind.

"Tauriel," he said.

She stood before him, taller even than he remembered, so that he had to crane his neck to look at her. Yet she had seen him first, though he was towered over even by the older children of the town, had sought him out. Why? He could not say.

"Fili," she said, and bowed her head. "Prince Fili."

Fili acknowledged her bow with one of his own. "At your service," he said. She had left while his brother was still asleep unto death, but she had saved Kili's life once, twice, perhaps as many as four times, and Fili would not forget that.

"Are you well?" she asked. She was ill at ease - a strange thing, for an elf - and Fili could not feel coldness towards her, though he tried.

"Much better than when last we were here," he said.

She smiled a little at that, but the smile faded almost as soon as it appeared. "And your brother?" she asked. "He is here, too?"

"Ah - no," Fili said. "He does not care for this place."

"But he recovered from his injuries?" she said. "I heard tell that it was so, but I did not see it with my own eyes."

"No, you did not," said Fili, and now he found the coldness, remembering the hurt on his brother's face, and wondering - not for the first time - if the slow darkness that had claimed him had not been her doing, at least in part . "But he is well. And I must be going."

He bowed again to her and turned abruptly away. Yes, he thought. He would leave today.

Leave he did, but even with his sojourn in Esgaroth cut short, it was more than a week that he was gone from Erebor. When he returned, it was to be greeted by Bilbo Baggins, who swore every day that he would soon be leaving to return to his own home far to the west, and yet every night found himself still dwelling in the halls of the King under the Mountain.

"Fili!" this little hobbit cried, with a smile of genuine warmth, for he was very fond of all the dwarves, and perhaps of Fili in particular. "How was Lake-Town?"

"It is Esgaroth, now," Fili said, with a smile of his own. "They have renamed it."

"Oh, bother Esgaroth," Bilbo said. "It's still a town on a lake, isn't it?"

"Very much so," Fili said. "And damp, with it."

"Hmph," Bilbo replied, walking with Fili as he made his way deeper into the mountain. "Well, I don't see the attraction, myself. But I thought you went with Kili? Did you leave him there to grow mould?"

"Kili?" Fili asked. "He stayed behind. He did not care to join me."

Bilbo stopped at this, and frowned at him. "Are you sure?" he said. "You usually go everywhere together."

Fili paused in his steps as well, and did not think on the pang that Bilbo's observation caused him, or the empty space at his side that felt emptier every day. "Not this time, my friend," he said. "But surely you noticed he had not left? You must have seen him some time in the last week."

Bilbo shook his head, looking very surprised. "Hide nor hair," he said. "He is being very quiet, apparently. Which is not like him at all, if you don't mind my saying so!"

At another time - in another place - Fili would have laughed at this observation and agreed wholeheartedly. But here and now, faced with the troubling news that his brother had been so solitary as to become invisible, and remembering once again the grim, stone-faced Kili he had left behind him, he could only wonder and worry.

"Perhaps you should talk to him," Bilbo said at last. "It's strange, you know, to see you two going off by yourselves. I'm not sure I like it very much."

"Nor I," said Fili. "I do not like it at all."

When Fili returned to his apartments, it was to find them cold and empty. No less had he expected, and yet somewhere in his heart it seemed he had still hoped, hoped that Kili might have changed his mind in the week he had been gone, that whatever he had done to so upset his brother might have been forgotten. But Kili's room was empty, the bed gone along with all his belongings, and the hope that Fili had not recognised died a quiet death.

It was an hour or more before he found himself standing before the door of their Uncle Frerin's old rooms. An hour or more, for he had had to wash the dust of the road from his person - and then he had had to scrape together his courage. How strange, that he should be anxious about talking to his brother, his brother, of all people! And yet so it was, for he was weary and dejected, and he feared to be once more sent away with nothing but cold words.

Yet he was of the line of Durin, greatest of all dwarves, and he put his fear away and knocked as firmly as Durin himself might have done.

There was a pause, and then a muffled voice - Kili's voice. "You can leave it outside," he called through the thick wood of the door.

"Kili," Fili called back. "It's me."

Another pause, then, which echoed in Fili's ears until he began to think that Kili would not open the door at all, would simply leave him standing alone in the passageway. And then: a scrape, a creak, and the door opened a little to reveal Kili, standing half in shadow.

"I didn't expect you back yet," he said.

"It wasn't the most festive of festivals," Fili replied. He waited, and Kili waited, too, as if expecting something more. "Then - can I come in?" Fili asked at last. He had not expected a warm greeting, not after the last conversation they had had, and yet this - Kili standing in the shadows, staring at him as if he were a stranger - this was not what he had hoped for at all.

"What?" Kili said, then, "Oh, no, that's - you don't need to. I can manage."

"Manage?" Fili asked. "I don't understand." He reached out to push the door open, laying his hand over Kili's where it clutched the wood. And then he paused, frowning, for it seemed to him that the skin of Kili's hand was rather too warm to the touch.

"Are you unwell, my brother?" he asked, and let go of the door, reaching instead for Kili's forehead. Kili ducked away from him, but Fili was faster, and he pressed his palm to Kili's brow and felt a strange sort of hope. Kili was fevered, that much was clear, and Kili, unwell, was often unpleasant. If Kili had been already sickening when Fili left - perhaps, perhaps that would explain the conversation they had had.

"I'm fine," Kili said. "It's nothing, just a little fever." Still he did not move away from the door, did not let Fili in, and Fili stood and stared.

"Have you seen Oin?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Kili said. "He said it was nothing. It will go away on its own."

"And has it?" Fili asked. "How long have you been ill?"

"I'm not ill," Kili said. "It's been - a day, no longer. It's nothing. Oin said I should sleep, so why don't you let me be? Can you not go one hour without fussing over me?"

And now Fili felt his heart sink again. Kili had not been ill when he left, and what was more, he was growing angry again now, though Fili could not see what he had done to deserve it. Was it so strange, to worry about his brother? His brother, who hid himself away and answered every question with anger in his voice, though once he had been the most light-hearted dwarf in the world? But now, Fili felt as though he were looking at a stranger, and he opened his mouth, but could find no words to say.

"Well?" Kili asked. "Will you let me sleep, or not?"

"Of course," Fili said. "Of course you should sleep."

But he stood and stared at the door for a long time after it closed.

"Hm, what?" said Oin when Fili tapped him on the shoulder. "Who's there?" He turned frowning mightily and reaching for his ear-trumpet - or perhaps for his axe. Fili raised his hands in apology.

"You didn't hear me come in," he said, as loudly as he could without shouting.

"Always sneaking around, you young folk," Oin said, and, having found his ear-trumpet, jammed it into his ear. "Now, what do you want? Are you sickening for something?"

"Not I," Fili said. "I came to talk about Kili."

"Again?" Oin said, not caring to hide his exasperation. "I've never known a dwarf to fret so - and about nothing at all! I told you, lad, Kili's wound will trouble him from time to time, just as yours will, and you'll just have to learn to live with that."

But Fili shook his head. "No, not his leg," he said. "I came about the fever."

"Fever?" Oin asked. "He has a fever, now, does he?"

And at this, Fili's heart sank, to know that his brother had lied to him. "He said he spoke to you about it."

"Not-" Oin began, and then frowned in thought. "Oh, aye," he said. "That fever. Weeks ago, wasn't it? Three weeks?"

Fili found himself without words, but when Oin began to frown, he recovered himself. He would need Oin's help later, of that he had little doubt; but for now, until he had understood what it was that was causing Kili's behaviour, he had no desire to bring his kin into the situation. "Yes," he said. "Yes, three weeks, I think. What - he couldn't remember what you told him to do?"

"It was simple enough," Oin said with a snort. "That brother of yours will forget his beard one day - assuming he ever grows one." And he laughed uproariously and slapped his knee. "Willow bark, lad," he continued when he had exhausted his mirth. "Fevers and headaches, willow bark is the best remedy. And sleep. I told him if he didn't right himself in a day or two, to come straight back. But now, why're you asking? He must be long recovered by now."

"Of course," Fili replied, perhaps with a little too much haste, though if Oin noticed, he gave no sign. "We were arguing, that was all. He swore that nettle tea was the best for a fever, and that you'd told him so."

"Nettle tea!" Oin cried. "Why, the lad's got a head full of feathers, I'd swear to it before Mahal himself."

"I'll be sure to tell him you said so," said Fili, anxious, now, to put and end to the conversation.

"Aye, you do that," Oin replied, and turned back to his work bench, tutting loudly. "Nettle tea, indeed," he muttered.

This time, when Fili knocked on Kili's door, there was no answer. Yet he felt in his heart, just as he felt the comforting weight of the mountain around him, that his brother was inside, silent, listening. He knocked again, and into that listening silence he spoke.

"Kili," he said. "Kili, it's me. Kili, please. Amad is ill. She's asking for you."

The silence settled back over him, and he held his breath. Held it, and held it, and-

There. The shuffle of footsteps and the scrape of the lock, and the door slid open a crack. But this time, Fili did not wait and worry on the wrong side of the door. This time, he shoved forward with all his dwarvish strength the moment the door began to move, and was inside the room before Kili, staggering back from the force of his charge, had the chance to recover.

"Three weeks," he said, rounding on Kili, who had staggered back a few feet and was staring at him with round eyes. "Three weeks you've been feverish, Oin said. Three weeks."

Kili stared at him, mouth open in shock. And shock, too, was what Fili felt once he had said his piece and took the time to truly look at what was before him, for he saw his brother in the light for the first time, and a sorry sight it was, indeed. Here, in the flickering light of the single oil lamp, it was clear indeed that Kili was ill: he was pale and haggard, eyes shadowed and cheeks hollowing, and his hair hung lank around his face. And that was not all, for now Fili looked around him and saw his uncle Frerin's rooms for the first time, and he saw not rich, commodious apartments such as those that Kili had left behind, but a rubble-strewn floor, filth-streaked walls hung with rotting tapestries, an ash-choked fireplace that had surely not been lit since before the dragon came. What furniture there once might have been was now a pile of broken wood in the corner, and all there was to replace it was Kili's bed and a low table which bore the lamp. It was no place for a fevered dwarf, nor yet a healthy one, for it was cold and dark and devoid of any form of comfort.

"Kili," Fili said then, turning back to his brother. "What has happened to you?"

And Kili took another step back and shook his head.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine. It's a different fever, I swear. I have had two in three weeks, that is all."

"Two in three weeks?" Fili said. He stepped forward, and Kili stepped back. "That is more than you have had in three years before. And - and you said Thorin told you to move here. Here, Kili." He gestured at the grim scene that surrounded him. "This place is not fit to stable a horse."

"I haven't had a chance to clean it yet," Kili said. He paused and stared. "Amad isn't ill, is she?"

"No," Fili said. But even as Kili opened his mouth to speak, Fili lunged forward, seizing his brother by the wrists before he could step back again. Kili drew in a sharp breath and tried to tear himself away, but he seemed to have no strength in him, and Fili wrestled him closer, meaning to put a hand to his brow, to see how high his fever might be. Yet even as he pulled Kili sharply forward, Kili stumbled, and fell against the bed. And as his leg struck the edge of the bed frame, he let out a strangled cry of pain that had Fili's stomach turning over within him.

"What was that?" Fili demanded, arresting Kili's fall and pushing him onto the bed. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing," Kili replied, his eyes stretching wider still. "Nothing, nothing, Fili, I just fell badly. It's nothing, nothing at all."

But the note of desperation in his voice convinced Fili that something was wrong more than a full-hearted affirmation would have done, and he seized his brother's foot and tore at his bootstraps, scrabbling to drag the leg of his breeches up enough to see the skin. Kili fought him, trying to push his hands away, but even if he had been at full strength, he had never been a match for Fili when Fili was determined. And determined he was, determined and angry and afraid.

Afraid he was, but the fear he felt when the source of his brother's pain was still unknown was nothing to the fear he felt when it was revealed. For at last, he uncovered the site where the injury must be, tearing Kili's breeches in the process, and what he saw there had him sitting back in shock. The pale flesh of Kili's leg was marred by a broad, black blotch, oval in shape, though ill-defined at its edges. It seemed to pulse and shift under his skin, as if alive, and tiny black threads reached out from it in all directions, down towards Kili's foot, up towards his heart. It was repulsive, ugly somehow in ways that could not be explained by appearance alone, and the sight of it struck Fili through the heart with a cold, sickening terror.

Kili seized his breeches leg as soon as Fili let go of it, pulling it back down over his knee. "It's a bruise," he said, fingers fumbling with the cloth. "It's a bruise, I walked into, into a, a table. It's a bruise, that's all, it's just a bruise. It's nothing."

Fili stared at him, and the horror he felt must have showed on his face, for Kili's shoulders sank and his expression slipped from panic into despair.

"Fili?" he whispered.

"That is no bruise, my brother," Fili said, when at last he could speak. It was not quite the same this time - there was no wound, no broken place on Kili's skin where the evil filth of the morgul blade could be seen leaking from him - and yet there was no mistaking what it was, not for Fili, whose worst nightmares had been filled with the sight and smell of it ever since that long, dreadful night in Lake-Town.

And Kili - stripped at last of any words of denial - reached out and pressed a hand to his knee, as if by covering it he could pretend that there was nothing there to fear. He kept his eyes fixed on Fili's face, so wide now that they seemed to bulge in his head.

"I don't know what to do," he said.