The blade pierced Kili's chest with a ripping pain, a worse pain than any he'd felt before.

Any but the pain he felt seeing Fili dead. That pain surpassed all.

He felt his heart quiver around the blade, struggling to endure, to survive.

But it would not. It could not.

Even without the blade in his chest, Kili could not survive this day.

He would not have wanted to survive this day.

His sight darkened and his quivering heartbeat pulsed loud in his ears. Waves of cold and warmth and dread washed his limbs. It would not be long until this journey ended and a new one began, but where would he go, and how would he get there?

A warm tear trailed across his cheek.

If he had not Fili with him, what would become of him?

"Kili."

The voice sounded close to him and he turned his head and saw Fili standing at his side. Not bloody or broken or spent, Fili stood over him straight and unbowed, in noble clothing and with gleaming weapons. He looked the way Kili always pictured him looking when he pictured him as king.

"Kili," Fili said again. He smiled and reached to his brother. "Take my hand."

And Kili took Fili's hand in his own and when he stood, the pain and dread fell away. He felt as strong and sure as the day they'd left home.

"Where do we go now, Fili?" He asked.

Fili gripped his hand around the back of Kili's neck and lightly, briefly, touched their foreheads together.

"Now we go to our fathers," he said. "Now we go home."

The End.