A/N: This fic is based on Mhyin's fanart that you can see as the cover to this fic and you can also find on her tumblr at mhyinart. I'm sure a lot of us have a headcanon of something like this, and I felt compelled to write it down. I'm pretty sure it's the saddest thing I've ever written in my life and I actually had to stop writing for a few minutes because I burst into tears, so, uh, sorry. This will both heal you and wound you.

I have failed.

Step after step, one foot in front of the other, each step more painful, more arduous than the last. Not because he had been injured, no—he had some cuts and bruises, that was true, but they were mere trifles, not even worthy of notice, compared to the harrowing, cutting agony that tore up his insides. This pain radiated from within, made him wish with every step that it could end, that he would simply fall to the ground and die where he was. But he was offered no such relief. He deserved this. After a failure this immense, he deserved to live. He deserved to feel every drop of sorrow.

Dwalin sank to his knees.

Failed.

Before him lay a son of Durin, blood pooling beneath his body and eyes staring into the grey sky, their pale blue devoid of light or life, limbs splayed and mangled. Snowflakes fell into his wild golden hair; Dwalin brushed them away. This lad would be buried beneath stone, not ice and snow. He choked back a sob and stared into those blue eyes, one last time, searing them into his memory, and then closed them with one hand. He would never see them again. Not on Fíli, anyway, and not on Thorin, either. The next time he would see those eyes would be when he looked into the face of Dís, telling her that he had failed, that he had let her brother and her eldest son die. Tears fell upon Fíli's face, and Dwalin wiped them away.

Failed.

He took Fíli's hands and folded them gently across his chest, and then he slipped a shaking hand beneath the lad's shoulders and another beneath his knees. Tears blurred his vision, and his shoulders shook with the weight of sobs that he could not hold back. He grunted as he rose, the weight of the body in his arms throwing him temporarily off balance, and then he was standing; one of Fíli's arms drifted from its position and fell, hanging by his side. A small, pitiful sound escaped from Dwalin's lips, and he bowed his head, overcome; he lifted his elbow, bringing Fíli's face closer to his own and pressed their foreheads together, weeping.

He imagined a time, long ago, when a little blond boy had been far too tired to make it back home after a day of work and play, and had fallen asleep on the couch in Dwalin's home, his small face quiet and peaceful. That little boy had grown into a fine young Dwarf, a proper son of Durin, with sparkling eyes and a serene smile and a step that said that he knew his place in the world and what he was going to do with it. How Dwalin wished he looked like that peaceful sleeping boy now, but there was blood on his lips, blood in his hair, blood staining his regal clothes, and it was no use pretending. He could not go back to the way things were, before he had mucked everything up and let nearly the entire line of Durin fall in one day; he could not undo his failures. He had to live with this now. He lifted his head and took a painful step towards the steps down to the frozen lake, where the others stood waiting around Thorin's body—another whom he had watched fall when he could have done something more, something better, than what he had done, and this never would have happened.

Failed.

Light but burdened footsteps sounded from Dwalin's left, and he looked up; descending from the steps was a red-haired Elf with Kíli in her arms, his face pressed into her shoulder, and the world stretched thin and pale. No. Not Kíli, too. He looked desperately into the Elf's eyes. Her chin trembled, and she shook her head ever so slightly. Dwalin's knees gave out, and he collapsed to the ground with a hoarse wail. No. They were gone, they were all gone, and he had failed and they were gone and he wished that he deserved death but this pain was worse, so much worse, and he knew that he deserved every moment of it, he deserved a hundred years of this for what he had failed to do, he deserved to live forever and to feel an eternity of pain and it still wouldn't be enough. He wept, loud and undignified, and did not care about the Elf or whoever else would hear. He cradled Fíli in his arms and pulled his blond head into his chest, pressing his nose into bloody hair.

The Elf stood by him, a safe distance away, until he managed to control himself, just barely, but enough to lift swollen, wet eyes and pull himself to feet that no longer wished to stand, lifting his heavy burden with him. He staggered towards the others down below—they would be waiting, wondering. He had not told them why he had left; he had not told them that Fíli was gone, and now he would arrive with not just one more dead body, but two, two bodies of young, cheerful Dwarves who had no business dying now or a hundred years hence, save that he had not been there in time, had not run fast enough, had not fought hard enough.

Failed.

And with tears streaming down his scarred and soiled face, Dwalin moved forward, the Elf following behind, to show his kin what loss they had suffered that day.