#everybody lives

It took a few weeks of observation before Fíli approached you one evening. You weren’t on night watch, not really—Thorin had informally taken up that position most nights with his brooding. You wondered if he was getting any sleep at all. But heaven forbid you question the mighty leader; you were nothing more than a lost soul whom Thorin had long given up on trying to understand. The fact he, and some of the older, grumpier dwarves, simply tolerated your presence was enough for you. Still, you would stiffen whenever Dwalin reached for his axe.

The Company had stopped near a rocky overhang on the ridge-line you’d ridden along for almost a week. The others had long since bedded down, the scent of tobacco fading to give way to the fragrant musk of the cedar crackling in the fire. Only one thin tendril of pipe smoke remained, drifting up from Thorin’s silhouette where he sat against a stump. The last one awake, you thought, other than you. Even Gandalf had drifted off. Bilbo stirred fitfully beneath his blanket, his sleep disturbed no doubt by Fíli and Kíli’s sly warnings of wolves.

“What do you play?” Fíli asked quietly, settling beside you. You jumped, and he held up his hands. “I did not mean to frighten you,” he chuckled.

A few moments of silence passed before you realized he had asked you a question, but you just stared at him in confusion. “Play?”

He quirked an eyebrow, then gestured to your hands in your lap. “You move them. When we sing?”

This time it was the question that startled you. Fíli noticed you? He… watched you? You couldn’t help the slight burning in your cheeks and prayed the orange firelight that licked at the shadows disguised your face. You thought you’d done your best to fit in, to blend in, but clearly you were a fool to think yourself successful. A young, human woman—daughter of Man, you corrected yourself bitterly—from some other world could never truly fit in with such company. No one was exactly pleased with your rather sudden addition to the group.

At least, you hadn’t thought so.

“What do you play?” You turned the question onto the prince instead and took a swig from the waterskin next to you to stall your own answer.

“The violin. Kíli and I, both.” Fíli paused for a moment. “Thorin plays the harp.”

You choked on the water, sending you into a coughing fit that had Fíli thumping you soundly on the back to help clear your lungs. Dwalin’s bear-like snores hitched at the disruption, and you saw Thorin sneak a look over his shoulder at you. You quickly lifted a hand to wave Fíli off. “He plays the what?” you wheezed.

“Don’t be so surprised,” Fíli teased, “he can be quite delicate when the circumstances call for it. Brings a tear to the eye, I swear on my beard.” He flicked a mustache braid with his finger and winked.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” You shook your head and took another drink. “What do you think I play?”

Fíli’s brows knitted together in thought. “I thought at first you might play some kind of drum, with how you could keep time–”

“Anyone can slap their knee to a beat,” you interrupted.

“Yes, but your timing was always perfect—a musician’s timing,” the dwarf insisted. “But then you do this… this tapping…” Fíli imitated your flutterings of the best he could with his gloved hands. “I thought perhaps a flute? You never do it near your face, though. So…?” He abandoned his imitation and motioned toward you again.

Your eyes dropped to your hands, fingers now knitted tightly together in your lap. Truth be told, you hadn’t realized you’d been doing it. “Do you know what a piano is?” you asked at last. Your question was met with a blank look, and your heart sank. “I guess you don’t have them here, then.”

“What do they look like?”

There was a thin stick poking out of the base of the fire. You pulled it out, shook the end of it to extinguish a small ember, and began sketching a keyboard in the dirt.

Fíli leaned over and watched you intently, head cocked.

“These are the keys. You press them down and it makes a sound–”

“Describe it.” His eager curiosity was endearing.

You tipped your head back in thought and closed your eyes, searching for the words. “I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s… clear. Like taking a mallet and hitting a piece of metal, but gentler.”

He nodded along as you continued, explaining which keys made which notes, how the hammers inside the piano struck the strings to make sound, the difference between a grand piano and an upright piano. He’d never heard you so excited.

“So what song were you pretending to play?”

The question was innocent, but it made your chest tighten all the same. You turned your head away and debated if you should answer honestly.

“Y/N?” Fíli nudged you with his shoulder.

“It’s called Für Elise,” you replied quietly, keeping your eyes downcast. “I played it at my last recital.”

The silence between you became chilly. Fíli finally cleared his throat and leaned back, stretching his legs. “I seem to have struck a nerve. I’m sorry.”

You shook your head but still did not look at him. “No, no, it’s fine.”

“I’m sure you did well,” he offered.

“That’s exactly it: I didn’t.” With a weary sigh, you slid down until your back was against the log, rucking up your shirt slightly. Your eyes drifted up to the sky. “I had been practicing, every day, for months. Almost a year. It’s not the most difficult song to play—it’s got this kinda tricky, fast bit in the middle, but it’s mostly repetition. It’s pretty, though. My favorite.”

Fíli slid down as well to join you. He reached over and tugged your shirt back down. You shifted to allow it to settle and gave him a brief smile. “So…?” he pressed.

“I had it memorized perfectly. Forwards, backwards, in my sleep. I even practiced it on the piano onstage before the recital began. So my turn comes, and I go up on stage, all dressed up, and start to play. And it was fine at first. Then, just like that–” you snap your fingers, “–my mind goes blank.”

Fíli’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I completely froze. I looked over at my teacher in the first row—it was obvious to everyone that I forgot. I plunked out the last few measures, curtsied, and left the stage. I have never been so humiliated in my entire life.”

Fíli was quiet. Then a hand patted your shoulder hesitantly. “Maybe someday you’ll be able to play it for us.”

You looked back over at him with a rueful smile. “Yeah. Maybe.” Standing and stretching, you yawned. “I’m going to get some sleep. G’night, Fíli.”

A shadow flickered across his face, but it was quickly replaced by a polite smile. “Sleep well.”

Fíli watched you pick your way through the snoring dwarves to your bedroll. His chest was tight and he felt oddly warm, almost hot. He had to force himself to look away when you nearly tripped over Dori.

Curiosity, he told himself firmly. You’re just curious.

He wasn’t sure if he believed himself.

Pain flared in your shoulder as an elf shoved you roughly into a small cleft in the stone, slamming the iron door behind you.

Carefully, you felt around your shoulder blade, only for your fingers to come back red with blood. Your mind, clouded from the effects of the forest and whatever kept you incapacitated inside the spiders’ webs, began to clear. The gnawing in your stomach told you that you must not have eaten in several days. Other aches and pains seeped into your limbs, bruises and cuts making themselves known. Shouts from the dwarves echoing around the caves made your head pound.

Everything hit you all at once. You stumbled backwards into the wall and slid down to the floor. Tears spilled down your cheeks, your shoulders shaking as you dropped your head and cried.

“Y/N!” One of the voices cut through the din more clearly. “Y/N, can you hear me? Are you alright?” The calls became laced with panic when you didn’t respond immediately.

You wiped the tears away with the back of your hand and crawled to the door. Craning your head, you could just barely see glimpse another cell up a small set of stairs, and a flash of blonde hair. “Fíli?”

“Are you alright?” he repeated.

“I’m fine,” you croaked unconvincingly.

“You’re crying,” the prince pressed. You couldn’t see his face, but you could imagine his scrutinizing squint and brows set low. “Are you hurt?”

The blood was drying on your fingers, but the wound was still warm and sticky, the pain throbbing in time with your heartbeat. You nodded slowly before remembering that Fíli couldn’t see you. “A little.”

He was silent. “I should have protected you better,” Fíli finally forced out through gritted teeth. “Those foul beasts should never have touched you.”

You bristled for a moment at the idea that you needed to be protected like some helpless child, but the indignation was short-lived. You did need to be protected. When the others jumped into the fray against Azog and his wargs, you were scrambling to keep your grip on the tree. It didn’t matter that you had no training, or that the high, thin branches around you were the first to break when the tree began to fall. As the Company fought, you dangled uselessly. And when Thorin praised Bilbo, you were hiding behind a boulder and retching up bile. It didn’t matter that you were more motion sick than you’d been in your life after narrowly escaping death in the talons of an eagle. Weak, you scolded yourself.

Fíli had vowed, then, to teach you proper swordsmanship. You were a quick study, though the prince went easy on you at first. Certainly a quicker study than Bilbo, though the hobbit matched your determination. You’d bonded over both feeling useless, targets of Thorin’s disdain.

“Up.” A curt voice shook you from your thoughts. A tall elf stood over you, unlocking the door and waving you out of the cell. She did not touch you, but escape wasn’t a thought in your mind. Fíli was only a short distance ahead, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at you. He flashed you a tight smile that you struggled to return.

The guards led you and a handful of the others to a small cavern with a spring, letting you relieve yourself. You went last, as the only woman, and they mercifully allowed you to rinse off some of the grime coating your skin. They handed a waterskin and some bread to each of you before escorting you back to the dungeons.

But as they took the group to your cells, Fíli moved next to you and gently took your arm. As one guard secured Ori, Fíli swiftly pulled you into his cell with him. You were too confused, and too tired, to protest.

He eased you to the ground and knelt before you. “That needs to be bandaged,” he said quietly. “Let me find–”

His next words are drowned out by a loud clang as the door swings shut behind him. With Fíli in front of you, the guard didn’t notice that the cell had an extra prisoner. The mistake must have been quickly realized when she got to your cell. The guard reappeared, peering in at you and Fíli. He glowered at the elf, putting out an arm to shield you. She frowned, then huffed out a sigh and turned away, leaving you alone in the cramped, damp space with the dwarf prince.

Fíli relaxed as the echo of her steps faded. “Alright,” he sighed. “Let’s get this looked at.”

You shied away a bit as he reached for you. “Shouldn’t Óin be doing this?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to be stuck in a cell with him instead? I know how to tie a rag around a wound, lass.”

You yielded. Fíli carefully pried the fabric of your shirt away from the cut, wincing sympathetically. He stared at the wound for a beat. “I can’t… I can’t get to it with your shirt… if I could cut the sleeve off, but I don’t have a knife…” He trailed off with wide eyes as you reached behind you and pulled a small carving knife from beneath your shirt. “How did you hide that?”

“Bra strap,” you stated, snapping the strap against your back. “I guess they didn’t want to frisk a woman too closely.”

“How honorable of them,” Fíli remarked dryly. He wielded the sharp knife with precision. Not once were you afraid that the blade would slip and cut you. Carefully, he cut along the seam of your sleeve until he could pull the torn and bloodied fabric off of your arm. “We can cut that into strips. Use the clean bits for the bandages.”

With gentle hands, Fíli wiped dried blood from your skin with a scrap of wet cloth. A shock of fresh pain made you yelp as he poured cold water over the wound. “I know it hurts, but I don’t want to seal any dirt under the dressings.”

You bit your lip and nodded, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to think of something else while he rinsed it.

“Lift your arm a bit.” Fíli passed the end of a strip of cloth beneath your armpit, wrapped it tightly around your shoulder and tied it off. “That should do for a while.”

You replaced the knife in your bra strap and sat back against the wall. “Thank you.”

“Comfortable?”

“Not really.”

“Here, then.” Fíli reached out and tugged you towards him. To your surprise, and slight alarm, he positioned you between his outstretched legs, your back against his chest. Shrugging out of his coat, he laid it across the two of you like a blanket. “Better?”

“Yeah, sure,” you breathed out shakily. “Not very proper for a gentleman, but it’ll do.”

“You could shout. Get the elves to put you back in your own cell.”

“I could.”

“But you aren’t.” He rested his chin on your uninjured shoulder.

“I’m not.”

“Or I could yell.”

“But you aren’t.”

“I’m not. It seems we’re at an impasse.” Fíli heaved an exaggerated sigh. His thick fingers drifted along your arm, not quite close enough to touch. “You know what would pass the time?”

“Hm?” You found yourself growing drowsy against his warmth.

“That song you used to play. Elise-something.”

“Für Elise.”

“That one. Can you sing it?”

You sat in silence for a few moments. Then, slowly, you began to hum the melody, relaxing fully against Fíli while he moved his chin to your head.

And for the first time since you’d entered those foul woods, you smiled.

“Hail the King Under the Mountain!”

The shout was met with a roar from the dwarves in the dining hall and cheerful, drunken yells. The actual coronation ceremony had ended hours earlier, leaving plenty of time for revelry. Alcohol and food flew through the air in equal measure, the dwarves’ self-control dampened by copious amounts of ale.

You stood against the wall of green stone, nursing some wine and observing. Inwardly, you marveled at how the mountain had transformed in just a few short months. The only thing that delayed Thorin’s coronation, and the official recognition of Fíli and Kíli as princes, was getting the food shipped to Erebor. Torches and candles filled the hall with a warm glow while dwarves bustled around with plates of food and mugs of ale. Thorin was nowhere to be seen, but Kíli was enthusiastically trading drinking songs with Bofur and Nori.

But despite the all the joy and celebration surrounding you, you couldn’t bring yourself to join in. The little voice in the back of your mind had grown louder over the months since the battle. You kept busy. Running messages for Thorin, helping sort the artifacts recovered from the dragon’s hoard, anything to silence the voice.

Placing your glass on a nearby table, you slipped out into the empty corridor. Your footsteps echoed through the cavernous halls, carrying you anywhere but from where you came. You wouldn’t dare bring down the mood with your brooding. Slowly, the din began to fade, as did the warmth. A shiver ran down your spine, and you pulled down the sleeves of your ill-fitting dress to cover your hands. Maybe leaving was a mistake—out in the corridors, there was nothing to distract you.

What would you do now? You weren’t a dwarf. You had no place beneath the mountain. But the idea of leaving filled you with dread. The rest of Men weren’t like you. You didn’t belong among them, in this world. You had nothing to offer it.

“Cold?”

A cloak came out of nowhere to rest on your shoulders. It was thick and dark brown, decorated with golden embroidery. A royal cloak. You whirled around and reached for a weapon that was not there.

“Did you think you could escape unnoticed?” Fíli’s face was flushed from drinking, but his eyes were as sharp as ever.

“Fíli! You scared me!” you hissed, giving him a shove. It didn’t sway him; either he had incredible tolerance, or barely drank. “Why’d you follow me?”

“Why’d you leave?” He turned the question back on you.

“I just… I needed to think. Things will be different now.”

“I don’t see why they have to be.”

You scoffed. “Of course things will be different. You’re the crown prince, and I’m–” I’m nothing, you finished silently.

He tilted his head and studied you for a while. “Walk with me.” He gently pulled at your hand and began guiding you across catwalks and up staircases. “The mountain has come a long way in such a short time,” he commented.

“It has.” Most of the scorch marks had been cleaned from the dark green stone, letting rivers of gold shine through. “All thanks to that dwarven stubbornness, I suppose. You refuse to stop until it’s done.”

“Stubbornness?!” Fíli recoiled in mock offense. “I think you mean determination.”

“Whatever you say, Prince Fíli.”

His playful air vanished and he looked away. “Don’t… don’t call me that. You don’t need to call me that.”

You looked away too, focusing on your feet. Where was he taking you, anyway? “Why not? Because I’m not part of your kingdom?” You forced the words out through a tightening throat.

His offense was real this time. “Of course you’re part of our kingdom! Why wouldn’t you be?” His eyes darkened with… anger? Or was that sadness?

You flinched away from his raised voice, tears gathering in your eyes. “Fíli, I…” Here we go. “I don’t belong here. We both know that. I’m not a dwarf, these aren’t my people. I don’t have any people.” You wrung your hands anxiously.

Noticing your tears, Fíli’s cooler head prevailed. “Come, sit with me.” He’d led you down a small but intricately carved corridor. With the click of a doorknob, you found yourself in the prince’s bedchambers.

When he tried to guide you down to sit with him on the bed, you pulled away. “I shouldn’t be here,” you insisted. “I should go.”

Unfortunately, his dwarven strength was too much, and you landed next to him on the bedcovers with a thump. Fíli kept a hand on your wrist to prevent you from leaving. “You don’t just mean leaving my room, do you?” he asked quietly. “You mean to leave Erebor.”

Words failing you, you simply nodded. The tears were dangerously close to escaping.

“Why?” Fíli’s voice cracked. His face alarmed you; his eyes were wide and his brow furrowed not in thought, but in pain. It reminded you of the face he made when he was stabbed, when he was almost stolen from you.

But he wasn’t yours in the first place. You had to make him understand! “You’re the crown prince, Fíli,” you started over. “They’ll expect things from you. You’ll be expected to marry, to have heirs. Secure the bloodline.”

When had you grabbed his hand? Your grip tightened. “And you’re a dwarf. You have a One out there, and I know that you don’t all find your Ones, but I know you’ll find yours, and she’ll be your princess, and your queen, and you’ll have children and be happy and I want you to be happy but I can’t stay and watch!” The words spilled from your mouth as the tears spilled from your eyes.

Fíli remained quiet, his face softened. He stared at you in agonizing silence. When you tried to pull your hand away and wipe away the tears, he held tight. With his other hand, he gently cupped your cheek and leaned in to touch his forehead to yours. “I don’t want that life,” he murmured, breath ghosting over your wet skin. “Not without you.”

Nothing could have prepared you for the kiss. It was warm and gentle, but passionate, too—just like Fíli.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he admitted when your lips parted. “I don’t need to find my One. She’s been here all along.”

”What will Thorin think?” You made a poor attempt to wipe your face on your shoulder.

Fíli gently brushed the tears away with his thumb. “Damn what Thorin thinks,” he declared. “He likes you enough, he really does. And if he can learn to accept Kíli’s choice of partner, then he’ll accept you in a heartbeat.”

Your chest tightened, the tears falling faster. “I love you,” you breathed, voice shaking, chin trembling.

Fíli cracked a smile. “I would certainly hope so. I put everything I have into that kiss.” But his face grew serious again. Still soft, but serious. “Stay,” he urged. “Be my princess. Be my queen. I don’t want anyone else.”

You could only nod and go in for another kiss. Fíli lifted you into his lap, where you wrapped your arms around his neck. You buried your face in his shoulder and wept with relief. He rubbed your back and hushed you, murmuring words of comfort until your tears dried. “Do you like your dress?”

The question caught you off guard. You drew back and fixed him with a quizzical look. The dress didn’t sit quite right on you; the sleeves were a bit too long, the bodice a bit too tight. You’d found it hanging on the door of the chambers Thorin granted you after the battle. It suddenly occurred to you how close the little suite was to the royal wing.

“I had it made for you,” he confessed. “As a gift. I know it doesn’t fit exactly—I had to guess at the measurements. You do like it, don’t you?” His eyes were wide with anxious hope.

He ordered you a dress? Your heart ached at the sweet gesture. “It’s wonderful,” you said with a smile. Knowing that it was a gift from Fíli, it suddenly fit perfectly.

Both of you jumped as the door burst open to reveal a swaying Kíli. “I f… I foun-found ‘em!” he called down the hallway, words slurring. When he looked back at you, sitting on Fíli’s lap, his head tilted to the side like a curious puppy. “Whaddare ya… ooh!” His face lit up with a dopey smile. “Issa ‘bout time, Fee! Thought… thought ya’d never tell’er.”