Work Text:
The dry branches and leaves creaked as Fili followed the familiar path through the woods. He had walked it so many times that he could do it even with his eyes closed, walking backwards. But despite his familiarity, walking that narrow lane among the trees of the woods always caused him a strong sense of anguish and anxiety, something that gripped his stomach so strong that it made him feel sick. Maybe because it always reminded him of the last time he saw his brother Kili.
The wind rustled through the withered foliage of the trees, the red and brown of autumn emerged everywhere in the vegetation. Fili jumped over a small fallen trunk along the way and finally managed to spot the cursed house in the woods. Cursed for various reasons: according to the legends there had lived an elven sorceress who charmed dwarfs and men to eat them, other legends told how from the house you could hear the screams of the dead killed by the orcs, or that a powerful curse weighed on the wooden walls of the House. Whatever legend one wanted to hear, that place was not safe nor was it wise to enter that rundown building.
Fili stopped to observe the house for a few moments, trying to fight the negative feelings that assailed him every time he went there. His ears began to fill with his brother Kili's screams and laughter as his eyes saw images of him playing with a wooden sword or his beloved bow, or eating sprawled in the Erebor dining room, or still crying because he had fallen and hurt himself. All memories that cyclically returned to his mind, for twenty years now. From that damned night when Kili disappeared entering that abandoned hut.
Fili took a deep breath and went to the wooden house. He opened the worn door and entered by bowing his head so as not to end up in a spider web. Inside, the cottage looked like a normal abandoned forest house, full of cobwebs, rotten leaves, furniture overturned and eroded by time.
Fili knew every inch of that house, he had inspected it both alone and together with guards and family for twenty years in the hope of understanding what had happened to his beloved brother, but in vain. Kili was gone, completely dissolved into thin air, and Fili had been blaming himself for twenty years. If only he had not pushed him to enter that place forgotten by Mahal to please his perfidy, to see him at least once in his life fail in something.
He looked around as usual, hoping in his heart to notice something different, maybe a piece of furniture moved, of the excavated soil, but nothing. It was all perfectly the same and motionless as he had left it on his previous visit. Discouraged, Fili sat on the ground and took his face in his hands.
"Kili ... Kili forgive me! I should have defended you, I should have been your older brother, your shield against all evil in this world, instead I was the one who hurt you!"
The tears began to drop copiously as the feelings of guilt resurfaced in step with the memories. It had been a quiet night when Fili, moved by yet another feeling of envy towards his younger brother, had challenged him to a test of courage. He was tired of seeing how everyone gravitated around Kili, how he was the best with arms compared to him, how everyone considered him even if Fili was the successor to the throne. Kili was constantly at the center of attention, well-liked by everyone and Fili had gradually become his shadow, so much so that many mistaken his name calling him as his brother. Even his uncle was considering the idea of proclaiming Kili and not him as his successor to the throne.
He was fed up and genuinely eroded by envy of his brother, who even felt pity for him and always tried to make him stand out. Fili did not need his pity, he needed to prove that he was not perfect as everyone believed.
He had challenged him to enter the haunted house in the woods and to bring back a test, sure that he would not have made it because he was too scared. But although Fili was right about Kili's condition, Kili accepted and started on the path almost in tears, not turning even once. That was the last image of Kili that Fili had seen.
When he did not return the next day, Fili raised the alarm but it was too late. They couldn't find any clues, nothing that made one think of witchcraft, someone's attack, a trap. Nothing. Kili was gone. In a sense, Fili had got what he wanted because from that moment everyone concentrated on him, but in his heart there was not a day in which he did not curse himself.
Fili calmed his outburst and wiped the tears with the back of his hand. The next day he was to be crowned king by Thorin's abdication, and he certainly could no longer cry freely or visit the house in the woods again as he pleased.
“I have come to greet you, Kili. Unfortunately I won't be able to come here as usual anymore. But I promise that I will try to visit you at least once a month, at least once ..."
The words died in his throat. Sure he could not speak any more so as not to risk crying again, Fili remembered an old game he used to play with Kili when he was little, when his mother punished them in silence but they wanted to continue chatting. It consisted in hiding their messages written on sheets of paper with charcoal on the inside of the chimney breast. Most of the times they were so full of soot that they were illegible, but in the summer when the fireplace was not lit it was a good method of communication.
Fili smiled at the memory. He hadn't thought about the stupid game for decades now and found himself walking towards the half-destroyed brick fireplace of the house and looking inside the hood. As he suspected, there was nothing but a dense spider web with a fat swinging spider, but on closer inspection he saw a piece of paper protrude from a broken brick.
His heart skipped a beat when he pulled out a letter yellowed by time. Immediately he sat down on the ground and opened the paper with trembling hands, fearing its contents.
Dear brother, if you found this letter then it means that you remembered the childhood game that we often used to communicate when mom was too tired to hear us scream, even if I don't know exactly which chimney I will put it in. Many memories! I am very happy that you did it, because it means that after all you don't despise me as you do now.
Fili stifled a sob and forced himself to continue reading.
No, don't worry, I'm not accusing you, in fact I understand you perfectly. I have seen how difficult it can be not to be appreciated or even considered despite the fact that you try very hard, even if I have never tried it. But it is enough for me to see your suffering to understand it and to experience it myself. Fili, my beloved brother, if you are reading this letter it means that I have finally decided to leave and let you live the life you deserve, not a life like my shadow, but a life like the shining sun that you are. I don't know what excuse I will go with, but when it does, know that I will do it of my own free will.
The tears began to fall profusely on Fili's cheeks. He covered his hand to try not to scream as he scanned the lines written with his brother's messy handwriting. The letter continued with an even more broken-down handwriting, written no longer with ink and nib but with a charcoal.
Finally I can finish this letter and leave it as my last gift, my beloved brother. I write while I'm inside the haunted house in the woods, the ones you challenged me to enter. Actually I just pretended to be afraid, it's all a staging to cover my escape plan. Yes Fili, I am leaving and will never return. As I have already written in the first part of the letter, I do it only for you, because I love you and I want you to live a happy life. Don't worry about me, I will go far, I will settle in some mixed town like Brea or in some other non-dwarf kingdom where nobody will recognize me. There I will become a mercenary or a blacksmith, or maybe a scribe, who knows. The possibilities are endless. I just wanted to reassure you that I'm not dead and that there is no spell on this house, but I ask you to keep silent otherwise Uncle Thorin will do everything to look for me and bring me back. I don't want to go back. I wouldn't even want to part with you, but I have to do it. Now I have to go, it's time for Fili and no longer Kili to become the rising star of the Durin family. I love you, my brother, I will love you forever. Kili.
Fili squeezed the yellowed pages to his chest as he cried and screamed like never before. He felt a mixture of anguish, sharp pain and relief in his heart, a feeling so strong that when he calmed down he was literally exhausted. He carefully folded the pages and slipped them into his tunic pocket, then he left the house, closing it properly, leaving it behind him when he started on the path to return to the mountain. By now his eyes were dry and his gaze firm. Tomorrow he would become the king of the most powerful kingdom of the dwarves, and his first wish would have been to find his brother. Not to bring him back but to thank him for everything he had done for him, for being a better brother than he was.