Chapter Text
“Shit!” Vidar hissed.
Kili looked over at him. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I just scraped my fingers,” Vidar replied. “I’m fine.”
Kili hoisted his backpack up on his back and closed the car door. “You done?” he asked.
Vidar and Idar nodded and Vidar closed the other car door.
Kili stopped and looked up at the sky above. It was a fine starry night with no moon. Cold, because it was early March. The snow was deep in places but they were close to their target so it wouldn’t be a too strenuous affair. Kili was nervous. When Vidar had put the idea forward in disappointment after the final court ruling on the Irasîn mining project, Kili had been angry enough to agree to be part of it. Over the past weeks that anger had waned and had been replaced by an increasing feeling of doubt. Was this really the right thing to do?
It was Vidar who reminded him why they needed to do this. Hit them where it hurts the most - stop the flow of money, at least temporarily. It was the least they could do, now when their lands were going to be ripped open, their lakes and streams poisoned and exploitation was going to force people to move further away to sustain themselves. Mining had always been part of the dwarven culture but not on this scale. This project was huge, with foreign investors who didn’t care about sheep farmers, fishing and hunting or sacred rock formations. This act was meant to put the dwarven plight in the headlines around Middle Earth. That was the plan.
Idar came trudging over to Kili and bumped shoulders with him. A gleam of white teeth revealed that he was smiling. “Chin up, Kili. We’ll be done soon enough.”
“You sure about the time table?” Kili asked.
“Of course. I checked if there were any changes before we left.”
“You don’t have your phone, I hope?” Kili had been adamant that they should plan well and do everything they could not to link themselves to what they were about to do. Just in case, he had put wipes and a pack of silicone gloves in the car, from where he had pulled two that were now in his pocket. He had also - for once - braided his hair.
Idar laughed. “The phone is sitting on my desk, at home.” Idar clapped Kili on his shoulder and began walking towards the bridge.
Kili looked behind him and saw Vidar making his way towards him. He waited for Vidar to pass, then he brought up the rear. While they walked, he stared at Vidar’s backpack. In it were explosives that Idar had gotten hold of, somehow. Kili suspected that they were home made and therefore unstable, which increased his apprehension.
He pulled at the brim of his cap. When he had left earlier in the day he had, on a whim, put on the traditional cap in blue wool, with zigzag ribbons, huge red yarn tuft and black leather brim. It felt like he needed the support the cap gave. It grounded him in the dwarven culture and in the mountains. Once before his ancestors had been forced to move, to leave their ancestral home and come to these mountains by the sea. Now these mountains were slowly taken from them too, piece by piece. He had to do something.
Slowly they made it down towards the Id-akhlâf river, cutting a deep gash through the landscape, over which the railway ran, on a beautiful steel bridge. Conveniently there was a narrow gravel road running from the main road down to the ravine under the bridge, which made their job that much easier. On the way down they heard an ore train slowly rumbling through the night with its precious cargo, destined for the Grey Havens where it would be transported to Gondor. Eventually it would be brought to Mordor and the steel industry there. They stopped and watched the train lug onwards, listening to the noise it made and feeling the vibrations in the ground.
They didn’t immediately start moving once the train had passed but eventually Vidar nudged his brother and they continued to the nearest pillar. Carefully Vidar took off his backpack and put it on the ground and opened it. Kili removed his as well, fiddled a bit with his zipper because he still wore his winter gloves, then picked up the detonators and fuses. Idar took the detonators from him and walked over to Vidar and the two brothers moved to the far side of the pillar. Meanwhile, Kili unwinded the fuse and followed the brothers. Idar took the fuse cord and Kili backtracked, while letting out the cord towards a boulder where one of them would trigger the explosion.
He picked up his backpack on the way to the boulder and stopped just behind it, sat down on his hunches and put the backpack on the ground next to him. Before he began unpacking the trigger, he tugged off his gloves and put them in one of his coat pockets. He was about to do fiddly things and the winter gloves would be in the way. Gingerly he pushed his left hand into another pocket and pulled out the two silicone gloves to put them on instead.
The silence was ripped apart by a deafening nose and a moment later he felt the blast. The dynamite had gone off.
Kili lost his balance and scraped his hand against the gneiss and he hissed in pain. He heard screams. Someone - Vidar, he realised - was in a lot of pain. Idar shouted something unintelligible but then Kili heard his name. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the screaming and shouting. In the darkness it was hard for even him to see so he nearly ran into Idar who met him with wide and frightened eyes.
“Vidar is hurt! The dynamite went off and I think…” Idar didn’t finish the sentence.
Kili hurried past Idar and found Vidar. “Do you have a torch?” Kili snapped when he sank down to the ground. The gloves were still in his fist and he pulled them on before he put his hands on Vidar who screamed at every move. They had to get him away from there, Kili knew. He found a good grip on Vidar and managed to drag him up onto the road bank where Idar turned on the torch he had and shone the light over his brother.
Kili gasped at the sight, then his hands went to the belt at his waist and he began to tear at it, to pull it from his pants. When he finally tore it free he quickly put it around Vidar’s arm and pulled it tight to stop the bleeding. The stretchy textile belt with its military style metal buckle was perfect as a tourniquet. Vidar was in a state, badly injured in his face, with blood all over him and he was screaming in pain when Kili pulled hard on the belt and locked it in place. Kili knew it hurt like hell but it had to, or Vidar might bleed out.
“Idar! Come and help me! We must get him to the car,” Kili ordered. Idar seemed to wake up and put the torch in his pocket and stepped close to grab his brother's legs. Kili got his hands under Vidar’s arms and together they struggled up the hill towards the car.
Kili was exhausted when they could finally put Vidar in the backseat, but he remembered the things they had left down by the bridge so he ran back and picked up the backpacks he could find. Vidar’s was probably blown to pieces and he wouldn’t waste time trying to locate the pieces. Instead he turned and ran back up to the car.
Idar was in shock and would definitely not be able to drive so Kili took the keys from him, shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door, then got into the driver’s seat and pushed the key into the ignition.
“How much damage did the blast do to the pillar?” he asked when he started the car and put it into gear.
“Some, but not as much as we hoped,” Idar replied and turned to stare at his brother who was whimpering in the back of the car.
“Is it enough to trigger the railway safety mechanism?” Kili turned the steering wheel and throttled the gas pedal. The car swerved out into the road and shot forward, away from the disaster by the bridge.
“I don’t know,” Idar whined. “My ears are ringing,” he complained.
Kili shot him a quick look. “How are you feeling? How’s your breathing? Any pain in your belly?”
“I’m a bit winded-” Idar pulled a breath “-but I don’t think…” He moved around a bit. “I’m mostly ok.” He turned to look at his brother again. “I was on my way to the boulder. I don’t think Vidar took the full blast but…”
“He lost his fucking arm. I don’t think he can see either,” Kili snapped. “He must have been really close.” He took a couple of calming breaths. “He might still die from haemorrhaging.”
Idar slipped out of the seatbelt across his chest and crawled halfway to the back to reach his brother. Kili saw a road sign telling them that they had 31 km to Belegost. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, thankfully. Kili simply held his hands on the wheel and stared at the road, visible in the car’s headlights. He heard Idar crying and when he looked in the rearview mirror he noticed that Vidar had gone still and quiet. His eyes snapped back to the road. If they were very lucky Vidar had simply lost consciousness, not died in the backseat of his own car.
Eventually they arrived at the hospital and Kili parked the car right in front of the A&E and ordered Idar to run inside and get a gurney and some nurses while he quickly unlocked his seatbelt, turned in his seat, reached out and found one of Vidar’s pulse points. To his relief he felt a reasonably steady pulse. He pulled back when people came running through the entrance to A&E, heading for the car.
Idar opened the back door and Vidar was pulled from the backseat and was then rolled inside. Out on the asphalt in the no parking zone sat Kili, alone and unsure of what to do. He opened his door and pushed the opened backseat door closed so he could drive it to a parking lot. Because he didn’t have his phone, he couldn’t buy any parking once he had parked, but it was better than leaving it to be towed, he decided. Just in case, he wiped the car key, handles, gear stick and steering wheel, closed the car door and locked the car up. A few steps away from the car he dropped the keys, the used wipes and gloves on the ground along with his cap and undid the braid down his back, then took out the winter gloves and put them on before he put his cap back on and pushed the wipes with the silicone gloves into a pocket. For a moment he was unsure of what to do, but he decided to not hold on to the keys. They would link him to the bombing. He turned to go back to the hospital.
Unhurriedly he walked toward the doors to the A&E. Before he arrived at the entrance, he shook out his hair and pulled at his bangs so as much as possible of his face was obscured, then put his cap back on and pulled it far down over his forehead. He hunched and tried to walk differently than he usually did to obscure his identity so it wouldn’t be easy to identify him on the security footage. A stressed nurse took the car keys from him and then he calmly left.
He walked back home and let himself inside the house quietly, to not disturb his uncle. When he pulled off his gloves he finally remembered that he had scraped up his left hand a bit. He went to the loo and washed his hands and took a closer look at it and decided to put a plaster over the worst scrape. When he got to his room he picked up his phone and checked it. Someone had called him. He shrugged out of his jacket and sat down on his bed, then pressed the phone to his ear to listen to the message.
“It’s me. I’m borrowing a phone.” There were noises in the background. “Vidar is in surgery. I have no idea if he’s going to make it.” More noises in the background. “Agrâf.” A click told him that the message ended. Pray, Idar had begged, their warning codeword for when things had turned really bad and the cops were expected. In this situation Idar definitely asked him to pray too. The hand holding the phone sank to the bed and he stared with unseeing eyes ahead of him. For once he did send a heartfelt prayer to Mahal, to let Vidar live.
Of course things were bad. The cops would show up at the hospital and even if Idar held his tongue, Kili had been seen. Someone would probably figure out that he was involved in some capacity and come looking for him, if nothing else to question him. Even if he hadn’t touched the explosives, he had driven the car and any cop worth their salt would suspect him of taking part in what happened, of that he was certain.
His cousin Ori was a police detective and maybe this would land on his desk. He was meticulous, going where the evidence led him and he knew Kili so well and would suspect his involvement if he had enough clues. With a sinking feeling he realised that his belt was at the hospital. It wasn’t an unusual belt, but he was sure Ori had seen him wearing it at some point. He had left clues all over the place and he felt fear clawing at him.
He had to leave. Together with Vidar and Idar, he had committed a terrorist crime. He’d get years and years in jail for this.
Pushing down the urge to panic, he stood and walked over to his wardrobe and pulled out his large trunk that could also be carried as a backpack. He weighed everything in his hands while deciding what he should bring and what he would leave. An hour later he was done, had changed clothes and buried the ones he had that night at the back of the wardrobe in a box. He turned off the sound on his phone and left it on the nightstand. When he came to his destination he’d buy a new one and cancel his plan here in Eriador. From a box in his sock drawer he took the cash he had put away for unforeseen events. It would keep him afloat during the trip at least, so he wouldn’t have to use his card.
He pulled on his cap, hoisted up his bag and pulled the shoulder straps tight, turned off the light and left, making his way down to the front door. He quietly locked the door and walked away from his home, out into the street. He would go to the train station, he decided. He’d get on the first available train to Rhovanion, to Alduir, and just disappear.
He went to the 24 hour store, bought some travel fare and a train ticket to Alduir. At 06.05 he boarded the train, found his seat and put his bag in the nearest baggage hold, opened it and took out his laptop before he sat down. He emailed Fili. His brother had no idea what Kili had been up to during the night and Kili wasn’t going to tell him either. That he might leave wasn’t a big surprise, considering that his life had gone south the past five years and the building tension between him and Uncle. The question was if anyone would put two and two together - the disastrous accident by the railway bridge with Vidar and Idar, and his disappearance.
He sat for a while and watched the landscape in the morning light. Just before eight o’clock he’d be at the Gray Havens, by lunch the train would pass the Shire and in the evening he’d finally be in Imladris. He would have to wait until late in the evening before he could get on the night train to Rhovanion and Alduir where he would arrive around seven in the morning, after a slow journey through the mountains and a long stop in Goblin Town. Or Annerchion, as the locals preferred to call it. He had no idea if he would be successful in slipping away unnoticed but he had to try.
The email notification pinged and he checked what it was about. Fili. Quickly he clicked on the reply and immediately felt like an even more horrible person. The message was short and to the point; I’m disappointed in you. Kili glanced at the landscape again. If Fili knew the truth, he might never speak to Kili again. He closed the message window.
While he had travelled extensively during the years as an athlete, anything beyond the Grey Havens felt like new territory. He hadn’t been travelling through Eriador in fifteen years and things had surely changed since then. Ered Luin began to sink away when they hurried away from Grey Havens heading east and the landscape turned spring green with rolling hills. The Shire was still pretty in a postcard kind of a way but he noticed that there had been quite a lot of new modern builds added, in particular in Waymoot. It had become a peculiar blend of old half-submerged homes and new several stories high commercial buildings. It had overtaken Hobbiton in size and was beginning to look more like an industrial centre, with the motorway cutting through it, linking Belegost together with the Shire and the Greenway to Tharbad. Not many stepped off and even fewer got on the train. He was familiar with the insular tendencies that the hobbits had and in a way he understood it, when he watched the green hilly landscape pass by outside the train window. They had everything here so why would they leave?
The sky grew overcast when they crossed the Brandywine River and a heavy rain was streaking the windows when they rolled into Bree. Bree had always been the slightly shoddy human cousin to Waymoot in a way but he was struck by how alike the two towns had become. The hobbits seemed to have branched out and cleaned up Bree and their influence was noticeable everywhere. Considering that Bree was a railway junction where you could change trains to go south to the capital Tharbad, the semi-inclusion of Bree into the Shire was logical, he thought.
During the afternoon he tried to find as much information as he could about Alduir, which part of the city he would choose to stay in and where he could find accommodation. Dol Lant, just southeast of the city centre seemed like a good option, mostly because it had a dwarven population. And orcs. It was a place where he could blend in and disappear.
He noticed that there was an academy in Dol Lant, with one or two year programs on university level in forestry and horticulture. For a while he pondered if he perhaps should look into that. But for now the most important thing for him was that the campus had a student union house, open every day. People there would have all sorts of tips that could be useful.
When they went past Weather Top the weather cleared again and he enjoyed the varied landscape and the Misty Mountains becoming visible in the distance during the afternoon. The sheer cliffs sticking out of the oncoming forest told him that they were entering Trollshaws and soon the train would reach its destination, Imladris.
Imladris was not just far from Belegost in physical sense but also as a city. Just like his home town, Imladris was in the foothills of mountains, but that's where the similarities ended. Imladris was a predominately elvish city, with a particular aesthetic even in the high rise city center. He was uncomfortably reminded of his short stature everywhere because of the lack of accessibility aids. It was national law, but the elves were lax, not taking it seriously. This attitude was one of the reasons why he had decided to compete on equal terms, back when he was an athlete. Just like during PE when he was in school and he crushed the bastards picking on Ori, he wanted to do the same later, to get back at some of the snotty elves that he competed against.
That he had partially succeeded hadn’t changed anything in Imladris, though. His feet dangled when he sat at a table and he had trouble reaching the things he wanted to buy. The card reader was too high up, but he paid in cash so it didn’t matter. Though no one said anything, he noticed the slanted looks he was given. He couldn’t be happier when he finally could board the night train and flop onto his back on the lowest bunk. The other two travellers he was sharing the cabin with were goblins. All long limbs and distrustful looks but also not talkative, which suited Kili fine.
Somewhere during the night he crossed the border to Annerchion and when the train came to a shuddering halt he was jolted awake from his dream. With Vidar’s screams still ringing in his ears he slowly sat up and stared into the darkness. He rose, picked up a plastic card key and let himself into the dimly lit corridor.
There was a window open, just a little, and he went over to it, nudged the booster to pop out and stepped up on it, and pulled the window down so he could peek out at the surroundings properly. The air was cold and he saw snow heaps on the platforms. In Imladris the blackthorns flowered but up here in the Misty Mountains it was still winter. For a minute he let the cold mountain air wash over him in the hopes that the nightmare would lose its grip.
Here, on the other side of Eriador, he slowly came to realise what he was doing. These were different mountains, yet they reminded him of home. Though he had grown up with the tales of Erebor and the idea that it was his real home, he had to admit that it really wasn’t. It was a place he had never seen and could just as well be a fantasy. Ered Luin was his home. A home that he had left behind and likely wouldn’t see again for a very long time, if ever, by his own choice. He pushed the window back up, stepped down from the booster, pushed it back up and went to the loo.
When he came back the two goblins were awake, busy getting dressed and pulling out their bags, and five minutes later they ambled down the corridor towards the doors to get off. Kili watched them go, then closed the door, locked it and pushed up the middle bed against the wall to get some more space. He checked his watch. 01.55. He should sleep.
Alduir was a shock to the system, a place he had rarely been to before. It was a real metropolis he remembered, when he sat in the restaurant car eating breakfast. At first there was a sprawling suburbia of the affluent kind with big villas and a lot of greenery but he could also see the denser city from the hills where the train snaked down towards its destination. The plots grew smaller and terraces popped up, then also blocks of flats. He finished up and went back to his cabin.
The city landscape changed from the more picturesque green parts to buildings with ten, fifteen, twenty stories. A lot of glass and steel. This was also an elven city but it had a completely different vibe, much more cosmopolitan. Money, he thought. This place was built around money. Imladris was a university town first and foremost, and you felt the difference when entering Alduir.
Kili’s uncle always got a grim look on his face when Alduir and the royal family came up in conversation. 400 years earlier, his ancestors had been forced to leave their homeland or be starved out, an ultimatum from the then Machiavellian King Thranduil. Rhovanion was expanding and the land was simply taken as royal property. The humans in Laketown and Dale didn’t put up much of a fight. Instead they joined the elves and a small silver mining operation went ahead, not far from Dale, south of the town. The forests were logged for ship building and tar production and eventually, in the 19th and 20th centuries, paper industries were established along Long Lake. Destroying The Lonely Mountain region’s forest spared most of Mirkwood from the same fate.
Some of the refugees went to the Iron Hills while others tried to find somewhere to stay not too far from their home. They were not welcome and the only kind of work they could find was brutal convict work. The goblins were quite unfriendly back then (not that they got any friendlier with time) so the Misty Mountains was not an option.
That they became refugees because of the royal family in Rhovanion was not forgotten.
Kili didn’t particularly like elves - well, high elves - but he didn’t have the energy to hate someone so far away when there were more important issues closer to home. A home that he had to leave. He wondered if Vidar was alive and if the local police had talked to Idar. If he was a suspect.
The first thing he did when he arrived at the central station was to lock up his bag. When the shops opened he resolutely went to the first phone shop he could find and got a cheap pre-paid Android. The battery was at 50% when he turned it on so he went through the procedure to get it set up for use which always took far longer than anticipated. By lunch he was done at the city centre so he picked up his bag and got on the underground which took him to Dol Lant. He hopped off at Bard Street and headed to street level.
For a while he just stood there, looking at the street, the houses and people. This part of the city was worn, colourful, there was graffiti on some of the walls and many posters announcing concerts, plays and art exhibitions. He saw mostly orcs and some dwarves, but there were elves and humans too. These elves were not the towering lanky kind in Imladris but shorter, more like humans, though their ears gave them away, of course. No one gave him a second look, despite his hat. Slowly he pulled it off and tucked into his bag and tried to smooth down his hair. He could feel that it was a riot after a couple of days not showering while being on the run.
He pulled up his phone and checked the route to The Free Academy on the digital map and began walking. First and foremost he needed someplace to stay and it had to be cheap because he didn’t have endless resources. Number two on his list was work. Maybe he could find a cleaning job. He’d have to register to get social security too, but he’d need an address first. A bank account, of course but that would have to come later.
The campus was a large sprawling place with old brick buildings, former military barracks some 150 years old, and he had difficulties to find what he was looking for - the student union house. He walked slowly, looking at the buildings and the students while trying to locate a map of some sort over the campus so he could make sense of where he was and where he needed to go.
“Can I help you?”
Kili turned around and immediately raised his eyes to the eye level of the person who had stopped to ask. It was a Silvan elf, in a short fashionable green wool peacoat, brown slacks and leather chelsea boots. The tip of her ears peeked through the short bob haircut and her hair had the perfect copper red shade. If she had been a dwarf dam she would have been a heart throb, he thought. He tried not to gape and stare but when she smiled he knew he hadn’t been entirely successful.
“I’m new here,” he blurted and felt his cheeks heat up. “It was a sudden decision so I don’t have anything arranged. I was hoping I could get some inside tips on all sorts of things around here.”
“Are you planning on enrolling?” she asked.
He shrugged. The thought had crossed his mind but he needed to get his feet under himself first. “Not right away,” he replied and glanced down at his feet.
She nodded. “You need some place to stay,” she concluded.
He bobbed his head in a nod. “Yeah. I have money but I need to find some work too.” He tried to act like he normally would, but she was very pretty and it made him a bit tongue tied. Unlike Ori, he actually liked dams too. He had flirted with elves before but that had mostly been to unnerve them, with a couple of exceptions. This elf seemed to fall into the exception category, friendly and curious.
“I happen to know that the grounds department is seeking staff for the coming season,” she suggested.
He grinned. “Where can I find them?” he asked. It would be great if he could land a job this quickly. If he could, he preferred not to dip into his savings too much.
She smiled back at him. “I can walk you there.” When she turned he quickly set his feet in motion and hurried up so he could walk by her side.
She introduced herself as Tauriel, a native of Alduir, teaching at the academy. Just as the other elves in Alduir, she was about the same height as most humans, lean but not fairy-like. Taller than him - who wasn’t - but he didn’t have to crane his neck to look at her.
He offered his name and that he was from Belegost, but said very little about why he had decided to come to Rhovanion. She didn’t ask either. Instead she provided him with useful tips on places he could try so he had somewhere to stay, at least initially.
“Some end up co-living the rest of their time here in Dol Lant while others move on to ordinary flats, or co-housing. It’s a good alternative if you like the whole co-living idea but want your own flat,” she explained.
When they arrived at the groundskeepers’ office she stopped and wrote a number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “There are a lot of communal living here and this is one of the better ones. He accepted the note with a smile and then followed her inside where she introduced him to the elven supervisor, responsible for the staff working on the campus grounds. Tauriel took her leave and wished him luck, then left.
“Tauriel is a star,” Gilreath said and smiled at him. He had to agree.
The next twenty minutes he answered questions about what he’d done before and if he had any skills while she showed him around. There were changing rooms, showers, halls for machinery and tools, a break room and an office. He had to admit that he had little experience with gardening but he did know his machinery. He was certainly willing to learn the things he didn’t know. Gilreath turned to him.
“Where do you come from?” she asked.
“Belegost. I just arrived actually,” he admitted.
“Belegost is all about mining and tourism,” she mused. He nodded. “So what brings you all the way out here, to Rhovanion?”
He looked up and met her eyes. “I was never a good fit. Not everyone is cut out for the mines.” It was true, even though it hadn’t been the driving force behind him leaving. “I had to leave and do something completely different.”
Gilreath considered him for a long beat and Kili wondered if the stories about mindreading elves was true. He tried to not think at all just in case. “I just want a job and think about what to do long-term.” He looked down at his scuffed trainers.
Gilreath smiled. “Let’s get a contract.”
Kili’s head snapped up in surprise and Gilreath chuckled. “We’re all about diversity here and if I can spread the love of plants to the dwarven society, I’m pleased. There aren’t a lot of dwarves that would consider working with gardening.”
“I can’t understand why,” Kili said, turning his head to look at the flowering shrubs outside. It was lovely and so much more uplifting than the dark caverns where he had manned underground mining loaders. A lot less dangerous too, he reasoned. He could still get chills up his spine when he thought about what could happen if there was a fire or a cave-in. Or both. Every day when he went on his shift he thought about his dad. He did not want to end up like him, he had decided. A hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present.
“I grieve with you,” Gilreath said quietly. Kili simply nodded. So it was true - elves could read minds.
“Who did you lose?” she asked.
Apparently they couldn’t read minds that well though, which was a relief. “Adad. It was a big accident that also killed one of my uncles.” He glanced outside again. “Gardening is definitely a step up from loading ore 1500 metres underground.”
“I’m biased, but I definitely agree.” Gilreath led the way towards the office and Kili followed.
When he finally closed the door behind him to the room he had secured, it was late. He had found a room in a co-living house five minutes walk from the campus grounds. Empty of course. After a desperate search he had found a cheap bedframe with a mattress and the late afternoon had been spent getting it to his room. It was all he had but it was all he needed for now. He slumped down on the bed and stared through the window, feeling strangely empty. This would take some time getting used to, he knew.
He picked up his phone and checked his emails but there was nothing from Idar. Or Fili for that matter but he didn’t expect to get anything from his brother. He crawled up in bed properly and leaned against the wall and opened the browser to check on the news. He typed Belegost Independent and opened the front page.
DWARVEN TERRORISTS BOMB RAILWAY BRIDGE
Two young dwarves injured in the bomb attack. Ore trains at a stand still.
Kili pulled a deep breath, then another. He felt a peculiar prickle in his eyes and his breathing became erratic. He began sobbing and dropped the phone next to him, and then he pulled up his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Hugging himself tightly he finally allowed himself to react to what had happened. The tension, the fear, him not knowing what happened to Vidar, running away to an uncertain future, leaving his family behind… It felt unreal and yet it was very real.
A while later, once he had calmed down, he picked up the phone again and read the article. The police were tight lipped and wouldn’t say anything about the number of people involved, only that there were two dwarves at hospital, suspected of the bombing. When the article was written Vidar was still alive, he surmised and felt relief.
He crawled out of bed and dug out his tooth brush, brushed his teeth, got out of his clothes and crawled into bed. It had been a long 48 hours and he was exhausted.
Within minutes he was asleep.