Live like you're dying
Sep. 22nd, 2015 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nrgburstFandom: The Hobbit (movies)
Characters: Kili/Tauriel
Rating/Warnings: T, none
Word Count: 651
Summary: He's mortal; she's not. But it's not in his nature to despair.
He sees it in her face the first time while she is braiding his hair.
She looks away quickly, and her expression is as serene and unruffled as usual when he queries her, bemused.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm? Nothing.”
Kili tilts his head and gives her a teasing smile. “You forget how well I know your moods now. And how those play across your lovely face.”
She dimples at that, and presses a kiss to his cheek before finishing off the braid. “It is nothing unusual,” she recants carefully. “And we must hurry- the children have doubtless already arrived at breakfast. We should not have tarried so long abed this morning.”
Kíli chuckles and presses a warm kiss to the inside of her wrist. “But you enjoyed it so much.”
She flushes before archly lifting her brows and smiling. “Nonetheless. We should not keep them waiting.”
He keeps hold of her hand as they walk to breakfast and forgets about that odd moment of reticence until a couple of weeks later, when he spots a hair going silver near his marriage braids.
And he stills, understanding.
They avoid speaking of death, as if voicing the inevitable brings it all the closer. And there is so much of life to discuss: troubles and solutions, stories and plans, hopes and dreams. There has been little sorrow here: Erebor and Dale are prosperous, and their family and people thrive and grow.
But it’s sobering to see this reminder that his life is finite, whereas time has left no mark on her. She’s as fleet and surefooted as the day they first met, and while dwarves remain strong and stout well into their twilight years, there will come a day when his body will fail. And color leaching from hair and wrinkles in the skin are the first signs of that.
Bard, Bain and Sigrid have passed, and Tilda will follow soon enough. Humans are the shortest lived among the mortal races, and losing their dear friends has taken a terrible toll on her each time. Of course, death is simply a part of life, and they lived full ones, with children (and their children’s children) to carry on the family name and legacy. But it provides little succor to one who remembers grief so keenly, who knows there will never be a chance to meet again.
She’d explained it to him as he tried to comfort her as she sat weeping by Sigrid’s grave. “The spirits of those with the Gift of Death pass beyond Arda, to an unknown and perhaps, greater purpose. Some believe that is why Sauron both feared and despised Men. The rest of us are bound to the fate of this world, both body and soul. Only one was able to change her fate, and she accomplished legendary deeds to be granted that boon. For mortals go where even those counted among the great cannot follow.”
It’s futile to curse the inevitable. To dwell on knowing she will grieve his loss for the rest of her life, unless she passes over the sea to join her kin, leaving their children and the life they have built behind.
Their marriage, their kingdom, their children: merely a chapter of her life that must be forgotten if she would have any chance at peace. Oin is certain she will die of grief when he does otherwise, and Lord Elrond seemed to share this grim view.
And yet…
He can remember Balin telling old tales, of Mahal and his promise to them, his children, that he would call them forth when the world is remade.
Surely this is why they go back to stone, and not the soil as Men do.
And as one who has stood in His presence, he believes that perhaps, all hope is not lost.