thecapitol | ( open ) Arrival

Entry tags:

( open ) Arrival

Who| Fíli and anyone!
What| Fíli arrives, and he is still quite lost despite whatever information has been given to him.
Where| Anywhere around the Training Center (also District 6 Suites), let me know in the subject line!
When| Now & during the next couple of days (ICly)
Warnings/Notes| None that I can think of.

FOR KÍLI;

Things happen entirely outside of him, beyond himself. Fíli feels as though he is nowhere at all, words spoken that he does not hear, things placed on his hands that he cannot touch. He demands then he asks, he all but begs, where his brother is, where Lake-town is, but the people around him only seem to answer questions that he is not making. Vague mentions of some games and a battle to the death hover at the back of his mind, but by the time he thinks to ask about those, he finds himself being taken to someplace else.

He does not stay for one second once he is left at the apartment, and makes off to find a way back, or at least someone he knows. He walks and runs, for however long he does not know, screaming and shouting for Kíli, for Bofur or Óin, but there is no one, he recognizes no one or nothing in this place.

It is a fear that coils at the pit of his stomach, settling heavier with each step he takes. How did he find himself here, and why? How is he to return? Panic surrounds him until it is too great for him to keep going and he all but collapses against a wall, sliding down until he is sitting on the ground, legs folded, head resting against his knees.

He can't breathe, and he realizes now that he is also lost.

FOR ANYONE;

All of this may be explained a thousand times over, still Fíli remains just as lost. He has found his brother, but that is as much familiarity as this place brings. He walks the halls and the rooms, everything strange and entirely foreign, and therefore all too intimidating to him, but he does not show it. He makes his best effort to keep his step sure as he peeks into each corner, watches each person that passes him attentively, and opens every door that he does not find locked - including doors to other people's rooms, but it is not as if he knows that.

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Nothing Fili says makes any sense to Kili. Not only this Tauriel from Mirkwood or the strange question that fell from his brothers' lips. Kili needs more than a couple moments to process what he's hearing. His eyebrows furrow further as he stares over at his brother, trying to comprehend everything he's just been told. While his fingers leave the unmarked skin of his chest, he doesn't zip his jacket closed again. In the past, they've used each other as soundboards for their thoughts, Kili more than his brother, but this time he does not; he sorts through his thoughts one by one as he watches his brother. He knows he's been here in the Capitol for three months. Before that, they had been in Mirkwood, yes, but the company had been arguing, Fili standing between him and Nori, Dori, and Ori. Then Thorin had said something about being watched.

"Thorin said we were being watched," he supplies, though his mind continues churning away as his eyebrows threaten to merge and become one on his forehead.

And then he woke up here, to hands pulling his weapons away from him. There was no 'Bard' or 'Tauriel' anywhere in his memories. But something strikes him as more odd than that. He's been missing for three months; the Capitol kidnapped him from Mirkwood, but Fili spoke as if he had not disappeared at all.

Before he can stop his mouth, it runs away with this newest thought, "It's been three months. Did you not miss me?"

Three months. Three months without Fili and Kili had missed him so dearly, though he wanted him to never show up in a place such as this. He missed his brother's smile, his warmth and reassurance, even his sometimes overbearing and overprotective nature. It seems impossible that Fili would not have missed him, though the distance between them right now says differently. Kili quickly tries to replay everything Fili has said since he arrived, but there are blocks and the alcohol makes the effort even more dizzying.

The answer comes, but even then it takes Fíli a while to even find that moment in his memories. Not only because it had been some time ago, but because Thorin's words had been brief and low, and soon followed by the arrival of the spiders, and then the Elves.

But that cannot be. How can Kíli have forgotten this much? Did coming here erase his memory perhaps? Even so, would he still not have his wound? Not to mention that none of this explains how Kíli seems to have been taken three months ago, when Fíli knows for a fact that three months ago, his brother was safe and hale, right next to him.

And that is the puzzling thing that Fíli answers to next, as he shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head once.

"You were never gone," he replies honestly, his whole body beginning to give into the pressure of this moment, and he can practically feel himself yielding to the senselessness of it all, bending and breaking like a twig, small, dry and pointless beneath the weight of his brother's words, and the cold they always seem to carry within.

Even so, he clings to whatever he can, as if that will distract him from the overwhelming weight sitting in his heart. And Kíli's lapse in his memory seems his best option at the moment. "That was in Mirkwood. That is long behind us. What of the Elves, the river? Or Lake-town? Do you remember nothing of it?"

You were never gone. Of everything Fili has said so far, that is the hardest for Kili to hear. Not only had he been stuck in a foreign place away from his brother, forced to attack friends, to die begging for his murderer to stay at his side, but it had been done without any knowledge of his kidnapping. Had some impostor stood in his place for those three months, some illusion that could fool even his brother? There was no denying the three months that separated him from the journey, from his brother. Not even the mention of long behind us leaves a hole in his heart like the others.

"I was here," he replies with another slow shake of his head, his own distress growing the more Fili questions his memory. "I would remember elves, brother, and I'm sure I've not seen a single pointed ear since Rivendell."

So, instead, he tries to focus on how horrible Fili smells, on something superficial and easy to fix. He gives Fili a shooing gesture toward the shower.

"You still smell." This time, it's said without a hint of a smile as he swallows down his own growing worry. "Haven't forgotten that."

Nothing in this comes together, none of the pieces given by both him and Kíli fit right, none of it makes sense. Because even if Kíli had been taken from Mirkwood, before the spiders caught up to them, that would still not have been three months ago. Even if Kíli had disappeared then, not so long would have passed.

Fíli hopes desperately for an explanation, though it is obvious that Kíli cannot give it to him. In fact, at the moment it seems like his brother cannot give him anything, not beyond cold words and fake smiles, while he tries to mask it all beneath a veil of humor that Fíli can so easily see through. He feels himself being pushed farther away with each word, every gesture, much more so than before when his brother ran from him in shock.

His movements are thoughtless, his mind too much of a haze for him to think about anything else. Wordlessly he takes off his clothes, because he does stink after all, and right now he is at a loss of what to do, where to start looking, or what to start asking. It is only when he reaches for the curtain of falling water that he realizes with some surprise. "It's warm."

Kili is so glad Fili seems to have surrendered to the shower— or, more importantly, stopped asking questions Kili would not answer— that he doesn't notice the nature of his brother's movements, how his brother seems shrouded in a fog. Instead, he releases a sigh of relief and collects Fili's clothes to fold as neatly as he can manage. He would make sure these got back to Fili after being washed; the Capitol would not rob them of more of their home. For a long moment, though, Kili stares down at them. The hooded tunic he's quite familiar with but the shirt that had been draped over it was far too large, not unlike the thing Kili had worn into the arena. Of course, Kili had noticed his brother had lost his coat and all of his weapons, but having donned something else entirely is so strange. Who had taken such things from his brother along with his beads? Was it this Bard Fili spoke of?

Still, he doesn't have long to ponder it as Fili distracts him with the mention of the warm water pouring down.

"Yes!" he chirps from where he's quickly folding Fili's things into a neat pile once more. "They say you can change how warm or cold it is, but I've yet to figure it out. There's buttons though that give you soap. Those're on the right."

He knows, though, that there are many, many buttons on the thing in front of Fili, some would drop the strange liquid soap in his hand, others some kind of perfume, but temperature control was something quite beyond his reach.

"I'll get you something clean to wear," he chatters, tucking Fili's things under one arm as he heads for the door. "Stay here."

Fíli stands in silence as he watches Kíli walk out the door, for a moment lost on what to even do. Stay here, as if he has anywhere else to go. He'll not find it in himself to stray too far from his brother, not back home and especially not here, where everything is so strange and unfamiliar. In fact thinking of Kíli stepping away even for just this brief moment is enough to make him uncomfortable, despite how cold and distant he has been towards Fíli so far.

He does nothing for a while, simply letting his hand test the water, then after some seconds he slowly steps inside the shower. The water works somewhat well in soothing his tired muscles at least, and he all but leans against the wall as he closes his eyes. His fingers undo the braids in his hair distractedly - they are a mess, after all, and there is little point in keeping them here. He wonders if Kíli will even want to braid them for him again.

Then he turns to the buttons to try and find which one would produce soap for him, but as he clicks them at random he discovers more than just one feature of the shower. The water turns scalding hot when he hits one of the buttons with an arrow on it, and yells out a curse when it burns his skin. Luckily his fingers all but smash the control and he gets the temperature back down... all the way to freezing cold.

That is far more manageable at least, though now he is rather missing that warm water. But he much prefers to take a shower like this than getting it too hot again.

As quickly as he can, Kili returns to his room to pick out a clean set of clothing for his brother. However, as soon as he closes the door behind him, he's easily distracted by the barrage of emotions he's tried to keep at bay. His fingers tangle in Fili's hooded tunic, thumbs tracing the laces and every scratch and tear. The marks, the holes, everything should be familiar, but Kili finds there are things he doesn't remember happening in his brother's tunic, evidence of time that Kili had apparently missed. His chest pounds too heavy in his chest at the thought and he hurriedly folds the clothes to hide under his bed until he can talk with the stylists about washing only. If this was all his brother had from home, Kili would protect it.

Despite the distracting task of picking something to suit Fili, Kili can't stop thinking of what the next step would be, what tomorrow would bring if he woke up to find his brother's presence real. How could he ever tell Fili anything about the Games, the Capitol, the consequences for not listening or following the orders of mentors and stylists alike? How could he help his brother if he too knew so little about this place? He had not used their time apart wisely, he had only made the decision to kill after he saw Fili. Everything in his body hurts and Kili wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and pretend to be asleep, to forget everything he had seen and heard since waking up here three months ago.

Instead, he focuses on haphazardly tearing the clothes down from the hangers, some beautiful and ornate, others more solemn and dark-colored. Every last piece of cloth goes from hanger to floor, some in shreds. Just as he's finished, though, he hears his brother's cry and immediately he acts, no thoughts as to who might be attacking his brother or why; simple instinct and paranoia surges through him as he scoops up the nearest heavy object, a bookend, and sprints back toward the bathroom.

Without hesitation, he bursts back into the room, bookend held high, anger blazing through his gaze as he tries to sight his brother's attacker. Despite his eyes quickly telling him that only Fili is there in the room, the prickles in the back of his mind tell him they must be standing right behind him, and so he spins to face the wall, slamming the door shut to see behind the door. Just as he does that, another prickle tells him to turn again, and so he does, anger and fear too hot in his mind to not respond to.

Only after the second time he turns to take in the room, does Kili realize there's no one but Fili present and though he keeps an eye on the door, he calls back for his brother, "Fili?"

The sight of his brother bursting back in through the door due to his shout should not be so startling, yet Fíli finds himself turning around in a near jump until he is facing Kíli, only barely managing not to slip and fall on the slippery floor. He would worry, Fíli knows it, but there is still something so strange about it all. Kíli is in a panic, looking frantically for dangers behind the door and in every other corner of the room, regardless of how small.

Fíli is sure that even with the surprise the water had caused him, he had not screamed in such a way to bring on this kind of worry. The exaggerated reaction is just one more thing he adds to the pile of strange things about Kíli's behavior, though for now he brushes it aside and focuses on getting his brother's attention and calming him down.

"Kíli," he calls out at first, but he knows by the complete lack of response from his brother that he did not even hear him. It is only after a few seconds that he finally says his name in return, and Fíli breathes out audibly.

"Mahal's beard, Kíli," he almost scoffs, still mostly under the spray of cold water save for his head, then gestures at the control panel of the shower. "It was this that startled me! I don't know how I did it, but I turned the water too hot, then cold."

Once he hears Fili's voice, seemingly safe and sound, Kili turns enough to look back at his brother, gaze searching for injuries, but he cannot find any. His breathing comes in hard, panicked gasps that he attempts to tame down at the knowledge that his brother is indeed safe. But for how long? his mind unhelpfully contributes. When Kili reaches out for the water and meets its icy chill, he grimaces back at the door rather than at his brother. He had not taken the time to think of what his brother's cry had meant other than danger, death, everything Kili had feared since the first time he selfishly wished for his brother's warm presence as a comfort.

"I've yet to fully figure that thing out. Best start from the beginning," he replies yet more distantly than ever as his gaze remains transfixed on the door, waiting for an attack that will not come.

Nothing, however, loosens his grip on the heavy bookend. Not his brother's words, not the realization that no attack will come with the peacekeepers able to swoop in at a moment's notice to remove threats. Not even the reminder that Kili is the threat in this situation with the weight in his hand and all of his dwarven strength. He would have to be even more careful now that Fili had arrived; he would have to watch his tongue more closely, censor his words, or else he might lose his (or worse Fili his).

For a brief moment Fíli looks back at the buttons and considers finishing his shower, or at least trying to find the soap so he can clean himself from the smell he knows he is carrying. But Kíli is still on alert, as if he expects someone to rush in and attack them at any moment, and though at any other time he would think him ridiculous, he finds the attitude more worrisome than anything else at this particular moment.

So instead he reaches over, putting his hand to Kíli's wrist firmly and tugging on it to get his brother's attention. There is no one else in the room and there won't be, Fíli is sure of it. His yell had not been of someone being attacked, and the only reason that Kíli reacted in this way is because they are brothers and he worries. That must be it, and that is all there is to it.

He does not quite believe it himself.

"Kíli, I am fine," he speaks calm and clearly, nodding at the bookend on his hand. "Put that thing down before you drop it in your own foot and injure yourself."

The touch to his wrist makes Kili jump once more, but the startle is quickly pushed away for the strong hand on his arm. He knows those sword-worn fingers better than his own and the comfort they offer. With a shaky sigh, Kili sets down the bookend on the edge of the sink and turns back toward his brother. He can still hardly believe Fili is here and Kili wants more than anything for this to all be a bad dream he can wipe away in the morning, but the grip on his arm is so solid, so present, so real, Kili could never deny it.

At the end of it all, though, he has no energy to make jokes about how Fili must be talking from experience with dropping bookends on his feet. So, Kili simply offers a quiet, "You should finish your standing bath, brother."

He is exhausted, still quite drunk though his good mood has been thoroughly soured by his brother's arrival and the truth of his presence, so he'll simply reach past his brother into the shower to restart the whole process. Fatigue and the after effects of the adrenaline surge make his fingers shake and part of him simply wants to curl up there on the floor for sleep, but the rest of him knows better than to do so in a place so unsafe.

There is worry in his eyes, much more than there is confusion, as they follow Kíli's movements quietly, his hands shaking as they press buttons and the water stops, then restarts, warm once again. But he does not press the matter, not for now, and it is clear Kíli is drunk as well, besides scared, and Fíli keeps questions for a later time. The morning, perhaps. Regardless of how little Kíli remembers - though it is more like how little has not yet happened to him, odd as it may be to think that - he is still his little brother, as real here as he would be anywhere else, and that Fíli is completely sure of. No illusion could fool him.

So he turns his attention to the shower, scattered as it may be, pressing the correct button for soap this time and washing himself down as quickly as he can, eager to see Kíli put to bed where he can sleep and rest properly, so he can stop shaking and startling at every little noise or movement around them as if they are about to be attacked at any given moment.

Once he finishes he presses the same button Kíli had to stop the water, then wrings his hair before stepping back out of the bath area, familiar enough with the notion of a towel, even if they look and feel different here, to reach for one and start drying himself.

Silence, Kili figures, at least is easy to respond to in his current state. He'd always been one for idle words and chattering about anything and everything, but now he doesn't know which words to say and which to withhold. With the shower restarted, he turns away enough to give his brother privacy but not much more than that as paranoia remains a heavy presence on his neck. Never does he step too far from the bookend either as he tries to swallow down the most obvious signs of his panic, to calm himself enough to give some semblance of normality, but alcohol and the sheer level of fear that accompanied his brother's arrival put a halt to those efforts.

Still, he tries for all he's got, for Fili's sake, until he can talk to sponsors, to friends, to mentors, anyone who can help.

He scrubs one hand over his face when Fili steps out of the shower before responding to what he feels is the elephant in the room, "Left your clothes in my room."

Yet, he makes no move to leave without Fili, not now, not after the scare bare minutes before.

Fíli doesn't know much of what else to say, so he says nothing, quietly finishing the task of cleaning himself. His eyes always set on his brother, however, on the tension so visible in his posture, even when he keeps himself turned away. But he says nothing to it, not for now at least, and he is not sure if there will be anything to say when morning comes either. For all he knows this can just be a strange effect of alcohol on him.

So once he is completely dry, he looks to the towel for a moment before wrapping it around himself. Not that he cares much that he will walk around nude, but he is not so sure they would be the only ones passing those strange areas outside of the room Kíli had taken him to first, so he may as well cover himself until they are behind closed doors and he can dress himself once again.

"Let us go, then," he breathed out, a hand reaching over gently to tug at Kíli's wrist, urging him towards the door. "It looks to me you could use some sleep right now too."

Fili's right in at least that one thing: that Kili could really use some sleep right now, and not only for the alcohol still teeming in his system. On the way out, he grabs the bookend and carries it with him, but otherwise allows him to be led back toward his room. The clothes from his closet remain strewn across the floor where he'd torn them down and he simply pads over to them to pick out something in his brother's usual browns. Everything else he leaves laying in the pile and tells himself he'll pick it up in the morning.

"I could," he finally murmurs in answer to his brother's comment as he looks back at the bed, which looks so soft and comfortable now more than ever.

That is, until he remembers that he wanted to do one more thing before crashing in bed.

"First I'm braiding your hair, brother," he glances over at Fili as he goes to his bedside table to retrieve the brush the stylists had given him to try and tame the tangled mess that was his own black hair.

Clothes are put on quickly and in silence, while Fíli keeps on turning this whole situation over and over in his head in deep thought. he doesn't think much on where these clothes even came from, or how some of them seem a bit strange compared to what they're used to, and once he's done he looks up, just as Kíli speaks.

"There is not point if we are to go to sleep. They will just be turned into a mess," he sits by the edge of the bed regardless, feeling a dull ache in his own knees and legs as he does so. he had been on his feet for a long while now, both back in Esgaroth and here, for however long he had been running around before his brother found him.

"Brush it if you will, but leave the braiding for the morning," and in turn, of course, he'll brush Kíli's hair as well.

"Indulge me," is Kili's answer as he crawls up onto his bed and seats himself behind his brother.

After all, it had been three months since he last saw his brother, longer since they'd been given a chance to simply sit and braid. He almost can't remember that singular night in Beorn's cottage so long ago. In fact the blonde mane before him is almost foreign at this point and if Kili had not been braiding his own hair for almost a month now, he might have been entirely too rusty. Or at least he thinks so until he touches the soft waves and begins to gently brush out the tangles. No, he had not forgotten anything about this, except perhaps how to chatter like he once had while working on his brother's hair. Instead, the ritual is silent this time, with Kili focused intently on the work at hand and wanting to savor this small part of home.

"I'll have the stylists teach you mine in the morning," he does at least offer in some attempt at casual conversation though it only serves to remind Kili of just how much has changed.

Fíli doesn't go so far as to stop Kíli if he insists, so he lets his brother crawl onto the bed and settle behind him to start brushing through the mess of his strands. It has been a while since he really stopped to untangle his own hair, and what with all the water from both the river and the lake, the fish, the spider webs, it had turned into something closer to a bird's nest than anything else. Even his poor braiding work back in Lake-town had taken a frustratingly long time to manage, what with the way the tips kept knotting together.

The little tugs as the brush snags on a particularly stubborn tangle of hair here and there hardly hurt him, though he still feels them, his tired body swaying slightly along with the motions.

"Fine, but you'll have to do them all over again in the morning," he mutters, his tone tired but still with a hint of amusement, then he falls quiet as Kíli starts braiding his hair. He only speaks again when his brother mentions the stylists, and with a glance over his shoulders he adds. "What stylists? I can do braids just fine. "

Honestly, Kili won't mind needing to rebraid his brother's hair in the morning. In fact, he's almost looking forward to it, despite the lingering fear of what his brother's continued presence would mean. Instead, he allows himself to take comfort in the motions of brushing out the tangles in Fili's hair, wincing every time the brush gets caught on a snarl. It's slow work, but he does eventually get through it all and sets himself to plaiting. The simple act of folding one strand over the other fills Kili with a terrible homesickness that makes his fingers shake. It's been far too long since he's been allowed this.

"And have my hair look like yours?" Kili cajoles back weakly, his voice a notch too hollow to be truly amused. "Not a chance, brother."

But he would never truly deny his brother the task of braiding his hair. The stylists would teach him how to bend and pull the black hair away from his face, how to fit the two braids on the side of his head, and then they would never touch his hair again.

Despite his unease and the many doubts and questions lingering still, he allows himself a huff of amusement, finding the touch so comforting to him as well. Because it has been long to him too, perhaps not as long as it has been for Kíli but enough that his brother's touch relaxes him almost fully, for the first time since he arrived here - in fact, probably for the first time since they left Beorn's house.

"Those were rushed, you fool," he waves a hand behind him, only lightly tapping his brother's side. "I will do a much better job of it when I have the time to do so, you will see."

All the while he ignores the hollow in his brother's voice, the way it never truly reaches the amusement Fíli is so used to. Then again Kíli had hardly shown any of it since he got shot by that arrow, but to see him now, safe and unharmed and so worried still, so quiet and obviously scared, it is not something Fíli can easily let go.

Despite his brother's warm presence, Kili can't seem to find the will to smile in with the fear still pounding through him. Still, he tries to sass Fili back as he continues to braid, "Is this the same rush that made you smell so terrible?"

Still, Kili remembers what his brother said, about Bard, about Kili not being well enough to braid his brother's hair, and none of it yet makes any sense. How could Fili speak of something that had not happened while Kili had seemingly not been missing from it? His silent musings do not interrupt the plaits even as he reaches the end of the first of four and looks around for something to tie it off with before settling on one of the beads in his own hair. Carefully, he pulls it free and clasps it over the end of the braid before starting the second one in front of his brother's ear, which requires much more leaning over his brother but he's never minded before.

Fíli says nothing to the teasing at first, only pursing his lips and sighing as silence settles for a few seconds. Not as uncomfortable as before, but still strained, and he has the distinct feeling they are both trying for some kind of normalcy that cannot be had right now.

"Keep talking, little brother," he speaks finally, as Kíli moves on to the second braid. He does not notice that Kíli is using his own beads, undoing his own braids in the process, though even if he said anything it would matter little. Kíli had insisted on braiding his hair right this instant, after all. "And I will force you into those clothes, so that you will be the one bearing that wonderful scent in the morning."

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( open ) Arrival

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