Fic: Starlit Spirits - Chapter 2
Mar. 18th, 2014 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladytaurielEven though he is eighteen in human years in The Hobbit, Kíli is nineteen here. I tried to make the age difference resemble, and I don't want there to be too much of an age gap between him and Tauriel, who is older. She's attended university, remember? More on the dwarves' ages is explained here.
Thank you all for reading. And thank you to my wonderful beta, StarlitTauriel!
“Kíli!” boomed the obnoxiously recognizable voice, echoing through his aching head. It snapped open Kíli's drooping eyelids and pulled up his falling chin, forcing him to hit the wall behind him with the crown of his head. Ow, thought Kíli.
The voice was as present in his life as the ignorance of his current dull figure skating coaches, but possibly even more unwelcome, if such a thing were possible.
Speaking of figure skating, he really should be training, instead of sitting in a smelly jail cell. Kíli groaned. “Yes, uncle?”
“What the absolute, bloody hell were you ” Thorin began, but seemingly decided not to uselessly waste his breath on lecturing his reckless nephew. He waited until the guards opened the cell doors to drag Kíli to his feet. “Why does this always happen, Kíli? Does it really take less than twenty-four hours of my absence for you to fall back into your ridiculous, immature habits?”
Kíli gripped his rune stone, willing for the moment of the most unwanted but necessary conversation of the decade, the elephant in the room, and the plague of the Durin family to pass by peacefully. Obviously, the fact that it was Thorin Oakenshield, an extremely successful company investor, who was bailing Kíli out of jail, after having canceled his obviously vital business trip, was already a sign that Kíli didn’t have any luck at all.
“Kíli,” the young man's uncle began, willing his nephew to understand the reasons behind his watchfulness neither for the first nor last time, “you know that it has been my responsibility to ensure the success in your figure skating career since you were an adolescent ”
With a roll of his eyes, Kíli barked, “Well, I'm not a child anymore!” Couldn’t Thorin just leave Kíli alone with his morose thoughts about losing practice time?
It was his own fault, really. He could have just shoved his brother’s inkstained papers in Fíli’s face and told him to cut it with the idiotic dares. However, sometimes Fíli could be just as mischievous as Kíli. After all, it was easy to manipulate someone with writing. Especially if one’s younger brother is a sucker for certain online unpublished works online, centered around romances of various fictional characters. Fíli would always claim that he didn’t understand the big deal of it, but he wanted a sequel to that heartbreaking piece his brother had written about Tristran and Yvaine from Stardust, and if it meant going through with smuggling a bottle of Syrah wine from Lord Thranduil himself, so be it.
As he mused about why this is how he decides to spend his less than a month before nationals, he realized that it was honestly better to feel sorry for oneself in solitude than in the company of someone who wouldn’t take one’s bullshit. However, judging by Thorin’s pained expression, as if Kíli had just kicked a couple of kittens, the younger man knew that a lecture was awaiting him. Here we go again, he thought to himself.
“You claim to be an adult, and yet your actions resemble those of the seven year old boys who train at your studio, chasing each other around the rink.” Thorin impatiently made out. “You're only nineteen; nationals are in less than one month; and you keep telling me that you can’t work with your coaches. It's unfortunate that Balin is unable to oversee your current training, Kíli, because he would have put you in your place. Even though he is already recuperating after his surgery, I cannot ask him to come and babysit you. God knows that you do not listen to me, but I am your family, and you need someone to support you right now.”
“Contrary to popular belief,” enunciated Kíli, rubbing his temples and standing up to brush past his uncle, lead them down the hall and out one of the jail's side exits, “I am actually training.” Very diligently, in fact, and this conversation was just wasting his time. “You just happen to choose your shower of financial goodies over actual presence and morale boost as a way to support me.”
Kíli sensed Thorin's famous dagger-throwing glare as he walked ahead of him. Kíli intentionally posed his own silence as a challenge. However, his uncle remained silent, and rightfully so.
In theory, he may indeed have been Kíli’s guardian from the year he turned ten until the coming of his eighteenth birthday last year, but there was no emotional investment in Kíli’s passions for skating and ambitious dreams of competing at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Fíli supported him as much as any brother could manage, by accompanying him to national and international competitions, sharing a flat in the comforting bustle of Amsterdam, and giving all the suggestions he could make in relation to the inevitable interactions that Kíli had to have with people, such as coaches, judges, and sponsors. At the end of the day, however, Kíli was only one year his senior. In other words, twenty years old and suffering from the same bereft feeling that haunted both of them for the past nine years.
“I know that I am not able to be here the same way your mother was for you, Kíli, and for your brother as well,” Thorin stated quietly, as the two stepped out into the light of the sunrise that reflected off of the fresh snow, sparking in dangerous, dancing twirls. Thorin had taken the earliest flight from London to Amsterdam, where the police had taken the arrested Kíli, but the latter’s presence in the jail lasted through most of the night. Thorin laid his hand on Kíli’s left shoulder, stopping his movement and forcing his nephew to face him. “You know I am trying to give you the opportunities of a lifetime. Dís’ loss hurts me as much as it does you, even after almost a decade, and the selfishness that runs deep within me impedes my ability to be an emotionally stable supporter and comforter to you. I am sorry.”
It was in that moment that Kíli looked into Thorin’s eyes and saw his mother. His mother, whose uncanny resemblance to his uncle never extended to her demeanor, as her comfort was as tangible as was his distance. His mother, whose black hair Kíli now wore, wavy and uncut. His mother, whose blue eyes twinkled whenever she laughed with her sons, much like Fíli’s did when Kíli won at yet another competition. His mother, who had held his hands whilst he stood on ice skates at three the first time in his life. His mother, who had worriedly called Kíli as reckless as could be, and yet still laughed with him and loved him for it.
His rune stone felt heavy in his pocket, but the weight of the universe felt heavy on his heart.
“It was nice seeing you, uncle,” Kíli managed nonchalantly, and left.
~
He arrived at the public ice skating rink a quarter after seven. He was grateful for the early time; he had no energy to walk another hour to reach the indoor studio that he shared with a local hockey team, and he didn’t want to attract a full audience just yet.
He had stopped at his flat along the way to grab his equipment bag more like skates, towels, a dozen water bottles, and a CD player, really. He had noticed the new decoration around the flat a half decorated Christmas tree and lights half attached to door perimeters. It had seemed as if Fíli had taken the opportunity of Kíli’s absence to attempt at adding a little Christmas spirit. Kíli had snorted, as he hated Christmas.
His mother had loved it.
Kíli stood on the ice now, barely aware of the Chaminade Concertino that he had turned on and not noticing the moment he his body began to guide him around the rink. He was lost in thought.
That girl today, that he had met. What was her name? Tauriel, his memory supplied. She had obviously taken her responsibilities in ringing the police on him, but she had not seemed unamused.
He had not gone into Lord Thranduil’s palace for a girl, obviously, not knowing there would be a girl in the first place. One had been there nevertheless, and now she was one of the delightful things prancing around his mind.
Well, in the short time he knew Tauriel, no prancing had been involved. There had mostly been accurately shot arrows and death glares.
Her green eyes and their mindful gaze were seared into his memory, a strangely comforting presence, but he pushed them and the rest of thought away as much as possible in favor of the muscle memory now urging him push himself harder.
And so Kíli skated on.