Chapter Text
Forest greenery, thick shrubs and bushes covering his path. Kíli ducks under a branch, keeping his knees soft as his feet gently pat against the packed earth. There is the kind of silence which isn’t fully silent in the air, there is bird song and rustling leaves. No man-made sounds. Kíli breathes with control, feeling the way the air brushes his throat. In a setting like this, being completely silent is more alarming than blending in with the buzz of the forest. Quiet breaths blend with the breeze, soft footsteps are more natural than utter silence. Kíli closes his fingers around the bow.
The hare is calm, its focus on the grass it’s munching on. With slow, intentional movements, Kíli draws his hand back. He closes one eye, and adjusts his aim. Wood and metal slices through the air, cleaving, burrowing its tooth into the pliable flesh of the hares hide. The animal lunges at the last second, but the arrows still strike it. But it isn’t a killing blow. Kíli hurries forward, pulling his knife out. He grabs the hares head and slices easily through its throat. It stops moving.
When Kíli sits back to study his work, a sharp pain flares in his hand. There, in the center of his palm, is a deep bite, a result of the hares teeth. It must have bitten him when he grabbed its head. For a moment Kíli lets the pain wash through him, the blood flows sluggishly from his hand. It hurts, but it isn’t unbearable. Kíli thinks it’s only fitting that the hare spills his blood as well.
He wraps the wound on his hand with some fabric from his shirt. Then he strings up the hare and gets on his way.
His camp is as empty as it was when he left. A now dead fire, a line strung up between two trees with his game hung up, wrapped in fabric to keep it away from animals. He probably has enough to return now.
He’ll sell it to the butcher, it should give him enough money to get some supplies to travel west. That familiar bubbly feeling fills his stomach at the thought. A tugging, beckoning feeling that things might be different.
Packing up his camp is quick, the walk to the town he has been selling to takes the remainder of the day. His body is stiff from the labour when he arrives, but he doesn’t waste any time. The butcher buys most of the meat, and rejects some for ‘not being fresh enough’. Kíli sells the rest to the more desperate street-market merchants. Now, with a small pouch of clinking bronze coins, he sets off on his next task. He needs his shoes mended, he needs to return the bow he rented, he needs some food that will last the journey, and he needs a place to sleep that night.
Tomorrow, he leaves for the west. For Ered Luin. Because Kíli, a poor dwarf displaced by the Desolation of Smaug, is looking for his fortune. Because his ancestral home has been reclaimed by the legendary Company of Thorin Oakesnhield. If he makes good time, he should get to Ered Luin before the last caravan leaves. The last caravan to Erebor.