So Comes Snow After Fire

10.ii

Tauriel did not get a chance to speak with Kíli alone until she came to collect him for dinner. It would not have been proper for her to enter his rooms, and so she had found a retired balcony along their route where they might pause with relative privacy, though still in sight of those who passed. If they were to win respect, among her people as well as his, they must offer no place for criticism in their behavior to one another.

"I am sorry for interrupting earlier," she began. "I was only thinking how very much this must all be for you." Indeed, it was still rather too much for her to take in, though she had guessed her king's intentions months ago. She had only just acknowledged the devotion that she felt for this dwarf, and to have her king now openly promoting her marriage to Kíli was more than she knew how to manage.

"I'm glad you did," Kíli assured her. "I was beginning to panic a bit, myself. I've never been an envoy before."

"You did very well. My king can be quite... overwhelming."

"I felt that he wanted something from me," Kíli admitted.

Tauriel nodded. "He does; he wants you to argue his good intent to your uncle. But I do not think he means his assurances to you any less for all that."

"You're not afraid he's just using us?"

"I asked myself that, at first. But I believe he knows we truly love. I doubt he fully understands, but he has given me hope he knows the value of what we share, you and I." She wondered if Kíli had seen the way Thranduil had watched them earlier, as if they were the greatest enigma he had ever encountered in all his years.

"You're sure?" Kíli asked. Tauriel could see he was still somewhat troubled.

"I suspect this may be the only way he can find of helping us pursue something no-one has ever dared to want before. He cannot see why I would love a dwarf. But if my love for you can begin to bridge this gulf between our peoples, that is something, at least, that he can understand."

"Somehow, this has become so much bigger than us," Kíli said. "I wish it could just be you and I and nothing more." He glanced aside, tacitly acknowledging the palace and the elves passing on the walkways around them, even the unseen Elvenking himself.

She smiled, sympathetic. "Kíli, we will never escape our duties. But would we truly want to? And now we hope to be rewarded by a place to love."

He sighed. "You're right; of course you are. Just..." His expression became roguish. "When this is over, and we've proven ourselves, I intend to run away with you. Only for a perfectly responsible amount of time, of course."

Tauriel laughed gently, knowing she longed for and yet willingly awaited a time when she might truly be alone with him. Being near him this summer, she had felt more than perplexed to find how much she could want him. He merely touched her hand, and something unknotted itself inside her in a way that both thrilled and terrified her. Before she acted on any of these mad desires, she wished to understand what she felt or she knew she would be undone by him entirely.

"In the mean time," he went on, "I have something for you." He produced a small bundle from a pocket and placed it in her hands.

Tauriel unfolded a scrap of velvet to reveal a comb of fine silver. A delicate flowering vine had been carved along the back, and as she turned it in her hands, the light sparked on tiny blue stones.

She murmured appreciatively.

"We're officially courting, now." Kíli said.

Tauriel looked to his face, curious.

"I've your guardian's approval, and I've given you a gift."

Her gaze sharpened. "Your runestone..." Had it meant more than she had known even then?

Kíli chuckled. "That wasn't a proper courtship gift; it has to be something made by my own hands."

Tauriel turned the comb in her fingers, admiring the flawlessly set gems and the clean, delicate line-work of the carving. "You are quite skilled," she declared. "How long have you practiced your craft?" She did not know what else he could make, or whether he considered such dwarvish skills one or many arts.

"I don't remember the first time I was in a forge; like any dwarf, I more or less grew up there. But I started learning metalwork when I was still in my teens," he told her.

"Kíli, how old are you?"

"Seventy-something." He squinted, mentally calculating. "Seventy-seven, now."

"I could not guess. I know so little about your people!" And yet she had known she loved him, no matter how few or how many years he had to give her.

"Well," he smiled. "What do you want to know? We're babes when we're born, and considered grown at fifty. People will be slightly shocked if I marry you before I'm ninety, which I fully intend to do. We generally live two and a half centuries, sometimes more. So you can look forward to at least a hundred-seventy odd more years of my trouble."

He spoke lightly, though he watched carefully for her response.

"That will be enough for me," Tauriel said, answering his unspoken question. Indeed, she had been ready to be content with less. Humans, she knew, lived less than a century, and, knowing little of dwarves, she had not allowed herself to hope very far beyond that.

"And you are entirely too much for me," Kíli told her. Her answer, it was clear, had overwhelmed him.

"Hush. You are far more wonderful than you imagine," she said.

He paused, apparently considering this. "Tell me," he said at last, "How do I say I love you in your own tongue?"

"Le: that is 'you.' Melon: 'I love.'"

"Le melon," Kíli said softly, experimentally. "Le melon, Tauriel."

She beamed, unexpectedly touched to hear those words none had spoken to her and meant as he had. From his look of answering delight, she knew he understood what he had given her.

He went on, "It doesn't matter what everyone wants from us. I'm very happy."

"As am I."

She looked down at him for another long moment, drinking in the sweetness of his gaze.

Kíli spoke first. "We shouldn't keep your king waiting," he said, tucking her arm in his.

Tauriel nodded her agreement, and let him guide her back onto the main hallway they had been following.

"Now, you have to point out to me which pool you and your friend went swimming in," he instructed her as they made their way back through the palace.