The Snow Queen • Fili/Kili/Tauriel

[igrab]

It started like this - a whisper in the dark, a hissed-out curse and a dwarf's voice growling, "I will not share you."

The younger brother knew what the older was saying, of course. I will not share you with her. With an elf.

"Are you jealous, brother?" Kili teased with that ever-present smile, taking a terrible joy in the way that Fili's face twisted in all sorts of emotions he would never let anyone else see. Most thought, you see, that Kili was the passionate brother, that he felt more and deeper and harder, but little did they know how false that was. Fili's calm was only a mask, a plaid surface over a raging thunderstorm. He wasn't angry, he was livid, he didn't love, he worshipped.

"You asked her if she could love you," he said, and Kili just laughed, the sound like a silvery elven bell.

"In my defense, I was hallucinating," he pointed out, but Fili was having none of that - he pinned his dear brother's wrist to the wall and pressed until the bones creaked. Kili gasped, but he didn't fight it. On the contrary, he loved to see him like this - all those hot emotions, running deep like veins of gold, brought up to the surface through jagged cracks of rock. "...I can't say I don't like her," Kili murmured, "but I'm yours, nadadel, surely you know that by now."

"I know," the elder growled, and that was the close of the matter, or so it should have been. But in the end, it wasn't Kili he should have been looking out for. When the balance tipped, it was no fault but his own.

➵
"Admirable," she said, in a dry tone that Fili strongly suspected meant the exact opposite. He huffed and took the stance again, fighting the awkwardness in his limbs - he did know how to shoot, he wasn't a complete dimwit, but Kili had always been the better archer. Now, with his brother's arm still healing from the battle and the dwarves in desperate need of able bodies to go hunting, he had taken up the bow and quiver and gone down to Dale to find something to practice on. He was supposed to be alone, and he didn't much like the thought that she might have come here looking for Kili, and on any other day, would probably have succeeded.

"Did you need something?" he asked, testier than was polite but far more than she deserved.

"Actually, yes. Your brother told me you were going hunting; I wish to accompany you."

Fili's shot went wide, completely missing the target and scraping harmlessly against stone. He whipped around, breath misting the cold air as he huffed out a sharp breath. Did he - Was she just -

But he could see it in her face, that she wasn't lying, and she wasn't here on Kili's orders, in some misguided display of protectiveness. She had, for some unfathomable reason, chosen to be here. It was absolutely infuriating that Fili couldn't understand why.

His only response was to flip back around and let out loose another arrow. This one flew true, burying itself at the dead center of the hastily-drawn target on the wall of one of the few remaining wooden houses. He was no Kili, to be sure, but he was certainly more than admirable.

"Come," Tauriel said, sliding off her seat on the low wall and landing with no sound on the brittle earth. "While we still have the light."

It took Fili several hours to come to the realization that nothing he could do could change her mind, now that she'd made it up. First, he had tried resisting her at every turn, questioning her judgment, fighting every step of the way. She took it in stride, pointing out in simple, precise words why this particular path into the woods would be better, and shrugging and following him when he fought that, too. Then he tried to let her lead him, but she wasn't having any of that, either. "I'm hunting with you, not for you," she said with half a smile that shouldn't look so coy on such a smooth, pointed, elven face.

Not that he was looking at her face. Or any part of her. In fact, he should just stop acknowledging her at all. It would be better for everyone involved.

But that tactic not only didn't work, but backfired entirely. In trying to block her out, they fell into a silence and rhythm that was comforting, synchronized, and almost... pleasant. There was nothing but their breaths and the susurrus of leaves in the dark forests, the twang and hiss of bowstrings and feathered fletching, and the thud of beasts falling to the ground, the accuracy of mercy giving them no room to cry out.

At each death, Tauriel would crouch soundlessly before them and bow her head, lips moving in a silent prayer, and Fili - he wasn't acknowledging her, of course, but this didn't count - couldn't help but wonder what it was she prayed for. Did elves even eat meat? There certainly hadn't been any in Rivendell, but from what he'd seen, the Mirkwood elves were a wild lot.

"I give my thanks," she said, over her shoulder as she stood to truss the carcass up to wait for their return trip. "He gave his life so that we might live. It's the least I could do."

I, you say, Fili thought as they moved on. Not we. Does King Thranduil give thanks for the food on his fine table? Do the others? Or is it just you?

He didn't know if he was entirely comfortable setting Tauriel apart from elves. She already was, though, no matter how he tried to deny it. She had come back. Come to save a dwarf she barely knew, simply because she knew she could help him. Fili could be jealous all he wanted, but he could not admit that he was not thankful, to the elf who saved his brother's life.

"Tauriel," he said suddenly, when the sun had dipped low and they were making their way back with prizes in tow.

"Yes?" She didn't stop, but somehow he understood that she was listening; that she did not think his words were unimportant.

He swallowed down the clawing beast in his chest that told him to lash out, to roar, to never give a delicate elf the time of day, much less a modicum of respect.

Those are the words of your uncle and his contemporaries, he told himself in a voice that sounded like his brother's. You cannot blame an entire race for the actions of one king, and you certainly cannot blame Her.

"...I am grateful," he said, voice sounding like scraped and crumbling stone. "For what you - for Kili. You not only saved his life, but mine as well." He swallowed, because a life without Kili - it would have simply been too much to bear, and he knew that as surely as he knew his own name.

This time, she did stop, and she turned to peer down at this yellow-haired dwarf with equal amounts of censure and kindness in her eyes. He didn't know that he deserved either of those things.

"I did it because I could, and because it was the right thing to do. Your gratitude is unnecessary, but... not unwelcome." She seemed to be just as awkward accepting the words as he had been giving them, and for a moment Fili wondered at how they could go from such an easy, seamless camaraderie to... this.

But Tauriel was not quite finished. "I am admittedly a bit fond of him," she said, "but perhaps, more than anything, I am jealous."

Floored to hear that, Fili blinked up at her with an expression he knew would be all too confused. "...In what way?"

"He has you," she said, and after a moment the pointed tips of her ears colored and she pursed her lips, frowning. "Not that I'm implying - he has someone who cares about him as much as you do, that's all I mean. Siblings among elves are rare, and closeness among kin, rarer still. I never knew that dwarves were capable of such... brawling, infinite love. We pale in comparison," and she said it without grief, for few things could stir an elven heart, but there was still some hint of wistfulness among the calm tones of reason. "When I healed him - when I saw how you cared for him, how you needed him - and what he said - "

She cut herself off, turning her face away so Fili could see nothing but her windblown fall of auburn hair, billowing in the light breeze. "...All I thought, then, was that I would give quite a lot to be able to love like a dwarf loves."

Fili didn't quite know what to say to that. She had all but admitted that she wouldn't be averse to loving his brother, but when she put it like that, he didn't know how to be angry. If anything, he felt...

No, he told himself, shutting down that thought before it even fully formed. He did not pity her. He did not want to help her. He did not want to make her understand, even in the smallest of ways, how beautiful the dwarrow heart could be. He did not think it, but the thought remained, buried like a seed and waiting to be brought to life.

"It will be dark soon," he muttered, and she nodded shortly, just as willing to put that uncomfortably honest conversation behind them. They made their way back to Erebor in a silence that wasn't unpleasant, wasn't precisely uncomfortable - too comfortable, perhaps, and they both moved with an awareness of things that could so easily be said, with neither party willing to say them.

➵
"You're not wrong," Kili said with a grin as he reached across his brother's lap to steal half a sugared bun from Tauriel's plate. She frowned at him - Fili had noticed that she was particularly fond of anything sweet, so Kili was either oblivious or deliberately teasing. She let him have it, though, which said a lot for how deep this strain of affection was running.

It was even more telling that Fili let her let him. He did not like to admit it, but he was growing... accustomed to her presence.

"I haven't said anything," she pointed out, still frowning at the dwarf's hands wrapped around her prize.

"You were thinking it," Kili said. "I know that look. It's the 'are they having it on or do they not notice how close they are' look. Bilbo had it when we first met him, do you remember?"

Fili hid a smile in his beard; of course he remembered. It had been one of a great many diverse and intricate looks of consternation the hobbit had worn that evening, surrounded by more dwarves than anyone should ever have to handle at once.

Kili, of course, didn't wait for Fili to actually agree with him, he just barreled on. "We kept trying to get him to walk in on us, too, but he just - "

"Well, you did," Fili interrupted.

" - has the worst timing in the world. Or perhaps the best. What do you think?"

Tauriel was watching the entire conversation with a mix of detachment and badly-concealed lewd interest. She was looking right at Fili when he drawled, "worst, I think. Getting caught by trolls was a decidedly uncalled-for turn of events."

"Ha!" Kili crowed, slapping the table and grinning with that irrepressible happiness that Fili loved so much. Then he sighed, mock-mournfully. "If only he'd been just a few minutes earlier..."

"We'd still be missing ponies, we'd just have been fighting trolls starkers."

"Trolls," Tauriel cut in. "Do you really mean to tell me you fought trolls? And you're still alive?"

Fili watched his brother puff up with pride and ready to boast, and he realized all of a sudden that he liked this. It was nice, having such a ready audience, having this calm and pretty shape beside them that smiled at all of Kili's terrible jokes and savored the ebb and flow of their banter and watched Fili with sly eyes, when she thought he wasn't looking. It was unexpectedly gratifying. He was not used to being looked at, not when his brother was near, and particularly not with such frank admiration. He didn't know what to make of it, so once again he did nothing, just dropped a hand to Kili's lower back and pressed his fingers just under his belt.

He felt the shiver that passed through his brother's frame, and he grinned. You're so easy, he thought fondly, and without warning another thought followed on its heels. She wouldn't be easy at all. She would make you work for every second of it.

"But thank you for the clarification," Tauriel was saying, in that dry and slightly sarcastic lilt. "I would never have known you were sharing a bed if you hadn't told me."

"Oh, shut up, it's not that obvious," Kili scoffed.

"It really is," she returned with a small smile, and Fili was surprised at how well she was taking this. Hadn't she essentially expressed her interest, not all that long ago?

But for whom, his traitorous brain asked. Kili, or you?

"Not as obvious as Uncle and Bilbo!"

She arched an eyebrow. "If you were intending for that to mean anything, you are sorely mistaken."

"Shut up!"

"Kee," Fili interrupted, surprising himself with a broad smile. "Quit while you're ahead, nadad."

Later that night, when Kili had wandered off to sing bawdy songs in Ori's ear until he caught fire from embarrassment, Fili held Tauriel's quiver as she attempted to tie on her gauntlets.

"Oh, for - " her fingers fumbled and she cursed softly in Elvish, looking for all the world like a child stamping her foot in frustration.

"Let me," Fili said, and before he could even stop to think about it - and he wouldn't, he couldn't think about it - he had slung the quiver across his back and reached up to her narrow wrists, deftly threading the laces under the lacquered leather and pulling them tight.

"...You're very good at that," she murmured. Color was high in her cheeks, likely the result of the strong Lake Town mead, but her hands were steady under Fili's broad, short fingers. "I wouldn't have thought..." But she trailed off, clearly regretting what she'd been about to say.

Fili grinned and crooked his hand for the other wrist. "Wouldn't've thought a dwarf could have such nimble fingers?"

"Of course not," she muttered shortly. "I've seen you shoot, I know what you're capable of." But the flush in her cheeks was spreading, and Fili was almost certain it had little to do with drink this time.

"Dwarrow are not all blunt instruments," he said, and her slender wrist flexed under his hand.

"Elves are not all ice," she countered, just as softly, "delicate, cold, and easily shattered."

Fili found that his thumb was resting on her pulse point, in the soft hollows between her fine bones. He did not know if the pace her heart set was common for her kind, or if she was as affected by this moment as he was. "No," he whispered. "Some of you are like snowflakes - perfect, unique, and untouchable." He refused to meet her eyes. He didn't want to see what was lurking there, be it warmth or regret or worst, nothing at all. "Travel safely, merzûkhinh."

"What does that mean?" she asked, as she took her quiver from him, but he simply smiled, sadly, refusing to explain.

➵
"Merzûkhinh?" Kili frowned across the drafting table, trying to figure out where this was coming from. "Where did you hear that?"

Tauriel made a face like he should know, but he didn't know, so he just stared owlishly at her until she starting explaining.

"It was your brother, actually," she murmured, and had her face turned carefully down so she couldn't see Kili's reaction.

"Fee? Did he..." understanding dawned. "Did he call you that?"

"Just tell me what it means."

Kili hadn't been lying, when he'd said he was Fili's, but he also wasn't lying when he said he liked Tauriel. He couldn't help it, she was beautiful, and smart, and a fantastic fighter, and more than all those surface things, he had seen the shape of her heart when she had come to save his life. He had grown to love the way she teased him, the way she listened, and most importantly the way she had accepted Kili and Fili's relationship without batting an eyelash. If anything, it had made her more interested, more certain of their friendship, and Kili could not be more grateful to have her in his life. He only wished -

Well, his wishes weren't important.

"I suppose it would translate as 'snow queen'," he said, still trying to puzzle out what could have caused his brother to say that - or to even speak any Khuzdul around her.

"Ah," she said.

He waited.

...She looked up at him with frustration in her green eyes. "What?"

"Just curious." He propped his elbows up on the table, bumping the edges of the maps they were working on. "Why did my brother call you 'snow queen'?"

"Because he thinks me untouchable," she snapped, then immediately thought better of it, if her face was anything to go by. "I did not mean - "

"Oh, you meant." Kili could only smile, head tipped just slightly to one side. "Why, Taur, I do believe he's starting to fancy you."

"Don't be ridiculous." He'd never seen her like this, never seen her flustered. It was new and different and sweet and rather attractive. "He loves you."

"Of course he does," Kili responded instantly. "And I love him, dearly, but we're not blind. I've never made a secret of how quickly I'd court you if he would let me."

That got another stunned reaction. "I'm sorry?"

"Courting? You know. When a dwarf loves a - oh, well, an elf, I suppose, he makes a gift of gems, and braids his - "

"Shut up," she said, and she was smiling. Kili wasn't sure he'd ever seen her smile. "Weren't we just talking about your brother?"

"It's the same thing," Kili said, in all seriousness. "I would have brought it up sooner if I thought he'd allow it. To court one of us is to court both. He doesn't share me," and Tauriel looked like she would have something to say to that but he pressed on, "but we can share someone else, we quite enjoy it."

"You've done this before." Her response was slightly cooler, but her ears were still pink and her eyes alive with questions and runaway thoughts.

"Not like this." Kili may have been thought to be the clever one but the truth was, he was incapable of telling a convincing lie, so he didn't bother. Besides, he liked Tauriel, and he was almost certain now that Fili did as well, which made this all so much more important. "Not someone who mattered."

She dropped her gaze to the disordered maps. "And I matter."

"Yes." She didn't look like she quite believed him, so he leaned forward, reached his arm across the table unheeding of the crumpled mess he was making of their work. He held his palm out, open and inviting, until she carefully - cautiously - placed her hand in his. It was so delicate, so soft, that he almost felt unworthy to be touching it - no, he did feel unworthy, but this was about trying to make Tauriel understand that this was how they saw her.

"My people, the wood-elves - we are accustomed to being thought of as a lower race, inferior to our Sindarin rulers, no matter that we outnumber them in droves. There was a time that Legolas expressed a wish to - " but she trailed off, apparently not finding the words in Westron. "....Thranduil would not hear of it. I was too Silvan, too base for his precious son."

Kili squeezed her hand, his heart going out to her immediately. "I'm sorry, Taur," he murmured.

She shook her head, though her long fingers pressed back in a grateful sort of motion. "We make for much better friends. It is just... difficult, to accept how you and your brother seem to see me."

They held suspended in long moment, falling incrementally into each other's eyes. Kili wondered if he would ever feel anything less than floating, when he was in her presence.

"...Dwarrow find me unfortunate-looking," he said, and the suddenness of it into the silence made Tauriel laugh.

"What?"

"It's true." He grinned at her, loved the way her smile made her eyes crinkle. "I'm beardless and fair and scrawny. My face is too narrow. I'm too tall."

Every one of his declarations was bringing a smile to her face, even though she must know that Kili was being entirely serious. "I do not have difficulty believing that, though I must insist that this is something upon which I will never be in agreement with." Her smile was tilting, a teasing light coming into her eyes. "Of all dwarves I have met, you and your brother - and, to a lesser extent, your king - are the only ones I have found remotely appealing."

Kili groaned. "I knew it, you fancy our Uncle, too!"

"I do not!" she retorted, but it was with a laugh. "I accept that he's not entirely unattractive, but I have no desire to - "

She stopped herself, abruptly, and Kili felt a low curl of anticipation in his gut. "What is it you desire?"

Tauriel turned her face away, baring her cheek and neck, smooth and bare as porcelain. "I think you're well enough aware."

He couldn't help the way he was smiling, smirking really. "I think you've been entertaining a particular desire ever since I made it clear my brother and I were not strictly platonic."

Her hand was still in his, and he could feel the way it tightened, as she made to pull away. He wouldn't let her.

"Am I wrong?" he pressed, and Tauriel's lips thinned, the flush in her cheeks so noticeable under her fair skin.

"We don't - it isn't - "

He waited, and when she simply refused to offer any more information he relented and let her hand go, though not without a gentle stroke of his thumb over the back of her hand.

"...Elves are not dwarves," she began, but he couldn't help responding.

"I know that."

"Hush," and there it was, the warm fond reproachful look that he was growing to hold very dear. "Our marriages are made for companionship and love, but they are not..." she trailed off, and Kili had to fight off the urge to try and goad her into continuing.

"...I do not know how to say this delicately, so I'm going to say it indelicately. We do not ascribe physical intimacy to our more highly prized mental compatibility. We are given to understand that in other races, such a fortunate instance is more common, but for us..."

Kili waited yet again. This was nothing he didn't know - the dwarrow spoke often of the elves' casual, yet infrequent affairs. Of course, their words were less than favorable, but Kili had never been one to hate blindly. Despising the elf-king for his actions in particular, that was fine, but to hold an entire race accountable for the actions of one selfish king? He could never do such a thing.

"...I have known for some time that our souls speak to one another, Kili, son of Vili," and the dwarf felt his heart do stupid things in his chest that probably required medical attention. "But as for... well." She was quite pink in the face, and he smirked, enjoying the effect this turn of the conversation had on her.

"You are not wrong," she continued. "When I think of you and your brother, and what you get up to in private, I feel..."

"...Desire," Kili cut in, his low, steady smile stoking the small fire he saw glowing under the gems of her eyes. "What you're feeling is desire."

Her fingers trembled in his, and he could feel rather than hear the intake of breath as she let herself feel it, really feel it. Kili burned to know what she thought of - did she imagine how they might look bare in the firelight, hands pressed to sweat-slick skin? Did she think of how their beards might scrape against one another as they kissed, ravenous? Did she wonder how they managed, both male, both small and passionate and rough and dwarvish?

He saw all this and more in her eyes, as color bloomed in her cheeks and her breath came fast in her chest.

"Yes," she murmured. "Desire."

➵
That night, Fili lay with his brother in their rooms and let his fingers trail over his skin. There was something a bit off about them tonight, a hesitation that they had never had before, not when they were alone. There was something growing in the space between them and Fili wondered, quiet and uncertain, if it was still shaped like an elf from Kili's eyes.

"Snow queen," his brother said, and Fili startled, swallowing. He should not have been surprised - should have known that Tauriel would never let such a thing slide. "Is that really how you see her?"

So many things spoke from the spaces of what they said to each other, as it always had. They knew each other more closely than brothers, or friends, more closely than was safe, if Fili was being honest with himself. He had always loved his brother too much. It was what made this elf-shape full of unsaid words so very difficult to comprehend.

"Why, what would you have said?"

Kili propped his chin up on his hands. It made the ink on his back stretch, the bow pulling like an archer ready to take his shot. The arrow had always pointed with an uncomfortable accuracy towards Fili's heart, whenever they lay like this, curled quietly around each other. "Gimlinh," he said instantly, without reservation. "Ûrzudinh. Light and warmth and everything that is beautiful."

"In the sky," Fili continued, knowing exactly what he meant. "She's a lady of the sky."

"Oh, most certainly."

He didn't tell him that before Tauriel, that was how Fili had seen his brother - distant and ethereal, but now he could see that Kili was the dancing flame, flickering, vibrant, and dangerous when you get too close.

What does that make me? Fili thought, though he knew the answer - he was loose earth, unable to find purchase into solid ground, scattered at the mercy of his fire and his stars. He felt the snow fall and he welcomed it despite knowing better, he longed for the heat to melt them, to bring them closer, to fuse them into ice that would last.

Kili had fallen asleep while his brother lay woolgathering and he thought, it is so much more than selfishness, to deny not only him, but myself.

He had spent so long running, though, that he did not know how to begin to stop.

➵
"My brother thinks the sun and stars of you."

Snow had fallen over Erebor, and Fili had gone out at dawn, longing to wander in the crisp whiteness. Everything seemed clearer like this, and simpler, and when he saw a flash of auburn-haired elf beckoning from the trees at the edge of the wood, it was easy to follow her, to let himself be led into the twisting depths.

They stopped and broke fast at a small glade, Tauriel helping him up into the low branches until he was firmly cradled against a thick trunk. She sat astride, legs gripping the wide branch like a pony's back, and when he spoke it was natural, easy, like there had never been a lull in conversation. He had not realized how precious silence could be, before her.

"Something beautiful and shining and warm, but distant. Not untouchable, just... unknowable. More than he could hope to love."

She ducked her head and he thought that perhaps it wasn't the cold making her cheeks pink.

"I don't know how to prove to him that I am what I am," she murmured, then paused, thoughtful and a bit wary. "And I don't... I am not entirely certain that I would be allowed."

Fili frowned at her over his bread. "Why would you not be allowed?"

"That would be very close to courting," she said simply, and it very suddenly came to him that he was a very stupid dwarf. He was not his brother's keeper, but here he was, being kept, and all the while he'd been entertaining thoughts that - well.

"I don't believe he would turn you away, if you wished to," he muttered with a gruff burr in his voice. Jealousy of one kind warred with another - could he stand to lose them both? He wasn't certain.

"He's more worried about what you would think." He noticed, too, that Tauriel had kept her distance on their leisurely morning stroll, and he didn't know what to make of it. He hated feeling as if he was the only one with not the slightest clue what was going on.

But Tauriel, still thoughtful and poised, continued speaking. "He has told me that the two of you have shared lovers before, and he seems to believe that you do not dislike me."

Fili almost dropped what remained of his meal. "What?"

The elf was quiet, her eyes downcast, and for a moment he wasn't sure which distressed her more - the thought of their past lovers, of the thought that he...

"...I would not be averse to being... shared. But I would not lie with someone who did not want me there."

This time, he did drop his things, and they fell to the snow beneath them unheeded and unheard. He reached for her - some strand of his brother's impulsiveness lay woven in among his caution, it seemed, for he readily abandoned all that had gone before, to pull her face in towards his. She did not resist him, and when their lips met she sighed, as if she, too, had been waiting, holding back, unwilling to be the one to break the ice between them.

He made a low noise into her mouth; he had wanted this, more than he'd even realized, and when she teased him with a tiny swipe of her tongue he shuddered, heat rolling over him in a wave. He pulled back, short of breath, and saw an answering fire in Tauriel's eyes.

"Kili," Fili murmured, and grinned when she raised an eyebrow as if to say, have you forgotten already that I am not your brother? He shook his head, no, that wasn't it. "We wait," he clarified. "For Kili."

It was all too easy to see, now, the way her eyes darkened at the thought. "Yes," she whispered. "Soon."

➵
Somehow, he had thought it would be difficult to take Tauriel to bed, but in the end, it was as easy as breathing.

Thorin still did not entirely approve of the elf's presence in Erebor's halls, but she had devoted so much of her time and strength into the rebuilding efforts that he could not in good conscience turn her away. Especially not when snow had begun to drift up against the doors, making passage difficult if not impossible.

Evening found Tauriel sprawled on her belly before the fire, shockingly casual for an elf, but she had been into the mead again and the thick furs were blissfully warm. Bilbo had apparently gone to great lengths to make the royal sitting rooms as comfortable as he could.

"Are dwarves as decadent as hobbits?" she asked, voice slurring slightly. The brothers, playing dice with their uncle at the low table, turned in unison to give her amused, fond looks.

Thorin, of course, thought about this carefully. "In some ways, more; in others, less." He did not elaborate, but she hadn't really wanted to know the details. No, mostly she was thinking about how decadence might mean handsome, naked dwarf princes, if she played this right. Tension already simmered between them; she wagered that it would not take much to stoke them to a blaze.

"Elves are merry, but not decadent," she said, rolling onto her back and knowing exactly how it made her river of hair fall about her. "We dance and sing and laugh, we surround ourselves in beauty, but I do not believe we truly enjoy any of it."

"You are drunk," Fili informed her, and she smirked at him.

"No, I am happy," she declared, and did not miss the pleased smile on Kili's face, or the surprised, thoughtful look on the king's. "It feels very much like being drunk, only better. I highly encourage you to try it."

Fili snickered; Kili got a rather predatory look on his swarthy face and leaned over to nip at his brother's ear. "I think he knows what happy feels like," the younger purred, but the older had eyes only for the elf on the floor, unkempt and very nearly indecent.

His voice was a low, velvet purr when he responded. "I think we may have cause to redefine that term soon."

Bilbo, bless him, was looking around the gaming-table with something like bewilderment. "Did I miss something?" he said, and Tauriel caught a flash of a smile hidden in Thorin's beard, before he stood, gesturing to his lover.

"Nothing of import," he stated, and Bilbo went with him, following the unspoken beckoning to their bedchambers. No, she thought, no Elven soulmates could compare to the love of dwarves. Even Lórinel, so famously adored by her king, was nothing to the fire and warmth in Thorin's eyes when he looked upon his hobbit.

"Lomil ghelekh, namadûn," Fili called over his shoulder, and Kili added his own 'good night's. Then, their footsteps receded down the hall and a door closed in the distance, and Tauriel and the brothers were alone.

It should have been hard to take her to bed, but in the end, all Fili had to say was, "Come with us," and she followed her dwarves readily, without hesitation or doubt.

➵
Watching them kiss was even more incendiary than she could have anticipated.

They kissed like they were hungry for it, desperate, like the other held all the air in the world and nothing else mattered. Their hands clutched at their shoulders; they pushed at their lover's clothes, trying to yank off the linen shirts without breaking the kiss, which was of course not possible. Tauriel was not entirely sure how she would be made a part of this - but reminding them how clothes worked seemed a decent start. She leaned over and pulled Kili back, urged him to strip his shirt entirely off.

At her touch, they both turned to give her twin looks of fire, and she shivered - not from cold, no, never from cold, not in the room with these two.

Kili spun in his brother's arms and pulled her in, cradled her flushed face with his graceful hands - by dwarf standards, anyhow - and when he kissed her, it was with sweetness, unlike the fire of his brother. How curious, she thought, as she nibbled and licked to part those lips, that the one so reserved was hiding such a passion, and the one with his heart on his sleeve held within him a softness and light.

She thrived on the dichotomy that the brothers presented. She knew already that she would not be able to take much of this - when she said she wished to be able to love like a dwarf loves, she had meant it, knowing such passion would burn right through her if she tried. However, she was beginning to hope that if she couldn't love like a dwarf, she would very much like to be the recipient of it. If she could not be the fire, she would have it touch her, and she would take in as much as she could bear.

It was Fili who said, "Tell us if it's too much," and it was Kili who looked at her like he already knew how to get her there. Fili was alternately too gentle and too rough; Kili was nervous but enthusiastic, and she loved both of them, loved how they made her body sing like no one else had managed. (She thought of that one night, in the moon garden, where she and Legolas - but there had been no passion between them, only gentle and unspecific urges of the body, mutually satisfied between comrades. This was different.) But the best part was when she lay back against the broad carved headboard and watched them love each other - with viciousness, with desperation, with so much passion that she burned from simply having the honor of witnessing it. Her hair fell around her in a fiery disarray and she slid two of her slender fingers through her own juices, not even realizing it, so caught up was she in watching Fili's teeth suck a dark mark into the skin above his brother's tattoo.

Her fingers pressed inside of herself and she must have gasped, for Fili looked up and caught her eye, and he looked gutted, lips parted on a shaky groan.

"Show me," she whispered, and fingered herself shamelessly. "Show me how much you love him."

➵
Kili had a habit of passing out asleep right after reaching his peak, and it was wonderful, not to be alone in the precious spaces afterward. Tauriel fit herself to Kili's other side, her naked body pale and perfect and lightly glazed with sweat, and she stroked her fingers through his hair with the fondest of smiles on her face.

"He looks so young like this," she murmured, and Fili couldn't help but agree.

"He is young," he reminded them both. "I have tried my best to be the one to grow up too fast. One of the royal line deserves to have a childhood."

Tauriel chuckled softly, a thought occurring to her. "I seem to have a way with princes," she murmured, and Fili put two and two together quick enough and laughed with her.

"Well," he said, quiet and sure, "I am not surprised. You have qualities any princess would value."

"Such as?"

She looked genuinely curious, and he wondered that she seemed so naïve, despite her years.

Fili took her hand and laced their fingers together, tangled in his brother's hair. "You're kind and noble, even to those you have no reason to love. You do not believe that a man's worth is determined by his race or the line of his family, but by his actions, and his intentions. You do the right thing, not because you expect repayment, but because you can, and it is the right thing to do. You treat all others with respect and courtesy - but are swift to bear justice to those who betray that respect."

Tauriel was staring at him, eyes wide, flickering firelight reflected in their gleam. Her lips parted as if to speak - then she closed them, swallowed. She did not look as if she knew what to say, and Fili hadn't meant to drive her to speechlessness, but it was unquestionably endearing.

"...Snow Queen," she muttered, and Fili's heart missed a beat.

"I'm sorry?"

"You called me Snow Queen, weeks ago. Do you remember?"

How could he forget? He did not regret it, though he wasn't sure any longer what he'd meant. "Yes."

"How..." Tauriel trailed off and her eyes turned down to their interlocked fingers - short and small and rough and tan, woven in with long, graceful, and pale. "How was I to know you thought so highly of me, if that was what you called me?"

Her braids were coming undone, and for a moment, Fili imagined himself doing them back up himself, imagined braiding in beads of his own making - interspersed with Kili's, of course. He imagined slim elven fingers twisting the sides of his mustache and taming the wild mess of dark knots that lay on Kili's head. He pictured following in his uncle's footsteps, breaking the rules and drawing up a marriage contract that gave rights as if each brother had an equal share in their treasure of treasures. He pictured Tauriel, clad in emerald and silver, a just and loving queen to bridge the divide between elf and dwarf in a new age of the Not-So-Lonely Mountain.

Then all his thoughts fell away, leaving words like skeletons behind.

"The word for snow in the language of my people translates roughly to 'white rain'," he said. "We have a story we tell our children - that the snow coming down is the dust of the faraway stars, wrapping us up in their sparkling light." Beneath their hands, Kili stirred, and a third hand came up to cover theirs with a perfect warmth. "Unlike other races, we welcome winter, for we forge the best weapons in the cold, we cut gems and cure meats, we are mountain people, built for harsh winters and the beauty of cold, clear mornings. When I call you merzûkhinh, I do not think you distant and untouchable and too precious to hold. To me, you are the gift that starlight gives, and you may be delicate, but your fury and strength can bring a city to its knees. You bring warmth with you," he added. "For fire without snow is sweat and heat and overbearing. We - "

"We need you," Kili interrupted, continuing Fili's thoughts exactly. "We're strong together but without you we're too much and not enough, we're fire and stone. Stay," he whispered, and now his hand drifted up to cup her face. "Stay, âzyungmâ."

"Are you going to tell me what that one means?" she asked.

"No," Fili said firmly, and he could feel Kili grin into the skin of his arm. "A secret language is secret for a reason, but perhaps you will come to know what it means, in time."

"Im dartha, melethryn," she murmured in fluid Sindarin. "I will stay."