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Bella Baggins had once considered herself a normal, well-to-do hobbit lass…but that went out the window when a Company of dwarves ransacked her pantry.
So now she considered herself a hobbit burglar who was friends with dwarven royalty and who had no fixed residence (having given Bag End to Drogo and Primula).
Which was how she came to be sat in a makeshift tea room with a now scarred Princess Kili and their loyal Scribe Ori.
Kili growled to herself as she fumbled over another fletching.
"I thought that after the battle you never wanted to see another arrow again, Princess." Ori questioned meekly over her tea cup.
"I said I never wanted to see one sticking out of my brother’s back again.” the dark haired darrowdam corrected, “But we’re not here to talk about my brother’s foolishness.”
"Then why are we here?" Bella asked amusedly.
"To get you and my uncle back together of course!"
It was hard to believe that Kili was both older than Bella by twenty three years and a hardened warrior when she looked so earnest.
"Kili…"
"He just needs to prove that he still loves you," Kili overrode Bella’s protest, "But he’s not doin’ that because he thinks you no longer love him even though you clearly do.”
Bella sighed and let Kili ramble on about making Thorin go on long, complicated quests in revenge for temporally banishing their hobbit.
"We…we could just say that Bella wants to be courted in the ways of the Hobbits." Ori points out, "You did say yourself that it’s a complicated process." She reminded Bella. In fact, Dori had almost insisted that the burglar tell him everything so he could enforce the idea on her and Dwalin during the quest. Kili grinned wickedly.
Thorin Oakenshield, King of Durin’s Folk Under the Lonely Mountain, knew it was going to be a bad day the minute his niece walked into the King’s Study.
Kili religiously avoided the place, her reasoning was that she 'wasn't queen yet thank you' but Thorin and Fili both knew it was really because the Princess was too unused to being in a mountain, having been born on the road and having spent her formative years either travelling or in forests.
"Good Morning Uncle." She sung, slumping into the high back chair next to the unlit fireplace.
"Good Morning Niece, and to what do I owe this visit." Fili wouldn’t be here until later in the day, as he would be checking the Guard with Dwalin.
"I come with a proposition from our burglar." the young Princess smirked, noting how tense her uncle had suddenly become, "She says she’s willing enough to take you back…if you court her in the manner of the Hobbits.”
"She wants me to what?” Thorin was taken aback. Bella had never really seemed to care about the tiresome (her word, not his) courting rituals of the Shire -
"Only because it would be disrespectful to her peoples’ ways…and your all about respect, aren’t you Uncle?”Her words had a bitter steel to them, forcing them both to remember how Durin’s Line, everything they had fought for, how Bella was nearly lost because he had succumbed to the dragon sickness and created possibly irreparable cracks between them all.
"We’ve made it easy for you, Bella got Ori to write everything down." Kili threw a loosely bound book onto his desk before stalking out of the room like she’d never been there.