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As Kíli entered the Dale courtyard, his heart was thumping as much from anticipation as from the fact that he had run down the last two streets to get here. Would he ever get used to the thrill of meeting her and knowing that she had waited especially for him? Yet as he glanced around the empty yard, his heart sank.
He knew Tauriel could not have forgotten their meeting, so she must have been detained by her duties as a co-captain of Erebor and Dale’s ranged patrol. Of course he understood why those duties must, for now at least, come before her private meetings with him. Still, he hated to lose any time with her, especially since he only had the afternoon free before his own duties resumed. Kíli huffed and flopped back against the trunk of the courtyard’s only tree to await her arrival.
Laughter fluttered above him, soft as summer wind in the leaves. “Up here, silly dwarf.”
Kíli sprang up and tipped his head back. There she was, seated on a branch of the tree.
“Aha! I should have known. Is it like being home in Mirkwood up there?”
She laughed again, more freely this time. “Hardly! Still, it is very pleasant. I can see Ravenhill Tower, and I watched you riding your pony all the way here.”
“If I’d known that, I would have done a few tricks.” Though in truth, he was doubtful whether the stunts that had pleased the girls of Ered Luin—jumping fences or riding backwards—would be enough to impress an elf.
Yet her look was intrigued. “Next time we ride together, I shall ask you to show me. Fíli told me of the riding games you would play together.”
“As you wish, my lady.” He swept her a jaunty bow.
Kíli eyed the tall, straight bole of the tree. The lowest branches were out of easy reach even for someone of elvish stature. “How did you get up there?”
She smiled down at him. “Tis not so hard, if you know the trick of it. Let me help you.” She shifted, catching hold of the main trunk of the tree.
“That’s all right, Tauriel. I’m happy down here.” Even his longing to be close to her was not enough to make him trust his weight to something so unreliable as a tree branch.
She dropped lower on the trunk, suspended by one arm from the lowest branch. “Here, take my hand.” She reached her other arm down to him.
Kíli stepped back, grinning. “Oh no, I’m not letting an elvish sorceress trick me into a tree.”
Tauriel giggled. “You’ll be very safe; I promise.”
“Not safe enough!” He turned and trotted back out of the courtyard.
“Kíli!” she called laughingly after him.
Once out of the yard, he rounded a corner and bounded up a stair along the outer wall of the house to which the yard belonged. At the top, as he had guessed, was the balcony overlooking the yard, beside Tauriel’s tree. Kíli leaned out over the railing and called down to her, “See? Now I’m higher than you are.”
She looked up at him, her face radiant with surprise and pleasure. Tauriel swung her legs up to the next branch, and within the space of a few heartbeats she had climbed to his side.
“Good afternoon, Captain,” she said.
“And the same to you, Captain.” He leaned forward as far as he dared, and thankfully she closed the rest of the gap to meet him in a kiss.
“Have you ever fallen out of a tree?” he asked as she settled back.
Tauriel sniggered. “I have.”
Kíli laughed, delighted by her honesty.
“You ask impertinent questions, dwarf,” she said, but Kíli could tell by her smirk that she was as amused as he.
“I wish you and I could have been a lass and lad together.”
“What, so you could see me fall out of trees?”
“No! Well, maybe. It is difficult to imagine.”
Her smile deepened, and Kíli could easily imagine the face of a young elven lass who might once have fallen from a tree.
“Mahal, Tauriel. If you’d been a lass in my dûm, I would have done the stupidest things for you.”
She giggled. “You think I am to be won by stupidity?”
“I did stupid things for other girls. I wish I could have done them for you.”
“Kíli, we are neither of us as old as you seem to think. And there is plenty of time yet for stupidity.” She drew up her knee and planted a foot on the branch where she sat, then sprang up to a higher branch above his head. In another moment, she had flipped head downwards, suspended by her knees, her face level with his.
“Tauri—”
She caught his face and drew him into a kiss.
Between his surprise and the strangeness of their positions, Kíli found he did not quite know how to proceed. His usual technique did not seem to work right with a lass who was upside down—he had certainly never kissed this way before. Indeed, he felt like a much younger dwarf attempting a first clumsy kiss. Her lips didn’t move in the way he expected, his chin kept getting caught on her nose, and it was impossible to do any of the usual things with his hands.
When he felt her laughing, he drew back. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted, delighted nonetheless.
“Me, neither.”
He leaned in slowly this time, angling to avoid her nose. He pressed parted lips to hers and waited for her to respond before moving again. There, that seemed right. Reaching around the curtain of her hair, he laid his hands on the back of her exposed neck. As he pressed his thumbs behind her ears, Tauriel moaned softly against his mouth, so he continued the movement, pressing thumbnails up the backs of her ears and fingers through her hair.
“I think I’m getting better at this,” he murmured.
Tauriel made an affirmative sound. “Are we not both very young and full of stupidity?”
“Mmm, very.” He nuzzled against her, stilled as she nibbled his lip. It was fascinating how even that sensation seemed new and unfamiliar.
When she finished kissing him, Tauriel wore another girlish grin. “Do you know something, Kíli? I do believe I love you just as much upside down as I do right side up.”
“That’s good. Now, don’t move.” He drew his tobacco pouch out of his pocket and searched inside it for a moment. Then he removed something and, reaching up, pinned it to the edge of her collar. “There.”
She gripped his shoulders and summersaulted down onto the terrace behind him.
When Kíli turned round, she already held his gift in her palm: a glittering spider, its body a single faceted black spinel and its legs and head cast from gold. Eight tiny garnets served as eyes, and diamonds glinted from the joints of each delicate leg.
Her eyes flicked up to meet his own, and Kíli knew she was happy. “You fell in love with me while I killed spiders, didn’t you? I saw the look on your face.”
“And I saw the look on yours.”
She smiled, vulnerable. “How could I miss your admiration? You were the first man to think me beautiful for killing something.”
Kíli made an offended noise in his throat. “Are you sure all the men in Mirkwood aren’t blind?”
“I think with the exception of Legolas, those who admired me preferred to look past my love of battle,” she admitted, sounding more amused than rueful.
“But I don’t understand. I thought elvish women were permitted to fight.”
“We are. But slaying, whether in battle or in the hunt, is not considered feminine. Oh, it is not shameful for a woman to do those things. But they do not add to feminine beauty, which is to nurture and heal and give life.”
Kíli regarded her warmly. “You healed me.”
“Yes.” He eyes glinted with humor. “But you were first smitten when I had blades in my hands.”
“Dwarvish women do not fight,” Kíli explained. “So I didn’t know a maid could be both beautiful and deadly. I’d never seen anyone like you before, truly.”
She flushed, obviously deeply touched.
“It’s a mercy you agreed to court me. I would never have met another girl to suit me, after finding a rare gem like you.” He took her hand, and she pressed his in return.
“Do not dwarves have the keenest eye for gems?” she said.
Kíli nodded. “Yes, it’s true. But I still think all your elvish men must have weak eyes.” He wrinkled his brow. “Maybe it’s from squinting in that gloomy forest for thousands of years. Will you forgive me for being glad, though?”
She gave him a tender look, then pinned the spider back on her collar.
“I’m glad, too,” she said.