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The first time Kili entered the King’s rooms, the world greeted him through the golden twinkle of the beads dangling from his veil, gleaming like coins in the dim light, quivering with every step of his feet.
They edged his vision and made the place look tiny, far far away, a luscious picture tucked in a frame on the wall – even the King, with his equally luscious mane and the firm set of his shoulders, seemed distant as he stared into the blazing hearth.
Kili knelt half a room away from him, one foot still in this other world where nothing was gilded and everything felt closer, real, tangible; no curling incense, no perfumed hair, just soap and his nightclothes and the comfort of his own bed.
“What’s your name?”
His voice was soft, Kili registered, quieter than he thought a King’s voice ought to be. Strangely undemanding.
“My lord,” he said, almost chastising, forgetting himself for a second. “It’s Kili.”
The King’s hands were a peculiar experience, up close. They lifted his veil, carefully letting it loop on the floor; one reached for the thick, fragrant mass of Kili’s hair, nudging it over his shoulder to reveal the thin, golden swirls of paint blooming on his neck and sneaking over his collarbone.
The thumb settled there, right there on his pulse, rubbing gently while Kili held his breath. He kept his gaze low, on the downy dusting of hair on the man’s exposed forearm, on the quiet rise and fall of the King’s chest, subject to the warmth of his foreign skin.
Why, his heart hammered. Why me. Why this.
“They’ll expect it to be smudged by morning,” the King pondered out loud, startling blue eyes fixed on that spot even while his hand was retreating back to his side.
“Are you going to kill me, too?”
The words came crashing like thunder out of Kili’s lips, a god’s judgement burning on a mortal’s tongue. Maybe he would die for this, instead. Maybe he would actually die for a reason.
Kili expected to be hit, to say the least, but the King didn’t strike him. He merely stood back, something like sadness flashing in his eyes. He pointed to a small bed to the far side of the room, overflowing with cushions and the luring gleam of silk.
“That will be your bed for the night.”
And with that, he was gone.
Nobody tried to kill him that night.
The second time he saw the royal chambers, it was once again through fine lace and golden embroidery and the chingching of jewellery around his ankles; his heart still pounding and clawing at his ribcage like a wild beast. One night of respite didn’t mean that he’d trust blindly and bare his flank for the King’s gem-encrusted dagger.
His Majesty acknowledged him from the edge of his own luxurious bed, his boots already discarded, the front laces of his tunic half-undone.
“I hope you won’t mind my sleeping here tonight,” he mumbled, his words muffled in a yawn, “I fear I’m too tired to look for a different accommodation.”
Kili’s back stiffened, his throat went dry. He steadied himself; it wasn’t like he hadn’t anticipated another wakeful night, after all.
He stole a fancy pillow from his pallet and then curled up with it by the fireplace, his back pressed to the wall, bare feet digging in the soft pelts draped on the floor.
“I will sleep here,” he declared, his eyes flaring like bolts of lightning, waiting for the rebuke. The young king shrugged though, raking a hand through messy braids and glinting beads.
“Well, then. Suit yourself.”
The last thing Kili saw was the smooth expanse of his naked back, the flexing of muscles underneath creamy skin, burnt with fastidious clarity in his mind. Then it was just darkness.
On the third night, the King sat across from him by hearth, curling his toes in the cosy furs just the way Kili remembered doing with wet sand on the shore, cool and pliant under his feet. That had felt like heaven summed up in a single sunny morning; this, this was a dusky limbo, the end of the tunnel nowhere in sight.
He folded in on himself, slipping pieces of jewellery off his wrists and ankles and piling them on the floor in a wobbly little tower.
“What am I doing here?”
He wondered how much resentment had ended up in that question; none the he could detect on the King’s face, anyway.
His Royal Highness looked him in the eye, perhaps for the very first time. He watched and let himself be watched, somewhat exposed out there in the light – suddenly close, reachable, with his eyes shining just so, his lips parted for a moment of uncertainty.
Kili tried to despise it, the play of light and shadows on him, the flames’ sensuous dance flickering in shades of gold and plum and tawny on his skin. He tried to foresee the betrayal, the little crack it would slither through sooner or later and come bite his head off in the night, when he least expected it. Somehow, it was a harder task than he would have estimated.
“Keeping me company,” King Fili replied at last. Kili snorted.
“You hate me, don’t you.”
Kili shivered. His toes itched to pull him on his feet and run for dear life right then, but Fili’s calm, distant tone kept him grounded, rooted to his makeshift pallet. His feet shifted unconsciously, a tinkle of silver bracelets trailing in the silence.
“People say you take a new lover every night,” he said, chewing on the words one by one, bitterness bubbling in the back of his throat, “and that none of them ever makes it back home again.”
The King’s head turned, braids sloshing like shallow waters around him and settling on his shoulders, and they tinkled with beads too. It made Kili wonder if they, perhaps, were both slaves to different powers.
“They say I kill them all.”
His voice had never sounded so sharp before. Kili didn’t know what to make of it, but his guts were twisting with rage.
“They say you kill them all,” he echoed, and it felt like biting more than speaking.
“And you believe them.”
“Yes.”
“As is your right to do.”
He watched Fili rise and dust his pants, making for his canopied bed without another glance at him.
Kili hated him like never before. He hated him for being a greedy, ruthless, manipulative killer and he hated him for not giving Kili the chance to say so out loud. It felt like poison wound tight around his stomach, clenching, cutting in and spreading like sickness.
He slept very little that night.
Three nights he was brought to the King’s chambers again, and for three nights neither of them uttered a single word. They slept on their separate sides of the bedroom, no shared glances, no half-bitten greetings, just mild darkness settling upon them, between them.
On the fourth night, a silver tray made its way into Kili’s corner: fresh fruit and nuts piled on a platter – strawberries, peaches, the juicy flesh of melon and the blood-red rubies spilled from pomegranates. Kili eyed it with suspicion, darting his gaze towards the King’s frame, finding him seated at the foot of his bed like he so often seemed to do.
For once, their eyes met.
“A truce?”
His Majesty’s voice rang quiet but still clear in the large chamber.
Kili took his time to study him; the outer calmness of his figure, betrayed by the nervous tapping of his fingertips on the furs spread out on the floor, the flickering of his tongue between his lips.
Kili sat down at last, deliberately keeping his eyes on the other man as he slowly, carefully pushed the tray a few inches away. He drew his knees against his chest and waited, as silence fell once again between them.
But this time around, it was short-lived.
“Alright,” the King sighed, nodding to himself, “alright. Fair enough.” He looked up, weary, somehow older than his years.
“I know you have no actual evidence besides yourself,” he began after a moment, “but I’ve only ever killed on the battlefield.”
He paused again, whether for effect or because he was as tired as he looked, Kili couldn’t tell.
“All the boys and girls you think have died to cater to my whims- they’re all alive and well. They were simply offered a job and lodgings at the palace.”
“In exchange for their service?” Kili couldn’t help but chime in, a blatant edge to his tone. His royal interlocutor shook his head, unfazed by Kili’s comment - only exhausted.
“That is what most people choose to believe.”
He fell silent after that, busying himself with the heart-shaped half of an apple, fumbling with it without any real interest. Kili watched him, wary, considering his words and what had transpired between them so far.
“If that’s not what you want from me,” he wondered out loud, halfway between confused and disbelieving, “then what am I doing here?”
Fili replied in the same, simple tone as the last time he had been asked this, as if the answer were as obvious as the moon rising high in the sky.
“Keeping me company.”
Kili searched his eyes, looking for the lie and finding nothing but weariness and a slight hint of hope; the nerves from before were now gone, replaced by relaxed muscles and that lonely, golden apple abandoned on the King’s lap.
Kili pondered, locked in his own thoughts. The chances that those horrors might have been just rumors were maybe thin, but they were already burning along with a little part of his pride.
He tried to prevent himself from pouting like a child, but never knew whether or not he had succeeded.
“You content yourself with poor company, then,” he muttered.
The small, on the verge of shy smile on the King’s face was a surprise.
“Aye, that I do.”
“Hey-”
If the smile came as a surprise to Kili, he was completely unprepared for giggles.
It burst out on a random midnight, breaking into the quiet like lightning.
“I think you’ve got the wrong definition of company.”
Kili had moved his pallet from wall, placing it before the fireplace to bask in the warmth and gentle light. He could see his own shadow cast on the silky sheets of Fili’s bed, quivering at the flames’ pace.
The King rolled on his side to face him, a comically messy head propped up on his hand.
“Hm?”
Kili squirmed a little on his own bedding, digging his chin into a plump green pillow.
“Company. It’s not just…” He made a vague gesture. “… being in the same room. Not always. It’s… it’s talking, too. Doing things together.”
The corner of Fili’s mouth twitched upwards in a lopsided grin, and Kili bit his tongue.
“Not that kind of things–”
Fili smiled again, just a little bit wider now.
“Let’s talk, then.”
Kili talked first, and then second and third as well, spurred on by Fili’s captivated gaze on him, by this way he had of drinking in every word and subtly beg for more.
He told Fili about his mother, and the things he missed the most about her – the tiny curls on her nape when she did her hair up, her marked partiality for boots rather than slippers, her unbreakable habit of spicing hot chocolate with cinnamon. The knack she had for baking perfect pies and burning everything else. The secret sprinkle of sugar on the crust, the solid, satisfying sounds of chopped apples on their small counter.
He told Fili of the books she had meant to read and never could, of the ones she had stolen from her brother and always maintained she knew nothing of.
He even told Fili her favourite tale, the one with a stubborn dragon with scales like ripe currants and tiny kitten claws, and of the thirteen little men who set out to steal their beards back.
He’d never heard a king’s laughter before.
When he was done, he realised that dawn had crept up on them, reaching azure fingers into the bedroom.
“Tell me another story.”
Kili looked up, where Fili was perched on the edge of his mattress, chin in the crook of his crossed arms - a soft, eager glow in his blue eyes, and it reached all the way down to his grin. The pale light gathered around him like a halo; it made his hair look softer, messier. Hadn’t it been an odd thing to call a king, Kili would have said that he was endearing.
“Tonight,” he promised, with a little smile of his own. “If you’ll still need company.”
He told Fili more stories, night after night after busy night. He reached into the depths of his childhood and then crafted some tales of his own, mixing mermaids and sleeping princes and stubborn scaly creatures, adding a little shipwreck here, an epic battle there, taking his liberties with lazy dragons and fire-breathing bees.
He talked and talked, weaving subplots together and losing himself into the magic of it, basking in the crescendo of Fili’s responses, his giggles and hearty laughter and questions and reverential silence accompanying Kili’s words, his imperceptible scooting closer when a story reached its climax.
It was, in a word, amazing.
Fili’s eyes contained more wonder than any rosy beach or deep blue forest Kili’s wild imagination could make up, and Kili reveled in that – he reveled in the way Fili would grow so utterly engrossed in his tales, and fuel Kili’s own dedication to them.
It quickly grew into a shared pleasure, savoured in the cosy nest of furs and charming firelight, and Kili found himself enjoying this odd companionship more and more. He challenged himself to find a new detail in the King’s expressions every night, and soon found it a dangerous, addictive little hobby.
As for the ruler himself, there were nights when he looked so exhausted, Kili could see he struggled to stay awake in the wee small hours. But no matter what, he never fell asleep without thanking Kili first; and for all his new penchant for storytelling, Kili never knew what to say.
They watched the ceiling sometimes, pictured new worlds in the gilded, meandering decorations. Kili would find white mountains and lurking perils in the shadows dancing on the walls; Fili would pin stars into the faintest cracks, and tell Kili how they could guide you in the desert, at sea – how they would help you find your way whether you were wading deep waters or rolling dunes.
Fili would slip out of his bed, and they’d lie together on the bottom of the ocean, find that it was just as soft as pelts, that it glimmered as golden as a crackling fire.
They’d name new constellations and watch shooting stars dive into the sea, their arms barely brushing, stardust collecting in their sprawled hair, glinting in their smiles.
Sometimes Kili’s eyes would blink open in the night, something burning low in his chest like embers, hushed and warm.
“Why am I still here?” He’d whisper, and touch his fingertips to the silver beads cocooned in the tangle of his and Fili’s hair.
Fili’s eyelashes would flutter like a tiny sparrow’s wings, his breath caught in his throat.
“Because I’m lonely without you.”
Kili would reach for King’s hand then, lead it to his own heart. There it would lie, their fingers interlaced, warmth woven into warmth.
“Don’t be.”
There were some things Kili didn’t tell him. That Fili’s eyes told tales when firelight found them; that they shone like a youngling’s when something sparked his curiosity, and burn like candles in the darkness when he was excited. That they smiled when he was pleased, a holy trinity of tiny crinkles in the corners, just one and two and three, so sweet Kili could have named them and kept them in his heart.
He didn’t tell Fili of the glint of moisture when he licked his lips; kept the secret of his dimples to himself.
He didn’t tell Fili how his hair sang like wind chimes when he moved.
He didn’t tell Fili that his hands were a story of their own – the strong fingers of a warrior, the weathered knuckles of a wise ruler, the rich cup of his palms, the soft ivory on the inside of his wrists - an intimate, fragile spot for lovers to kiss and cherish.
He couldn’t.
Kili wondered if he should have expected it, if he had any right to revel in it.
He let the hot chocolate spill on his tongue, relishing the rich texture, the faint aroma of cinnamon sparked on the tip of his tongue.
He saw pleasure light up Fili’s eyes, and felt it tingle on his own nape, on the privileged spots where their shoulders aligned and their naked skin touched.
He set their empty cups on the floor afterwards, and reached for Fili’s smiling lips, wiping off the fluffy cream caught up in his moustache with the pad of his thumb. Fili looked so pleased, so content, it made his heart wring in his chest.
“I’m waiting,” Kili confessed, soft so as not to disturb the burning fire. The King’s brow frowned, his grin widened playfully.
“Waiting for what?”
They were so close. He looked like a child again, Kili could see – his excitement, the thrill in his hushed voice, the clear remnants of ancient mischief still swimming just beneath the surface – and yet the adult, the man was still there as well, twinkling in the depth of his blue eyes, in the weight of his gaze when it lingered on Kili’s lips.
Kili felt himself shiver.
“For the day you’ll offer me a place in your palace and out of your life.”
The King’s smile faded, his lips sealed for a few moments.
The child was gone now; only the man left. And the man lifted his hand to cup Kili’s jaw, his thumb gently brushing Kili’s lower lip like Kili himself had done. Warmth radiated from his palm, sweet, dizzying, enfolding Kili’s entire being in its embrace.
“I offer you a place in my heart.”
Kili swallowed. His lips felt numb, his breath was resisting him.
“It can’t-”
“Kili.”
He looked in Fili’s eyes, and only then knew that he was trembling.
“Call my name.”
The broad, calloused hands cradled his face, Kili’s dark hair spilled over them.
“Please. Just once.”
His heart was racing, his breathing like broken music, his whole being drowning, sinking in the moment, in the call of Fili’s lips, of his freckled cheekbones, the tease of his braids falling over the line of his collarbone.
He leaned in, powerless, his skin on fire.
“Fili.”
It melted on his tongue, hot and easy and his. He grasped at it, finding purchase in the vowels, in the gentle rolling of the l, tasting it only once, like a holy prayer. It was like breaking a spell, and when Fili’s fingers entwined on the back of his neck and he kissed him, Kili felt free at last.
The first time he lay in the King’s bed, the fire was still blazing in the hearth.
He undid Fili’s braids, unraveling them lock by lock, and let his beads scatter like a handful of stars on the pillows. Fili took his bracelets in return, sealing the tender skin of ankles and wrists with kisses.
He held out his arms for Kili to settle in, and Kili complied in a heartbeat, letting himself be pulled down and over Fili’s welcoming frame.
“Fili,” he called once more, drunk on the very sound of it. Fili’s palms glided up his back, spreading on his shoulder blades like wings. His lips found Kili’s forehead, the troubled arch of his eyebrow, and there laid down his secrets.
“Please.”
He’d always remember it as magic – the sweet scent of chocolate lingering in wisps around them, the wonder of Fili’s thighs circled around his hips, the thrill of their bodies moving as one.
The very instant the world was made anew.
They lay together, Kili’s head cradled on Fili’s chest, dawn a delight to look forward to.
Kili nuzzled the fair chest-hair, kissing the sternum beneath, his heart alight with joy and relief.
“Why am I here, then?” He murmured, and Fili’s fingers slipped in his hair, one arm wound snugly around his waist.
“Because I love you.”
Kili hummed in appreciation, tilting his head back to place a new kiss on his lover’s jaw. He let their legs twine, and when dawn did come, it found them together still.