#when she threatened my dark skinned uncle with mace for getting mad at her when she asked his perfectly content light skinned daughter

[weed-cat]

"violent white women"

genuinely genuinely it is so fucking telling that whitefems are so adamant that women are incapable of violence for cruelty's sake by nature of being female. tell me that you're covering your ass for some heinous shit without telling me that you're covering your ass for some heinous shit.

[specialagentsnark]

Marriage of Choice - Chapter 1

It’s Kili Tuesday somewhere! This is the first chapter of the last installment of my Marriages of Erebor series that can be found on AO3. You can find this chapter there by going here.

Kili had always been the spare prince. Always been the Golden Heir's shadow and companion. He knew his purpose and place. After retaking Erebor, he's surprised and just how much his life changed because of it.

Tauriel believed she would be captain of The Greenwood's guard for the rest of her life, expected to die in battle for her king. But she's been banished and everything has changed. Elves don't like change. 

Chapter 1

In retrospect, trying to tell Tauriel he loved her as he died wasn’t one of his better choices.

He should have told her to run.

Not that it would have done any good.

Still, dimly hearing Tauriel trying to avenge him as he slipped beneath the haze of pain into oblivion tortured him more than the agony from his gaping wound.

At least he had the comfort of her lovely face being the last thing he saw, even if she had been bleeding, panicked, and staring at him in pleading desperation as she struggled to get to her feet, to move, to do something as the pointed end of Bolg’s mace plunged into his chest.

He welcomed death, sending a silent prayer to Mahal to keep Tauriel safe as he traveled to the Halls. At least Fili would be there to meet him.

Amad was going to kill them when she followed after them into death.

~*~*~

He drifted in darkness. If he concentrated, he could feel himself moving in two different directions, jerkily at times, as if two people held onto him and were trying to pull him to one of two places.

He could hear people arguing. Deep voices growling in what he was sure was khuzdul, but some of it he didn’t understand although some of the words sounded familiar to those he knew, as if what he heard somehow preceded the language he spoke with his family. Ancient khuzdul perhaps?

It didn’t matter.

He just wanted to get to the Halls. Considering what he’d seen, Fili would be there, waiting for him. He belonged with his brother after all. Tauriel hadn’t died alongside him. She couldn’t have. He’d have to wait for her and hope they found each other either in this life or once the world was remade.

The voices though, weren’t familiar. No one he knew sounded like them. Behind their arguing, he heard singing and hammer falls. Someone worked a smithy. Someone with a deep resonating voice that he felt more than heard at this distance.

Then there were the times when the voices grew dim.

He could hear her singing. Songs of hope. Songs of longing. Songs of calling. He didn’t understand the words but the emotion behind them made his chest ache anew as his soul understood. He tried to talk to her. To tell her anything. But the darkness pulled him away again and her voice drifted as the arguers returned again.

The voice behind the arguers sang on steadily and the vibration that rolled through him and the hammer blows that rang out counterpoint soothed his impatience. Really, he just wanted to be with Fili.

And maybe, maybe Fili could introduce him to the dwarf he’d only ever heard about. To the father he never knew.

Vili.

He’d imagined meeting his father in the Halls so many times but he could never fully bring the thoughts into clarity. He’d only seen the one portrait of his father, commissioned just before he died. Somehow, he couldn’t bring the dwarf out of the painting and into his imaginings. His mother said it was Mahal’s will that they would not be able to clearly imagine the Halls and the fact he couldn’t bring it to the forefront of his mind only proved how close he was to how it would truly be. It still frustrated him so much.

But now. Now he would finally meet Vili. He had so many questions. Had he known about Kili? How had he felt? Had he been able to watch over them from the Halls? Why didn’t he fight harder to stay alive?

Was Vili proud of him?

He could hear her again. Desperation starting to ring in the songs. His chest ached more than ever.

For the first time since he started drifting, he felt something in his hand. He couldn’t see it. The dark was too thick and all-encompassing but there was a familiarity to it.

Fili.

Some of his anxiety dissipated. Fili would be there when he met Vili.

But Fili started pulling away from the arguers. Away from the sounds of khuzdul. Away from the Halls. Away from what he was sure was the sound of Mahal working in his smithy.

Away from his father.

“It’s all right,” a voice said from the dark, the tone hazy and distorted. Someone he’d never heard but familiar all the same. “Go back together. Your mother needs you more than I do. Tell her I love her.”

“Yes, Adad,” Fili’s voice murmured and the pull on Kili’s hand increased.

“But-” he protested, straining against Fili’s grip a little.

“I’ll be here when you are meant to come.”

“Adad.”

“I love you, my boys.”

The presence slid away and the cold weight in his hand solidified into Fili’s and another pair wrapped around his. Warmth started pushing away the darkness. He felt the hands around his shift, relax, grip tighter, twitch, settle.

He still heard her sing. Louder now. Persistent. Relieved.

Exhaustion pulled on him and he fell into oblivion for a time.

Finally, he resurfaced.

She was there, bent over him, her hands holding his and Fili’s together, her lips ghosting against his knuckles as she sang quietly.

“Amr â lim ê ,” he croaked.

She jumped violently and dropped their hands, the word she’d been singing rising into a yelp of surprise. She looked down at him.

“Kili!” Tauriel gasped and suddenly she was off the stool she’d been sitting on by the head of his bed. She sank onto her knees at his side, taking his free hand from where it lay at his side and pressed it to her forehead as she murmured prayers, tears swimming in her eyes.

He let go of Fili’s limp hand and tried to reach for her. Agony ripped through him, searing from his chest into his arm and down to his fingertips, white hot fire slicing beneath his skin.

His chest hurt , by Mahal.

“No,” Tauriel said, shifting again and sitting on the bed next to him. “Don’t move. You’re grievously injured still.”

He ignored her and steeled himself against the pain. He reached up and tangled his fingers in the length of red hair he could reach, trying, trying to reach her face. “Amr â lim ê ,” he said again.

She caught his hand and bent, placing it against her cheek and staring at him, tears running down her cheeks, sliding onto his hand and down his wrist to soak into the sleeve of the tunic he wore. She breathed prayers of gratitude to any listening Valar against his palm.

Summoning what little determination he had left, he pulled her to him and kissed her gently, wincing slightly as white hot fire flared out from his chest.

Grief ate at him even as joy crushed him into a relieved pile of goo. He’d been so close to seeing his father for the first time. And now he’d have to wait again.

But Tauriel was here, her skin warm beneath his shaking fingers, her lips pressed softly against his. He breathed easier than he had in that place of nothing but sound with her by his side. The pull of the Longing gone again. Could someone go mad in the Halls as they waited for their One to arrive after them once they’d met?

She leaned back and gazed at him a moment longer. She took a steadying breath and placed his hand over Fili’s again. “Forgive me,” she said. “You’ve just woken and I-”

“Never apologize,” Kili rasped. “Not for something like this.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “I’ll send for Oin and your family,” she said.

Kili blinked in confusion. Fili was beside him and surely he hadn’t been asleep so long that his mother had arrived. Then he realized. “Thorin survived Azog then?”

“Barely,” Tauriel said. “Don’t move,” she added and her fingers trailed along his arm as she moved toward the door.

Kili relaxed, his eyes drifting to the ceiling above him. Green stone. He was in the mountain then. Good. Shelter. Shelter was good.

Tauriel returned a few moments later and took her seat by his head again. He watched her move. She smiled at him but did not reach out to touch him again.

“Were you hurt?” he asked once she’d settled again.

“Not badly,” Tauriel said. “My wounds have healed and my heart beats easier now that you are awake.”

“You gave us quite a scare there, laddie.”

Kili tore his eyes away from Tauriel’s face to the doorway. Oin walked in and to his bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“Chest hurts,” Kili said. “Tired. Relieved. Uncle survived?”

“Everyone survived,” Oin said. “You are the last one to keep us all wondering. Now that you’re awake, we know. Everyone came out of it alive. Your brother woke about a week ago. You’ve been lazing about like usual.” There was a small smile tugging at Oin’s lips, not that Kili needed to see it to know Oin was trying to lighten the mood in the room. For such a gruff old dwarf, he could sometimes have a good bedside manner.

Sometimes.

Kili yawned as relief threatened to pull him back into sleep again. Mahal that hurt !

“Rest,” Oin ordered. “I’ll check your wounds. Best thing now is for you to sleep as much as you can.”

“I want to see Uncle first,” Kili said.

“He’s on his way,” Tauriel said to Oin’s questioning glance.

Oin nodded and moved over to a counter to start mixing what Kili was sure would be a truly foul tea for him to drink to help him sleep and ignore the pain. He let himself drift, not quite allowing sleep to draw him under, but still doing his best to distance himself from the ache in his chest.

Movement by the door caught his attention and he pulled himself out of the half-asleep haze he’d dropped into. His vision had blurred and he blinked a few times to clear it. “Uncle?” he asked. “Is it really you?” Even though Tauriel and Oin had told him Thorin had survived, he still needed to confirm it for himself. To see the great Thorin Oakenshield standing strong and tall as he ever had.

“Yes, Kili. It’s me,” Thorin said and his shoulders seemed to sag in relief. The braids around his face shifted and Kili blinked. Something wasn’t the same. He blinked again, trying to bring Thorin into focus even as sleep tried to pull him back into the healing darkness again.

“Why is there a marriage braid in your hair?” he finally asked. “And who is it for? I don’t recognize the second pattern?” From where he lay, he could see twists and turns and patterns for bravery, martial status of the highest order, love, sacrifice, and so much more that was hard to take in when he couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus entirely.

Someone coughed and Kili dragged his eyes away from Thorin.

“That would be me.”

Bilbo, their hobbit burglar fidgeted where he stood next to Uncle, a matching braid in his short hair. Kili was impressed Thorin’d managed to even weave the braid into the shorter, curly hair.

If he hadn’t been hurt so badly, Kili would have laughed at the picture the two made. Awkwardly standing there, trying not to look guilty as if they were a pair of starcrossed lovers from different worlds defying everyone they came in contact with.

Then again, Thorin was now King of Erebor, the greatest dwarf kingdom there ever was and would be again given enough time. And Bilbo was.

Well.

A hobbit of the most respectable sort that had braved the world to aid a group of thirteen mad dwarrow as they went to fight a dragon.

The world was watching them, wasn’t it?

Guess that just meant Kili would have to support this with every fiber of his being.

He’d already been doing so since the Carrock after all.

“Took you long enough, Uncle,” Kili quipped and chuckled. Agony flared again in his chest and he winced, trying not to gasp for air and make it worse.

“None of that now,” Thorin said and there was only a little of the usual gruffness that he often used when reprimanding him and his older brother. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. In pain.” He reached up carefully, feeling more pain shoot down his arm. He touched the bandages on his chest, feeling how thickly they padded him, holding his innards inside him where they belonged he suspected. “Feel like I got stomped on by a dragon.”

“Not quite,” Bilbo said gently and Kili could hear the worry dripping from his tone. “You should rest. We just wanted to see you awake for ourselves.”

Kili waived a hand weakly into the air. “Hear I am,” he groaned out with a cheer. “Oin said Fili woke?”

“About a week ago,” Thorin said and more of the apprehension Kili felt dissipated. There was still some there that he was sure wouldn’t leave until he saw his brother’s eyes open for himself, but it was a start. “You’ll both survive though some wounds will take longer to heal, if they ever do.”

Kili remembered Fili falling. Remembered seeing him land. The way his leg had crumpled under his unconscious form.

“Fili’s leg?” he asked quietly, feeling a bit sick. He should have gone to the upper levels of the tower. It had made more sense. Archers were more useful on higher ground. Why hadn’t he insisted?

But that wasn’t fair, was it? If he had, Fili would have had to watch him fall, seemingly to his death. Their roles would have only been reversed and then possibly not for the better.

“Aye,” Thorin broke into his thoughts, “that’s one of the worst ones.”

“Oin said if he works hard he may heal entirely from it,” Bilbo added as if to reassure both Thorin and Kili for which Kili was grateful.

“That’s good,” he said, vowing to help Fili with his recovery as soon as he could haul himself out of this bed. “I’m glad.” Fatigue dragged his head back down into the pillow. He was spent. “I’m so tired.”

“Sleep,” Thorin ordered. “There will be time for further words later.”

Kili didn’t even respond, just closed his eyes and let the darkness pull him under again. Distantly, he heard Oin start to talk to them and felt Tauriel’s fingers brush into his hair on the side of his head furthest from Uncle where he wouldn’t see.

~*~*~

He woke again and Fili still slept at his side, their hands gripped together again. The room was empty. Tauriel, Oin, Uncle, Bilbo, all gone. It was just him and Fili.

“I heard him,” Kili admitted to the quiet room and to his prone brother. “Adad.”

Fili’s chest continued the slow rise and fall of the sleeping.

“Part of me hates myself,” Kili went on, “I want so badly to meet him and the chance was there, but you and Tauriel drew me back and I resent you both, just a little bit for doing that.”

Fili didn’t so much as flinch as Kili’s grip tightened as much as he could. How long had they been lying on that bed, their muscles atrophying?

“And I hate myself for being glad you did because I’m still scared to meet him.”

Fili didn’t move.

“Do you remember being there? In that place of nothing but noise and feeling our hands gripping tightly? Do you remember him telling us to tell Amad he loves her?” Something clogged the back of his throat, cutting off his air to his nose. He drew in a shuddering, painful breath trying to pull whatever it was away so he could breathe properly again. He wasn’t sure what to do about the way his eyes started feeling like they were going to start watering at any moment.

“Do you remember him telling us he loves us?”

That thing was back and a sob caught in his throat.

Fili’s fingers twitched in his hand as he exhaled a breath.

Kili turned to look at his brother, tears tracking down the side of his face and across the bridge of his nose, dripping into his dark hair. He swallowed the lump again and debated the need to wipe the tears from his eyes but decided against it. The pain of lifting his hand wasn’t worth the minor discomfort of water on his face. It would dry in time.

“Of course you don’t,” Kili said, trying to convince himself that what had happened wasn’t as life-altering as it had been. For him at least. “You never remember anything you dream. I could tell you everything that happened and you won’t believe me.”

He closed his eyes and let sleep ease him away from his one-sided conversation with Fili. He didn’t hear Tauriel silently pad into the room and he was too far asleep to feel her wipe the tears from his face for him with a gentle hand.

~*~*~

Searing pain brought him gasping back to reality an undetermined time later and he cried out as something pulled at the wound in his chest. His back arched involuntarily, trying to lessen the agony.

“Hold him down!” Oin shouted. “He’ll tear the stitches and we could lose him!”

Weight landed on him, knocking the wind out of him. He struggled blindly, trying to see past the blur of motion.

Hands settled on either side of his face and red hair dropped around him, hemming in his vision so all he could see was her.

“Look at me,” Tauriel ordered in some strange mix of commanding officer and concerned lover. “You are all right and you need to be calm. We’re just changing the bandages.”

“It hurts!” Kili shouted and cried out wordlessly again when something tugged on angry, healing flesh.

“There’s corruption on the bandages but not in the wound,” Oin said, a bit of awe in his voice.

Tauriel didn’t look away from Kili’s eyes. “The ethelas will have drawn the corruption out,” she said.

“I’m aware what it does,” Oin groused. “I’ve just never seen it be such a perfect divide.”

More agony and Kili struggled against the bodies holding him again. Something slid out from beneath him.

“We’re going to need to wash you,” Tauriel told him, still holding his face still. “The old bandages are gone but you need to be cleaned before we bandage you again or corruption may try to return. Try to hold still or your stitches will tear.”

“Too late for that,” Oin grumbled.

Kili hissed as hot water hit his skin. He liked heat just as much as any dwarf, but this felt like it was just shy of boiling.

“Focus on me,” Tauriel said and bent closer to him, whispering words he didn’t understand. He flinched again as another hot cloth touched his bare chest but he obeyed her, taking in the soft tones of her voice, the gentle caress of her fingers, and the clarity of her eyes. Something in him shifted, and the pain drifted back in his awareness. He knew he was in pain, but it no longer seemed so important, like his body was aware of it but his mind didn’t find it anything more than an inconvenience.

He calmed beneath Tauriel’s hands and murmured words. He held still as dried blood and grime came away from his skin bit by bit under-skilled healers’ hands. He barely flinched when Oin stitched up his chest where he’d broken some of his stitches in his pained thrashing.

“Can you keep him calm while we lift him to rebandage him and change his bedding?” Oin said and his voice sounded so far away.

Whoever he’d been talking to must have responded and suddenly Kili was being lifted, sat up, and wrapped in lengths of bandages. Someone lifted him clear of the bed and he protested feebly as someone pried his hand from Fili’s.

Tauriel hushed him, promising he’d be set back down in a moment and that Fili would be right there with him.

He wanted to look away. He did. He wanted to find Fili and make sure they weren’t hurting him.

But then they were setting him down and Fili’s hand was wrapped around his again. He clutched at him and stared into Tauriel’s eyes. Someone pulled a new shirt on over his head, breaking his staring contest with her for a moment and pain flared again. He gasped but then she was there, pulling him back into that distance from his body.

“Sleep,” she coaxed. “You’ll feel better when you wake.”

“Don’t leave,” he tried to say, afraid if she did they’d start tearing away at his flesh again but he couldn’t find his mouth. He drifted back into sleep.

~*~*~

The next time he woke, the pain barely registered. It definitely didn’t hold a candle to waking up and seeing Tauriel’s smiling face.

“Welcome back.” She murmured quietly. “How are you feeling?”

Kili shifted a bit, testing his limbs and his ability to move. The minor discomfort from his chest only increased a little when he wiggled his toes and shifted his arms around as much as he could considering Fili still clutched his hand in his sleep.

“Better,” Kili said. “Not ready to go and fight more orcs yet, but give me another day or two and I’ll be up and about.”

“Make that a week or two,” Tauriel told him. “I’d rather you didn’t reinjure yourself so soon after being pulled back from the brink of death.”

“I’ll stay put,” Kili promised and reached up, ignoring the stab of pain in his ribs. He tangled his fingers in Tauriel’s hair, brushing them along the tip of her ear. Obligingly, she bent and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. Unsatisfied, Kili shook his hand free of Fili’s grip. He reached up and pulled Tauriel in for a deeper kiss.

“Better not let Uncle catch you.”

Kili flinched and Tauriel jerked away. The voice registered and Kili turned to his side. “Fili!” He wrapped his arms around his brother, relief all but banishing the pain. Still, he cringed when he bumped his brother’s shoulder.

“It’s good to see you awake, Kee,” Fili said and pulled away enough to press their foreheads together and Kili struggled not to tear up at the gesture. “Although I’d rather not wake up to the sight of you kissing someone. Couldn’t you let me sleep?”

“Loosen your grip then,” Kili said, thankful his voice remained steady despite the lump in his throat. Fili was alive and awake. No more wondering. He could see his brother for himself. “You’re going to have to get used to the idea though Brother,” he quipped, aiming for levity.

Fili’s grin belied the horrified shudder. “Please, don’t make me watch my little brother kiss anyone. The very idea is unbearable.”

Kili laughed and winced when his stitches pulled against his flesh. No more laughing. Too much pain.

They couldn’t say anything more as Thorin, Oin, and Bilbo entered the room. From the corner of his eye, Kili saw Fili flinch and avert his eyes. Kili waited patiently as Oin looked over Fili’s injuries, trying not to stare at the extent of his injuries. How had Fili survived ? By all rights, he should have died. They both should have. And from what he’d heard, Thorin should have too. Someone was looking out for the line of Durin.

Once Oin finished with Fili, he turned to Kili. Sighing, Kili let the healer work and tried not to show any pain when he nudged and prodded at his ribs and the few cuts that hadn’t fully healed yet. Finally, Oin stepped back. “They’ll both recover though Fili may limp for a long time, possibly forever. Certainly when the weather is poor.”

Kili glanced at Fili. Limp forever? Fili? No. There was no way. His older brother was indestructible. Always had been. Always would be. Wasn’t he?

Even as Kili felt dread and anxiety settle into him, Bilbo and Thorin cheered. He joined a half a second later. Worries for later. Fili could still recover. Oin had said so. Maybe Tauriel could help things along.

Fili’s hand found his again. His grip was almost bruising but Kili didn’t mind. He returned it and thanked Mahal for his brother and uncle.