How I Leave You

The Secrets We Keep

Me?

Queen of Erebor?

Married to Thorin Oakenshield?

The feeling is faint at first, only bubbling in the outermost part of my fingertips as I hold out my braids to inspect them. The silver bead gleams as much in the morning light as it did in the night. Such beauty.

On them, engravings of a sort are marked into the metal. Khuzdul, I would guess, granted that I cannot make out the letters.

None of that matters. Soon, I shall learn to decipher the language of his people.

Of my people.

The realization strikes me then. At last, I am no longer alone. And never will I be so again.

By the gods, I have to tell someone. I fear I might die if I keep the news in any longer.

Tauriel's chamber is with the other guest rooms at the other end of the mountain, though the prospect of the trek there isn't why I refrain from going. No, it's knowing that, even after coming all that way, she probably would not even be there.

Instead, I head to a room much closer to my own.

Kili's.

The great wooden doors have iron ornaments on them. Clearly, they were created with intimidation in mind, but it would take more than that to keep me from barging through them.

For that is exactly what I do.

The doors swing open, and before I can catch myself, I have blurted out:

"I'm engaged."

Only then do I take in the sight that greets me. I was not wrong to have thought that Tauriel would be here. The issue, it seems, is that I failed to consider what she would be doing here.

On the bed, Tauriel is sprawled across the loin of Kili, who lies beneath her as naked as the day he was born. Clearly, she had been riding him, for he is still inside of her, immensely enjoying himself from the looks of it.

At my entrance, they both turn towards me, and she stops her movements at once. Out of the two of them, he clearly looks the least happy about my being here, but I could truly not care less. And though an apology leaves my mouth, I hardly even feel ashamed as I step outside, leaving them to get decent.

"Can this not wait?" Kili yells from the other side of the door.

"No," I yell back, because it can't.

Not a moment longer.

The giddiness still hasn't left my body as Kili opens the door after a few minutes, only clad in trousers, his bare, hairy chest proudly protruding beneath his long hair.

"Do naiads not knock?" he grumbles, positioning himself so that I may enter the room.

"What fun would that be?" I wink, making my way by him and into his chambers.

There, I find Tauriel on the edge of the bed, putting on a dark green dress. But before speaking as much as a word to her, I turn towards Kili, silently asking him to leave.

"You can hardly be serious," he says, finally catching onto the way I eye the door behind him.

"Oh, I am." I cross my arms, nodding at the exit. "Deadly so."

"What, I'm not even allowed into my own chambers anymore?"

"Sorry," Tauriel smiles. "Mine are so terribly far away."

Dramatically, he sighs.

"What's the matter?" I mop. "Not used to being told no?"

He shakes his head, giving up the fight.