So Comes Snow After Fire

26.iii

"I finished your wedding present."

Tauriel looked up from the wildflowers she held in her lap, her smile all the answer Kíli wished. The warm, early summer breeze lifted her hair about her shoulders and tossed the meadow grasses that grew thick and lush on these lower slopes of the mountain.

"Would you like to see it?" he went on.

"Should it not wait until the day of the wedding?"

"Nah." Kíli shook his head. "You'll want to wear it for your final gown fitting, and I want to be the first to see you in it."

She laughed softly. "I can hardly deny such a request."

"I thought not." He reached into the satchel that contained their lunch and drew out a bundle carefully wrapped in suede, then moved closer to where she sat on the grass.

Tauriel took the package from him and slowly unwrapped it, her fingers lingering over the string binding and the folds of suede. He knew she still found these material manifestations of his devotion a great deal to take in; he might have worried that he burdened her, had he not been sure that she was equally delighted and fascinated by the fact that his dwarven sensibilities demanded his love to be expressed in this tangible way.

The last fold of suede fell away to reveal a shimmering pile of silver. Tauriel gave a soft gasp as she lifted it and the jumbled silver strands resolved into an airy web of slender chains studded with hundreds of tiny white gems, frosty moonstones and clear diamonds. The necklace formed a broad collar meant to cover breast and shoulders, yet true to Kíli's word, it was very light.

"Oh, Kíli! This is— I have never—" She looked from the gems to his face, her own face gone crimson. "I am sure not even the late queen of the Greenwood ever wore something this rich. Maybe the Lady of Lorien, though—"

"Nonsense. It is just right for my thatrûna, my lady of stars." He reached for the necklace. "May I?"

At her nod, he draped the jewels about her neck. She shivered as the cool metal touched her skin and then leaned into him as his fingers skimmed her neck, beneath her hair.

"Amrâlimê," she whispered and kissed him once, soft and lingering.

As she sat back so that he might admire her, he smiled, equally pleased by her adoption of his dwarven endearment and by her beauty. The necklace fit just as he had intended it to, a smooth cascade of silver and gems flowing down from her throat to the edge of the scooped neckline of her elvish gown.

"I may never make jewels again for anyone but you," Kíli said. "I'm sure no one else could wear them as you do."

Tauriel laughed. "Thank you, my love. And here; I've something for you, as well," she finished without any trace of a jest. She caught up the flowers in her lap, which she had woven into a crown, and placed them on Kíli's head.

"Now I am as richly attired as you," Kíli said, pleased.

Tauriel said nothing, but Kíli knew from her look that his satisfaction was not lost on her. Sighing happily, she lay back on the grass, her hands tucked behind her head. As she breathed, the gems on her breast sparkled in the sunlight.

"When I made your necklace, I had in mind the Khagsmesmel, the most famous work of my ancestors from Ered Luin," Kíli said. "It was a necklace made for an elvish king, with elvish jewels out of the Farthest West. It is said to have contained gems uncounted, and yet to lie as light as a strand of flax about the wearer's neck."

Tauriel nodded, sending sparks flashing and scattering from her throat. "Yes, I've heard of it; it comes into the story of the Silmarils. My people call it the Nauglamir, 'the necklace of the dwarves.'"

Kíli laughed. "Khagsmesmel means something like 'necklace above all necklaces.'" He nudged a few gems into place along Tauriel's collarbone. "I don't claim my work can rival it, but I refuse to believe that even the elven princess looked more beautiful wearing it than you do in my own humble work."

"Kíli," Tauriel protested, amused. "Tinùviel was the most beautiful woman ever born among my people. No other elf has ever matched her."

"Maybe not according to your elvish poets. But poets don't know everything."

"Don't they?"

"No."

Kíli leaned down and kissed her, and it seemed to him that he kissed a star, all shining and aflame. Yet she smelled of sweet green herbs.

"Tauriel, I'm quite ready to marry you," he said when he had finished.

"Yes," she breathed, drawing one of his betrothal braids through her fingers as he leant over her.

"A fortnight," Kíli said, reminding himself as much as he did her. "One fortnight more, and you'll be mine. I can barely believe it. And still, I can hardly wait," he admitted, drawing back from her and sitting up once again.

Recently, he had found it quite maddening to be so near her, knowing how very close he was to the privilege of having all of her. Probably, it was just as well that he had been too busy in Erebor this past month with the final preparations for the wedding to see much of Tauriel, who had been serving as his deputy at Ravenhill. Seeing her often would have made him doubly impatient.

He turned aside to dig their lunch out of his satchel, and Tauriel sat up, too.

As he handed her a slice of bread with cheese and meat, she remarked, "This is a sumptuous feast compared to our first shared meal of traveler's bread on a barren mountainside. Do you remember?"

Kíli nodded; how could he forget that day shortly after the battle when he had left Erebor to meet with her for the first time? He had felt quite giddy with hope when he had found her, waiting as she had promised. And now, that hope was coming to fullest flower.

"And still," she went on with a conspiratorial smile, "tasteless as the fare was then, I shall always consider it one of the best meals I have ever spent."

Kíli smirked back at her. "I can ask Bombur to reprise the cram for our wedding feast."

"Ah, no! I was thinking of the company, not the food."

"Well, in that case, I'm sure I can arrange for some cheeky, reckless, smitten young dwarf to remain at your side throughout the feast."

"Don't forget he must be handsome, too."

"Hmm... That makes things a bit more difficult, but I shall see what I can do."

She laughed, bright and full. "I shall hold you to your word."