Chapter Text
The stars glittered in the deep night like jewels encrusted on a gown of velvet, and prior to this, prior to now, Kíli would never have thought them beautiful. Distant, they were, to his mind – they could not be held or polished, they were worth nothing compared to real gemstones...but that idea, perhaps, was a Dwarves interpretation. Now, however, he knew that the stars were at least as precious to Elves as any jewel that could be mined from beneath a mountain.
“This,” said Tauriel, raising a hand and pointing with her fingers, so slender compared to his, at the brightest star in the sky, “is that star which we call Gil-Estel. There is a myth surrounding it which I find to be particularly beautiful.”
“The mythology of starlight,” Kíli murmured softly, turning his head on the soft ground to look across at her. He heard her breath hitch ever so slightly as she, too, turned her head on the ground to look at him.
“Yes,” she said softly, “the stories of the stars are as old and as rich as we ourselves. There is truth in the stars – there we have stories, whereas there is nothing left for us on this earth but regret and the empty passage of time.”
Kíli didn’t like it when she spoke this way, although he knew that everything she said was true. He didn’t like to be reminded that she would live forever, had lived already for thousands of years. It made him feel finite.
“But,” he said then, “do you regret... anything? You’re still here.”
“I am,” Tauriel agreed, “I have chosen not to leave Middle-earth, and for every elf it is a choice. We are here because we choose to be, we are here still because our love for what we have here is too strong for us to steel ourselves to never see it again.”
“The forest.”
“And you,” Tauriel said, and her eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“You love me?” Kíli asked, for clarification, a smirk playing across his lips. He knew, of course, that she loved him. He just liked hearing her say it.
“I love you,” Tauriel affirmed, shifting slightly closer to him.
“And I love you,” he said, rolling properly over onto his side now. With the hand not pinned underneath him, he reached across and brushed his fingers across the planes of her face. She closed her eyes, and Kíli revelled in the exquisite beauty that he could call his.
“It is strange,” he said, “the way that life works.”
“Ilúvatar’s song is so,” she replied, and then a shadow of a frown passed across her face.
Kíli knew why, and he felt a twinge of... sadness? Bitterness?
“So as far as the creation of the world goes, I’m an accident. That’s okay. I can live with being an abomination, because at least I’m alive.”
“Don’t say that,” Tauriel cried, sitting upright and fixing Kíli with a fierce glare. “You are not an abomination – don’t say it, even in jest!”
“But I’m not wrong,” Kíli said, “am I? I shouldn’t exist.”
“But you do,” Tauriel said, and pulled him to her.
Kíli had thought that Dwarves loved fiercely, but he had known nothing of the passion of elves.
He could feel it, in the way that she held his hand, in the way that she danced with her bow and her knives, in the way that the she stared in silent rapture at the stars. In the way that she kissed him.
He had learned that elves loved with every fibre of their being, and he could only hope to ever match her fervour. It was, he supposed, a sign of their age. Time had left the elves with nothing but their love, and it was all that they had to give back to the world that held them.
And Tauriel, in turn, had learned the same of the dwarves. To her it had always seemed that life was ephemeral, and could only be lived in pursuit of love and that which is beautiful, which were often one and the same thing.
‘It is our fight,’ she had said to Legolas once, and he had understood the subtext in her words. They remained on Middle-earth because they chose to be – always the way west was open to them, and they had the choice of leaving this world forever. But they had not; they were here for a purpose, to love the world and to protect it.
But never, in all her long life lived within the borders of the woodland kingdom, had she considered the feelings of those other beings alive within the earth. Not immortal, they must live in the moment in a way that elves never would – and there was beauty in that, she decided, as she lay upon the grass revelling in Kíli’s touch and listening to the air finding passage within his lungs.
There was beauty in the way in which they loved, these other living things, because their love was all that they had, in an entirely different way.
Soft against hers, the touch of Kíli’s lips drew her away from her reverie and into the moment. Still without opening her eyes, Tauriel felt for Kíli’s waist, pulling him against her so that she would feel the warmth of his body – and he was always so warm – radiating against her. She then threaded her fingers through his hair, short and soft, eliciting a soft gasp.
I love you, her heart beat in a rapid tattoo, I love you I love you I love you.
“We all have a choice,” said Kíli later, as they sat braced against the chill of the night under a blanket that Tauriel had brought from her home.
“Not, I think, in everything,” Tauriel said, resting her cheek against the top of Kíli’s head. He was idly playing with her hand which rested in his lap. “Some things are decided long before they can ever come to pass, and so they do, and in these things even those of us which have been blessed with free will have no control, nor any choice.”
“Like what?” Kíli asked.
“Like falling in love.”
“Star crossed lovers?” Kíli asked, amused, and Tauriel smiled.
“I am not familiar with that term, but it sounds like an accurate one.”
“It means two people whose fates are crossed, you know? Like destiny, or something. No choice but to fall in love... and the term is often used to describe couples who beat ridiculous odds, so it probably is pretty accurate.”
“Star crossed lovers,” Tauriel tried the phrase in her mouth, found she liked it, “yes, I think that is perfect. The fates of some have been decided; who they love, they have no choice. It is destined to happen.”
“Do you think we were destined to happen?” Kíli asked, and Tauriel detected a note of uncertainty in his voice.
“Yes,” Tauriel said with surety, “because, and I’ll be honest with you, I did not think that I would...well, I did not think that love would ever be something that happened to me, let alone with a... well...”
“A dwarf,” Kíli laughed, the deep rumble of his voice bringing Tauriel a strange comfort, although against what she did not know.
“Well, yes,” Tauriel said, and she laughed too. “It’s so strange, and so against the grain of everything that has become customary for our cultures. Once, long ago in the Elder days, the Dwarves and the Elves existed in harmonious friendship. The west gate of the dwarf kingdom of Moria is inscribed in Elvish runes, and the password spoken to enter is in my tongue – did you know that?”
“No,” Kíli, surprised, looked up at her, “I honestly didn’t. How do you know that?”
“I’ve been around for a long time, Kíli,” she said, “not since the Elder days – but long enough to have eavesdropped on many important discussions.”
Kíli laughed then, long and hard, and Tauriel laughed too, partially just because one found it hard not to laugh when Kíli was happy. His laughter was infectious.
“Do you think we’re not the first then?” Kíli asked a few moments later, “the first unconventional dwelf couple.”
“Dwelf?” Tauriel repeated incredulously.
Kíli squirmed a little, slightly shamefaced and Tauriel laughed. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders she held him tight until he relented and laughed again, reaching up to hold onto her arm.
“Does it sound that silly?”
“Yes, my love, the word ‘dwelf’ is ridiculous.”
“Well, still,” Kíli said, “do you think that maybe we’re not the first? If elves and dwarrow used to be so close...”
“I’ve never thought of it before,” Tauriel said quietly, “but possibly we are not. We elves have few stories of love found between our people and those of other races – but just because we have no songs of such love doesn’t mean that it did not exist.”
“I’m going to believe that it did,” Kíli said stubbornly, and Tauriel smiled.
“I envy you the ability to choose what to believe,” she said, and in response to her somewhat sad words he turned around and kissed her fiercely.
“I,” he said as he pulled back, looking her directly in the eye, “have to choose what to believe. Your people have been around for thousands and thousands of years, Tauriel – you’ve seen your beliefs in action. I haven’t. History doesn’t exist for me the way it does for you, and I think that, combined with all the experiences I’ve had in my life allow me the right to be able to choose.”
“Of course,” Tauriel said, and lifted his hand to her face. She pressed a light kiss against his rough palm, and he closed his eyes and sighed.
“And I’m not normal,” he continued quietly after a few moments of peaceful pause, “I was raised on the road. I never had a home,” he opened his eyes again and looked her in the eye. “My brother and I... we’re different to other, older dwarves. We didn’t grow up with their strict culture, their ideas of society or propriety. You know, I never knew dwarves and elves were supposed to hate each other until I was about 60. I tried to have a chat with some elves we ran into on the way to the Iron Hills – they were taken aback but seemed willing enough to have a conversation in stilted Westron, until much to my surprise mum appeared out of nowhere, grabbed me by the ear and dragged me off back to the caravan, scolding me in Khuzdul all the way. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said, ‘those are elves. We don’t associate unless we have to!’
“I thought it ridiculous, you know? That I couldn’t do what I wanted; talk to whomever I wanted, just because of some dumb societal regulation. The same applies here – I don’t find the idea of loving you, or you loving me, to be anything other than normal...if, yeah, maybe a little unconventional. People like Thorin and I guess, yeah, my mum even –they’d be horrified. But that’s because they believe what their society taught them, that elves are awful. You just told me that dwarven and elvish societies actually weren’t always that way. Don’t you see? I have to choose what to believe, because what I know of life and love is so different from that of, well, basically everyone I know!”
Kíli took a deep breath as his tirade came to an end, suddenly realising that he’d been talking his feelings out more than he had in years. Tauriel had listened to his whole speech wearing an unreadable expression, but when he finished she nodded gravely.
“Yes, love,” she said, “I do see. You’ve made your own rules all your life and you’re not about to stop doing that now, with...well. Now there’s Erebor, now you have a chance to have a home...you’re not about to let that stop you.”
“Yeah,” Kíli nodded, face sombre, “yeah that’s about right.”
“I understand that,” Tauriel said, and kissed him. She tasted of earth and wine and something that Kíli thought might just be starlight.