After the battle, Tauriel held Kíli's hand while the dwarvish physician stitched up the gash over his ribs. It was a painful business, but it helped to have her there to be brave for. Probably if Fíli had been with him instead, he'd have made a fuss over each needle prick, but he certainly couldn't have Tauriel thinking he was no better than an infant, especially since he already was so very much younger than she.
So he schooled the pain from his expression and kept his eyes on her face. Her own look was sympathetic and sweet, and she did not seem to care that he crushed her fingers in his own.
"Sorry," Kíli murmured, releasing her hand when the final stitch was tied off and the physician was putting away his tools.
Tauriel shook her head, dismissing his need for apology. Then she leaned forward and, right there in front of the half-dozen other dwarves in the medical tent, she kissed him.
Kíli stiffened and drew back slightly out of surprise. What was she thinking? Didn't she care that everyone saw?
She began to pull away, too, and then Kíli knew what she thought: that he didn't want to kiss her, when the truth was entirely the opposite. No matter what an elf did or didn't mean by a kiss, he certainly couldn't let her believe him indifferent to her.
Catching her about the neck, Kíli drew her to him, heedless of the sharp tug of fresh stitches in his side. He didn't really know what he was doing, but hopefully enthusiasm made up for technique. Her lips were soft and sweet, opening gently against his mouth as if she wanted to drink him in, and then he felt the tip of her tongue barely brush him—
"D'ye want ta pull all yer stitches loose again?"
They broke off, Tauriel straightening as if nothing had happened, though Kíli couldn't help smirking.
The white-faced physician continued to scold them for half a minute more, but Kíli did not listen and neither, it seemed, did Tauriel for she finally offered Kíli a smile with lips still bright from his kiss.
Tauriel remained with him all of the next day. Someone had needed to watch that he didn't slip into a fever from an infected wound, and Kíli was glad she had offered to take that duty. Everyone else seemed to have more important things to do in the aftermath of a battle than pay attention to him, and so here he sat with this elf lass in his private corner of the medical tent—there were some perks to being royalty, after all—quite alone amidst the bustle of the camp. If it hadn't been for the constant pain in his side, he'd have been perfectly content.
And then when she fell asleep kneeling beside his bed, with her head in his lap, he knew he was happy, aches and all.
Tauriel was so perfect: the feathered arch of her brow and her pale high cheeks dusted with freckles, the graceful curve of her ear and such waves and waves of hair like spun copper.
Cautiously, he ventured to touch those bright strands. Oh, they were smooth and soft, and he wanted to go on drawing them through his fingers.
He caught a larger handful, divided it evenly, and then began a braid, his fingers deftly following the pattern his mother had taught him when he was still a small dwarfling. He didn't ever do his own hair, but he helped his brother sometimes or Thorin or Mum. Braiding was something you did for family or friends, to show them you cared about them.
Kíli was on a fifth braid—she had so much hair; it was fantastic—when Tauriel finally stirred. Green eyes drifted open and met his own, and then her mouth lifted in a guilty smile.
He caught her hand and laid it on his forehead. "Still no fever," he reassured her. Mahal, her hands were so soft, and yet she was a warrior.
"Good." Then she saw his work. Her pretty elven eyes widened slightly, and she glanced from the braids to his face for a moment as if seeking some answer.
"I'd have asked your permission, but you were asleep," Kíli said, half apologetic.
"It's all right," she said, her face relaxing into the happy expression she had worn for most of the morning, so long as they were alone. "It must be a dwarvish pattern; I've never seen that braid before."
"It is," he said, picking up the unfinished plait. He waited a moment, but she did not protest, so he went on weaving copper strands.
When he was done, Tauriel rose to her feet. "It's lunch time," she said. "Let me see if I can find us some food."
"Oh. Yes, that would be good." He was, he realized, starving.
She came back a quarter of an hour later with some cold roast and bread, and he shifted on the bed to let her sit next to him. The two of them had finished most of the food when Kíli looked up to the tent opening and saw his brother bearing down on them, his stride purposeful and his expression serious. What was wrong? Thorin couldn't be worse; his wounds were minor and he'd been fine last night.
At the same time, he heard Tauriel give a soft gasp. He glanced to her, then followed her gaze to where the golden-haired elf prince—Lego-something?—was approaching, his expression remarkably similar to the one on Kíli's brother's face.
The two princes reached the tent door at nearly the same instant. They nodded curtly at each other, apparently unsure who had the right to begin first; rank offered no clear solution here. After a few moments of staring and silence, they both started at once.
"Tauriel, you need to know—" Fíli blurted.
"She must not have told you, Kíli—" the elf said, equally urgent.
"—that kiss my brother gave you—"
"—those braids in her hair—"
Both princes stopped and looked nervously to each other, while the same realization appeared to dawn on them both.
Staring back at Kíli and Tauriel, they demanded in unison "You're engaged?"
"Do people say we are?" Tauriel asked calmly, though a delicate flush had spread over her cheeks. Kíli had never seen her blush before, and he found the effect lovely.
"Half the army knows you've kissed her," Fíli moaned.
"The whole camp has seen you in his braids," Legolas—that was the elf's name, Kíli remembered now—added hopelessly.
Fíli went on, "If you don't deny it, we'll have to start negotiations between our kingdoms." Here he glanced sharply at the elven prince. "A delay on either side makes us both look bad, and we don't need to risk another war."
"Tauriel, are you promised to the dwarf?" Legolas demanded.
"I do not deny his braids in my hair."
"Kíli?" Fíli urged.
"I did kiss her; you heard."
Legolas and Fíli gave identical gasps of despair and then eyed each other with the resigned looks of two prisoners sentenced to the same unsavory punishment.
After a long and very awkward silence had stretched out among them, Fíli sighed deeply.
"Fine. I'll go talk to Thorin. But, Brother, you owe me." And after giving Kíli a look heavy with significance, he strode away.
"I'll speak with my father," Legolas conceded. "If I must. As a special favor to you, Tauriel." He shook his head, bemused, and was gone, too.
Kíli's palms were sweating, but he could not look to Tauriel. "The braids," he said. "I didn't know. A dwarf can give them to anyone, with no special meaning attached beyond friendship and brotherhood."
"An elf will only wear a man's braids if she is promised to him," Tauriel returned. After a pause, she added, "And the kiss?"
"We've very strict rules of conduct between men and women," Kíli explained. "A man wouldn't kiss a maid unless he was promised to her."
"Ah." Her hand sought his atop the coverlet, but Kíli was still too embarrassed, and indeed, overwhelmed, to look at her face. She said, "To an elf, a kiss is surely a sign of encouragement, but not of a contract. Not like, well, more intimate contact would be."
Kíli felt his cheeks burn. He'd certainly not allowed himself even to imagine that possibility with Tauriel yet.
"You didn't tell me what the braids meant," he said.
"You didn't tell them we're not actually engaged."
"We didn't tell them," Kíli corrected. He felt the courage to look at her now. Her cheeks were still slightly pink, but her eyes were warm and happy as they met his. "Does that mean you'd like to be?"
She nodded faintly.
"Tauriel, we've barely just met." Barely just met, and still he felt she was the right choice, the only choice for him.
"I know, but somehow I'm very sure of you," she said, her voice sweet and steady.
"Well, in that case—" Kíli took her face between his hands. "Tauriel, I love you. Will you marry me?"
She laughed, sweet and musical, the mostly lovely sound Kíli had heard in his life.
"Yes, Kíli, I will."
Author's note:
I wrote another Kiliel first kiss because I can. I thought it would be fun to reverse the cultural tropes for elves and dwarves. Fili and Legolas will come around eventually, I'm sure.