Tauriel was never having children. Never, never, never. They were loud, they were needy, and they were dirty.
All that being said, her niece was unfairly adorable even when she was resisting her mother's directive that she be bathed before bed.
"No!" Funa shrieked, escaping Tauriel's hold for the third time and racing back into her bedroom. Tauriel had to admire the determination, but decided someone needed to have a chat with the girl over tactical retreats. The bedroom had only one exit.
"Funa," she said patiently, following the tiny dark-haired spawn of Morgoth and ducking to look under the bed when she couldn't see the girl on her first glance around the room. Funa grinned at her from the corner, bad humor gone now that she thought she was out of reach and playing one of her favorite games.
"You found me!" the girl exclaimed, giggling.
"Funa," Tauriel said again, reaching to grab her unsuccessfully (this was entirely the wrong angle to allow that), "we really must get you washed. Your mother will not be happy to learn her instructions were ignored."
Funa giggled. Tauriel supposed she must be an amusing sight, crouched as she was so that her rear was in the air. She blew a loose strand of hair from her face in exasperation; if she'd known wrangling a small child was more difficult than clearing out a spider's nest she would have put it in battle braids. Funa made a break for the end of the bed, but in this, spider hunting had prepared Tauriel.
She rolled to her feet, snatched the girl before she'd managed two steps from the bed, and ran for the bathroom while Funa was still shrieking happily over being so far from the floor.
Three minutes later she was soaked completely and now had a wet and naked child on the loose. "I am not equipped for this," she told her hair. It was dyed four shades darker with water and sticking to her face. "I need backup. Who knew she could get even more slippery?" But she had told Sigrun that she would watch her demonspawn while Sigrun and Fili were on that trip, and she would.
"You have a beard," her niece said from the doorway.
"I beg your pardon?" Tauriel asked, at the last moment making it less of a demand.
"You have a beard," Funa said again, pointing to Tauriel's face.
Tauriel reached up and felt along her chin. Her hair had stuck there with water and sweat. "No, I-" inspiration struck. "Yes," she said with pretend indifference. "The water makes it grow, you see."
Funa, whose sideburns had not even begun to fill in, had suddenly wide eyes. "It does?" she asked.
"Soap would make it grow faster, I imagine," Tauriel continued, "but we elves lose them after a while. Why do you imagine we take so many baths?"
Funa looked at the bathtub. Tauriel sensed victory oh so near.
"You should come in with me," the little girl decided. "To help your beard."
Tauriel would have to fake having a growing beard in the bath, but if it meant getting Funa washed, Tauriel was quite ready to beg, cheat, lie, steal, and possibly murder. Fake beard it was.
"Happily," Tauriel replied.
It took Kili a moment to figure out what was different when he walked into his niece's room. Funa snored quietly, curled up over her pillow, and Tauriel appeared just as out of it. True, Tauriel sat on the floor by the bed, her head tipped back to lay on the mattress, and normally she would have preferred lying flat on the floor to risking a crick in her neck, but Funa was an exhausting little monster. He should know. Everyone said she was the spitting image of him at that age.
Then he figured it out. "Tauriel," he said quietly, reaching out to touch her shoulder lightly. She jerked awake. "I don't mean to alarm you," he continued, "but you seem to have grown a beard?"
She blinked at him. Then, "Oh!" she reached up to tug the hair that was artfully stuck around her mouth and chin in a decent imitation of a full dwarven beard, but he caught her wrist. "Yes, good. It's probably stuck on. I need a bath."
"And I will happily help you with that," he said, "But a beard?"
"I had to resort to… unorthodox measures to complete my assignment," she replied, rolling her neck. "The heir to Erebor may or may not believe that baths will help her beard grow, and also that I regularly lose mine. Sorry, it was all I could think to do."
He tugged on a strand. She winced. Definitely stuck.
"I like it," he said.
She made a face at him.
"No, truly. It gives you a certain air of maturity that-"
"My fake beard is more full than your real one," she retorted petulantly. He snorted, and they both froze when Funa rolled over.
"Let us complete this debate elsewhere," Tauriel suggested, voice barely audible. She eyed Funa as if worried she would leap into wakefulness at any moment.
He agreed readily, closing the door almost silently behind him when they were both out of Funa's room. The light of the torches made Tauriel's hair and fake beard shine, red gold and prettier than all the goblets Smaug could have imagined.
"Bath," she said.
He watched her, smiling as she arched her back into a stretch.
She noticed the look in his eye. "If you tell me you find the fake beard attractive, I am going to tell your brother about certain of our activities."
"And my brother would, as any good brother should, plug his ears and proclaim loudly that he wishes to know nothing of our activities," Kili pointed out. "Besides which, you cannot tell me that you think Sigrun lets him be in charge of anything behind closed doors."
She reached out, running a hand through his hair until she could grip it tightly and tilt his head back. "Contradicting me, darling?" she asked, leaning down to nuzzle at his bared throat.
"Oh, never," he said. "The beard tickles, by the way."
She grinned against his throat and bit, a light pressure over his adam's apple. "Now you know how I feel," she murmured, and let go.
"Hey!" he exclaimed as she walked away.
"I'm getting a bath," she replied over her shoulder, continuing to walk away. "If you're very good, maybe I'll let you help me."