She had hoped that he would celebrate the Mirkwood holidays with the elves, but she had never expected him to be quite this excited about it. How had he come across this many decorations? Kili had all but covered the entire room in red ribbon, wreaths, and bells.
"Do you like it?" he asked. "I did not expect you to come back so early, but you would have had to have discovered it eventually."
"This is," she said, looking around, "surprising."
"Uncle Thorin would fall down dead if he found out that I did this." Kili chuckled. "Not that I care about that."
She looked around. How had he gotten most of those decorations up? He was far too short to reach most of those areas.
"You did not answer his question."
Tauriel turned around; she should have known that Legolas had some part to do with this.
"You got the tree!" Kili grinned, moving past Tauriel to grab one end of it.
"Would you mind helping us?" Legolas pushed his knee up, trying to balance the tree. "This is far heavier than it looks."
"A tree? No one has hung up a tree in years, let alone inside of a private room; that tradition died years ago."
"It sounded like fun." Kili said. "I thought it should be started again."
"It was this," Legolas said, "or stealing one of father's various antlers. That may sound easy, but I am sure that he would notice."
"Please?" Kili asked.
She nodded. "If this starts to drop needles then you two are cleaning it up." She got between them, then grabbed the middle of the tree. The three pulled it over to the center of the room, then stood it up. Legolas had not been kidding; her back ached from carrying that.
"Well," she said, "this is certainly an interesting decoration."
"Do we not have to decorate it?" Kili asked.
"No!" Legolas said. "Just carrying that exhausted me. We can do that tomorrow."
Tauriel sniffed the air. "The feast should be soon; we should get ready now. Your father will have a fit if we are late, Legolas."
He raised an eyebrow. "And since when did you care what father had to think?"
"Maybe when you decided to bring a tree inside of our room."
"That is not all that we brought!" Kili pointed upwards. "Legolas said that these would be important. What did you say that those plant things meant again?"
Legolas smirked. "Tauriel, how about you explain to him?"
"Kili," she said, "that is mistletoe. It is a plant hung on the ceiling during this season."
"That is not all that it means," Legolas said. "This is the most important thing that we put up."
"How?" Kili stared up, eyes wide.
"Because," Legolas said, "mistletoe means that Tauriel has to kiss us."
"She does?"
He nodded. "Go on."
She sighed. "You put this up on purpose."
"Why would we not?"
Kili walked forward, wrapping an arm around her waist. "I like this decoration."
She leaned forward, her lips meeting Legolas's first. They had done this before; he had pulled mistletoe out every year since they were children. Her lips easily pressed with his. After years of doing this, she knew exactly how to do this.
"That was too short." Legolas frowned.
"There is no rule saying how long that the kiss has to last." She leaned down, pressing her lips against the dwarf's. He pulled away first, his eyes glazed and cheeks flushed red. She chuckled. "Now we should get ready."
It did not take long, and soon enough the three were headed out of the door. Really, all they had to do was wipe pine needles off of their clothes.
"Stop," Tauriel said just as the two were about to head out the door.
The two turned around, eyes wide.
"What is wrong, Tauriel?" Legolas asked, reaching for his bow. "Do you need something?"
She pointed above their heads. "Did you forget that you hung that as well?"
"Oh," Legolas said. "Well, we had to put up more than one."
She smirked, then headed forward. "This means that you two have to return the favor. Go on, I am ready."