"Merry Yuletide, my love." Kíli slipped his arms about Tauriel from behind and laid something in her lap.
Tauriel lowered her hands from her hairpins to touch the silk-wrapped package. "What could this be, hadhodeg?" She could feel the outline of a bottle.
After unknotting the ties, she pulled the covering off a sparkling decanter. The intricate floral design cut into the crystal clearly declared it of elven make, though about the neck was a silver wreath set with amethysts, which could only be Kíli's work. It held a golden liquid, and as soon as Tauriel drew the stopper, she smelled lavender and herbs.
"Kíli, thank you!" she said. During the previous winter in Rivendell, Tauriel had often used this bath oil on her hair and skin. She had not thought to request more of it since their return; it was distilled far off in Rivendell itself, while she infused her own potions which had always served her needs. But Kíli had remembered how much she had enjoyed this personal luxury.
"You're welcome." He kissed her cheek.
Tauriel drew the last pins from her hair, letting down the braids that had crowned her head for the Yule feast. "Your gift," she said, "is hidden with my socks."
He grinned and turned to their wardrobe. As he searched, Tauriel loosened her braids into rippling copper waves.
"Aha!" Kíli turned back with a carved wooden box in his hands. Holding it to his ear, he shook it lightly. "Now what could this be?" He glanced up to her once and then lifted the lid. Inside was a suede pouch. "Hmm… Oh!" His face bright, he tipped the bag into his palm and held forth a handful of amber stones that gleamed and flashed with an inner rainbow radiance, as if they were living embers. "These are fire opals!" he said.
Tauriel smiled, pleased by his pleasure. "I saw you admiring the ones the Orocarni emissary wore, and so I ordered some." These rare stones were truly the most extravagant gift she had ever purchased, but she had reminded herself that she was a princess now.
Kíli gave her a playful smirk. "Are you sure these are not really a gift for yourself? You know you'll be the one to wear them."
"You should do what you want with them," she teased, her tone disinterested.
"Oh, gems like this are fitting only for my fire moon." He held forth one of the larger stones and laid it against her breast, then squinted appraisingly. "Yes, set in gold, I think. And some for your hair…"
She let him know by her look just how happy she would be to wear such ornaments from him.
"Now, I have not forgotten that there is one more person here who deserves a gift," Kíli said, touching Tauriel's belly where their child grew, though the babe was not yet visible in Tauriel's shape. He went to the far side of the room, beyond his side of the bed, and when he turned back, he carried something brown and furry in his arms.
"Happy Yule, my little one." Kíli placed the soft toy bear in Tauriel's arms.
She giggled, knowing this gift to be a reference to their own ongoing joke about Kíli's resemblance to that creature. "So we are each of us to have our little bear," she said. "Come here, medlig, my sweet little honey-eater."
Scooping him close, she pressed her face into this neck for the pleasure of feeling his beard scrape against her skin. Kíli readily enclosed her in his sturdy arms and nuzzled against her till she raised her head to kiss him.
"Amrâlimê, you are as sweet as honey, so I must be as you say," he observed.
"Medli is a bear," Tauriel explained. "Literally, it means 'honey-eater.'"
"Aha." Kíli pressed close, and she kissed him again.
He helped untie her feast day gown; it was of velvet green as the holly leaves her people prized, and against it her skin shone pale as snow. As she pushed out of the bodice, Kíli reached past her for the lavender oil. "Shall I?"
"Please."
He moved her hair forward, over her shoulders. Tauriel caught a waft of lavender, and next Kíli's palms flattened against her hips. She closed her eyes, relaxing as his broad hands moved over her with a craftsman's strong, sure touch.
When he had finished smoothing lavender oil over her arms and back, Kíli set a kiss to the base of her neck.
"Thank you, meleth," she said. When she drew the gown the rest of the way off, she shivered. This deep in the winter, the cold had even worked its way into the depths of the mountain.
"I'll build up the fire," Kíli offered as she belted on a light robe.
Tauriel caught his arm and drew him back from the fireplace. "I shall be warm enough with my little bear beside me." She flicked loose the final clasps on his shirt and pulled it off him. "After all, you've such a magnificent winter coat." And she laid a hand to him, burying her fingers in the dark hair on his chest.
He smiled, knowing and amused. "So I do. I'll gladly wrap you in this bear skin." From his cheeky look, Tauriel knew the pun was fully intentional.
Looping one arm around her, Kíli swung her to the side of their bed; with the other he turned down the blankets. Then he set her down on the mattress edge and slipped between the sheets to his half of the bed.
"Oof! It is chilly in here. You're sure I shouldn't feed the fire? Can't have you two catching cold. Just one more log—"
"Kíli." Before he could scramble out, Tauriel caught him and lay down beside him, tugging their blankets of heavy wool and fur up around their ears. She was trembling lightly now at the chill of the sheets, but these first few moments in a cold bed, before it heated to their bodies, was one of the pleasures of winter, in her mind. "We'll soon be toasty," she said, drawing close to him. Kíli was, as always, warm as a furnace.
"Mm-hm." He ducked under the blankets and snuggled beneath her chin. One of his legs wove through hers, and his arms wrapped her tight.
They eased apart some minutes later, once all was warm in their cocoon of blankets, though Tauriel kept her feet tucked in Kíli's.
"Remember our first winter here in Erebor?" Kíli said. "I used to lie in my snug warm bed and think of how cold you must be serving your exile on the mountainside. The thought made me miserable, you know."
"My sweet Kíli."
"And I'd have begged you to come stay with us, never mind Uncle, if I thought you'd have said yes. But I had a feeling you weren't quite ready."
"Oh?" She wound her finger in a curl of hair at his chest and waited for him to go on.
"You're so independent, and I thought you needed some time to think before you put yourself in my debt." He trailed a hand up the back of her thigh. "But I knew, when that blizzard hit, that you couldn't say no then. No you, not Thorin."
"And still you claim you're incorrigibly impatient," she said. "Tell me, meleth nín, when you were imagining me freezing in the night alone, did you ever dream we might be like this together, some day?"
He laughed. "Durin's beard, no! I didn't dare."
"Nor I. Tis a shame, you know. I'm sure the nights would not have felt so cold if I'd been dreaming of a warm dwarf holding me tight."
"We'll make up for it now," Kíli said and pulled her into his arms again. Her robe had fallen open, and his hairy body tickled her skin.
Tauriel favored him with a long slow kiss while his hands slipped up under her robe.
"You smell nice," Kíli murmured. "Like lavender."
"I know."
Once they had arranged themselves comfortably, they lay quiet. Kíli, like Tauriel herself, seemed too drowsy and comfortable for more serious exertion. This warm, companionable stillness was as gratifying, in its own way, as any other expression of love could be.
"Sweet dreams, amrâlimê." Kili's voice rumbled pleasantly against her.
Tauriel smiled. "Good night, hadhodeg."
Author's note:
For those who are reading my longer fic series and want to know where this moment fits in, this scene takes place the winter before the latest chapters in Spring After Winter and Sun on the Leaves.
medlig - "my little bear"
hadhodeg - "my little dwarf"
Every December, I get the urge to write fluffy Christmas fics, but for some reason I've never actually followed up on that inspiration before. So this year, I'm resolved to write a few Yuletide scenes for my main fic series. I meant to post them in chronological order, but they probably won't be written in order, so I'll have to rearrange them later. Oops! But you'd rather get them as I write them, right?
I'm open to ideas, so if there's a holiday or winter themed scene you'd like to see of these two, let me know in the comments, and maybe I'll write it!