Tauriel's keen elven eyes spied her Prince surrounded by young dwarrowdams, the said Prince deeply engaged in kissing their hands, pecking their hairy cheeks and generally basking in their attention! She felt her heart ache and burst like a watermelon hit by an armour piercing arrow. And how UGLY those girls were! Short, FAT – with bums easily of greater girth than Dwalin's shoulders, hang-out tummies, outrageously sized breasts ready to shoot up from too-tight bodices. Ugh! What a slagheap of barfalicious hussies! And the git was evidently enjoying himself – well dressed and groomed, preening, strutting about like a rooster in front of his hens.

A truth long established among the Children of Mahal was that slapping was the lowest form of expressing affection. Many a tale of the most heartfelt woe over the anguish of lovers sang by dwarrow bards included the line "she did not care enough to slap him", or words to that effect. Good manners, drilled into all dwarrow from the time they were dwarflings, was that if a lass alternatively sobbing and screaming about breach of promise was slapping a lad, then propriety demanded one to look away and pretend not to hear. Even if the lass was not of the Khuzdul and the lad the Heir, manners were Manners. Hence the guards had no intention of interfering as long as the she-elf did not draw blood. The dwarfettes tried to intervene – rules for feminine behaviour being different, and apparently they were stakeholders in the proceedings too - but two black eyes and one broken nose later – back kicks did not interfere with slapping – they fled the frenzied and evidently dangerous red haired creature!

"How could you had done this to me! I wanted to be your wife! I wanted to have your babies!" – Tauriel sobbed.

"You never said you were serious! We were just two desperate souls seeking some solace before inevitable death!".

To her the fact that she had not told him anything held no bearing.

"You should had guessed, you heartless sod!" - the Captain of the Guard screamed into the dark eyed dwarf's handsome face.

The 2nd Heir to Erebor shrugged.

"I'm not a mind reader like the Witch of the Golden Wood is rumoured to be. How was I to know that you were planning out a life for the two of us together? Now I am promised to choose a wife from amongst the dwarrow-maidens you have roughed up and that's that!"

"But I'm with CHILD, you ORC!"

This quietened the fearless dwarf archer for a few moments.

"If it's mine you will get a stipend" – the son of Dis rasped.

The sterling quality of Kili's upbringing and character shone through in his stoic sufferance of the slapping AND pounding administered to him over the next few minutes.

.

.

Fili looked at his brother's battered, swollen face with awe.

"She really loves you ..."

His brother winced while Oin patted his face with damp rags and washed the blood away.

"Loves me or not, it's too late. I had promised Uncle that I will court and choose one of those maidens from the Iron Hills. Three years to chose, by my eightieth birthday, to be followed by five years betrothal to see if we fit. Eighty five is a good age to wed. I protested against marriage as I'm too young, but with such courtship and betrothal periods I think I'll be ripe to settle down."

Kili shrugged again.

"Had I known a few days ago what she told me NOW, I would not have committed myself before Thorin. But today this is water under the bridge. I offered her lodging and care ... but she hit me so hard I don't remember the next few minutes very well. I hope Tauriel stays. She'd get ex-Royal Mistress status. That's quite high rank among the Ladies of the Court, or so Balin tells me."

And he'd get to keep his child – a though flashed though Kili's mind - even if an odd looking half-breed. The idea of fatherhood was making its way at a glacial pace into his brain. He was to become a father?! He thought about the infants he'd seen - wailing and constantly peeing or puking or shitting themselves. And HE was to get one of those?

His long nosed brother continued to look at him with glassy eyes.

"What love ..." – Fili admired Kili's swollen shut right eye and concussion – "you should elope! You should run away with her! Run, holding hands, across flower bedecked meadows, with wind in your hair, singing about your love, with the Sun shining upon you ..."

Kili shrugged again.

"You do that brother. You run off with one of the Mannish girls from Laketown. You be the romantic. I have my duty here to Thorin, I have my future as heir, I have my share of Smaug's Hoard. You go running around homeless and hungry, telling your woman that there's nothing for the pot today."

Before falling asleep, lulled by his brother's snores, Fili wondered if he would ever find a girl which would slap him. He sighed at his brother's cold heartedness – had it been him, he'd be eloping with the elf, half way to the Misty Mountains by now, and to Mordor with the dwarrow maids he also had promised to woo and pick one to marry by his eighty fifth birthday.


AN: I am using fanon, movie-based perceptions of Kili's and Fili's age, i.e. around Mannish 20.