All rights belong to Tolkien. WARNING: This chapter may be a little far fetched.
I hurt all over. Kili had been dragging me out to train with him and Fili for the last week. My butt hurt, my legs, my and arms, my back, and all the bruises that they had given me. I wasn't always fast enough to dodge their blows, so they had to twist their blades to the side so I wouldn't get cut. The result was big purple bruises on my legs, and stomach. The princes were not my favorite people right now.
I groaned and collapsed on my bed. Kili would come by to get me at 4:30 tomorrow so I had to be 'well rested' as he put it. That's why I was going to bed at 8 tonight.
I snuggled under my covers and Thunder tried to sleep on my pillow. He was too big to sleep by my head now, his head reached mid thigh now. Grunting I shoved him down to my feet.
As soon as I had resnuggled under my blankets I fell asleep.
"Get up, hurry!" Some yanked me out of bed. My arm was nearly ripped from its socket.
"Ow!" I pushed Kili away from me and cradled my shoulder. "That hurt Ki-ughf!" Clothes flew into my face.
"Hurry up and get dressed we gotta go!" Kili was practically frantic.
"What's the rush?" Kili threw his hands up in exasperation and stomped towards me.
"Get get away I can dress myself!" I pushed Kili out of my room and slammed the door shut. "Man what is his problem today?" I asked Thunder. He paid no attention to me as I got dressed. "You're still asleep aren't you" Not a peep out of the husky pup. "Some guard dog you are." I rolled my eyes and opened the door. Kili was there and yanked me out of the house and down the stairs before I knew what was happening.
"Kili! What the heck is wrong with you?" I stumbled down the stairs after him.
"This is the last day for the next week that I will be able to spar you, I want to make it count." He said over his shoulder.
"That's what this is about! You yank me out of bed and act like it's the end of the world. when you actually just want to fight with me!" I shouted at him all the way downstairs. I got a few strange looks from some early rising dwarves, but I didn't care. I was too pissed off with the dwarf in front of me to care.
At the training platform, Kili finally let me go and threw a sword at me. "Put your sword on" I buckled it onto my belt and took off my jacket. I had taken to wearing tunics instead of tank tops after that last dwarf with the bright blue eyes came by.
I got serious Kili today. That was never a good way to start off the day. I unsheathed the sword and took my stance. Kili attacked. I dodged, slashed and parried with him, never once stoping to think what I was doing.
Kili was ruthless today. He was pushing me to the edge of my ability. Within a minute I had sweat dripping down my face. He kept coming.
I began to pant as I blocked a blow to my head. My arms began to ache and my legs felt like lead. I wouldn't be able to keep this up.
I tripped over my feet. Kili brought his sword down. I rolled out of the way. I needed to end this, quickly. But what could I do? He was too much for me. I had only been fighting for the last week! He had years more experience than me!
More experience? I slashed at Kili. Legolas! That was it! I had an idea.
I ran to the corner of the platform with all the rubble in it and waited. Kili ran towards me and I kicked a large stone under his feet. He tripped and tried to steady himself I took advantage of his teetering form and knocked the sword out of his hands, and kicked him to the ground.
"Agh!" He groaned and held his head. I threw down my sword and walked around him towards the water barrels. I was beat. I drank a whole mug of water and turned back to face Kili.
He was standing now, he looked pretty pissed. "You…" he breathed "You copied me"
I smiled "Yes, yes I did." His eyebrow quirked up and he burst out laughing. I giggled along with him. That was the happy Kili I knew. He had tears running down his face when he sobered.
"I wasn't expecting that. Well played my Lady" He bowed gallantly to me. I curtsied clumsily and giggled.
"I did learn from the best" I said. Kili stood straighter and puffed out his chest. I laughed and punched him in his chest.
"Agh" He breathed out "You'll pay for that" an evil look invaded his eyes. I was in for it big time. I had left my sword on the platform. I was weaponless.
"I am unarmed, it is dishonorable to-" he lunged "ATTACK ME!" I shrieked and ran from him. He chased me across the platform. I put a table between us. I tried to make for my left, he made to his right.
I stood in the middle of the table, panting. Kili right across from me, he had a wicked smile on his face. I didn't like that smile, he was going to do something.
Kili jumped across the table. I shrieked and ran to my sword as fast as I could. Kili tackled me to the ground.
I struggled and lashed about. He tickled me.
"Stop" I laughed. "Kili!" I shrieked. I don't know how long he tickled me, but I couldn't breathe and it was beginning to hurt. I brought my hands to his sides and tickled him.
He yelled and jerked way from me. I lunged at him and kept tickling. I remembered what my human mom said about men being ticklish below their ribs.
I grinned and tickled there. He laughed even harder. His voice got all squeaky and squealy. He sounded like a girl!
I kept tickling him and he shrieked even louder. I finally got tiered of tickling him and backed off.
He continued laughing on the floor. I smiled at him. I stretched my arms out and laid down beside him.
"No one except my brother, mother, and uncle, have ever heard me laugh like that!" He coughed.
"Well no one else would dare to tickle the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, the scary dwarf king under the mountain who never smiles." I sassed.
"He does smile, he just does it in private." Kili said.
"Oh yeah? What makes him smile?" I asked.
"Well besides tickling me with Fili" I stifled my laugh. "He smiles when we are all together, just us. And there was this one woman who made him smile all the time" I was even more interested now.
"What woman?" I sat up and looked at Kili.
"When we were on our way to Erebor, Gandalf brought a woman to accompany us. He said that her skills would be aid us on our quest." There was a woman on the quest? I had never heard of her.
"What was her name?" I asked.
"Her name was Sarah, and Uncle truly loved her." Kili sighed "Uncle doesn't like anyone to talk about her."
"Why?" Surely he would want to talk about the woman he fell in love with.
"She left right after we reclaimed Erebor. She said she'd be back, but she never did." Another sigh.
"Did you like her too?" I asked.
"Not in the way Uncle did, but I had hoped she would become our aunt. She kept me and Fili in line and…" he sat up " I have never seen anyone stand up to Uncle like she did, not even mum can get an apology from Uncle. She was an amazing woman and I would have been overjoyed if she and Uncle had married." The way he spoke about her made me sad that she wasn't here with them.
"Was she taller than him?" I asked.
"No, she was a bit shorter than you actually" Kili smiled wryly and gazed off into the distance.
"She must have been some woman if Thorin had fallen in love with her." Kili hummed in agreement. "Hey we should continue sparing, people will be coming to train soon and we want to be well on our way by then." I stood up and offered him my hand. He took it and I pulled him up.
"You know I should have been the one to offer you my hand" He said.
"Yeah well I beat you to it, so just deal with it." I grinned and walked off to get my sword.
"Will you be watching the tournament tomorrow?" Kili asked me.
"Yes! I wouldn't miss it for the world " I turned back to him, he had a black smudge on his nose. I laughed and reached up to wipe it away. He jerked away from my hand "I'm just wiping a smudge off! I'm not gonna yank your nose off." He smiled and let me rub the dirt off. He had some dirt on his cheek so I wiped that off too. I looked up at his eyes. They were a warm brown color.
Kili's hand grasped mine, which was still on his cheek. I stopped breathing.
"Caelinn!" We jumped and I stepped away from Kili. I looked to the noise and saw Boadicea standing on a walkway above us.
"Hi!" I called back. She didn't look too happy. Then again, it was about 5:30 in the morning. She walked towards the stairway that led to the platform.
"We'll continue sparring. You've gotten a lot better." Kili commented.
"Yeah I don't keep knocking my sword out of my hands." I agreed. "So where's Fili?" I asked.
"He is probably still in bed" Kili took his stance and we exchanged a few blows.
"Why didn't you get him up?" I asked. It was very unlike Kili not to annoy his brother every chance he got.
"He's is in Dale and probably hungover" I swiped at his head. He ducked and returned the blow.
"Why is he in Dale? Oh!" I jumped away from Kili's blade. He nearly took my ear off.
"We went to a pub in Dale last night and I came back alone."
"What?" Kili knocked my sword away. "Ow…" that hurt my hand. If he was in Dale, drunk, that meant… Realization must have shown on my face. Kili shrugged.
"It happens sometimes." he said. I gasped.
"You mean to tell me, that he is probably sleeping with some girl right now?" I asked.
"Yes." He sighed.
"I always thought he was the responsible one, I never thought he would…you know" I said and gestured with my hands.
"I know very well. It would normally be me, but I…I just…I don't know. I just don't want to sleep with women I'll never see again. I want to find my One." Mature Kili, now I had seen everything. This was now the weirdest conversation I had ever had, and that is saying a lot cause one time I was talking to a guy about which was better: tampons or pads.
"Well I hope you find your One" I said suddenly.
"Me too" he said. He swung his sword around. "I think that's enough for today." he bowed and left me standing there, watching his retreating form. He had a really nice butt. Whoa! Where did that come from?
"This is turning out to be a very strange day" I said to myself. I was just checking out Kili's butt! Boadicea was standing by the water barrels so I went to see what she wanted.
Boadicea and I didn't like each other, end of story.
"Hi" I said. "What you doing here?"
"Greetings, Lady Eideth sent me to keep an eye on you" she replied stiffly. Someone had a stick up her butt this morning. "How was your spar?"
"It went well, ended in a tickle fight so everything's good." I picked up my mug and drank deeply. I was parched.
"A tickle fight? You know that it is not appropriate for men and women to touch if they are not married or related." I ignored her and drank some more water. "You should be a bit more prudent, Caelinn. He is a prince and you are putting your reputation at stake."
"How is his being a prince putting my reputation at stake? We were just sparring." I insisted.
"Because everybody gossips about the nobles and the royal family especially. Your name will be well known throughout all of Erebor, and possibly in the Iron Hills if you are not careful"
"Duly noted." I mumbled into my mug.
"Although since he is very interested in you, I do not think you should have to worry about your reputation." Boadicea said thoughtfully.
"He's interested in me?" My stomach felt bubbly all the sudden.
"Yes, did you not know? Are you not interested as well?" Boadicea asked.
"No, I'm not, and, I didn't. Why do you think that?" I breathed. Kili did make me feel self conscious, but I didn't understand him. He's hot and he's cold, then he's yes and he's no. He was just so hard for me to understand because my people skills are not that great to begin with.
"He looks at you often when you are near, he talks about you when you are not around. He even takes the time to teach you swordplay. If I did not know better I would say that he is smitten with you and is unsure if you return his affections."
"But he's usually really mean to me, this last week he has been a completely different person. But why would he usually be mean to me if he liked me?" I asked.
"He is unsure if you will reject him, or is probably intimidated by you." she said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Me?" I snorted "Yeah lil' ol' me intimidates the dwarf who fought against Smaug and participated in the Battle of the Five Armies. You are coo coo" I waved my finger in a circle next my temple.
"I am not…coo coo." she said distastefully. "And I am not wrong of his feelings for you either."
"How would you know? Do you even know Kili that well? Cause I sure as hell don't and I see him nearly every day now."
"If you do not believe me, then go ask Lady Eideth." Boadicea turned on her heal and walked away.
"I will ask her, and by the way, she is my mother. Not just Lady Eideth."
The nerve of that girl. She was nearly as bad as Thranduil. My life was way too weird.
If I ever had kids I would certainly have a few tales to tell them. How I had a small crush on Legolas, that I met Thranduil, traveled with Gandalf, and I knew the princes of Erebor all in my youth. Wow! I had met more Middle Earth celebrities in two years than most people would in their whole lives.
I ran up stairs to ask Eideth if Kili did like me. I didn't believe Boadicea. Climbing the steps three at a time my heart pounded. Kili liked me?
I ran home and burst inside. I was nearly six in the morning but Eideth was up and busy with Milly, planning the meals for the next week.
"Mother!" I ran to Eideth and panted. "Boadicea said that Kili might like me. I didn't believe her, is it true?" I asked.
"You might want to sit down first." Milly said. I plopped down on the bench and waited for their explanation.
"Kili doesn't like you." Eideth said. I sighed in relief. There was nothing between us. I was a little disappointed, but I knew I wasn't ready for a relationship. "He claims to be in love with you and has asked my permission to court you." My mouth dropped. "I told him that I approved, but he would have to ask Gloiron when he got back, as he is both your master and guardian."
"Wha, what?" I spluttered. He didn't like me, he wanted to marry me? "I hardly know him, and he is a prince, I am a blacksmith's apprentice!"
"And the daughter of a noble, since Gloiron is legally your guardian. The match is completely prudent." Milly said quickly.
"Fine, whatever. But Kili?" I gasped and leaned against the table. There was no way. "I don't even know what to think." I said. Eideth patted my leg.
I am thinking about doing a few chapters in Kili's POV. What does everyone think of that? Was this chapter weird or over the top?