Any work for the restoration of Erebor immediately began to play second fiddle to my preparations for Sigrid's arrival. A chamber was designated as hers, which I was to be ritually excluded from as soon as she arrived. After the ceremony, once we are officially joined, we are to occupy it together, but until then, it is her chamber, and hers alone. I wanted to make it beautiful.

Not knowing her precise tastes – and I suspect, somehow, that a girl of her kindness did not take the time to develop many – I decided to simply do my best to make it admirable after the fashion of my people. The rooms are large, and cut rough into the rock; I cleared away the cobwebs, and dirt, and rubble, and began at once to carve the walls to be smoother, the angles more clear. It will never be the square room of a house on the Lake, but at least it will not have to feel like she is slumbering near the back of a cave. Kili joined me for many hours in this, hauling away the rock and dust that we showered down from the walls, and warding away the many offers of help we received from other members of our company. I had enough time, and though I appreciated their eagerness, this was something that I wished to do with my own hands. Kili's help was an exception to that, for some reason, but he is the other half of me, and that accounts for some of the leniency.

I think it was because though Kili does his share of boasting, he knows when to lay off. The others do not, and would brag on whatever small contribution they made to the room until they are laid in their graves, something I don't foresee tolerating well. This is to be mine and Sigrid's room, and I wanted my touch all over the walls. I did not want Dori to point here and boast about the carving, or Bofur to gesture there and explain the shape of the looking glass, and take any credit for it, really. Selfish, it likely was, but so it happened, that Kili and I alone prepared the chamber for Sigrid. And I was happy with it.

One day, while laying on my back on the scaffolding and glaring at the odd shape of the ceiling above me, trying to decide to set to work filing it into something proper, or to leave it be, I had an idea. It was an odd semi-circular area above where the bed was to stand, and it was dished in ever so slightly, surrounded by a rim of small stalactites. From where I was laying, one could almost seem to see it as a deep underground basin of still water, and then and there I decided to cover the area in reflective metal, so that while lying upon our bed together, locked in each others arms, we might look up and be reminded of our oneness, of the beauty of our unity and love.

"Kili!" I vociferated, my voice echoing right back to me from the nearness of the stone above my head. "Kili!"

"Durin's beard, I'm right here!" he huffed, coming into the doorway with a jug of mead and two mugs. "I was thirsty. Brought enough to share."

"Aye, thank you." I clambered down from the scaffolding, and helped myself to a mug, downing a few gulps, and explaining hurriedly, "Can you speak to Bifur about seeing if we've any of the bronze left from forging the hinges and knockers in the great hall?"

Kili furrowed his brow. "But I thought we'd already talked about hinges and knockers."

"Aye, but I want to melt this into a great sheet, and have it joined in the crevasses of the ceiling."

Kili looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Why?" he managed at last. "It'll come crashing down upon you both."

"No, no it won't, see..." I mounted the scaffolding and beckoned Kili to follow me, and I showed him the natural grooves and the curve of the basin. "The shape will form such a tension as to suspend it there, and then of course I'll fasten it about the edges, right into the rock itself."

"The point being-?" Kili's eyebrows were still dancing, and I rolled my eyes.

"Beauty. Intrigue. Like a great mirror... above us."

"Ah." His eyes twinkled. "Well, then. Let's get to work."

Thorin approached me that night, his gaze shadowed in the light of the dying hearth, his steps slow and heavy. I knew what this was, it was something Kili and I had both dreaded, really, since the day when we began to ask questions and were rewarded with nothing more than "When you are wed, we'll speak further on it."

I am not foolish. I know the way of a man and woman together, and I know how children are begun. Perhaps I did well hiding my knowledge behind a young and innocent face, perhaps Thorin, as ever, perceived me as still a dwarfling with little wisdom in the ways of the world, and perhaps it was something else that I as yet did not know, but we both, Thorin and I, were dreading this. He, to speak so of such thing, and I, to feign indifference, if only to hide my eager knowledge. To share a bed with Sigrid, to have her close to me, beneath me, joined with me, would seem to be the most wondrous thing, something I yearned for with an equal measures as I yearned to simply look into her eyes, to have her by my side.

Kili gave me a pitying look, and rose, propping his carving-work in the corner, before quitting the room, saying only, "Don't disturb my bow," which I find strange. Strange that I remember it, and strange that he spoke such a queer thing; I do not care for his bow. I would not touch it unless I had to, and then I certainly should intend it no harm. It was likely just something to say, like when we were lads and our mother would come to watch us play from afar. We would strike up a calm, if nonsensical conversation to satisfy her, only to dissolve into laughter whenever she had gone, and resume whatever mad plotting and pranking we had originally schemed.

Thorin hardly looked at me, but sat down with his back to the flames, his wrists upon his knees. He regarded the floor for a long moment, as did I, and then he spoke.

"Is the work progressing?"

I did not know if he meant the restoration or preparations for the marriage, so I replied evenly, "Aye, I think so. Though there is still much to be done."

Thorin nodded his head slowly. "It is well that Kili left. I intended to speak to you in case there were any doubts as to what is expected of you on the night of your marriage." Here he met my gaze, and I did my best to look at him steadily, though we were too close to one another for the focus of my eyes to be comfortable.

"I understand," I began, and then startled as Thorin lifted his voice:

"No, you do not."

"Uncle –" I began, taking a deep breath. "I do not believe –"

"Mahal, let me finish." Thorin's face was stern. "I do not wish to repeat myself. Eru knows this is not a topic I'm comfortable discussing."

"Aye, because you've never loved," I muttered, and his gaze snapped to mine, glittering in the light of the fire.

"What?" he said in a low voice.

"I will not listen to you tell me of my responsibility to the throne, of my duty to our lineage. I wish to know her in love, not in –"

"I'm going to speak to you of love, boy," Thorin said gruffly. "And of what I have learned."

This silenced me. Thorin never speaks so, of himself, or of deep emotion of any kind.

"You yourself have never loved," I began quietly, more a challenge for him to disprove this than an actual statement of fact.

"It was not an experience that would encourage me to love again," he muttered. "But this I will tell you. The heat of our passion is most compelling. Do not let it die within you. It is both our greatest curse and our greatest gift. Show her what you know of dwarven love. And may Mahal bless you with an heir. Soon."

"Thorin –" I began., a bit breathlessly. "I wish to love her."

"Then do so."

"But I do not wish for her to bear my children if she is not willing."

Thorin looked at me as if the concept was disgusting. "She is your queen, she is willing," he said simply. "It is her duty."

"It may not be her desire."

"Then Eru help her, because you will not let her sleep a single night without making love to her first."

"Mahal!" I exclaimed, rising to my feet. "You cannot require such a thing of us!"

"Do you not lust?"

"Aye, but by Durin's beard I will not force myself up her! If she is willing, then so be it, but if not –"

"Fili, the purpose of this marriage is an alliance, hence, an heir."

"No, that is not so, the purpose of this marriage is love!"

"Don't be a fool."

"I am not. Mahal –" I put a hand to my face in utter disbelief. To be spoken to so, on a matter so personal, was beyond shocking. I had no idea what was yet in store for us in the future, but as of then, I was ready to flee the room, find my axes, and return, if only to split something apart, preferably something of Thorin's.

"I do not believe this." I shook my head at him. "You have no right to speak so."

"I have every right. You are next in Durin's line, after that, your child."

He did speak those words, Glorin. And I've held him to them every minute since, whenever the issue of the succession comes up. He will see fairness in time. Thank Eru we are such long-lived people.

"And if Sigrid has no child?" I was being bold. Of course I wanted a child with Sigrid. Perhaps many, since the race of men seemed so much more fruitful than ours.

"Then Kili."

"Precisely. The throne is sure three times over, so I do not understand why you have gotten your trousers in a twist over the issue of mine and Sigrid's love-making." The room felt hot, I am quite certain I was breathing like a bellows. Thorin stood, his eyes pale as the sky after a storm.

"I take my leave." He departed the room.

I stayed for a long while by the hearth until the fire had dwindled to nothing but glaring embers, and then I heard the footsteps of my brother enter the room. Kili thumped me on the shoulder and said, "Talk went well?"

I smiled up at him. "What do you think?"

He shrugged, and took a seat beside me. "I heard the shouting."

"He tells me to give Sigrid a child as soon as possible." I put my head in my hands and exhaled, before looking up. Kili's face was a little comical.

"And you – foresee having a problem with that?"

I cuffed him. "No, you idiot, it's just the fact that he's telling me to do it."

"Humiliating," Kili agreed, bobbing his head. "Though if you don't want to do the honors, I'd-"

"You'll be nowhere near her," I growled, and Kili lifted his hands.

"Joking, joking."

I snorted. "I'm not in the mood."

"Someone sounds like Thorin."

"Durin's beard..." I muttered.

Kili sighed sympathetically. "Way to spoil a mood."

"Aye, and there's no question on it."

We sat in silence for a long while, before Kili began, rather tentatively, "How do you think Sigrid will take this?"

I lifted my head, and heaved a sigh. "She's not to know. We are wed, we show each other our love. That is all there is to it from any point of view, as far as I'm concerned."

Thorin, as usual, had his own motives, and I was not going to permit his king-mongering to interfere with my love for the daughter of Bard. If he wished to see it as a strategic alliance, so be it. Eru, if Bard, even if Sigrid herself wished to see it that way, I should not mind so much. I only wanted to be close to her, to be allowed to cherish her, and have her be mine. One day, I thought, they'll understand. I will make them. Some days I think that is why I am writing. To prove this, yet again, now that she is gone.