Hello my darlings, please allow me to apologise for my long, unexplained absence...the only explanation I have is lack of inspiration and time in this BUSY busy time in my life. I am so sorry for being MIA for so long. But I hope you guys like this one...it's kind of fluffy in a...wordy way. I can't explain, you'll just have to read. For those of you still sticking by me, thank you so much and again I am really sorry for the long period in between this chapter and the last.
Thank you guys for loving me and sticking with me.
Here is the next installment to Kili and Niya...
As Prince Legolas led me through hallway after hallway, I tried to keep track of the turns, the sounds, to maybe get out of the dungeons, but there were too many to count. It seemed to me that he was taking us on the same path at times, just to confuse me, but I could not say for sure. Finally after some walking in silence, the air around me turned colder and moist, sounds echoed excellently, and the smell was very…damp and like the earth. I could hear my own footsteps bounce off the walls, but could hear nothing from the elven prince next to me, until he held fast my arm and tugged me to stop walking. I heard a jingling of keys and then a key entering a lock. My heart began to race, this all seemed so familiar, and for a moment I thought I was back at Ithilien, like I had been caught, a fugitive being thrown back into the prison she was supposed to die in for treason.
I heard the groan of the barred door as it opened then I was gently led forward. My blind fold was slowly lifted from my eyes and I blinked a few times, not having to adjust to the lighting for it was dim here. Legolas stood on the outside of my cell as another guard closed it, locking it. I watched as Legolas nodded to the guard who returned the gesture and walked away. I stood behind the bars and stared at Legolas as he looked down at me with an odd…almost pained expression.
Finally, he spoke, "This is what you wanted…is it not?" There was a slight hesitation in his voice that I immediately picked up on, however I ignored it.
"Yes." I said, my voice hard.
"N-Niya?" Kili's voice rang loud and clear, causing my heart to skip a beat. The lines on my face smoothened, and my hard eyes fell soft and left Legolas to search for Kili, waiting for him to pop out from behind him.
"Kili?" I gasped and launched my body at the bars, holding them tight, trying to see Kili. A scuffling could be heard from the cell next to mine and then I heard the doors of the cell to my right shake much like mine did when I rammed into it.
"Niya! What are you –why did you put her down here?" Kili demanded and Legolas averted his gaze toward him. My heart pounded and my head began to swim. I didn't expect to see Kili ever again.
"She requested to be imprisoned the same as the dwarves she arrived with." Legolas responded, greatly downplaying what really happened in the room I was so graciously given.
"Niya, you should have not…I did not want you in another prison." Kili's soft words met my ears and tears were brought to my eyes. I held my breath when I saw Kili's hands blindly make their way out of his cell and across the 7 inch wall to in front of my cell. His hands were looking for me and I just needed his touch. I gave him my hands, releasing the breath I was holding, then the thoughts came rushing back to me. I abruptly pulled my hands away and looked at his hands in anger, backing away from them slightly. What is this…
"Why the sudden change of heart?" I spat, not paying any mind to Legolas who was still standing outside my cell watching us.
"What are you talking about?" Kili strained, gripping my cell bars tightly.
I scoffed. "You brushed me off like I meant nothing to you, and sent me nothing but hateful looks!" I stared at his hands angrily like they were actually the ones talking to me. "Right after you told me you loved me, Kili." I said, my voice deadly and low.
Kili did not hesitate to protest. "Niya you don't understand, I didn't want them to know…" Kili's voice trailed off and I could see Legolas eyeing Kili hard.
"Know what Kili." I said, still angry.
At this, Legolas turned his attention to me to respond. "That you two are courting." I shut my mouth and stared hard this time directly into the elven prince's eyes and he returned my gaze, though it was not hostile.
"After what happened with the Goblin King…what he wanted to do to you, I couldn't let something like that happen again." My heart clenched slightly, but I didn't break my stare from Legolas'. I ignored Kili, albeit what he just revealed was causing butterflies to stir in my stomach, this wasn't the time.
"How did you know?" I asked Legolas, referring to our courting.
"Your courting braids." His eyes flickered to my overgrown braid behind my left ear that was entwined with the rest of my hair in my larger braid. I said nothing to his response, fearing the worst. I knew little of the Wood Elves except that they were not as civilized as the elves of Rivendell, though this Legolas seemed to be quite the respectable one.
"You touch her and I will KILL YOU!" Kili roared from his cell, followed by his door shaking violently.
Legolas shot him an annoyed look. "You all were to be imprisoned separately. I brought her down here so that you two may be together." Before Kili could respond rudely, I beat him to it.
"Together!?" I almost shrieked. I slapped the wall that separated Kili and I. "You call this…being together?" Legolas watched me warily as I slapped the wall again and fumed. "This is worse than being imprisoned away from him!" I gasped, holding an upset sob in. "This…" I slowly walked back up to the barred door. "This is worse…this is torturous!" I yelled, gasping again, not able to contain the sob, but I continued anyway, letting the frustrated tears fall from my eyes.
"Niya – " Kili tried calling to me soothingly.
"We are separated by a bloody wall that prevents me from seeing him and touching him and having him!" I spat in the elven prince's face furiously as hot tears overflowed onto my cheeks and fell to the floor at my feet. I shot a hand out of my cell, grabbing at the air as Legolas calmly backed away from me. "You're cruel! You know nothing! This does not forgive you or your father for wrongly imprisoning the innocent!" I cried, pushing my body painfully into the bars with a snarl, trying to reach Legolas. I began to feel my chest close up as panic set in with realization: I was in prison again, in a 5 by 5 foot cell with Kili on the other side of the 7 inch wall. He was so close, yet so far and I just needed him to hold me. My breaths began to come in short gasps as the relentless tears poured out of my eyes blurring my vision.
"Niya, come. Come here." Kili's gentle voice cooed. "Give me your face." I pulled my body from the bars and looked at Kili's hand, it was just one this time and it was looking for me again. This time I gave myself to him. I pushed my body into the wall separating us and I shakily took Kili's hand in mine and brought it up to my face. His hand gently cupped my cheek and I closed my eyes, leaning into it as I gripped his arm. I sniffed in his scent and cried more, only missing him more.
"I'm here." Kili murmured as his thumb began stroking my nose. I bit my lip, trying to calm myself, his rubbing my nose helping me greatly. I opened my eyes into a glare that met Legolas's cold, blue ones. He stood there and just watched us and I wanted him dead.
"I am sorry." Legolas uttered before bowing slightly then turning to walk away. Soon, we could no longer hear footsteps, and the only sounds echoing in the dim hallway were water droplets and our breathing, that is when Kili finally spoke.
"My Niya." He stopped rubbing my nose and just held my cheek. I pressed myself harder into the wall, wishing it gone, but of course it didn't move or disappear. Kili's thumb caressed my cheek then slowly slid over my lips. I closed my eyes and let him pet my lips as I continued to attempt to calm myself.
"Kili." I whispered as his thumb ghosted over my lips.
"I'm right here." I heard his murmur. I brought my hand to his and slowly followed it up his arm and into his cell. Almost immediately, I felt Kili's face push into my hand, causing something to stir inside of me. Kili continued to rub his face into my waiting hand and when he finally stopped I too held his cheek and scratched and rubbed at his stubble that I loved so much.
"I'm sorry." I whispered, finally admitting it, embarrassed. Kili's free hand gripped the one I had in his cell, stopping my hand's movements.
"What are you apologizing for Niya?" I could just imagine Kili frowning at me.
"For being angry at you, when you were only trying to protect me."
"Niya, it is I who should be apologizing, we should have listened to you and not gone off the path, we would not be here should we have only listened."
I shook my head slightly in Kili's hand. "You were all blinded by hunger-"
"As were you! You just-"
I held Kili's hand in my own. "I have experienced a hunger worse than that. Many times. I've lived in the wild and it has taught me many lessons." I explained. "You all have always been fortunate whilst traveling…I do not blame you all for how you all became."
Kili was quiet for a time, and while he was, he kissed my fingers, one by one, then all together. "That is why I love you." He murmured. My breath caught in my throat, I didn't know what to say…I should have said I love you too, anything, something, but nothing came out. Kili continued.
"You…are strong, experienced, yet so…" He kissed my knuckles. "Delicate, shy and innocent. You're hard, and unrelenting, but also gentle and forgiving and loving. You are modest about your skills, your beauty. But you are perfect in every way. You know which Niya to be when you need to be."
I bit my lip as they stretched wide into a smile and I knew Kili knew I was smiling, his hand was still on my cheek. Strangely a small giggle escaped through my lips and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. I felt a strange feeling deep in my gut, in my chest and weirdly…my head. I didn't understand it, but I called it love.
Kili's hand began slowly leaving my face, but I caught it and held it tight. He must have thought I was laughing at him which just made me giggle slightly some more which I also could not explain.
"Niya-" Kili began, but I interrupted him.
"Kili I love you." I murmured against the palm of his hand.
"What?" Kili almost choked.
"I love you." I said a little louder. I felt strangely confident with saying it out loud, but blamed it on the thick wall between us. "I've loved you for some time now." I explained then shrugged and continued. "I was always afraid of telling you because I did not want you to think I was feeling too much too quickly, or just telling you because we almost died…but I'm not afraid anymore. I may not see you again for the rest of my life, we may die in here, and I'm not telling you I love you because of that, I'm telling you I love you because I do, and I want you to know." I realized I was running my mouth so I paused and suddenly became conscious about the words that left my mouth. They sounded so unromantic, so-
"I felt the same way." Kili began. "I was afraid to tell you I loved you. I didn't want to scare you away from me, or into my brother's arms or-"
I chortled at this. "Fili?" I interrupted Kili. I kissed his hand as I laughed again. "You were afraid I was going to go to Fili if your love scared me away?"
"Well-"
I laughed a little harder this time. "First of all, who do you think I am? I do not jump from brother to brother, I don't know how you could think that after knowing the kind of person I am when it came to men, second, Fili…I cannot even seriously think of Fili in a romantic way. Sure, he's attractive, muscular, and just-"
"I get it Niya." Kili's monotonous tone bubbled with jealously and it made me smile.
"But you too are attractive and muscular." I kissed his knuckles and rubbed my eyes with them. "And it's you…who I can't keep my eyes…or my hands…" I slowly raked my hand through his hair "…or my mind off." I kissed the tip of his middle finger. "I've seen you all when you were bathing…" I giggled throatily. "Your arms, when they flex, and the hair on your chest and your hands when they touch me- " I slowly began bringing my hand down his neck and to his chest.
"Niya please…don't do this right now." Kili whispered huskily, grasping my wandering hand, and again I bit my lip with a smile. This wall between us brings me this odd confidence.
"And then there is the smoldering look in your alluring eyes, the seriousness. Then when you smile, your eyes light up, and pinch at the ends and it makes me smile, even if I have an arrow imbedded in my arm." I heard Kili stifle a small, modest laugh. "And how you look when you sing, your deep voice." I closed my eyes as my skin scrawled with chills. Kili's hand left mine and rubbed down my arm. "The way you know how to act with me, the way you know how to make me fall asleep, the way you want to protect me, but know I can take care of myself all the same, and the way you care too much for me that you're willing to lay your life down for me." I took a shaky breath in and let it out slowly. "You cast a shadow so looming that Fili cannot be seen. You stole my heart without even knowing you did so and I let you, because I loved how you made me feel, you made me feel loved."
Kili was silent for a bit before I heard him whisper a laugh. "I had no idea." He brought my hand up back to his face to kiss it. "I love you…Niya."
"I love you." I whispered back.
"And we are not going to die here." The sense of doom crept its way back into my mind. "I won't let you stay here, not another prison."
This took a quick turn. "Kili we can't-"
"But you can…you've done it before-"
"Kili that was my own people's prison, a very unwell kept prison that I knew the little details of…this one…I don't."
"We will think of something, we will get out I promise." Kili said.
I slumped my head down and my forehead rested on the cold wall separating Kili and I. "Remember the last thing you promised me?"
"Yes." Kili answered almost immediately, a hint of anger laced his answer, but not toward me…toward himself.
A slight whine of a door was the only warning we received that someone was coming, but Kili and I both had the same thing in mind as we ripped our hands away from each other and back into our respective cells. I backed away from the wall separating us into the opposite one and listened to the footsteps approach. My heart pounded, this must be it, they have come to take me because they knew of me and Kili. I held my breath when the elven guard appeared in front of my cell and stopped, but let it out in a gusty sigh as my eyes fell to the two wooden plates in his hands. Immediately my mouth watered at the sight of the bread and cheese, right snug next to the bread, a cup, hopefully filled with water. I watched as he set a plate in front of my cell then in front of Kili's. The guard removed the waters to slide the plates underneath the cell doors and then placed our waters just inside our cells through the bars.
Kili did not hesitate in accepting the food, I could hear, but I waited for the guard to leave, I waited until I heard the whine of the door as he left completely before eating, and even still I ate slowly, cautiously. By the time I started eating, Kili was already finished. He even drank all his water. We were silent with each other, Kili was upset at himself for not being able to keep his promise and I regretted mentioning it. I let him reflect upon himself and waited for him to be alright with himself so in the meantime I laid on the floor and cuddled up to our separating wall, shutting my eyes tight, trying to imagine Kili next to me. Some minutes later, I felt his hand touching the top of my head and I grasped it in mine, linking our fingers together and leading it outside of my cell so that we could hold hands but both be comfortable.
"I love you Niya." Kili whispered softly.
"I love you Kili."
UGH I know, this one was short, and had a lengthy scene, sorry, but I really am trying to write more often, and get to where I really wanna write about, but I have some scenes inbetween first!
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Thank you.