Twelve Days in the Year, Much Mirth and Good Cheer

"Once Yule is past, I'm going to speak to Thorin about formalizing my renunciation," Kíli remarked to Tauriel one evening as they stood before one of the great fires in the royal dining hall. The meal was long since over, but he and Tauriel often lingered here, she finishing her wine and he smoking. "Once that's done, I'll only have to think about building our home and planning our wedding." He felt quite eager to have nothing stand between him and the performance of his latest promise to her.

"Kíli, wait. You may not have to renounce."

He looked up from refilling his pipe and stared at her.

"I thought it did not matter to you if I remained in the succession," he said.

"It doesn't; not for my sake." Tauriel shrugged lightly, her copper hair rippling like the flames of the fire as she moved. "But I see now, after the Council of Seven, how much Durin's bloodline means to all of your people. I do not wish to strip you of honor here at home and before the other clans. So I have thought on what I might do to spare you from losing your station."

"I'm not being stripped of anything," Kíli corrected. "I'll still be a prince. I'm voluntarily ceding my claim on the throne. There is no dishonor in making a free choice." He took hold of her arm. "There is certainly no dishonor in choosing you."

"But when your brother is king, will it not be better that you remain equally Thorin's heir alongside Fíli? What if others doubt your support? I know Fíli will not, but some—especially from distant kingdoms—may see your renunciation as a break from the crown." Her tone was reasoned and serious.

"Tauriel, none of this bothered you—or me—before." Kíli did not see why she should suddenly be troubled. He thought she had accepted his choice in the matter.

"I know," she admitted, her smile self-conscious. "And if there were no alternative, it would not bother me now. But I tell you, I think you need not renounce."

"Ah? So tell me your scheme." He quirked a brow at her, then stooped to light his pipe from the coals with one of the dried rushes kept by the fire for that purpose.

When he stood to face her again, she said, "It is no scheme. I have spoken to Balin, and he confirms that if we marry by the elvish rite alone, our children will not be eligible for the throne under dwarven laws."

Kíli gaped at her, horrified.

"Tauriel, I will certainly not do that!" he said fiercely.

She blinked, clearly startled by his vehemence. "Would an elvish wedding not be good enough for you?" she ventured, seeming, to Kíli's great surprise, almost hurt.

Kíli shook his head, eager to disabuse her of that false notion. "Of course it would be! And so long as we signed the proper dwarven contract, the match would still be perfectly valid under my laws, as well as your elvish ones. But don't you see?" he went on, still ardent. "Without a contract, our children would be practically illegitimate! They could not inherit the throne, but neither could they legally inherit my property. And you would be little better than my mistress. No, I won't think of it!"

"Kíli, I do not need a piece of writing to bind myself to you," she said, and Kíli could sense a note of disdain in her voice for the idea that her love for him should need to be insured as if it were some mere trade agreement. "Your vow, sealed by our bodies' union, is all that I need to consider myself wholly yours. I won't be troubled if we never sign a bit of paper together."

"That bit of paper doesn't make our bond. It is my way of declaring, in the eyes of the law, who you are to me. Would you have me announce to all the Khazad that you are not truly my wife?"

Tauriel's expression no longer appeared injured, yet she still regarded him disbelievingly. "But Kíli, the laws of elves or dwarves do not make a marriage," she reasoned calmly. "The law of the Allfather does. I find it no shame to be married by one rite rather than another. I would have been happy to take your dwarvish rite, if it would have served the occasion. I do not care what a mere earthly law says of us. We shall still be one in body and spirit: our lives will be proof enough of that truth."

Kíli smiled slightly. He could admire her indifference; indeed, on any matter but this, he would likely have shared it. "Maybe you do not care, but I care," he explained, his tone finally changed from urgent to gentle. "I won't dishonor you before the kingdom. You may be right that the law cannot change the truth of our match. But I must honor that truth with my deeds, Tauriel." He tucked an arm about her waist and caressed her. "I must honor you, love. I hope you will not force me to defend my need to do that."

"No, of course not," she assured him tenderly.

"Then you must speak no more of forgoing a legal marriage," he instructed. "I'm very happy to renounce my claim in exchange for you and all that we may have together."

"Yes, Kíli."

"You're not upset?" He sensed she still held some small reservation.

"I do not fully comprehend you dwarves' devotion to mere laws, but I find no fault with you."

"Tauriel..." If she did not understand his reasoning, Kíli did not know how to make her see why this decision was so important.

Tauriel shook her head, apparently sensing his unease. "No, I see I must listen to you. I trust you, meleth nín." The confidence in her voice warmed him completely.

"Good," he murmured.

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then looping her arms around him, simply held him against her. Kíli felt her hands move over him, tracing out the contours of his back.

"You are much more comfortable again," Tauriel said as she finally let him go.

"Comfortable?" Kíli took a draw at his pipe, which was in danger of going out from neglect.

"Yes." Her eyes held that glint of fascination which Kíli loved so well; he liked knowing he could surprise her, this immortal many times his own age. She said, "Last month, when I first held you again, you felt different. Your body was changed. You felt... rougher. More stony, as if you were returning to your native element."

"Ah." He knew what she meant now. He had lost weight over the months since she'd gone, though he hadn't realized until he'd already begun his recovery. Before he had got Tauriel back, he had not had the spirit to notice or care that he wore his belt tighter or that his shirts hung somewhat too loose, and once she was returned, then his attention had been taken by much more important things. In the end, he had only noticed the change in himself when he had wondered, after easily demolishing several very elaborate meals in Mirkwood, why he suddenly had the appetite of a growing twenty-something dwarfling. But of course Tauriel had known he was different from the first.

"Yes," he admitted. "I imagine I was less than the dwarf I had been by a few stones' weight." The fact sounded rather alarming, now that he spoke it aloud: sturdy as they were, dwarves rarely lost so much flesh, and then only as a result of prolonged physical hardship.

Tauriel's auburn brows narrowed slightly in concern. "Then you truly were fading away. Would you have turned back to stone at the last?" she asked softly.

Kíli chuckled, delighted that she thought him capable of such a magical transformation, unpleasant as the prospect of that change might be. "No. We dwarves cannot truly turn back to stone." Yet he supposed she had still been right, in a sense; part of himself had begun to go cold and unfeeling in response to his deep loss.

"Well, you feel much better in my arms now," she continued. "Less like a weather-beaten old rock and more like..." She giggled and would not say.

"Like what?"

Her cheeks turned pink. "Like my little bear."

Kíli almost choked on the fumes from his pipe as he laughed. He remembered she'd likened him to a bear the one time she'd seen him half naked, but then her words had been in response to his quip that he was surely the hairiest male she had ever seen.

"Well, you are far more muscular than any elf," Tauriel explained as Kíli went on laughing.

"Is that so?" he managed.

"Kíli, I've never held anyone as strong as you. You look as if you could be shaped from stone"—here she flushed quite red and Kíli knew she was remembering that naked glimpse of him on the river shore—"but you don't feel it. You're soft and warm. I think holding you is what it must be like to cuddle a bear; a small one, that is. Somehow you're both powerful and cozy, and I suppose—"

Kíli did not wait to find out what she supposed. Laying his pipe safely on the stone of the hearth, he gave a very convincing growl and seized Tauriel about the waist. She stumbled backwards and drew him down with her as she fell into a seat in the heavy stone settle beside the fire. On an inspiration, Kíli grabbed the fur blanket draped over the back of the settle and threw it over his own shoulders.

"You wanted to know what it was like to cuddle a bear," he teased, pressing close against her and nuzzling his face into her throat.

"So I did." Tauriel closed her arms about his furred shoulders.

"I warn you; I think bears bite."

"Then I am lucky you truly are no bear," Tauriel laughed.

"Oh, very lucky indeed," he returned before pressing his lips fully and gently against her own.

"I haven't seen you this happy since Kíli was still a babe," Thorin commented to his sister over breakfast the morning after the last day of Yule feasting. Back then, before the loss of her husband, her family had been the source of untarnished joy.

Dís smiled as she poured Thorin's tea. "You and both my sons are now happy," she said. "And so the mountain finally feels like home again."

"Hearing you say so repays all the doubts and pains I've taken for this place," he told her.

"I trust those doubts no longer extend to Mistress Tauriel," Dís said as she calmly buttered a scone, and Thorin heard a hint of teasing satisfaction in her voice.

He laughed. "Of course not. I'm quite convinced I can no more separate her and Kíli than I could remove the vein of gold from a gem without destroying the stone. Did you not see them lingering in the great hall last night after everyone else had turned in? I went back, hoping to speak to them both, but found I had not the heart to interrupt them as they sat before the embers, conspiring in each other's happiness."

"This is quite a change, brother. I understand you once felt no compunction at breaking in on their lovers' conference." She was definitely jesting with him now.

Thorin snorted. Someone—Fíli, most likely, as Kíli seemed hardly the one to mention it—had told Dís of how Thorin had once surprised his nephew and the elf mid-kiss.

"I don't know how I ever thought you would take anyone but Kíli's side in this matter," he admitted, teasing her in return. "As a late Yule gift, let me tell you that I have very recently decided—"

He did not get to finish, for his sister's younger son—as if summoned by their discussion of him—swept into the room.

"Good morning, Mum, Thorin," Kili said brightly. So long as he had reason to be happy, the lad always seemed to have boundless energy, regardless of how much he had drunk or how little he had slept the night before. Indeed, Thorin wondered if anyone but Kíli could be quite so enthusiastic on this first early morning of work following much Yuletide merrymaking.

"Morning, love. Have you eaten?"

"Yes, Mum. I came to speak to Uncle."

"Sit down, Kíli. I haven't even tasted my tea," Thorin ordered good-naturedly.

"Sorry!" Kíli offered a self-deprecating grin before slipping into a seat. "Go on, I'll wait for you to finish."

Thorin nodded appreciatively and took a slow sip of tea before turning his attention to the cold chicken on his plate.

Across from him, Kíli occupied himself by very carefully and slowly slicing a scone down the exact center. He then proceeded, with painstaking precision, to apply a uniform layer of butter to each half, taking care to spread it smoothly right to the very edges of the scone. But when Kili reached for the jelly spoon and began laboring to evenly distribute gooseberry seeds atop the scones without disturbing the surface of the butter, Thorin could bear watching him no longer.

"For Durin's sake, lad," Thorin said, his mouth still full of roast potato. "Stop tormenting that scone and tell me what you want."

"Err, yes, sorry!" Kíli dropped the spoon on his plate with a clatter, and a drop of jelly landed on the table. With a further apologetic smile, Kíli swiped up the jelly with a finger, licked it, and then began. "I came to discuss finalizing my renunciation of my claim. I want it settled so I can focus on my wedding."

Thorin smiled, unsurprised. "Yes, you had better begin on the preparations if you wish to be married in such a hurry," he replied once he had finished his bite. "When did you say you mean to hold the wedding?"

"June," Kíli said firmly. "Or maybe May, if I can get the work done on our home."

"Then there's no time to waste, especially not in drawing up tedious and unprecedented legal documents."

"I know; that's why I want to sort this as soon as I can."

"Kíli." Thorin put down his fork. "I'm not going to make you renounce."

"What?" Kíli's face went entirely blank with surprise. "But that was the condition I offered back when..."

"I know. And I do not require it of you. Through the Quest and now the Council, you've been a more than faithful kinsman. I won't reward you in half measures."

"But Thorin, I don't mind. I understand why the rest of our people won't have an elf connected to the throne. I'm willing to give up my right so that I may have what I value more than a crown."

Thorin shook his head lightly. "I will not cut you off from me, from our family, as if I were ashamed of you. I am not; nor am I ashamed of Tauriel. She has loved you selflessly and honorably, and I could ask no more of her than that."

"And Durin's bloodline?" Kíli asked softly, as if not yet quite believing his uncle's words.

Thorin smiled. "Mahal only knows why Durin's line needs elvish blood, but I can see that Tauriel has done good in your life. That knowledge is enough for me. After all the trouble surrounding this summer's Council, I would rather trust the Maker's judgment than that of the squabbling lords of the seven kingdoms when it comes to knowing who is fit to follow me as king. If your son ever comes to the throne, surely Mahal has a reason."

Kíli laughed. "I'll be sure to tell Fíli his first duty to the crown is to produce about seven heirs." He paused then. "Wait— Does Fíli—"

"Your brother agrees with my decision," Thorin acknowledged his nephew's unfinished question.

Kíli smiled broadly. "Thank you, Uncle," he said, and Thorin remembered the face of a much younger dwarfling, delighted by a gift. That bright smile, priceless in itself, would have outweighed the cost of any present.

Kíli continued, "Your concession means very much to me, especially for what it will mean to Tauriel. She was worried I would incur dishonor by breaking from the throne, and she offered— Well, hoping to spare me, she offered me far more than I could accept."

"I heard."

"What?" Kíli looked startled.

"Oh, not from her; Balin told me she asked whether children from an elvish marriage could inherit under dwarvish law."

Dís gasped softly.

"I would never have agreed to an unlawful marriage," Kíli declared, glancing to his mother.

"Nor would I have permitted it," Thorin agreed.

"And I'm glad to hear it, both of you," Dís returned. "But poor Tauriel! How could she think she ought to offer such a thing?"

"Mum, I don't think she understood what her concession meant. The elves don't have as many laws as we do; in her eyes, the marriage would have been just as complete."

"I see," she said, and Thorin thought his sister sounded relieved to know that her future daughter had not meant to trade away her honor, even for Kíli's sake. "She must find our ways as confusing as we do her own. You will be sure to ask her if there are any elvish customs she wishes to observe for your wedding?"

"I will." Kíli rose. "I should be off to the barracks. But Uncle—" He looked at Thorin for a moment, clearly seeking for words that he could not find. Finally, he finished by once more saying simply, "Well, thank you."

"You are most welcome, Kíli."

After the lad had gone, Thorin looked to his sister. Her eyes were damp.

"Well, now you know what I was about to tell you before."

"Thorin, I'm very glad."

He nodded, then reached for half of Kíli's perfectly buttered scone and went on with his breakfast.

Dís had brought Thorin's harp from Ered Luin, and on this first quiet evening since the Yule celebrations, he had removed the velvet covering and played it once more. The golden instrument had sat idle for far longer still than even the year since its arrival here. In his last memories of playing it, his nephews had still been boys, and they'd been fully grown now for almost this half century.

And yet to Thorin's pleasure—as well as his relief and surprise—the strings felt the same under his hands, and the old songs drew his fingers along almost without thought. Strange, how one's muscles held the memory even better than the mind did.

It was as if his hands were still those of the young dwarf prince who had first learned the tune, hands that had not yet wielded blade against foe or labored for wages as if they'd belonged to any common workman. Of course, too much had changed, too many had been lost, for Thorin truly to return to that younger self. Yet playing the harp songs helped, perhaps, to bring that young dwarf, with his eagerness and hope and courage, into this moment now, into the new Erebor where he belonged.

Thorin was so immersed in the song that he did not register the knock at his chamber door until it was repeated.

"Enter," he called without pausing the plucked notes. Whoever it was obeyed; Thorin saw the light from the hall creep over the floor and then recede as the door was opened and shut. He did not look up for several more measures, and when he did, he saw that his visitor was none of his family: it was the elf, Tauriel.

Thorin would have stopped, but she shook her head, indicating for him to finish the song. He did, while she stood listening intently, as if each bell-toned note held some newly-revealed secret. Perhaps they did; she had surely never seen the dwarf king in such an unguarded moment as this.

When he finished, Thorin remained gazing down at the harp's carven soundbox. He was quite sure he knew why Tauriel was here, yet he still found it somewhat strange to meet her alone in such a private setting.

"I see now where Kíli gets his musical skill," she said finally, saving him from finding a way to begin conversation.

Thorin looked up to her then. She was smiling gently.

He returned her smile. "I didn't teach him. He learned to play from miners at the pub," he clarified with a chuckle. "The fiddle is not a king's instrument."

"No. But you both have the same feeling for the spirit of a song. And that sense, I think, cannot be taught."

"Perhaps not." Thorin shifted the harp from between his knees and set it to the side. "Do you play music?"

"A little." For an instant, Thorin was quite sure her expression was embarrassed. "When I was young, I was instructed in the lute. I was but a poor student, though I do very much enjoy music. Sometimes I sing."

Were elves, Thorin wondered, expected to be musical? And was she considered unusual because she was not?

"I don't suppose you came just to hear me," Thorin prompted.

"Ah, no, Thorin," she said, and for once, she did not hesitate over his name. "I came to thank you for all that you have done for Kíli. And for me." She sank to her knee before him.

"You are truly welcome," he returned.

"I love your nephew dearly and..." Her eyes brimmed with glistening tears. "You have given us more than I ever hoped."

A weeping elf—and one who was to become his own kinswoman, no less—was not a problem Thorin had ever faced, even in his wildest imaginings, and for a few instants, he did not know how to respond. But he laid his hands on her slim shoulders.

Tauriel smiled broadly, and her tears fell. Then, to Thorin's utter astonishment, she put her arms around him and her head upon his shoulder in a filial embrace.

After that, it was purely by instinct that Thorin closed his own arms about her in the hearty, warm gesture he would have used with one of his own folk. Tauriel made a soft squeak as the breath was knocked from her, but it was altogether a happy sound, and strangely enough, Thorin found that he, too, was quite glad.

Author's note:

A stone is an English unit of weight equal to 14 pounds. Obviously, it makes sense that dwarves would use this unit of measurement.

You may have noticed that I did not get to Tauriel's and Fili's scenes in this chapter. I actually decided to "split" this chapter in half, since I didn't want to make you all wait a long time between updates. (Work has been taking much of my writing time lately!) We'll get to Tauriel and Fili in the next chapter.

Thank you everyone who have reviewed, favorited, and followed this story. It makes me glad to know you enjoy it. Your reviews are especially appreciated. I love hearing what you think!

Thanks to That Elf Girl for beta reading, once more.