Oh my Jesus, Holy Christ and fuck almighty. What the hell? How much did I drink last night?!
I winced at the creek of the bed when I stepped out, I groaned at the sound of my feet padding on the floor and dear god if opening the door didn't make my head feel like exploding.
I must have been totally gone. Just absolutely gone. I thought rubbing one hand over the back of my head, face scrunched up with pain as I used the other hand to grip at my temple. Like seriously, drunker than drunk!
My face scrunched more and more tightly the closer I got to the kitchen door, the noise was almost unbearable. I poked at one particularly painful part of my head.
Is that a lump? When did I fall over? … Oh when I got in… Shit. Fili totally wasn't happy.
As I swung open the door to the kitchen with a loud groan the noise stopped, that you'd think would help the headache but actually it just made me panic a bit, which I think made it worse. I blinked trying to adjust my bleary eyes so I could see everyone, when Bombur walked up to me holding out a plate of food.
"No, no, no. Oh dear god no!" I put my hand over my mouth as I gagged, "Urgh! How much did I drink?"
When no one answered I moved over and prepared myself a glass of water. The cool liquid slipped down my throat and I sighed. "Oh god it's like heaven."
"Are you feelin' it lassie?!"
"SHHHH!" I winced at Oin's loud voice and held my head tightly in the hand without the water.
"I'd say that's a yes." Dori whispered.
I carefully made my way out of the room, trying not to move too much, it seemed I was still feeling seasick, if my stomach was anything to go by. "Yes it's a yes. Anyone know where Fils is?"
"He is in his bed chambers." Thorin's voice literally split my head open.
"Ahhh!" I moaned, "Okay awesome, next time if you could have Ori whisper to me, that would be great." And I slipped out of the room, padded as softly as possible up the stairs and knocked on Fili and Kili's bedroom door. Still holding the glass of water.
I wonder how I fucked up this time?
When he didn't answer, I knocked again, "Fils? You in there?" No reply. "Are you ignoring me?" I heard a small sound which I took to be an agreement noise and slipped back into my own room.
Shutting the door, I quietly slid down it and sat holding my glass of water to my head, "Fantastic."
After I finished my glass of water and felt a little steadier on my feet I decided it might be a good idea to try Fili again, it wasn't. I still got no response whatsoever. Deciding that if I couldn't sort things out with Fili now then breakfast would be a good idea I shuffled back down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Breakfast now Zai?" Bombur asked with a grin.
"Yes please." I said quietly slipping into a seat next to Kili.
Bombur grinned widely at me. "And what would you like?"
"Anything big and greasy would be awesome. I just wish I had a double dose of aspirin to go with it!"
Kili inclined his head towards me slightly, "What's a double dose of aspirin?"
I sighed, "It's these pill things, basically they look like seeds but bigger and they have stuff in that when you take them after about twenty minutes your headache goes away. Considering I have a headache the size of China that would be lovely."
"China?" Balin asked.
"This really massive country in my world." I replied groaning and holding my head in my hands. "Honestly it feels like my brain's going to explode."
Bombur set my breakfast down in front of me, it was like full English! Lots of bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, fried bread the lot. I'd never seen something so appetizing in my life. I began to dig in to the mountain of food as if it could disappear any second.
Everyone was quiet. Which was, odd, to say the least. Normally someone would be laughing or joking but there was only the sound of eating going on, mostly me, chewing and scraping my knife and fork across the plate until finally I'd finished. Thankfully I felt a hell of a lot better.
"Bombur I cannot thank you enough seriously that was excellent." I beamed at him as he took my plate.
"Just a shame about your magic seeds eh?" He retorted, his ginger beard jiggling as he winked.
I exhaled heavily, "Yeah just a real shame about the aspirin."
"Not like you deserve it."
My eyebrows just about rose to my hairline as I swung to the side, facing Kili, "Excuse me?!" I asked in a high pitched disbelieving and slightly offended tone.
"Well you don't." He replied giving me a hard look.
"You have got to be fuckin' kiddin' me." Kili stared back blankly at me. "What did I do now?"
"Do you realise how upset my brother is?"
My shoulders dropped and I glared at him, "Actually considering it's me he's ignoring and I seem to be the only one who doesn't have any clue what I'm meant to of done. Yes, yes I do realise. So if your oh so wonderful self would like to enlighten me, then please, be my guest!" I finished my little speech with a scathing voice and irritated look.
"You really don't know?! How did you think it was going to be okay with him that you went and got completely drunk with another man?! That man in particular! You should have asked him! Or at least told him!" Kili fumed back.
Honestly, it's a wonder there isn't steam coming from his ears!
"That's what this is about? Really?! For god sake I thought-"
"What did you think? What exactly Zai? Because any one of us could have told you that was certainly not okay if you had just bloody well asked! Mahal! You are so, so-"
I cut Kili of by banging up from the table tears in my eyes, "Yes Kili please do continue telling me what an awful person I am before you even know everything, I'm sure it's wonderful of you! Honestly, you're meant to be my friend and it's not like I could possibly feel shitty enough already!"
The room was silent at my outburst. I looked around at all of the dwarves, none of them said anything in my defence and that made me feel worse.
"Oh and of course you all agree, that's brilliant guys! Thanks for the vote of confidence there!"
"Well, you did come home rather worse for wear." Nori pointed out fairly. "And you were both falling all over the place. You could have done anything with him."
I seethed, my rage was reaching a boiling point but to my dismay I found tears slipping down my face. "Yes thank you Capitan Obvious, no one would have noticed without your radiant observational skills there!" I felt the cool tears running down my hot cheeks like rain on sunburn. "And really it's fuckin' great you all think so little of me! Why in the world I would want to do anything like that with anyone but Fili is beyond me! I didn't even do it in my world where it was accepted!"
They all looked really uncomfortable at my outburst.
"Oh sorry I thought you'd all like to know my purity or whatever the fuck you call it is still intact since you seem to take such a bloody interest!" My chest was heaving by the time I finished and I furiously wiped the tears from my face, I didn't want to be upset, I wanted to be angry.
"Zalia what did you mean we don't have all the facts?" Enquired Thorin calmly.
"I am not ratting on anyone. You didn't want to know before so why worry now!" And with that I turned, stomping out the room, never having felt so sick to my stomach in my life.
When I made it, I just broke down on my bed and cried, I wailed, whined, wept, yowled and moaned. Clutching the presents I'd spent so long on trying to make perfect for Fili the other day. As my breathing finally began to slow and my head began throbbing even worse than before, I put them back under the blanket and just lay back on my pillow feeling extremely hollow.
It's just not fair. Logically I knew life wasn't fair but it hurt to think even knowing what my world was like, that they expected that sort of thing from me. Fili had quickly become the most important person in the world to me and from the looks of it everyone seemed to think I was a massive mistake.
"We don't think you're a mistake Zai." Ori, bless his little cotton socks, came over and gently sat down next to me as I sniffled again.
"Go away. I didn't even realise I was speaking out loud." I whimpered shuffling into my covers and burying my face in the pillow.
"Honestly, we're really sorry lassie." Dwalin said crouching down beside the bed.
"Especially me Zai." Kili climbed up next to me so I had to look at him.
"I should have told them last night, I didn't and for that I can never be more sorry, but I will tell Fili, right now!" Bofur exclaimed, his face already bruising from where I assumed someone had hit him.
"S'not your fault."
"Yes, yes it is. This time it is entirely my fault." Bofur said and he slipped out of the room, leaving me entertaining eleven dwarves and a hobbit.
Bilbo gulped as he climbed up on the end of the bed, "Zai, I should have said something, I thought I'd heard you ask Bofur but I wasn't sure and I…"
"Bilbo it's fine." I answered. "Completely fine."
"Honestly we don't think badly of you at all, or expect badly, we were just angry that after your outburst the night before… well… I'm just sorry for what I insinuated." Nori had his head hanging in shame.
I nodded, feeling a little better already. "You bastards. Now I really need the aspirin."
When everyone laughed, I knew we were okay.
"OUCH!" Kili jumped about a foot off the bed. "What is that?"
"Oh don't break it!" I exclaimed pushing him right off the bed so he went crashing to the floor, "It took me forever to do!"
Thorin raised his eyebrows, "Er, what did?"
I sighed and yanked the presents I'd made for Fili out from under the blanket. Turning slightly so I was facing everyone I said, "See look, I got some leather and made a knife holder, and then with the spare leather I made a bracelet which took forever to weave. And there were these little plaques on the knife so I had Ori teach me how to write Fili and 'my love' in Khuzdul and I carved it into the little plaques. I think it's okay…" I trailed off as Thorin took the presents and began examining them, passing them around the others. "I wanted Fili to see them first but…" I shrugged.
"These are really good."
"Really good? They're bloody excellent."
"I believe the word you're looking for is 'awesome' that is Zalia's phrase."
The praise coming from the dwarves had my cheeks heating up again but this time, not from anger but embarrassment.
"It's nothing much… I didn't make the knife, so I think that's kinda cheating…"
"Do not be so ridiculous. That is perfectly acceptable. It is very unique actually." Thorin replied finally handing them back to me.
I smiled weakly, "Thanks, I just hope he likes them as much as you do." With a short sigh I put the presents back on the side and turned to the door, "I guess I better go and see if he's ready to talk to me yet."
When we left my room, we could see Bofur stood outside Fili's room, still it appeared, attempting to be allowed inside. "I'm sorry Zai he won't…"
I waved Bofur away with my hand."Fils?" I called knocking on the door. "Are you ready to talk now or not?"
I put my ear to the door, trying ridiculously hard to hear an answer, but none came.
"That's it you stubborn bastard I'm coming in!" Throwing myself into the door was not a good idea, especially not when it turned out, he was opening it. I fell in, face first with just enough sense to roll onto my back mid-fall. "Ow!" I groaned.
Fili raised his eyebrows at me, his arms crossed. I sprang up. "I'll admit, not the entrance I wanted but I'll roll with it."
"Will you now?" His voice was seriously flat.
"Yes, I will, you are going to talk to me, and if you're not going to talk then I am going to talk at you and you are going to listen!" I crossed my arms and gave him a hard stare; he sniffed and nodded, slamming the door in the face of the others who had all been watching with interest.
"What is your problem?!" I ranted, "How rude do you have to be to mmmpfff."
Fili took me by complete surprise, lifted me and quite literally chucked me onto the bed before striding over and straddling me, pinning my arms above my head with one hand and covering my mouth with the other.
"You." He said eyes hard as ice, "You are my problem right now. It seems whatever I say to you, you can't get it into that head of yours that I worry about you. And that it is different here! Do you know how last night made me feel?! Do you?!"
He glared down at me as I pointedly looked down at the hand covering my mouth. With a huff he removed it. "Yes actually I do, do you know how it made me feel? How this morning made me feel?"
"URGH!" With a growl to rival a wolves, Fili leapt up from the bed and stormed around the room. "NO! You don't get to make me feel bad! I won't have it! I won't, I've done enough of that already and I…"
To my horror I realised he was upset. And I mean he was seriously upset. "Fils?" My voice was soft and questioning as he sat down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. "Fili?"
I pulled myself over so I was lying on my side, tucking my head round to look up at him slightly and resting my elbow by his knee. Fili didn't move but when I heard a deeper sniff than normal, I realised why.
"Oh darlin'" I stroked my hand over his hair. "Sweetheart what did I do? Why are you so upset?"
"He's…he's what you really want. What you're used to and I'm just a stupid dwarf! He's human and tall and handsome and…"
"Hold it!" I snapped making Fili take his hands off his face and look at me. "Hold it right there Mr, what exactly makes you think I have any interest in Bard? He's my friend. And yes he is attractive but I don't fancy him or anything. He's just… the first person to really get me. He understands most of my odd slang terms. It's familiar. But it's not right!"
I wiped the tears from Fili's cheeks and sat up properly leaning my forehead against his. "This is right. This is everything I want. Not a guy who's waist I barely come up too and who tries to convince me to abandon my friends. You, Fili… you're it for me. Yes I was human once, but I'm not now. And sure it's still weird and irritating at times but this is my future. You are my future and I wouldn't replace you for anyone. Certainly not a man whose waist I barley reach." I smiled.
Fili grinned weakly at me. "In that case, what the hell did you think you were doing? Do you realise how worried I was? How panicked?!"
"FYI I had it on good authority it would be alright. Apparently my source was mistaken."
"You mean to tell me, I shouted and spent all night and morning swinging between angry and depressed because someone told you it would be okay?!"
I grinned, that's my Fili, my wrathful, protective man here.
"That someone knew where you were?! And I was worrying for nothing?!"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes" He growled out, "Yes it does matter."
"Well I'm not dobbing anyone in. But I did try and find you and Kili first, but Kili was asleep and you were out."
"What do you mean, 'dobbing'?"
I grinned as his furious look turned into one of pure puzzlement and he twirled my braid around his finger.
"I mean," I said tugging on his moustache braid. "I'm not telling on anyone."
"Fine, I'll find out I-" He stopped mid-sentence and stared at me as if I'd just fluently recited that I thought orcs were good looking in Khuzdul. "Wait you were going to ask my permission? You. Ask." His eyebrows were almost non-existent.
"Yes, I promised I'd pay more attention to how you feel about things here didn't I?" I grinned, "Do you not listen to anything I say?"
"I…" He gulped. "Thank you, and you know if having a friend like Bard" He practically spat out the name, "Is normal in your world then I'm okay with that too…"
"No you're not, but that's okay. We're learning, it's compromise, we'll get there eventually."
Bobbing his head he suddenly swiped forwards, caught me round the waist, pulled me across his lap and began kissing me. I moaned at the feeling of his lips against my mouth, at the feeling of being completely engulfed in his arms, of just being surrounded by pure Fili. He panted pulling back with what seemed like extreme effort, eyes glistening with desire.
"Okay we can't do that here, so I've got something better!" Lifting me up as he stood and then setting me on my feet he said "Close your eyes."
I sighed but at the look he gave me did as he asked, pursing my lips together trying to suppress a smile. I felt something tickle my neck and something cool and heavy rest between my breasts and then, "Okay now open them!"
Grinning my eyes flew open and I looked down and gasped. Sitting in between my breasts was a beautiful stone, I didn't even want to think of how much it cost, which he had somehow made into a 'Z' shape. It was a beautiful blue/green, the same exact colour as his eyes, held onto a lovely strong braided rope pattern necklace, made with dark brown leather.
"You said it was your favourite colour and so I…"
I launched myself forwards as he shuffled around nervously in front of me and landed straight in his arms, planting another kiss on his lips I pulled back "Fils it's perfect."
"Just like you then Mimur."
I grinned and hurried away to get his presents.
"Hey!" He called and I could hear heavy footsteps following me down the corridor. "Where are you going?"
I just about had time to grasp his presents and swing round, hiding them behind my back, when he walked in.
"You know I wasn't finished with you!" He smirked slyly and then pounced. As he latched onto my sides tickling me relentlessly I burst out into high trilling giggles and we both fell to the floor in our struggle. Making it extra hard to hold onto the presents.
"Fili stop!" I tried to implore him but it was no use.
"I find myself utterly unable!"
"You doofus stop! I have something for you too!"
At this he froze looking absolutely bewildered. "You…you do?"
"Don't sound so shocked!" I admonished him with a grin. "You told me that's what we did, so I made you some things too."
I frowned looking down at my necklace, the delicate weaving and craftsmanship required. "They're nothing like yours though… nowhere near as good."
He sat up cross legged and I struggled up copying, trying not to break anything. He didn't rush me. I was like a child when it came to presents, and I know I would have rushed him if I had realised what he was doing but as I didn't, however, Fili had more self-control.
He waited patiently, twirling one end of his moustache until I brought out the bracelet from behind my back.
"I thought it would suit you and I just… yeah, yanno it's probably stupid but-"
The raw emotion in his eyes when his head tilted upwards and he caught my eyes made me come to a grinding halt. Delicately fingering the bracelet he whispered, "It's perfect, could you?"
His right hand reached out towards me, holding the bracelet and I nodded taking it from him, "You don't have to feel obliged to wear it… I-"
"Mimur," His lips landed on mine and we ended up on the floor kissing once more. My soft pink lips against his chapped ones, my hands fisted in his hair and his tongue swiped at my bottom lip. My mouth parted instinctually and eventually pure passion and love in his kiss was enough to make me breathless. "Shut up." He muttered as he pulled us both up again.
We panted heavily for a few seconds while I put his bracelet on for him and then as he went to stand I grasped him firmly by the wrist. "Where do you think you're going?! I've got another here!"
Wasting no more time I pulled the knife in its leather sheath from behind my back and handed it to him. "I made the sheath, not the knife which is probably cheating but I did carve the plaques!"
Fili said nothing. He inspected the sheath and then drew the knife, first he admired the blade and finally his eyes fell on the plaques. I don't know quite what he was expecting but the small intake of breath let me know that it wasn't anything like what I'd done. For about five minutes he simply sat, turning the knife over in his hands, looking at one plaque and then the other, stroking his thumb over one plaque and then the other.
I tittered nervously. "Well… see Ori taught me how to write what I wanted to put, I may have done it completely wrong, and I mean I thought the knife was pretty but it might be no good, and if the sheath isn't right then-"
"Mimur." The gravelly tone in his voice was enough to make me fall silent, mouth still parted slightly. "I have never received such a thoughtful, wonderful… it's just…"
I smiled and leant forwards brushing my lips on his lips before leaning back and looking up at him from under my eyelashes. "You like it then yeah? Because it took forever, I told you I can't hand-make anything...so it's not perfect but-"
"Mimur." His tone was as grave as I had ever heard it. "It couldn't be more perfect."
Well if this morning hasn't been an emotional rollercoaster… then I don't know what constitutes. I thought as I beamed.
Hi guys,
Hope you liked this chapter!
Thanks for all the follows, favs and reviews!
Rue
