Ah. So we lay in silence for some while, and at last, heaving a great sigh, Fili sat up and clambered to his feet. He was clad only his his trousers, which he did up more respectably, and beckoned to me in silence. Rising, and tugging my thin shift up over my shoulder (though this only caused the other side to fall, for, as I said, the dwarrow-maids have still not entirely mastered the art of sewing narrower clothing for me), I stood on the cold floor.

"What are we doing?" I asked at length, as he continued to regard me with an enigmatic gaze.

"Come with me."

I pulled back. "We are not dressed."

"No one will see us."

"Are you sure?"

"If they do, they will not speak of it." Fili smiled. "I have an idea."

And so, as quietly as possible, resisting the urge to break into giggles as we crept like burglars through the enormous night-lit halls beneath the mountain, we made our way down, down, down, into the very heart of the earth, it seemed. If earlier that day I had gone up to the peaks, now we were below even the roots of the mountain. The air grew warmer as we descended, and it seemed to grow moister as well.

"Where are we going?" I repeated for perhaps the fifth time, and Fili just smiled over his shoulder, his grip on my hand firm, as he had the previous times. "No - Fili - where?"

He stopped short. "Don't you trust me?" I smiled, and nodded. "Then close your eyes."

I shook my head. "Why?"

He rolled his eyes. "Then sniff. What do you smell?"

I took a whiff of the warm damp air around me, and said, "Wet. It smells like the rain on rocks." The realization washed over me. "The lake. It smells like the shore of the lake."

He nodded. "And what do you hear?"

There was a distant roaring that had been coming closer and closer that I had disregarded, as so many sounds in the halls of Erebor were reduced to rolling echoes by mere distance.

"It sounds like... a river, almost."

He nodded. "It is a river."

My eyes widened. "A river beneath the mountain?"

"Now close your eyes."

I obliged, and caught my breath as his arms behind my back picked me up off my feet and held me close to him. I had not fear that he would drop me, for he can bear much greater weights, but still I clung to him as heavy steps took us down a curving set of stairs.

Moist spray littered my face and hair, and the roaring was suddenly around us, and I heard the splash of water as Fili seemed to step down into a warm pool.

"Can I open them?" I asked, speaking above the sound of the rushing water, and feeling the tug of the current at his legs.

"Not yet." He did not speak after that, but continued to slosh through the water until I could hardly hear for the deafening roaring that surrounded us.

"Fili?" I asked, but then I could say no more as the great weight of water falling from above crashed down on us, and I was drenched to the skin, still held fast in Fili's arm. I opened my mouth to cry out, but it was filled with water, and spluttering and gasping, he finally moved us out of the crush of the waterfall, and I opened my eyes, looking at him in shock and pleasure.

His hair was plastered to his head as he broke into boisterous laughter and set me on my feet in the thigh-high water.

"A waterfall!" I gasped. "But aren't they just nice to look at?"
He seemed to find this immensely funny, and for a moment it seemed that Fili and the falls were having a contest as to who could roar louder.

"I wanted to surprise you," he said at last.

"And you did!"

Dabbling my hand in the warm, fresh water, I flicked a little bit from the end of my fingers toward him and watched for his response.

Fili's eyes widened. "You want to play that game, do you, lass?" He shook his head. "I tell you, I will win. I always do."

And he splashed a great wall of water toward me. I ran screaming like a child toward the falls, and immersed myself in them, feeling the weight press down upon my drenched head and pound my shoulders until I felt my legs should buckle. Fili's hand grabbed mine, and pulled me deeper within the falls, and I tried to tug back, knowing I needed air, but he pulled me on until suddenly we were released, and found ourselves in a damp stony hollow, behind the falls. It was beautiful.

"Well, here we are," Fili smiled. "What shall we do, now that we are here?"

I grinned. "Never leave."

He nodded. "It sounds like a good plan. Except that Erebor will never be completed at this rate."

I laughed. "Let it complete itself."

Fili's gaze met mine, and he let his eyes rove over my form, scantily clad as it was in the thin shift, made transparent by the wet, and clinging to my skin.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, leaning forward and capturing my lips in a kiss. When he didn't stop, I let out a little squeak, my back was pressing into the rocks behind us as he crowded me against them, still kissing me madly.

"Fili," I gasped when he at last broke away for a moment, his panting upon my cheek erratic and sending shivers of delight along me, for the wet there evaporated with his breath.

"Sigrid," he replied in kind, and I ran my hands along his face and beard, sopping with water and delightfully disheveled.

"Are we really going to do this here?" I asked at last, seeing that my touch seemed to make him weak with pleasure, and finding that I did not want to stop either.

"Yes." He smiled. "Yes, we are."