"You didn't have to hit him," she hisses to Kili as the sun rises and their pace slows.
Elladan had all but pushed them both out of her room, assuring her that he would handle things. She has no idea why he didn't try to strike Kili in return, but for the moment she is glad of it. They never would have made it out of Rivendell otherwise and without Elladan's insistence that she go Billana would never have followed Kili from the room.
"Of course, I did," Kili stares at her in confusion.
"He was just looking out for me!" Billana insists.
"I am aware of that, but I couldn't let that kind of insult stand," Kili shrugs. "It was a perfectly normal response." He scratches absently at one cheek where she can still see dried spots of blood.
"Normal?" She tries to keep her voice low and knows she has failed when several heads turn their way. "You smashed his nose with your head!"
"And if he had been a dwarf, I would have done worse than break his nose," Kili hisses back.
"Whose nose did you break?" Nori asks. Billana and Kili have been walking in the middle of the group since they left Imladris, shoved there by the others when they reappeared and Dwalin had noticed the blood on Kili's cheek.
"Elrohir's," Kili replies nonchalantly.
"Excellent decision," Nori grins than winces when Bofur wiggles his fingers under the thief's nose, "but the wrong twin. You couldn't have broken Elladan's instead?" He complains as he hands a bag of coins to the smirking miner. Kili shrugs.
"Dare I ask why, lad?" Balin sighs.
"He insulted me," comes the simple reply and many of the others murmur in understanding, even as Balin seems to look up in resignation and Billana decides that more context should be added.
"He was looking after me," she objects.
"Looking after you would have been offering to help us," Kili disagrees, "or asking us to watch over you. That isn't what he did. He threatened me, which I would normally ignore, but then he threatened my family and every dwarf from Ered Luin to the Iron Hills. After that he questioned my honour, my motives for helping you and implied that I would eventually behave in the same brute-like manner as my 'orcish father'."
Angry words surround them and Billana admits that Elrohir took things too far, little wonder that Elladan chased them out. Even so, she thinks breaking his twin's nose was an extreme reaction. Judging from the reactions of the others, however, they seem to think that Kili didn't do enough. She hears many a mutter about how fortunate it is that Elrohir is already beardless, others saying the Kili should have shorn his head instead, and she stares in bafflement at the dwarves around her. The only ones who say nothing are Thorin and Balin. She has no idea how Thorin feels on the matter, he is silent and keeps his back to them, but she can see that Balin is keeping a tight rein on his own anger. He must see how overwhelmed she is by the shouts of the others, however, because he slows his pace and nods for her to join him.
"I take it this isn't how hobbits would handle such a thing?" He asks.
"The situation would never come up," she admits. "I just don't understand any of it," she mutters, rubbing her hand over tired eyes. "The twins have never behaved like they did while we were in Rivendell."
"Like stray dogs with a juicy bone," Balin observes.
"I'm no bone!" She snaps. He smiles at her. "I doesn't make sense."
"I suppose it doesn't," he agrees. "Especially when you're the one caught in the middle of it." She grumbles an agreement under her breath. "Let's see if I can help," he says, offering her an arm to lean on when she stumbles on a small stone. Exhaustion has made her clumsy and she accepts it gratefully, leaning in and observing that he smells of steel and pipe weed and old parchment. "Would I be correct in assuming that the lads, all four of the idiots, are aware of aspects of your past that the rest of us haven't been told about?"
"Yes," she whispers, wondering if Balin will ask for details that she isn't ready to go into again. "Does that make this my fault?"
"No," Balin tells her quickly. "Any fault in this lies firmly with the four of them. You're still young, lass, and if I'm reading everything right you haven't had the easiest start. If you were a lad that would be enough, but you're a lass as well. We don't have so many females as we would like, that's just the way Mahal made us, and dwarves are a possessive and protective lot at the best of times-"
"I am not a thing to be possessed!" She interrupts.
"You're not," Balin agress, "and they know that. They've been watching over you since they arrived at your home, don't think none of us noticed, and not out of some passing whim either. Then your elf friends came along and there you are, with two groups of people who care about your well-being fighting over the right to keep you safe. A situation that I don't, for a moment, believe you're over the moon about."
"No," she sighs, "but I don't understand why the twins changed so much."
"Guilt, probably," Balin shrugs, "for leaving you in a position where you had to turn to strangers for help." She stares at him. "We all heard you at dinner, lass, I thought Fili was going to burst with pride seeing you stand up for yourself and then I wondered if I was going to have to sit on both of them to stop them from ruining your moment." She flushes. "Your twins will have heard about it too or seen it if they're half the trouble-makers we were warned about." He pauses while she takes this in, then adds: "I couldn't help but notice that we weren't introduced to the Lady of Rivendell."
"She went West, years ago, after being kidnapped and tortured by orcs," Billana whispers, remembering the twins telling her about it not long after her own mother died.
"Then they were probably afraid as well," Balin says, "afraid that something might happen to you and they would lose someone else they care about before their time. Fear and guilt make even the wisest among us do stupid things, Billana, no matter whether that be Man, dwarf, elf or hobbit, and between you and I, I don't think any one of those four could be counted among the wisest of beings." She huffs a small laugh.
"But what Kili did-" she starts to object.
"Was not your fault, and would have been justified besides," Balin replies before she can continue. "I've known that boy his whole life, it would take quite the insult or threat to draw that kind of reaction from him. Leave it between them. And if, at any point, you feel like any of us are being over-protective, the lads included, tell them back away. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, tell me and I'll remind them a little less kindly." She nods. "You're stronger than you know, Billana, you just need to realise it for yourself."
"Can I walk with you today?" She whispers almost tearfully, not sure what might have brought them on and not wanting the others to see.
"Of course, and I'll chase all the rest away so that you can think," Balin smiles down at her. "It's not often I get a pretty lass all to myself anyway."
Balin has given her a great deal to think about and she dwells on their conversation for much of the day. Billana is well aware of the fact that Fili and Kili are protective of her and that they have reasons of their own as much as their promise to Thorin. She has already come to think of them as friends first, however, and they are the first real friends aside from the twins that she has had in too long. She has become almost afraid of driving them away and she knows that she cannot allow that to continue. Her own fears there are long standing, having been told every time she refused to do something her mother's family, or Bungo's, asked of her that she should be grateful that they had bothered with her at all. She has spent all her life being told that if she doesn't acquiesce to everything asked of her, she will end up with no friends and no help. Truth be told she didn't have friends or people willing to help her anyway, and little of that was down to her.
Besides, she already knows that a little disagreement won't do their friendship any harm. True, after she had ranted at the four of them near the fountain early on during their stay in Rivendell Fili and Kili had backed away a little. It had not, however, been a signal that she had damaged their friendship. Instead they had asked what she wanted more. Even the twins had stepped back and while neither of them had managed to get along with the other, when the five were in company together they had at least made an effort. She could hardly have asked for more than that, she knows as well as anyone that there is little love lost between elves and dwarves.
No matter what Balin says, though, she is aware that the fault for some of the incident between Kili and Elrohir lies with her. Elrohir had only wanted to keep her safe, even if she would never have wanted him to make the request in the way he did, and had she only admitted to Kili that the threatening message she had been given for him had upset her perhaps he would have left the room instead of agreeing to speak with the elder of the twins. Kili probably only agreed for her sake anyway.
She is still thinking about it when they stop for the night. Fili and Kili both keep their distance after a stern look from Balin and even though she misses them, no matter how upset she is about the events of the previous nights, her mind is too full and confused to talk with either of them about it. She doesn't avoid them the next day, though her thoughts are still busy, but, somehow, they are kept busy throughout the day by Thorin, Dwalin, Oin and Ori.
There is nothing obvious about it, no one seems to be actively trying to keep them apart, and she would be annoyed by that as well. Kili gets sent to find fresh game to preserve their supplies for the mountain crossing and Fili seems to spend half the day in a quiet debate with Dwalin. Billana spends the day with Dori and Balin and by the end she feels smothered. Both are kind, very kind, and she feels guilty for wishing their attention were elsewhere, but she needs time to work through things and Dori's fussing doesn't allow for that.
"Come on, Pretty Kitten," Fili says to her as Bombur begins dinner that night. "Time to see if the elves taught you anything useful about using a blade." Balin clears his throat meaningfully.
"I'm not in the mood for games, Fili," she tells him.
"We aren't playing, Billana," he replies, and she looks up to meet serious blue eyes. He has hardly used her name since discovering she can shape shift and the times that he has have been when he has felt the situation deserved gravity. "You need to learn how to use that letter opener Gandalf gave you. Kili and I can teach you, but if you don't want it to be us then you could always as Balin or Dwalin."
"You don't want it to be me," Balin groans from his seat, "my teaching abilities lie in other areas. If you want my advice, let the lads teach you." She leans closer when he gestures to her. "It might give all of you some peace of mind."
"Very well," she agrees, getting to her feet with a grimace. Thorin has been pushing them hard to avoid pursuit. She grabs her sword and, as an afterthought, the two small parcels that the twins gave her for Fili and Kili. While they are this close to Rivendell still, they might as well find out what is in them. "Where do we start?"
Fili leads her away from the camp a little and spends the next thirty minutes running her into the ground.
A.N: I didn't think I was going to get this up tonight, my inner Billana got a bit fixated on the nose smashing.
Fun Fact (or not, but you know): While fanon often paints the twins as fun loving pranksters they had a darker side as well. Billana's comment about their mother is canon and while Elrond was able to heal Celebrian's body after she was rescued he couldn't help her mind. She went West so that she could heal and move forward. Elladan and Elrohir, when not in Rivendell and Lothlorien, would often go orc hunting and when most of the other elves left they stayed with Celeborn to carry on with their orc hunting, possibly because they weren't convinced the threat posed by the orcs was significantly lessened and possibly because they still weren't ready to give up their quest for vengeance.
And I call that a "fun fact".