Flying, for Billana, has always been about freedom. There have been times in the Shire, when the attitude of her fellow hobbits has been too much to bear, when she has turned into a falcon, owl or raven and allowed herself to forget, for a brief time, all the troubles that have come with her life, the nature of her parentage and her strange magic. High above the Shire she can forget it all, but she has never flown with another before. Kili catches her up quickly and rather than feeling the loss of freedom she discovers the joy of company during such a time. They circle and whirl around one another, though ravens are not really built for such movements, wingtips occasionally brushing, and delight fills her as they chase one another back and forth for hours until she finally spots Fili sat beside the stream where he said he would meet them.
She lands on his knee and he grins at her, scratching at the feathers on the back of her head.
"Well, look at you, Kitten," he says. "Can you change back?" He asks, then, gesturing to the blanket and her cleaned clothes.
She hops down, waiting for him to drape the blanket around her before shifting back to herself once more. She pulls her clothes on quickly, absently listening to Fili as he tells his brother to get dressed. There is little of the teasing banter that she would usually hear between them, so whatever they want to talk to her about must be very serious. She settles on the stream bank once she is dressed, curling up on the blanket and watching Kili pull his belt tight. In contrast to his behaviour before asking her to fly with him, he is now avoiding her eyes and he looks as nervous as she feels. As does Fili.
"What did you want to talk to me about?" She asks eventually, bracing herself to hear them tell her that they shouldn't have kissed her, that she shouldn't have allowed it, that perhaps they can't be friends after all. They couldn't have any other reason to be so reluctant to begin.
"We need to ask you something, Billana," Fili says, the use of her name telling her that this is likely to be at least as serious as she had suspected. "You don't need to feel any obligation, you're well within your rights to refuse us, it won't change anything."
"Alright," she mutters slowly, confused.
Kili kneels in front of her and gives her a gentle smile. Obviously, he can see how apprehensive she is and though it is still not as bright as his smiles usually are it settles her a little bit.
"Relax, Kundith," he whispers, "It isn't anything bad. At least, we hope you won't think so." Fili glares at him. "We wanted to ask permission to court you."
"'We'?" She asks, baffled.
"Kili and I, both," Fili confirms. "We had planned on waiting a bit longer, but after last night-" he shrugs and gives her a lopsided smile as he sits next to her.
"No," she whispers, her heart feeling like it might shatter. "I can't-" her voice cracks and she looks at her hands to avoid seeing their hurt expressions. "You can't ask me to do that," she continues. "You can't both want me and even if you did you can't ask me to choose between you. You can't ask me to decide whose heart I'm going to break!"
"That isn't what we're asking," Fili says softly and she sees Kili shift out of the corner of her eye. "Look at me, Kitten," he touches her chin and she looks over at him. She can see how deeply her words have hurt him and guilt claws at her. "We both want to court you, we both-" he pauses. "You won't have to choose. When you're ready, when you know what you want, we will accept it, whether is it one of us, or neither of us," he locks his eyes with hers, "or both of us."
"Both?" She questions, because surely they cannot mean what she thinks they do. Surely they cannot both feel that kind of emotion for her, not when she has been told for so long that no one would ever look at her as more than a temporary bed warmer if they ever bothered to look at all.
"Both," Kili confirms and she turns to stare at him
"How is that even possible?" She exclaims and he grins.
"We can show you," he promises, and Fili mutters his name in warning. "We'd like to show you, Kundith, when you're ready, and there's plenty of time," he assures her. "No one would expect you to accept a marriage proposal before you're of age, anyway."
"Marriage?" She squeaks.
"Isn't that the usual result of a courtship, Kitten?" Fili reminds her. "If you still don't want to-" he offers after she has been silent for a time. "We know it's a lot."
Billana looks between them, takes in the way that Kili's face is soft and open and hopeful in contrast to Fili's more closed expression. It is the golden mage's eyes that she is learning to watch. Kili communicates with his whole face, he always does, but Fili seems to shut down when he is particularly vulnerable. Much like now. They want her to agree, she wants to agree, but she needs to know that she is doing it for the right reason and not simply because they are the only ones to ever ask her. She wants to be sure that she isn't doing it purely because this may be her only chance at love and a future, certain that she isn't accepting this offer out of any sense of gratitude or obligation.
She does the only thing that she can think of which might give her some sort of insight, she moves so that she can brush her lips against Fili's. He makes a soft noise of surprise, but quickly moves so that the angle isn't quite so awkward and allows her to set the kiss at a pace that is comfortable to her. She's tentative, keenly feeling her inexperience, but there is no mistaking the warmth that fills her as he guides her through it. For a moment she considers what it might be like to kiss the twins, or even one of the other dwarves, and her mind shudders away from the thought almost violently.
"Is that a 'yes', Kitten?" Fili asks when they part.
"I just-" she clears her throat. "I just need to check one more thing," she replies and looks at Kili.
His eyes are dark and his expression almost hungry when he looks at her. Still, he waits for her to come to him, waits while she traces the unexpectedly soft scruff that covers his jaw with a curious finger. She is more certain this time, more confident as she kisses him and his arm slips around her waist so that he can pull her closer. Even then, he still allows her to set the pace in much the same way that his brother had, though she can almost feel the restraint he is keeping himself under.
"Please, Kundith," Kili breathes when she pulls away, his head against hers and his eyes closed as though he is afraid to look at her.
It is that which decides her more than the feelings that the kisses had caused because she still doesn't fully understand what they mean, and she doubts she will for a while yet. She so rarely sees him as anything other than confident, so rarely sees either of them vulnerable even though they have both seen her and helped her through some of her most painful moments during this quest. Had it been a hobbit approaching her there would have been none of this, she would not have been allowed to consider her own feelings like this, she would not have been given the opportunity to walk away. She knows it, because not long before Kili arrived in her smial her grandfather had made it perfectly clear that he would arrange something. It had been as good a reason as any for her to run away with a bunch of dwarves, but it is not the reason that she gives her answer.
"Yes," she replies, still filled with the warmth that had blossomed while she had kissed both of them and no longer able to imagine ever kissing anyone else.
Kili's eyes flash open and his face splits in a wide smile. Then his lips are on hers again and this is nothing like her previous experiences.
"You have no idea how pleased we are to hear that, Kitten," Fili rumbles in her ear as he brushes her hair aside. She doesn't have the time or ability to wonder what he is doing because then his lips brush against her neck and she makes a soft noise. "Or perhaps you do," he mutters, his hands hot on her hips and she moves one of her own to tangle in his hair. He makes a sound of his own and that seems to bring him up short.
She feels him reach around her to poke his brother and Kili yelps, moving back and shooting Fili a venomous glare over her head. His expression softens, however, at something he sees on his brother's face and when he looks back down at her Billana wonders what he sees as he gives her a lazy grin. She wonders, in fact, what they both see, whether she has become little more than a wanton creature who is no longer worth courting with how easily they have managed to overwhelm her. How far would she have let it go, she wonders. Her mother was a healer and a midwife, she knows what happens between married couples. She knows how she came about.
Whether they see her worry or not she has no idea, but they draw back a little and that seems reluctant.
"There is something else that we need to give you," Fili says. "Strictly speaking it isn't a courting gift-"
"It could be," Kili cuts in, "the spell work is all ours." Fili gives him an exasperated look, then hands her one of the little daggers that he had been given by Elladan and Elrohir. "Try not to use it for its original purpose if you don't have to," Kili advises. "The spell's a little sensitive."
"Your fault," Fili mutters.
"Forgive me for not having as much time to show off as you do," is the grumbled reply. "All you need to do is stab it into something, like the ground or a tree, and it'll encase you in a magical shield."
"It won't be impossible to break," Fili warns. "The opal was too small for anything too difficult, but it will take a lot of effort and if it does happen there's a good chance that whoever breaks it will be killed by the backlash." His tone suggests that the one to break the shield had better hope they get killed by the backlash and she turns the dagger over in her hands. "It would keep you safe until we can get to you, Kitten."
She stares at them, not able to find the words to tell them how much this gift means to her. Then she throws herself into their arms, mindful of the knife she holds, and hears Kili laugh as his arm slips around her. No one has ever thought this seriously about her safety before, she isn't even entirely certain that her own mother did, and she feel tears threaten at the thought of it. She knows that they must have begun working on this before they reached the Misty Mountains, in fact she suspects that they had the idea the night that they opened the packages from the twins.
"Why?" She asks when she has managed to get some control of her emotions.
"You're important to us," Fili replies. "Why wouldn't we?"
She can't answer that, so instead she moves so that she can hide her face in his chest.
A.N: So,I got nothing