Neither Elladan nor Elrohir answer her immediately and Billana watches them with an increasing level of concern as she waits for them to tell her whether she has help or is on her own. She fiddles with the edge of the blanket as they exchange a look, waiting for one of them to say something, anything in response to her request. Elladan hadn't been wrong when he had pointed out that she is obviously exhausted, the fact is that even if Fili hadn't already insisted that she take the next day to rest she would be forced to anyway. She cannot keep on going as she is, little as she wants to admit it, and if she is forced to stop because she has completely exhausted herself it could be days or even a week before she is ready to resume her search.
"You love them?" Elrohir asks her after a beat.
"Some more than others," she replies.
"It was inevitable I suppose," Elrohir sighs, "I saw the way he looked at you before you all left. Does he realise how lucky he is?"
"You would have to ask them, I suppose. I think I'm luckier that they chose me," she shrugs, missing the confused glance they share.
"We really can't convince you to give up their mad quest?" He adds.
"No, I've already told you that if the price of your help is turning my back on them, I'll sort it out myself," she says firmly. "I've spent most of my life being expected to give up things I want so that others will help me and I can't keep on doing that. I can't keep losing the things I want just because a little bit of help will make my life easier in the moment." It sounds selfish to her ears, but so often she has asked for help with a small thing only to be expected to give up more of her time or resources than she can really afford in return.
"What about your dwarves?" Elladan demands. "Isn't that what they've done? Offered you a place to live, but if you want it you have to help them?"
"No," she corrects. "They came to me for help and offered a large reward for it. The place to live is separate entirely and Kili offered it to me before I had even decided to help them."
"Do you know what it is that you're asking of us, Billana?" Elrohir asks softly. She meets his concerned grey eyes with her own and nods, she knows what she is asking. "You understand that if we are caught helping you Thranduil will likely lock us away and make things very difficult for our father?" She nods. "And there is no knowing what he would do to you and your dwarves for becoming difficult. This is not a little thing that you ask of us," he reaches for her hand. "We need a little time. Can you give us that?" She feels her stomach clench and her throat tighten with disappointment, but she nods.
"I'll come back this time tomorrow," she whispers. "I need to get back."
She doesn't give them a chance to say anything else, simply races to the door so that she can open it enough that once she has changed she can slip out. Whether they would help her or not had been something completely out of her control, but she had hoped that she would mean enough to them that they would at least consider it without placing a requirement upon it. She had hoped that if they did ask something of her, it would not be one of the few things that she knows she could never give up. Which is why she knows she should have expected it. If being on this quest has taught her one thing, however, it is that sometimes she needs to be selfish. She can solve this herself, it might just take a little bit longer than Thorin and the others would like.
"I wish I could say I'm surprised, Kundith," Kili says when she tells them, though he had been the one most adamant that she approach them for help.
Fili mutters his agreement as she slumps against his brother, exhausted and despondent enough to feel tears prickle at her eyes. She turns her face into Kili's chest, not wanting them to see that she is actually crying over the possibility that the twins will refuse to help even though she had said there was a chance they would. The fact is that they haven't actually said they won't help her yet, they just haven't agreed to it either and in her experience that is as good as saying no anyway. Others have refused to help her so often that she doesn't really understand why this time has hit her so hard. Kili's arms come up to hold her, squeezing slightly as her silent tears turn to full sobs that she just cannot seem to stop no matter what she tries to do. She hates it, hates that he needs to comfort her when there is so much that they need to do, so much that they need to achieve and none of that will be done if she decides to descend into weeping hysterics every time something doesn't go her way.
"You need sleep, Kitten," Fili tells her. "You're exhausted and we're asking far too much of you."
"If I stop we'll never get out of here," she gasps, as they slide down the wall together with her against Kili's chest and her legs over Fili's lap.
"Then we never get out of here," he replies. "Either Thranduil will decide that it's a hopeless to try and be more stubborn than a dwarf, or he'll conclude that we're taking up space and resources he cannot afford to sacrifice and let us go."
"Or Thorin will change his mind and relent when he realises just how much time is passing," Kili offers.
"He'd hate me if he had to do that," Billana whispers, too exhausted to fully realise the unlikelihood of such an event, "he'd hate me if I didn't find us a way out."
"He wouldn't," Fili disagrees. "He would be disappointed, but I can take the blame easily enough. I won't let you work so hard to get us out that your health suffers, Kitten, and Thorin should know that." She rubs the tears from her cheeks as she looks at him. "It will look better in the morning," he promises.
She doesn't sleep well, for all of their reassurances she knows that neither of her companions can truly be certain of how things might play out if she fails. It isn't even just that she doesn't want to fail them, she doesn't want to fail herself either. If they don't manage to escape it will be on her and she doesn't want to live the rest of her life here. She doesn't want her future with Fili and Kili to be reduced down to days and nights in a cell where they could be seen or interrupted at any time. She doesn't want it reduced down to touches and kisses that can never go past a certain point because this is no place to raise a child and there is no guarantee that were she to fall with child the elves would allow her to keep it. She wants children, the realisation comes as a surprise given they have always been a more abstract idea, a thing she had mused on as an unrealistic dream or the result of a marriage forced upon her by her grandfather. To discover that she actually wants to have a child, and more than one really, is a surprise, but as she lies between her lovers, listening to them snore and feeling the warmth of their touch as they reach for her in sleep, she acknowledges to herself that she would like nothing more than to be surrounded by children with any number of combinations of their father's features and hers. She isn't even entirely sure how that side of it would work yet, but as the weeks since Fili and Kili both asked to court her have passed she has come to recognise that her feelings run far more deeply than she had dared to acknowledge.
No matter what Fili says, she will find a way out for them all. Their future is not in this place, if they stay here they may as well not have a future at all.
That determination takes her through the next day, although Fili and Kili watch her as though they expect her to take matters into her own hands anyway. She is exhausted, however, and she admits it to them hesitantly, worried that they will see it as a weakness or inconvenience. Instead Fili seems to slump with relief and she spends much of her time dozing against one or other of them, or exploring the more physical side of their relationship, though she keeps Nori's advice in mind all the same. Finally, their dinner is brought to them and it is time for her to go to the twins and get their answer.
"What if they say no?" She whispers.
"Then we think of something else," Kili assures her.
It turns out that she didn't need to have worried. When she arrives the twins are waiting for her with a soft robe to wrap herself in and a small pile of the weapons that belong to the Company, including Fili's swords, in the centre of Elladan's bed. Her sword is there as well and she runs her fingers over it, finding it still coated in spider entrails, as many of the others must be, taken and left to rust rather than being cared for.
"We'll help you," Elladan tells her, taking an oiled rag and beginning to clean one of the neglected blades.
"Thank you," she breathes, relief making her collapse against the bed. She will still have to do her share, of course, but at least she won't have to do it alone. "What convinced you?"
"Thranduil," Elrohir sighs. "We mentioned that a party of dwarves had passed through Imladris on their way to the Iron Hills and wondered if they had come this way as one of their number was a hobbit who is well known to us. He denied all knowledge of any of you, even when we mentioned the name of your leader, and made it clear that we should not enquire further." He also selects a sword to care for. "I suspect that if you were to become inconvenient he would simply do away with you all. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield would be thought lost in the Misty Mountains or wilds and fade into history. There is one thing we need to ask you, however, before we proceed." She nods.
"We watched you today, Dilthen Rís," Elladan says. "We wanted to see how your dwarves treat you and I have to confess to some confusion."
"Confusion?" She repeats slowly.
"We were under the impression that your heart was touched by Kili," he explains, "but today we saw you with them both; enjoying their attentions." She flushes hotly. "It is not the way we were aware things were done with the other races. We know there are different customs, but to take two lovers at once-" he spreads his hands.
"I'm not entirely sure it's a hobbit thing either," she admits, "but the other hobbits have never really let me be in a position to find out regardless. Frankly, I don't really care if it's something my kind would accept, I never want to go back in any case. They asked to court me together, not one at a time or with any desire to make me choose between them. They asked with the honest desire to share me if that was what I wanted, and I can't imagine having one without the other anyway. I love them both and apparently among dwarves that's common and acceptable." Then she frowns. "How did you watch us without us knowing?"
"The dampening spells are on the cells, not outside them," Elrohir replies, setting aside a knife to reach into his pocket, handing her a stone. "We used a cats eye agate, they're very good for concealing charms. And don't worry, as soon as we realised what you were all doing we left, it wasn't the place for a confrontation. Do they make you happy?"
"Beyond anything I could ever have imagined," she whispers.
"Then we will not interfere," he sighs, shaking his head when his brother objects. "We have our misgivings, but for now we will let the subject lie. It is neither the time nor place. Just know that, should it become necessary, you can come to us." She flings her arms around him, careful of the blade that he holds. "Go and tell your friends that we will help you, if you come to us each evening we will tell you what progress we have made."
A.N: There we are, Billana has some help, the twins have some things that they need to discuss, and my list of cut scenes seems to be ever growing. In fairness, this story would be a million times longer if I went with a shifting POV rather than the straight Billana stuff.