The baths are perhaps the most extravagant Billana has ever laid eyes on. Dwarves, she has long learnt, do these things communally. It's very likely as a result of the fact that every dwarf, no matter the gender, is trained to be proficient at the very least in a weapon of their choice. Such intense training leads to the need to bathe regularly, and dwarves do put great stock in cleanliness when they are able to get it. She has seen the Company rush to bathe in the rivers and lakes that they encountered on their way to Erebor, she has heard the arguments between Fili and Dori over the bathroom in the boarding house in Laketown and the amount of time that each of them spent there. She has heard Fili and Kili lamenting that the forges were cold and so the baths here could not be warmed. In fact, Billana suspects that the second surprise the two of them had intended to give her was to bring her to this very room so that the three of them could get clean before everyone else took advantage of the water. She has become more accustomed to the idea of bathing with Nori, and the thought of taking a bath with her princes leads her mind down interesting paths that bring a blush to her cheeks, but she isn't sure that she could enter them with the rest of the Company present, even after all these months together.

Nori is the one to fully explain the ceremony to her as she helps Billana to prepare. Balin had rushed off muttering quietly to himself about trying to locate several items and happily left them to it. Nori rubs scented oils into the hobbit's curls as she talks, fingers deft and soothing as Billana's nerves begin to twinge at the thought of having to perform so in front of the Company, all of whom she trusts completely. To have to do it before an entire mountain full of dwarves would be too much and she can understand why Fili and Kili both felt that it would be best for the wedding to happen now rather than in a year or so. The thief's voice is gentle as she talks and explains the things that Billana will need to say and do for the ceremony to be recognised as official.

"Although," Nori adds, "given that your Khuzdul is still rudimentary no one would expect the ceremony to be conducted entirely in it. Provisions are made for non-dwarves after all, and as amusing as it would be to hear you accidentally curse at them, I'm not sure you want that memory on your wedding day."

Billana's head is swimming with information when she finally emerges from the baths hours later. Hobbit weddings are complicated in their own way, but dwarf weddings seem to have layers of meaning and symbolism tied into them that she doesn't think she will ever be able to truly understand. She actually suspects that the dwarves don't fully comprehend it all either, but that their love of contracts and ceremonies and ties to the Seven Fathers has them clinging to old traditions all the same. Hobbits gave up many of their ancient ceremonies during their great wandering time, and those that survive have only done so because her people understand the meaning of them and the need for them. In the changing room Balin is waiting for them with the dress that Dori made for her in his hands along with several other packages.

The ritual of dressing, she is told, would usually be undertaken in silence in order to give the participants a final chance to reflect upon the relationship, decide if this is truly what they want and if the one, or two, they are to marry are actually truly the pieces of their heart that are missing. In this case, however, with the haste that they have decided is necessary, Balin is more direct in his questioning. Does she truly know her heart, he wants to know. Does she understand that the fact that Fili and Kili love her does not mean that she is obligated to love them back? Is she certain? Does she understand that once this is done there will be no turning back? She assures him as best she can that she is certain of her decision. She knows her own heart, she knows that the feelings she has for Fili and Kili are so powerful that they almost frighten her, she knows that she can't imagine her life or her world without them in it. She wishes that her answers alone were enough to satisfy him, but Balin glances at Nori all the same. The thief raises an eyebrow, her expression blank, and glares at the older dwarf for a long moment. Balin stares back, his chin tilted and his face set, and eventually Nori nods. Billana wants to resent the fact that he doesn't trust her to know her own feelings, especially when the rest of the Company seemed to have noticed where things between her and the princes were headed before the three of them had, but she also knows that even by Shire standards this wedding is happening incredibly quickly.

Hobbits court and marry quickly. Most of them have grown up together, or at least have met a handful of times in their lives before deciding to court. Those couples who live in different parts of the Shire may spend longer courting than those who have grown up in close proximity to one another but, as a whole, hobbits court for six months to a year and marry roughly three months after agreeing to do so, even in the situations where such a joining has been arranged. So, even by hobbit standards this is still very quick. Then again, even courting couples don't spend every hour of every day together as Fili, Kili and Billana did in the elf king's cells. They have spent more time apart since they came into the mountain and rather than feeling abandoned Billana finds that she anticipates seeing them at the end of the day while still spending her time with other members of the Company. She is learning that she doesn't need to be with them all the time, although that isn't a hardship either, and that even when she isn't with them she knows that they would come for her should she need them to. That's all she really needs to know.

It takes time for her hair to dry, and during that Nori and Balin give her more instructions which she does her best to remember. Nori leaves them alone for a time and Balin hands her a cloth wrapped bundle, which she opens to reveal two intricate beads and an elegantly made pair of matching knives. Grief lines his face as he hands them to her and although she doesn't ask, Balin explains anyway.

"We had an uncle," he says gently, "my mother's brother. He was about Kili's age when the dragon came, two days before his wedding. He had those made for the ceremony. He would be honoured if you were to use them for yours."

Billana thanks him tearfully, aware that it must have cause Balin some pain to go and search for these items, though it is clear even to her eyes that he has made some small modification to the beads.

"Was he-" she falls silent, unsure how to ask whether these things had been taken from a home with a corpse still inside it. Billana hasn't seen any, but she supposes that there must be some who did not try to escape and lingered in their homes until the end.

"No, lass," Balin assures her, "he was in the guard and would have been among the first to confront Smaug while the rest of us tried to escape. Will you accept them?"

"I'd be honoured," she nods, and he helps her to fasten the bead pouch to her belt and place the knives where they can be removed easily.

It seems like forever until Nori reappears, her face serious as she announces that Fili and Kili are waiting for her, with Dwalin serving as their guard. Billana takes a breath and nods, following Nori from the room. Dwarves do not approach the one who will perform their ceremony one at a time, one future spouse is not led to the other to be given into matrimony. For dwarves this is a path that they choose together and one that they walk towards together. Fili and Kili will be at her side while Dwalin and Nori follow them to protect them against any possible attack. Just as it is almost unheard of for one dwarf to attempt to force another into marriage, it is not quite so rare to find that while one may come to love another, that love may not be returned and sometimes the rejected dwarf becomes desperate. That isn't likely to happen here, but some part of Billana feels better for having the thief and guard watching over them as they enter the room that the Company have been sheltering in.

The room has been cleaned, she can smell something delicious cooking, and Ori stands before a large anvil that has obviously been moved into the room for the occasion. The rest of the Company have cleaned themselves up as best they can, their beards and braids hanging neatly and the worst of the road beaten from their somewhat ragged clothes. As with the ceremony that made Billana a dwarf friend, the Company are humming a tune that seems to make her bones vibrate. As Billana and the princes pass, the rest of their friends lay their hands upon their weapons one by one and utter a single word which Billana remembers Nori telling her is a challenge to any who would come forward to disrupt this wedding. When they eventually reach Thorin their leader has obviously slipped back into whatever curse Smaug laid upon him, watching them with dispassionate eyes and Billana wonders what will happen if he does not make the same gesture. It takes longer than she would like, but after a moment the cloud seems to lift and he, too, lays his hand upon his sword and speaks the ritual challenge.

Finally, the three of them stand before Ori, who smiles brilliantly at them before beginning the ceremony. Unlike with the hobbits, where much of it is a lecture on the properly expected behaviour of husband and wife and a list of promises that they should make to one another that Billana has seen utterly disregarded in her own home, the marriage of dwarves is done in story form. Ori tells it in the common tongue, Billana's Khuzdul really is too rudimentary for her to keep up. He speaks of the early days of the dwarves, when they woke under the mountains with their crafted brides. All except Durin, who wandered alone for many years before encountering his spouse. When it came time for those with spouses to join together for the purpose of children, for in those days they lacked the ability to choose when they might conceive, they realised that they needed some way to mark those bound to one another. In those early days their numbers were few, beginning to grow as more and more children were born with each passing year, and although they were aware of the elves of Doriath, encounters were few and fleeting and it was less necessary to mark those joined to one another.

Eventually, the day came when Durin, the first of them to wake, encountered his One. The tales speak little of her, save that she was fair and skilled in battle and that she met Durin while fighting a small group of the Corruptor's servants alone. They soon realised that they wished to come together as husband and wife, but the numbers of dwarves had grown such that it was harder to know if one were bound to any others.

"How, then, shall they know that you are the One who holds my heart and I am the One who holds yours?" Fili and Kili say together, as Durin once asked.

"By these beads they will know," Billana replies, opening her hand to reveal the two beads that Balin had given her. The runes he has carved upon them, he had told her, represent her name and family. "Will you wear them for all to see?"

"We shall," it is strange to hear them speak together like this, but Billana has to believe that this is how it has always been done. "And shall you wear ours?"

"I will," she responds, and Ori continues with his tale as they place them.

Although Durin and his One had exchanged the visible sign of their promise to one another and wore, with great pride, a braid of seven strands held closed by the other's bead, they felt that this was not enough. For even though they had joined and declared themselves wed they were still two who had existed alone for decades uncounted. Aside, then, from the creation of children, what could they offer to one another? Love, of course, is an ephemeral thing that cannot be counted or touched or measured.

"I give you my blades," Billana tells the princes, new braids hanging on either side of her face, "because I trust that in our love for each other you will protect me as I give these to protect and serve you." The two knives that Balin brought for her are handed over, and even though they are ceremonial in appearance she knows that no dwarf would ever allow a useless weapon to leave his forge.

"We would protect you with our lives," Fili replies softly.

"But it would be irresponsible to leave you defenceless if we could not be at your side," Kili adds. "So we ask you to take our blades and keep them close, that they might protect you where we cannot and that you might fight at our side where we can bask in your glory."

The knives they both hand over are two more of the blades that the twins had given them and Billana places them at her hip. In a room full of heavily armed dwarves these little knives will be almost useless, but it is the way of the ceremony that they come with only the most basic of belongings as Durin and his wife must have all those millennia ago.

"And they came together in that wilderness," Ori concludes with a wicked little smile that he must had learnt from his sister, "and their lovemaking was long and fruitful, for the continuation of the line of Durin was crafted that night beneath the stars. And as they joined they were heard to utter their final oath to one another."

The next, she knows, must be said in Khuzdul.

"We are One," Fili mutters, taking her left hand.

"We are One," Kili agrees, taking her right.

"We are One," Billana concludes.

"Be as One in the eyes of Mahal," Ori tells them, touching his hands to theirs and stepping back.

Even Thorin joins in the cheers.


A.N: Is anyone even surprised that this got away from me? No one? Didn't think so. Ori isn't giving me the exact words of the story of Durin and his wife. For his own reasons I suspect, but there we are. Managed to get caught up on the studying side of things, but I'm still going to struggle with it all on account of the plague. And because I'm going stir crazy after only half a week of confinement even though I'm classed as at risk. So I need distracting from my slow crazy and worry with some lovely comments. I like a nice comment.