Today on their ramble about the Shire, Kíli and Tauriel discovered the perfect spot for swimming. A few miles up the Water from Hobbiton, the river turned away from the road, meandering between gentle hills that rippled with green wheat in the summer wind. Here, below a grove of willows, the current slowed in a deep, still pool with a sandy bottom. Along the surface, the water was warmed by the sun, though in the depths it remained deliciously chill.
Indeed, the place was so well-suited for bathing that it was a wonder the local hobbit lads and lasses had not already claimed it. (Later when Kíli said as much to Bilbo, their host had laughed and explained that all hobbits—at any rate, nearly all, he added with a wink—were born with an instinct for avoiding unnecessary dangers like deep water, tall trees, and foreign adventures.) Yet since they clearly had the pool all to themselves, Kíli lost no time stripping and jumping in. Tauriel readily followed.
When they tired at last of chasing and splashing each other, they stretched out on the grassy riverbank to sun themselves dry.
"You're darker than you were this spring," Tauriel remarked, touching Kíli's back. Her hand felt pleasantly cool against his sun-heated skin. "Even your arse is browned," she added, and even without lifting his face from the pillow of his arms, he could hear the smile in her tone.
He laughed and waggled his hips. "I'm glad you're paying attention." He turned over and sat up, then held his forearm against his middle; both were the same warm, golden shade. "Mm-hm. My trader's tan is gone." He wasn't surprised: they had practically lived outdoors this summer as they travelled from Rivendell to Kíli's old home in the Blue Mountains and then east again to the Shire.
"Trader's tan?"
"Brown arms and face, but white everywhere else. In the Old Kingdom, traders were the only ones to spend enough time outside to tan. Their brown skin showed that they were lower class. Nobles never left the dûm and were proud of the fact."
Tauriel shook her head in astonishment. "I cannot image you being happy with such a life," she said.
"Durin's beard, no! Unless, of course, I had the good luck to be born a trader instead of a prince. I'd have sold my goods to the elves, and then met you, of course."
"Meleth nín, you know I am not that old," she said, tugging his hair. "I thought your Old Kingdom was over a thousand years ago."
"Yes, but this is make-believe, Taur. Let's suppose you were an elven princess, charmed by the brave and enterprising dwarven merchant who brought all the wonders of Middle-earth to your door."
Her eyes crinkled with her smile. "But not even an elven princess has enough gold to buy all the wonders of Middle-earth. And some treasures cannot be had for any amount of gold. So you see, the only solution is for the elven princess to run away with the dwarven merchant."
"Indeed."
"And here we are. Am I not a princess? And you are too brown to be anything but a trader."
"Or the Crownless Prince of Ered Luin." Grinning, Kíli leaned close to kiss her. "I never had a really proper trader's tan before I lived in Erebor. Remember, before the Quest, Fí and I trained outdoors every day. "
"Shirtless," Tauriel supplied with a smirk.
"Even in the mountains, it's hot in the summer."
"I suppose the girls watching had nothing to do with it." Her tone was dry, but her eyes sparked with amusement.
"Oh no, their presence was purely coincidental." He winked at her.
Tauriel's grin faded into something more wistful. "You know, I am jealous of you, growing up in the sun. Sunlight doesn't easily find its way into Mirkwood." She tilted her head back, inviting the sun's rays now. "This is the most tan I've ever been in my life."
To Kíli, her skin looked the same delicate cream as always, though it was dusted now with coppery speckles in all those places most favored by the sun: her cheeks, her shoulders, the backs of her arms.
"You're all freckles," Kíli said. "Like someone painted you with the Milky Way."
She laughed in delight. "Haven't you heard what we call freckles in Elvish?"
"No." Kíli shook his head.
"We Silvans call them fladelin. It means 'skin-stars.'"
"Of course" His face split in a smile. "I like it. Fladelin," he tried the word as he skimmed his fingers over the constellations on her arm.
"Fladelin are rare among us, for we spend more time under the trees than under the sun. To have many fladelin is considered a sign of Elbereth's special favor."
"Is it?"
She giggled. "I'm sure it's true. Look at how many fladelin I've gained since I met you."
He laughed, pleased. "You're right; I only remember a few on your cheeks when I first met you." Kíli tucked a damp ringlet behind her ear. "I like your freckles. They're beautiful. And they suit you." He swept more hair back so that he could admire the pattern of freckles falling down her neck, over her shoulder and breast. "They're delicate and yet…wild."
"Wild?" Her look was surprised, curious, warm all at once.
"You know how wild animals have markings to help them hide in the forest. Your freckles are like that. Like the speckles on a hen pheasant or the spots on a hunting cat. You're more like the cat, of course, my fierce elven sorceress."
"Am I." Tauriel eyed him slyly for a moment. Then in a flash of movement so swift he had no time to react, she pinned him to the grass. Kíli grinned up at her, lightheaded and breathless. He could feel the strength in the arch of her body above him, her limbs taught like a drawn bow—despite her slimness, she was a match for his raw dwarven muscle.
Yet when he clasped her, the tightness melted out of her and she settled close for a kiss. Kíli's lips parted, inviting the soft sweetness of her own—
"Ow!"
She drew back, smirking at him, as Kíli licked his stinging lip.
"Wildcat," he teased. He loved her playful moods. "Or was that the sorceress?"
"Both, maybe." She drew her tongue over his lip where she had bitten him.
"Now that was the sorceress."
Tauriel made a bright, questioning noise.
"A wildcat would leave me to lick my own wounds."
"Mm-hm." She laughed at him through her nose.
Kíli framed her face with his hands, brushing his thumbs over her star-dusted cheeks. "Maybe you haven't always had so many stars on your skin. But you've always had the stars in your soul. I saw them shining the first time I met you, Thatrûna."
Tauriel blushed, as he knew she would. "My darling Kíli," she whispered.
And when she kissed him again—pure sweetness this time—Kíli felt all the exhilaration of his good fortune, as if he truly had tamed a hunting cat or plucked a star down from the heavens.
Author's note:
Thatrûna - Khuzdul, "star-lady"
This little scene is set during Tauriel and Kíli's stay in the Shire, which occurs in chapters 3 and 4 of Spring After Winter and Sun on the Leaves. As always, bathing/swimming is my favorite domestic fan service activity, but this little fic is especially about all the sun Kíli and Tauriel get while skinny dipping. :3
The "Old Kingdom" is what the dwarves call the time at the height of Durin VI's reign in Khazad-dûm.