"I'm hungry."

Tauriel lifted her head from Kíli's bare chest and stared wonderingly at him. "How can you say that at such a time?"

"What do you mean, at such a time?" he returned, smoothing tangled copper hair back off her shoulders. "Dinner was some hours ago. Since then, we have listened to the elves sing poetry, danced in the garden, and after that, I believe it was you who insisted we go horseback riding in the vale since the moon was up. I, at least, need restoring if I'm not to expire instantly."

"Restoring?" Tauriel dragged herself up till she was in a better position to lean down over him and press her mouth to his. Kíli kissed her back languidly, as if intent on savoring the full taste of her lips.

"You are delicious," he said when she finished. "But even the richest of wines can't make a whole meal." He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Surely the larder is still open."

"At this hour?" Tauriel glanced up at the moon through the open roof of their bedroom. It must be almost two.

"I don't see why not," Kíli said as he moved to the edge of the bed. "Lord Elrond's hospitality is very free, and you elves keep odd hours, anyway. I'm sure we can find something."

"Kíli—" Tauriel protested half-heartedly and reached for him, but he stood and her fingers barely grazed him.

"You don't have to come. I won't be gone long. Have a doze and you won't even miss me." He stooped to pick up his shirt and belt, then stood staring at the moon-washed floor, his back to her. "What did you do with my trousers, love?" he demanded good naturedly. "You didn't hide them so I couldn't run off, I hope?"

Tauriel chuckled as she lay watching him. "No, but considering the view from here, perhaps I will."

He glanced over his shoulder, a teasing smile on his lips, then stepped forward and shifted her discarded gown with his foot. "Ha!" he exclaimed, catching up the sought-for garment.

"I imagine the larders must be just beyond the kitchen off the main dining hall," he said as he pulled on shirt and trousers.

"Yes, but Kíli—" Tauriel eased herself up after him. "If you go alone, the stewards may well think you are intent on unprincipled plunder. I'm sure they haven't yet forgotten your last stay."

"And so you mean to be my charming diplomat." He came to stand before her and placing his hands on her waist, kissed her where his height made it most practical to do, just below her breasts.

"I am perhaps rather hungry myself," she admitted, stepping past him for her dress.

The garden walks of Rivendell were bright in the full moonlight, and Tauriel and Kíli crept along with exaggerated stealth, though their effort was somewhat marred by their barely repressed laughter.

"You know, I think we make a very good team," Kíli whispered loudly after he tripped on a root at the side of the path and caught himself by falling into her.

"Hush, Kíli," she warned him, no more quiet for her giggles. "You'll wake the whole house."

They did not, however, wake anyone by the time they had reached the door to the kitchens. It was much darker inside, after the bright moonlight, though there was one lamp still burning invitingly upon the stove, and beside it, a neat stack of plates and napkins, clearly placed there in anticipation of the occasional midnight diner. Kíli, it seemed, had been right about the seasonless hospitality of the house.

In the lamplight, the kitchen truly seemed some odd, enchanted chamber. Tauriel and Kíli fell truly silent now as they moved between the stark, looming outlines of ovens and hanging pans and pots while shadows danced on the walls in strange and unfamiliar shapes. At the back of the kitchen they found a pair of doors whose prominent latch, without lock, clearly invited the entrance of the hungry guest.

While Tauriel turned back for the lamp and a napkin, Kíli drew open the door, and the fragrance of cured meats, buttery pastry, and ripe fruit drifted out to them.

Kíli inhaled deeply as he followed Tauriel into the larder. "You elves do know how to cook," he said appreciatively. "Do you know, when we first visited, we thought you were vegetarians, living off bread and greens like rabbits?" He chuckled. "Turns out it was a feast day for Ivann, and nobody hunts or eats meat then. I was quite relieved to see ham on the table for breakfast the next day, I promise you."

Tauriel surveyed a shelf laden with hand-sized pastries with various fillings. "I don't suppose I need to assure you that my people enjoy a hearty meal as well as yours do," she said. She selected several pastries which, according to the markings on the crust, promised to hold venison, and then tucked them into the napkin.

"Oh, no," he agreed. "I was quite won over the first time I saw you could eat as enthusiastically as any dwarf. Or hobbit." He crumbled a corner off a wedge of cheese and tasted it meditatively, then nodded and cut off a hunk. "I'd never seen anyone tuck into a slab of wild boar in a way that was both ravenous and refined. And then you drank at least three mugs of wassail."

She chuckled. "It's true, I was hungry when you saved me from that snowstorm. Though you mustn't think that's why I followed you."

"I know. Fí said it wasn't, either," he concurred, handing her the cheese to add to their spoils. "Though on the whole, you don't eat nearly as much as a dwarf. No wonder you're slim as a sapling." He poked her gently in the stomach, and she yelped.

"I eat as much as I need! Elves can take more nourishment from their food than you; we have greater control over our bodies than mortals do."

"I see." Kíli added several handfuls of berries to Tauriel's napkin, and then paused to look at her. "Elves don't ever go plump, do they? I haven't seen any who were."

Tauriel considered. "No, not as I have seen humans do, though of course our figures vary among us as much as our other features do."

Kíli grinned. "That's why it's hard to sort you elves out sometimes," he said. "Our dwarven girls tend to be plump. If you elf women were the same way, it would be easier to tell your maids from men, especially when you all dress alike in those long flowing robes."

Tauriel only half succeeded in holding back her own smile. "Yes, I see how that might be confusing."

She turned to look over a rack of wines, and Kíli admired the graceful curve of her back as she bent forward, murmuring the names on the labels to herself. He could still not quite believe that any real woman could be as lithe and slender as she, even though he had taken her in his arms often enough to know she was no dream.

"Ah!" She exclaimed, straightening. "I think you will like this." She drew a bottle from the rack and turned back to meet Kíli's appraising eyes. "And would you prefer me to be plump?" she asked him teasingly, guessing the direction of his thought.

"Oh, Valar, no!" he cried. "You're perfect as you are." He grinned. "Fíli may have thought I was crazy to fall for a girl who was all waist and arms and legs—not enough to fill your arms, he'd say—but I think you're wonderful. Holding you is like catching a shooting star."

"A shooting star?" Tauriel eyed him curiously as he added a slice of cake to the now bulging napkin and took it from her to carry.

"Yes, you're all tall and aflame and make me feel like I'm falling. Or maybe flying."

The larder doors closed behind them with a click.

"Kíli, you're talking nonsense," Tauriel told him fondly and kissed him before returning the lamp and making towards the moonlit door that led from the kitchens.

They ate on a small lawn under the spray of a waterfall. Between the two of them, the food disappeared completely.

After handing Tauriel the last of the wine to finish, Kíli sighed and lay back on the grass.

"I'm quite revived," he said, and then he yawned.

After some minutes, filled only by the the rush of the falls and the song of the crickets, Tauriel nudged him.

"Kíli?"

Leaning down over him, she found his eyes were closed and his breathing slow. He was, it truly seemed, fast asleep.

Tauriel briefly considered lying down beside him; she could sleep quite comfortably here on the grass. However, with the mist from the falls, they would have been quite damp come morning.

Kneeling beside him, she scooped one arm under his knees and another beneath his shoulders. Kíli might be heavy despite his size, but Tauriel was strong for all her slimness, and it was not much trouble for her to hoist him into her arms and stand.

Kíli murmured something indistinctly then in Khuzdul—she caught only the word thatrûna, his name for her—and tucked an arm round her neck.

She smiled, though he could not see her. "Meleth, you must never stop being exactly as much trouble as you are worth," she whispered tenderly.

Then she carried him back to their rooms.


Author's note:

thatrûna - "star lady"

More headcanons! I don't imagine elves, as a whole people, to be vegetarians. After all, we know from Tolkien that they do enjoy hunting. So why was there no meat on that table in Rivendell? I've made it a holiday in honor of Yavanna (Ivann in Sindarin), patroness of all living things.

Rivendell is described as being "perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, nor a pleasant mixture of them all" (The Hobbit, chapter 3). Surely the freedom to order your day as you please includes the (very important) possibility of midnight snacks.

The snowstorm, the dinner of wassail and wild boar, and Fili's reassurance about Tauriel's motives are all from chapter 1 of my longer fic, So Comes Snow After Fire.