Warnings: People only wearing underwear. In case you can't handle that.

The day before Durin's Day, before midnight

Fíli

"Fíli. Fíli. Wake up!"

I moaned quietly as my younger brother shook my shoulders. I rolled on my side without even opening my eyes.

"What?"

"They are making plans to take Moria back, brother."

He sounded excited about it, and also a little offended, for a reason I did not understand.

"Who are?"

"I heard Uncle Thorin and Balin speak of it," Kíli replied, "and they are planning to leave without us!"

I shot upright, nearly headbutting my brother, and gave him an incredulous look.

"What?" I shout-whispered. "That is unfair!"

Deep down, of course, I understood why Uncle would want to leave us behind – it would probably be dangerous, and he wanted to protect us – but then again, he knew that we loved doing dangerous things, especially Kíli, and that we would come with them no matter what. Also without permission. Of course Uncle knew that. He had known us for over seventy years, and we had sneaked into quite a few adventures in that time.

I felt a mischievous smile dawn over my face, and Kíli looked back at me the same way.

"He does not seriously think that we are going to stay here, does he?"

My brother grinned.

"I do not hope so," he replied in the same manner. "In that case, he is going to be very disappointed, I'm afraid."

"When will they leave?"

"In two days. They seemed excited, so they will probably depart somewhere in the early morning."

"Good. Then we will have the shadow and the morning mist. It will take some time before they recognize our faces under our hoods."

"I know, brother. We have used this strategy a hundred times before."

The words had not even left his mouth yet when someone knocked on the door to our room, nearly giving the both of us a heart attack because we thought it was Uncle Thorin.

"Prince Fíli and Prince Kíli?" the voice on the other side of the door asked. It was certainly not Uncle Thorin; this voice was small, almost girlish.

After we glanced at each other, wondering what was going on, I replied: "Yes?"

"I am messenger tonight," the girl – it must be a girl, right? – explained, "and one of the guards saw a stranger in strange clothes approaching. I was told that I had to leave the King alone, but perhaps one of you can see if it's all right?"

My brother and I shared a look again, and I knew we both thought the same thing. We both raced towards the door, pulled it open, nearly knocked the young messenger over – it was indeed a girl – and started to run towards the front gate, both wearing only our black underpants.

The tiny girl followed us, shouting: "Hey, wait up! Perhaps it'd be wise to put on some trousers first!"

We ignored her, and perhaps it was not the politest thing we had ever done, but I think I could speak for both Kíli and myself when I say that we could not care less.

And that, my dear children, is the story of how the two Princes of Erebor ran out of the front gate wearing nothing but their underwear and knocked a young Tale-Changer off her feet as they hugged her but also could not stop running and then fell on top of her.

Sam let out a startled yelp as she hit the ground.

"Help! I'm under attack!" she screamed, but then realised what had happened and burst into laughter. "I missed you too, guys," she said jokingly, "but was it really necessary to tackle me?"

She tried to escape, but failed.

"And get off me! You're heavy."

I moved away and got to my knees, but Kíli climbed on top of her, pushed her shoulders to the ground and yelled: "Never!"

The redheaded girl reacted by rolling him over and pushing him to the ground herself.

"Pinned ya," she said with a mocking grin.

I chuckled at that. My brother was never a person to underestimate women, but occasions were rare that he got into a fight with one of them – and lost.

Sam watched him struggle for a few more moments before she climbed off him. Then she pulled the two of us into a big group hug.

"Goodness, I really missed you," she said into my shoulder. "There's been quite a few times where I had to physically withold myself from coming back."

"Aww, we missed you, too," Kíli replied. "Why else would we risk freezing to death for you?"

Sam took a step back, probably noticing only now that we had nearly no clothes on, and looked at her feet when she noticed.

"Yeah, I get what you mean," she said.

It was dark, but I could see very well that her cheeks had darkened.

"We should get inside."

When we got to the front gate, one of the female guards' mouth dropped a little open as she stared at us, or, more precisely, me and my brother. Sam smacked her on the back of her head as we passed by. The guard looked at her with an insulted look on her face.

"Show some respect," Sam hissed, as if she was taking it very seriously, which she obviously was not. "Not only are they the Princes, for goodness' sake, but one of them's engaged, too! Look at other people's asses, will ya?"

Then she took back her place next to us. Kíli was biting his lip very hard to prevent himself from laughing, and I just could not hide the smile on my face. Sam had not changed at all, and I was very happy to see that. Perhaps some of her traits had gotten even better than they were before.

"Welcome back, Tale-Changer."

A/N:

Yay! Sam has reunited with the Dwarves again!

This chapter was really fun to write. (And did anyone catch the Lion King reference?)

What did you think of this chapter? Reviews are always welcome! :)