A/N NOT DEAD...STILL.
I don't know what's happening. Happy holidays everybody. I totes didn't get Fili and Kili mixed up while I wrote this and swap their names around by accident. Pretty sure it's all fixed now though...probably.
She's short. But so am I. Enjoy the chapter nibblet.
Josephine squinted in the bright winter sun streaming through the window as she unwrapped the bandage on Kili's knee. She'd forbidden him to sit in darkness despite his complaints about it giving him a headache. If all he had to trade for a few more hours was a headache, she'd accept the trade on his behalf.
It was inflamed, and the veins leading from the wound were outlined by a sickly blue color but he maintained he was fine, and probably would all the way to unconsciousness.
"No walking, nothing strenuous, and keep it below your heart." She frowned.
"Aren't you supposed to keep these things elevated?" He argued.
"Not this one." Reaching over to the table next to them she wrung out a cloth from a steaming bowl of water and took to washing around the wound. "The swelling is a better trade off than fast tracking anything to your heart, especially since we have so much ice to work with around here."
Kili smiled at her. "We dwarves are hearty folk, Lady Josephine. You worry too much. I'll be just fine for the journey tomorrow. Just you see."
"Stop lying to me." She signed, refreshing the cloth and going back to it. "I know you know something's wrong. I've kept the rest of the Company from finding out just how bad this is, but don't think I'm as oblivious as them."
He avoided her eyes when she looked up and pursed his lips into a thin line. "It's just an arrow wound, that's all."
"It's a Morgul arrow wound, Kili. They're not the same and you can tell, so stop pretending! The sooner you start treating it like what it is the longer we'll be able to stave it off until help comes."
"Stave what off?" He said timidly, his brave face cracking at the word Morgul.
Josephine had seen the eyes of a lot of people by now. Elves older than the moon, men with youthful faces and old eyes, and dwarves with a penchant for calling her child when she hadn't been one in well over a decade. Kili had the whiskers of a man, but the eyes of someone much younger than her. He emulated the bravery of the Company well enough when his inexperience could've brought him up short, but by dwarven standards he was barely eighteen.
Josephine could tell she'd scared him, and she'd wished she could've lied to him just like everyone else. But the longer this went on, the more she worried, and the more she needed him to push back against the creeping darkness.
"I'm not leaving for the mountain tomorrow…am I?"
He seemed like someone had cut his strings as her silence offered him his answer.
"We have to get you better first." She said, "Then we'll follow them."
"You're staying too? But I thought-"
"I'm right where I need to be. Plus they can handle the dragon without me." She joked. "So listen to me, trust me, and try to push back against that chill in your chest, okay?"
"Does my uncle agree?"
"If he didn't, I'd make him. He's worried about you too."
Kili huffed and looked away out the window. He squinted in the sun and turned back to the darkened room with a wince of pain. "You tried to stop it. You told me not to go up on that bridge."
She pursed her lips and began packing his wound with the poultice." Can't change everything. Especially not the heroics of young dwarves apparently." She smirked at him and got him to crack at least the ghost of a she'd gotten that she gave his shoulder a squeeze. "There'll be plenty of time for valor and adventure later." She promised him. "Besides, it's not all it's cracked up to be."
"You may be right." He conceded. "But I'd like the chance to find out for myself."
"Well." She said decidedly as she wiped off her hands and reached for the fresh bandages. "If you listen to me and rest this leg, you might just get that chance. So what are your instructions?"
He rolled his eyes with a playfully exasperated shake of his head. "Nothing strenuous, no walking, leg below my heart. Say, where'd you learn all this stuff?"
"My husband is a healer, I picked up a few things from him."
"I shall have to-" He hissed as she began to wrap his leg again. "Thank him in about eighty years. Assuming I'm invited for a visit."
Josephine chuckled. "If I don't see all of you tumbling through my door after I get home I'll be extremely disappointed." But even if she saved the line of Durin, they wouldn't all make it to the end of the War. The number of dwarves at her gate would still come up short and she'd stood in Balin's very tomb without a second thought.
December 2019
Josephine knocked once at the door of Aragorn's study to announce herself and went in without a pause. She dropped her bag by the door and shuffled over to his desk where he sat, bent over a large ledger.
She laid her hands on his shoulders and peered at the numbers. "How do the store rooms look? Will the supplies from the south pad the larders enough?"
The fall harvest had hit much lighter than had been anticipated. Josephine blamed it on orc blood still souring the soil of Pelennor. They weren't in dire straights, but it had put them in an uncomfortably lean position now that the winter solstice was almost there.
Aragorn closed the ledger and leaned back, letting his head rest against her. "Prince Imrahil's contribution leaves me far more comfortable with the coming months." He reached up and grasped one of her hands. "How fares the second level repairs/"
Row upon row of damaged housing, no more or less important than the homes on the first. It had just been a matter of getting to them and now it felt like their time was running out. "The dwarves work quickly but if we're going to get all the holes repaired before weather starts setting in we need to pick up the pace. At least we're as far south as we are, it should be a mild winter if the beekeepers are reading their hives right."
"The people of this city have earned a mild winter." He sighed.
Josephine leaned in and tucked her head into the crook of his neck and wound her arms around his shoulders.
"Does something trouble you, meleth nin?"
"Just needed to come home for a while."
"Then let us go home?" He offered, drawing her around and pulling her onto his lap.
She folded into him, a soft smile on her face as her head came to rest again on his shoulder. "It's alright, I'm home now."
His heart beat in her ear, strong and steady as ever. She swore she would have known it anywhere.
"We should not tarry long. I was brought word that something arrived in our chambers from Ithilien some time ago that requires our attention.
Josephine sat back up and looked at him quizzically. "What are you up to?"
He helped her back to her feet and tried to look innocent. "Nothing, my lady. I know as much of this as you."
"Lies."
"I dare not lie to you."
"Except when you know I won't believe it anyway and you want to be clever." She corrected. "Didn't Legolas get back from Ithilien today?" His favorite place to run off to when the cold stone of the city got to be too much for him. He'd probably brought back a few bucks, a small but added relief for the city's larders.
Hand in hand he shouldered her bag as they left and passed through the halls. He continued to have an almost imperceptible smirk on his face as they walked and she had a feeling whatever was going on was not just a deer or two.
The guard outside their door opened it for them with a dip of his chin and Ciril's voice was immediately recognizable as she came down the hall, stooping every step to pick something off the rug and muttering to herself.
"Okay, what did he do?" She asked, side eyeing Aragorn.
"Oh! My lord, my lady." She bunched up whatever she'd been picking up in her fist. "My lord, they've put it in the sitting room as you asked."
With a smirk, Aragorn put his hands on her hips and guided her towards the sitting room and Josephine froze in the doorway.
"There's a tree in my house?" It stood up in the far corner, nearly as tall as the room itself. Then the pieces clicked together. "You did not have Legolas bring me a tree all the way from Ithilien!"
His smirk now a full grin he bent to kiss her cheek. "Your Yule traditions are much like those of the Hobbits, and you could not celebrate them last year for want of the journey. I thought this might allow you a place to start again; he was going to Ithilien anyway."
Ciril had been collecting the stray pine needles from the carpet now, Josephine realized. A necessary evil she'd gotten used to dealing with year after year back home. She didn't fully understand how much she'd missed even this one part of her holiday traditions until she was staring it square in the eye. The green, bushy, eye.
Excitement sparked in her chest and she grabbed his hands. "We'll have to make ornaments. And I'm gonna drive you crazy singing all the Christmas songs I know." Her eyes lit up. "I can tell you the stories of all my favorite holiday movies!"
"And one day our children can wait excitedly for Satan to come with their gifts."
A laugh burst from her mouth so suddenly she started coughing. "Santa, my love."
"I know. But when I say it wrong, you laugh." He leaned in to kiss her. "Now, tell me these tales of your land's yule."