I was thinking about this today, about tauriel’s stiffness and seriousness when kili mentions having something down his trousers, her jittery confusion when kili teases about his “cursed talisman”—and how desperately he says “or not!” when she’s already walking away, how quickly he talks, just to get her back
(awkward darling children, she doesn’t remember how to laugh and he doesn’t know how not to be overlooked they’re so bad at this but then they’re talking about light and memory and moons, and that seems promising, like something that could flower under the warmth of your palm)
I was thinking about how broad kili’s fingers are compared to hers, when he takes the stone back from her, and how cool her hands feel against his fevered skin, and how she and fili keep vigil beside kili’s sickbed, and fili tells all the right stories—the ones only a big brother can tell, like when kili was forty and utterly convinced he was the next great nabla player, so the whole royal line of durin had to go around with cotton stuffed in their ears.
and sometimes kili wakes up and smiles at the both of them—a crooked, contented smile, his eyes half-lidded with sleep, and tauriel is warm, warm, warm.
(when they stand beside one another on the battlefield, and tauriel leans down and murmurs after this—after this we see the stars. promise me. I know you can be reckless.
and kili turns slightly, just enough for his lips to brush her jaw. I promise, he says, though his voice breaks against her skin. I promise. I promise. I promise.)
(it isn’t enough, in the end.)
