OKAY have one more! 

(fyi, I posted a sneak-peek of the Discworld/LOTR crossover earlier YES I AM SHOWERING YOU IN SNEAKY PEEKS) 

i hope you enjoy! I HOPE YOU HAVE AN A++ FRIDAY

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“You knew, then.”

Kíli made a rude noise, deep in his throat. “Of course I know.
Knew. That.”

Thráin sighed, and dumped Custard onto Kíli’s lap. The large
orange-and-white cat gave a questioning meow, before discovering that the
leather of Kíli’s coat was particularly nice to rub her cheek upon.

Kíli’s hands circled about her, almost by reflex, and he
looked up at his grandfather and great-grandmother with confusion in his eyes. “It’s
been eighty years,” he said, his voice rather tight.

“Aye, it has,” Thráin said, and sat down beside Kíli. Hrera
was uncharacteristically quiet as she sat on his other side (though her fingers
did begin to run through his perpetually scruffy hair). “Eighty years, and you
never said a word. Most of us gave no more thought to it, because you seemed…
well, content. Content enough. And you never brought it up, beyond those first
years.”

Kíli’s eyes darted nervously from side to side, before he schooled
them into submission by fixing them upon Custard’s bushy tail. “Well, it didn’t
seem the time. Not with everything else – Thorin and Fee were so – well, you saw, they were wounded. Fee was angry
and swallowing it every day, and Thorin was exploding extremely slowly… and
then Bifur was here, and Nori – and then there was the war, and Frerin needed
us to take over from him when he couldn’t – and so…”

Hrera’s eyebrows were raised meaningfully at her son. Thráin
nodded and waved a hand in response. “There’s a lot you do that nobody sees,
isn’t there?” he said. “A lot you hide behind your carefree sunny smiles, my
lad. Does Fíli know?”

Kíli’s gaze dropped once more. “Most of it. Not all.”

Hrera shifted around in her seat, both her hands rising to separate
out the strands for a braid upon Kíli’s left temple. “Do you know who else in
our family hides such things?” she said, her voice lacking its usual proud
bite. “And no, it’s not your uncle, forever wearing his heart in his scabbard
or in his eyes. Not your mother, either, our songbird who lost her voice for
grief.”

“Not I, neither,” Thráin said, as Kíli gave him a dubious
look. “Not likely! The one who took us to war for vengeance and set out alone to
seek our lost glory? You’ve my recklessness, to be sure. But I’ve not held my
heart so close and quiet in my life, not even as a child. That was a lesson I
learned once I was long dead.”

Kíli blinked between them, even as Custard rubbed her head
beneath his chin. “So, who?”

“You and I have something in common after all, great-grandson,”
Hrera said, her hazel eyes moist and soft. “You and I can hide our breaking
hearts, and never show a sign of it. My armour might be dresses and jewels, and
yours might be jokes and smiles, but in the end it is all the same. Frerin has
a touch of it, as does Dáin… but the rest are hopelessly transparent. I’d never
have expected such circumspection of you. Your braids are, after all, a
disgrace.”

“Amad,” said Thráin, sighing.

“Well, they are,” she muttered, and smoothed down Kíli’s tangles
with a gentle hand.

“Look, I’m all right, I’m well enough,” said Kíli, rather
dazedly. Hrera’s presence always made him feel pre-emptively guilty, as though
anticipating a scolding. “And I think that was a compliment, so thank you. Possibly.
What’s brought all this on?”

“Thranduil found the cairn,” Thráin said. And winced.

“And once he’d seen her, seen what she came to, he chose to
send food to Erebor,” added Hrera. “I wouldn’t have thought it true, even
though I beheld it with my own two eyes. He didn’t know what had happened to
her – your Elf, I mean. But you did. Didn’t you?”

“Amad!” Thráin said, rather more sharply, as Kíli sucked in
a short and trembling breath. “Let’s just sit together for a moment, shall we?”

And so they did. Hrera stroked Kíli’s mad, tangled hair,
ordering it to her satisfaction with tender fingers. Kíli’s own hands buried
deep into Custard’s cloud of orange fur, and the purr was louder than the roar
of the fire.

Thráin’s hand landed upon Kíli’s shoulder, where it stayed.
Hard and huge, stable and firm as the earth itself, and Kíli felt himself grow steadier
under its weight.

“I knew,” he said eventually. His voice whispered and
cracked. “Of course I did. I watched as she grew weak and worn like no Elf ever
does, ever. Her hair grew thin, her eyes were lined, and for her sake I cursed
myself and my birth and that she had ever met me. For my sake, I couldn’t – can’t- regret that I had known her – I can’t
regret that for a minute. She was starlight in the darkness, for such a short
time. Yet it was so bright, and so… so pure.”

Kili closed his eyes tightly, and his shoulders squared as
he inhaled. “And so. Yes, I knew, and I saw. She wouldn’t let herself fade. She
was a warrior, my Tauriel. And she fought it, fought herself inside and out and
wouldn’t let it win.”

“You knew where she’d gone,” said Thráin. It was not a
question: there was no pushing for answers. Thráin simply waited for confirmation,
and kept his hand where it was, anchoring his grandson to the quiet and the
peace and the feel of hands in his hair, the fur and warmth against his chest.

“Aye.” Kíli licked his dry lips, and then closed his
eyes. “She nearly did it, too. Died with a blade in her hand, died facing evil.
She wouldn’t let it grow stronger than her, no matter how weak she became. Never. But that is all I have known,
that and an endless futile longing. Because now she’s somewhere I cannot see.”

“There’s tales enough of Elves, and how they are bound to
the world even after they die,” said Thráin. “She won’t be gone forever.”

“Long enough,” Kíli sighed. “But I’ll wait. I’d wait longer,
if I had to. What did we have? Three, perhaps four days? How pathetic – how inadequate! If I was someone else, I’d
laugh at me. Wait, no… no I wouldn’t.” The look in his dark eyes was grim and
bleak. “I’d weep, because it is all so unfair, just so terribly and horribly unfair. So no, I won’t accept it, it’s not right. I’ll wait until it is right.
I’ll wait until the end of the world, if it means I have one more day at her
side.”

“I’m sure the Maker can do better by you than that,” said
Hrera. Her cheeks were wet, eyelashes clumping. Her back did not bend, and she
made no move to dash at her eyes. “So, is this the drive behind all your
persistence?”

Kíli’s smile was thready, a shadow of his normal impish grin.
“Um, a little bit. I suppose. Well, if Mahal could be persuaded to bring Bilbo
here, then why not others? Why not me?”

“But he didn’t, did he,” said Thráin. Again, there was no
force behind the question.

“Nope,” Kíli shrugged one shoulder, and Custard let out a ‘mrrrilll!’ of annoyance at the movement.
“He can’t. He said so. Bilbo is a Hobbit, and must depart to wherever Hobbits
go, to be with his kin as we are with ours. And Tauriel is an Elf, and…
anyway. He saw through me, of course. No use trying to hide from him. Still, it was fun at the time. I
think I turned a few of his mighty hairs white!”

“I’m sure you did,” said Thráin, his mouth quirking. “No
doubt about it.”

“Unacceptable. I’m sure that something can be done,” said Hrera, frowning. “It’s terribly untidy
to have all these sundered lovers moping about the place.”

“Amad!” Thráin growled, and turned to Kíli, ignoring his
mother entirely. “Your lady-love was a brave, brave lass, grandson,” he said. “A
lady worth waiting eternity for. And we’ll all wait with you, until you’re
together once more. Believe in that, at least.”

Kíli smiled faintly once more, and this time it was tinged
with pride. “Wasn’t she something?”

“Dreadful organisation,” Hrera muttered.  “Simply shocking. They may be in charge of all
that is and ever will be, but by my beard, I wouldn’t make them responsible for
the seating at a banquet! Tsk. Intolerable
and inconvenient in the extreme. I’ve a piece of my mind to give to these-”

“Amad!”

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(TBC)

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