Hobbit 1. Chapter 1

There was a knock on my chamber door. Fili stood upon the threshold, wearing a plain linen tunic, trousers, no shoes, and a broad grin.

"One of us is overdressed or underdressed," I commented, glancing downwards at my gown and slippers.

"Don't you like my tunic?" he asked, pretending innocence.

"I like it fine – "

"Then it's yours!" Fili peeled it off and dropped it in my arms, surprising a laugh from me. "And my belt? Do you like it?"

"Yes, I like your belt."

He swiftly unbuckled it and tugged it loose from the bands of his trousers, handing it to me with a bow. "And my trousers?"

"No!" I blocked my view with the pile of clothes, though peeking around the edges was still a fine view of his chest, blond-furred and well-muscled, with a few white scars walking back and forth over his shoulders. I laughed again, not minding that I had been reeled in so neatly. "I guess we're not going to the banquet," I said.

"No!" Fili lifted me by my elbows and swung me out of my shoes, placing me barefoot in the hall behind him. "This is better."

…

"Mmm," I said. "Ooh, yes. Mm. That's perfect." I leaned backwards under a steady stream of hot water, spouting from a fanciful pipe-end shaped to resemble a dragon's head and neck. Fili poured a ladleful of water over the stones at our feet, and another cloud of steam curled around the room.

We were in the best bathing chamber, deep in the mountain and near the mightiest forges. Though technically I had attained my mastery I still lived like a journeyman in a lot of ways, frequenting the showers situated near smaller forges, where the common baths were always crowded and the cistern ran out of hot water just as I got soap in my hair. Nothing like this elegant tiled room with a seemingly endless supply of blissful warmth.

When Fili had hinted pretty broadly that we would be going swimming, I made a mental review of my underthings. A thin chemise, but over a breast band and sturdy bloomers, both of a schoolgirlish dark blue. Plus I had my winter pelt, and thank goodness I have no less hair than the average dwarrow lass. Not a very sexy display but I would have no cause to feel immodest. Though between the obscuring steam and my complete relaxation I'm not sure I would have cared if I was wearing a lettuce leaf and two currant buns.

Fili leaned back on a bench by the side of the room while I slowly rotated in the center. All the surreptitious peeking I could manage couldn't determine whether he had supplemented or replaced his trousers with a towel, but either way I liked the way water beaded in his chest hair.

"Almost done?" he asked.

"I could stay in here all night," I said dreamily.

"But there's more."

"You go." I flapped my hand at him. "I'll stay here until I wash down the drain. "

"Come along!" Fili took my hand, entwining our fingers so he could get a good grip despite the water. "This way!" He took me out a side door and handed me a towel that had been folded on a shelf in the room beyond. The floor was heated, but the air, suddenly dry and cool, made me shiver, and I had to release his hand to wrap the towel around myself. Originally I had it hiked up around my chest, but as he led the way up a stone stairwell which branched off into a steep, narrow tunnel, I knotted it at my hips. Hands free, I was able to keep up, pulling myself along by knobby places in the wall. The temptation to tug at the hem of his towel, however, was very distracting. It danced inches above me. I still couldn't see his trouser-ends.

The tunnel become rougher and less finished until suddenly with a glad cry Fili stepped through a space that from my oblique angle looked like a crack in the wall. Once I was beside it, I could see that the front portion of the wall overlapped the back, but there was a good-sized gap between them, through which I could walk normally. There were no torches in this tunnel and if it wasn't for a twilight glow coming through the space I may not have noticed it. I stepped in just as Fili's arm shot around the bend.

"Here we go!" he said. I took his hand again, enjoying the warmth of his palm and fingers wrapped around my own, and stepped forward onto the mountainside.


	2. Chapter 2

The view was stunning. A three-quarters moon had risen but a faint, pale-blue memory of daylight still lingered. The trees looked very black below us while the deep grass we stood on glowed pale emerald. Farther below, as small as coins, the windows of the banquet hall glowed golden. Somehow we had gotten turned around so we were almost directly above it. The earth beneath the grass was still faintly warm. "It's beautiful!" I said, but I couldn't help shivering in the evening breeze. I was mostly dry, except for my hair, knotted at the base of my neck, which was trickling cold water down my spine.

"This way," Fili said. He picked up a basket that had been tucked out of sight in the passageway – you must have been very sure of this plan, my lad! I thought. To have hidden that there earlier! – What if I declined? I still could! But of course I followed when he began walking crosswise up the slope.

He led us through a thicket of blackberry brambles, holding them aside so I could get through without being caught by the thorns. The space was narrow, and I had to edge along sideways, close enough to feel the heat of his body and see the last remaining light glint in his eyes and off the silver beads in his moustache. My heart was pounding.

We walked under a stone arch and through a curtain of vines, Fili guiding us once again. "What's in the basket?" I asked, in a voice that was almost a whisper, and felt foolish when he answered in a normal tone.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I would, since I turned my back on a soup, roast and sweet for whatever's inside of it," I said, hoping he knew I was joking. Though I was also rather peckish.

"I will be sweet," he announced, and I snorted before I could help it. The basket clinked gently when he set it down. "But first – we've arrived."


	3. Chapter 3

His body was blocking the view – who was I kidding, his body was the only view I had been watching – but I looked over his shoulder at a lovely grotto. Nighttime had properly fallen and it was lit by a reflection of the moon on the water and repeated over and over again in the crystals studding the walls. The cave mouth, through which we had entered, faced out over the mountainside, though vines concealed the path we had taken. There was a stone shelf like a step leading down into the cave and that's where Fili had placed the basket. He took a rug from it and spread it out while I continued to examine the space. The pool was dark and crystal and about as big around as a cozy room, and it was being filled by a stream that ran out of the back of the cave, though it kept at a steady depth as another rivulet ran out of the entrance and down the mountain. Some parts of the pool were shrouded by hanging moss. There was a shallow, sandy area near our feet which was made into a natural alcove by small quartz-studded stalagmites and stalactites. I stepped into it immediately and was pleased when the water was less cold than I expected. I hung my towel over an obliging rock and stepped between two stalagmites to where the water grew deeper.

"I like to wash before coming here," Fili said, sounding apologetic. I turned around to look at him. He had placed two goblets and a stone bottle on the rug, and was lifting something from the basket that was wrapped in leaves and smelled like honey. "I don't know where the water runs, so I liked to keep it clear." He indicated the rivulet skipping away downhill.

"Or where it comes from!" I laughed. "It could be two-thirds cow pee!"

He's never going to kiss you if you talk about swimming in cow pee! I cursed myself, but Fili laughed heartily. I sank to my shoulders in the water. He shouldn't kiss me anyway. He was a lord. Already the night air felt colder while the water seemed to shelter me in its warmth.

"Anyway, I _loved _that bathing chamber," I said, to cover the moment and because it was sincere.

"Good!" Fili beamed. He settled a wheel of cheese and unwrapped another leaf packet to reveal golden oatfarls. He was silhouetted against the moon and stars. I wouldn't have minded a wedge of him on an oatfarl. I dipped deeper into the water to conceal my blush.

"Food or swimming first?" Fili asked.

"Swimming," I said decisively. I would wait until it was too dark to see before I got close enough to him to share a cheese. Would it be so bad if I let him put his arms around me? I wondered. But of course it would. I was being wined and dined tonight because I had not yet succumbed to his charms, but lords and lordlings just like the chase. They don't give their heart to Master Toymakers, especially ones whose idea of romance is shouting "cow pee" in a grotto. I would just enjoy myself and stop events before they got out of hand. But I liked his hands. I liked his strong, square fingers, with golden hairs on the knuckles, and his wrists and burly forearms that had been scarred in the Battle of Five Armies. I liked his broad shoulders and his chest and his beard and his smile and his big nose. I liked the butterfly-wing muscle that flanked his stomach and disappeared below the edge of his towel. I liked his strong legs and –

Mighty Aulë! He'd better get out of sight quickly!

To my surprise, Fili complied. He moved around the edge of the water to a shaded area. I heard a noise as his towel was thrown aside, and suddenly my curiosity over what he wore beneath it became more urgent.

The curtain of moss and the dim light concealed him. But it could not prevent the ripples spreading to my side of the pool when his body slipped into the water. A wavelet presaged his entry, and then he pushed aside the mossy screen and entered my sight like some fabulous god of old. He swam over to me and I resisted an attempt to pierce the dark water with a look. Instead I tipped onto my back and floated, examining the ceiling.

"It looks like a starry sky," I said, thinking this was neutral. Very few foolish dwarf maids have gotten heartbroken or pregnant by talking about rocks.

"My brother and his wife would love it," Fili remarked. He sounded a little melancholy.

I was seized by a sudden curiosity, and in bad taste though it was, couldn't help but ask, "Is it true what I've heard?"

"That Kili has married outside his own kind? Yes, though there are some who would not recognize the union. My uncle among them, at first – though now that Thorin has wed and bred, Kili is under no compulsion to continue Durin's line. And also," Fili said dryly, "We his kin had a hard time denying him anything he desired, after he came so near to dying in the reclamation of Erebor."

"But you miss him," I said. Brothers were safer topics than wives.

"I do," he conceded. "Very much. Though if he were here, he would have drunk up all the cider and eaten everyone's share of the cheese, and then insisted on singing, very badly!"

I laughed and allowed myself to sink, reclining against a shelf of rock as Fili did, facing him across the moonlit water. "What else is he bad at?"

"Growing a beard!"

"Ha!"

"He can't bear to lose an argument."

"And?"

"He used to flirt with every silky-bearded lass he saw."

"You shock me!"

"I'm glad he never saw you." Fili gave me an appraising look.

Oh dear.

"So therefore you must sing like a lark," I suggested.

"Very much so."

"Grow a beard to your knees."

He stroked his golden braided beard. "It's a start."

"Lose arguments with a smile – and never flirt at all," I finished in a rush.

Fili leaned forward and swam a pace closer to me. His smile was a little dangerous. I felt like a rabbit that saw the shadow of an owl, if rabbits wanted owls fiercely and at once. The waves he created caressed me. The moonlight shone on his shoulders. Oh dear, oh dear.

"Shall we eat?" I asked hurriedly. "I could murder whatever smells so good. Shall we? Let's," I scurried from the water inelegantly and wrapped my towel over as much of me as it would cover.

Fili followed. He placed one hand on the rim off the pool and another, gently, on my ankle, before hoisting himself onto land. I couldn't help it. I looked down. His wet trousers, rolled above the knees, were very much in evidence. Rather than retrieving his towel he took another rug from the basket and placed it around my shoulders. "If you're cold I could start a fire," he offered.

I thought I could feel his hands through the cloth. Our chests and faces were close together. You already have, boyo! I thought. "Perhaps you'd better. We could mull the cider."

He nodded and moved away, though there was something smug in his face and stance that seemed to say he had me right where he wanted me.

He did, but I didn't consider it any of his business. I straightened up and replaced whatever gawping expression had been wrapped around my head with cool solicitousness. "Aren't you cold?" I asked. He turned, his pants pulled slightly downwards by the weight of the water, revealing slightly more of a trail of hair that went – never mind, my lass!

Fili raised one gleaming arm and examined it for gooseflesh. "You can make a little room for me under there after I get the wood," he said.

Oof! I sat down on the picnic rug, between the basket and the edge where there would be no room for another body, however warm and golden. And untouchable, I reminded myself. I could make an excuse and return to the mountain right now. I would be too late for the banquet, but I could tell everyone I had been ill. Fili might now think I was his for the having, but he was a good fellow, and if I indicated I wished to return, he would take me at once.

Take me at once! I pictured myself telling him. He would crush me to his chest. No, he would kneel beside me, and clear the ground with mighty sweeps of his arms, before bending me against a rock. Probably knock the cheese right off the mountain, I thought, with a momentary return to sense. Those room-temperature musings may have been the only reason I didn't yelp and turn scarlet when Fili returned, carrying a bundle of wood that was already neatly cut and corded.

"You have this down to an art," I said tartly.

Surprisingly, and charmingly, he looked awkward. "I wanted to be prepared," he explained. Either he was a brilliant liar, or I wasn't merely the latest in the long line of rote seductions. Though every long line has someone standing in the front, I reminded myself.

He busied himself laying the fire beside the picnic things, and soon there was a merry little flame crackling and dancing. I edged a little closer. It was very pleasant and I was cold. Fili held his hands to the cheery blaze, then slipped his arm around my waist, under the blanket. "Is that better?" he asked.

You fool, you fool, you fool, I thought, he's not even very good at this, but my mouth said "Yes" and my treacherous body leaned into the curve of his. Another voice within me spoke up. Leave it, or like it! It said.

I could leave at any time, but the window for wanting to was shut. I liked it. I liked it very much. I unwound the blanket he had placed around me, and he helped me move it aside, giving my bare shoulder a small kiss. I shivered.

"Fili," I murmured, emboldened by the rosy glow of the fire, making his face ruddy and soft, by the wind off the mountain that made me draw nearer, by the whistle and hiss of the small waterfall running away down the slope.

"Yes?" he kissed my shoulder again, my neck, just below my ear. I felt each one like a small brand.

I said, bending my lips to his, "I like those trousers more than I first thought."


End file.

Hobbit, Humor, Romance