Chapter Text
Rivendell, it turned out, did actually have a proper bathhouse. Tauriel had found the place quite easily on the second day of their visit, and from then on she and Kíli often spent the mornings there. Kíli supposed such frequent washing was not strictly necessary, though elves, he was discovering, liked to bath often, and did so as much for pleasure as for cleanliness.
Tauriel always began with a plunge in the cold pool. Fed by a waterfall that poured through an opening in the roof at one end and emptying down into the valley below from the other, the water here was constantly refreshed, and, Tauriel claimed, very alive. You could still feel, she said, where the water had been, slipping over rocks beneath sun and stars on its journey down from the Misty Mountains; bathing here woke up your skin. Privately, Kíli suspected this was more the effect of chilly water and goose-bumps than any communing with the river (at least, on his part), but he was not inclined to complain.
He liked to watch Tauriel glide through the clear pool amidst the dance of early morning sunlight off wavelets and blue-green tile. She moved as gracefully through water as she did on land, and Kíli guessed she must often have visited those cold springs and pools under the Elvenking’s palace. With her flame-bright hair fanned out about her shoulders in the water and then coiling close against glistening pale skin when she rose above the surface, she seemed some improbable creature formed of both water and fire.
Of course, it was far too cold in the pool to remain still and watch her for long. To stay warm, Kíli would chase her as she swam, though with her longer limbs, she easily out-paced him. He might have complained about the unfairness of this, had she not generally let him catch her under the cascade. Here, out of sight of anyone else sharing the pool, he might pin her against the smooth, water-washed stone and kiss her soundly.
They usually only stayed in the cold pool for a quarter of an hour, and then, limbs trembling with the chill, moved to the heated pools in the other half of the bath house. This was Kíli’s favorite part of the morning, for they could usually claim one of the smaller, private pools set half outdoors under a flowering arbor, and then he would nestle against Tauriel and wait for his skin to stop tingling from the shock of shifting from cold to hot water.
They stayed longest here, occasionally full hours, and Kíli supposed he would have been embarrassed by such indulgence except that no-one in Elrond’s household seemed to notice or care how one visitor (be he prince or no) chose to spend mornings with his new wife.
Tauriel usually tired of the heat before Kíli did, and would retreat to the edge of the pool, where Kíli would come sit between her knees and let her braid his drying hair. Braids were more bother than he went to for himself, but he was happy to let her put them in for him. She, in turn, seemed to know that what he really wanted was simply to feel her fingers in his hair, for she spent as much time combing through the damp waves as she did plaiting them.
“You have very handsome dark hair,” she remarked this morning as she finished off a first braid and began gathering hair for another. “I’ve always admired it. It shines like polished dark wood, the sort my people value as much as yours do gold.”
Kíli chuckled.
“You think I’m teasing!” she scolded, giving his hair a light tug.
“Never.”
“Well?” she prompted, clearly not satisfied with this simple assurance.
“It’s just that no-one’s ever compared my hair to gold in any way. Fíli, of course— You can be sure everyone noted what a happy sign it was that the eldest prince was born already crowned with gold.”
“But aren’t the Durins dark like you?” Tauriel asked, catching up another strand of hair for the braid, and Kíli shivered as her nail grazed his scalp.
“Yes. But Fíli is a Durin and he has those regal locks, as if he’s been favored twice over. It’s quite enough to make a little brother feel inadequate. Golden hair, as you can imagine, is quite prized among my folk.”
“I’ve never favored blonds,” Tauriel admitted after a moment.
“Not even your elvish prince?” he returned, somewhat surprised. Of course he knew better than to be jealous now, when Tauriel had definitively chosen him over an erstwhile rival, but he still could not quite believe she had not admired her own people’s golden prince.
“No!” She gave a few more twists to the braid. “Of course, he’s handsome, but in that distant, untouchable way of the Sindar. We Sylvans lingered untutored in the woods east of the mountains, never venturing to the light and wealth of the West, and our colors reflect this choice. You’ll find few gold or silver heads among us; we’re all the colors of shaded woodland, brown and black and auburn.”
“And copper,” Kíli added, reaching back up over his shoulder to catch a handful of her hair. His fingers grazed her ribs and then her breast, and she yelped softly at the unexpected touch.
“Copper,” she mused, “is not considered a kingly metal, so I thought.”
“Maybe not by some,” he agreed, fanning the strands of her hair between his fingers and holding them up to catch the sunlight slanting through the leaves; they glinted like no true copper ever did. “But I consider myself far more wealthy in the possession of my copper-haired elf lass than if I had treasure troves of gold.”
“Kíli, you do have whole rooms of it in Erebor,” she noted, amused, yet Kíli did not miss the warm appreciation in her tone.
“But I’m not in Erebor right now, am I? I’m halfway across the world with someone I deem much more precious.”
He felt her hair fall against his shoulders as she leaned down over him. “So you are, hadhodeg,” she said, her nose and then her lips brushing the rim of his ear. But when he turned to catch her mouth in a kiss, she sat back out of his reach. From the glimpse he caught of her face, Kíli knew she was smiling.
“Given the depth of my devotion—and I might add you couldn’t ask for stronger proof of love from a dwarf than that he forsake his gold—I don’t think you should tease me like that,” he said in a tone of mock disappointment. Reaching under the water at his side, he found her foot, and Tauriel wriggled her toes as he tried to clasp them.
“Does that mean you agree?” he said, squeezing her foot momentarily. “I’m afraid I’ve yet to comprehend all of your strange elvish manners.”
“It means you are distracting me,” she corrected archly, nudging him in the ribs with her heel.
She tied off the second braid, but before she could begin a third, Kíli kissed her knee, which rested at his shoulder.
Tauriel leaned down once more, her hands straying over his shoulders and onto his chest. Kíli took the opportunity to draw his rough cheek over the tender skin at the inside of her arm, making her shiver. For a moment, he felt her nails.
“At luncheon, you will look very foolish with only two braids at the back of your head,” she whispered against his ear. “I suggest you let me finish.”
“And if I don’t?” Kíli asked mischievously, drawing his thumbnail up the arch of her foot so that she jumped involuntarily and truly did kick him in the ribs.
“All right, my lady, since you argue so persuasively,” he conceded with a laugh, and giving her toes a final tweak, he settled back against the edge of the pool so she could continue braiding.