So Comes Snow After Fire

22.iv

Sif was still finishing breakfast when Fíli visited her the morning following his interview with Thorin. After claiming a mug of tea from the sideboard, he slipped into the seat recently vacated by her brother, Freyr.

"I've some news you'll be very interested to hear," Fíli said as he stirred milk into his tea.

"Oh?" Sif regarded him, curious.

Fíli sipped his tea experimentally, and then, satisfied, set it down again. "Would you like to guess?" He could feel a grin already threatening to break over his face, though he held it in check for the moment.

Sif thought over another bite of cold roast. "Does it have to do with with the renovations you proposed? Were they approved?"

"It's something much better than that," Fíli said, allowing himself a full smile then. "Something that bears a great deal on our own happiness, yours and mine."

"Ah." She began to smile in answer to his own look. "In that case... Is it something about your brother and..." Fíli could see the certainty in her eyes now and knew that she read the answer in his own face. "Yes, has Audha released Kíli?"

"She has."

Sif laughed, bright and clear. "I knew it! I mean, not that I expected her to end the alliance, but I knew she knew what she couldn't have. Not with him. Didn't you ever notice the way she would watch us together, like she was trying to understand how we were so happy?"

"I saw," he agreed.

"Well," Sif sighed contentedly over the rim of her tea mug. "Now I shan't have to feel sorry for her, too. She has the chance to find someone who can make her happy now. Oh!" She set her mug down. "You must mean, of course, that Kíli is also permitted to return to Tauriel! You wouldn't be so pleased about your news, otherwise."

"Yes, he's allowed, and I'm sure he will soon make up his mind to go after her," Fíli began.

"What? You mean he's saying he won't?" Sif's eyes widened.

"That's what he told me last night."

"Poor Kíli! Does he really think she won't still want him?"

"He thinks she'll be happier without him, because she's immortal and he is not."

"But surely it's not true!" Sif looked deeply upset. "I know Tauriel must still love him and want to be with him."

"You know?" he prompted, guessing she drew a parallel between Tauriel's current situation and her own recent trials of love.

"Well, I wouldn't change my mind, even if I'd lost him once," Sif returned passionately, confirming Fíli's thought. Her face was flushed. "And if Kíli doesn't know enough to believe the same, I'll tell him—"

She stopped as the sound of impatient knocking echoed down the entrance hall beyond the dining room where they sat. The knocking continued, uninterrupted, until someone finally opened the door. Fíli caught the clipped tones of a hurried conversation, and then footsteps clattered towards their own door.

"You may get your chance now," Fíli observed, smiling, "Though I suspect—"

Kíli burst into the room.

"Fíli! I've been looking for you! Oh, morning, Sif," he said, with a quick nod to her, before rushing over to his brother.

Finding he had nothing to say, save Didn't I tell you?, Fíli contented himself with smiling broadly up at Kíli, who continued, breathless, "Fí, I need you in the shop. I've got to finish Tauriel's betrothal gift today, and I've never worked in mithril before. If you could give me a hand—"

"Oh, Kíli!" Sif cried, leaping up and going to him. "I'm so glad for you!" She put her hands on his shoulders and stretched up to kiss his cheek.

Kíli grinned and stooped to kiss her back, catching her half on the mouth in his enthusiasm. Sif's face went red, but still she smiled at him.

"I'm coming," Fíli said, pushing out of his chair. "But where did you get mithril?" The precious metal had not been mined since Khazad-dûm had fallen, almost a thousand years before he and his brother had been born.

"There was a pair of mithril earrings among the things Grandfather left as my inheritance, remember? Tauriel would never have worn them, and they were hideous, anyway, so I melted them down," Kíli explained.

Fíli snorted. As a craftsman, his brother had very decided opinions about what ornaments would suit his elf, it seemed.

"I'll come by again later," Fíli said to Sif. He kissed her, then swiped a roll from the table before loping after his brother, who was already halfway down the hall.

"What changed your mind?" he asked as he caught up with Kíli at the main door to the Ironsides' dwelling. Freyr let them out, a somewhat bemused expression on his face.

"It was Mum, of course," Kíli said, giving his brother a knowing look. "She helped me see something I'd missed."

"I'm glad. But I knew you'd come around eventually."

"Oh?" Kíli turned mid-stride to stare curiously at his brother.

"You always do the right thing in the end, Kí. I know that."

Kíli grinned, touched. "Yes, well, I still need your help sometimes."

"Of course, little brother," Fíli said, patting Kíli atop the head once. The gesture was mildly ridiculous now that Kíli stood taller than him, but it was the way Fíli had often expressed affection for his younger brother when they'd both been small dwarflings.

"Now tell me, what are you making for Tauriel, exactly?"