Fic: A Favourable Arrangement (Chapter 3)
Feb. 4th, 2014 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityChapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
A month passes, and they fall into a sort of routine. They take breakfast and dinner together, and spend their evenings pretending to look at the fire instead of at each other. They grow slightly more comfortable. Most nights, Fili plays for her, and she teaches him the Lake-town songs of her youth. He is careful to keep his distance, despite her best efforts, and though they share a bed, Sigrid is starting to wonder if this is what it feels like to sleep alone.
Once their suite is arranged to her liking, she spends her days mostly in the various stillrooms attached to the kitchens and to the infirmary. She knows a great deal more about plants than most dwarves, and is not at all afraid to get her hands dirty, or spend hours stirring noxious brews for the healers to use. One day when she is particularly busy, hands covered in sap and worse, she re-ties her hair after lunch without thinking about it, and it is not until the evening that she realizes the consequences.
She sits in her chair by the fire, because the light is better there than it is in her dressing room. After a few days of watching her squint at her embroidery, Fili had presented her with a mirror-lamp, which he told her Ori had designed to help him write long into the evening hours. For the first time, her husband is not able to join her for the evening meal, but sent a note with his regrets instead. She understands this, being her father’s daughter, and takes advantage of the privacy to see if she can fix the disaster on her head, before it takes permanent root or makes a run for Mirkwood.
She’s worked out most of the knots, but there is one behind her head that persists in thwarting her. To make matters worse, she cannot even see it. At least she can tell by touch that it is small. She rummages through her workbasket for her thread scissors, and has just managed to free the knot from the rest of her hair when there is a wounded sound from near the door.
“What are you doing?” It’s Fili, of course. Her husband looks pale, but maybe that is just the light.
“There’s knot,” she says. “I can’t reach it or untangle it.”
With visible effort, Fili masters himself and crosses the room to her side. He takes the scissors away, setting them down as though they were a snake, and tilts her head forward so that he can see the damage.
“It’s not so bad,” he tells her. “May I?”
She nods, and lets him pull her to her feet. He sits in his own chair, and she sits at his knees, facing the fire. He’s forgotten the comb, but doesn’t seem to mind, setting in with his fingers to work on the tangle.
“Amongst my people,” he says after a while, “hair is only cut in grief.”
“I did not know that,” she says.
“My uncle kept his beard short the whole time we were in exile,” he says. “Except for my vanity, so did I.”
“Tilda thought your mustache was funny,” Sigrid tells him.
“As well she might,” he says. “It was a bit ridiculous without the beard to match.”
“I am sorry to upset you,” she says. “And I am glad of the help.”
“I miss working with my hands,” he tells her.
She remembers the chains he wore at the wedding, and the ones he had given to her while they were courting. They were so fine, you might think the links were solid until you held them close to your eye. She supposes that if his fingers can do that manner of work, hair must not be too much of a problem.
“There,” he says. “All clear.”
He does not stop running his fingers through her hair, though, and she does not move away from him. She feels him pull strands together, and begin to weave, and she knows that he is braiding. They do not speak again, until he loops a coil of hair around her head and tucks it in so that it will stay. Then he leans forward and presses a kiss, the first in weeks, to her temple.
“I am sorry I cannot play for you tonight, Sigrid,” he says. “We are working out the rationing for winter, and I am exhausted by it. Good night, my love.”
And then he stands and leaves her, feeling altogether surprised, by the hearth.
+++
He is mad. That is the only explanation for his behaviour. After promising her he wouldn’t hurt her again, he simply cannot keep his hands to himself. He supposes he might be excused for preventing her from cutting her hair, but what followed after had been too much. He waits in his dressing room until his arousal subsides, and when he comes out, she is in her own room, preparing for bed as well. She emerges in her nightdress, hair still braided, and he swallows a groan. Now he will have to look at her, and try not to think about what the patterns mean.
She’s quiet as she climbs into bed, and it is not until her breathing evens out that Fili remembers the last thing he said to her.
He’s never wanted anything in his life so much as he wants to feel her skin again, to hear the way her breath catches when he kisses her. He has made her smile and laugh, these evenings since their disastrous wedding night, but she is still uneasy about him. He wants to tell her that she has no cause to fear him, but that would be a lie. Even today, buried in lists of food and fuel and numbers, all he could think about is what it felt like to be inside of her, to have her body under his, moving together.
His arousal stirs again, and he mercilessly clamps down on his thoughts. He begins to recite the grain stores to himself, and then moves on to the meat, and then the coal. He falls asleep at last, and hopes he will dream of ration cards, but instead he sees nothing but her: naked and beautiful and beyond his reach.
+++
He must think her a terrible coward, that if he touches her again, she will break. She is determined to show him otherwise, but she cannot think how. Instead, all she can conjure is the feel of his fingers in her hair, gentle and precise, and how she longs to see what happens when he touches her somewhere besides her scalp and the nape of her neck.
He had been gone when she woke this morning, a note explaining that he must continue his work on the rationing, but would do his best to be home for dinner. She sits in front of the mirror in her dressing room for a long time, looking at her hair. She is not a restless sleeper, so the braids are still mostly intact. It is an easy thing to pin up the few errant strands, and then she thinks it looks rather fine indeed. No one has braided her hair since her mother died, except at her wedding, and she finds she likes the results when it’s done by someone who can see the back of her head.
She ventures forth and returns to the stillroom, ready to put in another day of work. She cannot help but notice that her subjects follow her with their eyes more than they had before. The miners leave wide space around her in the corridors and the guards straighten when she passes them. Even the kitchen dwarrows bob their heads when she goes by, bending at the knee and holding in place for a fraction of a second longer than she is used too. She is too tied up in her own considerations to waste her time trying to figure out why.
+++
It’s nearly lunchtime before Sigrid puts her finger on the reason the dwarves in the kitchen and stillroom are acting so strangely today. Despite her desire not to puzzle on it, she has been unable to stop herself. Up until now, the dwarrows have treated her as her own people did: as the daughter of the Dragon Slayer, and a Lady of Dale. Now, it’s different. Now, they treat her like someday she will be queen.
It’s the braids. She should have asked Fili what they meant when he was putting them in. She knows better than to take them out, in any case, and return to her usual, more practical style. Goodness only knows who she’d offend if she did. She settles for taking her luncheon and disappearing to one of the smallest stillrooms, the one where they hang nettles to dry for stewing, the better to be alone.
She has just set out her food when Kili comes in. She starts to stand, but he waves her off, and sits gracelessly on the bench across from her. He unpacks his own lunch, splitting his sweet roll in half and handing it over when he sees that she has none, and begins eating as though they do this with regularity.
“You look well,” he says, his mouth full. “Mother was worried that spending so much time Under the Mountain would wash you out, but you’re as freckled as ever.”
Only a dwarf would think that was a compliment, but Sigrid is glad to hear it anyway, and says as much.
“Don’t you have to help with the winter planning?” she asks.
“Uncle can only take so much of Dori and Gloin sniping at each other,” Kili says. “He threw us all out of the council chambers about half an hour ago, and I thought I’d come and see what you were about.” He looks at her a little bit sideways. “Must admit, I thought you’d be easier to find.”
“I usually eat with the others,” she tells him.
“What’s wrong with their company today?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. She’s glad her hands are full, or she’d twist her hair for sure, and that would give her away. “I just wanted some time to myself.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You know,” he says. “My brother said almost the same thing when he told me he didn’t want to take luncheon together. The others all laughed of course, because why would he have lunch with me, and yet, here you are, all alone as well. It’s odd, all things considered.”
“What things are considered?” Sigrid asks.
“Well your hair, for a start,” Kili says. “Stars above, lass, didn’t he tell you?”
“No,” she says. “His mind was on other things at the time.”
Kili’s smile grows positively delighted, and she hates to burst his bubble.
“Not that,” she says. “The rationing.”
Kili rolls his eyes and sighs in the most put-upon way she’s ever heard. He lays down his bread, and leans forward, one hand extended.
“That one,” he tells her, pointing to the smaller braids that begin in the centre of her brow and join at the back of her head, “says that you are beloved of the House of Durin. The extra coil identifies Fili as the one who loves you. If it twisted the other way, it’d be me, and if it were doubled, it would be Uncle.”
This time Sigrid cannot help herself. She runs a finger along the plait, feeling the four strands as Kili had described them. She finds it a little difficult to breathe.
“The braids along the bottom,” he continues, unaware of her distress, “show that you are the second highest ranking female in Erebor, after my mother of course, because Thorin has no wife.”
That probably explains the excessive deference shown by the others all morning.
“And that one,” he concludes, teasing out a little braid that’s nearly hidden behind her ear, the way a village magician might have looked for a flower, “says that you’re his. But don’t worry; he’s given you the matching braid on the other side, which says he is at least as much yours.”
Kili finishes his lecture with a studious air, and only then sees that she is starting to get upset.
“Sigrid, what is it?” he says.
She takes two deep breaths, and decides to tell him, mortifying though it is. Hopefully he will be so horrified that he’ll deny the conversation ever took place.
“The wedding night,” she says as rushed as she can, “it did not...it didn’t go well. Since then, he hasn’t tried anything. Even though I swear I’ve done my best to make myself...available.”
Kili very deliberately pushes the remains of his lunch out of the way, and then bangs his head against the table. Sigrid jumps, but cannot help laughing, and feels immediately the better for it.
“My brother is an idiot,” Kili tells her. “I have known this for a very long time.”
“I think he’s trying to be kind,” Sigrid says, more than a little defensively.
“As you know, I have spent several years in close contact with the elves. I have learned to see hidden meanings and innuendo, because Thranduil never says what he means unless he can’t possibly avoid it,” he says. “My brother, on the other hand, has spent most of his time with dwarves, and must therefore be hit upside the head if you wish to get his attention.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” she admits.
“Be direct,” he advises. “Use small words. Very small words. And make sure he uses them too.”
He looks around the stillroom, at the nettles hanging from the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft that circulates through the Mountain, keeping them all from suffocating.
“If you go back to the kitchens, they’ll just stare at you some more,” he says. “I get half a day off, and I think you should too.”
She sighs. The prospect of spending the rest of the day under the eyes of everyone who crosses her path had seemed unpleasant before she knew the truth that Fili had put into her hair. Knowing it, knowing what they see when they look at her; she is not ready to face that until she had spoken with her husband.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You are most welcome, sister of my heart,” he says grandiosely, kissing her knuckles. “You should always have a sweet with lunch, and I am happy to have brought you one.”
They laugh, and Sigrid takes her leave. She does not see the self-congratulatory smirk that spreads across Kili’s face as soon as her back is turned.
+++
Chapter 4
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
A month passes, and they fall into a sort of routine. They take breakfast and dinner together, and spend their evenings pretending to look at the fire instead of at each other. They grow slightly more comfortable. Most nights, Fili plays for her, and she teaches him the Lake-town songs of her youth. He is careful to keep his distance, despite her best efforts, and though they share a bed, Sigrid is starting to wonder if this is what it feels like to sleep alone.
Once their suite is arranged to her liking, she spends her days mostly in the various stillrooms attached to the kitchens and to the infirmary. She knows a great deal more about plants than most dwarves, and is not at all afraid to get her hands dirty, or spend hours stirring noxious brews for the healers to use. One day when she is particularly busy, hands covered in sap and worse, she re-ties her hair after lunch without thinking about it, and it is not until the evening that she realizes the consequences.
She sits in her chair by the fire, because the light is better there than it is in her dressing room. After a few days of watching her squint at her embroidery, Fili had presented her with a mirror-lamp, which he told her Ori had designed to help him write long into the evening hours. For the first time, her husband is not able to join her for the evening meal, but sent a note with his regrets instead. She understands this, being her father’s daughter, and takes advantage of the privacy to see if she can fix the disaster on her head, before it takes permanent root or makes a run for Mirkwood.
She’s worked out most of the knots, but there is one behind her head that persists in thwarting her. To make matters worse, she cannot even see it. At least she can tell by touch that it is small. She rummages through her workbasket for her thread scissors, and has just managed to free the knot from the rest of her hair when there is a wounded sound from near the door.
“What are you doing?” It’s Fili, of course. Her husband looks pale, but maybe that is just the light.
“There’s knot,” she says. “I can’t reach it or untangle it.”
With visible effort, Fili masters himself and crosses the room to her side. He takes the scissors away, setting them down as though they were a snake, and tilts her head forward so that he can see the damage.
“It’s not so bad,” he tells her. “May I?”
She nods, and lets him pull her to her feet. He sits in his own chair, and she sits at his knees, facing the fire. He’s forgotten the comb, but doesn’t seem to mind, setting in with his fingers to work on the tangle.
“Amongst my people,” he says after a while, “hair is only cut in grief.”
“I did not know that,” she says.
“My uncle kept his beard short the whole time we were in exile,” he says. “Except for my vanity, so did I.”
“Tilda thought your mustache was funny,” Sigrid tells him.
“As well she might,” he says. “It was a bit ridiculous without the beard to match.”
“I am sorry to upset you,” she says. “And I am glad of the help.”
“I miss working with my hands,” he tells her.
She remembers the chains he wore at the wedding, and the ones he had given to her while they were courting. They were so fine, you might think the links were solid until you held them close to your eye. She supposes that if his fingers can do that manner of work, hair must not be too much of a problem.
“There,” he says. “All clear.”
He does not stop running his fingers through her hair, though, and she does not move away from him. She feels him pull strands together, and begin to weave, and she knows that he is braiding. They do not speak again, until he loops a coil of hair around her head and tucks it in so that it will stay. Then he leans forward and presses a kiss, the first in weeks, to her temple.
“I am sorry I cannot play for you tonight, Sigrid,” he says. “We are working out the rationing for winter, and I am exhausted by it. Good night, my love.”
And then he stands and leaves her, feeling altogether surprised, by the hearth.
+++
He is mad. That is the only explanation for his behaviour. After promising her he wouldn’t hurt her again, he simply cannot keep his hands to himself. He supposes he might be excused for preventing her from cutting her hair, but what followed after had been too much. He waits in his dressing room until his arousal subsides, and when he comes out, she is in her own room, preparing for bed as well. She emerges in her nightdress, hair still braided, and he swallows a groan. Now he will have to look at her, and try not to think about what the patterns mean.
She’s quiet as she climbs into bed, and it is not until her breathing evens out that Fili remembers the last thing he said to her.
He’s never wanted anything in his life so much as he wants to feel her skin again, to hear the way her breath catches when he kisses her. He has made her smile and laugh, these evenings since their disastrous wedding night, but she is still uneasy about him. He wants to tell her that she has no cause to fear him, but that would be a lie. Even today, buried in lists of food and fuel and numbers, all he could think about is what it felt like to be inside of her, to have her body under his, moving together.
His arousal stirs again, and he mercilessly clamps down on his thoughts. He begins to recite the grain stores to himself, and then moves on to the meat, and then the coal. He falls asleep at last, and hopes he will dream of ration cards, but instead he sees nothing but her: naked and beautiful and beyond his reach.
+++
He must think her a terrible coward, that if he touches her again, she will break. She is determined to show him otherwise, but she cannot think how. Instead, all she can conjure is the feel of his fingers in her hair, gentle and precise, and how she longs to see what happens when he touches her somewhere besides her scalp and the nape of her neck.
He had been gone when she woke this morning, a note explaining that he must continue his work on the rationing, but would do his best to be home for dinner. She sits in front of the mirror in her dressing room for a long time, looking at her hair. She is not a restless sleeper, so the braids are still mostly intact. It is an easy thing to pin up the few errant strands, and then she thinks it looks rather fine indeed. No one has braided her hair since her mother died, except at her wedding, and she finds she likes the results when it’s done by someone who can see the back of her head.
She ventures forth and returns to the stillroom, ready to put in another day of work. She cannot help but notice that her subjects follow her with their eyes more than they had before. The miners leave wide space around her in the corridors and the guards straighten when she passes them. Even the kitchen dwarrows bob their heads when she goes by, bending at the knee and holding in place for a fraction of a second longer than she is used too. She is too tied up in her own considerations to waste her time trying to figure out why.
+++
It’s nearly lunchtime before Sigrid puts her finger on the reason the dwarves in the kitchen and stillroom are acting so strangely today. Despite her desire not to puzzle on it, she has been unable to stop herself. Up until now, the dwarrows have treated her as her own people did: as the daughter of the Dragon Slayer, and a Lady of Dale. Now, it’s different. Now, they treat her like someday she will be queen.
It’s the braids. She should have asked Fili what they meant when he was putting them in. She knows better than to take them out, in any case, and return to her usual, more practical style. Goodness only knows who she’d offend if she did. She settles for taking her luncheon and disappearing to one of the smallest stillrooms, the one where they hang nettles to dry for stewing, the better to be alone.
She has just set out her food when Kili comes in. She starts to stand, but he waves her off, and sits gracelessly on the bench across from her. He unpacks his own lunch, splitting his sweet roll in half and handing it over when he sees that she has none, and begins eating as though they do this with regularity.
“You look well,” he says, his mouth full. “Mother was worried that spending so much time Under the Mountain would wash you out, but you’re as freckled as ever.”
Only a dwarf would think that was a compliment, but Sigrid is glad to hear it anyway, and says as much.
“Don’t you have to help with the winter planning?” she asks.
“Uncle can only take so much of Dori and Gloin sniping at each other,” Kili says. “He threw us all out of the council chambers about half an hour ago, and I thought I’d come and see what you were about.” He looks at her a little bit sideways. “Must admit, I thought you’d be easier to find.”
“I usually eat with the others,” she tells him.
“What’s wrong with their company today?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly. She’s glad her hands are full, or she’d twist her hair for sure, and that would give her away. “I just wanted some time to myself.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You know,” he says. “My brother said almost the same thing when he told me he didn’t want to take luncheon together. The others all laughed of course, because why would he have lunch with me, and yet, here you are, all alone as well. It’s odd, all things considered.”
“What things are considered?” Sigrid asks.
“Well your hair, for a start,” Kili says. “Stars above, lass, didn’t he tell you?”
“No,” she says. “His mind was on other things at the time.”
Kili’s smile grows positively delighted, and she hates to burst his bubble.
“Not that,” she says. “The rationing.”
Kili rolls his eyes and sighs in the most put-upon way she’s ever heard. He lays down his bread, and leans forward, one hand extended.
“That one,” he tells her, pointing to the smaller braids that begin in the centre of her brow and join at the back of her head, “says that you are beloved of the House of Durin. The extra coil identifies Fili as the one who loves you. If it twisted the other way, it’d be me, and if it were doubled, it would be Uncle.”
This time Sigrid cannot help herself. She runs a finger along the plait, feeling the four strands as Kili had described them. She finds it a little difficult to breathe.
“The braids along the bottom,” he continues, unaware of her distress, “show that you are the second highest ranking female in Erebor, after my mother of course, because Thorin has no wife.”
That probably explains the excessive deference shown by the others all morning.
“And that one,” he concludes, teasing out a little braid that’s nearly hidden behind her ear, the way a village magician might have looked for a flower, “says that you’re his. But don’t worry; he’s given you the matching braid on the other side, which says he is at least as much yours.”
Kili finishes his lecture with a studious air, and only then sees that she is starting to get upset.
“Sigrid, what is it?” he says.
She takes two deep breaths, and decides to tell him, mortifying though it is. Hopefully he will be so horrified that he’ll deny the conversation ever took place.
“The wedding night,” she says as rushed as she can, “it did not...it didn’t go well. Since then, he hasn’t tried anything. Even though I swear I’ve done my best to make myself...available.”
Kili very deliberately pushes the remains of his lunch out of the way, and then bangs his head against the table. Sigrid jumps, but cannot help laughing, and feels immediately the better for it.
“My brother is an idiot,” Kili tells her. “I have known this for a very long time.”
“I think he’s trying to be kind,” Sigrid says, more than a little defensively.
“As you know, I have spent several years in close contact with the elves. I have learned to see hidden meanings and innuendo, because Thranduil never says what he means unless he can’t possibly avoid it,” he says. “My brother, on the other hand, has spent most of his time with dwarves, and must therefore be hit upside the head if you wish to get his attention.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” she admits.
“Be direct,” he advises. “Use small words. Very small words. And make sure he uses them too.”
He looks around the stillroom, at the nettles hanging from the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft that circulates through the Mountain, keeping them all from suffocating.
“If you go back to the kitchens, they’ll just stare at you some more,” he says. “I get half a day off, and I think you should too.”
She sighs. The prospect of spending the rest of the day under the eyes of everyone who crosses her path had seemed unpleasant before she knew the truth that Fili had put into her hair. Knowing it, knowing what they see when they look at her; she is not ready to face that until she had spoken with her husband.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You are most welcome, sister of my heart,” he says grandiosely, kissing her knuckles. “You should always have a sweet with lunch, and I am happy to have brought you one.”
They laugh, and Sigrid takes her leave. She does not see the self-congratulatory smirk that spreads across Kili’s face as soon as her back is turned.
+++
Chapter 4
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 12:39 am (UTC)I love the braid-language. What a BRILLIANT idea.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 12:42 am (UTC)Self: So...they need to do something that involves touching, but not touching.
Self: I KNOW! EVERYONE LOVES BRAIDS! IT'S, LIKE 90% OF THE FANDOM!
Self: That could work.
And then the Kili scene fit in afterwards (or rather, it made more sense. Before that, he just hit his head on the table), and everyone was rosy! :)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 04:16 am (UTC)Though this does make me sad that basically everyone only really gets one super meaningful hairstyle. You can't really do whatever you want when your braids have meaning. (Even though I love that the braids have meaning)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 08:57 am (UTC)Someone needs to figure out the braid meaning list, like they have rose meaning lists and then post pictures. I mean like, seriously.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-08 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-26 10:39 am (UTC)Also, I loved the deployment of Kili.