“I am,” he mumbled automatically, though he didn’t even glance up from where he was carefully wrapping thin leather strips around the hafts of the throwing axes he’d just finished sharpening to form the grip. Creating a smooth grip while maintaining the axe’s balance required careful precision.
There were two done, neatly laid out on the floor on a blanket, the last in line still waiting.
Fili snorted softly, but he nodded all the same. Kili had done his job well. Too well perhaps. Every muscle ached, and the soreness in his backside was making itself known with every shift. He didn’t enjoy the idea of getting up, but the alternative really was lying in bed all day and relying on his baby brother to care for him – but Kili didn’t exactly have the attention span to simply feed him soup – if anything, his attentions might make it worse.
He made a face, not liking the images his imagination conjured up of telling their uncle about their recent nuptials. Kili was right of course. If Thorin suspected anything – if Dis did, then he did as well – he wouldn’t say anything until they brought it up themselves. His fear though, was that Dis was only humoring what she hoped was a phase or some kind of youthful experimentation. Perhaps she expected them to grow out of it and didn’t think it much of an issue for that reason. Maybe she thought Fili would end it himself as the responsible elder. If she did approve, simply withholding the opportunity for a grand ceremony seemed trivial in comparison.
“They’d know,” he said quietly. “What if she’s just biding her time, waiting for us to get whatever she thinks this is out of our systems? She doesn’t know anything for sure.” That was yet another reason not to look guilty whenever she implied things. “I just…” Fili sighed and brushed a thumb over Kili’s cheek, “…Let’s talk about it again after Thorin returns, aye? Give us a chance to think on it.”
“Mmh.” Turning his head briefly to brush a kiss over his brother’s fingers, Kili gave a small smile. “I was jus’ thinkin’, aye? T’avoid some trouble. Also…” The grin on his face widened as he snuggled a little closer, giving his brother’s hip a gentle pinch. “If Amad was to help us in keepin’ the girls away from you, you wouldn’t have t’dance with them all the time, eh?”
It wasn’t that he was actually jealous, not really. He knew his brother’s heart was his, and his alone. Still, it didn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy his brother trying to make up for all that shameful neglection during the feasts.
“She doesn’t think it’s a phase” he mused anyway, maybe sounding a bit more selfconscious than he actually felt, but still, “I mean, it’s been going on for all our lives, aye? And she’s the one who told us that she had to stop uncle from goin’ after – our father wi’ a huntin’ knife, she’d know about phases and ones and all that.”