Withywindle's Writing

Fili and Kili slid in through the door. “Bombur!”

“My boys!” He grabbed each of them in a bone-crushing hug. “Congratulations!”

“This is amazing!” Fili said. “I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“I would never let you two do it anywhere else,” Bombur answered. “Every employee gets a party on their wedding day.” He reached out and squeezed Kili’s shoulder fondly.

“Vieni qui! Vieni qui!” a voice called out from the back of the kitchen. “Lascia che ti veda.”  

“Nonna Galiana!” Kili made his way back to where a tiny woman with an apron and a black dress was working over a large pot. “You made soup?”

“Wedding soup.” She reached up and took his face in both hands and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Special soup for special day.”

“Thank you, Nonna. That means a lot to me.” Fili and Bombur came up behind him.

“Nonna insisted on making the wedding soup herself,” Bomber told them. “Had the pastina sent over from the home country.”

Nonna Galiana reached up and gave Fili’s dimples a sound pinching. “Such a handsome husband. You make a good catch. Be very happy.”

Kili looked at him and blinked back tears. “Yes I did. Molto felice.”

They stood up straight and at attention, looking at each other as he said the words. “It is written that the greatest of all things – the most wonderful experience in the world – is love.  Fili and Kili, into your lives has entered a deep and nurturing love, and you have asked me to help you celebrate and affirm this love. We would call your partnership a Holy Union, for wherever there is love, God also abides…” A hush fell over the crowd seated in the benches. Fili glanced over at Ori, who was smiling pensively. They had deliberately chosen this ceremony in memory of their friend.

Balin carefully explained about the duties and obligations of marriage and of them taking their place in their community. He spoke of how they had proved themselves to be selfless and loving in the face of adversity, the storms they had endured and would endure in the future. He spoke of the reunification of families, of the new, larger family they were creating. Fili barely heard any of it. He was too busy trying to memorize every angle of Kili’s face, the way his brown eyes were shining at him, the nervous smile.

The Wedding. Oh, God. The Wedding. The hubbub over that upcoming event was causing Fili to second-guess all his life choices. Was it too late to elope to Vegas?

“You are too tense. How can I shave you like this?” The deep rumbling baritone belonged to Francesco, his barber. Once a month he indulged his favorite habit and made the trip to a full-service barber shop for a hot lather straight-razor shave and to have his hair trimmed. Dwalin had taken him for his first, just before he married Ori, and he had continued on the tradition. Now Bard sat in the chair next to him, getting his mustache and rather impressive sideburns trimmed. He knew Kili, Ori and Legolas would be hitting up their day spa for facials and hot stone massage. Gimli had decided against either option and mentioned possibly getting the date tatooed on his arm.

They had decided against designating an official Best Man or Maid of Honor. If he had a Best Man it would have been Dwalin. But as it was he had Gimli, Bilbo and both of his brothers to stand for him. Kili had Ori, Legolas, his sister and uncle to stand for him. Fili’s little nephews were coming as ring bearers and both of their families would be in attendance. That had caused Fili a lot more consternation than Kili, who had been out to his family before he left home. Ruth had carefully explained the situation to their extended families and made it very clear that anyone who had any objections could remove themselves from the guest list and one cousin and her husband had, but other than that everyone was behaving. Bilbo had made a special trip up to the wine country to do research and returned with wine by the caseload. He would be working directly with Bombur and Mirra on the catering while Bofur was bringing Bifur. Nori and Dori would also be in attendance, Dori had helped them pick out their tuxes and Nori had given him a line on a pair of beautiful rings. Several of the Queens of Long Beach would be in attendance, having become mentors for Kili and some of his friends from school as well. The chapel was tiny so the guest list was (thankfully) limited, but then there was still the afterparty.

He took a deep breath and relaxed under Francesco’s skilled hands. He loved this, really - the leather seating and wood paneling, the feel of the straight razor on his skin. There is nothing that was not masculine about this experience and it just felt right to him. This is my greatest luxury, Dwalin had told him the first time he had tagged along. It didn’t hurt that the ball game was on tv and men were quietly humming and conversing around him in contrast to the near hysterics he had been subjected to in the last few weeks. But now they were almost there and he could almost look back on it objectively. Francesco wiped his face off. “You look good with a clean shave. Now what about all this hair?”

Fili looked at his unruly mop in the mirror and ran a hand up through it. “A man only gets married once, Frankie. Let’s do it up right.”

It was 9:am and Kili was lying in bed, staring the the ceiling. Engaged. He was engaged. Oh God… He rolled the gold ring on his left hand absent-mindedly. How was he going to do this?

The door opened and Fili entered with a cup of coffee and a danish. “Good morning.”

Kili smiled and pushed himself up on the pillows. “Good morning.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Dreading today.” Kili pushed the hair back and away from his face. “It’s going to be horrible.”

“What? Why?” Fili was struggling not to laugh.

“Have you called your mom?”

Fili pursed his lips. “I was waiting to do that.”

“Let me pee first.” Kili slipped from the bed and wobbled into the bathroom. Fili watched him walk, his beautiful lover now sporting a fine set of bruises on his hips and a hickey on his throat that would take a turtleneck to cover. He felt rather proud of himself.

Kili returned and sat next to him, picking up his phone. “I give this ten minutes at the outside.”

“That long? You know they’re all Facebook friends.”

Kili logged into his Facebook app and opened his profile, changed his relationship status from In A Relationship to Engaged to Fili Durinson and hit the Done button.

They both sat, Kili sipping coffee in silence and nibbling at his danish while Fili stared at his watch. At exactly seven minutes and thirty-two seconds Fili’s phone started vibrating in his pocket, making them both jump.

He swiped his thumb over the screen. “Hi Mom! Good morning. Yes, I saw it. No, I haven’t called anyone yet. You were the first person on my list to call. We were… we were waiting until we got done with coffee. I know it’s 9:30. We had a wedding yesterday so we got in late.” Kili pinched him playfully. “We don’t have a date yet, but we do have a ring. It’s a simple gold band. No, he hasn’t posted any pictures of it yet.” Fili pointed at Kili’s phone and gestured. “I’ll have him send you one right away.”

Kili’s phone went off. “Hi Mom!” Fili could hear the excited shouting on the other end. “Yeah, we’re getting married! I have a ring and everything. No, we haven’t made any plans yet. It just happened last night. Yeah, we celebrated. Does ‘Wynn know? She can be my Old Maid of Honor. What? I am not! But Mommmm… okay. I haven’t taken pics of it yet. Well, none that I can post. What?! Okay, pics, I promise! I love you too. K… k…. I will. Promise! K, bye.”

Fili fell back on the bed. “We need to shower and take a good pic of us with the ring.”

“We can post one of the ones we snapped last night.”

“I am NOT sending those to my mother!”

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Thorin took a sip of the wine. It was lighter than the robust vintages the Dwarves favored, but still Fedelmid’s taste was superb. “I should warn you that the Iron Hills will be visiting soon.”

"I am not entirely certain our wine cellars have recovered from his last visit," commented Girion, pretending to ignore the look his wife gave him and his grandson’s snicker.

“I shall alert the home farms,” Fedelmid smiled. “And the Fire Warden.”

“Surely it was not that bad,” Thorin laughed. It had been a rowdy visit with only a few small incidents, the one in question involving a drunken display of torch juggling. The rest of the meal was spent in such lite conversation, with Bard telling Thorin about his work with the bow and the little boat his grandfather had gifted him with to sail about upon the loch. There was news from the Greenwood and from the Iron Hills as well as rumors brought with caravans from Rohan, Dale and Ruhn.

“So tell me,” Thorin turned to Bard, who was shoveling his second plate into his mouth with as much grace as possible for a boy who was still growing. “Has your grandfather taught you to use the windlance yet?”

Bard fixed his grandfather with a wide-eye’d stare, suddenly seeing the opportunity for something that had been hitherto been out of reach. He swallowed the large mouthful of food he had been chewing. “Not yet, but Father says when I am strong enough to pull a longbow he will teach me.” He fixed Girion with a meaningful look.

The King laughed. “Only our best archers are trained to use them,” he told Thorin. “They are too heavy and require a great deal of skill. We do fire them off on certain ceremonial occasions. But there is one on the Armory roof we use for the training of the guard if you would like to see it.”