Dedicated to the lovely miss-helia, with thanks for the tea.

Slipping back into camp after her turn at watch was over, Tauriel paused to warm her hands at the central fire. The hazy, warm late autumn weather had turned, quite truly overnight, into the first chill of winter. And now, with the night several hours past the midpoint, the cold was at its deepest.

One or two more days' travel would see Tauriel and the rest of the company from Erebor safely to Thorin Oakenshield's old settlement in Ered Luin where his sister—Kíli's mother, Tauriel thought as her heart gave a nervous leap—awaited their return. Everyone would soon be sleeping comfortably in soft beds and warm halls, but for tonight they had to endure the cold as best they could.

Indeed, sleeping arrangements had been settled much more cosily than on previous nights. In the fire's dim glow, her dwarvish traveling companions were a nearly indistinguishable series of blanketed mounds, closely huddled.

Her hands finally warm, Tauriel tugged her gloves back on and began sweeping the camp, looking for someone she knew. She would not be particular in her choice of sleeping companion; any warm back to settle against would be welcome on this night. Yet even though all these dwarves had followed Thorin and his nephews' example and begun to accept her, Tauriel would prefer to find someone she knew well if she was to let down her guard enough to fall asleep fast beside him.

As she stepped over a snoring Iron Hills man, she at last spotted Kíli and his brother. The younger prince had pulled his hood up over his face, but she still recognized him from his boots and the pattern on his coat. Fíli lay swathed in a cloak beside him, though he was pressed against the neighbor to his other side.

Wrapping herself in her own cloak, she curled herself into the space between the brothers, her back against Kíli's own, her knees and feet tucked up lightly against the bundle that was Fíli. The ground felt, if anything, colder than the air, yet warmth of the other bodies around her soon lulled her into a comfortable half doze. Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was that if anyone had told her, even a year ago, that she would willingly nestle down amongst a company of dwarves as if she and they were so many wolf pups, she would have laughed him from the forest.

Tauriel woke with the sun, sensing even through closed eyelids that first warm glow in the eastern sky. She had, apparently, drawn Kíli into her arms during the night. He lay snuggled against her chest and she could feel a few wisps of his hair brushing her face. She lay still, half embarrassed to wake him and let him find that she held him; half reluctant to end this moment now that they were so close. Besides, waking would mean crawling out of this warm cocoon of cloaks and blankets and into the frosty dawn, a prospect that was decidedly unpleasant.

Rather too soon, Kíli yawned, tightening his arms about her ribs as he did so. Then he said, his breath tickling the back of her neck, "Tauriel, you're much nicer to sleep beside than Fíli. He kicks."

If Kíli was behind her, then who— Tauriel flicked her eyes open to find a tumble of golden hair tucked under her chin.

"Do not," Fíli mumbled against her bosom.

"Fí, I've told you: you do," Kíli answered his brother, then asked Tauriel, "Did he kick you?"

"Aah, no," Tauriel stammered. She was glad neither of the brothers could see her face, for it was surely crimson.

"I don't kick," Fíli protested, more distinctly this time. "And even if I did, I wouldn't kick Tauriel. She's warm." He reached to tug his cloak further up his shoulder and his hand brushed her arm, which was still wound around him. To her surprised, he did not seem at all perturbed by the position he was in.

"Um, Fíli," she began slowly, trying to pull her arm from him, but it was hard to move, trapped as she was by Fíli's heavy swaths of cloak. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"What?" he returned, troubled. "Did I really kick you? I'm sorry!" He snuggled against her in what she thought was meant to be a conciliatory gesture.

"Fíli," Tauriel tried again. "What are you doing?"

"You're not getting up yet, are you? The sun's barely risen. Still a good quarter hour's doze left, surely," he reasoned sleepily.

Behind her, Kíli had begun to snicker.

"Kíli, what—" She broke off, entirely flustered.

"Fí," Kíli said, heartily chuckling now. "I don't think Tauriel is used to sleeping on the road. She wasn't expecting to wake up in your arms."

"Oh." Fíli shifted away from her, a movement that earned a grumpy mutter from the dwarf at his back whom he jostled from slumber. "I thought you didn't mind," he said apologetically.

"She probably thought you were me," Kíli said pointedly.

"I promise you, I didn't mean anything improper!" Fíli insisted. "It's just, well, that's how we always sleep when it's cold."

Tauriel believed him; she was already less comfortable with the chilly morning mist settling into the space where Fíli had been moments before.

"I understand that now," she said, as calmly as she could. She very much wanted to laugh all of a sudden. "And, no, I'm not getting up yet."

It took Fíli a few moments to understand what she meant. "Good," he said. He shifted back to her side, and Tauriel tucked her arm under his cloak and around him.

Kíli, who had not shifted throughout this exchange, pressed his cold nose against Tauriel's neck. "We'll teach you to be a dwarf yet," he sighed, already slipping back into a doze.

Tauriel smiled to herself, grateful for the ready sense of affection and belonging she received from these two dwarf brothers. Doubly warmed in body and heart, she drowsed again until the morning watch called the camp to wake at last.