"What is that?" Tauriel asked as Fíli set down a dark bottle and a trio of glasses, then slid into the seat across from her and Kíli at the banquet table.

"This," Fíli said with a conspiratorial air, as if he were letting her in on a great secret, "is the very best Blue Mountain ten-year whiskey." He poured some in a glass and pushed it towards her, then did the same for his brother and himself.

Tauriel raised her glass and inhaled, then took a cautious sip.

Fíli and Kíli both watched her expectantly.

After a moment, she swallowed deliberately. "It tastes of smoke and... burnt honey," she pronounced at last.

"Delightful, right?" Fíli returned teasingly.

"I suppose it might grow on one," Tauriel admitted.

"No dwarf likes his first taste, either," Fíli revealed. "But if you can learn to like us..." He grinned and took a sip from his own glass.

Whether Fíli meant this as a challenge or a vote of confidence in her good taste, Tauriel was not sure, but she took another swallow.

"I'll grant you this," she said. "Your dwarvish liquor is quite as bold as you yourselves."

Kíli chuckled. "That is what you like about me, right?"

Tauriel only hid her smile behind the rim of her glass.

Tauriel was not sure how many glasses of whiskey she had drunk by this point. The feast hall was nearly empty now; aside from herself and Kíli and his brother, there were only a few other clusters of dwarves, smoking or drinking together at the far end of the room and only rarely punctuating the stillness with their laughter.

Her own group had fallen quite still. Fíli and Kíli had been regaling her with humorous stories of their childhood in Ered Luin, but after their last story of a prank had degenerated into an earnest, if not entirely coherent, explanation of a Khudzul pun regarding pickled fish, they had lapsed into a drowsy silence.

Beside her, Kíli had tucked his head comfortably under her chin. He smelled of whiskey, and Tauriel supposed she did, too. The spirits had filled her limbs with a pleasantly light, detached sensation, and she found that her perceptions had blurred and narrowed to one thing, the feeling of Kíli's breathing as he dozed against her. She was, she thought, ridiculously and perfectly content.

Kíli shifted, and she felt the tickle of his beard against her throat. Then he kissed her collarbone, and she knew he was not asleep. He worked his way up the side of her neck, becoming rather more creative as he went. That was definitely teeth and—she realized with a small yelp—tongue. Tauriel supposed she would hardly have allowed this if she had been quite sober, but now she found she was simply too curious to think of stopping him. He had reached her ear and she was trying to decided if she needed to ask him not to swallow her earring when she heard Fíli's voice.

"D'you need me to save you from 'im?" His tone suggested a mixture of amusement and concern.

Tauriel murmured something in the negative before dipping her head down to meet Kíli's mouth.

If kissing was any indication, Tauriel could see the value to Kíli's saying that one ought to know a dwarf both sober and drunk. He was far more serious about it now, and equally less precise. The experience was definitely more sharp, what with teeth and his beard: his lips kept wandering from her own and leaving her a mouthful of prickles, and more than once, she had to resort to biting him, gently, to keep his kisses from straying over her nose.

She had quite forgotten Fíli was still there until he said again, somewhat embarrassed but insistent now, "Kí, don't you think we should help Tauriel get back to her room?"

"Mmm... 'Course. Tell 'er she can go," Kíli managed between kisses.

"Kíli, you both have to come with me," Fíli reasoned slowly, as if the explanation were as much for his own benefit as for theirs.

Sparing her attention from Kíli, Tauriel saw Fíli staring at them, clearly at a loss. After a moment, he seemed to reach a decision.

"C'mon, brother," he said, taking Kíli by the arm and dragging him up from the seat. " 'S time to go."

At the door to Dís's suite, where Tauriel was staying, Fíli benevolently allowed them time for one last lingering kiss before he rang the bell.

"G'night," Kíli said with all the earnestness of a heartfelt declaration.

"Mae losto, meleth nín," Tauriel whispered, not really aware she did not speak in Common, yet Kíli smiled back at her as if he understood perfectly.

Then Dís opened the door and welcomed her in.

Author's note:

I found this little scene lurking on my hard drive and decided it could stand on its own as a drabble fic.

Now do you suppose Dís is at all surprised that her sons brought her a tipsy elf?