a_littlefaith | (june)

It's possible Beth is drunk.

She hadn't really meant to, she doesn't drink a whole lot, tends to refuse the offers to buy her something whenever she plays a show. She doesn't like the taste of beer, which makes it easy enough to avoid drinking at home, since that's pretty much the only thing Daryl has. It's just that there's that box of moonshine still stored in the back of the closet, kept high enough to be out of Judith's reach, and on the rare occasion Beth needs to get something out of the closet, she catches sight of the box and it reminds her of her father.

Daddy always said bad moonshine'd make you go blind.

She hasn't gone blind yet. After the night in the cabin with Daryl, given how much of that stuff she'd had, she figures she probably won't go blind from a drink or two, but she just doesn't bother with it most of the time. She just doesn't care. Alcohol isn't that interesting to her.

But sometimes she sees the box and all the emotions of that time come rushing back at her, the grief that had come with the loss of her father, the anger she had felt, how childish it had all been. It makes her laugh a little most of the time, but today something else had seized her and she'd picked up one of the jars instead of just shutting the closet and moving on.

And now she's drunk. She's drunk texting Kili from outside his apartment building, sending him poop emojis and cats with heart eyes and a funny little man who looks like maybe he's taking a bow, she can't be sure, but she just wants him to come outside to meet her.

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Kili doesn't worry about Mister Daryl, not particularly. He knows he needn't worry about Beth when it comes to who she loves because he trusts her judgment. For as long as he's known her, she's always proven that she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself, that she's a strong woman who doesn't need protection, but Kili thinks it's merely part of a close friendship to feel as if he ought to watch out for her. She wouldn't be with Mister Daryl if they didn't complement each other, Kili is sure of it, so if he's concerned for her, it's only because he feels it is his duty.

Of course, if Mister Daryl ever were to hurt her, Kili cannot predict how he'd react. (And that is a bit of a lie in itself because he thinks he knows exactly what he'd do, he just wouldn't want to say it in front of Beth.)

"I don't know how old Tauriel might be in your years," he says, tilting his head thoughtfully. "In truth, I know very little about Elven culture in general, aside from what Tauriel has taught me. It's rather frowned upon, you see, to show an interest in Elves in the Ered Luin. For Fili and myself, it's a bit easier. From what I gather, adulthood for Men and women begins about the age of eighteen, does it not? Dwarrows stop being considered dwarflings at about seventy-five or so, which I suppose means I'd be about eighteen or nineteen in Men's years."

He lets out a short laugh, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter much, really. How old Tauriel is has no bearing on my love for her, just as Mister Daryl's age has no bearing on yours."

"That's too bad," she says, tipping her head back to look up at the ceiling. "That you were discouraged from learnin' about their culture. I can't imagine how interesting it would all be, learnin' what Elves are like or havin' them learn about you. I think if I were from your world I'd wanna learn about everything, but I guess it's because I'm not from your world that I can say stuff like that."

She doesn't know anything about how things really were, how politics worked, how different cultures interacted. Just because they all seem so interesting to her doesn't mean it would have been easy for her to learn about everything she wanted to.

"She can teach you now, though," she says. "And maybe she'd tell me some stuff if I asked? Do you think she'd really mind?" Sometimes Beth isn't sure whether or not Tauriel likes her, but she doesn't ever want to burden Kili with that, mostly because she thinks it's just her own perception. Like Kili, Beth knows she has an exceptional amount of positive energy and that sometimes it can be a bit much for some people, especially for those who are naturally a little more reserved. It's a little funny to her sometimes, that she and Kili have both ended up with people like that.

"Living in Arda was nothing like living here," Kili says, though he supposed he's made that clear enough. In Darrow, it seems folk are encouraged to learn the cultures that belong to others, to celebrate all of what separates and unifies them, where as most of the races in Arda generally kept to themselves. Men and Elves alike looked down on the dwarrows and so, the dwarrows had hardly wanted anything to do with them. Moreover, the thought of sharing any of their hard-earned wealth had always been something close to blasphemy.

Kili had believed what his kin had told him for a long time, that he shouldn't trust the treacherous Elvish race, but he can't deny that he'd also always been curious. Watching Elves past through the forests from high up in the trees had gotten him into trouble more than once, but he thinks now that there'd been a reason for his keen interest. Perhaps this is the path Mahal had wanted him to take all along and even Thorin wouldn't be able to argue if that were the case.

"I think she'd be pleased to find there are people who want to learn more about her," he continues, nodding. Tauriel may not be as outwardly expressive as Kili or Beth, but she is kind. Kili couldn't love her if she wasn't kind. "But she's spent many of her centuries as a warrior, mind. It may take a bit of patience to work her up to sharing so much of her past."

The more Kili says about Tauriel, the more Beth learns about her, the more she thinks she's an awful lot like Daryl. Maybe he's not as graceful and he doesn't have pointed ears or an exceptionally long life like Tauriel does, but she suspects their personalities are similar. Neither of them is very good at talking about their feelings and they're both warriors -- Daryl not for centuries, but she doesn't think that matters -- and they know how to fight, how to do battle. But there's goodness and kindness under all that, people who care about their excitable, bubbly, enthusiastic and optimistic loved ones and would do anything for them.

It makes sense to her that she and Kili have become friends. It would make just as much sense if Daryl and Tauriel were to be friends, too.

"We should go out," she decides. "All four of us. I think... I think Daryl might like meetin' Tauriel and seein' that there are others who're... y'know, a little bit more like him than I am. I think for a long time he thought the only thing he was good at was fighting battles, but that's not true. Not about him, not about Tauriel. They're never going to be like Beth and Kili and that's okay. They might still like to meet each other.

A second later, though, she realizes she's just suggested they go on a double date and she wonders if that might make Daryl feel uncomfortable. He'll do it for her if she asks him to, but he might not be happy about it. She wonders if the same might be true about Tauriel, if she's just suggested something that might end up being an incredibly awkward night for everyone involved. At least she can count on having fun with Kili, as she always does.

(june)

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