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“I want to be a warrior.” Kili says one afternoon, when they’re still fairly young. It’s old news.
Fili shrugs. “Mother won’t allow it. Not her precious little girl.” It’s his typical reply, which is usually followed by silence.
“I’m not a girl. I’m a boy.”
Fili almost laughs. Almost. Kili had been saying similar things for a few months, never those words but similar things. His mother had dismissed it as a phase, saying she’d gone through the same thing as a child when sword fighting was more fun than her history lessons. But when he actually looks at his sibling, fire in those big brown eyes, Fili knows that it’s true. “Alright.”
The word for it in Khuzdul is beyn. In Common it means between, which really didn’t do the concept justice but it was the word their ancestors decided on. It wasn’t really talked about; then again dwarves didn’t talk about much anyway.
All he knows is that some of the older dwarves said the word like you’d talk about a food you don’t like and as far as he knew, no one in Durin’s line had been beyn. Fili didn’t really understand it, he was young yet, but he decided that if Kili said he’s a boy, he’s a boy and why does it have to be complicated like the elders made it out to be. He had always wanted a brother, anyway. Kili makes Fili promise not to tell. He isn’t ready to tell anyone.
Fili gets it. They start training together in secret because Fili could never deny his brother anything.
The next to find out is Dwalin, who finds them sparring one afternoon. Kili cries and begs Dwalin not to tell. When Dwalin asks why he’s so distraught, Kili looks to Fili. The blond nods and Kili tells the old warrior just what he told Fili. He is a boy and he wants to be a warrior and please don’t tell anyone. Dwalin agrees he won’t tell, but asks that Kili will at least tell Thorin. When Kili doesn’t say anything Dwalin smiles-something he doesn’t do often. “He would love you if you drowned the sun, little one.”
Kili ends up telling Thorin soon after that. At first his uncle says nothing and Kili starts to fill the silence with everything he’d been feeling for years because he fears his uncle is angry. It all just spills out at once; he wants to be a fighter. His dresses make him uneasy. His lack of a beard upsets him. It’s like his body isn’t his sometimes. It isn’t who he wants to be. He doesn’t want to live that way. As his speech goes on and becomes more distraught Thorin becomes more and more horrified. “… Mahal, sometimes it hurts. I just want it to end—” And that’s when Thorin breaks his silence, drawing Kili to him.
“Please, no more. My heart can’t bear it.” Thorin squeezes him tighter. “What can I do, ghivashel? Tell me, what I might do to help you. Whatever it is I will grant it.”
Kili shakes him head. “I don’t know.”
They remain that way a long time.
“Have you told your mother?”
Kili shakes his head again.
“You will need to tell her what is in your heart.” There’s a silence that stretches for what feels like an eternity. “In the meantime, Dwalin will train you and your brother. When you are ready, we can tell her together if you’d like.”
Kili smiles into his uncle’s chest. “Alright.”
“And we’ll talk to Oin. See what we can do about getting you a beard.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, amadnadad.”
“I would throw myself in the forge before I see you suffer… namadinùdoy.”
Dis… takes it better than anyone expected. Not great. But better. She says she needs to think on it and leaves the room obviously in shock. Kili is a mess the whole time they await for her return.
Thorin knows it’s hard to let go of the idea of her daughter and deal with the reality of her son. Daughters are precious few among their people: to be coveted and concealed. After an hour she returns and holds Kili tight. “I love you. I do not understand now but I know I love you. Whatever—whoever you are, I make you that promise. I will always be you’re mother and would be proud to call you son.”
Oin, for being a superstitious old man, is surprisingly helpful. “I’ve got a potion for that. Oh and this one, too. Deepen your voice, thicken you beard, you’ll gain muscle easier and lose a lot of your babe fat, especially in your… you know.”
Kili makes a face at the strange green liquid. “Are you sure it’s… safe?”
“Of course it is. Recipe has been in the family for years.” He puts a hand on Kili shoulder and squeezes. “You’re not the first dwarf that Mahal’s stuck with the wrong bits. Just the first royal one I know of.”
Everyone else finds out at varying times. They all notice Kili is changed; wearing pants, getting fitter, binding his breasts flat. They can’t ignore that he corrects people who use her and she when talking about him. Kili is living his life as a man and Thorin is sure the lad has never been happier.
One day a lord comes to the King inquiring about the princess and Thorin is genuinely baffled for a moment. “Oh, you mean Prince Kili.”
And that is that. The whole of the Blue Mountains knew by nightfall. A handful of dwarves come forward in protest but Thorin stomps it out before Kili even catches a whiff of it—in one lord’s case, literally stomped. He still walks with a limp. Most dwarves just mind their business. What did it matter if his highness was a beyn? Wasn’t their place. But other beyn make themselves known to the prince. They wanted to show their support and it means the world to the young dwarf.
There is a rumor at some point that Kili is Durin reborn and wasn’t that an interesting week. Kili is insufferable.
By the time Kili arrives at Bag End years later and meets Bilbo, he didn’t need the potion anymore. Bilbo doesn’t know Kili is beyn until well into their adventure when they’re bathing in Rivendell. Kili hasn’t been shy about his body in a long time and bathes with everyone else. When Bilbo walks by the fountain were everyone has been bathing and catches sight of Kili, he stops a moment blinks, then shrugs. Later Kili asks him about it.
Bilbo just shrugs again. “I’ve got an aunt with a lot more bits between her legs then a lady usually has. Doesn’t make her any less my aunt, now does it?” Bilbo ruffles his hair and walks on. Neither of them see Thorin watching from the shadows.
Later the King would realize this is when he first started falling in love with the little hobbit from Bag End. But that’s another tale.
Kili meets Tauriel and his world turns upside down.
For a moment her remark about his trousers hurts a bit because in a way she’s right. He smiles anyway. Later, when he tells her what he is, her eyes go wide and she apologizes, clearly sorry.
He forgives her.
He’d forgive her anything.