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Soft silk ribbons slid through Bilbo's hands as he wove the strands over and under, braiding them together. The tip of his tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he worked. His curls fell into his eyes and he brushed them back, smiling faintly when his fingers brushed the engagement braid behind his left ear.
"Nearly ready then, Bilbo?" Primula asked brightly, flouncing into the chair beside him in a rustle of skirts.
"I'll be ready," Bilbo said, voice absent. He came to the end of the cluster of ribbons and checked the tightness of the weave before deftly unraveling it to begin again.
"The pair of you," Primula said, shaking her head. "If it's not one of you obsessing, it's the other. You'll do fine."
"It's an important part of the ceremony," Bilbo said. "Everyone will be looking at us and I don't want to botch it."
"Wouldn't you know, Thorin said the exact same thing about your garland," Primula said.
Bilbo looked up from his work, fixing her with a suspicious eye. "Oh?"
A slow, too-innocent smile spread across Primula's face, like a fauntling trying to convince him that her hands had absolutely not been in the biscuit jar. "It looks very fine," she said. "You'll love it, I'm sure."
"I suppose it would be uncharitable of me to wish you had stayed in the Shire for this," Bilbo said dryly. The wedding garland he had made for Thorin just that morning sat on an empty chair. He had dithered over the arrangement for weeks, and half a dozen annotated sketches had taken over the surface area of his writing desk.
There were dog roses and rosemary of course, for love and fidelity, with wallflower as well to speak of that love enduring through all the hardship they had faced. He had despaired of finding lilies. It was too early in the season for them, and Thorin deserved something to represent majesty in his garland. Word of a hothouse in the rebuilt Lake-town - named Esgaroth once again - reached him at roughly the same time Primula and Drogo arrived unexpectedly with half a dozen of his Took and Brandybuck cousins in tow. Now the lilies were tucked in beside the chervil for sincerity and the lucerne, whose purple blooms were some of the first of the season. The effect would already have been striking, but the tulips added a cheerful splash of yellow and one final declaration of how he felt about Thorin to all the world.
"And miss my favorite cousin marrying into royalty? Not likely," Primula said, interrupting him from his contemplation of the garland. "If it makes you feel better, I'm sure your fiance is in just as much of a nervous state. Never fear, Drogo will calm him right down."
Bilbo was halfway through the braid again. He glanced at his cousin out of the corner of his eye. "I don't mean it," he said. "I am very happy you came all this way."
"I know," Primula said, patting his knee. "But if you weren't being stubborn and cantankerous, you wouldn't be Bilbo."
"I am not cantankerous!"
"Whatever you say, cousin."
Bilbo huffed, but Primula had goaded a smile out of him, just as she was always good at doing. "I don't know why I'm in such a state," he said, fingers smoothing over the braided ribbon again. It was as perfect as he knew how to make it. "By dwarf reckoning, Thorin and I were married the moment he put this in my hair after the battle." He brushed his engagement bead.
"I think that's very romantic of them," Primula said. "Lovers choosing to wed when they please, without a passel of dreadful relatives swarming about making everything difficult. Oh, but imagine the elopements!" Then she gasped delightedly, her cheeks pinking. "Bilbo! You eloped with a king!"
"I did not!" Bilbo protested. "Not by Shire reckoning! We'll be married today, thank you! Primula!"
It was the Twenty-Sixth of April, in the Shire reckoning - exactly one year to the day from when Bilbo Baggins found himself the unexpected host of thirteen dwarves and a wizard. The wedding of Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain to one Bilbo Baggins of the Shire was scheduled for three o'clock in the afternoon, just before tea. Bilbo and Primula awaited the start of the ceremony under a cloth canopy hung with bellflower and lily-of-the-valley. Primula's giggles and Bilbo's embarrassed protests reached the ears of those guests closest to their pavilion, and they chuckled to hear it.
Across the rows of low benches where the last of the guests were arriving was another canopy, this one festooned with laurels and lavender. There, Thorin paced, barefooted on the grass, his hands clasped behind his back. Drogo, seated next to a small table with a pot of chamomile tea he kept trying to convince the king to drink, watched him with a smile. Thorin found he couldn't be irritated at the hobbit's fond expression, not when it did not contain a trace of mockery, and not when Drogo had been so steadfast a friend in the past month. Bilbo's cousin had a deft hand for diverting Fili and Kili when they began to especially try Thorin's patience, which was much appreciated - he'd had no notion of how much work was involved in planning a Shire wedding.
"You look like I did, just before Prim and I went down the aisle," Drogo said. "Don't fret! Between Primula and Amaranth and that brilliant chap you've got as an advisor, it'll all go off without a hitch!"
"It isn't the arrangements I'm concerned about," Thorin said, turning to pace back the other way. "I'm certain your wife and your sister-in-law have everything firmly under control."
"Ahh, then you're worried about mucking it up?" Drogo asked. "Come on, your majesty, sit yourself down and have a cup of tea. It'll set your nerves right."
"Not unless you've been nipping brandy into it when I haven't been looking," Thorin said.
"I could, if you'd like," Drogo said, and Thorin eyed him.
"I thought you Bagginses were supposed to be respectable," he said. "At least, that's what Bilbo tells me. Continuously."
"Well, we certainly used to be," Drogo said, although he didn't sound very upset by it. "You see, I married a Brandybuck, and they're dreadful influences. I imagine the only more dreadful influence would be a dwarf. Or perhaps a Took."
"Bilbo is half Took," Thorin said.
"Be grateful," Drogo said. "If Uncle Bungo had married a Bracegirdle instead of a Took, you never would have dragged Bilbo out the door of his smial. Well? Drink your tea - with or without brandy?"
"Without. Bilbo might just commit regicide if he thinks I've been celebrating before we've even begun the ceremony."
"Quite right," Drogo said, pouring Thorin's tea. "Wouldn't want to tempt fate."
Not a quarter of an hour later, all the guests had been seated, the musicians were in place, and the ceremony was ready to begin. As the light, peaceful strains of the music floated over the crowd, Bilbo and Thorin left their pavilions, with Primula and Drogo carrying their wedding garlands.
Bilbo still fretted - he was a Baggins, he could not help himself - but one look at his soon-to-be-husband pushed those worries to the back of his mind. Thorin wore none of the trappings of royalty, no crown or armor or great furred cape. Instead, he was dressed in a soft white shirt, full at the sleeves and laced in the front, and a pair of linen trousers that ended at his ankles, just above his bare feet. A sleeveless tunic of pale, silver-edged blue went over top of both. He looked soft and simply handsome, much more like the dwarf Bilbo had fallen in love with than the king he saw every day on the throne.
Thorin, for his part, was captivated the moment he laid eyes on Bilbo. Cuffs of gold glinted from his ears, and his shirt and tunic were unlaced far enough for Thorin to see the hollow of his throat. The shade of blue he wore was darker - the color of Thorin's banners, a rich shade that brought out the blue of his eyes. His hair had grown longer, and had lost some of its curl, more of a gentle wave as it brushed his shoulders. Thorin extended his arm, smiling fit to split his face when Bilbo settled his hand on it.
The procession preceded them in - Bilbo would remember the details later, from Rorimac Brandybuck having to stand tip-toe to escort Dis, to Fili bending almost double with Rorimac's wife Menegilda on his arm, to Kili bringing up the rear with Primula's sister Amaranth practically starry-eyed over being escorted by a prince. In the moment, he only had eyes for Thorin, and saw Thorin sneaking just as many glances down at him.
Thorin had asked Balin to preside over the ceremony, but he and the Company were by and large insensible in the front row, sniffling quite loudly in Bilbo's opinion. The ceremony hadn't even started yet, for goodness' sake. Instead, Adalgrim Took stood at the end of the grassy aisle. Bilbo only regretted that Ferumbras couldn't be there, for he would have very much liked to be married by the Thain as fitted Thorin's station, but of course he was far too busy to go traveling off into the wilds.
Bilbo felt as if he could have said the vows in his sleep, and then it was time to present their garlands. Bilbo turned and accepted Thorin's from Primula, and then turned back to find a bright spill of color in Thorin's hands. The tips of his ears were burning, and so were his cheeks, the blush deepening by the second.
While his garland for Thorin was ostentatious even by hobbit standards - tulip and dog rose and wallflower, one would have been enough, surely - Thorin's was saucy. The coriander and the roses were quite acceptable - pink and red roses both, which would have made Bilbo blush quite enough without the rest. Marjoram, for heaven's sake, and paired with jonquil to boot - and my goodness, was that jasmine? Far too much talk of desire and sensuality in such a public bouquet! Behind him, Bilbo heard Amaranth Took sigh loudly, as if she was quite taken with the romance of it all. He flushed even brighter when Thorin settled the garland on his head, then bent to receive his own, his eyes fixed on Bilbo's with a fondness that took his breath away.
Bilbo's fingers reached forward almost of their own accord, separating a section of hair behind Thorin's right ear for his marriage braid. "I am going to have stern words with Primula," he whispered quietly as he worked. Even with his embarrassment, his practice paid off, and he deftly braided the dark strands of Thorin's hair. He only faltered when Thorin started on Bilbo's marriage braid, the knuckles of his fingers brushing the point of his ear and sending shivers down his spine.
Thorin only smiled at him, bright and slow, clasping the end of Bilbo's braid with a bead of silver, to match the one on his engagement braid, though this one shimmered with tiny slivers of the Arkenstone. The bead Bilbo put on the end of Thorin's braid was quite plain by comparison, but he had spent painstaking months carving it himself, scratching out tiny acorns and oak leaves by the light of the fire.
Then they were wed, and kissing, to the sound of cheers and the bright strains of music. When Thorin drew away, Bilbo's blush had calmed to a light dusting of pink. He leaned in close to his consort - his husband - and whispered in his ear, "Don't blame Primula. I asked her how to say what I wanted, and once she was finished blushing, she was only too happy to tell me."
Bilbo stared up at Thorin, breathless and red-faced, thinking of the garland he wore in his hair - the one that said affection and love as well as blushing passion and desire - and almost tripped over his feet when they turned to face their guests. There were few dry eyes, and no faces without smiles, but the King and his Consort were the most joyful of them all.
It was a lovely wedding, by Shire reckoning, and would certainly be the talk of both Erebor and Hobbiton for many years to come.