Sigrid heard the sound of the trumpets of Erebor and knew Fíli had returned.

"My queen." Dara said, and there was a hint of reprimand in her lady's-maid's voice. "You know it is best to come out to the parapet. They're approaching… and he's sneezing."

Fíli and Sigrid had observed a ritual ever since she moved into the Mountain following their wedding, although in truth it began the day he was expected back from Ered Luin. She would wait upon the parapet to welcome him if he had been away for more than a day or two. He said it was the first thing he looked for. It meant he was truly home.

Sigrid finished the political document she was drafting on behalf of her father and put down her pen before following Dara from her chamber to the entrance of the Mountain.

And there he was and her heart pounded. All these years and her heart still pounded at the sight of him. She had felt it that day almost eight years past when the bedraggled company of Thorin Oakenshield were smuggled into her Laketown home through the toilet. Her heart had beat even harder the year after the fifth Feast of Victory when he returned from Ered Luin. When he marched through the gates of Dale still clad in his traveling clothes, captured her waiting mouth in his and asked her to be his wife.

Today she watched him hunched over his horse, sneezing into the handkerchief Bilbo had given him.

"He looks quite ill," Dara said. "He's always so…needy when he's ill."

"Pitifully so."

"It's a trait of the dwarves, I'm afraid; Aulëforged them brave and strong, but alas we are less so when at the mercy of illness, particularly the males." Dara said. She was a dwarf herself and was the best authority to say so.

Sigrid sighed. "But I think he sees his battle wounds as weakness. He seems determined to ignore the strain they place on his breathing, particularly during the winter months." She turned to her lady's-maid. "Could you please draw a bath, Dara? I'll take care of the rest."

She watched as he glanced up from the path bellow, not quite as sheepishly as she would have liked, but she did see his shoulders relax at the sight of her. It had been weeks since he had left in a rage and still she was raw from the accusation he had made before they parted. They had never parted in anger before.

It had been a silly thing really that had begun their quarrel, the result of the weight of a kingdom upon their shoulders. Both were stubborn and fierce in spirit so neither would easily concede a disagreement.

She went back to their chamber where Dara was pouring water into the carven tub and waited. She knew him well. Now that his brother lived with Tauriel and not under the Mountain they would speak for some time at the stables about the outcome of their travels.

A short while later he shuffled into the chamber, and she could see his relief that the tub was filled. She imagined he was cold to the bone. His clothing seemed to weigh him down.

Wordlessly she approached him and unhooked his fleece coat, pushing it from his shoulders and dropping it to the ground, and then she pulled free his shirt. He held up his arms as she dragged it over his head, his eyes on her the whole time. Her hands went to the fastening of his trousers and his head bent towards hers, but she turned her face away, though not before she caught the flash in his eyes. Then he stepped out of his clothing and climbed into the steaming water with a sigh of pleasure. Sigrid crouched beside him and her hands tugged his hair back.

"If you ever walk out of this Mountain accusing me of placing Dale's needs over Erebor's, I'll tear you apart, piece by piece." She spoke quietly, her fingers tracing the intricate braids,

A hand as quick as hers gripped her face. "And if you accuse me of placing my kingdom above my family, I will tear myself apart, piece by piece." His mouth was hard on hers but she matched his force until he let go, lifting a hand to trace her lips with his thumb. She gently pushed him back and tended to him. She rubbed a dripping cloth across his chest in slow circles so that the warmth of the water would reach and sooth his lungs. She could see his eyes on the opening of her shift that allowed him a glimpse of the curve of her body, ripe with their child. He reached to clench her garment in a fist. "Take it off," he begged hoarsely. "Please."

She lifted in over her head and climbed into the tub, straddling his thighs as his hands wandered over her swollen belly. He pressed a kiss against it before taking her face between his hands, his mouth back on hers. She felt a hunger from him like never before, their mouths greedy for anything they could take, and when she moved above him, he thrust into her and she covered his mouth with her hand to stop his cries echoing across the quiet chamber to where their guards stood outside.

Later, they lay in each other's arms in their bed. She pressed her lips against his chest, tracing a finger across a new bruise or two.

"My queen…"

"Yes, my king?"

"I'm dying." He groaned.

She laughed.

"You've caught a chill because you weren't wearing an undershirt, as I warned you before you left. Every year you catch the same chill and every year you are convinced that you are dying. It is a common cold, my love. It will pass."

"I'm speaking the truth. I am dying. My nose is red raw and my chest…" he made a wheezing sound. "It hurts. And you mock me, when all I need is your tender care."

"I'm surprised you didn't go to your mother and have her fuss over you; her golden warrior." She teased.

His arms bound tightly around her. "If I spent one more night away from my wife I would have laid down and died."

The smile slipped from Sigrid's face as she traced the faded scars across his chest. "Let's have no more talk of dying, my love. Not when we have so much more living to do." She whispered.

Fíli gazed deeply into her eyes and there were simply no words to convey what passed between them.

They heard a sound in the hallway, a childish babbling, and Sigrid saw Fíli's face soften. Her heart sang to see his smile. Their son, Thráin, tottered into the room, eyes wandering, searching, and lighting up with joy when he saw his father.

Fíli leapt out of bed and held out his arms, and Thráin ran to him.

"Da!" he said with delight, and Fíli pretended to collapse from the weight until they were lying beside Sigrid.

"You've grown, little lion." Fíli said as he ran his fingers through his son's blond tangles. "Is that hair is see on your chin?"

"Da!" Thráin repeated emphatically, tugging at Fíli's braided moustache.

Fíli chuckled. "I like the sound of Da."

Sigrid frowned slightly. "He's copying me; we visited my father while you were away."

"Tell me again why he is supposed to call us Fíli and Sigrid?"

"In case anything happens to us," Sigrid replied. "I read it in one of the chronicles of Dale to do with child-rearing. The more a child gets used to comfort terms, the more they will grieve if something happens to them. It's the words they miss using."

Thráin squeezed them both together, his little arms around both their necks, and he practiced his counting with a kiss to each cheek.

Fíli reached up to caress her cheek and spoke her own words back to her. "No talk of dying, my love. Not when we have so much more living to do."

Sigrid nodded and then laughed at Thráin's antics and he kissed them both.

Suddenly the three of them were knocked aside by a force beyond reckoning and she knew by the thunderous look on Fíli's face that she'd have to explain the hound's presence on the bed. The hound was a stray from the survivors of Laketown, a piece of her old home to accompany her to her new home. But nonetheless Fíli and Sigrid had previously agreed that he should not sleep on the bed.

"We were all so sad while you were gone and he cried and cried for you," she explained. "We all did." She patted the dog.

Fíli stared at her in disbelief. "Sigrid, he is a hound. He will feign loneliness for the rest of his life just to lie on this bed. My bed. I was the king of this bed."

He was woeful, but at the sound of the dog's snoring, Sigrid could see a ghost of a smile on his face.

She could hear already the world they had to tend to outside calling for them, but for now it was just the three of them… and the hound, and Sigrid understood that happiness came in such moments and she savoured it.


Based upon chapter 18 of Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta, Book 3 of the Lumatere Chronicles. If you are looking for an amazing fantasy series that is very accessible then read these books!