Chapter Three

All The Same To Me (When The Lights Go Out)

"Ey up."

Kili promptly made room as she approached, grinning despite the wariness everyone else was treating her with. She resisted urgently the urge to stop and just stare at him. Just shut down. She swayed unconsciously closer to the fire. But, evidently she did plonk down beside him since that was where she found herself a moment later, eyes drawn to the mercurial skies. Dusk was rising – as if it had started below them and just worked its way up, pulling on the scene like hauling set pieces. She stared at it deepening until she realised Kili was speaking again.

"You should really go easier on him, you know. I mean, we know you're like Dwalin when it comes to being crook, but – Senga?" Suddenly he appeared to see her properly. "You okay?"

She felt words crowd and tear themselves to pieces. She nodded vaguely, this time into the flames, but it wasn't missed that she was refusing to look at him. The archer scowled, verging on alarm. Then before she could stop him, he hopped out in front of her and grasped her left arm, literally pulling her round.

"What's wrong?"

"You look like someone just told you rain comes from clouds." Fili chipped in from her other side. That raised an eye roll and the answering ghost of a smile from Kili, but she didn't swat his hand off and nor did he look away. Senga sighed harshly, clamping her jaw tight. If –

"Wait, hang on – did you…?" Fili suddenly shot a lightning glance at Kili. "Aule, did he tell you?"

Her insides phased out of existence.

"Tell me wha'?"

"Um…that' he's, um…"

"…think's you're his moon and stars?"

Senga stared at them both, trying and failing not to choke on air.

"No he doesn'!"

She stood fast enough to make the blood rush nauseatingly away from her brain and turned away before they could answer, arms taut across her chest. Her arm burned reproachfully. But no one followed her as she walked out to the cliff, the need to be alone blaring out apparently like the announcements in an airport.

It truly was a beautiful night for their last, the sunset painting them all in soft, terracotta hues. Like a painting if only they had a bloke like Constable (he did sunsets as well, didn't he?).

But no, and her arm really did start to sting like nettles inside her muscles when she held it in that position. Still, it wasn't as bad as before. In fact it wasn't as bad by half, despite that she was probably tearing it (again) and the speed at which it was healing was testament to the healer who'd wrangled it. The dark magic – for it certainly sounded like magic, and not impotent if Gandalf's looks when she asked were anything to go by – had been removed completely, and not even a minor infection had been left behind.

Call her a suspicious bitch, but most healers didn't do that.

Maybe she was just being Scottish.

And yet she had the funny feeling that someone like that would turn up again sooner or later. She just hoped it wouldn't be like frigging Cicero out of Skyrim. She didn't think she could take any more madness.

Was it madness? It had to be – fuck!

This didn't…didn't really happen, did it? It just didn't, and even if it did, she didn't –

She wasn't –

She sat down again and felt a wave of not frustration, but weariness. Was this a story now? Because you didn't get stuff like this happening in real life. No, it was shit and then you died. If you were lucky, the flashpoint would be enjoyable enough to make it all worthwhile, but that was the essential gist of it. She'd accepted early on (for obvious reasons) that illusions made reality feel better. That didn't stop stories being the fantasies that didn't happen and never would.

Life itself didn't have to give you anything. It didn't owe you.

It didn't have to make sense.

It just was.

When it wasn't a story, you didn't –

Fall into another world, get drunk, follow a bunch of dwarves to a date with death and glory and decide, just casually along the way, that you're going to follow one of them to the end of the universe and who might – just might – have gotten fond of you as well?

No. That definitely never happened.

What was real?

The sword at her hip. The forge scars on her hands. The sun dropping below the wings of the mountains. They were real.

Her beating heart. Was that real?

"Okay, okay, wha' happened no'?"

When his king didn't answer; looked (sans another bloody nose) like he'd just come off a battlefield, Dwalin felt like laughing. It would've been cruel to actually laugh, however, so he limited himself to smirking knowingly at his axes.

"You kno', in my experience, tha' is the sor' o' thing tha' has the ca' ou' o' the bag. Jus' my opinion, though."

Thorin froze, fist clenched around a jut in the rock. He turned his head, eyes flashing.

"Ach, bu' you're a pair if ever there was one." Dwalin continued conversationally. "You shoul' be alrigh'."

"Dwalin –"

"Take advantage o' her an' I'll kill you."

The King Under the Mountain looked surprised, turning fully so that his hand slid down to his side.

"No' withou' regret, but it woul' be by my honour to do so." He punctuated his words with a shnick of the whetstone.

Thorin held his gaze.

"Indeed." He said thickly, and continued back around to their encampment. Dwalin rolled his eyes. Not 'why?' or 'how dare my friend question my honour so badly?', but rather agreement? Sweet Mahal, but he had never known him to be such a soppy bugger! Still, if anyone deserved someone as good as Thorin loving her that much…

Fuck, they still hadn't told her!

"Senga?"

Kili smiled guilelessly as he proffered the grey blanket.

"Looked like you were cold."

"Thank's, Ki."

He draped it carefully about her shoulders, avoiding the wound (though she fought a wince as it twanged anyway) and she was surprised to find she was capable of breathing properly. She exhaled for the first time that hour.

"I'm sorry, you know."

"Wha' for?" Her eyes narrowed. "Wha've you done no'?"

"Nothing – no really!"

She cocked her head, unconvinced. Kili rolled his eyes.

"Honestly! No, I meant sorry for joking around so much about it."

God. Senga felt like she was at war in her own skin, shaking her head at the horribly understanding look Kili was giving her. In a rare moment of wisdom (did she really just fucking think that word in the context of Kili?) he just smiled dolefully and left her to her vigil over the bluff.

Shit.

And bugger and fuck and why wasn't her brain fucking thinking?

She sighed slowly, the warmth of the fire lapping languidly at her back. The stars really were spectacular when they were up this high, far away from city lights or the smog of industry. Before – when she was still little – she could barely have imagined that Glasgow itself would be masking what she saw when she looked up at night. It would've been appropriate, though. And, now it was further away than a memory, the heavens were filled with more stars than she could ever have guessed. Yes, there were technically infinite potential stars in an infinitely expanding universe, but to see so many together made that infinity so much more tangible.

Damn it!

This was real. This was a very real situation and whatever else she thought – however half convinced she was that she'd been hallucinating – this was happening and she needed to respond. She couldn't run away; not from this. Where would she go anyway?

She entertained a momentary fantasy of running barefoot back to the elves and living off carrot sticks until she inevitably murdered one of them. Maybe Elladan would help her abscond with the wine…

Fuck – and all because she hadn't the fucking guts, here and now, to so much as voice a coherent 'no'.

She could say no.

Course she could.

That went without saying, and honestly it was the sane response. Nevermind anything else; they had a job to do and a certain level of rationality to maintain. He was a dwarf king. She followed him. End of (no was what she should do). Romance, here, in the real world, wasn't like in the goddamn epics anyway. It was just sex and endorphins and as fleeting as the high of a heroin shot. Love too, love was –

She might've gasped at the way that old gash in her heart stated bleeding.

But it wasn't a real wound.

As one by one they turned into their little grotto, curling into each other for the warmth they lost without their sleeping gear, she wondered if it would be such a terrible thing to just let it slide. Let it go. Carry on. To settle between Fili and Kili as usual without so much as a spare though for anything else.

With the blanket wrapped around her like a cloak, it took a bit of manoeuvring to get it so that she could open it out across the brothers as well whilst still lying on it, but she managed it in the end. She cracked a hesitant smile as Fili snorted, edging in closer so that he would at least be half-covered and Kili shifted so that she could lay her head on his shoulder. She lay her right elbow carefully near her hip so that it wouldn't get knocked or stretched, and sighed. She let the confusion and the frustration and the tension drain away. And she didn't think about anything. Which would've worked had she not caught sight of Bilbo and Bofur from across Kili's chest.

At first, she just let it wash through her like a warm balm. Their comradeship, after all, was what held them together. The deep love that came from friendships forged in the wilderness and the moments when there was someone there to pick you back up when you fell. For the hobbit and the dwarf, it was that something between them: true and unjudging understanding. A rare thing, it seemed, for all the friends and shield-siblings they'd had. Uncomplicated trust, companionship and loyalty.

Then she looked again.

Was it the way Bilbo curled into his neck? Or the way Bofur had thrown an arm protectively around him?

No. The Company would've had a field day. Fili and Kili were bad enough about things they thought they saw –

But now the thought had crossed her mind, she couldn't un-think it. Not that there was anything wrong with that type of thing (and god knows Tolkien was definitely overcompensating for something) but that didn't mean they were necessarily that way inclined. It was just as much uncomplicated love as Nori's cuddling up to Ori. Wasn't it?

Bofur grunted sleepily, moustache rippling heartily into Bilbo's ear.

What is it that makes you so uncomfortable about that?

She'd never thought of herself as a bigot. Generally, she actually had little thought for how other people might be considered 'different' when her whole world centred around her being labelled 'different' for reasons that had nothing to do with something so dumb as what one was or what one chose of their personal life. She hoped that meant that she wasn't, in any case. So what was the problem? That kind of intimacy between two men…

She thought about it.

…no, no that was fine.

She suddenly realised it was the intimacy itself. The…the physicality. Breath and lingering touch…she ground her teeth together to shut her traitorous mind out of the equation. Because it was nothing like that. At all. Love not…indiscriminate hate. Pleasure not brutality. Intimacy not casual indifference. Yet despite the fact that she knew – that she had hacked it into herself that there was a difference – she was forced to acknowledge that what truly paralysed her about the whole situation, despite her head and her scarred, frantically beating heart, was the possibility of saying yes.

The locket, ever-present, seemed to warm.

Yes.

Yes to what?

To sex, probably. Kissing leads to groping leads to fucking.

– a cold alleyway and colder, unfeeling hands –

No! No, not just fucking.

All the other stuff then? All the intangible tangible that didn't even make sense when she tried to think of other people getting on with them? His eyes and his hands, the indomitable presence of his body; all that which drew her like the suction of a marsh, and yet she was somehow expected to instinctively know how to deal with them.

…if you never try, you'll never kno-ow –

Fuck everything! If, even a world away, she couldn't rid herself of utterly mediocre lyrics trying to give her pointers, then she honestly felt like calling god and demanding he shoot her now. Between the eyes. Right now.

No? Well fuck.

On her feet.

Fili snuffled, disorientated, but remained asleep (Kili just snored on).

Avoid catching Oin's attention.

Because, honestly, that was the last thing she needed. The old dwarf was watching the entrance peaceably, not sparing a glance for his companions safe behind him, and so she allowed herself a long, low breath, catching it on the end as her shoulder throbbed. With as light feet as she could wrangle, she stepped in the spaces between the sleeping Company.

Face the problem with chin held high.

Not actually difficult when the dwarf himself, having avoided her for the rest of the evening, now sat, far from asleep, having been startled out of his staring at the wall to stare up at her instead.

Moonlight shone through the entrance of the cave, casting more shadows than light.

And so there she was staring back in the half-dark.

"Senga –" his voice was much deeper than it should've been. Yet there was no longer that guarded expression. His face was open; uncensored, eyes deep. The gloom weighed heavily on his one word, and for an irrational, charged second, she desperately wanted to shut him up.

"I am…afraid there are not words in the common speech to express an adequate apology."

She blinked.

"Wha'?"

"For my behaviour." His eyes skittered to the rock at her feet, but he remained perfectly still. "It was utterly inappropriate and…and unforgivable of me to have forced upon you –"

"You didn' force me. I was jus' startled. I still am."

The words susurrated between them. They fell on the air before she even realised she was going to speak, and, afterwards, she was left wondering where they had come from. Thorin's eyes dragged back up to hers, a question posed. They were liquescent in the shadows, their surface catching the moon at odd angles.

A pond reflecting the midnight.

"I –" she clenched her fists about arrested breath. But didn't look away. Not this time. "Look,"

"Senga?"

"I –"

Words goddamn it! (Words would be good). But in the quiet she looked right at the mad bastard and let her defences slip. She let herself consider it and saw Orcrist laid across his lap as if he'd earlier devoted himself to his sword's health. Saw the gouges left by the warg and the fatigue of his skin. Saw the hands that brought purpose and life to dwarven steel and she saw everything else of him: the care for his family that weighed him down every second, the thick-headed determination, the iron-clad endurance and the stone-deep defiance. All the things that made her want to scream, punch and stand in awe all at once, because then and there, she also saw something else. An inner part of himself, vulnerable and unsure, that was the revelation that she did, actually, matter to him.

Oh fuck –

"Senga?"

His eyes had gone wide and she suddenly realised the result of the last time she'd stood hyperventilating in front of him, terrified out of words. With a huff, she shook her head. Despite his mounting alarm, she clutched it in her hands for a second before ordering her wobbly legs to carry her forward and flop her beside him. The movement jarred, sending bolts of lemon-coated pine needles apparently up her spine and around her shoulder blade (a roundabout route, but okay). She dragged the dusty sand between her fingers.

"I don' kno'." To her horror she felt her eyes prickling. "I'm supposed to be chasin' wha' my hear' wants. Bu' I don' kno'…if I kno' wha' tha' is." I don't know if I'm whole enough to know. Whole enough to have.

Thorin sighed with a gust of air that didn't sound quite natural. She saw him glance to their slumbering companions – a last ditch attempt at privacy – before turning fully to her. He reached for her hand, but then seemed to think better of it and instead clasped her uninjured shoulder, smiling.

"The heart makes itself known in its own time." He chuckled softly. "Whether we command it to or not."

"After the eagles brough' us here," she stalled haltingly, still staring at her hands. "When – when you –"

She suddenly slapped the rock floor with a dull thump.

"Fuck. I'm no' good at this!"

"Again, I think it is I who should apologise."

"Wha' changed?"

He looked away, scowling. The change threw his face into shadow.

"You may recall your apparent demise. And then again. I cannot say that changed my opinion of you, but such things have a way of altering the bounds by which we think of others. It…made me realise my judgement was more faulted than I thought to begin with."

"Why?" Thorin turned back and stared at her, forcing her to physically tear her teeth away from her own lip (because no, she did not do something so ridiculous) only to find that it was the only think keeping her from crying. "Jus'…jus' why?"

Thorin shook his head slowly.

"Senga…" his voice cracked. It startled her out of her floundering like waves splashing a cork into the air even as he cracked a broken laugh, lifting heavy brows.

"Why you? Senga, from the moment we encountered you, you have proved the most stubborn, reckless, unrelenting young woman I have ever met. You are astonishing in your persistence, imagination defying in your resilience and you have never once stopped giving your whole heart to our journey, whether you realise it or not.

"That I have had the fortune to lead such a warrior – even one who vehemently denies my leadership – should've been…more than enough."

He grimaced regretfully, eyes still shining. Senga felt her breath leave her entirely.

"Bu'...you. You…wan'…me. You wan' me."

His hand, calloused and burnt, slid from her shoulder, caressing the illicit path up her neck to her cheek, shaky in its uncertainty.

"I want you." He breathed. "Mahal forgive me."

There was everything and nothing in a single second of passing neurons.

"Yes."

It was inelegant. Unpractised. God knows she was nervous on so many levels. But Thorin didn't seem to notice. Not even when she awkwardly tried to draw one arm around him, failed, then ended up scrabbling his shoulder. No it wasn't elegant.

It was world-tilting, though.

And, instead of the cold, it warmed her to her core.

"You – are –" he slid fingers into her hair and covered her mouth with smaller kisses as her autopilot tongue made itself apparent. "– completely – mninsane…"

"Well I won't deny you've driven me from my senses." His face seemed to glow in the dark, his voice low and breathless. Her lips felt flushed and oddly tender. And still her brain hadn't caught up. She clung on in what must've been a half-Nelson death-grip, moving only when pressed in close (hot scratching hard and real real).

She growled; an unbidden sound deep in her throat.

She pulled him in, pulled his thick, braided hair in her fingers and crushed her mouth to his. If there was anything to fit the description of a face-mash, this was it, but it didn't matter because their tongues were racing, breath stolen as quickly as it was gasped in; enflamed and wet like the hiss of molten metal and water. In motion, she surged. Like they were the sea, crashing on the shores of their own sanity. Her arms ached, her shoulder seared, but it took a long time to notice a damn thing when his hands were sluicing though her tangled hair, digging into muscle that sang.

"I love you."

"Wha'?"

He caught her face in his palms.

"You are as rare a stone as a diamond found floating in the river shallows; as wondrous as the crystal gardens of Durin in Khazad-dûm."

She blinked. She couldn't suppress the shudder that ran cold through her – no, no, wrong – and gritted chattering teeth.

"I'm…no' a prize!"

"…no." The passion – the possession – in those eyes gentled from their fathomless storm-dark back to moon-shimmering blue. "No. You are a star burning in the darkness."

He leant back, beautiful fingers trailing a path down her neck, then forward over the clothed lengths of her arms. Such a simple gesture oughtn't have been so deafening, but it chimed like a bell. And echo louder and louder until he held her hands in mirror of before.

"Tis not beauty or mere desire, Senga, I assure you." He smiled self-deprecatingly. "Though I admit I have been enamoured for some time now with your eyes."

Was this what they called 'romance'? The crap the Victorians swooned over?

"Don' say tha'."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm no' a fuckin' dwarven princess – or this star o' yours."

Thorin huffed incredulously.

"I already described you as a warrior of heart and renoun."

"Aye."

"Can you not be – beautiful –" his lips found the lobe of her ear. "– as well?"

Senga sighed, words arrested and dissipated as warmth spread to the tips of her toes, Thorin stealing kisses from the shell of her ear; her temple, with a gentleness forgotten of his people (like their dexterity and their focus).

"No –" she pushed, wrapping a hand about his haired jaw, nails hard enough to bite. Thorin's brows flew together. But it wasn't….right. Wasn't fair. She had to speak – even if it took an age and an effort to bully her brain back together. She didn't want to hurt him (not ever again) but the thundering in her head, the rustling of the rest of the dwarves and the harsh rasp of breath pummelling the air between them; that's what made it all real. It made it tangible. And without that, she couldn't hold on. She'd be swept out to sea without hope of return and that way danger lay in the gathering murk. Thorin was still waiting, body rigid, and she was so close her words flapped wings over their lips.

"I. Am. No'. Beautiful. I am no' maiden." She hadn't intended for the double meaning, but there it was. "I. Am. Me!"

Thorin – oh dear god – shuddered. From the tips of his fingers to the stone of his spine. Through the light on his eyes, she saw the moment his pupils blew. Discs like the gates of eternity.

He stood.

He gripped her hand as hard as if she were about to fall off the world and pulled her gracefully to her feet. The cavern was surprisingly undisturbed, in spite of their muted conversation, and they walked silently up to Oin. Their hands were still laced, and the old healer wasn't blind as well as deaf, but he only nodded blearily as they passed, mercifully ready for the watch change. Once out in the frigid air, Thorin lead them to the steps. The dusting of life on the foot-polished rock fringed their feet, the moon edging the walls of the Carrock in ghostly mercury as they ascended to the spring.

Senga felt the heat of his hand in hers even in the insidious chill, but she stared straight ahead; kept step with him. They turned into shade and briefly felt the wind, shocking in the dark (like passing between lights on a highway) but then there it was. The vines looked ethereal, grayscale and still, while the water spilled with silver shining in it to lick at fathomless depths. Like nothing if not the glade of Galadriel as she'd thought it might look like, all those years ago. The air seemed to vibrate as Thorin turned to face her.

"You are wrong." He said finally, locking her eyes to his as he raised his hands away to the buckles at his sides. Leather came away with the rustle of furs and the clanking of metal, glinting then muting (still she only stared straight at his eyes).

Until he pulled the last piece over his head.

Muscle rippled beneath thick, dark hair. He eclipsed the light, face thrown into shadow as his skin fringed so that it looked like frost, but his expression was far from dark. It was almost dazed as he looked back at her, stepping slowly forward.

"A wonder you are. And I had not seen a sight more beautiful than when you stood in the fire and I believed it the last sight I would ever see."

His mouth found hers again, breathless and, Jesus, reverent. Yet it was cool and thrilling as well as if she was lifting off the fucking ground. Concerns of the world at large seemed irrelevant and pointless, swept away with the re-jumbling of priorities. Cold prickled her skin, and it occurred to the third thoughts how very exposed they both were. But, still, that was largely ignored. Thorin broke the kiss eventually, tracing fingers behind her ear and down, unerringly, to her pulse, toying with the edges of her shirt. His touches sparked, electrifying where they'd turned into conductors –

"You are quiet."

She blinked. Her lungs hitched, but she got her eyes open.

"Hmm?"

The King Under the Mountain laughed softly. His hands ran back soothingly to grasp unsteady shoulders, lips pressing gently, unhurriedly.

"Tell me."

"Wha'?"

"What do you desire?"

She sighed heavily as he nuzzled her ear.

"You…" she croaked, inching stiff singers until the heat of bare skin jumped beneath them. "…you're the one who desires me…"

"Oh, but I love you."

She stared.

"Fuckin' 'ey."

She nearly collapsed into him, surging back up instead to recapture the drug that was him; the ascension that was fired through her blood.

"Do it, damn you." She hissed. She knew nothing about the nuances of doing this properly, but she was human. She had that going for her. And he was – well, dwarf. All dwarf. Pressing to her. Pressing as she struggled not to just tell him to get on with it. To blaze the trail; to –

"This is no battle, Senga." He groaned, mastering himself abruptly and pulling them to a halt, staring searchingly; worriedly. "…and nor is it any duty of yours to me."

"'course it's no' duty –"

"Then tell me. Please, my love!"

"I…wan'…I wan' –" The air was thick and her lips clumsy.

"Mahal, do you desire me, Senga? You demand it of me that I make my intentions transparent, but you offer not alike? I will not take liberties from you if you do not want me in the same way – I will not do it!"

Senga winced. Tension throbbed through her shoulder. Shit. Of course she didn't think – didn't he get that she didn't know how to do this? Had she not made it clear enough what she was going for? She wished he'd just throw her down and do all the things that went with that; all the things she wanted. At the same time, she was terrified of what her reaction might be if he did. All these things she couldn't bear to name…why, she didn't know. She couldn't understand why her brain stalled. Maybe because every name, every description, sounded crude and unnatural; more than she could bear right now. He'd called her his love, couldn't be more apparent in his desire…and that was the most improbable thing. She'd never expected this. Planned for this. Or even thought of this.

He made to pull away, sighing with the weight of the heavens, and she howled suddenly in her throat, throwing subtlety off the fucking bluff (why did she even bother with it – fuck!)

"Bastard." She pulled him back in, jamming back them together like sardines. Thorin grunted in shock. The breath punched out of him, and Senga had to gasp at the lump digging firmly into her pelvis.

All dwarf.

"For god's sakes." She breathed, finally letting her hands encircle fully to the hot, hard planes of his back. "I wan' to tell you. I wan'…I wan' to…bu' I can'."

She jabbed at his chest frustratedly. Only, her hand didn't move away, flattening instead into the coarse down beneath it. His breath rose to speak then, distressed, but she physically pushed it back down, raising her eyes and boring determinably into his.

"I think I love you. I think."

The storm -eyes widened.

"I wan' –"

So much for him being the communication failure. She bowed her head wearily.

Suddenly, he huffed a laugh, pressing a kiss to her temple. His eyes shut, and he simply held her there, fingers falling to her waist as if they were waltzing. He poured tenderness into her like crawling into a duvet nest in winter. Like a caress in the night time.

She laced the hand at her hip with hers – and it gave her an idea.

"You...fuck. You love me?"

"Do not ever doubt that. Senga – if I should lose my mind, don't doubt it." He met her look with one that had nothing but a promise of monumental certainty. "Yes."

"…okay."

She tilted up give him a kiss.

"I…" her twined fingers turned to guides, pushing his lower. "…wan'…" she pressed them to the hem of her shirt, burrowing beneath and pulling leisurely back up her leg. "…more."

The slight shock of his cool hand sent shivers up her spine. But here nerve held as she let go. Thorin exhaled heavily in her ear.

"Senga."

There was still a question; lingering doubt. His thumb staying right where it was, tracing oscillating runes into flushed skin. But just as she started panicking that she'd been too stupidly ambiguous again, the forge-calloused fingers moved. They traversed the ridges of her ribs, stroking over each one. And Higher. Kisses landed on her eyelids, her nose; the corner of her mouth, sparking uncertainly.

Until his thumb could swipe a trail over rounded muscle and flesh, meeting the nipple at the peak.

She gasped. Like she'd missed a step.

He kept on kissing her, not pushing, but exploring with keen, precise forays, each blazing into the next. She turned to retake his mouth on hers, and they snogged, his other hand coming up to touch and to feel; to play and to make hum. Her half-naked stomach stuck to his. She breathed with him, raising her arms at the first tug.

With care, he slipped the shirt over her injury and let it fall to the side forgotten. He was heat and humidity and they were cyclonic. She explored him desperately, hands too skittish to do more than fly from one scar to another, sucking the hair at his collar and his jaw before finding his tongue. He looked utterly astounded. His lips were flushed and his eyes were glazed. His fingers absently found the golden, etched locket over her heart.

"More?" He managed eventually.

"Aye." She pressed the hand into her breast. "More."

After that his mouth was everywhere, dipping first to suckle her cold-hardened nipples, but then her fingertips and, especially, the scars that scored her wrists and her arms, thinning on her chest and belly, but still there. Senga didn't want to like that; not the unclean marks on her, but he seemed to wash other memories out like a flood. Her thoughts rolled over and over, until she was clutching his hair, staying still and hanging on again.

He traced her lips, easing back, both hands tugging her neck.

"If there is anything –"

"Thorin," she could see the ripple that went through him as she said his name, so she said it again. "Thorin. F –"

No. Not cold and indifferent. The other thing. Say it.

"Make love to me."

There.

"Senga…"

He kissed her. With tongue and surety. She felt fingers slide about the top of her trousers, and he drew back to look her in the eye as he unlaced them, loosed them, removing the large geometric ring from his right hand and folding her fingers about it before proceeding.

"I would want you to keep it safe," he muttered. "Around your neck. As it should be, especially if we are to do this."

"An' you sai' tha' to all the girls?"

She raised an eyebrow, feeling the urgency, the fear finally draining away.

"Not all of them."

He stroked almost thoughtfully at her navel, dipping into her bellybutton as her trousers slipped to expose it.

"I think I would be a fool to speak now of promises and tradition."

"Bu' there were girls?"

"Yes." He gave a lopsided smile.

"Two hundred years ge' lonely, then. Good thin' for me."

He looked at her curiously, still obviously baffled by the bizarreness of how all this had gone, but not so jittery now that she'd calmed. Clarified (the faff that took).

"Senga…if you would permit my describing you, but alas." He traced the scar on her back suddenly, as he had done on a quiet night so long ago. "Shall I talk to you of deeds of valour?"

Suddenly his fingers were back between them, finding the edge of her woollen underwear.

"Of a human girl…who took apart a king's world."

She cried out. He slipped into the intimate spaces and toyed with the nerves nestled below, stroking until she panted for air.

"Of – a forger. A spirit of fire – oh, Senga. Mahal."

"Bloody fuck!"

"You unravel me," he breathed hotly into the space behind her ear. "Lay me bare."

Her fingers clenched the unyielding bone of his wrist without express order to, moans incoherent in the join of his neck.

"You make me start again."

"Th-thorin!"

"And put my feet on the path that winds to here."

She hissed as he slid them inside her.

"Alright?"

"Still hurts." She mumbled confusedly. Her hand fell from his wrist, pushing back through his chest hair as she fought to breathe. She felt almost cheated. Thorin found her cheek with his left hand and, through the tangle of limbs, pressed her lips a steady, sympathetic kiss. Her mouth fell open, and he swallowed her groan, working deeper, a mix of burning pain and pervasive ecstasy flooding her entirely in heady confusion.

The sensations levelled out. It still hurt. But not important; not relevant, and she was pushing his wrist again, trying to find that depth inside, no longer caring that she was keening.

"Senga."

"No'. Do it no'."

"Not yet."

"Damn it."

"I will not take you like a dwarfling not knowing any better."

"An' if I wan' tha'?"

Agony flashed across his face as self-control and care enough to earth the stars warred with need enough to fire them again.

"Not. Yet."

He withdrew with a flare of fire, and Senga huffed distraughtly. Every instinct demanded she have him again between her legs, but he was busy across the grove, laying out his coat and palming an apparently sorely neglected erection. She shivered and winced at the stickiness of her nickers. But then he was back, pulling her by her good arm to lie in the moonlight. The fur tickled across her sensitised shoulder blades.

"I'm sorry." She ended up breathing. Thorin groaned across their tongues.

"No. My Senga, be not that."

He did away with her boots, unlacing them and setting them aside before pulling suddenly at her empty weapons belt, hooking underwear and trousers down in one go. Cold air hit with a sting. But she barely noticed as he nuzzled instantly back to her intimates, frantic tongue curling taut. Thorin grunted as if it was he who was being driven mad, gripping under her thighs. It undid her. All the filaments within fired freely with the rasp on her folds; inside her. No burning, just sensation and warm and the scratch of his beard with the fever blazing through her skin.

She arched back, cries stealing into the night, only to find Thorin's mouth back claiming hers.

"Leather oil." He choked.

"Wha'?"

A lightening kiss and he was back down to her knees, tearing apart the cap of a tiny flask. Before she could ask what, he re-entered with it all over his fingers, getting it everywhere in a slick, soothing overflow.

The stars blurred in and out of focus. She wondered if she should respond; help him? They weren't dominant thoughts, but they were mixed in with the soup. She rolled her head back and tried simply to hold onto sanity. To real. To Thorin. To – to – oh Christ oh Christ oh Christ fuck –

He knelt up, pulling himself free of his boots and his pants and she whimpered embarrassingly as the proudly standing flesh caught the moon. She was shaking. And Thorin stopped to press lips to the long, white lines inside her legs, his eyes screwed shut.

"Please. Oh please. Senga. If there is anything –"

She scowled murderously, hissing to get to her left elbow.

"Thorin. Now!"

He looked devastated, reaching down to himself with the oil and sinking teeth into his lip as he did.

"As I am commanded." He said hoarsely. And Senga couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Aye."

She and Thorin joined. Lock and key. And the burn came back, despite everything, making her wail past closed lips. She threw an arm around the other half of their little act and pulled with a growl, forcing her hips down with frustration bordering on hysterical. And still he didn't plunge in as she buried her face in his curtain of hair.

"Hush."

Thorin nosed her ear, holding himself still. He laid them gently back down, sliding arms back to sweep her hair off her wet forid.

"Alright?"

"Now…" she admonished feebly. "I –"

He nodded wordlessly. She felt him press a kiss to the locket as he passed, trailing fingers over her nipples. She tangled fingers through the heavy tresses he trailed behind him. Here he pressed his hips down, and she hissed at the sharp ache as her pelvis refused to bend.

Fuck and DAMN EVERYTHING!

Yet he simply drew back more, throwing her knees high on his waist. He stared at her as if she were the only thing left on the earth.

Then he pulled her up.

And again.

And again.

His rolling thrusts went deep and sped faster and harder the more she moaned. Thorin growled. And she keened. Writhed and undulated as he sent shockwaves through her upper body, driving again and again at her core until she cried on every one, ensuring to make every one strike deeper than the last. After a while, he twisted about so that he could have her legs over his shoulders and grunted with exertion, hair flailing about. His beads struck a drum on the backs of her thighs; his breath at her knee. Low in her belly, a pit of both ice and flame opened a door to his pounding (a bloom of pleasure at every dragging, real shove of his body). It climbed out of the depths, filling her blood until it felt like it was about to shoot out of her ears.

The King Under the Mountain let loose a low howl. He bruised where he kept his fingers on her hips steady. His eyes were mad – all pupil and possessive like a wild thing. But he kept a ruthless focus, not relenting until she sobbed, the pressure too much, wondering how the hell IT was supposed to happen. They didn't supply girls with a fucking manual on climaxing! She clenched until she found herself in a standing wave, spine bowed backwards. For several minutes without breath, she was caught in the vice of her own body, shaking apart at the seams.

"Sen – breathe." Thorin slumped suddenly from his relentless pace, turning and pressing an open mouth to her thigh. "Breathe – my love. Oh. Let go."

He slammed into the back of her legs, muscles of his stomach pressed in.

"Thorin!"

Half plea, half recognition (half incomprehension - whywhywhy). Air in her chest. Fire in her stomach. He hefted her up and pulled her physically onto him, thrusts erratic but belligerent and it all seemed to roll over her.

"Senga!"

Yes. She was Senga. Warrior. Companion. Girl. Scars. Girl. Woman. Broken. But. Thorin. Thorin – oh.

She felt release fire through her. Her cry was as shout all around them as she scrambled to hold onto something, finally finding his hand and scratching her own thigh. The pleasure plateaued on the high…and she saw stars.

A.N: Right. I'll do this all in order: this chapter was far too long in writing. I am sorry from the depths of my heart (I have a life, goddamn it!) and forget everything I said before about writing sex scenes. This was singularly the hardest piece of writing I have ever done and probably the longest nearly unbroken scene I've ever re-organised four times (not exaggerating: I reversed the first two pieces completely, took the middle piece out in its entirety, stripped out and glued back together the logistics and let go of several dialogue trees). So -

I decided after coming back to write this properly that I apparently needed to get all of the fundamental issues out in the open at the very start (minus unsafe sex and risk of pregnancy - don't worry, I'll get to that in the aftermath; I do not encourage nor suggest bonking without sufficient prophylactics because that's beyond dumb. Really. It's REALLY stupid unless it's been agreed to conceive. It's just that for the setting I need workarounds such as what Thorin will proceed to do in exactly ten seconds time). Anyway, I felt, given the fandom and the very relevant subject, I needed to address the boundaries of platonic intimacy and romantic love. Between Bilbo and Bofur; to be honest, I don't know. I haven't decided any more than Senga has. But to say that either is 'right' or 'wrong' is fallacious since we can't actually pull the characters out of the ether to ask them. A) they are how each writer and each reader sees them given the book and the films in combination, and B) this wasn't the story that was told.

We are left, then, with moralistic issues. Would it be more appropriate for the Company to be non-romantic? But then that inappropriateness should apply to the numerous heterosexual relationships suggested across countless fics, and to be honest it does a bit and I've tried to hint at why (i.e they are stuck with each other; it's impractical, they are military; it complicates operation and compromises both priorities and command). However, since this is being largely ignored, homosexual and heterosexual pairings should be treated with equal standing in a 'right' combination of platonic and romantic. I am not obviously cleaving to dwarves having the western medieval view of the sexes because I want to make a point, and this is where the genre of realism grows past epic romanticism: I want to make it feel real. Not contrived. And being strictly medieval with it brings in a whole host of contradicting ideas about sex, gender, god, reproduction, and how you've got the active/passive dominant/submissive subject/object paradigms dictating whether or not you were a man or a woman REGARDLESS OF ANATOMICAL ARRANGEMENTS. Which aren't relevant to the story in any real way, shape or form other than to nod to when encountering more insular human communities. In any case: It's. All. Fine. People (even fictional characters) can be what they want to be and FUCK ANYONE WHO THINKS THEY CAN DICTATE TO SOMEONE ELSE WHAT'S 'RIGHT' AND WHAT'S 'WRONG' ABOUT WHO THEY ARE!

Oh and I started discussing rape and sex and demonstrated (hopefully) how Senga's feelings were being shaped. Rest assured, when she has the adult conversation about this, it will be covered properly.

Right! Now that's all out of the way :D

Senga's mental state here is messed up, in case that wasn't clear. She's been a downright selfish lover and she's afraid, stressed, out of her depth and I don't think she exactly knows what's going on in her head; just what she wants to happen. Originally I had the idea to end the chapter with her properly crying (and maybe I'll still do that somewhere in the scene) but it just went on too long and got to a good endpoint, so I stopped it there. Thorin's opinion on the whole thing was avoided because I think it would've voided my attempts to follow Senga on a trip through the broken glass of honesty when it comes to these things. I get how pleasurable it is to read about an idealistic coupling, but I couldn't bring myself to write that or generic sex because it just seemed so unnatural. The way it played out, I suppose the scene itself was catharsis in a way. I'll admit freely that my first reaction to sex - honest to god - was: is that it? In and of itself, it has to be the most overrated thing on earth; a chase for something that is ultimately problematic (for men and women). Regular sex and being comfortable with your partner is what makes all the difference, I suspect, being in love adding that extra layer of dopamine and a distraction long enough to relax and orgasm (which is near impossible under stress). No one tells you that. Nor the little fact that it isn't even unusual, much less an indication of one's body being wrong, for vaginal penetration to be nice, but not orgasmic. No, you have to learn in retrospect, which is harder for someone who is not socially or sexually driven. Also hard when the description of the female orgasm and how to get to it is quite vague. I digress, but really, the other big thing was that I couldn't articulate to myself or properly to my partner. There. All these fics assume adequate communication by osmosis, but most people don't read minds and if it's not quite there or not quite what you want, it's hard to say that (unless you're good at making your exact intentions known when you're nervous and in the middle of a hormone haze).

Anyway, there it is. This pulled in the direction of comedy, realism and epic and I went for realism, in the process stripping out the other two in an attempt to maintain rhythm. Cos I still wanted this to be sensual and to have an impact relative to its subject matter, just in a different way to normal. It probably did end up too long, if I'm honest, but this is the completed version. Completed at 4 in the morning and annotated at 6 (because I'm insane) so there's probably typos, and for that I apologise, but it should otherwise be well edited.

I tried to not put anything in that made this straight up porn, though this might have had variable parameters between the first bit and the second bit; my rules were a bit ambiguous beyond don't use explicitly followable diagrams.

Title is self-explanatory and sort of covering everything: a double bet too, because of course that's partly what I'm saying it's not (and what Senga specifically delineates).

So, dare I ask...reviews? What do think?