The next weeks were spent in a flurry of planning, fittings, and instructions on how to act as the wife of a prince under the mountain and what duties I would be required to perform. I was so tired, that although I never left my quarters, at the end of the first day I fell asleep in my gown.

Thorin had apparently been instructed by his King to support me in this time of great stress – Greater than the King knows, I thought. The prince spent time with me nearly every day, sometimes including himself in the wedding plans and sometimes watching with a bemused expression as I was pushed around by seamstresses. I become frustrated and often wished I could stick my tongue out at him – but it was no use with my face veiled from the male tailors and Nili, who had been appointed to oversee the wedding.

Several weeks still before Durin's day, I heard a giggle escape from the lips of the prince as I was being forced into hot curlers as the royal hairdresser experimented with my hair. As the hairdresser was a woman and my only torturer at the moment, I was thankfully out of my veil and I gave Thorin my full stink-eye.

"Shouldn't a prince of such magnificence have else to do than watch his bride-to-be suffer?" I snapped. He looked up innocently from the book he had been pretending to read, and smiled at me.

"Your hair is very lovely," he said. "But your expression of pain distracts from the image of the perfect bride."

"Sweet words from a tease," I growled. "You would not be so high and mighty if you were subject to the same as I."

Thorin appeared affronted. "Me a tease? Never!"

I strained to reach a ball of yarn from where Ora kept womanly pursuits stocked to amuse me, and threw it at the smug prince's face.

...

Hours later, while trying to unwind before the fire in my room after my torturers had left; there was another knock at the door.

"No more dresses!" I half-shouted and I hurried to cover myself before opening the door.

It was the prince. "May I come in?" he asked.

"Yes of course!"

When the door closed again, I took off the veil and restrained myself from throwing it in the fire. We sat before it.

"I came to apologize for my behavior earlier today," Thorin said, folding his fingers together and fixing me with his gaze. "I did not realize the stress you have been under and I goaded you unintentionally."

"You're too kind to apologize," I said.

"Will you forgive me?"

"Perhaps when I am in a more tolerable mood, such as when I am left alone to brood in peace."

Thorin ignored this comment, and drew a package from his vest. "It is traditional for the groom to give his bride jewelry, but I had not wished to gift anything to you before gauging you." He placed the package on my lap, still looking into my face intently.

"This is unexpected," I said, somewhat mollified. I opened the package and gasped. A cascading necklace of opals peered out at me.

"I was hoping you wear them during the wedding," Thorin said, smiling at my pleasure. He reached into the package and pulled a matching ring from the mass. "And I was hoping that you would wear this always."

I could not help the grin that spread across my face. "I will have to confirm with my other jewels that they will not be offended." Our eyes met, and I felt a deep longing inside as the prince smiled at me.

"I have a complaint to take up with you," Thorin said, his smile disappearing as he leaned back in his chair. "You think me to be a tease."

"Very much so," I chuckled as I slid the opal ring onto my finger. "No one has ever called me lovely without laughing afterwards."

"And to answer your earlier question – I have been relieved of most of my duties until midwinter. My father insists that my wife is my duty."

"That's very nice for me," I said. "Perchance you might relieve me of my stitching."

"I will arrange for you to be given a day off from your duties tomorrow," Thorin said. "If they are duties – more like playing princess!"

I was slightly affronted at his casual attitude towards my bane – and he stood and kissed my hand.

"I will come for you in the morning," he said. "We will go riding."

"Good night, my lord," I said, giving him a smile that I could not resist even through his slight. He returned in favor.

"Good night, Aurvang."