When the snow melts in the fourth Spring you spend in Erebor, you decide that it is time to go back on the road. When the ice breaks on the River Running, you pack your backpack and set out firstly to Dale and later wherever the road takes you. Your farewell with the King is short and half-hearted. You are maintaining decorum by asking him to not hesitate to call upon you to come back if any need arises. He impassively assures you that he will. After bestowing a composed kiss on his lips you set out without looking back once. You do not know for how long he keeps his eyes on your back, if at all.
You spend the first week in Dale, enjoying the bursting life of the city, purchasing supplies, sampling food so different from the Dwarven nourishment. You purchase a new pair of boots, soft but reliable, expecting a long journey. You do not stay longer as you are constantly recognized, and women and children tend to whisper behind your back. You smile to younglings and offer help to females. You happily deliver a baby, give out lucky token with miniscule sparkles of your magic trapped inside, but make haste to commence your travelling. The innkeeper is nauseating polite to the "Uncrowned Queen of Erebor", your short stature, pale freckled skin and the copper curls standing out among the townfolk.
You are walking, comfortably wrapped in a Dwarven fur adorned, warmly lined cloak, which makes you look stockier that you are. With a tall walking stick in your hand, hood hiding your face and a backpack, covered underneath your cloak you could almost be mistaken for a Dwarf youngling. You set a comfortable pace, crispy Spring air delightful, stern beauty of the surrounding calming you. Measuring your breathing with your steps, you feel your thoughts and sentiment aligning, your distressed heart slowing down, your hurt pride pacified, tension and anguish leaving your body.
Four months later, the peak of Summer finds you in Bree, settled in a small house on the outskirts of the village, with an established group of patients and patrons, coming for your herbs and advice. Your eye-catching appearance is still noticed, but the inhabitants of the surrounding settlements seems to be accepting of it, having seen different folk travelling through. You are having jolly time making acquaintances with the locals and occasional travellers, chatting with women in the evening when the day's work is done, playing with children, feeling that the Lonely Mountain is so distant that your heart renounced from fluttering every time Durin's folk is mentioned. First few weeks of your travels before going to sleep, you would close down your eyes and even out your breathing, visualizing warm strings attaching your spirit to the King Under the Mountain, gently but resolutely extricating your essence from his, retreating within the confinement of the shell you were building around your pained heart. You conserved your love for him, wounded and anguished, but no less ardent, as a small ember, warm and weak, in the corner of your mind, safely locked and no longer stinging. From each city or village you would visit, you would send him a message, shortly informing of your location and the road you would take. You had sworn your allegiance to your King and would keep your loyalty, even if that was the only thing he required from you.
The last week before your departure from the Erebor had been the hardest. You mind was already set on leaving but the uncharacteristic indecisiveness would envelop you, and you would be lying in your shared bed, listening for your King's even breathing, intricate shadows from your bedposts and canopy adorning his sleeping face. You felt your blood rebelling against your intention, pulling you back, demanding his ardour, his embrace, his warmth, his fervor. But you could not give your body and soul what they required. Your King's love has ebbed, gradually your magic and your judgement becoming his only interest, his city and his gold engulfing his consideration.
That leads to you standing in front of his massive chair in your shared dining chambers. "Are you punishing me for something, kurdu?" the King is surveying you with bewildered and aggravating stare, his tone low and ominous. And if you have learnt anything after three and a half years of managing this particular Heir of Durin, it is that openly challenging him is the least wise path to take. It worked several times in the past, but you clearly see that the time for it is long gone. It is a strenuous task to remain reasonable though, uncontrollable frustration flaring in you after four weeks in friendly monotonous companionship, lovemaking rare, hasty and mediocre, libidinous dalliances of the past a long forgotten treat. You feel like yelling, "I'll show you punishment", throwing him on the heavy wooden table and ravishing him, extensively using your teeth and nails. You blink to shake off the mental image, choking it on the rising moon, and decorously smile, "Of course not, my Lord, I have nothing to accuse you of." "You draggy, gold obsessed, stuffy bore," you mentally add and politely smile again. "As you do not require my assistance currently, I thought a journey would be in order, to expand my magic skills and knowledge of herbs," you explain. The thought passes, "Are you really going to believe this, you stubborn blockhead?" The King is frowning but nods. "If that is your wish, kurdu," he sighs and rises. The conversation is over. Your heart clenches and you feel light-headed. "When are you leaving?" "With the new moon. Lovely time to start a journey," you turn around as if busy with some papers littering the table, painfully biting the lower lip. He hums absent-mindedly and leaves the room. You feel the metallic taste of blood and release you lip. The tears do not fall. You made your decision, and it is for the best for both of you.
It has been four days since the thought of Thorin, son of Thrain, crossed your mind, when the letter arrives. In ornamented monotonous platitudes you are asked to return to Erebor. You are not given a reason, the letter endlessly impersonal, his hand having touched it only to provide the signature. You first impulse is to reach for your backpack, but then you sit in your pristine kitchen, staring at the happy yellow heads of coneflowers in a cheery blue mug on your table. You think of the dark passages and cold halls of the Kingdom Under the Mountain, the secretive, stubborn nature of Dwarves, the emptiness of your bed in the months preceding your departure and the lighthearted life you are leading now. You think of the babes you have delivered, friends you have made and the serene hours before dawn you spend practising your magic in the peaceful buoyant comfort of your small home, your heart undisturbed and content. To be fair, you place the Dwarven women and children on the other side of the scale, the respect and appreciation for your judgement and magic you received in Erebor, the lives you saved on a battlefield and the lives you brought into the world in the dark bedchambers. You attempt to stop yourself but your thoughts jump to the proud King Under the Mountain. "Do not lie to yourself, woman, you are yearning for him. Even a disregarding, cold, dismissive Thorin is better that the icy emptiness in your chest," your heart is whispering treacherously and you brace yourself. "He does not desire me anymore, not the way I need him, and I have to care for myself. If I come back I'll only be miserable and won't be able to stop from turning his life into a torture," you retort through clenched teeth. "He does need you, he asked you to return." "An official letter does not exactly scream devastated heart," you snarl. "What did you want? Him appearing at your house, humble and thinned, wasting away from the loneliness?" Apparently, venomous sarcasm is ingrained in all voices in your head. "Yes," you cry out and stop in your tracks. You close your eyes and a mirthless smile adorns your face. That is it, you realize, all these months you have been lying to yourself. This whole time you've been waiting for him to learn his lesson, to comprehend how his life is empty without you, and to crawl back, begging at your feet. The mental image, though not without certain allure, makes you laugh bleakly. "Then you should have chosen a meek sluggish town lad from Archet, not a proud Heir of Durin," you heart chimes in. "Shut up, pompous blood pumping muscle!" you push your chair from the table and rush outside. After several hours of wandering, impulsively kicking flowerheads, apologising to flowerheads, pathetic crying on an edge of a merry brook, furious yelling in a grove and finally exhausted dragging your bum back home, you fall into your house only to find a couple of confused patients waiting in your tiny sitting room. "Your door has not been closed, kind lady," they are inspecting your bedraggled appearance with doubt. You smile and greet them with regal dignity, your back straight, the skill of majestic awe-striking well trained during the years of your uncrowned queenhood.
You spend five restless days and nights biting the skin around your nails, condoning the nasty habit, and rewriting your answer in your head. It takes two hours in the evening to ink down your response letter. In polite impeccable styling you inquire if any trouble has befallen your King or his realm and in what capacity you are required to come back. You delicately explain that you have not completed your quest for a deeper understanding of your magic, which mumbling under your nose you call a giant pile of… withered flowers. Additionally, you kindly ask for more time allowed for your travels, if possible. You seal the letter, send it away and spend a sleepless night alternating between praising yourself and banging your head into the headboard of your narrow lonely bed.
Morning comes, sunrays dance on your freckled nose, and you open your dreary eyes. In a chair near the opposite wall you see a sardonically smirking King Under the Mountain. You blink and touch your forehead, looking for a bruise caused by yesterday's extensive banging. You obviously have a concussion and are hallucinating. "So, that is what you exchanged your life in Erebor for?" he gestures around your chaste bedroom. You shiver, since you somehow managed to forget the sinfulness of his low velvet voice. You sit up and rub your eyes. The apparition of Thorin, son of Thrain is patiently waiting for your response, its brow sarcastically hiked up. "What are you doing here?" you croak, pulling your covers over your breasts clad in a regrettably plain undertunic, immediately chastising yourself for vanity. Firstly, this is just your delusion and not the actual King, secondly, your looks are of no importance at the moment. At the same time, half of your mind is on the state of your hair, and that half is very very sad. You are surely displaying the exact likeness to a flowerbed of orange Azalea. "I came to inquire why my letter has not been answered for so long, and why my Queen has not returned under my roof." "I sent the answer last night" you squeak pulling the covers higher. "What took you so long to answer it?" "Five days?" "I sent it two months ago!" he raises his voice, a well schooled expression momentarily wavering. "I only got it five days ago!" you raise your voice in return. He blinks and for a second probably feels like an idiot. "Good," the vengeful side of your mind rejoices at the back of your head. He recovers regrettably quickly. "The letter had the date on it," he points sarcastically, tilting his head on one side. "I haven't noticed," mentally you resume vigorous head banging. "And what did your responding letter read, my lady?" he inquires further. You swallow under the heavy gaze of the motionless Dwarf, his arms folded but not crossed on his chest in a familiar gesture. An unmoving Thorin is an intimidating Thorin. And right now it feels like the whole world around him is frozen, no summer breeze, no buzzing bees, even the curtains on the open window probably halted and shrank in mortification. His intense focus on you is pinning you down, meddles your thoughts, and for a moment you are hoping it is after all a hallucination. You straighten your back and decorously repeat the empty banalities from your letter. His face is completely expressionless through your pathetic mumbling. You finish weakly with something in the manner of "If my King requires my service, I will start packing," he cocks his brow, "at my first convenience," you add petulantly. He holds the pause and, although you admire his impeccable sense of timing, you are getting angry. "Have I offended you in any way?" his voice is low and even. "What? No! When?" squawking is really unbecoming of a Queen. He gets up and starts slowly pacing in front of you, five steps one way and back, from wall to wall. "The city was being restored, the trade was flourishing. We had just reached a new favourable agreement with Dale, to a great extent owing to your facilitation, your tact and canniness. People respected you, for a longest time we hardly even disagreed on anything…" "You didn't bed me for weeks!" Great, at least when your heart was talking, it premeditated its responses. Other parts apparently just blurt out the first thing. Good job, nether regions! The King is frozen mid step, his mouth open in complete disbelief. Well, in for an inch… "My leaving has nothing to do with the city's prosperity, trade, or treaties. It has nothing to do with your gold, Thorin," your temper is awakening and you are welcoming the storm, "it has to do with the fact that I became another one of your counsellors and not your wife!" You yell out and then shrink back from the sudden understanding of what you said. The King's jaws are clenched, his nostrils flaring and for the first time you are actually scared of him. "You are not my wife!" he snarls through his teeth, each word separate from others, and you flinch as if he hit you. "You made it abundantly clear that you do not wish to tie yourself to me. Forgive me for trying to learn to live without you!" You halt, momentarily wanting to rush to reassure him, but then another infuriating thought makes you fist your hands. "So you were punishing me?! Withdrawing from me, ignoring me, leaving me alone for days?" "I did not realize I was doing it, not until you left," he sounds suddenly tired and sinks back into the chair. "I was unfair but in my defense it was unintentional. I was just lessening my dependence on your presence, for when I do not have it." "Mahal, you are inconceivable!" you shake off the covers and jump out of bed ignoring that you are only wearing a sheer undertunic that is reaching no lower than mid thigh. Now it is your turn to pace in front of him, gesticulating animatedly. "How many time are we to have the same conversation? I have pledged myself to you, my mind and my magic are yours. I am not going to leave you!" "And nonetheless you did!" "Because you did not want me anymore!" You are yelling at each other. He jumps at his feet and stares in your eyes. "I can't sleep! I haven't slept a single proper night for four months! Food tastes repulsive! People are scared of me, servants actually hide in passages from me! You cannot do that to me, woman!" He is panting. His face is close, and you see darkness underneath his eyes. You step back and regally sit back on your bed. A still lingering vengeful voice in your head whispers that if you wanted, that is the moment when you could actually make him kneel. He looks positively broken. But to hurt him is to hurt yourself, his heart is your heart, and you say softly, "I will come back to Erebor with you." "Good," he deadpans and exhaling sharply he sags in the chair, "I will endeavour to be more attentive to you in the future if you promise to never leave me again." "I have promised that many times before, nothing changed, Thorin." He rubs his face with his large palm and nods, "All right. Just come back home with me." "Thorin," you tread carefully and softly, "I am afraid we will have the same disputes again and again if we do not reach some sort of agreement. I am not a Dwarf and never will be. You people will not accept me as their Queen and I am asking you to give up the idea of marriage. I do not wish to let it cloud our relationship any more." He presses his lips together and defeated he nods again. "Unless you are not being honest with me," you say quietly and he jerks his head up. "In what?" "That you believe my motive to refuse you. I have promised all my remaining years to you, and nothing will change it. It is not from the lack of fervour and devotion to you," you are supporting your point by pressing your palms over your heart. "I just cannot tie you to me, make you break the customs of your people and give up your freedom, your ohufuk for me." And that exact moment you realize why your Mother used to say that less is always better. Damn your tongue and desire to convince him! He lifts his eyes at you, after tiredly looking down during your speech, and you see that they are blazing, pupils dilating, and you gulp. "My freedom?" his voice is almost inaudible from the fury burning in him. "As in freedom to marry someone else?" His lips slightly open, his breathing laboured, and you see he is clenching his fists, struggling for self control. He is slowly standing up, towering above you, leaning in and you scoot back in the bed, cowering away from him. He grabs your shoulders and yanks you towards him. "I am a Dwarf, you nonsensical creature," he is baring his teeth in a terrifying snarl. "We love for life. You think I will bed you, share my life with you, and then find a convenient Dwarven maiden, preferably from a noble family, and hope she will desire me as her husband, will agree to be my Queen and bear my heirs?" "Yes!" you are yelling into his face, everything be damned, the pain you've been carrying in your heart since the day you realized it belongs to the Dwarf prince bursting out in a violent scream and tears rush out, at length suppressed through sleepless nights, disapproval of the court, weddings you attended together, and the births of Dwarven younglings you have assisted. He presses you into his body, hot murmurs mixed with curses in Khuzdul pouring out of him. "Moronic, idiotic woman… Brainless creature… What are you thinking? You are my heart, my love, my life… You deranged yasith of an idiot King… You'll be the amrad of me…" He is pressing fierce kisses to your wet face and you claw at his shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer, sobs shattering through you, agonizing pain jolting your body, his beloved hands grabbing you, both of you crying and shaking. He is kneeling on the bed in front of you and once your hysteria subsides he is lowering both of you on the narrow bed. There is not enough room and you slide almost on top of him, pressing your feverish face into his neck. For a while it is just a sound of chirping birds outside and your coupled breathing in the room.
The world around you is still, his heart beating under your palm, and then you feel him taking a deep breath. "This bed is hardly made for two," he sounds rather pleased. You puff in disbelief and slightly slap his chest. You hear a quiet pretended yelp and he presses his hand over yours. "Do not dare criticizing my home," you screw your eyes to look at the ceiling. You have painted foliage of an oak tree on it. He follows your eyes with his and smiles softly. "Your home is in Erebor," you mockingly kick him and he traps your leg under his, "but I cannot deny the enticement of a simple life in Bree. I have frequented it myself in my youth." He rubs your knuckles under his palm. "I have a friend living further to the East, you should meet him. Jolly fellow, you will love him. Will cook you dinner, and supper afterwards, that would feed you for five days," he chuckles. "May be we should visit him before we go back to Erebor." A thought occurs to you, "Are you travelling alone, my Lord?" "I took Dwalin with me, he is in the inn. I cannot travel alone, I am a King, you know," he is jesting and you feel warmth filling the void in your chest you have been carrying around for the last four months. "Are you now?" You perch your head on a fist on his chest, not letting go of his other hand. A gleeful chuckles reverberates through him, but then his face grows serious and he sits up, pulling you up, and you are sitting on your narrow bed, facing each other. He is staring into your eyes resolutely and you suddenly are scared of what he is to say. "Kurdu, we have to reach the agreement you have mentioned earlier," his voice is enticing and persuasive. "Regarding marriage?" you are avoiding his eyes. "Yes," he turns your face towards him with one finger under your chin. "And for that you have to start trusting me…" "I have to?…" you exclaim but he silences gently pressing his thumb over your lips. "I am not done, azyungel." You frown at him but remain silent. "Yes, you have to listen and hear what I say. I have chosen you as my life mate and that will never change. Nothing can change it, neither my people, nor your race, and not even if so it happens that you cannot bear my sons," you want to look aside but he does not let you. "You are my yasith, my wife, and not because I bedded you, though apparently poorly," mirth is dancing in his blue eyes, you bite your bottom lip in attempt to suppress a smile, "and not because that was a way to ensure that your skills and magic serve me. You are my wife by the will of my heart and my mind. If you have me," he finishes softly. "Then why wedding, Thorin?" He lets out an exasperated sigh. "I want my people to accept that you are their Queen, and that you are mine. Did you know that it is Dwarven maidens who choose their husbands and not the opposite? I feel rather depreciated as a potential husband. You wouldn't want other Dwarves to think that I am less than worthy as a possible spouse," he is making a compelling case with his soft murmurs, tender looks from under his thick full lashes, and his fingers affectionately stroking your jaw. You shake off the spell he casts on you and move slightly away. The warmth radiating from his body is not helping your resolve, meddling with your thoughts, making it increasingly difficult to deny him. "The wedding would not change anything! And wives leave their husbands too!" you present your last, pathetic counterargument. He gives you a coy smile. "Not Dwarven wives. We marry for life," he pulls you to his arms, and you realize that if you allow him one kiss, you are lost. You press your palms into his chest but he is leaning in, his mesmerizing blue eyes shining, Mahal help you, the fresh smell of his skin filling your nose, your body demanding its compensation for four months of loveless nights. "Oh alright, you win," you cry out and a triumphant smile lights up his face. "Help me Mahal and all Maiar put together," you mumble and he presses his lips onto your mouth in the most beautiful kiss, your heart and other parts finally in accord, expressing their ardent approval, your blood singing, tingles running through every inch of your skin. He is caressing your upper lip and you are losing ability to think, your ears are ringing, it feels as if air fills your lungs for the first time in months when it is mixed with his sweet breath. All you can feel is the divine lips of your King, the scratching of his delectable beard and his calloused hands placed on the sides of your face, thumbs stroking your cheekbones, warm fingers on your neck under your ears. You sigh into the kiss and let go, embracing him in return, yielding to him and your destiny.