In the months to follow, the couple does not seem to get closer to eachother. Thorin tries to overcome his initial feelings of disdain a couple of times, as he realises that his marriage might be arranged, but it is important to try to be happy, by talking to her to try to find a common interest or informing about her day, but Noor, although she answers hem kindly, remains reserved and distant. She spends her time with her ladies in waiting, by walking her dog and by visiting Dale, and shows no interest in going to see her husband when he is working or spending the evening with him, besides quitely sitting next to him at dinner. This leads to Thorin withdrawing and being cold and sometimes even hatefull towards his wife, and him finding less innocent ways to pass his free time...

A new maid has started to clean his room. She has only barely become of age, and has the full, but not fat, figure he secretly likes. The first time he saw her she was scrubbing the floor, her ass high up in the air, moving as she tried to get the floor clean of mud and dirt. He immediately started to breath heavier at the sight of her glorious rear end, and as she turned, she recognised his desire. For her, he was not only a very handsome man, but also a way to lighten her workload, as she was sure that she would not have to work very hard if she was Thorins misstress. Upon the sight of a heavy breathing Thorin, she therefore immediately approached him, and he started kissing her vigorously. His hand swiftly unlaced her dress and as it fell of her shoulder, he caressed her breasts, massaging, licking and biting them. His desire was so great, that he did not take the time to take anything but his trousers off. As he pushed her onto the bed, he pulled her dress of, leaving her completely naked to her mercy, so he tought. His dick was already rockhard and as he pushed it toward her entrance, he felt she was wet. He trusted his dick in her, and kept thrusting as if the end of the world was near. He groaned with every thrust, and the maid's moans only made him more hot. He wanted to see her finish under him, and feel the power this gave him again, as he had felt it with his consort. When he sees the maid coming to a climax, so does he, and both lay on the bed for a while, trying to regain their composure.

At the same time, Noor is in her room, adjoining Thorins room. She hears the grunts and moaning, and knows what he is doing and that she will be hearing this more often in the future. She does not blame him, as she knows that she should give him this pleasure, but she simply can't get herself to get closer to him. His initial indifference does not help, but it is her who remains reserved when in his presence, giving him no chance to get closer to her. Still, she feels a small hint of jealousy. He prefers a maid over her, a maid that is not nearly as beautiful as her. It sparks a light of anger in her, that she can not get rid of.

Although Thorin obviously enjoyed his time with the maid, it also ennoys him that he has to find pleasure with the maids and that his wife denies him this same pleasure with her. He despises her for her reserved manner, which he interprets as her being arrogant and feeling better than him. -Why does she get to feel better?-, he angrily thinks -she is not a good wife, does not know which race she is from and is weak, as she can not fight not take part in physical activities!- He also finds it very annoying that she seems to spend her time idly. He is used to women working, or at least having a productive hobby, such as jewelry making. But Noor does not do any of such thing, she does not produce anything, except annoyance and anger in him. Later that day he complains about this to Dwalin:

"She does not do anything at all, she just sits in her room all day and walks around the castle a bit. And she is cold. Any other woman would have been falling at my feet whenever I would talk to her. And to make maters worse, she is weak", he says. "She can not fight and she has no power. What right does she have to walk around Erebor in her arrogant manner?!"

Dwalin wisely says nothing, but he does notice Noors lady in waiting that has recently taken an interest in him, and pops up in places he does not expect her to.

He looks at Thorin and says: "

"You might have taken things to far my king, that lady in waiting heard you, and I bet you 5 gold pieces she will tell Noor what you said tonight".

Thorin shrugs, and says: "What is she going to do about it, wrestle me to the floor?!"

Dwalin was right; after the practice is finished, and the lady in waiting got a good look at Dwalin fighting in nothing but short trousers, she returns to Noors chambers and tells her of the conversation between Thorin and Dwalin. Noor, already angry by what happened between Thorin and the maid that afternoon, and hurt by the cold and sometimes even hatefull treatment her husband gave her during the last couple of months, breaks.

"He said what?!"

"That you don't do anything and are weak, my lady." The lady in waiting says while she is looking at her feet, afraid what might happen.

Anger spreads through Noor, and she jumps up and starts marching to the practice area she knows Thorin and his friends will be drinking after their training. Her ladies in waiting run after her, and they make for a comical sight. Noor, the usually composed and gracefull queen, stumps trough the halls of Erebor like a bull while her ladies following while trying to calm their queen down.

"My lady, please wait! Take a breath, there is no use in you running through the halls like this!"

But she ignores them and keeps walking.

Thorin's friends are the first to notice the group of ladies quickly apporaching, and their eyebrows nearly reach their hairline in surprise. They have never seen the queen like this, but are quite interested to see what happens. As Thorins sees the surprised looks on his friends faces, he turns around to see what the commotion is about. As he looks behind him, he fiends his enfuriated wife and smirks, because he knows why she is coming and why she is so upset. But then she punches him rights on his nose.

As he falls on the floor, she throws her shoe at him, and screams: "How is this for weak, you ass under the mountain, you stupid coos?! "

Although no one knows what Noors insults means, they can deduce from her tone that it is a grave affront, and they hold their breath to see what happens. As Noor walks away, Thorin jumps up to follow her, but Dwalin stands in front of him and stops him, afraid what the proud Thorin might do to her.

"Come on Thorin, let it go! She's just a bit upset, that's it. Not quite herself yet, settling in and all."

Thorin grumbles, but takes his seat again, carefully taxating the damage done to his nose.

As Noor returns to her room, she wonders what repercusions her rash actions may have. She regrets hitting and insulting Thorin a bit, not because she hurt him, but because she has shown that she cares for what he thinks about her. When Thorin does not come to her rooms after a few hours, she figures that he has finally learned his lesson and he will treat her with more respect in the future. Little does she knows that Thorin has another plan. His wife humiliated him in front of his friends, and as he is known for holding a grudge, he will not let it go. He just does not want it to look like he abuses his wife whom, as he must grudgingly admit, is loved by many in his kingdom, even his friends.

"Dwalin, my lovely wife seems to care that I find her weak. Perhaps we should be more accomodating and help her."

"What did you have in mind?"

"You are going to start training her tomorrow, at 7 a.m. sharp."

"Training her in what?"

"Don't be a fool, in swordfighting of course." Thorin says with a smug grin. "And I shall help you to do so."

Again, Dwalin says nothing and Thorin waves at one of the servants to go inform Noor of his decision.

The next morning, Noor arrives at the practice ring at 7 a.m. sharp, where Thorin and Dwalin are already waiting for her. To their surprise, she is not wearing one of her elegant dresses, but tight black leather pants and a skimpy white top with bare feet. Both men look at her, and Thorin does not know wether to appreciate her looks, be annoyed that his wife somehow managed to find suitable fighting clothes or be annoyed that his wife shamelessly shows so much of her body. Dwalin decides to start the training with practice swords, as he is afraid that Noor, who turned out to be much more fierce than he took her for, will actually start hacking away at the king, and the king will act out all of his frustration of the last couple of months on Noor.

"Your highness, please take one of the wooden swords over there, and we shall start with your defense."

As they practice, Thorin stands next to him.

"Too high."

"Too low."

"Come on, put some effort in it."

"A troll would have seen that one coming."

"Do you have any spacial awareness?"

Thorin keeps on relentlessly commenting everything Noor does, untill pain and ennoyance become too much for her and she hits him on the head with her wooden sword and walks away. Dwalin runs after her, secretly praising himself for the wisdom to use practice swords.

"Noor, do come back this afternoon. I will make sure no one disturbes us."

"Fine then, but no more ennoying comments!"

Noor walks away and leaves Dwalin secretly laughing at Thorin, who seems much more ennoyed than he has ever seen him.

As Noor returns in the afternoon, wearing the same leather pants, but now with a lace black top, she sees that a crowd of dwarves has already gathered around the practice ring. She hears them making bets on the practice and although some bets make her laugh, -"5 coins she will pull his hair" "10 coins she will kick him in the royal jewelry"-, she is quite offended. It must be something that Thorin concocted, trying to humiliate her in public and showing everyone his dominance over her. But she smiles on the inside, as she knows that Thorin does not know how well she can really fight, something that she hid that morning, pretending she was only a beginner. She is however surprised to see that not Dwalin, but Thorin stands ready to 'train' her, wearing nothing but a pair of brown leather breeches and showing of his very muscular torso. As she enters the ring, Thorin sees her looking at him, he grins, and softly says to her:

"Well my queen, perhaps to can take a better look at me when you are lying on the floor after I beat you."

Noor, who was planning to just have a civilised training, immediately feels the sparks of anger lighting up again, and when the training starts, she grabs Thorins hair before he can even raise his sword, pulls his head down and kicks him right where one of the dwarves betted she would. As Thorin lies on the floor, growling in pain, she whispers at him:

"Well, do you like what you see from you new position, teez?", and turns to the bookmaker. "I believe you owe those two dwarves quite a bit of gold. What a fortune for them their betts came true."

She then walks away, head held high in the air.

Thorin is lying on the floor of the practice ring, in utter pain and humiliation. Once again his wife defied and humiliated him in public and he is completely fed up with it. As he is helped up by Fili and Kili, his nephews who are loudly laughing at him, he decides it is time to use his royal privileges and make everyone but his closest family and friends leave. He then asks Balin, seemingly the most wise and travelled of them all: "What did that wife of mine say to me this afternoon and just now?" Balin clearly hesitates, as he knows that the truth will infuriate Thorin, but he feels obliged to tell it anyway

"Well", he starts, "ahum, let's say she called you the front and back of the female lower parts, with an insinuation that your preferences incline to- eeeh- men…" he says.

"She what?!" bellowes Thorin "She called me a cunt, an ass and a faggot?!"

"Yes, you could put it like that" Balin sighs, as he does not like the crudity of the words spoken out, bur prefered his more diplomatic way of stating the facts.

The blatancy of his wife, who used to be, although reserved and not forthcoming to him, demure and gracefull, drives Thorin utterly mad. But his royal upbringing prevents him from going to her room and showing her who is boss. Instead, he he goes to one of the halls and starts drinking with his friends.

This status quo, both of the partners so upset with eachother that they don't even dine together anymore, remains for a couple of weeks, untill Thorin fucks one of the maids again, and his old ennoyances come back.

And again, Noor hears the sounds both he and the maid produce during sex. The moaning and grunting, obviously signs that Thorin is enjoying himself very well, make her both sad and upset. She sighs, as she remembers the events on that faithfull day that have lead her to be so reserved towards her husband, resulting in a cold war situation between him and her. She pets her dog once more before taking a hoth bath to try to releave her senses.

Thorin is laying on his bed, the maid has just left. His muscles still ache and he sees marks of their loveplay all over his body. It does not fill him with more pleasure, as the markings of his former consort did, but rather with ennoyance. The maid was not very beautiful, not was her station fitting for a king. Why would he have to get his pleasure from maids, when he has a wife that should give him pleasure. The more annoyed he gets, the more he wants to get upset with Noor, scream at her, find out what it is that makes him so revolting in her eyes and scold her for all her impudent behaviour. He finally gets so annoyed, that he goes through the door that links their bedrooms to find Noor. He does not see her, but he hears the splashing of water, and softly he walks to her bathroom. The fact that she has her own bathroom enfuriates him more. Even he shares his bathroom, which only has cold water, with others, while she has a very luxurious bathroom that has warm water and everything. But his curiousity takes the upper hand. When he enters the bathroom, he sees Noor sitting in her bath, with her back to him. He sees her creamy skin and her flowy hair and it excites him. He wants to approach her, take some of her deliciously smelling shampoo in his hand and softly wash her hair. He wants to climb in the bath with her and wash her whole body, burrying his face in her firm breasts and stroke her private parts under the warm water. As his feet slowly take him towards the bath, she finally notices him. Instead of the surprised, but welcoming look he was hoping for, she seems utterly shocked, and immediately reaches for a towel to cover herself.

"Thorin, what are you doing here?! Get out!"

She jumps out of the bath and runs out of the bathroom, leaving Thorin and his fantasies standing there.