Author's Note:
Please, let me know in your reviews whether you'd like this story to actually go into smutty details. I see the couple people who reviewed the previous chapter were rooting for it :P Currently the story is rated T, and I'm not entirely sure whether I should bump the rating up and set my usual MATURE writing Muse loose :P You know me, I can write a smutty multi-chapter describing one night *cough cough Thorin's First Night* but I can stick to feeeeeeeeels and skip the graphic details, if that's the readers' wish.
Cheers! XX
kkolmakov
"Well, this evening..." Thorin started, but the words 'could have gone better' stuck in his throat.
The woman was undressing. At least so it looked to him. First she unclasped the necklace. To do so she lifted her hands, and the wide undersleeves fell, baring her slender pale arms. She then craned her neck; and finally his Mother's rubies lay on the vanity. She sighed, in relief - and started pulling pins out of her hairdo. The heavy silken strands immediately slithered out, pouring onto her shoulders like coils of coppered gold. She then pushed her splayed hands into the locks, ruffled, and moaned.
"Mahal help me, how I tire of all these formal dinners, and dresses, and..."
She made a 'pfft' noise, he was already familiar with; and sat on the upholstered lid of a large chest by the wall.
"What were you saying?" she asked, and looked at him.
"Um..." Thorin said.
He just couldn't be more articulate! She was pulling pins out of her dress! On the left side of the front of her garment, over the ribs! She was also making small displeased noises, which sounded like moans as well.
"What are you doing?" Thorin rasped out, and cringed, annoyed by his own breaking voice.
"I will just..." She sounded choked as well, but just because she was focused on her work. "I'll just open the placard and loosen the bodice. You have to forgive me, but I am having trouble… breathing..."
Finally, a little pile of pins grew on the seat near her skirts; and indeed there was a placard. She opened it and pulled at the silk ribbons laced through two sides of some sort of an uncomfortable contraption around her middle.
"Is that why you wear those plain dresses?" Thorin couldn't tear his eyes off what he assumed was a corset.
"The attires of Men, especially Men of the South are so much simpler. I grew up in the apron dresses. This..." She gestured around her chest. "I wear them to honour our people, but Mahal be merciful, I'd rather be plain than suffocated."
Thorin shook his head. The question of a woman's garments never interested him - and he lacked knowledge. Who knew women had to withstand such tortures?
She them picked up her skirts, pulled them up; and he saw the delicate ankles in white stockings. He had seen quite a lot of her physique previously - but it had been before the said physique had started exciting him. Thorin swallowed.
She toed off her shoes and rubbed one tiny foot to another.
"I apologise," she repeated. "But you'll have to forgive me. I'm in pain."
She gave out a small chuckle and ruffled her hair again.
"So, you were saying," she encouraged him.
At that moment Thorin had to admit the evening with the Elvenking was the last thing on his mind. The half-dressed woman - who had kissed him just a few hours ago - was becoming an increasingly pressing matter. Thorin once again swallowed a knot in his throat.
"Thorin?"
Thorin always had the same answer to feeling uncertain, to not knowing what to say and what to do, to feeling inadequate - the answer was anger. It was her fault he was flustered! She was behaving inappropriately! And she had been… confusing him! She would kiss him and then renegade! She would be cold, and then passionate, and then, just like at the moment she'd be nonchalant, as if she didn't know she was affecting him! That was it! She was pretending! She knew the reaction she was stirring in him - and she just continued sitting, and dangling her feet, and running her fingers through her hair!
"I don't see what is here to discuss," he gritted through clenched teeth. "I think I will repose now..."
He trailed away, hinting it was time for her to go back to her study.
She cocked her head, in the familiar bird-like gesture - except unlike before all he could think of was the long pale neck, and a blue vein beating on it.
"Oh I see," she said, and jumped off the chest onto her feet. "And I think it is time for 'juniper water.'"
She marched by him and opened a door of a small cabinet. There was a large, dark green bottle there, and two glasses.
Thorin was familiar with 'juniper water.' In actuality, the drink had always been his favourite, for the sharp flavour and the bite. It was hard to acquire in the North; and he had always tried to savour and stretch the pleasure if ever a bottle had come to his possession in his travels.
She generously poured the clear fragrant liquid into the glasses and pushed one towards him.
"I'm not in the mood for a… celebration," he jeered; and she barked a joyless laugh.
"Drink, Thorin. You're clenching your teeth so much I'm worried we'll have to call a barber to tend to a broken molar."
He glared at her. She then took a generous sip - he watched her throat move - and exhaled with an open mouth.
"I've gotten better with years, husband of mine; but if you don't want to be left behind in the realm of sobriety, I suggest you empty this one. Bottoms up!"
She shook the other glass in front of his nose - and he picked it up and toppled the drink into his throat.
"Perfect." She nodded to her own thoughts. "And while you're partaking the second one, I'll rid myself of this tool of torment."
She poured him another drink; and while he sipped, she picked up the shoulders of her dress, pushed them down, and wiggled out of the dress. It fell heavily around her feet; and she stepped out of it, holding the hem of her long undertunic daintily with two fingers.
Thorin poured the third drink by himself and sent it the same way as the first two.
She then picked up the dress and threw it on a bench. And then she sat on the floor, her back to the footboard, her glass and the bottle in her left hand. She patted the right hand to the carpet near her.
"Sit, Thorin."
He flopped near her. The brew hadn't started affecting him yet - but he pretended to himself that it did.
She poured another half a glass for him - and about an eighth for herself. They sat for a few minutes, drinking in silence.
And then he asked the question that had been on his mind since their conversation about the Elvenking.
"Why didn't you marry an Elf?"
She looked at him sideways. Her cheeks were warming up, and the gentle blush was spilling down the long neck and down into the cut of the white undertunic.
"There haven't been any offers," she answered cheekily, but then shook her head and looked into her glass. "Speaking frankly, I hadn't expected to marry either, just like you."
"Why?"
"Because the way it works is that people marry for looks, or for certain traits and qualities, such as useful skills or family or title. And I never had either." She twirled the liquid in her glass, holding the top of it with her thumb and her middle finger. "Obviously, an Elf would never propose to me…"
"Why not? You have a lot in common with their kind. The walks, the herbs, the books," he kept pressing. "You always take our children out of the Mountain..."
"Mostly Dain," she answered with a small laugh. "The others have little interest in my walks and herbs."
"Even if so, wouldn't it suit you better to wed a Man then?"
She glanced at him again, and took a sip. He saw the drink wet her lips.
"Are you trying to rid yourself and your Kingdom of me?" she jested.
"I'm trying to understand," he said quietly.
"That is most commendable of you." She giggled. "Husbands rarely do. As for your question, just like I said, I had never expected to have a husband. I'm unalluring by the standards of any race. I'm stubborn, individualistic, and never thought I needed a man to tell me what to do and what to think. The only man who would want me would be the one who'd see all through it; care not what race and family I came from; and for some inexplicable reason find my odd self worthy of love." She finished the juniper water in one big gulp. "And you were that man."
Thorin followed her example. She poured more, in both their glasses.
"Perhaps, those were your successes and your losses that had made you so… open-minded."
She gave him a warm shy look.
Except they hadn't been his successes and losses, he thought. He wasn't the man she was talking about with so much affection in her voice.
She suddenly moved closer and pressed a quick light kiss to his cheekbone.
"What's bothering you, my heart?" she whispered.
He turned and met her eyes. They were brilliant, of the most striking colour, of the Blue Mountains lapis lazuli. He seemed to have recall them being green before; but apparently drink made the blue flood the irises, leaving only specs of glimmering gold.
"Besides the memory loss?" he grumbled; and she snorted.
"Aye, besides that."
Thorin was not accustomed to defining his… feelings; even less so to putting them into words; and even less so to sharing them with anyone. He made a vague grunt like noise, hoping she'd abandon the topic.
"Oh right, I forgot. You are still the Thorin who doesn't know how to… confer."
"Aye, I'm the unfinished work," he bit back. "You might have to wait another eighteen years till I am… complete."
"Is that what it is?" she asked, her eyebrows jumping up. She sounded sincerely astounded. "Are you feeling... lacking?"
"Am I not? That's what you keep telling me. That I'm not yet the Thorin you need."
She was silent for a few moment, frowning now. He turned away from her and drank some more.
"What does it matter what I need?" she said quietly. "You are the Thorin whom Erebor needs. You are the King Under the Mountain. You're an excellent Father to our children, that much is already clear. And if I might never get my husband back… so be it."
He peered at her. The corners of her lips - feverishly red now - were lowered. All he could do was to reach for the bottle on the carpet near her white petticoat…
…and suddenly she moved as well and pressed into him. Her mouth on his was hot and tasted of juniper.