Super short chapter but the best I can manage at the moment. It just occurred to me while I was taking a break from writing about employment law (fun, fun), and I thought it was cute. :)
Dwala's eyes shot open and she was instantly awake. She had never had a dream like that, and she woke so suddenly it took her a moment to realize she was no longer sleeping. Startled, she let her hand glide down to smooth over her stomach, making sure it was still flat.
She exhaled a great sigh and stared up at the ceiling. She had to stop thinking about Dwalin as he was now not only dominating her waking thoughts but invading her dreams too.
Her dream. It had been so real. She was lying in bed, waking from sleep much as she had just done, except a tiny little hand had been shaking her awake. She'd opened her eyes to see a little lad of a dwarfling, with black hair, blue eyes and a great big smile on his precious face.
"Mummy!" he called as she opened her eyes fully to stare back at him and he tried to climb onto the bed with her. She'd reached for him and pulled him up to snuggle into her, she laying on her side facing him. He giggled up at her and she had placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, brushing his wild black hair out of his face.
Just then, a large arm encircled her waist and a bare chest pressed against her back. Lips pressed a kiss into her shoulder and that hand gently rubbed the curve of her swollen belly beneath the sheets. She couldn't see his face and didn't need to. The tattoos on his hands gave it away even if she didn't instinctively know who it was, which she did. He held her tight and protectively, his face buried in her hair. Their little one was settling down and falling back to sleep now that he was in his mother's embrace, his head reclining on her breast. She gently stroked his hair and he smiled as he dozed, looking the most peaceful and content and beautiful creature she had ever seen.
She had woken up then with a start, not immediately realizing it wasn't real. A small part of Dwala was heartsick that she didn't have a baby, which was a very new feeling for her. She had never really thought of having one. But she had never had feelings for anyone either, until now.
Frustrated, she lay there in bed wide awake knowing she would never get back to sleep. It was what she guessed to be very early and not long before sunrise, so really there was no point in falling back asleep anyway.
Oh how she wanted to talk to Ila! Only a few more hours. If she could even bring herself to tell lla of her feelings for Dwalin. She should and would let Ila tell her all about married life and Thorn first, that was only right. She needed some more time to think about all of this anyway. Was her dream foreshadowing things to come? Or simply the product of her overactive imagination and repressed feelings for Dwalin? Dwala wished she could think about anything but the dream, which proved an impossibility as she lay there thinking of nothing else.