"When did you sleep last?" Thorin asked her gruffly as she rubbed a heavy haze from her eyes.
The horizon glared a warning at her. "The red sun I do not like the look of." "Woman, do you avoid every question so purposefully?" His entire faced seemed to furrow impatiently at her.
"If half this night has night has been any indication my king… no. I do not." His own eyes, heavy from sleep, drifted closed for a long moment. Remembering everything. Fire and chaos and death. Kings with hair of pale gold, faces and hearts like ice.
In the wilderness, they were the same. A king and an orphaned babe begged for sustenance. A king and this solemn woman cried out in their sleep for those who were no longer there. He knew it now, and it scared him, but he could never let her see. A black pony with gilded reins. Taras. Not Dis's governess or a sentry after all. Not even Dis's, or his, at all. Another ghost had invaded his subconscious kingdom of them. Frerin, Taras. Were they much different, he mused. At least he could remember Frerin's name, his face. Dark hair but a shade fairer than his own, a bushy, less-than-elegant beard that came to his collarbone, Thror's nose and brow. More than capable of childish anger, a bit of a smirk always on his lips, he had. Reminded him of Kili when he was in one of his impish moods.
Wherever Fili and Kili were, at least they were together. His larynx seemed to twist inside his throat. His voice muted as well as his thoughts, perhaps for the better. His hand curled and drew back before it placed itself on her shoulder.
Meisar's sleepless eyes blinked twice at him. "Rest," Thorin insisted. "I will lead them on." She shook her head vigorously. "I will be fine. Let us wake the company, and get on. Make haste."
He trailed her through the camp, as she shook sleeping dwarves awake. Nori rolled over and swatted at her sleepily and Thorin put the tip of his boot into his tailbone enough to rouse him. She stood aside and knocked gingerly at the wagon door of Brynja and Bofur, heaving and creaking on its wheels even at this hour. Their languid, sleepy laughter preceded a groan of acknowledgement and Meisar hurried away quickly.
"Find somewhere to sleep. We will halt at midday," Thorin repeated, impatient now. Meisar was in the midst of rousing Anbur, Yrsa and Lulia and helping them to pack up their bedrolls. "Come rest in our wagon!" Lulia offered. "We were about to go back to sleep in the wagon."
"Indeed. See that our shepherdess rests herself well," Thorin came down on his knee to the level of the two dwarf girls. "I put my faith in you two, to see that a good sleep is afforded her." "Yes your majesty!" Bombur's daughters all but dragged her back to their wagon. Their bedding was all laid down snug and tight to each other. They unrolled one for her and a blanket and pillow to go with it. "Lay down! Lay down Meisar dunininh. King's orders!"
The hounds whined impatiently and scratched at the floor of the wagon, and then her lap. "Please, I must go. There is something, trouble. I know it." "No!" insisted Anbur. "King's orders," added her younger sister smartly. "I'll take all the blame myself if he is unhappy. Now please I must go!"
Anbur, Yrsa and Lulia looked at each other as if considering her plea, and then, bursting into laughter, sprang forth and piled onto her at once, pinning her under the blanket. "King's orders! King's orders!" they squawked in unison. The wrapped the blanket under and around her, like flatbread rolled about cooked meat, trapping her limbs. Anbur plunked herself down smartly on her abdomen. The dwarfling was so very fat she squeezed of her breath altogether. "You cannot be serious," she grumbled, angrily. Anbur adjusted herself smugly. "I'll sit on you until you fall asleep!"
"Get off!" she thundered suddenly at the dwarflings but it only made them laugh harder. Yrsa scooted over and sat on her legs at the knee when she squirmed, pinning her efficiently. "Stop squirming or I'll call Donbur too!" Anbur clapped her hands and squealed. "Yes, yes, and he'll sit on your head if I tell him to! You know what happens when he eats too much cheese…"
"Mahal's sake, you don't want to kill her," Lulia reminded. "Or us."
The wagon rolled over the roughening terrain, jolting her about. They were headed East at least, the right direction. The dwarflings drifting away around her reminded her of an older time. A brief respite at Bombur's hearth in Ered Luin, the heavy scent of soup and bread omnipresent. Bombur's laugh after a long day, his wife Bira's sing-song voice, and their fourteen children piled around the hearth on winter nights. Snoring together, they made the very roof tremble. One more was one more, she remembered him saying, and always made sure she had bread at supper, and a spot to sleep. Bedded down close and tight, they were all so very fat. She had never been cold there, or hungry.
After a short spell of giggling and whispering and plumping their pillows, keeping their weight firmly upon Meisar's body, Anbur and Yrsa settled and fell quickly into the snores and grunts of their mid-morning nap, and when they were assuredly deep in slumber, she pried herself carefully from beneath them, slipped out of the wagon, and went to find Thorin.
II
"Blood has been spilled this night somewhere in these lands. I like it not."
Meisar's voice came in from behind. Thorin turned and she was studying the horizon eastward. He and Dwalin stood at the edge of the plateau, surveying the land ahead. It was flat to the East where it dipped sharply downward to accommodate the river valley, flat and dry around the thick waterway for leagues. The day was clear, the Misty Mountains sharply defined against the cerulean sky. "You should be resting, Meisar," he scolded her lightly.
"Worry not for me, milord," Meisar replied quietly. "Like a mule," Dwalin growled toward her. Thorin sensed the disinterest in Meisar's gaze toward him, easily four times her size in bulk if not height, and it seemed to faze her none. A twinge of admiration pooled in his chest, almost enough to wring a smile from his lips. But he refrained, seeing the impatience in Dwalin's face, and the dead seriousness in Meisar's.
"A superstition, lass," Dwalin snorted. "We will take extra precaution then. You need some sleep," Thorin decreed finally. "I would like to see what is west. If you would my king, lead the caravan on. I will ride out and meet you at sundown," Meisar offered, more in desperation than defiance.
"You may be the Shepherdess, but I am the king, and I tell you woman, go rest yourself." Meisar crossed her arms angrily and did not move. Woman. It made her head burn a bit. Dunininh, Shepherdess. Never woman. Her head bore a dull ache but in the heat of battle, what warrior complained? Yea, though she was no warrior hardened like him by battle after battle, defiance rose in her chest as stubborn as Thorin Oakenshield himself.
"I will have Eda slip you a potion that will make you sleep until we're clear the mountains!" he thumped at last. Meisar's lips pursed at him, annoyed and defiant. Was this Thorin Oakenshield's idea of a challenge?
"Eda knows better than to try. Advise Oin also my king, that it would be unwise to try." She had been so quiet and stoic always, so reverent in her own way. It was a departure however subtle the expression on her face as she uttered it. Finally she let her eyes catch his, the fire of his own burning a hole in hers.
"Another five leagues and there is a bridge. We should make for that and cross there. To Rivendell then there will be a simple path."
"Rivendell?" hooted Dwalin in alarm. Meisar's eyes darted quickly between the two dwarves. "The king has been summoned to the Last Homely House. Lord Elrond wishes to commiserate," Meisar informed him flatly.
"I am summoned by no elf!" thumped Dwalin. "We should cross the water ahead," Thorin interjected, eager to change the subject. "The water is at a shallows. Never mind the bridge."
"If we cross here, the road is unreliable for miles. We could very well be stuck in ruts deep enough to strand the wagons. And none to aid us. We are deep in the wilds."
Dwalin ignored her purposely. "What shall we do, my king?"
"I ask you humbly, my liege, to put your trust in me on this matter." Meisar lowered her head to him, humbly, but with definite urgency.
He scowled tiredly. "What are my people to think when you lead them along the road, and I do not, as their king?"
She bristled. "It's not a secret that your sense of direction is hardly regal."
"And who are you, exactly?" Thorin growled at her, defensively. The left side of Dwalin's lip curled up smartly in a smirk. Meisar recoiled a bit. "I am nobody, my king." She stuck her chin up to him, obstinately, the way he had once done to the Goblin King who said the same to him, choking back the dark bile of wounded pride with an unwavering silence. He sighed, running his hands through his hair. "I did not mean it like that," he muttered, and the smugness at once was gone again from Dwalin's face.
Meisar smiled then in her serene and melancholy way. "You are welcome to lead your people any way that you choose. I… I am only a simple woman who knows my way home." He sighed resignedly in her direction. Her quiet, earnest reverence disarmed him. The dogs were circling at her feet impatiently, sniffing at the Eastward-bound wind.
"I defer to you, my king, and to my vow, that I shall serve you well and protect you." She curtsied and departed quickly. Jenny had been following dutifully behind the wagons. She caught and bridled her quickly. The pony nickered at the bit irritably and as exhausted. "Come now lass. We will not be long," she assured the unhappy nag. Jenny seemed to disagree but turned smoothly, riding off westward down the beaten path.
III
"Where has she gone?" Thorin demanded of the gathered dwarves.
"Told her to come back, in the name of the king we did," swore Yrsa. "Told 'er Donbur would come sit on her if she didn't," added Anbur. Thorin smiled amusedly at the two, patted their heads. "You have done your duty admirably then." "Disobeys a direct order from a king," seethed Dwalin. "Let her be," said Thorin. "Let her be."
On her pony beside him, Freyda leaned to whisper something to Dwalin, and afterward he said no more. Thorin craned his neck back toward the horizon and could see a solitary fleck moving toward them. A black pony; his eyes were still sharp. The tenseness that had gathered in his chest eased a bit. "Coming back I see," remarked Freyda. "Nothing to fear then I suppose." The closer she got the quicker she seemed to move.
Thorin's pony reeled suddenly. The caterwauls of the hounds became more urgent and Meisar's pony flew back toward the caravan at breakneck speed.
"Highwaymen?!" Dwalin bellowed through the air to her.
"No. Orcs! Heels to the flanks, all of you!"
Panic spread through the caravan behind them as the draft animals brayed and stomped and reeled against the panicked cries of the dwarves. "Move!" Thorin roared. He tore along the flank of the caravan, slapping the hindquarters of the fear-frozen animals so that they bolted forth along the road. The contents of wagons jostled, a violent clanging of pots and pans in Urdlaug's wagon as the two great aurochs lurched and raced forth. The dwarves grabbed weapons, axes, swords, crossbows and a mounted windlance atop the wagon of Emli and Gimli.
"We have five to six leagues on them but they've caught our scent. We must move, quickly! We make for the bridge!" Meisar waved frantically to the south.
"It will do us no good! They'll cross behind us at speed!" Dwalin thundered. Their ponies nearly spooked beneath them, crowded together as they were. "Do you want to take a chance stranded in the shallows?"
Dwalin's mouth moved but made no sound. Meisar turned her pony and rode along the caravan, shouting orders to move southward toward the bridge.
"My king! My king!" the dwarves were shouting. "Do as she says!" he thundered back, following at speed.
A quick nod of gratitude in the chaos she gave, and Meisar was shouting then back at Hegi in Khuzdul. The wild-eyed dwarrowdam smiled beneath her heavy silver-streaked beard as only a woman of her bearing could do in such a situation. She pushed Bifur to the reins of her wagon and went to work in the back.
They were still out of sight when the arrows began to rain down. The first whistled through the air, missing Thorin's neck by inches. It was deflected on Dwalin's axe before it landed in Meisar's.
The harsh "twang" on the windlance preceded an arrow taking out one of the wargs. Emli at its helm, the felled orc staggered to its feet and fired at her wagon, missing Gimli by a hair's breadth. A quick-speed rain of one arrow after another took out two more. An orc's arrow grazed her arm, staining her white traveling cloak in blood but she kept firing. No wrath like a mother-dwarf's. Mahal's mercy be upon those in its sight.
Only two were aback wargs now, the rest on foot. It mattered not. They were gaining too quickly. Snapping jaws cut through the air and whipped at the dwarves a league away. "There it is! Go, quickly!" Thorin brought up the rear, urging them on ahead toward the bridge. The pack was in sight and bearing down as the wagons and ponies went thundering over the narrow bridge. Below it the water was churning, sloshing wildly around the rocks whose peaks dotted the water-scape.
Hegi halted the wagon on the other side of the bridge. The dwarves were screaming "come! Come Hegi!" but she just looked back and laughed manically. Suddenly she flung a flaming sack which landed with a thud on the bridge. Hegi lit a match on the axe in Bifur's head.
. As the sack landed in front of him and the flaming torch followed, Moses the llama stalled on the bridge and reared. Bombur's youngest children grabbed their provisions off his back and ran, but Anbur wouldn't leave the wretched beast. She held the reins tightly but was thrashed about, knocked to the ground. The dwarves were calling frantically for her now, Hegi the loudest and fiercest of them. "The sack," she screamed in Khuzdul. "Get away from the sack!"
The flames sampled it mildly for a moment, before it exploded, and into the river went Anbur.
The llama skittered across the bridge and without Anbur. Her sisters and Donbur began frantically shouting for her, and just as suddenly, Meisar was tossing aside her fur mantle and and rushing toward the furious waters as the arrows of the orcs grew closer and more frequent. "Carry on!" Meisar bellowed. "Use your sword where it's needed! I have her!"
She waded as furiously as one could wade into the waters, until they became too strong to bear, and she stumbled up onto the rocks, jumping from one to another until she reached Anbur, caught precariously between two of them. White water rushed around the girl as she clung to the rock, sobbing as cold, erratic whitewater slapped at her face and caught in her nose. It took Dwalin and all three of the 'Ri brothers to hold Donbur back from going in himself. He screamed her name in pure terror until Dwalin put a fist in his chest in desperation, and knocked him to the ground briefly enough to get a good hold on him. Meisar pried Anbur from the currents running between the rocks and the girl was safely in her arms. Not much shorter in stature than herself, she struggled to hold her arms all the way around her girth. Meisar staggered up onto the rocks, gripping her, struggling to maintain her own balance on the slippery surface. Knees buckling, she was screaming until she was hoarse "burn it! Burn it! Burn it!" The bridge was burning too slowly and the orcs were close.
Hegi grabbed three sacks and poured them all out methodically into a great pile in the middle of the bridge unbothered by the flames that licked about her and the closeness of the orcs. Arrows began to rain about her but she dodged them skillfully. She was laughing wickedly as Bifur waved his arms across the bridge frantically, shouting inaudibly in Khuzdul to her. She cursed back at him and kept on her work. Finally he dashed onto the bridge and picked her up around the waist, carrying her off as she screamed and cursed at him. Bifur was the last off the flaming bridge with Hegi kicking and fighting in his arms. The dwarrowdam freed herself, kicked him once in the knees, and drove a fist into his gut. She dipped the arrow tips of her three-pronged bow (made entirely of bones no less) into a foul grease and unleashed them onto the powdered concoction she had dumped on the center of the bridge. It exploded in a blinding white light, throwing crossing orcs in flames. The fire consumed the rear of the pack still on the other side, sending them into the river only to be carried away immediately by the powerful current. Otherwise they fell in flames where they stood.
Thorin turned back to the river just as Meisar slipped head over heels into the rushing waters dodging a rain of shrapnel and flame.
Donbur went shouting into the frothing water for his sister, only to be pulled back by Thorin. "Follow the stream!" he roared at Donbur, and the two of them took off running, shouting for the rest of the company to carry on and not look back. They did, for sheer lack of daring to defy him, except for Bombur's children, who took off down the river after them, but were soon exhausted and could not keep up, huffing and puffing, at last collapsing to the ground in a sobbing pile. Urdlaug, Yrsa, Virta and Lulia hugged at the ground, calling Mahal's name into the unresponsive earth. "By my beard, take me if you take her! Let an orc arrow pierce my heart!" wailed Urdlaug. Yrsa flung herself atop her sister's massive, curled frame and cried. "Thorin will save her. He is strong! He is our king!" Urdlaug all but flung her off. "She's gone! She's gone! And so is Meisar the shepherdess. Dead, dead, our king too perchance. Now what shall we do? Where is our hope now?"
IV
Meisar was growing cold and weak though her arms clamped doggedly around Anbur's waist pushing her head above the water. After awhile she stopped struggling against the icy current, all her limbs peacefully numb, a submarine darkness closing in about her.
When she awoke again a hard voice was calling for her at the shore.
"Meisar!" "Anbur!" Thorin swooped in on his knees to the wet bundle thrown up along the sandy riverbank. She was alive, freezing and disoriented, her body shaking in violent coughs expelling drabbles of water from her lungs when Thorin lifted her and turned her over. Anbur spilled from her arms and cloak, the girl also alive and crying as she put her arms up toward Donbur.
"Take her to Eda! Fetch Oin! Do it now!" Thorin tore off his cloak and wrapped Anbur in it, thrust her into Donbur's arms. "Go!"
"What about Meisar!"
"I have her!" Thorin's eyes lit up with a ferocity that dared Donbur to remain another second where he stood. Donbur thundered off, clutching his sister tight in his arms.
When he was gone, Thorin looked down at Meisar, shaking, soaked to the skin, freezing to the touch. He tore through the cloak and doublet, pulled off the bracers, her over-skirt and tunic, and tossed them aside on the riverbank. It was an admiration he endured silently, even when peeling away the layers of soaked clothing. Meisar's copious tresses were half-unbraided and mangled, strewn over and clinging to all the more curious parts of her; Thorin, for his part, vowed to remain virtuous toward her. He surmised (perhaps correctly, though he was lucky not to find out) that Meisar would cut the jewels from any man or dwarf, even a king, who would think to do otherwise. He wrapped her shivering body in his overcoat, hauled to his feet with her in his arms.
He ran without threat of exhaustion, with inertia low and fiery and burning like the furnace of a forge.
The dwarves had halted half a league ahead, all screaming and shouting frantically amongst and at each other. Sobbing and crying, they exploded into a great caterwaul of relief when they heard his voice at the distance, all running forth to him. When they saw the feet sticking out of the bundle in Thorin's arms the dwarf women followed in haste and hysteria. Thorin bellowed for Eda and Oin.
Meisar rolled off the overcoat as Thorin set her down. He covered her quickly and barked orders at the dwarrowdams to keep her warm. Lest they catch the way his eye wandered to the supple curve of her bottom under a veil of sopping red hair. They wrapped her in blankets quickly. Dwalin's bellowing and the sound of his thrashing drew him quickly to his feet again, running to the other side of the caravan toward him.
"Virta! Virta, come and help me! Hold his arm!" He heard the healer shouting frantically before he saw what was at hand. Dwalin was laid supine on the bed of Bofur's wagon. His arm was dislocated at the shoulder, and there was a deep cut on his forearm. Eda, Bofur, Ori and Nori struggled against his strength. His face was red, veins on his neck roped and throbbing.
"Virta!" seethed Eda again. Virta backed away from the thrashing and snarling Dwalin. "Virta, you cannot back away at the sight of blood!" "It's not blood, it's a bone in the wrong place!"
"Yes, yes now come." "He's too big! He'll break my neck if he flails!" "Mahal help you I will be the one breaking your neck!" the old healer screeched back at her. Dwalin hissed through his teeth in pain.
Virta fled but Freyda came over soon enough, pushing past Thorin to pin Dwalin by his right arm. "Lass!?" he said through gritted teeth. "It is for the best, Mister Dwalin. Squeeze me hand hard as ye like! And hold still!" Eda nodded gratefully at Freyda and took Dwalin's arm again. He gritted his teeth and nodded half-agreeably.
"Mahal protect me," said Eda, and moved to set his shoulder back its socket.
Dwalin roared and Freyda's bare arm flexed, her muscles standing up, sinewy and raw with strength. Dwalin's roar eased into a dark hiss and through it another rattle of bones crunched.
"Ouuuaahhh!" It was Freyda howling now. Dwalin released her hand and she held up four fingers, all pointing in several different directions. Virta made a high pitched squeaking sound and stumbled over her own feet. "By Mahal, I will be the one breaking ye if you don't do as she says!"
Thorin caught Dwalin's opposite arm as he looked onto Freyda with an unfamiliar cloud of regret in his eyes. "Didn't mean that," he muttered quietly to Thorin as the pain dulled swiftly. Eda applied her herbal paste to the cut left by an orc arrow, wrapped in tight in linen bandages. Dwalin fell back, sweat pouring from his brow, and leaving dark stains along the neckline of his tunic, the fur he wore about his shoulder soaked in it to the touch. "Tell the lass… I'm sor… my regrets." Virta rolled a blanket to put behind Dwalin's neck. "Oin's seeing to her now. She'll be alright, Mister Dwalin." Dwalin's head rolled a bit toward Thorin. "The shepherdess? Meisar? Is she alright?"
He had never called her by name. Woman. Thorin's own voice caught in his head and it made him feel ashamed suddenly. "She is… alive." Dwalin groaned. "Go see to her, Thorin. I'll be fine." Thorin climbed out of the wagon bed. "I will give Freyda your… regrets."
V
.
Urdlaug's tear-stained face looked up long enough to utter a high squeak toward Thorin and come down before him on her knees, embracing his hand against her cheek. "Thank you thank you thank you," she wept again and again. He raised her by the first of her chins. "It is my honor."
He found Eda quickly and she smiled before he had a chance to speak a word. "She will be fine, my king, as long as she stays warm," Eda assured. She placed her hand on Thorin's forearm. "Without you she might not be. Nor the girl." She nodded tenderly to Anbur, cradled in her brother's cushiony lap, while Yrsa fed her hot stew from her spoon-hand
"May I see her?" Thorin asked impatiently. Eda nodded him into the small corner of the camp where was treating the injured.
No soft creature, this dwarrowdam; Thorin could see her scowling to herself into the fur of his coat, shamed at having been plucked defenseless from the waters.
"Have you taken my attire!? Thorin… your majesty!" Her voice thundered in much the same way his did. He ruddy face was redder than ever.
"You were soaked to the skin. The women are out laying the wash to dry." Meisar wiggled impetuously out from under Thorin's coat, only to find she was naked. Thorin was surprised to find her without shame at this fact- even if he had been the one to frantically strip and warm her at the riverside. "I left your small-clothes intact, if it is of any importance," he muttered without humor. He expected her to voice her embarrassment, or gratitude, perhaps both. Instead, without a word other than a heavy grunt, she thrust her arms through the sleeves of his great-coat, snatched up his belt and snapped it about her waist to keep the coat closed. Thorin watched her stride off barefoot toward the wash. The dwarrowdams were doing a round of wash not far from the river, drying garments on flat rocks. Brynja looked up as a diminutive figure sauntered toward them, bundled in the king's own coat and wearing his belt. And it was certainly not Thorin Oakenshield.
"Meisar!" Emli exclaimed, more stunned than amused to see her in such a state. She was scrubbing a strong soap along the blood-stain on her white traveling cloak. "Only a scratch, my lady," she hummed proudly, as Meisar studied her wrapped arm with concern. "Teach those filthy beasts to fire their bloody arrows at my son."
"Looking for yers?" Brynja asked. "Might be in there somewhere, dunininh." She rifled and searched the pile of clothes for hers, found none of her garments. "Mahal!" she grumbled. "Have no worry," soothed Emli. She dug through her own stack of garments. "Had to get you warm before it soaked you to the bone," Emli tut-tutted. "Probably left your clothes at the river trying to get you back alive and all." Meisar found, to her relief, the calico braies and tunic of her small-clothes.
"Well, can't very well walk in nothing but your undergarments," said Emli. "'Specially not with the lads about. Got a bigger bosom on ye Meisar than the lot of us," cackled Siv. The women grumbled in disapproval and Meisar nodded, flushing. "I have clothes in my pack, Emli. You don't need to-"
"Ah, here. I think this one will fit you. Green is a good color for you, does nicely with your hair," chirped Emli. She handed Meisar a green dress, pretty, with embroidered sleeves, and of soft linen, much finer quality than she was used to, though flimsier. Meisar smiled in a slight, but gracious way. "I thank you kindly, Emli."
She unbuckled the great mithril and silver belt and began to slip the coat from her shoulders when she caught Brynja staring at her intently, smiling. She brought it upward again to cover her shoulders, wrapped her arms around her middle defensively, staring back at her. "It does suit you," Brynja said finally, nodding to Thorin's coat and letting a modest grin. "Maybe hem it a bit."
VI
"Are you so intent on freezing to death, woman?" Thorin inquired tiredly under his breath as Meisar reentered the campsite. She was wearing a green linen dress, embroidered about the sleeves, and hugging her solid curves in a way the old jerkin and tunic hadn't quite accomplished.
"Your coat, my king, and your belt. I apologize if you missed them in my absence." She held out the heavy garments to him but he set them aside. "There is nothing to forgive, my lady." Meisar ducked her head graciously and turned to leave. "Meisar…" Thorin stood fast; he found his hands clasped to her waist just above the swell of hips. That green dress, so simple in its construction, and sparse in its adornment… but feminine altogether, more than he had ever expected to see. Her ample features were hugged, bosom and belly and hips stoutly defined. He swallowed a little and stammered a half-murmur of apology.
She did not want to admit just how good it felt, that gentle yet commanding grip, and his fur-lined coat against her bare skin, and it made her think of how other things would feel against naked flesh. Like Thorin's heavy belt (nothing except it). Or his hair…
No. She jolted herself away from the thought, and perhaps with feigned surprise, found Thorin's eyes burning a hole in hers, his hands drawn back quickly from her. She turned to leave, wordlessly. "There is one thing," Thorin's voice rumbled after her. "I will not have you wind up dead, Meisar the Shepherdess. You're not to leave the company without my permission. Understood?"
She turned around to face him. There was a sparkling defiance in her eyes. He reached out and caught her chin in his hand and pressed against it lightly between his strong, thick fingers, raising her face to him. "Understood?" His fingers tightened around her face, his eyes something fierce burning at her.
Meisar held his hard gaze unflinchingly. "Yes, milord."