Ulkhud- Greater Light

A/N: TERRIBLE writers' block this particular week, in trying to sort out precisely what it is I wanted for this chapter. I apologize for the lack of update over the weekend. And I would like to sincerely thank every one of my followers/favorites and those who have been kind enough to review (even multiple times!) I appreciate each and every one of you so very much.

"A raven-head today, are we?" trilled Emli, making her rounds about the morning camp, in search of gossip, and breakfast perhaps. Meisar's hair was piled and wrapped over in a velvety black turban that made her look as if she were carrying a bucket of coal upon her cranium. Silly, she knew, but she was not ready, not yet.

She had woken before dawn and roused Bofur and Brynja awkwardly from their embraces, begging a stole of linen. Brynja had rose up on her elbows, too cheerfully for having been disrupted before dawn from their nest of furs and cloaks (but that was Brynja, sweet girl). She'd giggled as Bofur, without a care for their audience, kissed all up and down her broad, naked back and drew his fingers about her sides and her breasts as she rummaged through her textile chest, and gave Meisar a fine swath of dark velvet. And she had gone to her bedroll, piled up her braids and tied the velvet coif snugly over her head. She caught a glimpse of herself in the little mirror on a spear's-end she used for scouting the narrow, rocky passes, how severe her face looked, how exposed and plain, without her long orange hair coming down to veil any of it. Bygone and ugly, she thought sadly. Like a peasant's drawn old widow in her wimple, not a king's lady, even a king who had known penury.

"And what kind of dwarf are you covering that lovely hair?" Emli patted the back of her head heavily, bringing her to the present startlingly again. The weight of her hair underneath the covering made her head wobble unsteadily when Emli had finally relented.

"An elixir… for my scalp. It must set," she lied quickly and flimsily. She ran her fingers along her hairline, restlessly tucking the stray hairs beneath it. Emli's stared down her precocious button-tipped nose at her, as her fingers fidgeted nervously to readjust the coif.

"It is itchy. Eda made me a… thing. For it."

"Wrapped in velvet it better be good," Emli observed, her ingratiating smile ever purposeful.

She sighed against Emli's prying eyes long enough and cleverly enough for Gimli to fully wake from where he had been stirring actively nearby. His mother was quickly on his case to comb his beard, eat heartily before the day's travels, and check his mail for rust and his breeches for rips, from the time his eyes opened.

When she was finally gone it was Hegi who then ran up behind her and tapped lightly at her head, alas with her mining pick, stupid with laughter. "Coal!" she crowed. "Blue Mountain coal black as midnight! Put your head in my furnace! Warm me through winter!"

"Hegi!" Meisar groused. "Not with the sharp end!"

"Numûm!" cackled Hegi in protest, her grin too knowing for comfort. "Just a little kiss." She clucked her tongue and winked and went on laughing. Meisar waved her off testily before Emli could catch wind of the commotion and return to investigate further.

Soon Thorin came about looking for her and gave her covered hair a subtle, doleful loo, Dwalin beside him and waving a steel-girded hand in Donbur's direction. Gimli, Nori and Ori tried to scatter but were caught in the cross-hairs of Dwalin's survey. "Come lads. Let us find some meat."

Donbur sat and picked his teeth languidly and waited for Dwalin to escalate to raising Grasper at him, before he hauled himself heavily to his feet, grumbling. "Get yer bow and yer ax. Haven't a jiffy to wait around."

Thorin let him give the orders and manage the nagging of the mostly unenthusiastic hunting party, Freyda being the only willing volunteer. He raised a long bundle when he caught Meisar's eye again, and she recognized it as her own kit. "Your hunting knives, shepherdess. May I?"

She bowed her head agreeably, feeling both Hegi and Siv's eyes on her, intent as Emli's and less unawares. "Of course my king."

He hauled himself up onto Minty the Second's saddle. "Lead them on. We will hunt in the woods north and await you there," came his command. Mounted, in passing, he dipped his head customarily toward her. "I left you one of mine in your pack, dunininh. Should you need it," his eyes lingered at her with purpose.

She found what he wanted her to find in her saddlebag. By the time she had managed to get away from any of the dwarrowdams (all in need of something, all the time) she summoned Brynja with a clandestine nod to her side. Ever faithful, Brynja gave all appearances that their conversation was private and tense, when she followed her to her horse's flank.

It was not a fine talisman as he had gifted her already that was left there at the bottom of her bag, but it was freshly and hurriedly carved, a single stone with a single rune. She ran her fingers over it, cherishing, her eyes cloudy for a moment lost in her own, jubilantly secret world.

"What does it say?" Brynja inquired eagerly.

"Tonight."

II

"You are certain they are sleeping?" she asked in a whisper.

He unwrapped the dark coif from her head, braids intact beneath it. A relieved smile half-formed had partially formed on his severe, elegant lips, before he took the end of her long braid and raised the stone to his lips to kiss it, reverently. "I am quite certain. Brynja and Bofur are on watch. It seems they volunteered."

He was glad to have seen her smile at that. They stood far away from the camp in the dark, not even a torchlight between them, only the full moon. Its light made the silver in his hair gleam. She stood, coming up and off again from her toes, facing him, his head bowed, his hands clasped at her waist and hers pressed up to his shoulders. She had worn the green dress for him, and plainly. She could feel the heaviness of his hands through the travel-rumpled linen. He smoothed the wrinkled fabric over the zaftig curves of her hips and the little dips of her waist, which felt solid but soft in that feminine way he had long forgotten, or never truly learned at all.

"It moves so quickly my king, all of this." He had begun to bring his hands cautiously about to feel her stout, voluptuous belly, intent on inching north, but thought better of it then. He kept his hands firm on her hips, allowing the heady electricity of such contact ripple through him, settle in his skin and his bones and nerves.

"I do not mean to alarm you, my lady," he said ruefully.

She ducked her head shyly before him. My Lady. To hear these words leave your lips…

He raised her up to look at him again with a hand on her cheek. She nodded delicately into the calluses in his palm, so roughened and hard, but cradling her so gently there. "Emli says all courtships are public affairs. Would I… that it would not be so, not yet."

"Have you second thoughts?" Thorin asked with a hint of uncertainty and fear in his voice. There was a sad anticipation in his eyes for what the answer might have been.

She moved her hands slowly over his, loosening her hold and then securing it again, with determination. "I have given you my answer. For all in the world, I would not change it."

To see him smile was a beautiful sight to her. His smile was always a bit sad and it made him look vulnerable, though sweet, and kind alas. Yes, it was still alive in him.

"I take you with a willing heart, to be by your side in... in... courtship. But I am not ready, just yet. Forgive me if it offends you."

He fixed his eyes at the embroidered neckline where her bosom lay unhindered just beneath. He studied her form, the shape of her every curve, how beautiful she was to him, this unassuming woman, so middling to other eyes.

"It does not offend me."

"I am their guide. I should appear to be that, so much as I can, and do my duty to these dwarves. I am but a lone woman with only my honor to my name. If I should lose that in the eyes, then I am forsaken of all things in this world."

"You will never be forsaken of me. I promise."

Promise. In whispered tones they said he had made a promise before and-

She drew her breath again, smoothed that rogue strand of hair back from his forehead, and ran her fingers timidly along the braid at his right temple, fingering it like a prayer bead. "Not for all the world would I deny you. It would be denying myself." She brought herself to look up into his eyes in the dark, watch the way the blue orb descended down into the corner to glimpse at her fingers caressing his hair, peaceful, but with a peculiar yearning behind it. She could feel a heat in him grow, the skin of his neck suddenly hot to her touch as her fingers brushed at its curve. He took such pride in his hair, such care and precision in those simple braids, his hair so abundant in length though not nearly as abundant as her own. What patience it took to make that braid. When she had let him plait it, his fingers were half-numb by the time he'd reached the bottom.

Her hands slid and fingers wound 'round to bury themselves in his hair in grasping to cradle his neck just behind his ears, the heels of her palms on his jawline. "You are a king. I should be all things to you, without half a world of uncertainties still to face."

He brought her even closer, nudging her by the small of her back into him, her thumb still languidly, timidly caressing the bare part of his cheek. "It is not the only uncertainty in you, is it, my lady?"

She nodded with heavy eyes drawn, before resting her head wordlessly to the fur draped across his chest, took in his solidness, the touch of his hair's ends against her cheek that made her skin all around there tingle like an itch she could not scratch. His warm, familiar, masculine smell, the rumble of his chest in a moment of uncertainty took her to an unfamiliar place, that made her feet feel as if there were naught but air beneath them.

He tipped her up in want of an answer.

"No. But such is the world, an uncertainty. I am sure of only one thing: that by asking me in courtship, you have done me such honor that I could never dream. Though it is not for honor that I have accepted."

"No?"

"I have taken you into my heart now, as I have not another before you. You can be assured of that, if nothing else in this world is certain."

"Truly?" His voice was low and disbelieving, but hopeful, in that vulnerable way.

She raised her head upward and stood on her toes to lay a chaste kiss upon his cheek. "Yes, my king."

"Thorin," he corrected her quietly. "Please. I wish to be only Thorin to you."

"Yes. Thorin..." It felt dreamy on her tongue, sharp and noble. She let herself sink into him again, aching for his protection (but from what?), strong-ligamented he was, hewn as rough as an uncut diamond. Could those jagged edges be smoothed, she wondered? Dwarves could shape the jagged edges of the roughest stones into something of polished, unmatched beauty, carve cities out of solid rock.

And what of kings once thought made of stone, inside as well as out? So easily broken for all their hardness?

He kissed her head. "You have brought me a contentment of being in this time, which I cannot fathom. But I trust it."

"Perhaps we were made for each other's company then. As only we can understand."

Silently, he leaned his nose against her forehead and lingered, heavily. Something that lay hidden beneath that stormy brow-line, felt altogether out of character, but whatever his character had encompassed before that quest, and subsequent battle, it had taken on a new dimension now, and she felt powerless to interpret it.

"It seems…" she began with timidity, trying to put a thought into words that her mind had never afforded her lips the opportunity to speak. "I have learned because of you to comfort, and perhaps I shall learn to be... comforted myself."

He peeled her hand from his cheek and drew the palm to his lips to kiss ardently and reverently. How much he wanted to give her that comfort. He tried to remember the engulfing hugs and songs he had soothed Fili and Kili with, through their travails. But they had been children, kin and blood. He tried to remember what it felt like to love them so fiercely his life would be gladly forfeit in place of their own (but it had not been. The young did not bury the old, no, no, no). As his head pounded with a wave of fresh grief, he pulled the woman tightly to his chest again. She shivered against the harsh exhalation of hot breath into her hair, and held on, held on to him as if she would never let him go.

"What are we doing, Thorin Oakenshield? Where are we going from here?"

.

"...He has come back to us, brother, is all I know for certain." Balin warmed his hands over the fire. Dwalin peered out into the darkness in search of Thorin. Eyes shot to his empty bedroll and then to Meisar's.

"Slips out when he think we are asleep. Don't suppose it's to make water," grumbled Dwalin.

"He has come back to us, for what reason I cannot fully understand or fully rejoice for yet, for I know not what it is. But I am certain it is for some good."

"Reason? To rule his kingdom! To have at last what is ours… and in peace."

"There will never be peace!" Balin shot back suddenly. "That mountain is a tomb. What will he find there but the shadow of death, even if he does rule over it? The shadow of death is king under the mountain, and it is a kingdom of ashes no matter how it glitters… unless… unless."

"He has his sister," murmured Dwalin hesitantly, against his brother's uncanny outburst which had sputtered off in frustration. "Is that not reason enough, to see that she is not alone in this world?"

"Alone in this world she is no longer, but you know as well as I that her grief is too much for either of them to bear, and they will only add to each other's. He may rule, but with great sorrow all the days of his life."

"Aye." Dwalin snapped the stick in his hand over and over again until it was splinters, against a tide welling up in his throat and his eyes.

Balin peered off into the distance again. He noted Meisar's hounds, their ears pricked in a certain direction, awake and restless, dutifully remaining at her bedroll. Something was afoot, though the old dwarf could barely bring himself to ponder the possibility, the opening of that door. He had seen her eyes, a certain innocence in spite of her hardness of affect, so plain to see she must have been ignorant any alternative to it. It had chewed at his conscience for many days, and had ventured outside the realm of Dwalin's overly suspicious notions. "Is it worth returning to a life for? Is it? I wept to think him dead; now I weep to think him alive."

"No use weeping," scowled Dwalin. "He needs pillars of steel, not rivers of tears."

"He needs more than that." Balin looked off into the night again. "He needs more than that."

III

Come morning a mighty rain was falling. Woken by the snarling sound of thunder, dwarves scurried and scowled to their ponies and wagons, caught off guard by the downpour just after daybreak. Meisar put the cloak of her hood up to cover her hair and half her face with it. Mahal makes all things as they are meant to be, when they are meant to be she reminded herself, with some relief. She watched the darkest clouds roll ahead in the sky and with them the thunder, a rumble in the distance gradually fading away. Clouds like pale ash were left, dropping a cool rain.

Each of the dwarves were so wet and miserable by the time they made camp late in the afternoon they did not notice that her hood never came down, and she slunk around the camp with her cloak dripping on the ground behind her. It was early and the sky was finally clear and if they settled now she reasoned, the rain would move far ahead of their traveling range by the morn.

Urdlaug unloaded a wagon-full of dirty dishes and summoned each of the dwarrowdams in no uncertain terms down to the rain-fattened stream to help with the wash. Brynja scudded over to Meisar's side and took her arm-in-arm. The young newlywed beamed with satisfaction when Meisar didn't jerk away from her familiarity. "Your secrets are always safe with me, dunininh. Don't worry," she whispered.

It was only a matter of time then, Meisar deduced silently, keeping a pained, painted smile for her. "Thank you." She patted her arm quietly. "I am quite happy that… you and Bofur have found your marriage so… satisfying." Brynja blushed behind the back of her raised hand, pressed down at her lower lip and chin to hide her flushed, beaming visage, lest the unsparing eye of Urdlaug find her and scold her again for her constant reverie.

"Someday you will know, my lady," she whispered back, her eyes holding that secret knowledge with a certain glee. "If you haven't already…"

When Brynja squeezed her arm again she realized it was a question.

"No, not quite, I don't think," Meisar answered quietly, as they took up piles of dirty dishes and pots and carried them the length to the stream. They all sat in a row and went to work, the male dwarves moving carefully just out of their sight lest they be asked to join. Urdlaug strained her ears to listen at the what the two dwarrowdams set apart from the rest of their flock talking at, Brynja's words filtering through in her hushed, giggly tone.

"…Pulled up my shift and looked down at me like he'd not seen a lass before with her clothes off. Kissed me all over, told me I was more beautiful than the richest vein of Mithril or wall of gold."

"Again with that talk," blared Urdlaug. "Enough I say!"

Brynja flashed Urdlaug an audacious grin before turning back to Meisar purposefully raising her tone. "Mahal he kissed me in places I never thought you'd a lass. All before he took me and it was... officially done."

"Put it in ye is what ye mean," snorted Siv.

Brynja blushed then, suddenly. "Yes, that is it. He says that his body is made quite ready just by the sight of my smile."

"Ah, so that's where he put it then," smirked Siv again. The jaws of half the dwarrowdams were agape and the other half's brows raised in confusion. Urdlaug crumpled her stodgy face. "Talk like you're sitting with a gaggle of men in a brothel you do."

"Such is the world," replied Siv grimly. "Rather be a doxy lass than sweat in a forge from dawn 'til dusk for some stale bread and a pence or two." Some of the dwarrowdams grumbled resignedly, remembering the bitterer days of exile.

"Anyway," she continued, smiling wickedly again.

"Mind yourself, cousin," Eda warned.

Siv ignored her flippantly. "What I was going to say is that dwarves are big," she asserted stoutly. "Better gifted between the legs in size, than even the biggest among men, well, for their proportion anyway. It is why they are so proud and haughty I think."

Bombur's elder daughters sniffed again disapprovingly. "Well, are we not a might haughty and proud ourselves, without those parts… dangling?" argued Freyda. Urdlaug snorted like a boar and silenced them all. "It is not proper for a dwarrowdam without a One to even know such things," scolded the eldest 'Ur. "Only thing that'll be dangling is the stars in front of your eyes you don't start acting proper."

"I am in love, that is all. It's hard to keep to myself sometimes it overwhelms so how in love I am," Brynja jabbered on dreamily. "I could not ask for a husband like Bofur, so kind he is to me in every way, and handsome too."

"Well I'm still young," Siv put her legs out and crackled her knees and knuckles. "Find me one like that. Fine beard, treat me real gentle. That's what I want."

"Well you'll be searching Erebor mighty hard when we come home. Mind your tongue if you want an upstanding dwarf to woo ye," counseled Eda. "Siv raised one thick eyebrow mischievously. "Master Gimli is that upstanding, and rather handsome too."

Urdlaug snorted again loudly. "Emli would never let you near him." She too looked about edgily for the mother hen.

"Why not?" Siv snapped back, black eyes sparkling with protest. "I am as fine a dwarrowdam as ever can be found in the Seven Kingdoms."

"You're a hussy with a big mouth. And you're scrappers'-kin."

Urdlaug had her for once defeated, if momentarily. "Then I'll just have to find myself someone not-so-upstanding," grumbled Siv. Freyda patted her back and shook her head at Urdlaug with a hint of censure. "Urdlaug again, shooting down the hope of every dwarven lass from here to the Iron Hills," she chuckled.

"Urdlaug's just bitter because her love interest didn't return the favor," muttered Virta. "She wants everyone to be alone and miserable with her."

"I didn't know blueberry butter cake could reciprocate," Siv quipped.

"You shut your mead-spout!" Urdlaug snarled. Siv stood up to face her and put her hands on her hips, full of reckless audacity. "My beard is finer than any. My hips are big, my bosom bigger, and my legs are strong. And I can drink with the best of them," Siv proclaimed. Urdlaug unfolded her clenched arms and picked up a heavy pan by the handle. Siv put out her chest a little further. "Why, my beard is even fuller than King Thorin's," she added self-effacingly.

"Calm yourselves, all of you," Meisar chided. "It's no use getting yourselves so worked up for nothing. And speaking of the king's beard beside your own is not becoming, Siv."

"He cropped it years ago in memory of those who were lost and destroyed," explained Emli, barging into the circle. "If only such noble gestures were not unknown to the likes of you. You might learn something."

Siv sat down and continued with her work. "Besides, I may come from humbler roots than Master Gimli, but is not a king courting a mere shepherdess. Why, you're more like the Rangers among men that you are a dwarrowdam, Meisar."

"Oh you speak such nonsense Siv," scolded Eda. "And of a king no less."

Brynja's eyes bulged at Meisar, silently and madly proclaiming her innocence. The shepherdess set her face stonily and looked determined. Brynja reached and desperately squeezed her hand and she responded in kind, with uncanny assurance.

"It's not a competition, lass, this business of being a dwarf," Freyda parried coolly. "We ought to be sticking together. And besides, we were all like Rangers once, out in the wilderness, trying to survive."

"We stick together perfectly, like old molasses. And that is why we drive each other mad," Eda observed, chuckling wisely. "You'll forgive my cousin Siv. She is young and reckless with her words." She nudged an obstinate and intent Siv. "Isn't that right, cousin?"

"Wait! WHAT ABOUT MY GIMLI!?"

"Quiet as a mouse, Meisar. Quiet folk have the most secrets."

"Then they are secrets for a reason," scolded Eda. "Let it be, Siv."

"WHAT ABOUT MY GIMLI!?"

Meisar shut out Emli's rising perturbation against her better instincts. Let her take care of that foolhardy girl, let her. It would be such a sight after all. But she felt as if something inside her would burst, unless, unless-

"It is true though," Meisar's voice came back quietly into the rising fray. None heard her.

"It is true!" she shouted. Her heart pummeled at her ribs as she pushed back the hood of her cloak and shook out her braids to the confused dwarrowdams who had all turned to look at her. She took the courtship braid with Thorin's distinct emblem clasped to its end and held it out.

"It is true," she repeated. The dwarrowdams dropped their dishware.

"Show us!" Emli demanded. She felt as if the women were pecking at her the way the flesh raised in tiny bumps all along her limbs. Like chickens, she thought, with their feathers all ruffled.

"Well?" Emli harrumphed finally. "Have you accepted?"

"I have told Thorin… the king… that I am fond of his company."

"She's accepted!" squealed Gyda.

"Yes. Yes I have."

Emli dropped to her knees and hugged Meisar tight. She rested her hands on Emli's elbows and basked in the jubilation in her eyes. She had expected something far starker.

"Goodness gracious, in all my years I never thought I would see the day!" Emli clapped her hands excitedly. "Thorin Oakenshield courting! And a fine lady, a fine lady!"

"A fine lass indeed!" added Freyda, her smile too wide for her face. She and all the dwarrowdams embraced and kissed her cheeks in turn in congratulations. Yet she was unnerved by the attentions of the women, even now. They were each loyal, even familial, though Meisar avoided the closeness some had with each other. Emli held Meisar's face on either side of her jaw, the sharp, pale green eyes checking her skin, patting her up and down as if she were a jewel under a scope. Emli was the daughter of a diamond merchant who had served loyally at the court of King Thror, an expert appraiser in her own right.

"Surely Oin can make a potion for the windburn on those cheeks. You're ruddy. Got to figure out a way to make you rosy."

"Asked her hand in courtship the way she is. Let 'er be!" said Freyda.

"I've got something for that!" Eda chirped in turn though, rummaging through her leather apothecary case. "A ground potion to be applied to the skin to keep it smooth and firm. That is what the lasses among men do to keep their youth."

"You seem some of the likes of them? Give me what the elves use, then I'll be convinced," Siv scooted over to join the ruffle of dwarrowdams that had crowded around the seated shepherdess.

"Immortality," imparted Freyda sarcastically. "Lack of honor is good for crow's feet too I hear."

Meisar's heart had stopped pounding long enough to come back to the immediacy of the present and realize where they were on the map she had now messily marked their itinerary on in soot. "Now, now, watch your words in the days to come. By next night we ought to be in Rivendell."