"What are they going on about there?"

Thorin turned his head in the direction Dwalin was bemusedly staring. The dwarrowdams all in a circle stood blustering and bleating, the sound of barking dogs growing more urgent. "Women's business," he shrugged. He tried to ignore the rising tide of their shouts.

.

"You! You wretch! I'll leave you on the side of the road I will!"

Siv danced out of the way of a clumsy swing from Meisar's oversized sword. She raised her walking stick defiantly in defense. "I know you better than you know you! I'm doing you a favor!"

"I did not ask your favor and it is not your business!"

"He keeps too much inside and so do you. You know it's the right thing!" Meisar swung again and meanly and knocked the stick clear out of her hands.

"No respect! No respect or-" The sword swung again but Meisar's small stature made it buckle sharply midair and it shot down clumsily into the grass as her inertia pressed it there. Meisar left the sword stuck in the grass and came at Siv with berserker slaps. The two dwarrowdams tussled, grabbing hair and fisting at each other's clothes. Freyda and Lulia called out encouragement to no particular one of the brawling women. Emli slapped her hands together demanding an end with Eda delivering one useless scold after another toward her unscrupulous cousin.

"You're so wound up. Follow what's in your heart for once. In your heart and in the base of your belly when you think of it at night." Siv put her chest out, challenging her, black eyes sparkling, teeth bared in a japing grin.

Smarting and slack-jawed with disbelief, Meisar slammed into Siv and all but bounced off of her strong, stocky frame. "You can't deny it." Siv was out of breath, her lip fat from a direct hit, hair a mess and beard too, black eyes defiant and taunting as always.

Meisar went up against her again but Siv grabbed her arms around the forearms when she raised them to her and held on tight. "Don't happen too often in dwarves. Can't you see it's for a reason?" Meisar kept thrashing against Siv but Siv wasn't letting her go. She was stronger than she expected; her arms flailed uselessly in Siv's grip. Siv's eyes suddenly melted from taunting to uncannily serious and she forced Meisar to look at her. "And the king… King Thorin needs you. Maybe soon you'll recognize just how much you need him too."

A surge forward from Meisar and the two went to the ground together. Siv tried to pin her but she flipped her quickly, hooking angry fingers into her beard and shaking her vigorously by it. "By Mahal's beard, I shall rip out this naughty tongue!" seethed Meisar, jamming her fingers maniacally down Siv's throat through the mess of her loosened braids. Siv's hands batted desperately at her trying to put her off. Skirts all rucked up around her thighs, curiously sun-kissed, Siv's legs flailed uselessly. One of the hounds broke free from Freyda's hold and snared Siv's stocking and skirt in its teeth, tearing madly at both. "To me, Red-Coat!" Meisar hissed. The fox-red hound leaped on Meisar's back and snarled in Siv's face below her. Siv jerked her body over to one side and faced two more dogs with tails raised and teeth bared. Suddenly she was tugged out from under the angry shepherdess by Nori.

"Scoundrel!" Meisar fumed, on her feet quickly. "Let me at her!" Red-faced, she threw herself at Siv again. Siv butted her with her chest and Meisar flew backward, splayed unceremoniously on her back upon the ground.

"Not a fair fight with the dogs," shrugged Nori in his slippery nonchalant way.

"And you would know what of fairness?" seethed a winded Meisar. She watched Nori shoo the excited dogs away and check Siv for broken bones (or shillings come loose from her bodice).

Siv had cooled quickly, dazed and out of breath. "I didn't mean it for ill. I'm sorry," she wiped the trickle of blood coming from her puffed lip, bunching her torn skirt in the other hand.

"Then you ought not have said it! It is not yours to say! It is mine! My cour…" She glanced over at Nori and stopped herself.

Eda came to her and rubbed her shoulders consolingly. "Oh lass, all worked up like this for such happy news."

"It wasn't supposed to be news," she croaked back at the healer.

A cunning look sideways and Nori was in the know. She could be certain of it. But Siv was giving none of her lascivious indications, avoiding his prying gaze altogether. Meisar cleared the rest of the loosened hair that had escaped from her plaits and could see the men gathering about to see what the fuss was. The women parted to let Thorin through with Balin and Dwalin flanking him as always. With Thorin holding back, Balin knelt gently toward her and proffered a hand. "Dunininh?"

She looked up at the kind old dwarf, scrambled to her feet, and ran.

"I will resolve this," Thorin said quiet but stoutly, with the bemused eyes of all the dwarves all on him when she had gone entirely from sight, to where none could be entirely certain.

"Thorin?"

He could see Dwalin's heavy brows scrunching at him out of the corner of his eye.

"I said, I will take care of he… this."

.

Where she was running she could not be sure. It was northward and shallow patch of woods was dense. Close to the Elvish lands she reckoned; they should have been on their borderlands by now. The forest felt imbued with some ether-natural quality, white sun coming down through the heavy canopy in elegant swirling patterns upon the dark forest floor. She came into a nest of brambles that scratched her rudely and left snags in her thin breeches, pulled at the hems of her long fraying green tunic so that unraveled wildly as she pulled herself out of the thicket. Thorns and their vines stuck in the end of her braids and she pulled up the courtship braid from the snags careful and worrisome. Once free, she plunked herself miserably on a tree felled sideways and growing over with moss and a carpet of purple flowers where the sun came through the canopy. This was my home once. Where if I cried none would see the tears.

There in that umbrageous shelter, she reached into her pocket pouch and took from it the stone talisman Thorin had presented her with in the orchard. It was the first gift anyone had ever given her. Elegant, careful, hard but not cold. Like him. She brought the stone to her lips and kissed it, tears running little streams past her lips. Salt on her tongue where she wanted to badly to taste ale, and him. He had praised her strength and skill as others had in times past, but he had called her beautiful.

"Meisar?"

Thrown around him without a forethought, her arms clung tight at Thorin's broad shoulders, head burrowed deep into his chest.

No. I shall not weep.

She looked up at him with big solemn eyes still shining with a hint of anger. "Forgive me for that. I'm afraid I had a bit of a go at Siv. How could she have known?"

"You could have denied it," he remarked hesitantly.

"I would be ashamed for that!" she responded, tugging herself out of his arms but coming swiftly back into them. "I swore I would never deny you, and I could not imagine doing so."

He urged her to sit again and him beside her. She looked down at her bruised hands from hammering on Siv and heaved a dark, regretful sigh. "I've made myself a wild fool I'm afraid." Thorin knelt slowly and caught her head in his hands, stroked her hair in a soothing if clumsy rhythm.

"A fire in your blood is no shame. Dwalin and I pummeled each other bloody much the same when we were lads, and over toys no less." A small comforting smile, a hint of wistfulness in his eyes, soothed her. She could not imagine him besting Dwalin in a fair fight, but she dared not say it, only smiling with that secret thought. He caught her and peppered her face with gentle kisses.

"We would not move on without you. Will you return?"

Tears crested on her eyes but she blinked them back and looked up at Thorin earnestly. "I was not ready. My king, Thorin, I… defended my secrets so arduously this is what came of it. A foolish outburst, myself the fool. Oh but that wily girl…" She sighed and buried her head back into his shoulder, his hand clasped in hers, rubbing her thumb over his.

He cupped her face in the way she had become used to him doing, rough palms on her cheeks soothing her again. "And are you ready now."

She kissed the thumb that had edged itself to the corner of her lip. "Yes."

.

"Where did they go?" Dwalin paced fruitlessly around the fire. The dwarves had made camp, settled a bit, and were finishing a light supper of carrots, leeks and parsley in plain broth with seared conies. Urdlaug mumbled to herself in the warm, aromatic shelter of her wagon, all about silly girls and the follies of romance. Her sisters brought stew around while the conies roasted over the fire.

"She'll be back," Donbur gargled, juice drippings from the empty pan he was tipping into his mouth running all down the front of his tunic. Yrsa and Anbur giggled while Virta scrambled to tuck a napkin into his neckline. "Wasn't speaking of her," grumbled Dwalin.

Virta raised her eyebrows at Dwalin curiously and he gave her a look that indicated no more should be said of it.

"Fury that comes in wee packages is deadly. You ought to have known better, Siv," scolded Oin, slathering a scrape on her cheek with a healing ointment. Eda worked her skirt with a needle and thread, still on her and ripped halfway up to the buttocks. She nodded in irritated agreement.

"Let 'er be." Nori moved to her side quickly, giving Siv a good long survey that was less calculating than usual. Eda glowered.

"What you fight over anyway?" he asked.

Siv dipped her head quietly, a slight blush coming over her face, ashamed of herself. "Nothing, nothing really at all."

A skeptical Oin shook his head and gave an agreeing nod toward Dwalin, finally having come to sit again, his arms furrowed tight against his chest, hunched forward looking into the fire emptily.

"Apologies," a deep rumbling voice came quietly out of the dark. The dwarves turned to face Thorin standing just inside the circle of the firelight that made a sharp demarcation between darkness and its golden light. Meisar was before him, shoulders back and head up and with a look of determination and peace together, standing in the encirclement of one of his arms, which was draped protectively about her shoulders across her. The braid was made so that it came down the side of her face like his own.

"Thorin?" Balin started to stand up.

Thorin pulled her a bit closer to him; she could feel his heart racing beneath the endless layering of journey-wear, just as well as if it were his naked chest pressed to her back. Her own hand rose quietly to grasp his.

The dwarves were utterly silent, the crackle of the fire marking one heavy second after the next. Thorin inhaled tensely through his nose.

"I have cared for this dwarrowdam these days and weeks past. And now I take her in courtship."

"I have accepted graciously," she went on, too stiff the words she thought immediately. She dipped her head and let a smile. "Graciously and with a most willing heart. For I have cared for him the same." The silence came again thicker than ever, the teacup slipping out from between Dori's fingers. Resolute, if terrified at the stares from the dwarves about the fire, she craned her neck backward toward him, seeking some comfort, imagining they were alone in the world together. He kissed her temple.

"Well then," said Bofur finally. "Ale anyone?"

Rapacious laughter followed from each of the dwarves, their hooting and stomping suddenly festive and congratulatory. Thorin felt Meisar's chest heave outward with an exhalation of utter relief. They joined the dwarves around the fire. "Bundashar," grunted Bifur, withdrawing from Thorin, but Hegi quickly silenced him with a pinch to the ear. "Head in smoke?" snorted Hegi. "Head in fire!" She tugged playfully on Meisar's braid again, clapping her hands victoriously when the shepherdess did not swat her away. "A most clever observation, Hegi," she said simply. Hegi pulled Bifur to his feet and the two went off.

Thorin put his hand on Dwalin's shoulders, eyes silent and intent toward his best of friends. Dwalin managed only a small forced half-smile. "Ales it is!" chortled Bofur, disrupting the intensity between the two. He shoved tankards into both Thorin and Dwalin's hands.

"Ale? Too weak. This calls for moonshine!" a rasping voice in Khuzdul mocked. Hegi waddled back to the fireside and lowered herself to all fours like a pony, jabbed a finger at Bifur to unstrap the enormous barrel from her back. "Tell your cousin to rise to the occasion," she admonished Bifur. "This is a courtship."

Dwalin filled his cup from her barrel first. "Think I'll need to be gone drunk to believe it," he muttered too low for any to hear except his brother. Balin thwacked his arm to hush him. The elder stood and proffered a small narrow glass of shine. "A toast, to this most unexpected journey, of these two dwarves. May it be but the beginning."

He dipped his head down to Meisar and winked. All around the dwarves were laughing and cheering and praising the Creator in the common and ancient tongues. Siv leaned into Meisar's shoulder and embraced her. "I am sorry. Let us not dwell in anger, dunininh?"

She patted her hand, suddenly wanting to be rid of her touch in spite of a forgiving mood. I desire no touch but his.

"You are forgiven." She raised her glass to Siv's and they clinked lightly together. "Raincloud is sorry about your skirt. Aren't you?" she cocked her head at the hound in her lap. The gray hound looked up at Siv ditheringly.

"Good then." Siv shook her playfully about the shoulders and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. Meisar bristled suddenly. No kiss but his.

To her gratefulness, Siv withdrew and made small talk with Nori. Meisar turned to a silent and stone-faced Dwalin. "You have long suspected this?" she lowered her eyes as she scooted cautiously beside Dwalin.

He gave her a small, pained smile. "How can I suspect what I have never seen, known, believed? Like asking me if I believe in three-headed elves, lass."

"And do you believe it now?" Dwalin stared heavily at her courtship bead, which she was rolling nervously between her thumb and forefinger.

"I've no idea what I believe anymore."

She withdrew silently.

"You ought not have said that, brother," chided Balin.

"A lady's company will not change him," Dwalin said doubtfully. "It will not bring back what is gone."

Balin nodded disagreeably. "I did not imply that anything could be brought back. We know very well what has been lost."

"Where is his head at? What good does he think it'll do him?" pressed Dwalin lamentably.

"Well now you are just being sullen and stubborn. The king has grown fond of her. I'm sure it is for no ill cause."

"I am a dwarf. Of course I am stubborn!" Dwalin thumped at his elder brother.

"She is a woman with a good heart. A guarded heart, but a sound one. Like his own."

"Yes, like his own," repeated Dwalin, a darkness in his voice.

.

"Look at them. All passed out. Hegi and her moonshine," sighed Meisar strangely contented by the sight. Eleven belching and floppy-bodied dwarves lay about the remains of the fire, the rest sequestered in their wagons or sober enough to reach their bedrolls at the least.

He leaned silently toward her, steadying himself on a palm put out before him and pressed into the ground. "Thorin…" His eyes fixed at the trembling lips that begged silently for his kiss, and rewarded that wordless plea most ardently.

His kiss tasted warm and full of life. Not like this dwarf who has lost all. The coarser top of his tongue and the smoother underside melted together in a timorous meeting with her own, so exploratory still after all this time.

Beneath the waning moon the wind rolled in chill from the north. "Smells of the Ettenmoors in the autumn, when all the cones are falling down from the pines. Methinks a harsh winter awaits us."

"Come. Stay warm then."

Before she could respond he pulled open her cloak and flung it off her shoulders, wrapped his own coat about her swiftly. She sighed, hesitantly, but with fire in the pit of her belly prodding at her, urging her toward some untested place.

"Then you must stay warm as well." She opened the coat a little and invited him in. He pulled the coat tight about them and her hand fumbled out to grasp at the cloak that lay beside them and tug it around them also. Wrapped together, she stared into his eyes like a rabbit caught in a predator's view, unsure of what to do with her hands, her mouth, now that he was so close. She leaned her head into his neck and felt it twitch slightly, his exhalation suddenly quavering.

"I am sorry. Did I hurt?" her voice came in a high, unsure squeak.

"No." She lowered her head pensively and when her eyes met his again, her lips slightly parted, she felt a surge of heat rise in the narrow space between them. Her body urged her to draw nearer to it, nearer to his solidness, and when she did, there was a sensation as if his whole body were sighing with contentment. "I have not found myself so close to anybody," she confessed quietly.

"Then we will learn together." He dipped his head to press his forehead lightly and tenderly at hers, resting there, wordlessly; he lingered deep in some thought.

The tip of her nose nuzzled against his own and he pushed her braid back to let his fingers skim over her neck. Fingers became the comforting warmth of his breath there. "Yes, yes. We will learn." His voice against her neck was a rumble that made her quiver from the soft swell of her throat through the top of her spine. He traced the seam of her neck with the tip of his nose and then with a light brush of his lips. "I hear that a woman's neck is… sensitive sometimes," he murmured with uncanny shyness to her skin.

"It is," she croaked, a strangled whinny at the rasp of beard on her skin becoming a high sigh. Dry, coarse beard melted into the familiar warm, smooth wetness of his mouth, parting a little, exploring her skin with his lips and then, timidly, with the tip of his tongue. She squirmed appreciatively under his touch.

"Does that feel…?"

"It… it… tingles."

He lifted his face from her neck and pressed back her braid behind her ear. Exposed to the night air, it tickled at its peak from the wisps of hair rolling over it in the light wind. "And the… ears?" his voice was unsteady again. His hands fumbling about her waist beneath the cover of cloak and coat settled firmly there though and shifted her about, so that her back was pressed up tight again to his chest. A large, strong arm snaked about her stout curves and held her firmly against the length of his body from behind. He was warm, and the forearm that felt like a tree branch braced itself snugly just below her breasts, against the bottom of her ribs. If he meant to trap her, either physically or by alighting her desire, he had succeeded.

"My ears are… I don't…" She felt the tip of his fingers slide along the smooth, round edge of it.

"Sensitive," she squeaked suddenly. "Like the neck. Yes, like the neck." His fingertips continued a slow trail down her neck as he explored the peak of her ear. At first it was the hesitant prickle of his beard and a bite of electricity as his nose met her charged skin, nuzzling. She could feel his warm breath there, alighting, all down her neck and into the canal of her ear, seeming to fill her head with his heat. The tip of his nose became his lips, kissing all down the edges of her, teeth finally coming out to tug lightly at the cartilage enough to make her gasp.

She pulled away to face him. "Now shall I… find you?" Her voice was shy but pleading. Even in the dark she could see the pupils of his eyes blackening and shrinking again, over and over. She ran her fingers down the side of his face, the texture of his beard making her fingertips numb at the lightest contact. She felt dizzy and grasped his face in her palms to anchor herself.

"Find me," he directed, breathily. "Find me..."

She started at his forehead, with a hesitant kiss, her lips and throat all feeling too dry. And grazed the tip of her nose down along the severe slope of his, until she reached its tip and placed a whispered kiss upon it. Lips met the arc of beard that curved over his upper lip and down to flank the sides of his mouth. She wandered 'round those mustache tips, kissing the coarse patch centered just below his bottom lip. A groan wound through him without his volition, her hand on his jaw-line, stroking at his cheek with her thumb. Her thumb found its way to the lobe of his ear, finding its prominent shape, beginning to trace, when she felt him tense and shudder. "And your ears, my king… Thorin?"

He regained himself and smiled serenely, lip pulled inward bracing in anticipation as she moved the heavy curtain of hair away from his left ear. She touched first with a fingertip, tracing its borderlands, quavering at this more practiced intimacy.

"Sensitive," he stammered, a heavy whisper surging toward a keen and stopping himself. Feeling bolder, she nibbled and tugged lightly with her teeth the cartilage where his ear cuff was snugly anchored. It was metallic on her tongue and sharp. She traced the very tip of it over the ridges of it, the intricate geometry of the metal and its minuscule ridges, ever the dwarven craft.

"Mahal!" the growl came higher from him, his grip on her like a vise.

She kissed his lobe and put her tongue to it clumsily before burying her face close into his neck again, wanting nothing more than to be engulfed in him wholly. "We should have been at Rivendell by now. See what you do to me?" she whispered soft and teasing against his lightly-misted skin. His sharp, earthy male scent was overpowering and intoxicating, her chin tucked into the base of his throat that tremored against her with every one of his deep sighs. Her tongue peeked out to taste the light brine of his skin, run her fingers along the line of his tunic and inner coat where they met his bare neck.

"What you do to me," he growled back lowly and lushly. Grasping her hair, he put her head back so he could look into her eyes. That ardor was something new now, and burning. She had seen his eyes then, covetous and dark like her own when she looked at him, and she felt the prickle of lust in her spine like a needle, a distinctively dwarven brand, guarded and possessive together and so intense in its desire it rattled her bones. If he had not cared for a woman he had lusted before, and too powerfully to bear. The thought settled heavy in her head, the closer he drew her there beneath the warm cover of his coat and her furs.

She accepted another kiss tentatively, his words continuing to ring unfathomably in her head.

"Sangizil," he whispered. "Ghivashinh."

II

"Don't scrunch now. You'll spoil it!"

Meisar struggled against the urge to furl her whole face, slathered from chin to forehead in earthy-smelling greenish-brown mud. Emli was smoothing it with her thumbs, sleeves rolled up, apron covering her heavily embroidered lavender dress with its puffed sleeves and high fussy neck, outfitted simply and practically as always for travel. She washed her hands daintily in a little bowl, stood back with the rest of the carefully observing dwarrowdams.

"Let it harden, it'll make a mask. You'll be pretty in the morning!" chirped Emli, proud of her work. "Just leave it on and don't pick at it."

"And just what it this supposed to do?" Meisar grumbled, her face feeling hot and dry and prickly under the smothering mask.

"I put this on my face each night whilst Gloin was a'courting me. Can't lose your looks now."

"Are you calling me ugly?" Meisar asked, wounded.

Siv smirked crassly behind her.

"Better a plain face than a filthy mind," Emli snapped back smartly at Siv again, quickly changing the subject. "And I think you not ugly, just a stone that needs some polishing. She turned back to Meisar and smiled reassuringly. "My father was a cutter of diamonds and a merchant of the best of them. He taught me very well that beautiful things often lay beneath walls of solid rock."

She smiled, and could only appreciate the gesture in true. Emli was a very beautiful dwarrowdam indeed. Her hips were stout like her shoulders, a sharply contoured nose for a dwarf and hawkish eyes beneath a high, broad brow constantly set high in amusement or surprise. Her hair red like Meisar's but darker, more like a ripe apple than a flame, and arranged in small braids coiled up and pinned at the temples. The rest hung loose down her back to the smaller part of it, with only a modest swoop of small plaits laying over the tresses worn loose. Her wedding-bead was gold, like the clasps in her son's beard, with a large diamond studded at the center of it, and clasped the braids at the back of her head. She wouldn't take it out, not even on the road where thieves roamed aplenty. Her facial hair was too adorned, beard braided into the rest of her hair at the jowls in elegant draping strands, all lightly pomaded, and swept over her cheeks along her jaw, reaching the arch over her upper lip.

Meisar looked over at Brynja, who had Bofur's kind eyes and cheeky, dimpled smile, always assuring, never agonized over anything. "You are already beautiful my lady, but it cannot be any harm," she assured.

"I must go!" Meisar rose abruptly and strode hard away from the encircled dwarrowdams.

"Wait 'til the lads get a look at her face," joshed Freyda.

"What does he see in her?" asked Siv plainly.

"Himself."

.

She had torn off across the caravan, dogs at her heels. Jenny the Pony was not at her tether; she had been readying to scout ahead and commiserate with the Elven guards should they be afoot along the borderlands, when the dwarrowdams shuttled her off.

She plunked down miserably against the shady side of Brynja and Bofur's wagon. The mask was itching and she began to pick at it, when a gentle, familiar voice startled her.

"Why my lady, what has been done to your face?" He head shooting up in alarm, she was partly relieved to see Balin standing curiously over her. "Hard like stone," he noted the drying mask. "Masquerading as a cave troll are we?" Balin laughed comfortingly and sat beside her.

"A mud mask. The dwarrowdams… thought I needed it, now that…"

"Yes yes, and happy news. I never expected in my life to see it, and here it is. And I think, for certain, he has found a good and strong lass to be by his side. In these times, it is a thing of pure good, for him."

"It surprises you so?"

"Yes," Balin answered plainly. "I never expected a woman to be in his life, nor did I see anything to indicate he desired such. Much chaos was created though at the fall of Erebor to the dragon, and over time, he became far too adept at concealing his own desires. Perhaps for the sake of our people it was so. This though, now, comes as a great surprise. And to my joy, my lady. It is a thing of good."

She was silent except for a sigh. Balin cocked his head down to catch her eye. "Does something trouble you my lady?"

"Is he of sound countenance to care for a woman like this? Is he... in his head...?"

"Thror loved him more than all the gold in Erebor, no matter how deep into the dragon sickness he fell, as did Thrain, and Tania, whilst she lived. Thorin learned how to love, before he learned hate and bitterness. It cannot be un-learned, entirely. Love and honor are his foundations."

"That is good to know, but it is not what I was asking, Balin."

"I see," the old dwarf said. "And to answer your question then, yes, he is. But it will be a long road, for both of you. But for the better, should it work as Mahal has designed it to."

"And if it does not?"

Balin drew back, his pondering darkening his face. "Then I fear he will come toppling down upon himself," Balin smiled painfully. At least she was wise to the ways of broken people.

"What is to become of us, Balin? Tell me, in your wisdom, what I have come upon. Not as a king but as a dwarf. A dwarf I confess I care for deeply, in ways I have not another."

"Thorin was not meant to take this journey alone, and neither were you."

"It is a living Arkenstone he seeks? Something that catches his eye and drives him mad?"

Balin came around to face her, his dead seriousness feeling alarming to her. "It is in his eyes my lady. I saw them when they were mad with gold-fever. It is unmistakable."

"And do you see it now?"

"No."

"Then what do you see?"

The old dwarf wrapped her hand in his. "Lukhud."

Light.