Belkbaghud- "The Storm"
Greetings followers and readers! Recovering from a disastrous USB failure in which I feared my entire story (all 300 more pages of it!) lost, I bring you, on the eve of BOFTA, a happy, reconciled Thorin and his lady after a wee storm, and a splash of adorkably awkward Dwalin. Big fandom hugs for all stateside. Tomorrow is going to be a long day! 11/16/2014
"There's a storm coming."
Dwalin acknowledged Meisar's worrisome observation tersely and silently, squinted his eyes up at the nearing peaks of the Misty Mountains where they were the highest and the most perilous, even in this mild autumn. Clouds rolled ominous over and between the highest points, staining the early snow-caps in an ash-gray mist. "Certainly is," Dwalin said finally. "Best we cross through before the pass gets too messy." With a flippant impatience, Dwalin whirred around the halted caravan on his pony, a tempestuous white-and-russet speckled steed with the uncanny name of Harley. He prodded the dwarves forward toward the pass, shouting out commands without anyone's confirmation, even Thorin's. He urged Harley to nip Donbur on one of his back rolls to mount his unfortunate pony quicker, and the 'Ri brothers in turn.
"No! We make camp here tonight," Meisar came through harshly, Jenny butting into Harley's path. Harley resisted returning the shove against Dwalin's silent urging.
"My lady…" Dwalin protested, eyed the darkening heights warily. But he would not capitulate to her.
"We are vulnerable here," he reiterated sharply.
"Feel the wind? Up there it'll lift a wagon clean off its wheels and toss it down a mountainside a thousand feet. We'll have no choice but to take refuge within the mountains. And I would not recommend that."
"Lass!" Dwalin's voice was almost a petulant whine, for its usual gravel.
"We do not enter the mountains for any cause. We will pass the night here, triple watches if need be, everyone armed," Thorin came in tersely from behind.
"Thorin?"
He stared squarely back at Dwalin. "The mountains are dangerous," was all the king said. Again, Dwalin's lips moved but no sound came out. After everything, he knew when to question him, and when it was not necessary.
Out of the corner of Thorin's eye he could see Meisar's countenance went unchanged. Neither impressed nor wholly forgiving was the look on her face, but there was a flash of warmth, blown away by the ominous wind as quickly as it had come, it seemed. A burn kindled low and deep in his chest.
.
There upon the plateau they had made camp with growing uncertainty. The rise to the higher passes had been gentle so far, but it would not be so come the day that followed, if the storm were to pass and they were to move again. She went ahead in the dull grasping light of the late afternoon beneath darkening skies, onto the road that wound upward and 'round the mountain leading into the higher, narrower part of the pass. No sign of orc had been detected for leagues. She sought a cave, a safe place to bring the company before darkness fell. Creatures of great internal halls, dwarves disliked rain as much as hobbits detested adventures.
She rounded a craggy bend and Bofur popped out, startling her.
"What in the world are you doing here?"
"Crept off with me good-wife. Needed a moment alone. She'll be on her feet right and walkin' in a few moments," he smiled cheekily. His face face furrowed then attempting seriousness. "Now yer gonna tell me lass, why yer slinking about so dour looking for."
"Bofur please," Meisar tried to maneuver past him but he blocked her way with a wise, self-satisfied grin on his face, chin tilted slightly down, pouting his lips at her from under his long curling mustache.
"Whatever it is that clouds your heart I promise ye I understand. I've a wife by my side; I assure you I will give you sound advice no matter the ill."
"Understand? You are wed to a simple girl of a gentle nature. No, I'm afraid you do not understand."
"You haven't told me what's bothering ye. How would you know if I understand it or not?"
"The only thing you need to know is that I am as stubborn as our king, and he is finding it out." Her unsmiling face blinked harshly at Bofur. He smiled and laughed.
"Stubbornness? Lass, have you any idea the time and energy it took to court my Brynja? Stubborn? I know all about stubborn. Dinna give her hand until after the dragon business was complete.
"Sometimes... I think there's something about Durin's folk that drives them madder than gold. A king's lady should know better."
"Well, I am not of his kin, true. Not Durin's folk, my Brynja and I. Dirty-fingered scrapper's kin rubbing around in the dirt for coal and coins, tinkers and rag-pickers and the like we are generations past."
"And here I am, a beardless orphan, refugee of some long-ago inferno, as poor as a rag-picker myself. Are we so much different then? Except that you have seen things I cannot comprehend, of this dwarf I have come to feel such things for beyond what is in my ability to comprehend... I am too enamored you see, and filled with longing, coveting... am I wrong? Am I cruel?" The words seemed to spill out of her sloppily, as disorganized as ever. Her head felt light again.
"Cruel? No, you are not cruel." He hugged her with determined comfort. "You are not cruel, Meisar. You are stubborn as you ought to be. Even kings must be tempered sometimes."
"I've hurt him."
"Hurt him? No, no. Well, not for any petty reason anyway. And nothing that cannot be fixed, if only one of you would just swallow yer pride!"
"You comfort me with your words, Bofur," she admitted, resignedly.
"There is no hurt that can compare to what you have brought him. The last I saw any bring a peace to him as you do… were his nephews. Mahal keep them safe in his halls," sighed Bofur, hugging her a little tighter. She could feel his chest tighten against a rising tide.
"Don't say that Bofur," Meisar breathed out unsteadily. The hairs raised on the back of her neck. She could not see Thorin peering through a chink in the rocks straight at them.
.
Meisar tiptoed on quiet feet into the half-light of the cave. When she reached the far wall, she found alcoves, spaces to move amongst the rocks, perfect places for seeking, hungry evil things to hide.
A wind caressed her neck, the wind of quick, clandestine movement. She spun around.
"You!" Thorin rumbled through clenched teeth. The distance between them was ravenously, dizzyingly closed. His palms hit the wall of the cave with a reverberating 'smack,' effectively trapping her.
When she reeled against him he caught her about the waist, her back pressed to the rock face. Her hands rushed to her ax, dropping swiftly as he held her. She raised her arms but Thorin caught them both firmly. One arm crooked above her head, Thorin's fingers threaded into hers. He grasped her other arm about the wrist, pushing into the soft flesh. His thumbs were thrust hard against her pulse points, feeling them race beneath her skin.
"Stubborn, stubborn woman."
"Myself stubborn?" she hissed, impatiently. Her gaze was determined. She gripped the fingers that were holding hers prisoner. "Bull-headed dwarf you are!" She slipped her arm from his grip and placed it on the hilt of her ax. "I will defend my honor against anyone, even you."
Without a hint of hesitation he kissed her. He kissed her so hard it hurt. The kiss was rough and wet, with his tongue prodding inside her mouth tasting her greedily. He broke the kiss and buried his face into her neck, biting a harsh trail from her jaw-line to the base of her throat. "Can you not feel how I long for you? How I ache for you?" His hot, stormy breath on the shell of her ear rang a warning.
The roughness of his voice burned between her thighs. His breath hissed through her teeth, his grip relentless. "While I am lone and miserable without you, you offer your embraces around!"
"Envious, possessive dwarf you are!" she growled, between his nipping. "Do you enjoy it, Thorin? Putting salt on your own wounds? Or are you too blind to see it is salt and not salve."
"Do you enjoy this, woman?" he simmered. Palms wide and hard kneaded her fiercely, and his mouth left the already-tender bruises smarting when his beard was on her skin. She let out a small cry, a controlled, deep, hushed exclamation of pleasure and something she could not readily identify. It was neither shame nor fear nor discomfort.
"Yes!"
"Do you like it when I mark you as my own?"
His hands moved to grip at a voluptuous handful of her midsection. Palms opened again and grasped her sides, blunt nails raking through layers of clothes to mack at her skin. She could feel his heart wild beneath his own layers. How she could have cut those layers with a knife and lain him bare.
"Yes!"
Her trembling legs bent at the knee and his hand hooked into the back of one. She wrapped her left leg and then her right about his hips, his entire body pressing her aloft against the hard rock face.
"The salt on my wound is not having you beside me, mine and mine alone. My jewel. Can you not see that?"
She dropped her entwined limbs to anchor firmly to the ground again and pushed him back in anger. "Your jewel! Your jewel? I am no jewel! No pretty thing you can display above your throne!" Her eyes blazed with savage indignation.
"Mizimel," he growled. His body pinned hers and his teeth met her neck again and he bit hard. Turbulent, discordant waves of heat and arousal that stormed through her belly and alighted between her thighs. It made her knees weak and her fingertips numb.
Teeth grazed over her arched neck, fighting the urge to take her, to devour her completely. It ran through him like a sword, the sudden need, the aching. He wanted to lift her and cast her into the ground, kiss her, tear away every stitch of clothing from her body and thrust his fingers all the way inside of her (and this merely as forewarning). He ached to make her so fully his own, even if his jewels were met by the tip of a knife in the night for it; even if…
He wrested the desire away from his psyche. It was not his nature. None of this was his nature.
And it was not hers, not like this. Her mouth pushing against the pulse point of his neck, nipping, insolently, inflamed him once over. He let out a sudden, harsh growl, then buried his face into the arch of bone just below the base of her throat before sinking his teeth savagely into it. Meisar bucked and moaned into him but he held her tightly, and she buried her cry of sudden, shocking pleasure into his hair.
He pulled back and ran his thumb over the shivering, tender skin. First it was reddish and raised; by morning it would be a pretty shade of eggplant. He groaned against her bruised flesh, longingly. The grip on her wrist relaxed, an apologetic haze over Thorin's eyes. He forgot how small she was, how hard his hands could be. He tugged her closer and kissed her wrist on the spot his fingers had pressed a little too tight. "Meisar… Meisar."
Suddenly he was all but flung backward. Such strength in those arms, an unpracticed, rough sort of strength, indelicate even for a dwarf woman. He felt the savage metallic gaze go from cold threat to feral, as she sprang at him, her mouth on his throat, her teeth on his skin. "Then you shall be mine also, for all to know."
He hissed and let out a low, primal growl when he felt the savage heat of her mouth on his neck, and her teeth in his skin. She bit and suckled furiously and flung his arms away when he tried to pin hers against the cave wall in a wrest for dominance. He laced his fingers into her hair, kissed her roughly once again. "So be it then. I have eyes for no other."
Gripping at the upper part of her arms, he held her and gave her a wicked, sparkling glare that dared her to try and break free, but that she did. She flung open his arms with her own again and fell into them. Mouth crushed savagely to his she returned a kiss as fiercely, but in that kiss she whinnied heavy, achingly, the vibrations of her rumbling deep into his throat. The sinuous grip of her tongue on his caught him by surprise and he in turn tasted her palate with a small flick of his tongue, his hands fisted in her hair while she was tugging his mouth to crush closer against hers by the silver-clasped tips of his own braided locks. Again she had no comprehension in that moment of what to do with her hands, her tongue, only fling both about uselessly, wanting every inch of him.
As quickly, she was in his arms again, holding fast to him, his thundering heart rattling ribs, penetrating flesh and fur to ring wildly against her own. Her legs were weak. Her heart was full of love.
"My king. My king…" Her breath was searing and heavy on his skin, her cheekbone pink and chafed from rubbing her cheek against his beard. "What have we done my king?"
She gripped his wrist and felt the pulse wild beneath his skin. It was a savage pace, and it held stubbornly.
"My sweet lady." His full body-weight rested against her, pressing her to the rock face, his harsh breath calming against her own. She breathed a kiss into his throat, pulled herself back and held his gaze heavily, firmly. "Do not take me for a meek and scant-willed woman. That is all I ask."
He hissed softly and took her hand and kissed the palm. "There's a storm coming, Meisar."
"Yes," she sighed heavy. "Yes there is."
They came out from the cave as the thunder rolled in and the dwarves were hurriedly pinning down their wagons and coaxing their frightened animals against the coming storm. "Is it safe?" Dwalin called out. He looked at them, his hair mussed, her braids in knots. The rain was beginning to come down in sheets upon the caravan. Pack animals stomped precariously along the narrowing ledge, their reins and bridles gripped hard by two or more dwarves each, lest they bolt and send all tumbling down the steep ravine. The pomade in Emli's beard was washed messily out and left her bedraggled and moaning, her long thick hair an abject mess. "Well?" Dwalin groused impatiently in their direction.
"We may seek shelter here tonight. All is well," Thorin was jerked back into the cold, wet reality of the present. Water had already begun to run in thick rivulets from the ends of his hair.
"Indeed it is," muttered Dwalin, loud enough for Thorin to hear, to catch his gaze. Dwalin held it stubbornly, standing still and firm in the rain. "Indeed it is, my king. Nadad."
.
The cave was large but closed entirely at the back. Meisar put her ear to the wall and listened a long while for the sounds of some devious industry or another lurking beyond a thin veneer of rock. It was all stone. The floor was the same; she lay upon it, wet and groggy; it was stone until the earth it rose from. The dwarves had poured into the cavity rapidly. Pack animals were hastily corralled to a far end. Sopping and tired, they began the process of bedding down diligently.
She glanced toward Freyda blankly and stared at her so long that when she regained herself she was certain the blonde dwarrowdam thought her mad for her fixed gaze. But Freyda's eyes were locked thoroughly toward a particular rugged dwarf who was grumbling under his breath and shimmying his way roughly out of sopping furs, a ringed leather chest harness, short jerkin of boiled leather and finally a dingy water-logged tunic. Freyda strapped her axes into the loops of her belt and scooted quietly across the cave to where Dwalin stood, shirtless, clad in nothing but his heavy fur-topped boots and a faded pair of dark breeches and set of small-clothes. She finally caught Meisar's once intent, now silently cringing, gaze, and gave her a nervous head-tilt of some affirmation or another, her brief, restive smile full of anticipation.
I'm sorry Freyda. So sorry. I should not have said a thing of love and the fancying habits of dwarves. For who am I to ask?
Freyda sat quietly beside Dwalin and stared, the cutthroat eyes flooded with something entirely different but equally as primal, if tremulous.
When he had finished shimmying out of his tunic, Dwalin raised his head again to meet the dwarrowdam's eyes in a moment of striking bemusement.
"Lass?"
She took a deep breath. "There is something I must say to ye, Mister Dwalin," Freyda announced herself, chest up and out, hiding her shaking hands in the folds of her tunic. The other dwarves were paying them no attention; for the moment, they seemed trapped in each other's particular worlds.
"Yes, lass?"
"I am fond of ye… as a lass might be."
Dwalin raised his head again, quiet, eyes blinking with some bemusement. "Fond of ye… in my heart," stammered Freyda, her voice unsteadily rising.
"Aye, and..." He looked like a hare caught in a predator's survey.
"It's not easy for me to say such a thing! Mahal, see me hands? Shaking!" She put out her hands toward him, still wavering. When Dwalin looked at their tremors and still said nothing, she pulled them back, exasperated. "Well, Mister Dwalin, ye could be a bit nicer about it. Even if ye don't feel the same."
"Ye chide me for that, lass?" Dwalin questioned earnestly. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the sight of his brother leaning in to catch the cause of the iron-smith's distress. Dwalin could see his brother's eye narrow with disappointment at him. But for what?
"No," answered Freyda, deflated. "No. Forget I said anything at all. Forget it entirely."
"Pig-headed. Thick-skulled you are, brother," scolded Balin. He prodded Dwalin away in frustration to help roll out their bedding, string up their wet clothes. Dwalin looked over his shoulder at the sullen woman, who had gone away flustered to a tight cabal of dwarrowdams. Gloin's wife was glaring daggers toward him. He growled in the back of his throat; it was a circle he dared not enter.
She felt Thorin's arms wrap around her solidly from behind. He was soaking, his scent like cold rain and soggy fur. Intoxicating. His lips cold, craned down about to kiss her cheek from behind. Meisar closed her eyes and went hot with remorse. "Are you alright, ghivashinh?
"Yes," she lied quickly. The stubbornness of dwarves. The honesty of dwarves. She stole a doleful glance at Urdlaug, arms full of smoked meats, her sisters grabbing for the string of wursts that dangled down from her armload. "A dwarf woman whose love is not returned is a lamentable but mighty force to be reckoned with," Eda had told her once.
And is it so for a dwarf? A king? She clasped Thorin's wet, frigid hand tightly over her shoulder where it was fitted snugly. It was no longer a question she needed concern herself to ask.
Wet braids stung against her smarting neck and she plastered them there, firmly. Her head lolled back toward Thorin. "Perhaps you ought keep Dwalin company this night. There may be something he wishes to commiserate with you about," she murmured.
"And if I would rather keep yours?" his husky whisper lingered in her ear, warm breath and cold lips.
"This fire will become an inferno," she replied succinctly, the heaviness of her breath, her aching, struggling to conceal it self. "See to Dwalin. He may wish to commiserate on something, a particular thing. I think your ear would be of great comfort to him, if nothing else."
Thorin's arm withdrew from her quietly. "If it is your wish, then I will honor it."
.
III
Thorin listened to the commiserations of the dwarrowdams sprawl into the night. Dwalin had tried to tell him something but seemed to have no more for it than a series of wild gestures, grunts and inaudible laments. Never knowing him to be much for articulation- or female dwarves- Thorin let the subject fade from the roster on Dwalin's terms. Soon enough Dwalin was asleep. But Thorin's ascertaining abilities felt adequate in figuring his loyal friend's dilemma easily enough; Freyda's weeping eventually smoothed and there was no sound then except rain on stone. Meisar stayed with her.
Thorin rolled over again and again beside Dwalin, thin padding on a terribly hard surface never made for a satisfying sleep. He had become accustomed to that, but not Meisar's absence from his side of late. But the cave was pitch dark and between them were two dozen dwarves in various states of sleep- and undress. The dwarves wrapped themselves in dry blankets, wet clothes tossed out onto the cave floor.
Freyda's breath went on soundly in the dark, occasionally hitching in her sleep. The other dwarrowdams occasionally scooted in their bedrolls, whispering and giggling in tight quarters.
Meisar wrapped herself snugly in the itchy wool blanket, squirming out of her wet clothes in the dark. No fires. No torches. No light or heat. She had already warned them thrice. For once, they listened. There were then only the sounds of the dwarrowdams whispering and giggling amongst each other tucked close in their bedrolls. Then it was almost all quiet except for the snoring; she could hear Brynja and Bofur's hushed lovemaking. She could hear it when their skin touched, the rasp of body hair on smoother flesh. It was so quiet in the cave she could hear the sound it made when he performed the deed, in and out, in and out again, a small slapping sound that beat like a racing heart in the dark, and then was silent again, except for the heavy, breathy kisses.
Thorin was not near her. If he were and she were tempted to yield herself to him, she wondered if he would be like that. She could not imagine him able to consummate the act as quietly as Bofur was managing; no, it would be growls and grunts and hoarse whispers in Khuzdul. The thought of Thorin claiming her in such a manner her made her breath hitch. It was too much to bear, to consider the possibility of, no matter heat between them, how close to combustion it moved.
.
IV
The next morning a lance of sunlight came in through the mouth of the cave. The wagons were soaked but their contents, tucked under heavy tarps of leather, were mostly spared.
"Best you fix your plaits, my lady," Urdlaug reproached. "You've the hair of a ravished maid."
Meisar gave her a withering glare, too tired to protest the insult. "I have done nothing to compromise my honor," she asserted as stoutly as she could through a rising yawn. "And besides, it is my business." She opened her eyes in time to catch Urdlaug smile. That in itself happened so seldom it made her blink twice to ensure she was not dreaming, or her eyes caked too heavily with night-crust. "So then it is made anew?"
Meisar stared in half a daze. "Not entirely."
.
The wind and sun in the mountains would dry the rest in due time, and without much hesitation, the dwarves continued. Uphill was a formidable climb; they stopped several times to let the animals rejuvenate and rest themselves. The air was thinner and colder. By afternoon they had reached the summit. Without a cloud in the sky, they could see overland far east into the Rhovanion.
Meisar peered into the crystalline water of the mountain stream. Violet marks trailed down from the underside of her jaw to her clavicle. She touched one and flinched; it was quite tender. She smiled to herself, with a satisfaction she had not known before. Her lips felt tender from the treatment of his teeth. It was a moment she cherished in her own right, in her own world.
The dwarves were resting and taking in the views nearby. She had wandered off, alone again, and assuredly so. She had worked her fingers at a particular project and cherished the solitary task. As she drank heartily the crisp water, so clean and sharp, from the stream, she became aware of Thorin's presence beside her warily.
"I bring you an offering, my lady," he murmured quietly. She set down her whittling. "Come then, my king." He came around and knelt before her, a single gilly-flower held gently between his thick fingers.
"They say they cannot grow in these parts. Too harsh an environment," he explained, sheepishly. "A gilly flower, my lady. I wish for you to have it."
"A peace offering?" Meisar smiled slightly.
"A fitting tribute. To you, my lady. The tales of men say it is a symbol of virtue. Which I have erred in offending."
Reaching forth slowly, he pressed the fragrant pink bloom by its stem into her palm. Its color was radiant, alarmingly lively for the time of year and in the mountains no less. I will take it as a sign, she resolved quietly.
"Your hands are freezing," Thorin admonished quietly. She felt her hand become enveloped in both of his, blowing warmth breath into the hollow of his palms where she was lovingly held. His beard rasped over her fingers as he blew. When he had exhausted his lungs warming her hand it seemed, he rose and leaned to kiss her cheek with purposeful chasteness, and there caught sight of her neck, thinly veneered by her mussed, half-un-plaited hair.
"My lady, I did not mean… to hurt you." He sunk back to his knees before her. "I beg your forgiveness. Here on my knees."
Thorin Oakenshield had never knelt. Not once in his life had hard earth and rock dug into his knees, not before another anyway. A king or a pauper, he did not kneel. She knew as much.
"Menu gajatu," she murmured cautiously. You are forgiven.
He rose and sat beside her and embraced her lovingly.
"Might I braid your hair?" he asked, earnestly, his eyes clouded over with contrition. His naked weakness, trembling before me. The raw act of penance.
"I would like that." He pushed aside the heavy rope of her braid, baring her red and violet neck, and made an unsatisfied, injured sound at the sight of it. He buried his face into her and kissed tenderly, all along the marked skin. "Thorin…" her long breath heaved. Cupping her cheeks and kissing again, tender but dominant. The redheaded woman was squirming. The gentleness of his hands, the care he took when he braided her hair, should have surprised her but it did not. Were not dwarves the finest crafters in all of Arda, the makers of objects so beautiful battles had been fought to possess them? Possessive indeed, she thought, letting herself smile as tugged gently at her plait.
She felt no fear when he touched her, not now, after everything, and how her desire had grown and swelled in her. His fingers grazed over the tender skin, apologetically, tenderly, and he nuzzled then the hollow of her throat again. Soothing kisses and the scrape of roughened beard on sensitive flesh met in a stirring contrast of sensation.
"They tell me i am playing with fire. An ignorant woman I am they say, of you, of your many sorrows. My head should tell me this is true. But my heart..."
"What does your heart say?"
She quietly maneuvered herself to face him, pressed aside the heavy locks of black hair from the right side of his neck and caressed the deep eggplant patch she had left with one finger. With the other hand she slipped a circle of twine over his head. Clasped in it was a pendant, a stone as simple as one she could have plucked from about their feet. Carved into with an endearing lack of skill was an unfamiliar emblem.
"Let it be known by all that i am yours. And you are mine."
"I am yours!" he breathed. "I am forfeit the affection of any other save for you. My eyes shall never behold another!"
"What we have, the good, the ill, it is ours, and ours together now."
Thorin had become part of her- all of his sorrows and anger and melancholy, the weight of unbearable loss. Love was a fool's game some said, a curse that put heart over head and left one utterly decapitated of reason. Meisar the shepherdess was never one to lose her head. But it seemed, the ax of this dwarf had already fallen. She rested her head against his neck. His beard scratched at her forehead.
"You too have the hair of a ravished maid," she scolded Thorin lightly, pulling back and kissing the tip of his nose playfully. "Come, let me fix it."
She nudged him forward and sat him before her and took up his comb. "Âzyungâl, such knots!"
"I have you to blame for this besotted-lover's tangled nest... Âzyungâl," he jested softly, playing with the last word on his tongue like a sweet candy. In the moment, there was no word more blissful, sweeter to the tongue than that.
She worked the ends gently, easing one snarl after the other back to smoothness. She fixed the plait in the back, always a bit messy and hidden, clasped with a great ring of burnished gold. He closed his eyes and waited for her to resume her work but felt the heat of her breath on his scalp instead, her arms about his shoulders.
"You are not the type to become besotted by another, Thorin Oakenshield."
"I think you misunderstand the true nature of what it is to be besotted. It is a word far better suited to fiery lusts. Not my lady, who deserves a much greater honor."
She paused, shyly. "And have you...?"
He sighed, a prickle in his heart and in another place that felt half lust and half shame. He had, but twice in his two-hundred years. Void of caring or affection of any kind. It had been alleviating, confusing, black with shame altogether when it was through.
"It is a distant past, and fleeting, unbecoming of a dwarf," he replied simply. He turned his head and looked into her eyes. "I am certain my lady is far more virtuous than I." An affectionate gaze was purposeful alas. She realized it was a question and the way she blushed and it painted her already colored cheeks inflamed something inside of him. "Such a question, my king," Meisar muttered out of his view.
"You asked the same of me, and I answered."
"Does it intrigue you so to know?"
"Yes, perhaps."
"Scarcely can I believe you would think anything different of me. It is true i have been called rougher things, but the end of it is that I am woman of stubborn virtue. Of spirit as well as body." The blush came again and she lowered her head from his charmed, even relieved-looking gaze. But this time it was all over, that heady warmth, the trembling of places thought ever-dormant. She sighed again. "There is so little in my life left that is pure and unbroken. I shall keep this one thing until I can know for sure where my king's true intent lies."
"For that reason, perhaps, the nature of your desire confounds me," Meisar confessed. She grasped at his forearms, the size and strength of them flexing against her touch. He could have her if he wished; he could overpower her with those arms alone. For the moment he seemed so strangely apologetic she lightened her grip of him, and settled into his blue eyes with curiosity. "I wish to know what it is you desire from me."
"I want by my side, as my lady. You wish to know my true intent? There you have it."
"You are a king, and you will find a lady of your rank and I pray Mahal she is beautiful and kind, and can tolerate you."
He had no desire for a princess, a persnickety thing with fickle worries. He needed a woman he could fully and lovingly make his and his alone, but they were too easy.
In fact, he not given much thought to a woman. Dwarves were high-strung enough in their preferences or committed so deeply to their crafts that a good many did not marry at all, though kings were expected to. Thorin had not been a king in many a year. A wandering blacksmith had more immediate needs to attend- regular supper and a warm room in winter, and swinging white-hot rage through the air to beat it into submission upon a metal slab. And his people, hungry and ragged in the wilderness trusting of their faith in their pauper-sovereign. He had once shepherded them to Ered Luin as Meisar shepherded them to Erebor. Even as peace and sustenance finally established and granted the dwarves in Ered Luin relief, Thorin had never considered the possibilities of more tender things. Perhaps it was not of his nature, he had oft thought to himself, wondering if that was for ill or for better. He was good in his heart he knew, but trapped within a steel box, one that none could penetrate without breaking themselves upon it. Only since Meisar's arrival into his sphere had he realized that the steel box was a singular wall, and it had a door, perhaps a key.
.
"Thorin?"
The king turned from setting down and unloading the contents of his pack, toward a tender, if uncanny, voice. Meisar eased herself down to his level. They were resting in a suitable place for the night, further down the other side of the mountain. The day's progress had been satisfactory, even brisk. A feeling of renewal, of fresh energy, of hope above all things, had permeated the very essence of this company, petulant as they could be.
"I wanted to tell you, I regret that these days have hurt you so and I-"
"Lay beside me this night," he interjected, gently but with a commanding firmness. He lay the sword to the right side of him, unfurling his cloak and bedroll to the other. With that nod his blue eyes were demanding.
She smiled, a sweetening blush about her cheeks that made him want to kiss them, chastely or not. She pushed her bed-roll to his and his arms were swiftly around her. He rolled on his back and cradled her head on his chest. She stroked at the furs he donned again in the night, wishing she could have known but a layer of cambric now. Somehow, though, it felt right, and virtuous. He stroked her hair and hummed lightly with a peacefulness about him then, in his slight smile, his eyelids drawn shut, the ease in which his taut body seemed to settle as her arms draped heavily about him.
"What is it?" She shifted against a cramp in her legs to lay on her back, and then her side. Thorin's fingertip ran along her neck.
"
The peaceful expression was gone and replaced by a look of thoughtfulness, consuming, but not ominous in appearance. "What is it? Thorin?" She took his hand and held it in her own.
"You give me so much more than this peace of mind. Meisar..." He trailed off so that her name was a pining whisper, breathed into her forehead. Her nose twitched against a fall of his hair against her face. She turned to lay on her side, keeping Thorin's arm firmly about her.
"And you to me." She wriggled again in Thorin's arms and let a soft laugh into the darkness, his body moving to press up close against her own, blankets drawn taut to press them together even closer. He stroked the stout, gently rolling curves of her. He lifted the twine necklace she had made for him, raised the stone to his lips and kissed it when she craned her head to nuzzle him goodnight.
"Surely we will burn each other we keep rubbing together like sticks," she giggled.
"Not burn, only keep warm."
She granted him another fleeting nuzzle, her plump, chapped lips whispering a kiss to his own. "Aye, my king. My Thorin..."
The dark patches from his teeth faded a sickly yellow and paled on her throat.
They had made her feel safe.
Safe, not a usual state, hardly even a concept that crossed her mind. Safe, as in a sword in arm's length by night. Safe, hills free of orcs. Safe, a lull on the road. Safe steady, even unsteady work and food on the table at night. Not safe, in a king's arms. Safe, a king's own emblem worn like a badge upon her throat. Safe, cherished… loved.
"You shall come again to Erebor, and remain at my side, if it pleases you to do so," he offered quietly.
The kings of men were fickle with their passions. Perhaps all kings were. But dwarves, ever stubborn in their loyalty, rarely took lovers, and especially not to discard them imminently. She smiled her shy, distinctive smile back at him. "I have no home, Thorin. I go where I go, and that is my home."
"Woman, your home is by my side!" he rasped loud enough so that the entirety of the cave could have been woken by the echo. "Don't you see, Meisar? Don't you see?"
She eased him with a soft kiss on his knuckles. "I do see. I do see."
.
Dwalin sat awake and listened, soft laughter in his ears like lashes from a stinging nettle. Balin was out, mumbling in his sleep of some business in Erebor or another. Pig-headed he calls me, my own brother.
He shifted his weight and eased a cramp in his leg, ax below his chin and leaning on it. Where was that iron-smith, that blonde brawny lass with the easy laugh? She had made him weak once, by the river-side, strong arms flexing, all sinewy and pale skin swinging her lovely ax. The way her two front teeth turned in just a little and one was chipped on the side. The proud decoration of her beard.
He listened to the sound of Thorin's gentle waves of breath. Not tossing or turning, whinnying like a spooked horse in a way so high and full of pain as he had never heard slip past his lips even in the worst of times before the Battle. No, he was silent this night. His arm curled about her, pressing her back up close to his chest, his chin at her cranium, rested there, so peaceful.
And what peace have I brought him? mused Dwalin in silent self-chastisement. What nights have I calmed him like this? He squinted his eyes through the dark but it was too thick, too black, to locate Freyda. Might she have welcomed him as Thorin welcomed her in the night? Nay. A strong and sturdy lass she is, not given to crawling and simpering back to one so unkind as myself. A pig-headed brute.
He curled his hands around the handles of his lucky axes. Lucky my arse. Grasper and Keeper my arse. Can't even grasp and keep the only lass- fair and pretty dwarven lass with a beard of pale spun gold- whose eyes had ever looked upon me so kindly.
Pig-Headed Brute. It echoed in his head one more time before such internal loathing once again became utterly distasteful to him. The woman in Thorin's arms stirred again and shirked the cover of her blanket, and Dwalin found himself rising, in abject silence, kneeling at the side of the shared, tangled bedroll, taking the blanket and gently covering her again.