A King of Ash and Fire

by Lady of Arda

"And though... love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps the greater." Thorin Oakenshield has survived the Battle of the Five Armies, but at a grievous cost. A second chance at life, and a first at love, will stand against the changing tides of Middle Earth. Thorin/OC. Dwalin/OC. Post BOFTA AU.

61. RETURN TO ME

A/N: "The Bath Song" whose lyrics are used in the course of this chapter is credited fully to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Apologies for the delay in posting. This chapter turned out longer than I expected.

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Erebor at the window of the evening between suppertime and the gloaming settled into a lull, always. With Oliada, Meisar could cross the city unnoticed. Only a few dwarves, lighting the night-lanterns hailed down to her from ladders and in harnesses lowering them over the great geometric chandeliers and hanging lanterns. By the time they reached the gates of the necropolis, it was necessary to supply their own light.

"Lady Princess come?" Oliada asked.

"No, this time I go for myself."

.

"Are you here?" she asked to no one in particular, even the gentlest issue of her voice echoing back from the darkness beyond the great tomb she stood before. The light gleamed pale on the stone exterior, pure white marble, as smooth as glass all over. She had never noticed it before, during any of the sojourns into these dark places, where others dwelt in perpetuity, as unfamiliar to her in truth as her own kin. She knew her father's red hair and her mother's chubby feet as well as Kili's baby-face, Fili's golden hair, no more and no less.

They are each, in their own, strangers that have followed me nameless all of my life. A procession of ghosts un-laid finally called to rest in their halls. We are together now, and look, my lost kin, I have survived after all.

She wondered if Dis had ever whispered those same words in the dark. I have survived after all.

"Sister?"

The voice in the dark came gentle, intent not to startle her, but it always did, even if her presence here loomed, entrenched; the smell of her perfume sometimes caught in the motionless air, rosewood and myrrh. The light of a hand-lantern fell on her, framing Dis above, pale and stark in it.

"What are you doing down here, Meisar?"

Meisar stood and stepped aside so Dis could hold the lantern up to the tomb she was standing beside.

"The lost dwarves of Dale. There were many whose bones were found un-buried in the time of rebuilding," affirmed Dis. "Bard had them returned here."

"I suspect my kin are amongst them. I thought I would pay a visit. As you do yours. It only seems right."

"You knew not of this place?" Dis sat on her haunches next to her, black damask skirts making a circle on the pale stone floor. She examined the inscription on the stone. Those who were died nameless and were buried nameless, but who shall be named in the Halls of Mandos and dwell there unto the end of the world.

"Today I came to realize that the city of my birth is not the one I knew. It is gone. I have pined but for a ghost. And home…" she wrapped her arms around Dis's shoulders, for once, in need of her support. "My home was always ever in the one I love. And in you. I have no other."

"You are of a home well-founded then. You are of a mighty house now."

"It is a shred of peace I have needed these days past, sister."

"Gracious, you could not have been much more than a baby," Dis said sympathetically. "Poor sweet girl."

"I don't even remember their faces. I don't even remember how I had it to recall my own name." Meisar, littlest runt. She could still hear her father booming it cheerfully in a sun-filled room with a terracotta floor, Taras teasing her, holding her poppet over her head so she had to jump for it. But they had no faces. And in the tomb, none could tell.

"Then you may be the fortunate one of the two of us, though united we are, in grief," Dis said. "To love is to remember. To remember is to find a piece of your empty always if they leave this world too soon."

"We are united in more than that," Meisar rebutted gently.

"Yes, we are. You survived not by chance. All things will come as they meant to, peace and turbulence alike." She lifted Meisar's face to look into her blue weighted eyes, suddenly serene. "You were not sent from the burned ruin of that city, to be my brother's wife, for no cause."

"I love him," she whispered.

"I know. Now come," Dis entreated, pulling Meisar up to her feet. "Speaking of Thorin, I imagine you are sorely missed."

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She found Thorin sitting quietly by the fireplace on the floor of the bedchamber, parchments spread in the light of the flames and dogs reverently keeping their distance.

"I promised I would return," she said, closing the door gently.

"Sit, my blessing. I would be happy for your company, for we must speak." Thorin didn't look up. He rolled the scrolls back and stacked the parchments, putting them aside. Meisar came to sit in the chair behind him, unnerved by the weight of his tone. A snarl in his hair trailed upward into a small mat in the back where his braid was loosened and bunching.

"Then let me tend to your hair for the evening if we must speak of solemn things," she implored quietly. Delicately, she teased the snarl with his comb, starting over at the end when he winced aloud.

"Ravens have come and gone all the day from the Iron Hills and back. There is a crisis at hand that our two kingdoms are obliged to negotiate," he explained.

"They are coming from the East."

"Yes," Thorin confirmed. "In surprising numbers. You know of this?"

"Somewhat," she answered. "I am told it is not the end. More will come." When the mat was picked loose, she combed the rest of his long hair one section at a time, setting one strand when smoothed by her work over his shoulder in front.

"To ours and to our neighboring kingdoms each. Their numbers are of a great concern." He turned and sighed and laid his head upon her knee, fingering the smooth edge of her skirt and the ridge of a stocking garter underneath. She began to make his braid in the back again as his head rested there. "I must journey to the Iron Hills, leaving on the morrow."

"The morrow?" She felt in the instant as if a closed fist had decked her. Her body stiffened itself against the reeling she felt from the phantom sensation of it, and her head soon felt hot. A tremor lurked again beneath the surface of her skin, but she girded her fingers in an invisible determination against it, tried to finish his braid..

Thorin felt it before she could stop it from surfacing, the disquiet in the tender hands that stroked his hair with such sudden tensity. "You are disconsolate, mizimel."

Stuttering, she made a defensive motion with her head. He was tunneling so deep inside her, making a kingdom in her, settling into her bones and knowing all of the rhythms of her. It was a vulnerable feeling still, and though once it would have felt the strangest intrusion, now, to fuse to him, to hold him close for the intimacy of that knowledge, seemed as natural as breathing. And to be apart from him...

She would not let the thought enter her head.

"It will not be long in duration, and I will meet my young cousin sooner than expected. That I am glad of at least. It is the only thing that brings me any pleasure in being away from you."

"As we are for all our kin," Meisar abjured quietly.

"My blessing, I wish to all that you had kin still living, or known to you. But mine are yours now, and shall love you the same. For you are of my house now, and my queen." On his knees beside the chair Thorin wrapped his hand around hers, the comb still in the ends of his hair, closing her fist around it and holding her hand in each of his. "I am leaving you as regent. Balin will be here, and Gloin, and all the small council. Dwalin will accompany me, and Oin, and Ori, and a kings-guard of a dozen or so."

"Regent?"

"Don your raven crown. It is your right. The council will defer to your wishes, but consult them always. Meet with them daily. I grant you the powers to negotiate any petitions that come before you."

"I will," she avowed, a dwarf's voice reduced to now more than a cheep in saying so. Thorin set aside the comb from her hand and traced the pinpricks of pressure its teeth had left in her hand. He kissed the smarting palm and took her hand, turned it over and kissed the backs of her fingers at the tip, leaning over the arm of the chair beside her.

"Do you worry so for this?"

"I do not fear my duty as queen. At least not this one." Sinking to the floor she felt like jelly all over. She sat on the rug on the floor by the heart and grasped her hands into her lap, scrunching the fabric of her dress there until her palms left wrinkles of moisture there. Only Thorin's presence, his warmth at her back, eased that. He grasped her shoulder from behind and offered a soothing kiss to the side of her neck where it met her shoulder.

"You handled the influx before the coronation quite well. It was well-lauded by those who benefited. Do you see why it is I put such faith in you?"

"I do, but to be apart from you is an unhappy thing, blessing of mine."

"Then do not be apart from me. I am in need of rest. Come lay beside me," he gestured to the bed. Thorin lay and covered himself in the fur-lined blanket, drawing the curtains. She sat on the edge and did nor recline until he swung his arm up and around to embrace her at the small of her back with it, her fingertips distracted, stroking the edge of his jaw, looking down on him heavily. The embracing arm slid up her back and encouraged her to lay in the crook of it.

Instead she came to rest quietly on her elbow beside him, letting him take her hand and kiss it from the web of her thumb and forefinger up to the tip of the digit. "It is not more than a fortnight's travel there and back."

"I suppose your young cousin will be very grateful for your coming. I am certain he admires you very much." Meisar leaned quietly with her head on the back of her hand, pondering Thorin's unreadable expression, the tenderness and preoccupation together than rendered it enigmatic to her. Her husband took her free hand and brought the tips to his mouth to kiss lightly at again. Grasping her hand lightly under the knuckles he slid the forefinger out of the grasp of his lips and let the tip of it make a line on his chin.

"His father was an unforgettable sort," Thorin grinned, Meisar forcing herself to in return. "Loyal and true."

His beard felt coarser, she thought. It was beginning to grow out in the slightest way, thickening over the small patches under his mouth where it had been bare once. "Thorin… if you must go, then I beg you one thing."

"It is yours, whatever it is."

She lay upon his chest and fingered the clasped tip of his temple braid. "Do not leave without bidding me farewell."

"I never intended to."

He wrapped the fur coverlet snugly over her shoulder, drawing her closer, the blue cambric of his sleep-shirt a sturdy fabric but thin enough she could feel the warmth of the skin beneath.

"And will you be here when I wake, Thorin?"

"I promise."

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True to his word, when he rose, he nudged her awake with a kiss on her shoulder. He stroked her hair and cheeks and drew her close to him. Her greed was unsurpassed, she thought, never considering it was not greed in the way folk spoke of it, not quite. It was fierce and unyielding, possessive and proud a thing, that firm knowledge that none other would touch his thighs or firm, round arse or tentatively draw his erect manhood into the hollow spot just below her hip, guiding to its destination with hands on the sturdy frames of his hips. When he was inside her it was bliss, even the first time. That perfect ache had been a newness then, a want of his touch. It felt desperate now, a grip that didn't want to let go. She wrapped her legs around his hips when he was finished as if it would convey that message as clear as day. But soon she turned and rested against him, his chest to her back. The softened member pressed at her, and nestled comfortably in the apex where her globes and thighs meet underneath, that little hollow now glistening with their shared wetness, a thin white streak of his crossing her thigh. She felt buried and hot under his body, but it was such a comforting feeling, engulfing, protective. She wished dearly he would never move from her.

But he did, and rose, and washed, and dressed. She lay her head on his pillow and watched, melancholy, eventually rising to help him pack a coffer of necessities. He wore a heavy crimson cloak with a trim of brindle fur, a gift from Lake-Town some time before. She thought he looked handsome, and bold, in red. He wore the same geometric, dark doublet underneath, a vest of leathers, and cherry-black fur-trimmed boots that reached his knee. There was mail beneath the coat and vest, but when he traveled, he preferred to look a king, rather than a war-lord.

In the night she had not slept but lay awake long after he had fallen asleep. Sleep was coming deeper to him now, not the light sleep of many a year on the cusp of danger always it seemed. He slept so soundly some nights, like that night, she could lift the sleeping fingers to her mouth to kiss and let even the tears she could not shed in his waking presence dribble from their tips to make small rivulets between his knuckles. She loved his hands, their rough tips, their hardened form, but made so even by the worst hardship they had not eschewed all tenderness. He had shown her that, a lesson she never imagined she would have the curiosity, or the yearning, to master.

She ran her fingers along the ridges of the marriage braid her own hands had made, over and over again, with all the reverence each time as if it were the first, standing beneath a canopy of stone. She kissed the bead that clasped its tip and buried a silent sob into it.

"Return to me my love. Return to me."

Since the first she had laid eyes on him, she needed him, his presence, his adoration. She chastised herself, placing the sleeping hand back on his chest. Her need made her feel weak inside even if it was the greatest light she had ever known. For the first time in her life, she was afraid of being alone.

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Dwarves lined the great foyer to see him off. News of the king's leave had stirred whispers through the kingdom. Ponies were mounted at the gate and girded in armor and fine broadcloth. A kingsguard of a dozen wielded pikes and axes on their mounts, and amongst them sat Ori, bundled in wool, and Oin. Thorin was so handsome, majestic in his breastplate of burnished gold and his cloak. He held her arm until they reached the gate.

"I am afraid to see you go. I could not bear to lose you, not now," she confessed at the last.

"You are so melancholy my queen. I do not like to see you like this," his thumb ran over her cheek with some concern.

"It is love alone that makes me melancholy," she assured. "To see you go, it is any dwarf's lament with their One."

"Then it is true love." He kissed his queen and gathered her in his arms. She rested her cheek against the cold plate armor at his chest, his chin on the crown of her head. When she opened her eyes she could see the expressions of sympathy on the faces of the dwarves nearby, as if they knew how deep the emptiness was already in her. She wasn't sure if she was comforted by that.

"I love you with all mine that is to give, Thorin. Return to me, my love."

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Somewhere Thorin's voice was calling for him but Dwalin kept his eye steadily on Freyda, the silent strength in her face though tears had long fled the rims of her eyes, leaving them only slightly red. But he wouldn't say; her pride was too fierce, fiercer even than his own. She was sending him off lovingly, with an entire parcel of biscuits, wrapped in cheesecloth and twine.

"Gyda made them, but they are the doin' of me heart," she said. Freyda's green crespine kept all of her fair hair in its shimmering net, out of the swift breeze. Her ears were hung with copper and silver. "I shall miss ye, Dwalin. I shall worry for ye each day. I beg the Creator let the road be safe for ye."

"Think of ye I shall all the hours o' the day, lass. Freyda," Thorin's voice was calling for him closer; he could hear the armor clanking from the king and the sentries too, the impatience of the ponies tapping their hooves at the gate nearby. He tugged her behind the enormous handle of an ax, belonging to one particular stone likeness of a warrior-lord, bygone.

"Farewell, Freyda. Durin keep ye, lass." A cool, hard hand slid gently over the nape of her neck, traced the curve under her ear with a thumb. "My treasure of all treasures." He kissed her forehead above one golden brow, and never to linger long in one place drew but an inch away and let the tip of his nose slid down her temple from her hairline. She felt his breath tickle hot against her nostrils and her lips twitch in anticipation, but he pulled away.

"Durin keep ye more than I," Freyda sighed. The hand that she had pressed palm flattened over his chest he took and grasped, sliding from wrist to cover her fingers with his. One of the kingsguard, a grunt in full plate, cleared his throat hesitantly in Dwalin's direction when he found them, earning a silent rebuke that could have frozen water in the middle of the summer. He turned to Freyda again and rumbled a defeated breath.

"It is time, lass. I must go."

She blessed the silver ax around his neck with a small kiss. "Dayamu Khuzan-ai menu. Dwalin, return to me."

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II

"Awake, Siv! I am going to need you!"

Meisar clapped her hand against the side of the girl's head when she rolled over, groaned and swatted at her. She had sprung in the morning and trotted in a heavy sur-coat with only her nightclothes underneath, from the royal quarter down all the way to Siv and Eda's home. Siv was in her bed, alone to her relief, sleeping upright against a stack of pillows with a frilly nightcap over her hair.

"Who's comin'?" Siv asked. She touched the disheveled state of her hair and winced.

"Bard," she answered shortly. She put Siv's wash basin in front of her and hurried her through scrubbing the rouge from her cheeks. Eda selected a proper dress and laid it out for her.

Siv yawned and yanked the violet-of-gold dress over her head, Eda lacing up the back as quickly as she could. "The dragon-slayer, oh aye. Thorin's been gone a few days and here this lord of men appears in your halls, to see the queen on 'er own. Nary a dwarf may be liking that."

"It is our duty whether anyone likes it or not," she responded warily to Siv.

"My queen, it is the hour," Eda informed her, shooing Siv off.

"Come then," Meisar ordered, rustling Siv from her mirror.

"Won't you let me fix my hair first?"

She eyed Siv warily and exhaled in surrender. "Fine. But I expect you in Thror's Hall in twenty minutes. It'll be the laundresses' guild for you if I see you but a moment later."

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In Thror's Hall Balin insisted she sit herself upon the throne, despite the fact that she had forgotten her crown in her rush. Gloin and Emli were there, and Gimli, the lad without much enthusiasm for it, rubbing his eyes from sleep. She looked up as the door opened and Bard came in, alone, traversed the long walkway with a polite briskness to his step. To the right of the throne platform, Siv came pattering in, careful with her parchments and writing stand, over the narrow stone walkway.

"Hail and well met, my lord." Meisar stood from the throne and came down to meet him more closely. Wisps of hair peeked out messily under a curved hood and veil, and she wore an outer garment slightly too long for her, she had to lift the hems to make her way down the steps. Bard would have offered his hand to steady her, but the dwarves on the platform beside her were all gazing vigilantly at him, and she was, after all, one, amongst few, of the greatest treasures the dwarves were known to possess: their women.

"As unexpected as this meeting is, I assume the business is urgent," she said.

"Somewhat, I declare," Bard began. "I have examined the census for my city, and that of my son's dominion in Esgaroth. We have added an alarming number, rustic folk coming in from south and west, and dwarves from the farther eastern reaches lodging in numbers in the city still. I am certain you have noticed similar fluxes in the mountain."

"Some," Meisar said. "Some have said we should anticipate more as the hindrances that winter makes for travel ease in the coming months. Or other causes. Though none have been specified to me, with any clarity."

"That I know not greatly of, I'm sorry to say. But this I do: the Lonely Mountain mostly trades in foodstuffs that we outside provide, in exchange for your services and goods of course. The numbers in our cities have consumed an alarming amount of those resources already, and may further. There are no shortages now, but I think it better to prepare and anticipate that our ability to provide in trade of these provisions may be lessened."

Gloin harrumphed quietly behind her and Meisar gave him a stern look, earning a ruffled gaze from Emli. She and Gloin went back to commiserating in whispers with each other.

"Thus," Bard continued. "It may come that our contracts may require re-negotiation."

"But not at this moment?" Meisar queried.

"No, and perhaps not at all, but to be prepared is no ill course to take. I grant you this information as a courtesy, my queen."

She stood again and steepled her fingers together under the trumpeted sleeves of the red-and-gold brocade inner garment she wore. Bard waited in patient quiet, took in the subtle matching pattern of her elegant smock of an extant robe, pale cobalt-and-goldenrod with a thick, bowed collar of dark fur at the neck. He wondered if she knew it made her look even shorter, but her carriage, it could have met him in the eye, he thought. There was still something intimidating about how quiet her contemplative gaze was, lost in a thought he could not deign to guess. When her eyes did meet his again they were intent and sharp.

"If the dwarves were able to provide our own in some manner, in crops I mean, the inconvenience, even a dreadful crisis, could be averted."

"I was never under the impression that dwarves had any skill in the agricultural," Bard replied, skeptically.

"Not usually," Meisar answered. "I do have some skill in the art. I would not mind imparting it onto some of my dwarven brethren in this kingdom." She stepped down toward him, intent. "Will you dine with us tonight, my lord?"

Bard smiled, slightly, in the way that he looked at his children, never too obvious or too demonstrative, but benevolent nonetheless. "Aye, and it would be an honor, my queen."

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"My lady has the beautiful hair in all of Erebor," hummed Griet later, helping Meisar ready for dinner. The queen sat listlessly in the mirror as the chambermaid attempted to draw some cheer, some life from her face. "A dwarf woman is never even to trim her crowning glories, so maychance a day'll come that it shall trail below your feet, and one will carry it for you like the train of a gown, my queen."

"An amusing thought," Meisar chuckled.

Griet gave a sharp tug when the door to her chamber opened and dwarrowdams flooded in busily. Jewel-toned gowns and elaborate hair, the rattle of jewels, the swish of taffeta, brocade and silk. Emli made her way through briskly, in a high-waisted paneled gown of deep wine, the pale chemise below pulled out in puffs between the ivory ribbon ties at the sleeves, worn with a sleeve-less silk matching sur-coat imitating hanging sleeves, carefully pieced and jeweled.

"Where are you going? What are you doing?" Meisar asked.

"Coming to dinner," answered Emli smartly.

"All of you?"

"We cannot let a queen dine alone with a man. It is indecent," Emli insisted.

"Balin and some of the small council will be there."

"You are a queen. You have an entourage," Emli concluded succinctly. "We have eschewed enough of tradition out of sheer need, but some things simply must stand."

"I hope Bard won't mind," Meisar muttered. Never had a consideration of such much fazed her, but she thought of the great marble tomb, the reverence for which he had laid their bones out from the rubble and honored them for their peoples' sake. Grim perhaps, and uttering words a lord should never to another and toward my husband no less, but...

"Be kind, as well as you can manage. There's no use intimidating a fellow lord when he's only come for supper."

Emli agreed, if vaguely. "Only come for supper? We'll see about that. We may be short but there's a particular power that comes with dwarf women in numbers," she said, flippantly. "The dragon-slayer best learn it sooner than later."

"Fine, and supposing it is cause to dress in your finest, I will take your word, " Meisar yielded, never doubting there was some better purpose in their finery than merely to impress. Emli was too smart for that, and the rest of the women knew to follow her lead by now. They all had a look of giddiness. She could not fault them for any of it. Good company was better than none after all, in the absence of that which made her heart hurt to think it absent.

Griet brought her crown and set it on the edge of her hairline, leaving behind it a round of braids nearly as large as her own head and two long braids worn beside each other that reached below her hips and forked there. "Let us go then, my ladies. We shall see what may come of it, if anything at all."

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In the council hall, two dwarven stewards lugged a chair in, sized so that Bard could sit comfortably at the table. Places were set for a comfortable supper. He sat with Balin and Gloin on the lowered seat on the opposite side of the table from the dwarf women, the respective dwarves flanking him, Gimli beside his father, and he was eye to eye with the abreast dwarrowdams seated close together across from them. Three squat matrons amongst them looked unimpressed as always, luxuriantly attired for the intimacy of the setting, though the younger of the ladies were more given to polite interaction. Siv, the scribe with the outrageous hair, laughed easily and put the room into a fair mood.

They stood when Meisar came in, wearing the same ensemble as she had greeted them with in the morning, though her hair was elegantly made and she donned a crown. She was trailed by her sentry, the dark dwarrowdam with the tattooed face and angry spear, who sat next to her at the table in a seat as good as the queen's own. Dwarven stewards poured tankards from a barrel in the corner, and dinner itself was served by a vastly corpulent dwarrowdam who embraced the queen, along with a male dwarf equally large, who must have been kin; their orange hair was like the queen's. Bard wondered, but then the answer donned on him, remembering her face staring at the remains of an old wall in his city, the weight of her gaze, and he decided to say nothing more of it.

The dwarrowdam served honey-lemon roast pheasant that made the lord of Dale's mouth water just as its fragrance. "It is ill news I bring to you my queen, in that it may be necessary to reduce the sustenance my kingdom and its neighbors may bring to you. Given that, I am very grateful for the supper." Even the bitter chard that garnished the plate was wonderful.

"Dwarven hospitality only, my lord." Somewhere in a distant past, the men of Dunland and the pale stoic horsemen of Rohan had torn each other to pieces over the thin yields from the thinner soil there. Hunger was a peculiar scourge, and visited upon his kindly, sturdy daughters and worldly-wise son, she had no desire of it, no more for them than for the dwarves of Erebor. "Tell me, are your children well? They must be glad of the warming weather to come."

She could tell Bard was trying his hardest not to devour every bite on his plate with dwarf-like speed and enthusiasm. "Aye, my daughters enjoy a brisk walk in the marketplace this time of year, and it is a fuller and more prosperous market this year than last. And Bain is well. He is a solid lad."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the curmudgeonly ginger-haired dwarf that had lamented the quality of his weapons in a manner to equal his countenance, smirking at the latter remark, regarding his son with the pride only a father could so silently, and eloquently express. The lad belched, and Bard cleared his throat nervously as a steward filled his tankard again.

"The drink is winter lager. It is heavy, but not terribly intoxicating," Emli informed him with a strident amusement about her. The mouths of her husband and son were twitching with the same arrogant, not even clandestine, smirks. The lad had bubbles of mead in his beard, and was starting on his second plate.

"I am given to trust your word then, mistress dwarf," he acknowledged Emli with a patient grace.

"A Fell Winter came when I was younger and living far west of this place. Men turned against men, against their own. Dunland suffered greatly of its ravages, so to see penury and hunger reign is the least of my desires, indeed my greatest fear, as queen. I would not see the children of men go hungry for our sake. Thus, it is in our interest as dwarves to be self-sufficient if we must."

"I am curious now to see what you propose," Bard said, piqued. Gloin and Emli turned and looked at each other with silent bemusement.

"Tell me, my lord, where is the richest soil in the region to be found?"

"Farmlands due east and to their south have seen consistent yields for many a year. Might I ask why it piques your curiosity so, majesty?" Bard inquired.

"I have an idea, vaguely so, and it is well to discuss this matter together, my lord, though we shan't see if anything will come of it 'til spring, if that. Alas, what brings it is a greater concern at the moment." She moved a piece of meat around with her fork, never taking her eyes from Bard's.

Across from her Bard made an effort to chew the well-seasoned game thoroughly, allowing himself to try and read the dwarrowdams, the small, proud women and their even more diminutive queen, Their elegance was jarring for the unlovely quality a man might see in their bearded, scabrous faces. Only the bareness of the queen's face betrayed in any way what she was thinking. She had a solemn, if not unkind, look to her, Bard thought. A woman who could be reasoned with perhaps.

"I see that the king trusts you with far more than previous queens of Erebor have been burdened with. I would not add to it more than is necessary."

"If so, it is not done irrationally on his part. The queen is well-served, and well-ordered as a leader. We must all wet our feet at some point, my lord," Emli proclaimed, mildly prickling in Bard's direction.

"It is a burden that is necessary for me to bear in such times, my lord, but do not think you will find me more pliant than Thorin, if any matter is at hand is of a delicate nature. I would wager that trade agreements and sustenance are," Meisar added.

"Aye," Gloin agreed sharply, offended enough on her behalf to give Bard a frosty glower.

"New peoples from the pastoral lands near and the foreigner ones afar come to each of us in strange numbers, my lord. What drives them?" Meisar changed the subject as diplomatically as she could.

"Many causes. I suspect many seek better fortunes in the larger cities and towns," Bard answered.

"For fortune or for the sake of their own lives, protected in city walls? Dwarves from afar come in numbers to us with nothing but the clothing on their backs, and in penury, forsaking their homes. What of the East, and of the South, where from they arrive, my lord?" Meisar inquired.

"What of them?"

"You know what lies there. Is it a cause for some of these… rumblings? I have heard whispers of violence and disruption in trade in the Dorwinion region amongst other things."

"If you suspect a resurgence of what I am suspecting you do, I would quell your fear, majesty. Gondor's watch is ever vigilant there. And the peoples of the Dorwinion can be petty and quick-tempered, and at a safe distance no less."

She wanted to say, like she wanted to say to Thorin sometimes but never had the words, that the scars of that battle still lay open in the places they traversed each day, that the blood on the ground was not yet soaked up, as if it knew more was to be absorbed. But there was no reckoning strong enough to know when, or how.

"Yes, reports have… they have not told me of any great concern." She twisted her hands in her lap, daring not to say what was true enough, that she still did not read the written word fluently. Emli orated scrolls to her and messages, and sometimes Siv had Brynja read them aloud to practice. It was not for Bard to know, only Thorin, and maybe Siv.

Bard gave a hint of a smile, reassuring in nature. "Unrest will happen when there is great change. We have seen a bloody battle fought and a kingdom restored, a great city rebuilt. They will squabble for resources and prosperity, for land, for small powers, all around us. It is shifting, but all will come to rest."

"I would like to speak with the lord of Dale alone, if it pleases you all," Meisar said after a well-thought silence.

Emli and Gloin were the last to exit, reluctantly so. Their ears would be at the extant door, she knew. When they were gone, Meisar stood and sat upon the chair nearest to Bard, so that she faced him. She was half his own height if that, but in her presence he seemed a bit nervous, and that gave her an odd sort of pride inside.

"You never did inquire as to the king's whereabouts. Do you not find it surprising that you come into the kingdom and find a queen instead of a king? Yet you will speak with me so... easily."

Her quiet, solemn eyes disarmed him. "I came not to see the king. I came because I thought I would be more easily availed of a willing audience with you, my queen."

"That is a notion that may put some in this kingdom on edge, my lord. I would take care not to repeat it. And what I said before stands. You will not find me pliant, or naive."

"I meant no offense. But you seem given to reason. It is only surprising to me, if I may say so, that you are Thorin Oakenshield's wife."

Meisar pursed her lips, diplomatically, while offense curled in her stomach. "Though I should be flattered to garner the sort of praise from a lord of men as dignified as yourself, I would also be wary. A compliment to me, and an insult to my husband in one breath? I was willing to think better of you, Bard."

"That was not becoming of me," Bard relented.

"It is forgiven. In the future I pray you shall not forget I am a dwarf, and that I am Thorin Oakenshield's wife. I serve my king and my people before any else."

"As do I my own. It is why I seek that which will be beneficial to each of us. It is worthy, if the prize is to keep peace," Bard said.

"And you think that peace shall reign, for the choice you make to come to me rather than Thorin? The immediate sustenance of our kingdoms may loom heavy, but take the care to imagine that it is greater than that. The cost of peace."

"I have seen the cost of peace in fire and blood," Bard reminded, forcefully.

"I have been told, by some, outside of our respective realms, and far older than the two of us, that there is a delicateness to the peace of this world, all corners of it. It is greater than us. So we have now, dwarves coming in great numbers to the Iron Hills, as they do here. It is why Thorin has gone, to meet with his kin there. They come from the east you see, and will come more yet by the time summer is upon us. I do not know if that is true of men also. But it may be that something is at work in this world beyond us. I know not what it is. But I know the delicateness of peace."

"But you have an idea of how to manage our more immediate concern?" Bard inquired, eagerly, again.

"I may."

.

When Bard had departed it was late into the night. Ales were served again, and pies. Urdlaug even offered Bard her praises for the kindnesses his daughters had shown her youngest sisters at the coronation feast, recalling their merriment. They spoke not again of plans or negotiations.

Meisar lay warming herself in the furs and velvet of their bed, Bertha leaving them when she had kindled a good fire in the hearth. The dwarrowdams stayed. They climbed on her bed and settled in as if it were their own. It felt empty without Thorin by her side, for the strong warm arms that enveloped her and held her close in the night. More grave things called him; she understood even if her heart ached for him, as her body did. The heat generated by the women sitting all around and kvetching was no substitute, warm from the baths and smelling of lavender and sandalwood soap.

"I shall call the small council and the Niddînaban to meet in the morning," she announced.

"For what cause?" asked Emli.

"The same we discussed at dinner. If the men of Dale and of Laketown cannot provide as greatly for us in crops, I have an idea I'd like to propose to them, on what can be done to grow some of our own."

"Meisar's got a green thumb," Siv chuckled, using the footstool to mount and fling herself lengthwise across the bed, shedding her dress for her sleeping chemise and drawers that she had thrown the garments over in a hurry that morning. "Are you so restless when he's gone that you've got on gardening, m'queen?"

Gardening, growing. I should be growing, and will not be in an empty bed. But I shall not see them starve. Even if I am inside, starving.

"And you've got rosy drawers I see," scolded Eda, joining them on the bed and flinging Siv's skirt back down. The girl would never care, in their own company at least, whether her legs or even her undergarments were on display, but being betrothed had at least motivated her to cover her shoulders in public, and not sit with her feet up. Small progresses, she thought. Small progresses and then some. She could not begrudge Siv much anymore. The girl was teaching her to write.

"It was only an idea, Siv. But for the good of the kingdom, it does not hurt to propose," Meisar grumbled back at her.

"You're lonesome without him," Siv observed pointedly.

"I would rather he be here," Meisar disclosed wistfully. Siv looked at her sympathetically, then Freyda, equally so.

"Aye, I'd miss Nori so if he were gone so too," Siv agreed. "You could say he's grown on me."

"Done more than that on you, I'd suspect," Emli harrumphed. She was off the bed, putting her cloak on and fixing her hair.

"Emli, won't you stay?" Meisar asked.

"A married woman has no place to be at night except by her husband's side. Even such innocuous company is grounds for a smoldering envy. Come along now, Brynja," she flipped the blanket from Brynja efficiently and tugged her up off the bed. "You've got your own to get home to."

"Bofur won't mind," Brynja insisted.

"Oh but he will," Emli rebutted. "He has just too sweet a heart to say it to you plainly, my dear."

With space opened by their departure, the dwarrowdams lay all together under the soft fur coverings, their heads at the pillows in a row of four, and the dogs allowed at their feet. They came in the night now that Thorin was away, to keep the queen company for her worries and melancholy at her husband's absence surfaced more pronounced that any had expected. Freyda had at least kept herself busy stuffing pillows with goose-down in the corner most of the night, to the amusement of the dogs.

"Making for Dwalin so he'll not lay so hard-headed at night. Thought to sew a good lining into a fur blanket I bought yesterday for him." She shoved the last handful in, wiped her eye with the back of one feathered hand. "I miss him, Meisar. Already."

Freyda finally relented and crawled into the empty space next to Meisar. "Believe in me, I know the feeling," Meisar assured her. Inwardly she resented herself even more for sharing the sentiment.

Freyda hugged the pillow that Thorin usually rested on. She hugged it to her chest and lay her chin over it. "What is it like? Having one by yer side when ye sleep? It must be warm. Sometimes I even wish... that Dwalin were in me bed by night. Just so he could have one to sleep in."

"Balin is not keen on you staying the night?" Meisar asked, pointedly. Freyda's ache was the sort that absence brought. She remembered all too well, and she had become adept at reading it in others, especially Freyda. In love, there were few secrets, even amongst friends.

"Oh Meisar, Dwalin don't even have a bed. A pallet. Only put in his order to have one made in the marketplace this day last. All this time I feel I've been impatient with him for no cause. It aches me heart to think I've been so wrapped in me own."

"Do you expect he'll make a wife of you soon?" Eda butted in from the other side of the bed.

"I'll be very glad when Nori's mine. Maybe won't be a'talking me ear off when I'm trying to sleep," Siv groused.

"No, but he'll be doin' other things to keep ye awake," Gyda giggled.

"Enough," Eda declared. "Sleep, all of you. A regent's day begins early. The rest of you will have to abide."

.

In the subterranean dark Meisar woke after a fitful sleep, taking a moment to realize she was not alone, but it was not Thorin. Several patterns of snores surrounded her, the dwarrowdams stirring in their sleep. She bent forward and gathered what he had left at the foot of the bed, garments that were still warm from his body. She hugged the tunic against her cheek, his sleeping-shirt that carried his warm, familiar scent. She lay it on her pillow and held it close, unable to sleep otherwise.

.

The Niddînaban came in the morning to the council chambers, five dwarves, all white-bearded and nobly attired. Four younger apprentices accompanied them, carrying measuring tools and drawing boards under their arms. The Brotherhood of Stone had been regarded by all dwarf clans, hundreds of years strong, as the very highest and noblest of dwarven guilds, the architects of halls and manses, whose forms began in their heads, and were drawn in their books, measured for construction by their tools and tested by their vast knowledge of physics, geology and engineering. Summoned by the queen, they seemed bemused.

"Gamut sanu yenet, athane," the eldest and most elegantly attired, head of the guild no doubt, greeted Meisar with politely in the council chamber. His white beard was arranged in three thick plaits that were clasped in many bands of gold and emerald.

When they went to sit, she invited them to walk with her instead, and her three dogs, along the belvedere above the front gate. The apprentices followed, awkwardly toting their drawing boards and tools.

"For what purpose, my queen, are we called to meet? These are circumstances I am mystified by, I admit. I do ask with due respect," the head of the guild asked, warily.

"The lord of Dale arrived in want of audience here. I met with him and we supped with the small council. So many new face in the cities near it seems, and not just our own from the east. So many in fact that Bard is certain a reduction in our food provisions may be necessary."

"Mahal keep my beard!" one of the apprentices exclaimed aloud, to the silent consternation of the elders. "Does a thin harvest come too?"

"No. It is not a crisis of that nature, and Bard himself does not anticipate it shall be," Meisar avowed.

"My queen, you negotiate with the Lord of Dale on the provision of foodstuffs. Where, may I ask, does the Niddînaban serve in this matter?"

"I am not an engineer by any means, or a mathematician. I know only the cycles of the sun and the habits of the seasons from experience, and ask you this- what would it take to create terraces on the spur of the mountain recipient to the most sunlight? We could grow things if it could be done, if trenches were to be dug deep enough and filled-"

"Grow things? May I ask, in necessary respect, what you mean by grow things? What grows from stone?" the guild-head questioned.

"Not from stone itself, but from soil. Brought in. If we were to acquire necessary material, could we grow crops in hanging gardens, all in the stone itself? Trenches dug into the mountain at a certain depth might support it, if-" Meisar began to weave aloud.

"It is an... exotic, idea my queen," the head dwarf stumbled.

"But practical, you must see," Meisar insisted. "To provide some of our own food, even in times when it is not entirely necessary on our part, it could be for the betterment of this kingdom. Even the whole of the region."

The Niddînaban pardoned themselves and commiserated quietly in a circle amongst themselves a few steps away from her, laying their drawing books against the railing, holding the corners of the sheets against the whip of the wind. Their whispers were at once sharp and then tactfully confused, even amongst themselves. Meisar stared over their heads over the rail, looked to the east and wished so very much a convoy would appear over the hill, a royal standard flying. She missed him so much even in the diligence of her plotting that she was glad the wind came and skidded over her eyes, watering them for her before the tears came. She hated the feeling in her knees like they would give out.

I have lived a life alone. A few more days will not ail me. I hope, I hope.

The head of the guild finally stood back and addressed her again. "The queen has a very bold idea, I believe," he said first.

"We dwarves have always prided ourselves on providing for our own, and the less to mix with these mannish sorts, and elves, the better, I say," the other engineer disagreed stridently.

"I do not ask you to take on this task, especially without consulting the king on my part. I ask only that you consider it. I ask only that you tell me if it can be done," Meisar emphasized.

"The most sunlight?" repeated the second-in-command to the guild-head.

"Yes."

"The southeast spur, I think," another brother answered.

The guild-head put his hand up to his heart and bowed shallowly toward Meisar. "Ikhlêf. It is a... foreign concept to many a dwarf, myself included. But the logistics are sensible, in my opinion. The Brotherhood of Stone will evaluate the prospect, my queen."

.

On the morning of the fifteenth day of his absence, it was Aroin that woke her and not one of her own ladies. She had a way of flinging back the curtains that before the queen's eyes were even opened, she knew who it was standing at the foot of the bed, hands on her hips.

"Inviting the dragon-slayer to sup at our tables, and calling the Brotherhood of Stone for a stroll. Uncanny, my queen," the secretary of Dis's house prattled. Meisar sat up and blinked against the flicker of the sconce still burning on the wall from night. "Uncanny, but not entirely without its merits. I do not like the idea of hunger, that is for certain. But your idea is one the average dwarf in this kingdom will take a great time to digest the notion of. We are better to dig in the stone than the dirt."

"I reign only in my husband's absence now. It was not a command, just an idea."

"Not for long," Aroin interjected. "I bring news my queen. The king shall return this day so the ravens say, early in the afternoon should the weather hold."

"What time is it?"

"Shortly before eleven," Aroin replied.

Meisar leaped from the bed, dismissing her forcefully and calling for Griet or Bertha. It was far too late in the day for her to have risen, in spite of being awake with matters of a certain guild's dispute mediation well into the wee hours. She sent Oliada to fetch Freyda, and when Bertha came to help her dress, she laced her gown in the back only at the bottom, flinging a long extant coat over it. She went to gather Dis and her household to greet the returning retinue, but she was not there. Gone on a walk on her own, said she needed it, Aroin had shrugged, and it would have struck the queen as odd in any other instant, but now, there was but one all-possessing intent. A greed for the whole of her mind, that desire, that need. She felt a twinge of shame for it, the primal nature of it, seeing her mental capabilities as regent, still standing until the moment he walked through that gate, as ardently pushed away as she hoped her clothes would be soon.

At the gate she stood, unabashedly trembling with mirth for the joy of his return, the anticipation of his sight, and the heat of her own need, that he might lay with her with the same need, after coming back into his stead. She paced back and forth and rocked on the balls on her feet, which amused Balin. All the council and Dori and Nori, Bofur joining Brynja, were there to await him, when the news came that the envoy was near. Dis had not yet come, which she found even more peculiar, but her reasons were ever her own, and she dismissed whatever curiosity it caused her.

"You have been extraordinarily busy of mind, and simultaneously... bereft, it seems," Balin remarked.

"How do you know me so well, Balin?" Meisar asked only slightly sarcastically.

"You are easier to read than you think," the old dwarf said.

"The king's envoy is over the hill. They have been sighted," a sentry announced.

The loneliness seemed to drop from where it always had settled in her chest and dissipate away in an instant. Dwarves began to gather close to the front gate of the city and on the steps above, lining the belvedere in crowds so dense the sentries had to disperse them more thinly. The formation of horses and the several odd wagons packed with their coffers slowly made their way down the rocky slope of the hill just east of the mountain. A flag bearing the sigil of Durin's House was raised high above the gates of Dale, signalling to its inhabitants the coming of the king under the mountain. Dwarves came out from the gate to line the road, merchants at their wagons and the Eastern dwarves, alien in their dress and in their ways.

At the end of the bridge, with the sentries pulling back their pikes all at once above on the belvedere, Thorin dismounted his pony and made his way across the bridge into his home. Dwalin and Oin followed close, Ori then, taking steps that suggested a deep ache in his back and a numbness to the legs that rendered them wobbling like a calf. Stewards rushed to unload their coffers and see to the ponies.

"My queen."

"My king," she offered a deep curtsy, knowing what the eyes upon her might surmise, or expect. A queen was a queen after all. If they could only see how my heart beats, like a horse's hooves in a charge. Not like a rash wanton would she cover his face in a frenzy of kisses, not the presence of them. It is our secret knowledge, the depth of that passion. It is mine alone to know the mirth of his face when he returns to me in true.

Thorin, without mind to the eyes upon him, embraced her first, not a word passing his lips adequate enough to express what he conveyed in that embrace alone. It needed no words. She rested her head calmly and staidly to his shoulder, in a manner befitting a queen. The armor was cool and slick from the morning's drizzle against her cheek. His hair smelled of rain.

"Welcome home my king," was all she could bring herself to utter.

"Yes, Yes, welcome. I pray you are well, my king, and your journey not so arduous," Balin offered.

"I am very tired, Balin, and sore. I am in want of my own bed. I shall be occupied by it the rest of the afternoon," Thorin informed him.

"And the queen?" inquired Balin, though cheekily; he knew the answer.

"Aye," was all Thorin said, and he proffered his arm in want of a swift departure. Balin's back was turned when Dwalin, toward Freyda, did the same.

.

In their private quarters the antechamber doors swung open and were flung shut again, rattling even Oliada outside by their force. Fred and Redcoat and Raincloud leapt and yowled but the bedchamber door shut as firmly in their snouts.

"My king..." She pushed his hair aside and filled the hollow of his neck with kisses, burying herself into his thick, long hair, covering herself with it. His arms circled around her, pulled her tight against his torso. "Thorin..."

A damp layer of rain and perspiration coated his cool skin; his scent was earthy and masculine. She untangled his hair with her fingers, pressing frenzied kisses over and over to his lips, his throat. Her appetite had become something that made her delirious when she was away from him too long. It made her swell in the confines of the bodice and tremble from knees to the very place that needed him with equal fervor.

"Meisar," he sighed low. "When I go afar, my heart is empty without you."

She ran her hands over his back and kneaded at him over his clothes, clutching tight at him. The armor put the complications of female garments to shame.

"Would you share a bath, my darling?"

"I would rather make love to you first." Standing behind her, rubbing her neck with abrasive kisses, he slipped from her shoulders the over-gown she has purposely left unlaced. It fell in a whoosh at her feet, leaving her under-skirt and chemise with its buttoned camisole top.

"The hot water will make you feel better," she hummed softly, teasing his lower lip with the vibration of it. He steadied himself by gripping the table behind him, as the kisses migrated down his neck.

"Aye, but to do that, I need undress, and my queen must help me. I am so very tired." The muscles that were sore and bunched from riding all day began to loosen and relax. She pulled the breastplate off after a clumsy effort, weakened by her joy, then the arming doublet. She began to pluck out the leather laces of the suede vest in front, but they knotted and webbed on her fingers.

"Keep going, my queen. You are doing well," he encouraged with a laugh that tried its best to conceal the fury of his desire underneath. He brushed a playful kiss against the peak of her cheek, but his hands were on her chest again by then, blunt thick fingers unused to such work, on the tiny buttons that fastened the camisole front of her shift. She was about to shift her fingers to aid him when she felt the onslaught of that familiar rumble seize in his throat, and the buttons snapping clean from their moorings to burst and whiz past, making excited plinks on the stone floor, and his favorite pillows unhindered, pressed flush to the cold surface of his chest, stiffening against him. Thorin dipped his head to bury his face warmly into the fleshed pillow of her bosom. A face-full of those heaving, lovely peaks brought him a deep, comforting satisfaction and pleasure. Her skin smelled warm like myrrh; he let a hum that tickled her skin, and covered the erect, waiting nipple in searing kisses. He suckled the engorged points until she cried out with prurient delight.

"Let me," she pleaded, plucking loose the laces that held the high collar of his tunic. As he kissed her she let her hands guide themselves down the path of his sides, until she could feel the leather line of his trousers beneath, yanking the tunic upward from there and over his head at last. Hungrily she buried her face and a nipping series of kisses to his bare shoulder. His pure, earthy scent assailed her, richly. It was primal; it made her need pique and stammer inside her, clawing for breath.

Her back hit the bed not quite hard enough to knock the breath from her, but there were black spots floating in her peripheral vision, the runes on the ceiling bending and shaping, and Thorin, perched on the end of the bed at her feet, began to paw his way up her skirt and fling the expanse of fabric aside, furiously tunneling upward, then as deftly as he parted the chaos of fabric, pushed it upward and let it bunch over her chest and the torn camisole that left one bosom bare, pulling from beneath it down her ribcage and from the dip of waist circled lower and inward and found her first with his fingers, slipping into the heated folds one at a time.

"I cannot bear another moment without you." He parted the orange curls and opened the pink fruit, so slick with desire already it made him groan. It was an agony that pushed him yet further into a state of bliss. His desperation knew nothing for it, no salve except her velvet walls around him.

His dense weight pinned her and was lifted from her again, his grunt of frustration preceding the laces of his breeches snapping open with a sound like a whip. He wrestled the trousers and smallclothes from the vital parts, not even slipping below a half-moon of arse before he was hilted, his base to hers. She felt the sudden, hard heat claim her body with jarring immediacy, bumping the end point of her womanhood's passage hard enough it seemed to bounce from her ribcage and even to the back of her spine, bones becoming jelly, willing themselves to bend and move with him. She welcomed the touch of his skin, the heat and weight of him, and the denser heat pushing at her centrifuge, an intrusion unhinged but welcomed.

Tongue slipped past her lips, his hair a messed veil coming down, and dark hairs tangling past her lips in the frenzy of their tongues, wrapping like a wire over the tip of hers, which she plucked out with a laugh. She lay back and gripped the edge of the bed for dear life, hips drawn upward against the thrusts that came immediate and hurried, wrapped her legs tight about the small of his back with ankles crossed just above his muscles clenched tight with newly-sprung joy around his length, and soon he was crashing his hips against hers, slamming into her core. She found herself screaming half in pleasure half in shock, so that surely any passing by their chambers would gain an earful and then some.

He lowered his head to kiss her, sliding tongue past lips momentarily parted in the ardency of desire again, to couple and align with his rhythm below, uneven, frenzied as it was, fingers digging deep into soft fleshy hips and migrating swiftly before he could kiss her and thrust again, anchoring their tips into her thigh. In another circumstance, the urgency of their coupling may have alarmed her; the absolute greed of it, unbridled and rough in its undulations, enough to leave her sore for days afterward, she reckoned, and cared not for it. She would have let him take her over and over again, until exhaustion in its most breathless, even unconscious, form claimed one of them.

A quick oscillation of hips came again, belly-to-belly, undulating to and fro once more, and he spent into her in heavy spurts. The first drew a reckless throaty moan from deep in his chest, the second a settled hum, and the third he simply collapsed fully on her and heaved one livid breath after another.

"Thorin…. Thorin…." She grasped for his lips with hers. It softened deep within her and finally withdrew after much eager, desperate thrusting. Meisar's deep exhalation at the sudden absence sent a plume of feverish breath against his chest.

His answer was a drawn-out and strangely articulate grunt. How he had missed her. His sweet, yielding Meisar. Her company, her gentle earthiness and soft, warm, voluptuous body beside him. Exhausted, their clothing torn open, his breeches twisted halfway down the thick ropes of upper thighs and still-throbbing length plastered, softened, to the inner plain of one. Her legs were apart and drawn up, torn skirt strewn to the side.

"Now," he panted, sated. "It is a good time for a bath."

When he stood she followed up and released the last ties of his breeches, as his his steady rumbling laugh interrupted her ardent task until the leather and the calico of smallclothes together fell away and he kicked them sideways. She shed the ravaged garments from her own body, still throbbing from the encounter all over, her head light, hair a mess.

"Sing hey for a bath at the close of the day, that washes the weary mud away," he began to warble deep as she moved his discarded clothes away with her foot, checked him for scars. "A hobbit song," he explained. "Knowing the joy of these small comforts, my queen."

The floor of stone was warm beneath her feet in the bath, and the soothing scent of hot water hung in the air in the bath. Here the springs formed an oasis in stone, the bath heated by a constant flow from deep inside the mountain. Meisar shivered. The cold had seeped into her bones and refused to leave. The air in here was warm and fragrant with lemongrass. Steam lingered atop the water and seemed to shroud Thorin in its Elysian mist. He went on singing, washing his arms, his back in hot handfuls of water.

A loon he is that will not sing, for water hot is a noble thing

She stepped into the water after him, the nipples curled and darkened when she came above the surface again, her hair all swept behind, floating peacefully on the water's surface behind her. When she walked to him, it looked like the tail of a great comet, all fire and grace. She dipped the ewer into the heat of the water and poured a warm stream over Thorin's hair. He shifted to the side in the warm water, sending little ripples over the steam-draped surface, a deep satisfied rumble further expressing the soothing sensation of the water against his body. He closed his eyes and put out his arms for her. She put her cheek against his damp chest.

"How ever will I get you clean, my blessing? Where do I start?" she considered, taking a warm, wet towel and scrubbing the flimsy sprays of dirt from his neck, his sun-creased brow.

"Best you start with my hair, to let the cleansing elements settle."

Agreeably, she wet his hair and took the black glass bottle from the side of the tub, letting its fragrance escape and catch in the heavy steamed air. She sprinkled water from the white shell on his head.

O sweet the sound of falling rain and the brook that leaps from hill to plain. He faced her, still rumbling the sweet song, letting her continue her rain and moving wet hands from her bosom down to the round of her belly, until she was satisfied his hair was well-saturated for the cleansing soap.

But better than rain or rippling streams, is water hot that smokes and steams.

As he relaxed into the water, she buried her fingers in his rain-tangled mane, rubbing the elixir into his scalp thoroughly all over, running her fingers carefully through the tangles. "They call it a… shampoo. Hair soap. I think it is an Elvish word," she imparted.

"Ha!" he chuckled. "We make our own. We simply call it hair soap. No need for fancy words."

"You will like this one I think." Letting the hair soap settle, she ran another deluged sponge along the back of his neck, massaged his tired shoulders, his smarting neck, lathering his earth-stained skin with soap made from the herbs and spices of men. It was a good, masculine scent that soothed him and inflamed her. Earth and dried sweat sloughed off in its wake.

"Bathing you like a small child come home from playing in the dirt," she laughed softly. "Am I wrong to enjoy my task so?"

"No. I am enjoying it more, I dare say."

She continued. As devotedly, she washed every inch and every crevice of his skin, earth-stained, journey-weary and sweaty. It lathered in fragrant whorls over his body hair and the earthy skin beneath. His wet hair tickled her cheeks and forehead when he leaned to her and they rested forehead to forehead under the heat of the water. Her lower body felt buoyant in the water and she bobbed lightly against him, her head at his shoulder, her arms clasped tight around his neck and back. The feral scent of his body and the soothing mineral aroma of the heated water mingled together. She lifted his arm and lathered the thatches of underarm hair with soft-smelling sandalwood soap. She lathered his chest and watched the hair there curl into stubborn licks.

Once he had dipped his head a long while back into the water, churned the dark mane to loosen the hair soap from it, he surfaced and let out an exhausted sigh, as if the task had itself been too much to endure after such a day. But he then flung his head back spraying her with the soapy emulsion. The last he heard was his queen's deep, soothing laugh before there was just the bubbling of the water in his ears. He closed his eyes, relaxant, as she massaged his scalp, hardly pretending that his hair needed any more washing.

Dizziness set in the heat and steam of the bath and she excused herself to make the bed ready, grinning. Leaving him to finish, shivering in the jarring cold of the chamber, she slipped on linen drawers and her robe. In the bathing chamber she could hear him singing again, a sanguine lilt, pastoral and carefree. O water fair that leaps on high, in a fountain white beneath the sky

She tossed the sheets off the bed and replaced them, the new warmed from sitting near the fire. The room was in chaos elsewhere, boysenberry-and-fern of her loose over-gown, brocade crumpled in a heap under the weight of the breastplate that was thrown atop it, the linen camisole the next line in the trail, split down its front, button-holes torn to make a single jagged opening, and her underskirt torn also, unable to be removed intact quickly enough.

But never did fountain sound so sweet, as splashing hot water with my feet. A sploshing series sounded on the other side of the door, in tandem.

"It is a homecoming I am grateful for that you have given me. So very grateful," his tired voice entered her periphery and then his arms, wrapping at her waist, pressing against her with a drawn-out tenderness. He held her face lovingly in his hands, the hard palms still hot from the bath, as she toweled away the stubborn drops of water dripping from the ends of his hair down his chest and belly and seated herself, gathering Thorin's hair to rest over the back of his shoulders, still tangled from the bath and in need of tending. This was her favorite of all tasks- not really a task but a sensual privilege that was hers alone, as Thorin had very long and abundant hair. She fluffed his thick sopping hair with her fingers to help it dry, while he reciprocated as best he could. But soon the task had tired them both to their fullest.

Retiring, she folded her legs beneath her on the bed and welcomed Thorin to her side there, studied the expanse of his broad back, the sinews and the muscles of a century spent over forges and bloody fields. She followed the shadows on his skin.

"You are tauter than a bowstring. I shall rub your back for you."

"I would like that." Thorin, nakedly expressive in that wistfulness, turned and reclined again over the pillow. She knelt over the back of his thighs, breasts hanging low and unhindered, so heavy and generous in their proportions their tips almost brushed his back when she leaned over him to begin her work. She studied its marks- an ax that barely missed the back of his neck; some fumbling goblin trying to fulfill a ransom no doubt. Young, reckless swordplay with Dwalin. Battles. So many battles. At least the warg bite peeping out from the dip of his waist didn't look quite so menacing anymore, now that time under the mountain had left him much paler. She began to massage at the skin and into the muscles gently, paying especial attention to his aching shoulders and the slight throb in the center of his back from riding.

"That is very pleasing, adyum." He liked the pressure of her thighs on their side of his hips, straddling him, but more tender and practical, than in the lewd and rushed way he had known her in the afternoon.

Slowly she pushed the heel of her palm into the sensitive dip just beneath his shoulder blade. The snap of fire-crested logs soothed his busy mind, and the warmth of his own bed- their own bed, was none greater. She circled her thumbs firmly against the divots above his bottom. Collecting each of his firm, round globes in her palms over the light sleeping-breeches she kneaded carefully against them after a long tease. She rubbed the small of his back again then in tiny circles with her thumbs until he groaned in sleepy delight. She rested her head to middle of his back between his shoulders, listened to the tempering thump of his heart through the fragrant skin.

"Thorin... I am so very glad to have you back with me. I need you more than you know."

"Menu tessu, athune," He rolled and his arm stretched over his head on the pillow. "Lay with me, my queen. I would have you in my arms this night."

She brushed against Thorin's face with her lashes when he finally joined her in the swaddle of the new bedding, warm and safe. His tired eyes and slim, un-expressive mouth begged her in its own way for the tenderest of greetings after the fury of their initial reunion, the strains of passions necessarily smoothing into such an afterglow. He could tell her what he desired without saying, she thought, a private knowledge, like a secret language, that none but she could read. Her greed was not for gold or power but exclusivity. Thorin belonged to his people, but here, this, was the inner sanctuary of his body and his very soul that belonged to her alone.

"Another night without you I may never have known a peaceable sleep again. It was far too long," he breathed, his breath hot into her scalp.

"It was," she agreed.

"My possessive queen," he lightly teased. "So envious of my duty I see."

"If it is, then I kindle the fiercest and most jealous love there is: for your time, my king," Meisar breathed. She tucked her head under Thorin's chin and hid her face against his neck. "But let us not speak of greed or envy. You are home, and I am the happiest I have been in many days."

.

Dayamu Khuzan-ai menu- Blessings of the ancestors be upon you (form of goodbye)

Gamut sanu yenet, athane- Well met, my queen

Niddînaban- Brotherhood of Stone, a special guild of dwarven engineers

Ikhlêf- The act of growing food

Adyum- My Blessing

Menu Tessu- You are everything