AUTHOR'S NOTE: I regret the lack of update after the turning point we left off on, but there's been a death in the family and it's unfortunately been a prolonged process, before and after. I'm back home in the states now after quite awhile away dealing with things and glad to be back on writing something happy.
I suppose we must all have our long nights. There is death but there is rebirth.
Thus, I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.
.
UMAHA- Greatest Creation
.
"Are you certain of this?"
Oin slung his scope again over his shoulder. "It is a certainty. And with the queen bin'af, a month foregone perhaps, with all other symptoms present, methinks you will have an heir by early spring."
"What do you say to this, Eda?" Thorin reiterated. His eyes blazed brightly open, pinked at the corners already with the oncoming tears.
"I have been present at many dwarrowdams' inquiries of the same, and it is... it is quite certain I think," Eda answered, her voice filtering throaty though elation. She collected the jug of wine still sitting by the fire, gave it to the chambermaids to whisk off. Smiling craftily, she turned to Meisar again. "A wee in a stout wine is a sure indicator anyway. Hasn't been wrong yet. A hardy mead the average dwarrowdam won't be so keen to pollute, though I find most are willing to have a wee in Elvish wine. The best for it, really."
"I would be amused, Eda, as to how you arrived at that conclusion," Thorin sardonically intoned.
"Experimentation, and patience. Much like yourself," replied Eda.
Meisar leaned heavily on Thorin's arm, holding the crook of his elbow through his heavy robes. There will be spring lambs after all.
"Mahal makes all things that are meant to be," added Oin, "and the dwarves have given Him a long list these years of late. Now it is your turn, majesties. May the Great Smith and Yavanna bless this child." He knelt and begged her hand to kiss. "Blessings to you, my queen. Your joy is mine, and all the kingdom's soon. It is our hope you carry now."
"It is joy," Meisar whispered, tremulous. Oin considered the trembling of her hand, encapsulated it within both of his and patted the top of hers comfortingly.
"Let us give the king and queen a moment alone. Come along now," Eda nudged Oin to his feet, and hustled him out of the room, leaving them alone at last.
Passing her hand down her face in stunned silence, she stopped at her mouth and exhaled high and mightily into her palm. The tears came to the corners of her eyes and then flowed free and hot.
"Mahal brace me," she whispered. "It is true? Tell me I am in a dream, Thorin."
"I would trust the wisdom of healers my darling," Thorin's eyes started to illuminate from cold seas to the gentle blue of a summer's pond. He kissed her temple, rubbed her shoulders. She began to move woozily from foot to foot before him, hand still plastered to her face, wiping swiftly-coming tears. "And it is no dream."
"If it is, do not let me wake."
"Mizimel," he wrapped his arms firmly around her shoulders. Her weight seemed to drop to her feet and he braced, supporting her. Even though there was a dull ache in her head since morning, the pulse was one of joy, of life.
"Thorin," she breathed. She leaned up to kiss his cheek in a dreamy haze, her arms slowly snaking around his back. Burying his face into the crease of her neck he rocked side to side with her embraced close.
"Jewel of my heart." He kissed her swiftly on the mouth and took her hands up to his lips to kiss. "If only you knew how long I have waited for such happiness. I never thought I would know it again, and for myself..."
Fili and Kili were gone, that light which shined in the darkness extinguished, without mercy or reason. Although she knew that nothing could replace them, she hoped a child of his own would begin to fill up the empty space, that drained sea. Tears sprung to her eyes just imagining such a moment, like a dream, lost in time.
Kneeling, he framed her stomach on either side in his sturdy hands, but with care that rendered his touch airy against her. He pressed his face to the silk of her stomacher and placed a long, reverent kiss to her stomach, unchanged still in its swell.
"My king, none can bring this darkness back into the world so we have this," she vowed. An heir in her womb had taken at last. She was not barren. She was ripe and fertile for life to take, strong to carry her child, their child. I am no spring maid she remembered, but smiled peacefully to herself. I am a woman. I am a queen.
Thorin paused and kissed her stomach again, as if the new life within could hear and feel his presence already. Only a little bairn. A thimble. A pebble. Tucked in a quiet corner of her womb to settle and grow strong.
"It is a strange miracle, amralime," Meisar supposed aloud. An inconvenient truth sat heavily in her head, as relentless as the ache that had plagued her since morning. It was not for her to say though, not yet anyway.
"My heart is too akin to you to have failed in this duty. It is all I know," Thorin surmised.
"As my heart is akin to you, adyum," Meisar answered coyly. "So much I would do anything for the sake of it. Anything."
"I would share this joy with all the kingdom. Let the bells ring this night for it," Thorin's voice trebled. She stroked the crown of his hair gently as he rested, suspended in breathy quiet, against her torso.
"No, this is our day, ours alone," Meisar insisted. "Ring the bells at eventide tomorrow, perhaps."
"Aye, it is ours," he whispered, sighing against her belly again. "Amâ."
A stampede of feet rushing outside the door brought Thorin again to his feet. Small steps, but swift as a hummingbird's hear; she knew Emli's stride even from afar, leading the pack.
"Eda and Oin have made their own announcement it would seem," Thorin quirked gently. "So much for our time." He stood as they flooded in, a smirk of amusement upon his lips to see their crowing and jostling about each other before them.
"Is it? Is it so?" Emli choked, her decorum overrun. Aroin stood behind her, jockeying to surge forward but Emli stood firmly in her way, girded by Gloin and Gimli on either side, along with Brynja, Gyda, and Balin.
"If Oin is to be believed," Meisar answered coyly.
"My brother is the finest healer in all the seven kingdoms. I should think him correct on the matter," insisted Gloin, brusquely.
"Then I will trust in it, and Eda's wisdom too, for they say I am with child," Meisar confirmed.
"Nutunat!" Emli cried with joy, her hands clasped up in the air toward the high ceiling, to Gimli and Gloin's side glances.
"How long? A week? A month?" Gyda crowed.
"Early is all to say, no more than one cycle of the moon," Meisar answered. Only a little ember, flicking to life tucked safely somewhere in her ovary, a pinprick, a tiny light. Her child.
The chamber door opened with a great rattle, the tightly packed line of their court parting for Ori to pass through.
"My king, you are desired with some urgency at the Council Hall," Ori bowed nervously, shirking from the crowd of dwarves in the chamber that were glaring at him by then.
"Now?" squawked Emli. "Of all times?"
Ori's jaw trembled, agape. "Yes, I- my king, do I come at a bad time?" He started to withdraw with the parchment clutched anxiously in both hands.
"Quite the opposite, Ori." Thorin placed his hand wordlessly on Meisar's stomach. The penumbra of Dis's form behind the door moved clandestinely. She waited there in silence.
"Attend on the matter, Thorin. I will be fine here," Meisar assured.
"Are you certain?" Thorin glanced with irritation back at Ori, shrugging helplessly.
"Quite so. The kingdom does not stop for grief, nor joy."
Hesitantly, Thorin withdrew, Balin and Gloin following, leaving her alone with the dwarrowdams. Emli slipped the silk sur-coat from her shoulders and hustled it off.
"Emli, what on earth are you doing?"
"Attending properly upon the expectant queen," Emli replied crisply. "You must rest. Girls, find her a comfortable shift. Loose clothing is best."
"Rest?"
"Into bed with you." She waved her hand efficiently at the goggle-eyed maidservants who had slipped past toward her armoire, obediently.
"I don't think this is necessary," Meisar protested.
"You must not exert yourself in these delicate first weeks," Emli admonished again, pulling off Meisar's shoes and exchanging them for the slippers at the foot of the bed. "Plump the pillows, my good girls. Quickly now."
"Delicate? A dwarf woman? Imagine." Griet and Bertha plumped the pillows behind her, turned down the covers.
"Yes, it is nearly unheard of for a dwarven pregnancy to be lost, being that we are the heartiest of all the races," Eda smiled proudly and then looked stern and purposeful again. "But with this royal heir we will take no chances. Emli is correct."
"Am I to lie in bed all day?" Meisar asked dispiritedly.
"Essentially, but only for a week or two," Emli replied.
"Only a week or two. I shall be driven mad!"
"Itlim," Emli soothed. "The rest will do you well anyway. You exert your energies far too much, and now, this child will require all that you have."
"I will give it then," Meisar answered. Emli called for her slippers again, affectionately slid them onto her feet beneath the blanket. The ebullience of the dwarrowdams careened from mooning to attentive, following Emli's lead. Emli gave orders one after the other. Keep the fireplaces cleaned, every day swept thoroughly, and the air fresh and sweet with flowers. A jug of fresh, cool water was to kept at her bedside at all times. She wrote a series of directives on a sheet of parchment and sent the new maidservant on her way to Dale to acquire teas and herbs at a particular stall where expectant mothers of all races purchased supplements.
The maid in her cloak went on her way out the door and Dis's visage flashed again in the shadows behind, still silently. Meisar summoned her in, the dwarrowdams politely curtsying, Emli vacating her spot in the armchair she had pulled up to the side of the bed, so Dis could sit.
"I am glad for such a fulsome attendance then. But pray excuse myself and the princess a moment," Meisar requested gently.
"Your majesty, highness," Emli curtsied lightly to each of them in turn once more. Gyda, Brynja and the chambermaids followed obediently behind her.
"We will keep a careful tart, my queen. You must tell me all, for I have been with child too," Emli insisted. "As has the princess," she added with a hesitant twinge.
"Indeed I have," said Dis as they withdrew. Meisar placed her palm gently against her own stomach, still unchanged in its swelling from anytime before.
"It worked," she said succinctly to Dis.
"It did."
"What shall we say of it?"
Dis squeezed her hand, still clasped against her stomach. "Leave that to me, and at a later time. Let this child prove the worthiness of our act."
"I put my trust in you and others, for the sake of this. I must be at peace with it then," Meisar concluded. "And this... confinement."
"When I first discovered I was carrying Fili, they did the same to me, the healers, the other women. I wasn't allowed to leave my bed for a week, and it was a very lumpy bed," Dis recalled with a bitten wistfulness.
"I will need someone who knows what they are doing to assist in the gardens," Meisar remembered suddenly. The harvest was fast approaching. "What use am I to lie in bed?" Her desultory sense of movement made the prospect a little less jarring. Thinking of the elevating bucket and winch to bring her up to the garden brought a tea-infused bile to her throat.
"Your nardel is to see this child through now," Dis admonished gently. "Surely we have given too much, risked too much by now to let that be endangered."
"Yes, and it will have been worth it. Sister, I carry a child now," her lower jaw trembled with the discombobulate joy.
"Kayalu Durin," said Dis dreamily. "It is unbroken now. I thought I would be the last, that it would die with me. But it shall lie on now, and nothing could make me gladder."
"It should not have died with your sons," Meisar said carefully.
"It will live with yours now," comforted Dis.
"I am sorry I ever doubted you," Meisar sighed. "You were right all along."
"There is nothing to forgive. It was all for this, for... us," Dis assured quietly. "For all of us."
.
Bin'af- without moon cycle
Amâ- Ours
Nututnat- At last!
Kayalu- lineage of
Itlim- have patience!
Nardel- Care of All Cares
Tart- Vigil