A/N: Going back, I realized I made a slight continuity error. Brundin is six months old at this point, not four.
.
I am forgetting something.
Until the baby kicked again to remind her, Meisar had spaced out from the quiet half-light of the chamber, listening to Griet sing an old shanty in her halting lilt out in the antechamber, where she was helping to fold the laundresses' drop-offs for the week. A strange urge had come over her that day, one that surpassed the debilitating swell of her ankles and general languor, and sent her to every surface of their respective antechambers, bedroom and nursery, wiping dust and shaking out the dogs' beds and their own pillows, tidying every table and shelf until Bertha insisted she sit and rest and let the chambermaids see to it.
"Nesting is what they call it. Birds do it, to make the nest a comfortable spot for their young," Elsa explained, the nursemaid sent down by Dis herself to see that she complied with the orders. Elsa left in the afternoon though, to see to Dis's calisthenics and make her her tonics, as her stomach was bothering her inexplicably again. It left her alone with the two maids once Brynja and Emli had gone after a briefer than usual day of duty, to take in the marketplaces' offerings.
She sat on the high-backed chair, squirming, her armpits sweating heavily and chafing in between her thighs and in the crease that had formed under the bump of her belly. Her hair felt lank, and she was hot and itchy in spite of the cold that was holding firm above the mountain.
"Would you ready me a bath, Griet? I would be grateful," Meisar requested, peering her head through the half open door down to the maid at her work. Bertha had joined her, their guttural kvetching and gossiping since replacing the gentle song of the younger maidservant.
"Yes, m'queen," Griet said, rising. She took up towel for her from the new pile, still warm from drying by the fire. Meisar sat in her chair, exhausted but restless at the same, as Griet hummed and sang and made certain the water was hot and fragrant with peppermint soaps. The girl sat in the bathing chamber folding up the bathroom linens discreetly at the far end of the tub, lest she slip and fall unaccompanied. Fortunately, her modesty had become a thing of the past with the dwarrowdams' familiarity with each other in the common baths, and Griet's sneaking study of her belly was less discomfiting than bringing about an odd sort of pride in her.
Griet was sent off with an extra silver piece in her pouch, for helping to wash and to comb and set her hair, an arduous task indeed for its quantity. But the maidservant went on and knelt calmly at the edge of the tub and singing her shanties, then holding Meisar's hand to climb out, helping her to dry and setting out her nightclothes for her to warm by the fire.
By the time she turned around though and returned from seeing Griet and Bertha off, the fire was dying again. She grumbled and bent low to kindle it again, wrapping the thin knit shawl draped across her chair around her still-damp shoulders to cover her nakedness and chill. She didn't hear Thorin come in.
"Meisar, what in Mahal's name are you doing?" he admonished from behind. She was pulled up gently from under her arms and sat back down by Thorin's commanding, assuring grasp on the lounger, while he went about the fire, sweeping his great robe behind him lest it be kindled too.
"Thorin I am not helpless!"
"But you are cold," he insisted. His eyes narrowed, admonishing her gravely.
"I'm getting the fire up so I won't be," Meisar protested. Thorin grunted and swept up a warm fur from the back of the lounger, bringing it around her back. She squirmed as it touched the wet skin there.
"You'll get a chill. You sick and the child too is of no good to anyone," Thorin said brusquely, wrapping the fur again for good measure around her shoulders and pulling it closed in front, tugging her close to him with it, his embrace fleeting though. "Sit. I will rekindle the fire."
In surrender, tired anyhow, she groaned as she plunked on the chaise lounger he had brought in from the antechamber that morning, lest the stiff, high-backed chair be a discomfort to her. When the fire was crackling steadily again he retired to her side, rubbed her shoulders over the furs, leaned his chin into her forehead and her against his side.
"Are you cold?" he asked.
"Not anymore." She rested her head and still-damp hair on the top of his knee. His thigh, his strong, thick, well-muscled thigh twitched beneath the contact of her cheek, rumbling a sigh against it. It flexed a little on top, adjusting, bringing her head a little higher up his leg until she was almost at the juncture of his waist. She felt the kneecap under his elegant black breeches, the boot still on, its fur lining peeking up just below the knee. He smelled there of winter wind and the cider stalls of the foyer.
Her hand slid beneath his tunic to slide up along the bare, muscled flank of his waist, herself wriggling up a little out of the enclosure of the fur, leaving her shoulders bare, the fur wrapped under her arms. Both arms then slid around Thorin's waist, under his shirt.
"Your touch warms me and makes me quite happy indeed," Thorin murmured into her hair, taking the soap scent deeply. He drew his fingertips along the outside of her upper arms, down and up again, contemplatively. The soft density of her chest nestled itself intently into the crease of his lap, her hips twisted to let her belly press out to the side, a pale sliver peeking out from the dark brown fur.
His palm slid down into the fur and traced along her spine.
"Thorin…" she whispered. She sat up and pressed her mouth to his, voraciously needing. The fervid, greedy mouth of this indulging at last to a pure thing to ache for unbridled and without moderation.
He pulled away though, with a concerned, sharp exhale. "Mahal! I desire you also but I am certain it is a risk. We should not..."
"It's alright, I promise," Meisar murmured into his skin. It is one's clarion call, she reckoned to herself, there for good purpose, any time it kindled. "I promise..."
"Show yourself to me," he murmured.
Gladly, she stood to drop the fur.
"Bunmel," he murmured, settling back to take in her sight, silhouetted by the fire.
"Even in this state?" she suppressed an old urge to cover herself. Small darkening halos appeared around her nipples, the buds never far from a darkish mahogany turning a reddish color as the swells grew and ached like they had when she was a girl first acquiring them. And the cynosure of it all, the pale swell of her belly that held his heir, still growing, and acquiring a fine line grew from a whisper to a bold streak running from the bottom half of her swell to the line of her privates. He parsed his fingers through the hair at her mound, lushly shadowed by the bump of her belly, and softened from the bath still.
He tugged her behind her thighs in his strong hands and tugged her closer, laid kisses to the belly and ached to feel a response deep within. From her it was only a soft sigh of contentment, fingering his temple braid to anchor his head close.
"You were my Firebeard princess all along," Thorin murmured. The blue in his eyes grew black, Meisar's body delectable to him, her sumptuous pregnant belly and widening hips giving further voluptuousness to her form. For it was their own child that spurred her body so, her glow stubborn even under the dark blotches across her nose and forehead. The zenith of her beauty as a dwarrowdam was in her motherhood, he thought, with warmth and then, with cooling ardency, considered the strain and wear of Dis's pregnancies and now his wife's. How she shifted on her small, swelling feet and winced, and he was, at that moment, decided.
"Go to bed," he murmured. "I'll put another log to the fire. We'll need stay warm."
When he was satisfied with the fire he came and slid beneath the covers up to his waist and rested both hands together on his stomach, fidgeting. He put his arms out for her to come to him after a moment.
"Will you then?" she scooted over delicately and kissed his hand, up the forefinger with intent.
"Aye, if you are certain and..." he squirmed, the rising ache in his jewels demanded he acquiesce.
"How do we… now?" he asked awkwardly to her. He sat up at a slight angle against the pillows on his side of the bed, bending his legs at the knee so that his thighs supported her against the voluptuous breadth of her bum. His hand on her face tickled her along her jawline, edgy with concern. She pulled his wrist in to hold it there, kissed his palm again and again, down to his wrist until she felt him stirring beneath her. Squeezing her knees a little against his flanks, she smiled down upon him, riding him, commanding his movements as if he were a very fidgety pony. Her straddling his thighs gave him pause, the tense fibers of him all unwinding for the full-fleshed touch of her, the surprise of her density atop him.
"The baby," he murmured. He pushed his palm flat against her stomach and palpitated, carefully. He held it in both hands like a delicate glass.
"Is in a good mood today I think," she smiled with her eyes. "I think I can tell sometimes."
"Slowly," he cautioned, hands gripped tight on her hips. His need rose to answer hers in kind, and he cradled the low, heavy orbs of her breasts from their undersides and lifted them in his palms, finding them lusher and fuller than ever, and they had never been ungenerous. The tip pushed tentatively into the folds of her nethers, stoking stalk and bud with careful, tight circles.
"Tell me when you are ready," he muttered lowly. She let her palms slide over the curve of his chest, the pectoral muscles stubbornly hard even with age, twitching and shifting beneath the haired surface of his skin.
"I am."
Meisar groaned lightly with the renewed, visceral experience of being filled the way Thorin only could fill her. But to rise up and down over him, bringing the iron-hot flesh into her and sealing him again within the still-taut walls… even this was a new rigor, her belly so heavy already and lungs crowded and feeling as if they had been pleated up in her chest (and there were months still left…).
A moan cracked slowly from him with his release, glutes of his backside squeezed tight beneath him to stave off the need to writhe and buck upward against her. She rode her own satisfaction slowly. Relief throbbed then ebbed between them. Her belly bounced a little and he steadied it with strong, assured hands, feeling her, feeling the baby stirring healthily.
The twitching of her broad, heavy hips, even in her pregnant state, begged wordlessly (except for her tiny croaks) for a drawn-out conclusion. He wrenched her bum in his hands and used it to steer her gently side to side over him. The heat traveled up her spine in a slow glow of relief. Her back, like every part of her, had been sore from the weight of the baby, incurably. She flexed her shoulders and arched her back still sitting over him, crackling it with a sigh.
"Better?" he hummed.
She bent down to kiss him in what he supposed to be a yes, only her belly buoyed her before her lips could meet his, only the metal clasp of her left temple braid coming down to clink against his teeth. The vibrations of his exertion rumbled in his chest long and low afterward, absence so long leaving him quite breathless from but a few moments of coitus.
"Thank you," she murmured, holding his hand against her belly. "I am much better now. We are much better now."
.
Her fingers reached out to touch him in the night and found a slick like cold blood. It snapped her to consciousness with a hard gasp, finding him asleep and uninjured, but soaked to the skin, and grasping for air.
"Thorin!" she hissed, shaking him. He groaned in response, agonized. She tapped his arm with the heel of her hair, harder. Still sleeping, he turned to grasp the pillow on the far side of him, one more push startling him awake and hugging close and tight to the pillow, flinging it away when he realized it was not her.
"It was a dream," he murmured. Dark forelocks spilled over his ruddy forehead, slick with night-sweat. She brushed the hair, still wavy from his braids being undone for the night, behind his ear and rested her face to the cold, wet surface of his cheek and jaw.
Her density and the comfort of her pressing upon him, from above, her soft breath, her kiss, her hair like a veil, relaxed the tense fibers of his body, but his eyes stared far away into the darkness next to the bed, just beyond its safety.
"A dream, my One? A bad dream?" She rested her cheek to his, cradling him like a baby. His jaw tightened under the touch of her fingertips over the edge of it, the bone quavering under the damp beard. "Thorin? Speak to me, my love. What troubles you?"
"I dreamed… I dreamed…" His voice trailed off, scratchy with angst. Meisar kissed the hollow of his ear only to be met with a harder tremor. Never had such a pitiable emanated from this king, whose voice could rumble stone through and through, at least since the road home. His dreams had rarely troubled him since they enjoined the marital bed.
"You dreamed what, amralime?" All of her fingers ducked again into the thicket of his hair, stroking the long locks behind his ear, out of his face.
"I will shield you with my life. You, and our child. Our child…" he doubled over and rested against the side of her stomach. "Our child…" His tremor of resound shook her too down to the tips of her fingers and toes and strung at the already-taut tendons around her belly.
"I could not protect the ones I raised from the time they were born. My sister-sons, but my child, my child, I will never fail you," he whispered to the swell. Meisar's lips set in a line the way they did when she felt she would be ill in the beginning of her pregnancy, in desperation to avoid it.
"A mother's love is so pure. Could a father's be as sublime?" he pondered, his nose dipping into the still-concave hollow of her navel.
Meisar's deep hum considered his words, then silence on her part. His heart began to slow but with a strange hitch.
"Come listen. If you use this instrument here, you can hear his heart," she said finally. It was a small brass thing she procured, like Oin's ear trumpet. Thorin rested his ear to the scope and listened close. "Must I reassure you anymore, my king?"
"I can hear it," he said, throaty still. "I can hear... the heart."
"It is perfectly fine, Thorin," she breathed an impatient reassurance, tilting Thorin's head from its concerned observation of her belly to meet her eyes again, full of warmth for him.
"Is it enough to reassure you, my love?"
"For now," he conceded, arranging himself to sleep with arms wrapped close over her from behind.
The soothing movement of his breathing against the back of her neck as he held her, close and warm against the rugged length of his body, still naked also. With her hardy bum pressed up into him the way she liked to lie now that the baby had grown so big in her.
Formed, was he (or she)? Conscious of his mother's all-surrounding love and nourishment? If he came now, would he live?
He knew nothing of life in its formation, the enigma of a mother's workshop where he was made and perfected. He sheltered the belly that held his heir under the weight of one arm, draped over her, cradling her from beneath the swell, holding her so close she branked up against him in her sleep to change position slightly and was not able to move at all, and after a brief slumbering writhe, did not try again.
.
"I have a special errand for you today," Meisar informed Siv in the morning, still tired and sore from Thorin's midnight awakening and subsequent grip.
The girl turned from fixing her lips with rose paste in the mirror, the paler line of her lower lip showing with her pout. "Yes, Meisar?" Siv smiled broadly and graciously, the rose paste streaking her two teeth in front.
"What else? A royal scribe as always, Siv. Except that you will be in the king's service today rather than mine," Meisar explained efficiently.
Siv's smile cooled a thousand degrees.
"The king's service! What an honor!" Eda crowed, rubbing the garish blush from Siv's cheeks with the sleeve of her dress, as the latter pulled away from her churlishly.
Siv turned back to the mirror to adjust the braids that connected her thick sandy brows to the hair at her temples, pulling them so that they gave her a wide, alert appearance. Eda shooed her off and stood her in front of her.
"Hush now and be proper, don't sass," Eda fussed at Siv's high, open partlett, shuttering it's laces hard up to her neck. "Look a proper lady will ye. All that ye do reflects on the king now. Be a good lass and see to your graces."
"Me graces, me graces, fine..." Siv tugged at the high suffocating neckline Eda had styled for her, until her cousin pressed her hands away and began to flatten out the wrinkles in her pink skirt with her hands. Siv's hands were over her bosom in a flash, adjusting the bodice so that she was lifted there upward toward her chin. "I thought Ori was the king's official scribe now, that funny fellow. He's always writing and drawing in that big book of his. You know, I think he has rather unflattering portraits of myself and Nori in there and I really think that's not very polite-"
"Siv!" The pregnant queen rose to her feet as if sprung on a coil. "You will do as I say for once and behave, or I'll box your ears flat."
"Your arms are too short and your belly's too big to reach me ears," Siv retorted tartly.
"Be on your best and I'll have a brooch for you," Meisar tempted her, exasperatedly. "Do anything less I'll have Oliada spear you through. That's a long enough arm to reach you."
"Me hand'll cramp up. But it'll hurt less with a firestone ring on it," Siv mooned, wagging her fourth finger, ring-less, the other all cluttered.
"What sort of queen lets a moll like that one speak to her in such a manner?" Aroin expostulated, cuffing Siv on the upper arm with the flat side of her hand. Siv hissed back at her and sneered, turning to Meisar for defense but found her eyes only rather tired and irritated.
"A very pregnant one who's lost her patience and her nerve," Meisar snapped. Her chest was filled with a smoldering sensation from the bread and wurst they had taken to break their fast, and her legs were sore down to the toes of her feet. Eda all but wrested her back to sit again and take more peppermint tea, to calm the burn in her belly and throat.
"Besides, Ori will be put to other use today, here with us," she explained, just in time. Aroin opened the door for Oliada when she announced herself, and her guest.
"Ah then, here is the little scribe who can also knit, it seems," Aroin greeted Ori haughtily, arms folded over her chest. Siv regarded him dismissively. "One of the thirteen, were you?" Aroin clicked her tongue smartly. "Well, let us see if you can survive a den of dwarrowdams for a day as well you managed a dragon's."
"S'my pleasure," Ori ducked a quick bow of his head to the row of women awaiting him, all but Aroin with the fawning expressions as if he were a small child or curiosity. Siv pressed past him brusquely, taking up his scrolls and storing the sealed inkwell brazenly into the well of her bosom. Ori's mouth opened but made no sound, only a croak.
Siv winked at him and threw her head back to laugh at his shaking hands and cheeks rosier than her own.
"Only a little switch-up for a day or two," Eda chirped, turning Siv around and ushering her toward the door, plucking the inkwell from her bodice first and placing it in the hands of the steward who had come to be her escort and currier. "Think of it as a well-timed adventure."
"Consider me a hobbit then," Siv grumbled, resigning herself to the task with a tart spring of step on the way out.
.
Ori came to her chambers to spend long afternoons with spools of yarn and needles. Wary of his company in their midst at first the dwarrowdams had grown to adore his presence, so like like a sweet little child. Dori would have rather him practice his ax-wielding with Nori in the practice courts above the armory, but the fussy old dwarf relented when he realized the queen's use for him was slightly more practical.
So she sat patiently with Ori and his earnest tutelage of blanket-making and then more complex projects from caps and tunics to the little booties, with the women in various states of entanglement pressing on or giving up a huff, except Freyda, hurrying to make new booties for Brundin, again. The enormous baby dangled in his sling about her chest, stretching it to its limits, he had grown so.
"Aye but he shall be a babe in me arms and at me bosom for another few years they say, and 'm glad of it," Freyda explained with a smile though. She slid the completed blue casing onto her son's foot, watching the wriggle of it at the new sensation. "Soon I'll be able to tell ye all ye need know. Maybe yers won't be as heavy though."
.
"Bard is to meet with Thorin in the council chambers today," Aroin informed the women on the fourth morning. "His daughters have requested to pay the queen a visit. I informed their ambassador that your delicate state was better suited to resting and not risking the presence of outsiders, especially in the season of fevers and coughs."
"No, I will see them," Meisar opposed, brusquely. "In fact, I think I would very much be inclined."
"But my queen, it is not recommended. A dwarrowdam with child rarely ever-"
"I said," Meisar repeated impatiently. "I will see them."
Griet had to help her to don a loose gown of steel-blue-and-black damask, the vair-lined sleeves turned back to show elegant gold undersleeves. The dress itself had been a gift from the seamstresses' guild, able to be let out at the seams at the side as she grew, and had been several times already. The gold thread rose in an arc high above her waist to show the expansion of her belly, and the neckline was square and a bit low for her tastes as her breasts continued to swell.
"My ladies," Meisar pushed herself up from the chair hard to rise for them, her elbows buckling with the force she was needing just to stand. Tilda's eyes widened with delighted curiosity for the sight of her heavy with child.
"You shall be princesses soon, of Dale. I should get used to addressing you as such perhaps," Meisar said, climbing onto the stool cumbersomely, with Bertha's brawny support, to greet Sigrid with a kiss upon her cheek, a thing she still had to crane her head up and Sigrid stoop to perform. Bard's elder daughter was her father's image in every way, rustic and sober but with a fastidious neatness and pride to her appearance, a green dirndl dress of heavy winter linen that fell to her calves over plain leather boots, bodice and apron modestly embroidered.
"Queen Meisar! Oh, you must be close now, surely," Tilda pranced out from behind her sister to curtsy, proud of her rose-and-evergreen paneled skirt with the little petticoat underneath. She was taller than Meisar by a head and a half, and still much a child, marveled at the sight of the pregnant dwarf, lifted down from her stool by the strapping maid like a doll.
"Tilda," Sigrid cleared her throat discreetly.
"Oh yes! Yes! I nearly forgot. We have brought a gift for you, and your baby," Tilda swirled to run for the door and call the maids in from the antechamber. Griet and Niva along with their lady chamberlain carried in a wooden rocking chair, beautifully carved in the style of the northern men with rounded edges and swirled designs, but with dwarven runes on its back.
"What a lovely gift," Meisar said, charmed. "They tell me babies love to rock in such chairs." She ran her fingers over the curves of the head-board, the smooth wood cared for in its craft so. There was a pretty green velvet cushion on the seat and against the back rungs too.
"Our mother adored rocking chairs. Father carved her one of her own when Bain was born," Sigrid explained. "She spent hours in it, just to get him to sleep in the first place. He was such a fussy child."
"Then our smallest brother came and-" Tilda began to say but Sigrid quickly shushed her. Meisar's hand rose up with grave knowing, to her belly, and Tilda ducked her head a little, with a flush.
"I think I shall be as your mother was with Bain then," Meisar reached for Tilda's hand. "My child will be glad of it, I hope as I am."
Niva and Griet served strong peppermint tea and tarts with raisins in the middle. Tilda did most of the eating, crumbs raining down her front, while Sigrid filled her in on the back-and-forth of the men and dwarves in the matter.
"My father has grave concerns for some matters well beyond our lands, ones that may be our problem if we do not stand firm. Messengers from Gondor say they have doubled watches along the southern borders of the lands for well over two years now, and they will not say why. The south and the north, at Mount Gundabad, trouble my father so, ever since..." Her tired brown eyes went to her sister's visage protectively, wincing at the memory. "In his opinion a kingdom will carry more weight than a city on its own in the middle of the north plains, if we are to seek the consult and even aid of others."
"Surely you would seek ours before others? You know we are allies, if our fathers and husbands are not on friendlier terms. Unfortunately dwarves are slow to forget insult, even small ones," Meisar said dismally.
"Naturally, my queen. But what if... something larger than our powers combined were one day to threaten us? My father once told me that you were a queer sort of dwarf, for you felt in the earth. Something bigger, perhaps even unwell. Do you still?"
"It is hard for me to say. I spend so little time roaming the lands these days. But the mountain... under this mountain I have felt a greater sense of peace and harmony than ever I have. Of other lands, best ask me when I am... well a bit more mobile," she laughed, with unease tinging the edge of each word.
"I apologize. I meant to come here for tea and cakes and to wish you well in your time of this great joy joy. Perhaps it is unwise for us to discuss politics then," Sigrid wrung her hands in her lap.
"On the contrary. I prefer to stay informed of things, if others will not inform me," Meisar sipped her tea with eyes up over the rim meeting Sigrid's eyes in silence.
"We are women. We both understand," Sigrid said.
Tilda's arms were long enough to reach around her to embrace when they were ready to depart. "I want to come see your baby, Queen Meisar. Can I? I've never seen a baby dwarf. Are they heavy?"
"Tilda!" Sigrid scolded, thumping the back of her shoulder.
"Of course you may. And yes, they are heavy, even to men."
"Tilda, go with Leda to the foyer. Father will be along soon," Sigrid ordered. She turned back toward Meisar. "Leda is her governess of sorts. Even at her age there's much a girl can still learn. We have both had to… adjust. Some with more ease than others."
Tilda made a pouty face at her sister behind her. Meisar gave her an amused, if lightly admonishing smile. "I am well over a hundred years old, Lady Tilda, and I am still learning."
"She still eats with her hands at the table, picking fish off the bone with her fingers and licking them. It is unsightly," Sigrid relayed to Meisar when her sister had gone ahead. Sigrid clasped her hands before her, over the decorative apron that the women of the north wore over their skirts for occasions requiring some decorum. "I suppose I should follow. It will be dark soon, and even the short road home is… one is never to underestimate the dangers."
"Well agreed, as we know."
"My queen," Sigrid said quietly, dipping at her knees a little.
Meisar scooted sideways to the table where the sealed parchment was sitting.
"My Lady Sigrid," Meisar summoned her suddenly back. "Could I count upon you for a small favor? Perhaps even a discreet one?"
Sigrid regarded her curiosity and stepped slowly back into the light of the fireplace.
"Bring this to the dwarves on the outskirts of Dale. It bears my seal. It is promise that the mountain is not cursed, that their queen has seen to the source of their discontent, and will care for their needs. In return that it shall never be spoken of, only trusted. By the dwarves it is addressed to."
"And they will take you at your word alone you think?" Sigrid asked earnestly.
"There are ways things are done among dwarves, loyalty and truth to our word being the first-most honor," Meisar answered.
"Your ways amongst yourselves perhaps," Sigrid countered hesitantly. "Men may be slower to take you at your word, given…"
"This is not a concern of men in any case," Meisar said. She stood facing Sigrid and craning her head up at her. "But seeing as you are what you are, can I trust you?"
"Yes," Sigrid replied plainly. "I will have my steward deliver this, along with my father's offer."
"Thank you."
"As for what I am, remember that I am a woman, and women, tall-folk or dwarf, do things our own ways. You can count on at least that from me."
"From myself also," Meisar agreed, drawing her hand into a clasp of agreement.
"The unity of men and dwarves is an old song, and I hope it shall be re-sung amongst more than just we women," Sigrid leaned over hers, kissing Meisar on her signet ring.
"Our fathers and brothers, and husbands, could learn from us perhaps," Meisar intoned gently.
"And our sons," added Sigrid. "Blessings to you in any case, my queen, for your child's safe delivery."
"And for yours home this night, and all nights."
.
"I finish with my day when it is dark," Thorin lamented that evening upon his coming to their chambers. "I cannot even share supper with my queen when I know you are in discomfort so."
Thorin unwrapped a cheesecloth filled with marrow bones for the dogs, who leaped from girding Meisar on either side on the lounger to devour them. Thorin shed his crown, grumbling as hair was tugged upward with it. The dogs scurried off to the antechamber with their loot, howling and snapping on the other side of the door for the last scraps of meat and marrow. Meisar stood up with a groan.
Still heavy with the scent of the beef-on-the-bone he and the council had taken at both midday and supper, Thorin went for a kiss and embrace but her belly quickly repelled him from such closeness. She placed her palms then flat upwards against his and leaned into him. He could only nuzzle and kiss her forehead at a stretch.
"A whole day with that girl of yours, Siv. Mahal make me patient!" Thorin groused immediately. "She writes swiftly though, and with clarity. Swifter than Ori. We have needed it this day."
"I hear the dwarves on the borders of Dale have considered some agreement. Is that true?" Meisar inquired innocuously.
"Considered yes. Bard's offer is generous they say but they must consult together overnight before any decision is formalized. They enjoy occupying his time, but mine... I could be occupied with better things."
"Oh?" Meisar shifted on her sore, bare feet and sat down again.
"Dale's building projects are little my concern, as long as they pay for the stone. But the dragonslayer did not slink out like a surly child again, so I suppose..." Thorin fastidiously disrobed of his heavy outer garments, shucking all down to his tunic and breeches. He joined Meisar on the lounger before the fire, bones creaking as he sat. The maidservants brought him cold lager in a stein, which he accepted graciously and eagerly.
"I suppose it is up to them then now," Meisar concluded, drawing her mouth into a firm line and covering her expression by holding up her project in front of her, a blanket, half-finished.
"I shall return Ori to you if it pleases you. I have learned a bit better to do this. I might even manage without him, while my fingers still work properly," Meisar sighed. She held up her project of the day proudly, a robin's-egg blue blanket. She held it in one hand carefully, fingers on the needles lest they snarl on the almost-finished craft, reaching up to stroke Thorin's beard fondly with the other. He kissed the palm lightly, tickling the thick skin there. Hers still retained a certain hardness of a past life, but her fingertips were soft, stroking the line between his cheek and beard delicately.
"My feet are so swollen and sore already. I hope my fingers will be spared," she winced, rubbing toes through the rug. Thorin glanced at the red, bloated ankles.
"I am unhappy to hear of your discomfort with this..." he gestured to her belly, then her feet. She rolled them to duck under the legs of the chaise. "I would rather be here with you, to see to you, your comfort, our child..."
"Well, I think the child is content, mostly. His feet do not hurt I hope," she trailed off, began to hum tunelessly, gazing at her belly, holding it, stroking it gently as she found the words to Griet's song.
"Alas, is he fond of his mother's lullabies? Can you tell?" Thorin asked, taking Meisar's feet up from the floor to rest upon his lap at an elevation. His hard palms were surprisingly gentle as they rubbed the calloused soles and toes, dipping into the curve of her arches. His touch rose to her ankle, rubbing the bumps in circles, making sounds of satisfaction when she sighed with such.
"Ah, that is very good," she groaned.
"Dwalin told me to keep your feet up at an angle, and to rub them with all due affection," Thorin explained. "Freyda was very appreciative, in any case."
"Dwalin?"
"He too has a wife, my dear, and a wife who has had a child also," Thorin reminded. "But I have not heard from him whether his lullabies amused Brundin before he was born. I don't suppose there's anyway of knowing for sure."
"Well, this one's father has a far more pleasant singing voice in any case," Meisar answered. Her own had always been an uneven sound.
"Truly? Then perhaps he should hear it, and know the songs of his fathers," Thorin said with a quirk of a smile, eager with mirth. He set her feet back, covered them with a blanket and disappeared into his antechamber. A long while there was the racket of chests and drawers being pulled out, opened, set down upon the ground and Thorin's escalating grouses of disappointment until silence finally gave way to a loud hum of relief. When he returned he was carrying a soft green velvet case, one that was familiar to her though she had seen it only once before.
From it he withdrew his harp, setting it down on the lounger only to take her feet again up onto his lap and carefully elevate them on a pillow he placed there, resting his elbow upon said pillow as he took up the instrument again. His fingers moved with reverence over the shiny curve of its head, the strings glinting along the light of the fire.
"Someday I shall teach our child to play these strings as my father taught me," he supposed, dreamily. "Perhaps he shall teach his son upon this very harp. I would like that very much."
"I would too," Meisar sighed.
"For now, let him hear. It is a world you shall come into, my child, harps restrung," he smiled at her belly fondly. His smooth, deep, reverberating voice ascended with the tinny first pluck of the harp-string. The mellifluous baritone and strums of the instrument slowly hitched to each other to become harmonious together.
"Does it please him? Can you tell?" Thorin inquired after finishing the first verse of an ancient tune of delving and gazing into a lake as clear as glass in a mountain valley, a father awoken from a sleep like death.
Meisar cradled her hands delicately beneath the swell and prodded the tips with little encouraging movements against it. There was a little roll and hiccup inside, then a settling.
"Aye, Thorin. I think he does. I think he does indeed."
For the most ephemeral of instances she was carried up from the swelling and discomfort as if on a cloud, lost in his voice and the gentle thrums of the harp-strings. For a moment there was grass beneath her, hard earth under that, and the aromatic smell of a summer night ahead of rain, like the first time he had played that harp for her, so shy and melancholy. She curled her feet on his lap, all too happy to hear him play that harp again, in the depths of winter waiting on their spring.