AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Still here, still plugging! It's been a long gap, I know. But with a new job, a commission taking up most of my free writing time, and the holidays coming up, I've had to sideline our dwarves, much to my disappointment.
This is a brief chapter. More WILL come and soon. I just wanted to put something out there, even if it is somewhat fluffy.
I did have a request some time ago for more Dwalin and Freyda and I've woefully neglected the two of them I think. Expect more Dwalin/Freyda in the next chapters.
I PROMISE (in keeping with canon anyway) there will not be any war or anything as terrible befalling our dwarves for the time being so please do not panic. Keep in mind though that Sauron is going to return to Mordor in a few short years and declare himself there, and ahead of his maneuvering you can expect a few hiccups here and there. AFAIK, Gondor shouldered most of the burden of keeping Mordor and its allies in check in the years between The Hobbit and LOTR.
Erika Rexen: A spring baby has its advantages. Lots of walkies out on the terraces in his pram for sure. Meisar's been cooped up long enough too. She needs it!
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Meisar was sitting in the middle of the bed surrounded by parchments and ink smeared haphazardly on the sheets when Thorin found her late in the evening. The days had been long of late; days when the sun lengthened its stay toward summertime, and business carried on until it was entirely dark.
"I'm nearly finished. I didn't want to be all the way across the room, just in case," she nodded toward the breathy snores emanating in little hitches from the cradle, draped over with a little silken net to keep the light out.
"What do you have here?" Thorin gathered the parchments into a neater pile.
"Correspondences is all. I must return the favor to our well-wishers before it becomes impolite," Meisar answered tiredly.
"Have Siv do it in the morning. Ought to keep her busy," Thorin suggested. "Mahal knows she needs that."
"I've got Siv running about like mad already, dispatching orders for this, instructions for that. The time comes close. You cannot manage all the matters for the presentation on your own," Meisar sighed in retort.
"Naturally I cannot. We have those about us willing to do much, my jewel," Thorin assured.
Her ankles were still swollen and pink under the hem of her nightgown, feet shod in soft lambs-wool slippers, and her hair was entirely loose, spilling down her back and trailing off onto the pillow like a great flow of lava. Thorin slid onto the edge of the bed beside her, his knee cocked to one side. He bent affectionately over her shoulder, gave her a kiss over the soft, fragrant linen of her nightgown, as she continued scrawling furiously with her eyes narrowed and straining.
"Ghivashel, you will tire yourself out. Save it for our child, no?"
"Well for now he's finally gotten to slee-"
Tir was beginning to stir and grunt in the cradle.
"Uh! I only just got him to sleep," Meisar flung herself back on the pillow and groaned, arm flung over her head with papers flying. She sprung up as if attached to a trebuchet when the long baritone trill heightened to a full piercing squall. She lurched over her papers, creasing them all, scooping up Tir with his blankets tailing. He had been fed; his swaddling was unspoiled. The little fists curled up and stretched up and out, clumsily batting the tears away from his own eyes, red with exertion. Rocking, singing, quiet soothing were to no avail.
Thorin extracted himself from the bed as clumsily in his full coat and furs, went to the antechamber. Mizri the night nursemaid pattered in efficiently behind him when he returned, lifting Tir from her arms to try her hand.
"Is he unwell?" Meisar wondered aloud.
Mizri smiled gently down at him. "I'm sure the little prince is fine. Sometimes babes are bothered by their bellies, gas and what not. It makes for a fitful sleep, but it's none to worry for."
"I have had no luck to soothe him," Meisar lamented self-pitiably. "His own mother and I am powerless."
"Let me," Thorin said. "I think I may have the solution."
Griet passed him carefully from her arms to Thorin's, her own dwarfed by the size of his own, in his heavy coat still. Tir's breaths were still coming in hiccups, punctuated by unhappy howls. In Thorin's arms he seemed to consider his surroundings, the massive presence about him, so unlike his mother.
"What do you propose, my king?" Meisar inquired amiably. She touched the side of Tir's face with her fingertip as the cries started to slow into unhappy grimaces and yelps after a few minutes of Thorin's quiet cradling.
"Something that once soothed me, or I was told so once," he answered. "I will return."
"Take care," Meisar advised. "He is the prince after all, your son... ours."
Thorin kissed her head reassuringly. "I'll take Oliada."
Meisar's Blacklock was a quiet, stoic escort. Once in awhile he caught her trying to peer over his sleeve into the bundle rested quietly in his elbow, one he focused on without much attentiveness to his step. The Blacklock had an admiring eye, but at once sharp and protective if ever he caught a hint of softness in her curiosity.
The empty halls of the night were faintly fragrant, an earthy scent that swept in with the night wind howling in from the terraces, like cool mud and cooler rain, mixed with the burnt-wood-and-ash from the coal in the braziers that kept vigil all night above the front gates. Summer was upon them soon, but it had rained for several days outside, and the air was still cool and brisk with it.
He could hear the night sentries gabbing over a dice table by the doors to the throne hall. In their armor and livery, they held their spears at hand and argued over the game with dexterity.
"King under the mountain, at your service!" the first sprung officiously to his feet, leaving the other to stumble upward over the turned table they left in their wake. On his feet the younger sentry seemed to brace for a scolding or worse. But the king before them was placid, utterly.
"No trouble, lads. Only a night walk," Thorin half-whispered. The younger sentry peered at Tir over Thorin's shoulder with childish curiosity, not unlike the Blacklock who followed close behind, except that he remained goggle-eyed and awed entirely.
"Yes my king, my prince," the elder said. He rung the bell at the bottom of the door, the sentries overhead stirred and waking their beasts of burden to pull open the door. Light from the torches high over the hall spilled over and half-lit the child's face, craned up with wonder from Thorin's shoulder.
"My grandfather once walked with me here, when I was a boy," Thorin whispered to him. "When I could not sleep either, he brought me here when all the lanterns were dark."
The lanterns were all dark for the most part, only a few burning at the front and rear of the hall and a new one lit for them to find their way by the night sentries. The two door guards followed at a respectful distance with their own lanterns. But on the ceiling it was still dark in the center and high above the throne. Once the Arkenstone had been a brilliant cynosure high above Thror's seat, drawing one to it even in the dark it glowed so sumptuously. Never had the throne looked so lonely he once thought, his fists grasped around the stone arms, gazing up into nothingness while behind him Balin, and Bilbo, stood trembling in fear (but he could not see, he would not see).
Shadows were a good enough company to that seat now. A lantern to light their steps up the four stairs was not exactly an unwelcome guest though. He took the lantern from the sentry and set it down on the floor beside the throne. There, he took his seat, Tir safe and swaddled in the solid curve of his arm, cheek buried in the soft fur still adorning his mantle.
"Look up, my son. See them?"
He sat upon the throne in the darkness of the vast chamber and looked up to the ceiling high above. The fireflies gathered shyly at the rims of the vaulted ceiling in tiny clusters, darting out one by one or in pairs across the vast empty space. Soon more emerged from the nooks and crannies at the roof, and came to flicker and swirl all about.
"The stars our fathers gave us," he explained gently. The prick of light from high above, faint as it was, caught the dwarfling's eyes in a nanosecond, illuminating them. His pupils big with fascination, obscuring the blue, he blinked and reached his arms up toward the lights.
Thror had taken him to that very hall long after he had found his feet. He had walked, fearing to let go of his grandfather's hand. He held his hand close and kept his eyes on the ceiling, watching for them. Thror would spring up from the throne sometimes to stop him from leaping and falling off the platform into the vast mouth of the city below, he grew so excited when the fireflies began to dart about wildly above. An innocent prince, whom all pride and honor and joy had fallen upon from his forebears, so long ago.
I needed protection once too.
"Our fathers gave us many things that shimmer so," he sighed. Tir wrapped his hand around Thorin's forefinger. "And once, something that shined so brilliantly, I would have given my life for it. I gave… lives for it."
His mouth opened, pink and slobbering, found his own fist and gummed at it contentedly.
Thorin chuckled long and considerately over the child's gnawing and staring up at him, squinting in the half-light. "I would that you could be so innocent for all times. So small and… good." He considered his son's tiny pale fist in the shelter of his own hand, hard and worn, but gentle, fiercely gentle. He kissed his head and smelled the faint lavender soap on his hair, his skin. He didn't smell at all like Fili or Kili, both born in winter and kept close to the smoky hearth fires always as newborns, smelling it of it always.
But they were not mine. They were hers and I took them away from her.
Tir was his, if nothing else was certain. He was his and he was perfect. The child had his eyes, and his hair, and his pronounced, strong nose. He could see none of Meisar, only the shape of his mouth perhaps, but the way it was set it had his taciturn, slightly suspicious expression. "Truly, I pray you might be your mother's son, and your father's… somewhat less."
He gazed upon Tir's calmed visage, his head nestled close in the crook of his arm. "Your mother gets most of the time with you, and it is natural, for she must always be near. But I would be with you always if I could. I love you so very much. I never expected you. I had my time, I thought. I had my chance..."
He looked up to find the fireflies still there, thinner in number, retreating little by little into the recesses of the ceiling. But as always, a few would always remain, until the light camouflaged their presence entirely.
And I will love you until there is naught star in the sky.