Spring comes grudgingly, and the red haired healer's seat at the dinner table has been empty for a week. The river is flooded, Thorin has no time for dalliances, he mostly falls asleep on his table in the study, he takes his meals there as well, but occasionally all family still gathers in the Dining Hall. Frerin looks exhausted, he is overseeing the building of fortifications around the North dam.
They get up from the table, Thorin is to return to his study, he picks up his brother's elbow and pulls him closer, "Where is Wren?"
"She has been ill, winter fever. She is recovering now," Frerin rubs his face, he has not slept for two nights.
A fortnight later the flood has finally ebbed, and life returns to its old ways, except the healer is still not back. Thorin stops by Frerin's chambers and finds his brother drinking ale with some of his friends. Thorin joins in, and they spend an evening in pleasant revelry. By the dawn they are all drunk, and Frerin is playing with one of his short thick daggers. Thorin lifts his head from the bed.
"Put that down, you will put your eye out." Frerin booms with laughter.
"You have been saying it since I was twenty, and yet both peepers are still here," he gives his brother a wink, and Thorin stretches his back on the bed with a groan. His head is pleasantly buzzing, and that would be a favourable moment to enjoy a woman. He lazily thinks of asking Frerin to find one, it has always been his task. And then he wonders whether Frerin has any other women besides the redhead. He groans again, thinking of her is making him aroused.
"I hear you, namad," Frerin is chuckling, and Thorin scoffs, he hoped he isn't that easy to read. Judging by the impish gleam in Frerin's green eyes, he was wrong.
"Perhaps someone else..." He offers nonchalantly, and Frerin laughs and widely waves in the air.
"Help yourself, you are a King, any will be willing," he drops his head back on the armchair and closes his eyes. Thorin is not enjoying his muddled state anymore, he is trying to figure out the situation, and his mind is too sluggish after all the ale they drank. Before he started spending evenings in Frerin's chambers he had had several women, but he was always irritated by the discretion and considerations he had to constantly be aware of. They could not be potential brides, as he did not want one, but the rest would be either married, or too independent and demanding. The healer was perfect.
He does not understand. Does Frerin sleep with other women? Does Wren? He once saw a woman leaving Frerin's chambers, but when he entered, the healer was there alone. He knew her well by then, he recognised the blush and the sleepiness usual for her after intimacy. She was curled on the bed, in a light chemise, her curls scattered on the covers. He felt an acute desire to join her, but he had matters to attend, and again, Frerin was not in the room.
He knows the two of them sometimes used to invite other people in their bed, they once got to reminiscing, it was part of their pleasure that evening, Wren was slowly riding Thorin, Frerin, already sated, lay near them on the bed, stroking his half erect member, and then they were recollecting the adventures of before their life in Erebor.
Thorin feels irritation rising. He is hard by then, and he throws an irked look at Frerin.
"Stop glaring at me, nadad. I do not want other women. She will soon be better, Dis said she has started eating already. And since you are trying to burn a hole in my temple, I can go find someone for you," Frerin's tone is light as always, and he makes several flapping movements with his arms, trying to get out of his armchair. Thorin is pondering his words.
"Do not bother," he grumbles, and Frerin falls back with a relieved sigh. Thorin is now moving to the next thought. "Are they friends? With Dis..."
"They respect each other, the infirmary and the midwives who serve there… it is some sort of their shared affair… I know little..." Frerin picks up his goblet from the floor and mournfully studies its empty bottom.
The next day Thorin carefully inquires from Dis about Wren's health. Dis tells him that Wren had a winter fever, she has been delirious for several days and is very weakened now, but healers have high hopes for her recovery. Dis does not say anything else, and Thorin is leaving her study when he hears a small sigh from his sister. He looks at her softly and pats her shoulder affectionately.
"Do speak up, namad." She smiles to him gratefully.
"She is of Men, Thorin. They have weak nerves. Even Khazad are prone to melancholia after such illness. I have heard of women of Men taking their lives after such prolonged ailment. And she has not seen a single face except her healer for the last moon and a half." Dis leaves it at this, she is perhaps hinting Thorin to tell Frerin to visit his mistress, but something pushes Thorin to act differently.
He comes into a room they assigned to her in the farthest wing, he is quiet, he thinks she might be sleeping. She is lying in bed, her slanted eyes are fixed on a window, and she is so thinned that his hand freezes on the door. She is pale, her hair is in a simple braid that lies on the pillows, and she looks so young that his heart clenches.
She hears the rustling of his clothes and turns her head. Her gaze is indeed dull, the corners of her red lips are lowered mournfully, and then her eyes widen.
"Good day, honourable maiden," he is jesting because he is suddenly terrified of her fragility. She jerks and tries to rise but he quickly walks in and sits on the edge of her bed. She looks almost transparent, she smells of some unfamiliar soap. He knows her fragrance by now, and the sweet smell coming from her feels wrong. This one is too simple, probably some flowers, and he picks up her hands from covers.
Her face suddenly scrunches in a child-like pained grimace, and she lunges at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She is sobbing loudly, he is stroking her back, and she is clawing at his shoulders.
"I am sorry… I am behaving unseemingly..." Her whole body is shaking, and he presses his lips to her temple.
"You are smearing snot over my best doublet, it is indeed rather improper..." He grumbles, and she laughs through tears. He starts slowly rocking her from side to side, making comforting noises. He is stopping himself from squeezing her tightly, she is frail, he almost cannot feel her in his arms. The piercing thought that they could have lost her makes him press his face to her hair and take a few shuddering breaths in.
He spends several hours in her room, for the first time having an actual conversation with her. She asks about the news, she has not even heard about the flood, her eyes are lively again, thought the old fire is not back yet. She is curious, perceptive and very intelligent, now he thinks he was a fool to know so little about her.
In the evening he has a talk with Frerin, and after that he knows Frerin goes to see her every day. Thorin never does again. She is back to the dinner table a week later. Her usual voracious appetite is back, and she shares occasional laugh with Dis at the table. Then Summer comes, and he notices flowers in her hair from time to time.
Thorin sometimes falls asleep in Frerin's bed, they tend to get carried away, and they rarely have Wren at the same time. They are both large, and she needs extensive rest after she has to take both of their members at the same time. Since their arousal returns quickly, it is easier just to take turns. So usually one of them, if both of them are in the bed, finishes later, and quite often it is Thorin. He comes late at night, Summer is the time of vibrant trade, he is often in his study till early hours of morning. He slips between the sheets, Frerin is already asleep, and Wren's slender body is often bare. She wraps her arms around Thorin's neck half asleep, her knees open, and a small smile grazes her lips. He notices that with time he thinks of this little smile even during the day.
She is kneeling on the bed, Thorin is behind her, her back is pressed to his chest. He can see her fingers clenched on the headboard, the knuckles are white, and she is moaning loudly. His hips are snapping into her, it is early morning, he was exceptionally hard when he woke up, his senses flooded with her smell, and he is being rougher than usual. She does not seem to object, she is arching her back now, pushing her hips into him, and there is a demanding note to her moans.
"Stop fucking my woman before dawn, lulkh," Frerin groans and presses a pillow over his ears, "The two of you are so loud..."
Wren snorts, and Thorin leans in and gives her shoulder a long lick. She has amazing skin, pale but radiant, and he nuzzles the freckles peppering her shoulders. They live in a mountain, and she still manages to catch sun somehow.
Unfamiliar cheekiness wakes up in him, and he lifts his hand and gives her pert buttock a nice loud slap. She yelps and looks at him over her shoulder. He cocks a brow to her, she pushes hips back, clearly encouraging him, and he slaps her again. He keeps his palm relaxed, he is not trying to inflict pain, he is aiming for the loudness. She theatrically wails, her eyes are impish, and Frerin rolls off the bed, still pressing the pillow to his ears. He calls them 'bastard children of frogs and half-witted wargs who were dropped head down as pups,' he has always been skillful in swearing, and the two of them are watching his bare backside disappear in the bath chambers. There is a low bench there, that is perhaps where they will find him later, and Wren is giggling. Thorin chuckles low in his chest, and then strokes the silk narrow back with his palm. She is cool, as if fluid, and he leans to her nape and places a tender kiss on the little curls on the hairline. She sighs contently, and he starts moving.
Thorin wakes up in the middle of the night, a familiar nightmare quaking his body, his teeth are clenched, forehead covered in cold sweat, and his hands are shaking. He is in his bedchamber, and he jerks off the clammy sheets sticking to his body. He stumbles out of the bed and greedily drinks water straight from a jug on the table.
He is taking slow breaths in, but he cannot reign the tremours running through his body. He realises there are tears smeared on his cheek, and he wipes them hastily. They all have the nightmares, Frerin, him, Dwalin, Balin, Fili, Kili... So many battles are in the past of each of them, so much death…
He looks back at his bed, and his face distorts in a grimace of disgust. The sheets felt soaked in blood, he remembers moons of recovery after the Battle of the Five Armies, the smell of his own rotting flesh, and he suddenly feels nausea rising. He needs to chase the foul stench out of his nose, he can almost taste death and blood on his lips, and he rushes to the passage.
Frerin is sleeping on his side of the bed, on his back, just like he always has since he was a child, one hand on his chest, another one relaxed along his body. The redhead is facing away from him, and Thorin slips under the covers near her. She shifts, moves closer to him, and nuzzles his shoulder. He pulls her to lie on him and buries his nose into her curls. He is greedily breathing in her fragrance. It is lilacs as he now knows, she once brought a bouquet of opulent blooming branches from her trip to Dale, they smelt sweet and pleasant in the bedchambers for a few weeks.
"Lanz galikh, uzbaduh," Good evening, my lord. He stares at her in shock. He has never known she speaks Khuzdul.
Thorin wakes up to the soft moans and rustling. It is time to get up, those were not the noises that wakened him. To think of it, they are probably trying to keep it down, he had long negotiations last night. Wren is straddling Frerin, her body is glowing in the first rays of sunlight pouring through the window, the mane of copper curls is burning like the hottest of forge fires, she has buried her fingers in her fiery waves, and her hips are moving slowly and sensually. Frerin's eyes are closed, just like hers, and the tips of his fingers are dancing on her waist. He then strokes the peaks, and then his thumb is pressed into her clit, hiding in the bright red curls between her legs. She emits a soft grateful moan, and Thorin watches how she brings them both to a concorded completion. She falls on his chest, and then shifts seeking his lips. The kisses are slow and tender, and Thorin closes his eyes and rolls on his side, his back to them.
Thorin stays at night more often these days, and Frerin does not mind. The bed is large enough, and Thorin is gone much earlier in the morning, so they do not have to tumble over each other when rushing to the bath chambers upon waking up. Frerin prefers to sleep later, and he loves his little redhead in the morning when she is soft, and warm, and rosy from sleep.
It has been months of the same, but only now Frerin suddenly realises that when Thorin spends the night Wren always sleeps curled into his side. The Summer is hot, and the covers have slid off their bodies. Wren can never sleep if something constricts her, for years they have slept with a foot between their bodies if space allowed. She always needs to bend her leg in front of her, and hide her hands under a pillow.
Thorin and her are intertwined, his legs are pressing one of hers to the sheets, the other slender leg is wrapped around his hips, both his arms are around her, her hand is splayed on his chest, fingers buried in his chesthair. Wren always says how fond she is of Dwarven hairiness. Unfamiliar feeling stirs in Frerin, and he is watching his brother and his mistress sleeping in each other's arms for a few minutes until he manages to understand what it is that is dully nagging at his mind. It is jealousy, subdued but painful nonetheless.
He leaves for bath chambers, splashes cold water on his face, and then leaves the Halls. He spends the morning practicing, destroying two training dummies, and chipping his favourite axe. That puts him into even fouler mood, and he yells at the smith and the squires. They are used to his outbursts, the line of Durin is known for their temper, and he smashes the now ruined axe into a wall and stomps away.
It is late Autumn, the days are already brisk and gloomy, and Thorin receives a note from his brother who asks him to come to his chambers in the evening. Thorin wonders if Frerin is planning another revelry tonight. A week ago the three of them got rather inebriated, Wren drank only one mug, but she gets muddled by a few sips. Frerin and Thorin were playing their harp and lute, singing loudly, she danced in the middle of the room.
Thorin had never seen her dance before. She has recovered from her malady, her body is strong and swift, and she arches, swirls and her slender arms move in the most enticing of ways, small feet placing measured light steps on the floor, she picks up her skirt, Thorin sees her ankles and the little leather slippers. He pushes the harp aside and lunges at her. He takes her on the floor, bunching up her skirts, her moans and cries loud, and in the middle of the act, Frerin joins them. They stand in front of each other, holding her in the air, thrusting up into her in unison.
Thorin finds Frerin sitting on the bed in his inner tunic and breeches with a confused expression on his face. Wren is pacing in front of the bed, her fast striding the only expression of her apparently agitated state. She decorously asks Thorin to sit, and he joins his brother on the bed. Thorin throws Frerin a questioning look, but Frerin is watching Wren. He is frowning, apprehension and worriment splashing in his eyes. Thorin knows his brother well, open conflict between the kin is what Frerin could never stand. He would rather brood for years than have an open conversation.
Wren suddenly stops, turns to both of them and lifts her chin defiantly.
"I am with child." Her voice is not shaking.
