When Ila woke the next morning it was from a deep and dreamless sleep. A hard sleep the likes of which she felt she hadn't enjoyed since she was a child. It must have been from a combination of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion, she thought. She dimly remembered actually falling asleep after throwing herself onto her bed and weeping like a baby dwarf the night before. She stretched out her limbs, noting that she had not moved an inch from the position she had fallen asleep in. She also noted that she was still in her dress. She sighed and thought she must be some sight to behold at the moment, disheveled and still in her finery.
Raising up to sit on the side of the bed, Ila looked for a window as she had every morning of her life previously to gauge the time and then cursed inwardly as she reminded herself that she was under a mountain. She grumbled and got up, angry that her internal clock had no idea how to adjust to a submerged life as of yet. It was probably still early, Ila thought, as Dwala had not come to wake her yet. Ila sat at her vanity and surveyed the damage from sleeping in her make-up.
The make-up around her eyes was horribly smudged from all the crying and there were colorful trails down her cheeks. Her long, wavy hair was tousled to say the least and framing her face more like a lion's mane than a princess, and her eyes were bloodshot from all the tears.
What a mess, Ila thought. She needed a bath and wanted one as some hot water would probably make her feel much better. Ila considered that such small pleasures were probably the only items of comfort she had left now, if last night's supper had been any indicator. She would have to make do with the small things from now on.
She tried to push last night from her mind. She didn't want to think about him. If he couldn't even be bothered to carry on a conversation with her during dinner then she couldn't be bothered to waste any time thinking about him, period. She could ignore him just as easily as he could her. She would show him.
Ila heard a knock at the door then and in walked Dwala. She looked refreshed and cheery as always, but a little cautious as well.
"Good morning….." Dwala said in an almost sing-song voice. Ila tried to force a smile but found that she couldn't. Instead she looked back to the mirror and saw that she couldn't smile even at herself.
"Did you sleep well at least?" Dwala asked, trying to stay positive. They hadn't been in Erebor for even twenty-four hours and they had a lifetime to spend there after all.
"I suppose…..but I still feel tired." Ila said with her eyes downcast.
Dwala had an idea. "A nice, hot bath would make you feel a thousand times better. One of the servants told me that there are some natural hot baths here beneath the royal wing…why don't you go soak in one of them? You need to freshen up after sleeping in your gown anyway…."
Ila looked at herself. Dwala was right, she did need a bath whether or not it would make her feel better.
"Well, I do need to I suppose. It couldn't make me feel any worse." Ila mused and rose to begin peeling the dress off of her. Dwala was glad to see she agreed and began to help her strip down to her dressing gown.
Throwing a robe on, Ila and Dwala made their way towards said hot baths. They naturally sprang from deep in the earth and the kings of Erebor had constructed a great room for them to be used as a series of pools, some smaller, some larger, at the leisure of the royal family. Ila could feel the heat rising off the water as soon as they descended into the room and the torchlight danced off the pools in an almost romantic way. Ila felt her spirits lift a bit and she couldn't wait to sink in.
Looking around for anyone else who might be present, Ila and Dwala saw that they were alone. Ila slipped out of her robe and pulled the gown over her head quickly to deposit it on the floor next to her, quickly stepping into the nearest pool.
Ila sighed with pleasure as the hot water enveloped her. She sank to a depth that just covered her breasts and let a broad and real smile sweep across her face for the first time since setting foot in Erebor. Dwala smiled from where she stood to see her mistress happy. Dwala then frowned a little at realizing she had forgotten a towel or any oils for Ila's skin and hair in their haste to get down there.
"Oh, I failed to retrieve anything you needed for your bath or afterwards. I am sorry, Ila. I am not proving to be a very good lady in waiting." Dwala said frowning at herself.
Ila was too content at the moment to be upset by such a little thing. "It's fine. I will need a towel eventually though," she replied.
"I'll fetch one quickly and be right back." Dwala said and scurried off around the corner and out of sight. Ila enjoyed a moment of having the great space all to herself, laying back into the water and finally relaxing. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply and steadily, feeling the tension in her muscles practically melt away. She allowed herself to completely forget about King Thorin and the night before. She was almost floating on her back now she was so stretched out and the particular pool she was in got deeper and deeper as it went. Her hair was completely submerged and the tips of her large breasts peeked out of the water and pointed towards the great, dark ceiling. If she hadn't been in water, she would relax enough to go back to sleep.
Ila was alert enough to hear someone coming down the steps around the corner that lead to the springs. Dwala had made very quick time, Ila thought. As her feet touched the bottom and she turned to face the entrance, Ila was about to remark how Dwala didn't have to run to and from the bed chamber when she caught sight of Thorin coming around the corner.
Luckily, the room was great with several pools to choose from, and Thorin's eyes did not immediately fall on Ila. Her heart skipped a beat she was sure, and she quickly submerged herself up to her eyes, holding her breath. Here she was, naked, trapped and holding her breath. She didn't know how long she could keep her nose under water. At any rate, it wouldn't be long enough for Thorin to bathe and go about his day. Ila was too terrified to move. Why did Dwala have to go at that moment?!
Thorin had still not seen her, focusing on undressing himself. He seemed a little groggy, he must have just awakened too. He pulled his midnight blue sleeping shirt over his head to let his long, wavy black hair fall over the hardest and most sculpted body of any creature Ila had ever seen. Not that she had seen many males of any species shirtless, but she had certainly never laid eyes on a creature as perfect as King Thorin.
His pectorals appeared rock solid and his abs were rippling down into his trousers. A surprisingly light dusting of black hair covered his chest but Ila could see that it reappeared and thickened below his navel. Ila knew she should look away, but she simply couldn't. He was perfection, so far as she could see, and both did and didn't want to see the rest of him. She was of course interested to see what a man, particularly her future husband, looked like, but at the same time what if it was frightening? Not to mention the fact that she couldn't remain hidden forever and she expected Thorin to have one of two reactions upon discovering her. Either he would be angry at her for snooping and for invading his hot baths, or he would set upon her in her very vulnerable state. Her mother had always warned her about males and their appetites. And there were so few females among dwarves…
Ila forgot what she was thinking just then as Thorin slipped off his trousers and was naked as the day he'd been born. Powerful thighs corded with muscle flexed as he walked towards the water, the very pool that she was attempting to hide in. It was large at least and the room was dark, and he still hadn't noticed her. Ila tried to avert her eyes from the large, despite being flaccid, member that hung between his legs, sprouting from a thick down of black curls. Ila couldn't breathe, and not just because she was submerged. Ila shifted her eyes towards her robe which lay on the other side of the pool where Thorin could not see it. She wondered if she could move silently through the water and retrieve it before he noticed. Even if she could get to it, she would have to get out, totally exposing herself which he would certainly hear and then see.
Ila cursed herself. She needed to breathe and breathe now. As Thorin had submerged himself to the waist Ila submerged herself completely and tried to make her way to the other side of the pool. She was afraid that she must be very loud in doing so though. She felt that she had almost reached it when something closed around her ankle and pulled her backwards.
Ila naturally panicked and lost her breath, erupting up out of the water and gasping for air. Whatever had grasped her had let her go thankfully but it had shocked her so that she had to come up for air.
As she gasped and wiped the water from her eyes, a wet, naked, and extremely shocked Thorin Oakenshield came into focus. He was barely a foot in front of her and thankfully the water was high enough that she saw nothing she shouldn't. Ila screamed, splashing water at him with her high pitched and frightened scream, though she quickly registered in attempting to cover herself that her long dark hair had graciously plastered itself to her chest and covered her intimate parts.
Thorin was still reeling from the shock of it all and her screaming in his face. He quickly turned his back to her, yelling over her scream.
"Calm yourself!" he called, though not angrily, only still out of sorts himself.
Ila had turned her own back to him but stopped screaming. They both faced away from one another, chests heaving from shock and embarrassment. Ila looked to the side of the pool and then over her shoulder to Thorin. She calculated if it was worth risking getting out again.
"What are you doing….hiding down here?" Thorin's voice came, startling her and still sounding unsettled.
"Hiding?" Ila was slightly indignant at that accusation.
She turned her head a little bit towards him over her shoulder.
"I was not hiding, my lord. I, that is my handmaiden said that these were for the royals to use and I….I am sorry for intruding on your private baths. If you would but leave so that I might make a decent exit—"
"I do not need to leave." Thorin cut in.
Ila's voice had been shaking anyway, but now when she spoke it was trembling with anger.
"Excuse me, my lord, but you are not to see me until our wedding day, which is not for a month's time. I will not be disgraced. I am a princess—"
"I am not going to lay eyes on you, princess. You may go and I will not turn to watch." Thorin answered, his tone unreadable.
For some reason, Ila fumed at his seeming indifference. He did not even want to look at her, and was apparently angry that she had interrupted his bath at that. Just like last night when he ignored her completely at supper.
He made her feel so unattractive and undesirable. Was she those things? She didn't think so, and even if she was he could be a little nicer about it all.
Ila looked at him over her shoulder, his back still to hers. She was so put out with him that she forgot for a moment that she spoke to a king.
"Do you find me so objectionable?! That you cannot even bear to look upon me?" Ila spat at him.
Thorin's face was comical. What was wrong with her? She didn't want him to look at her but was angry that he agreed not to look at her? Females were perhaps even stranger than he had occasion to notice all these years.
"Pardon me?" Thorin's voice came dangerously over his own shoulder as he looked upon her back and long dripping hair now.
"Find you objectionable? When you cannot even get through supper next to me without crying?" Thorin practically spat back at her.
Ila was surprised at him and felt her temper cool a tiny bit. Did he think that she found him objectionable? She was thinking about how strange this was when his deep baritone interrupted her thoughts.
"Well?" His voice came angrily over the water.
"I….how could you think that I was crying because I find you objectionable? You completely ignored me during supper!"
"Ignored you? You barely spoke to me, even when I tried to make conversation with you." Thorin shot back.
"Conversation? You barely spoke to me at all and looked as though it physically pained you when you did!" Ila returned.
Thorin turned around completely now to stare at her back, she just peering over her shoulder back at him.
She felt afraid as he looked angry enough to strike her. But as he spoke, he seemed nervous again. The way he had looked in the throne room when they first met.
"I—I do not have a talent for speaking with women. I have had little occasion and even less reason to do so in my life. Though, thanks to much happier circumstances of my life at present, that has changed." Thorin went from sounding angry to nervous to almost sweet. The sweetness was understated, more it was the vulnerability that she heard in his voice.
Had she imagined it? Or did she really have him all wrong? Ila turned her head slowly to reveal more and more of her face to him, so that finally he saw from behind the curtain of wet, dark hair her absolutely beautiful face. Her full lips, her hazel eyes, her rosy cheeks, flushed even more from the hot water and the embarrassment of being caught off guard. Thorin felt his breath hitch at finally laying eyes on her, locking eyes with her. She looked back into his light blue ones, her lips parted in an innocent and sweet stare when—
Dwala's scream shocked both of them anew, and Thorin rolled his eyes as he saw the source. He hadn't even had breakfast yet and dwarf women were screaming their heads off at him left and right.
Ila had turned her back to him again, hoping that Dwala did not see them looking at each other.
Dwala began to apologize to Thorin profusely, her face red as dragon's fire as she did.
"Your majesty, please forgive me. It was my idea to come down here, my lady—"
"Calm yourself." He said with a hand raised to silence her. "I would that my betrothed enjoy her first dip in her hot springs." He said and began to ascend from the pool with caused Dwala to somehow turn redder and avert her eyes, turning her face towards the wall. Ila could not suppress a smile as she watched Thorin go, getting a view of his backside this time. Even his buttocks were firm and muscular. Ila blushed harder still as he grabbed his trousers to quickly step into them and simply carry his shirt as he walked away. Before he turned the corner, he cast one more look towards Ila, who was caught looking right back at him. She should have averted her eyes, but instead gave him the smallest smile. It was but for half a second, but Thorin saw it. Once he was out of sight he smiled too.
"Oh Mahal!" Dwala exclaimed when she was sure he was out of hearing distance. "How did he ever come to be in the water with you?! And you without your veil! Did he see your face?! Did he see the rest of you?!"
Ila giggled and it dumbfounded Dwala. "It happened so fast, I am unsure. But, I don't think he saw me…." Ila answered, knowing better. For her part, she had seen everything, and she could not stop thinking about it. She blushed still, and Dwala thought it was at having been caught in such a compromising situation. But it was not only that she had seen him, Ila blushed at Thorin's moment of vulnerability and the tiny glimpse she had seen at his true feelings. Did he like her? Did he think her pretty? Ila hoped so, as butterflies filled her stomach and her head felt light. As she sat about properly bathing herself, she took extra care, wanting to look her very best for their next encounter.