and even if they have to run away, she's gonna marry that boy someday.
-She's in Love with the Boy, Trisha Yearwood
You're starting to get really fucking tired of this forest.
You trudge along behind Dwalin, following your captors to God-knows-where. Well, you know where, as fragments of the events to come slowly start to return to your mind. But your irritation starts to subside as you reach the cave system where the woodland elves' fortress lies, replaced by awe. Beside you, the red-headed Tauriel smirks at your reaction. You were surprised to find her among the Mirkwood elves, turning this Middle Earth into some strange mix of book and movie canon. But movies really didn't do the palace justice, and you almost forget your predicament when the large stone doors swing open, and you are led along winding paths and into the hall of the Elvenking.
Thorin is clearly not impressed, launching into an argument with the king. You tune him out and rise up on your tiptoes, peering around to count the Company members. Bilbo. Bilbo is missing—he's already used the Ring, you realize with a shiver.
"You. The lady."
You jump. Thranduil regards you with a curious gaze. "You are no dwarf. What is a daughter of Man doing with this foul bunch? And in such strange clothes, too."
Indignation stirs in your chest, and you cross your arms. "None of your business," you snap.
Thranduil takes a step closer and lowers his voice. "We can save you from these dwarves. Just say the word," he whispers, eyes narrowing as he reaches out to raise your chin.
As soon as his cold fingers make contact with your skin, a hand pulls you back by your shoulder roughly. Thorin plants himself between you and the king. "She stands with us. Touch her again…" Thorin doesn't continue, letting the threat hang in the air.
Thranduil curls his lip and turns away. "Very well, then. She goes with the others."
One of the elven guards grabs you and Thorin by your arms, dragging you along with the rest of the Company. Your heart quickens as you reach the cells. There's not enough.
Tauriel has realized it as well, pursing her lips in thought. "Double them up, then. Careful with the woman," she adds, looking you up and down. "She carries a child."
The blood drains from your face and you gape at the elf in horror. How can she tell?
A confused murmur ripples through the Company. Before you can say anything, you and Thorin are pushed into a small cell, the door clanging shut behind you. Your head spins. Of course, you were going to tell him eventually, but surely not this soon. Thorin is shouting through the bars, but you only vaguely register the sound, curling up into a shaky ball in the corner.
At last, he relents—but not before spitting through the door. "They mean to divide us," he growls, starting to pace the length of the cramped cell. "Making up filthy lies—"
"It's not a lie," you whisper, trying to cut his rant short before it can even begin. It works.
He turns to you slowly. Dangerously slowly. "What?" Thorin's voice is low.
"She wasn't lying," you repeat, uncurling and lifting your top with a trembling hand to expose your midriff. The bump is just barely noticeable if you know to look for it.
Even in the dim light, Thorin finds it immediately. "You said you had no paramours in your world," he says slowly. His thick eyebrows draw into a frown, blue eyes impossibly dark.
"I don't."
"Then how…" he trails off as you look over his shoulder, and turns to follow your gaze. In the flickering torchlight of the hallway, in the cell directly across from yours, stands Fíli. His knuckles are white as he grips the bars tightly, pressing his body against the door as if he could melt through it and reach you if he just tried hard enough.
"Fíli," Your love's name is barely a breath from Thorin's mouth. "You?"
When Fíli meets his uncle's eyes, he straightens up, chin raised. "Yes." That one word, that first public acknowledgment of the love between you and your prince, shatters the tension in the air. A clamor breaks out among the rest of the Company, who had been watching the exchange with bated breath.
"Enough!" A shout cuts through the noise, silencing the other dwarves. To your surprise, it comes not from Thorin's lips, but Balin's. The old dwarf sighs and shakes his head. "Thorin. They're young and in love. Something was bound to happen sooner or later."
"In love?" Thorin repeats, dumbfounded. "You knew of this?"
Balin glances around at his companions—at least, as well as he can from the confines of his cell. "I believe you're the only one who hasn't noticed them."
Murmured agreement and nodding from the dwarves. "The will-they-won't-they was starting to get quite unbearable," Dwalin grunts.
"Oh please," snorts Kíli, standing from where he had lain sprawled out behind his brother. "They passed 'will-they-won't-they' ages ago."
Fíli goes to smack him, but Kíli dodges. "I caught them together in bed in Rivendell one morning. In her bed, no less," he continues with a lazy grin. "Can't imagine what she sees in an oaf like him, but to each their own."
Thorin looks down at you, then back to his nephews. He leans against the wall, sliding down to the floor with his face in his hands.
You exchange a nervous look with Fíli. "Thorin?" you venture.
He doesn't look at you. "Where's Master Baggins?" he asks after a long silence, voice muffled. "What comes next?"
His question brings the reality of your situation rushing back to you. "Oof," you exhale loudly, puffing out your cheeks. "He's… he's okay. Just trust him. He knows what he's doing. Well… he doesn't yet. But he will. We'll be here for a while, I think."
Thorin finally lifts up his head wearily, as if a hundred years descended upon him in mere moments. "Do you understand how incredibly foolish the pair of you have been? A pregnant woman on a journey like this? That child could jeopardize this entire quest."
A hot flash of anger burns through you. You leap to your feet to argue, but it quickly turns to pain. You feel like an ice pick has been jammed into your abdomen, and you sink back to the floor with a groan. Fíli echoes it, the desperation in his eyes heartbreaking as he can do nothing but look upon you from afar.
Thorin's face falters, but he makes no movement toward you.
"Thorin," Balin says after another long silence. "The babe carries Durin's blood. The first in nearly eighty years—it will be an heir to the throne someday."
It's as if Balin's words slapped him in the face. Thorin stares at him, then whips his head back around to you, then Fíli. You can almost see the gears turning in his head. "An heir…" he mutters.
Clanging from down the hall makes you jump. To your surprise, Legolas appears before your cell, carrying a cloth bundle.
Thorin is on his feet in an instant, blocking the elven prince's view of you with his bulk. "Come to gloat?" he sneers.
Legolas's lip curls in distaste, but he looks past the fuming dwarf to you. "For the lady," he says, holding out the bundle through the bars. "From one of our own women."
You rise shakily, nudging Thorin out of the way hesitantly and taking it from him. "Thanks, Legolas," you murmur with a small smile.
Thorin and Legolas give you identical looks of confusion, and you remember too late that Legolas doesn't know you the way you know him. "You're… welcome," he replies slowly.
Within the blanket you find a small amount of food, some herbs, and a little vial with a bubbly liquid sloshing around in it.
"It's for the baby's health," he explains, glancing at your belly. "We're not monsters."
You repeat your thanks and settle back into the corner, wrapping yourself in the blanket. The events of the past few days collapse over you, and you give in to the exhaustion, falling into an uneasy sleep.
"Y/N."
A gentle hand shakes you from sleep.
You squirm beneath the blanket. "It's too early, Fee," you grumble, screwing your eyes shut even tighter. "Gotta… sleep for the baby…"
"Y/N." The shaking is more insistent this time, and you reluctantly crack open an eye. Thorin stands over you, bringing you back to reality.
By your count, you've been in the cells of Mirkwood nearly four weeks, anxiously awaiting Bilbo's barrel-riding rescue. The days pass slowly, with little to fill time other than teasing Kíli from across the hall about the growing flirting between him and Tauriel, constantly reassuring Fíli that you're not on the verge of labor, and playing the same ten songs over and over from your phone—before the battery died. Your solar-powered charger is useless here beneath the earth. The elves have been noticeably kinder towards you than your dwarven companions. Whatever herbs and elixirs Legolas continues to deliver have dampened your morning sickness significantly, and Tauriel often escorts you on walks around the lower palace levels for the baby's health. If either suspect who the father is, they don't show it—you and the dwarves agreed it was best the elves not learn you were carrying a half-dwarf child, in fear that they revoke their preferential treatment of you.
You blink up at Thorin in surprise. He has rarely spoken to you despite sharing a cell, always seeming to be brooding over something or another. But now he holds out a hand and helps you to your feet, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips.
He clears his throat. "This has been on my mind for quite some time," he says, stepping back and glancing over his shoulder at Fíli, who watches from his cell apprehensively. All the dwarves' eyes are on you and Thorin, in fact.
"It is true that you are not… entirely what I had in mind as a bride for my heir."
You wince, but Thorin places a hand on your shoulder and squeezes it. There is an odd look in his eye, a familiar expression, but one you struggle to place.
"Y/N. The child in your womb is of the line of Durin. You may not carry Durin's blood in your veins, but you carry it all the same."
As he speaks, it dawns on you. The look in his eyes—it's pride. The same pride and affection you'd only seen when he watched his nephews when he knew they were not looking. "Before today, I claimed you as a member of my Company." Finally, he smiles. "Now, I claim you as my kin. And when all this is over…"
Thorin trails off and looks back at Fíli again. "When all this is over, and our home under the mountain is restored, I will see the pair of you properly wed. You have my blessing."
He gently wipes tears from your cheek that you hadn't realized were there, and leans in to rest his forehead against yours, that tender dwarven expression of affection you'd come to love. "Take care of that little one, Y/N," he murmurs, his voice oddly thick with emotion.
Your throat tightens and you open your mouth to speak, but the clattering sound of metal-on-metal draws your attention back to the cell door. It's Bilbo, fumbling with a large keyring. "Come on, come on," he whispers urgently.
You smile. Barrel time.