Disclaimer: I own only Eva and other non-recognisable parts of the plot. I'm not making money, so please don't sue.
AN: I have too many ideas running around my head… this being one of them. Using the Universe from 'Mahal's Shield', but a spin off, of sorts. Can be read alone, but explanations of some terms can be found in my main work "Mahal's Shield".
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In the aftermath of the Battle, Thorin rarely if ever got the chance to get away from the politics of trying to rebuild and run Erebor. He was trained for it, built for it, but that didn't mean that he liked it.
It was late at night when Thorin had finally been able to get away from the Council, or the bare bones of it. He met Dwalin in the Dining Hall, once again dodging yet another dwarrowdam that seemed intent on trying to persuade him to have her as Queen. Didn't these dams understand that he had already been spoken for?!
"Where is Eva?" Thorin asked as he entered the Royal Wing, taking off his heavy cloak and facing his other One.
Dwalin gave a surprisingly gentle smile as he replied "She's on night shift in the Healing Halls. Ever since young Tovin asked fer a lullaby a fortnight ago, the young'uns have been asking fer her every night."
Thorin felt warm diffuse through his being as he remembered the young dwarf. Oin was a wonderful Healer, of that he had no doubt, but the night Eva had joined him to help in his rounds, the atmosphere in the Halls changed dramatically. The dwarrow had not taken long at all to warm to her gentle presence, her soft voice and bedside manner making their stay just a little brighter in a place that rarely permitted it.
Eva had been horrified at the sterile environment that she had seen in the Healing Halls and had single-handedly changed it. Calling in a few favours from Bilbo, she had made sure that each bedside table had a small vase of flowers beside it. Initially, the dwarrow had scoffed at the idea, until a dwarf had been brought in that was in the process of losing his sight.
The flowers were pretty and hardly fitting for a dwarf to fawn over, but because he could not see them, he initially did not know they were there. The next morning, Eva had come in with Oin and heard someone sobbing. They found that it was the nearly-blind dwarf, nearly convinced that nobody had cared that he was in the Healing Halls. The scent of the flowers had triggered his tears and Eva hadn't known what to do, so she reached out and enclosed the dwarf in a gentle embrace. Upon discovering that the person holding him was a woman, he clung to her harder. The flowers had triggered a memory of his sister who regularly kept a vase of fresh flowers in their little home. She would leave for work early, but always leave freshly picked flowers to show her younger brothers that she had been there, and that she was thinking of them. The dwarf, Ruvin, thanked Eva softly and asked if she would keep doing it, to remind him that there was someone thinking of him. Eva had been crying when she replied to him, but he couldn't see her tears. After this, nobody complained about the presence of any flowers.
"Has any of the Company managed to dissuade her from the shifts?" Thorin asked with a grin.
"Nay," Dwalin replied, "she's just as stubborn as the two of us. She'll likely flay us alive if you try to talk to her otherwise."
The two dwarrow arrived at the Healing Halls and smiled as they found Eva. She was sitting beside a patient's bed reading to him by candlelight. So engrossed in the book was she that she didn't realise the audience she had paying attention to her from their own beds.
"Yer Khuzdul needs a lo' a work." Piped up one of the older patients in a soft but gruff voice.
Eva jumped slightly as she turned her attention to the older dwarf "I know, I've only been learning it formally for about two months. You have so many gutteral tones in there, sometimes it hurts my throat."
The patient she was reading aloud to chuckled "Dun be too hard on the lass, Buri. She's far be'a cumpany than Oin. Deaf as a doorpost, he is."
"Aye," came a voice from across the room "Knows his stuff, but no' exactly a ray o' sunshine."
"Eva, lass, will ye sing fer us before ya go?" came the patient's voice.
Thorin could hear the warmth in her reply "Of course, Romi."
She stood and made her way to the end of Rami's bed, spotting Thorin and Dwalin at the door of the ward. She smiled softly at them before turning her back to them and facing Romi.
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
Thorin recognised the song from when Eva had sat in Bilbo's smial so long ago, at the beginning of their journey. He sighed softly, remembering all the events and moments that helped both dwarves realise that she was their One. They both realised that Eva had brought the song down a few tones, the key of it lower to accommodate the fact they were in Healing Halls, and that higher sound would likely hurt other patients.
With golden roof and silver floor
And runes of power upon the door
The two dwarrow entered the Healing Halls as quietly as they could, using the shadows created by the scones to hide themselves as they approached their One.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright
The world is grey, the mountains old
The forge's fire is ashen-cold
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere
There lies his crown in water deep
Till Durin wakes again from sleep
"I still remember," Thorin began gently from behind her.
Eva gasped and spun around, the other dwarves in the cots of the Healing Halls all murmuring "Your Majesty!"
Thorin and Dwalin walked up to her and Thorin took her hand gently "I still remember when you first sang that, at the burglar's home before our Quest began."
Eva looked Thorin in the eye and smiled "Back when I was a thorn in your side."
From the bed, Romi witnessed his King smile at the woman in a way that both lightened and embarrassed him. Lightened that his King could indeed smile, and embarrassed in that the smile that he gave the woman was like he was intruding on an incredibly private moment.
"Thank you, Eva, for being here in my stead." Thorin said softly.
"I enjoy being here." Eva aid sincerely "Also, Balin is a hard taskmaster when it comes to Khuzdul-"
"Lord Balin is teachin' ye Khuzdul?!" Romi gasped "I- you– why-"
"Dun yeh ken, Romi?!" Buri growled from the other bed "Tha' we've been visited by Erebor's future Queen?"
The silence grew thick as Eva groaned. Romi stuttered helplessly.
"Why did you have to spoil it, Buri?" Eva whined "I was comfortable without them knowing! Do you know how hard it is to be able to get down here without some idiot trying to-"
Low murmuring buzzed around her as Dwalin stepped forward "I know yeh wanted it to be a secret." Dwalin began "But we are khazad, Eva. We take care o' our own."
"Wait…" began one of the younger dwarves "You're Eva, as in Mahalmarkhel Eva?!"
Eva hissed quietly "I hate that title, but yes."
There was a full ten seconds of silence before Buri said with bewilderment "Weel… knock me o'er witha feather…. Yeh didn't tell me that!"
… and Oin chose that moment to walk in.
"Come on, lass." He blustered "It's about time these dwarves showed yeh the proper manners they shoulda when you first came to the Healing Halls-"
"Oin-"
"-Ah, Your Majesty-"
"Not to me, my friend-" came Thorin's rumble.
"-glad to see yeh. Eva's 'bout done now. If yeh could make sure she's bathed before-"
"We will." Dwalin said in a tone that made the half-deaf Healer stop. "We've just come te collect her."
Eva's noises of protest were drowned out by her Ones as she was guided gently out of the Healing Halls, Dwalin's hand firmly in the small of her back, leaving behind six very stunned dwarves. Romi turned to Buri.
"You knew she was the future Queen, and you didn't say anything?!" he began in a rather higher pitched voice than before
Buri blinked "Aye, just didn't know that she was Mahalmarkhel … Durin's beard… We've all been idiots…."
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