Trigger warnings: Self harm, sex. Rating change.
Chapter 6
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
She closed the door behind her, biting her lower lip and despite the pain in her throat, Erdene squealed like a teenage girl. That was so cool! Thorin walked her home! Thorin freaking Oakenshield, King Under The Mountain, walked her home!
Oh. My. God.
Warren was coming down the stairs. "What are you doing child?" He asked with a furrowed brow and partial glare.
Child. She huffed to herself. He believed she was a lot younger than she actually was. And she let him. Letting him think she was young made him underestimate her.
"I had a good day." She replied with her fakest of smiles. One that never reached her eyes. She opened her coin purse and pulled out three days worth of silver to put on the table. "That's my rent. I'm going to eat and go to bed."
He took the coins, counting them while she went about gathering a jar of water (he never understood why she boiled her water before storing it for later) and readying the meal Alisa made earlier. "We will need to address the offer of marriage you declined."
She cast him a glance over her shoulder at him. "No. We won't. I pay for my room and board. I will not be bought and paid for."
He bristled, a flash of anger and embarrassment down his spine. "It's a good match Erdene and you are getting older. No man will desire a wife past her-"
She slammed the water jar down. "I have no intention to be married."
"You'll be a spinster, you understand that child, a spinster with no one to care for you."
What was meant to scare her instead brought a broad, almost mad grin to her face. "Do you even know why they're called spinsters?"
"They're old and alone." He answered with the same answer most people would have given.
She gathered her plate and water, "no. Women who make their own money and don't need or want anyone else in their lives terrify men who want to keep women under their thumbs."
He stared at her. Warren had never heard such a thing. A woman who didn't need a father, brother or husband? What kind of woman was Erdene's mother to teach her so?
He also recognized a fight he would not win. Child was almost as stubborn as the last dwarven merchant he had the misfortune of negotiating a contract with. "The way you were raised will be a detriment to you here, Erdene. You could marry well. You're young enough, pretty enough, talented enough."
Rubbing her eyes she sighed. There was no getting through to a man this deeply entrenched in a false belief. Even if he had four daughters, he would never see them as human beings who deserved to live and be free.
Maybe, she thought to herself, I should become a pirate. Pirates are free. Not that she knew a single thing about sailing aside from whatever she learned watching One Piece for twenty four years. Would have been cool ending up there. At least I could hang with the Straw Hats. Robin's always been my kind of weirdly morbid but fun. And Chopper could probably use someone in the infirmary who wouldn't flinch too hard at the sight of blood. Luffy would just love someone from beyond the stars.
How would Zoro take it if I told him he and his vow to Kunia were seventy-five percent of the reason I even bothered to start learning to use a katana?
Brook would want to see my panties.
I could bond with Frankie over mechanics.
Usopp would be so not pleased with my gallows humor.
Jimbe. An unknown personality. I could probably feed him beer until he warmed to me.
I wonder if Yamato is going to join the crew?
Sanji, with another girl on board, this time a small cute girl? Sanji would lose his ever-lovin' mind. Especially if she flirted back. Poor boy would lose half a pint of blood through his nose.
Ooo, and maybe I could get my flirt on with Buggy and Shanks. Talk the two of them into a threesome. Buggy seemed like he'd be into it (Impel Down Buggy had wrecked her brain in a number of very dirty ways). Shanks didn't seem like the type of guy to turn down a willing woman. They were both that little bit older that she liked in a potential boyfriend.
Monica always accused her of liking older guys because of the whole no daddy thing. Judith believed it was a preference for men who were already established in life. Erdene's therapist told her she was looking for a stability she hadn't had most of her life. Erdene tended to believe that since she had to grow up faster than most of her peers, she didn't harbor an attraction to people her age.
"Warren, I hate repeating myself, so I'm only going to tell you this one last time. I don't have an interest in getting married. Not today, not tomorrow and not any time in the near future. Do you understand?"
He did not understand.
Erdene left the room before she did something she'd regret. Like beat the hell out of him. She climbed the stairs to her room, closed and locked her door before letting out a low growl of frustration.
Being a feminist in Arda was turning out to be so damn difficult. She was so tempted to leave Warren's home, but where would she go? Here, at least, she had a place to live. Even if Warren was a pain in the ass.
Sighing, she grabbed her phone and unlocked it. Erdene set her food down and reached for the window to grab her solar charger. Full power. Sweet. Her phone, because it was in power saver and she didn't touch it most of the day, was still nearly fully charged. Her earbuds too.
The whole patriarchal crap made her want to scream. Warren had used the word spinster like a slur. Ugh. Gross. She looked at her plate, certain it looked like something she might have eaten at a dinner in an Austen novel.
She would have put good money on knowing this guy probably never cooked for himself in his life. Or did his own laundry. Or cleaned his own-
Calm down or you'll do something stupid.
Coping and grounding mechanisms. Breathe in, hold for a long as you can, breathe out. She wouldn't have had to deal with this shit if Warren hadn't tried to find her a damn husband today!
Count down from twenty. The anger still simmered right under her skin like a pot ready to boil. It was so fucking frustrating to have to explain in repetition that she could handle her own life.
Look around the room, name colors. Nope. Everything about this room pissed her off right now. From Warren's wife's, whose name she still didn't know because they never talked about her, things neatly piled on the sitting chair in the corner, to the plain walls and armoire full of hand me down clothing she'd worn for months because Warren just hadn't cared enough to help her get a new wardrobe.
Holding an ice cube was out of the question.
Her gaze flickered to the candle on her dresser. Fuck it. She needed her hands intact. Her elbow was a different story. Violently yanking up her sleeve, she put her right elbow over the fire, counting silently to herself. Eight seconds and her skin had soot. Not long enough to actually burn, but long enough for her brain to register the distraction.
Pain isn't a coping mechanism. Her therapist's voice came back to her. Yeah. She knew that. Using some water from the basin on the dresser to wipe away the soot, she found a small dime sized pink spot.
She dug in her purse for the travel size tube of Neosporin and the mini box of band-aids she carried around for Judith. After her first four weeks of radiation treatments her skin had gotten so thin a good scratch bled profusely. After the last few, she needed her wounds patched daily.
Judith would have finished her treatments by now. Did she beat the big C or had it claimed her life? What would happen to the bookstore? Who was making the signs for the windows without Erdene there? Judith didn't understand photoshop. Clip art was the extent of her creativity.
Smearing a thin layer over the burn didn't make it feel any better. It would grate like a bitch while she tried to play tomorrow. Still, she covered it with a small round band-aid.
Better than going out of her room and decking her landlord in front of his kids.
Just…just go do something else. Now. The detachment from her anger made it easier to push it away and grab her phone again. Music. Pick some music for tomorrow and don't think about-
One, two, three, four, five, six-
Shouldn't marriage be between people who cared about one another? Who loved one another? Not people who are only in this for the tax breaks and mutually assured destruction if they fail at the game of life.
One.
Two.
Three.
For fucks sake.
She watched not one but three marriages all but implode when she was growing up. Her grandparents couldn't stand one another. They kept up every pretense of being happy in front of everyone except their own families. At night they went to sleep in separate bedrooms. They never said I love you or even thank you. Grandmama would take her in softball, granddaddy would pull her out to go to reenactments with him. Grandmama would take her to ballet, granddaddy would pull her out to go to the range with him.
She learned to plié and fire a 1911 before she finished her BA in Music Theory.
Her aunt Lola and uncle John also, a shitty marriage of convenience with six kids, and a white two story cape cod house with a legitimate white picket fence in Cape Cod. Aunt Lola hated her husband. Her husband took his vows of til death do us part seriously. No matter how badly she treated him. He drank whole kegs of beer every week, privately in his garage.
Uncle Ward emotionally and mentally abused his wife to the point his kids had started doing the same. At the wedding in February their eldest son (all of twelve years of age) called his mother a moron for not giving him her glass of wine.
Erdene had grabbed him by the scruff and threatened to dump a whole gallon of sweet tea over his head. I'll give you a choice, respect your mama or I'm gonna empty this on you and drag your sorry excuse for an ass outside an' let those bugs buzzin' out there have you. After a good three minutes of him yelling, threatening her and struggling she did pull him to the huge double doors leading to the veranda. The boy relented as she had been flipping the locks. His apology to his mother had been begrudging. He ran off to the bathrooms the moment he was released and his mother had given Erdene a genuine smile.
Music. Music. Pick some damn music. It was like the universe was laughing at her when her music did come on.
Paris Paloma's Labour.
Nope. She didn't need to get angrier. Pick something else. Hitting shuffle The Weekend's Blinding Lights came on. Followed by The Pim Stones We Had It All, Panic! At The Disco's Miss Jackson, Outskirts' Let's Do This, Reach's Cover My Traces, by the time Barbie Sailers' Breathe began to filter through her ear buds, most of her anger had abated to a dull roar in the back of her mind.
The bells were ringing, nine. Damn. Really? Nine pm? Damn it. She still had to figure out tomorrow's playlist. Repeats were fine if she mixed them in with songs no one had heard before. She began scrolling through her Samsung Music.
Jaxon Gamble? Too aggressive.
Chris Caulfield? Too slow.
Fun? Too chaotic.
Ellie Goulding, Figure 8. Stone Temple Pilots, Interstate Love Song. Jake Daniel's Otherside. ABBA's Take A Chance On Me.
Around the time the ten pm bell was ringing she found herself listening to Lorde's 400 Lux a few times to get the chords down. Her fingers moved over the strings of her violin .
You pick me up and take me home again.
Tomorrow she was back to walking herself home at night. Which would suck. She'd walked home alone more than once before. It was nothing new. Yeah but…walking with Thorin had been nice.
He was nice. To her at least. He'd gone out of his way to help her when he didn't have to. The angry, grumpy, borderline rude dwarf in the movie didn't seem to be this same polite, patient one she met. Maybe he became that person over time? There were probably years, and years and years until he was going to take back Erebor. It could be that she met him before he became bitter and grumpy.
You drape your wrist over the steering wheel. Pulses can drive from here.
Absently, Erdene began wondering what Thorin would look like riding her bike. He could ride a pony, the speed of a motorcycle might be just up his alley. And he worked with his hands. In her world he'd probably run his own business, be a mechanic with a garage who did blacksmithing on the side.
We might be hollow but we're brave.
They might have met when she brought Judith's old junker in. A gigantic green boat of a car from the early nineties that still somehow kept running despite it being ancient. Maybe he'd comment about the car's age. She'd laugh, telling him about her boss refusing to let go of it. He'd ask about her car. She'd smile, shake her head, tell him she rode a motorcycle. He might tell her he rode too.
I love these roads where the houses don't change (and I like you).
Maybe he'd ask for her number. She'd hand him her unlocked phone so he could type his number in and call himself.
Where we can talk like there's nothing to say, (and I like you).
They might talk while he looked over Judith's sorry excuse for a vehicle. Oil change, serpentine belt needs replacement, when is the last time this battery casing was cleaned? Maybe she would flirt, lean forward on the hood of Judith's car to make sure he saw her cleavage. Maybe those gorgeous blue eyes of his would rake over her figure with heat.
Maybe he liked short girls with hips and thighs and a figure like hers.
I'm glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway, (and I like you).
He'd see her wrist tattoos, the ones on her ankles too. Maybe he'd be interested in seeing the other ones. He might ask where they were. She'd tell him with a wink, they're somewhere he might need to close the shop to see.
We move in the tree streets. I'd like it if you stayed.
Maybe he'd offer to go flip the closed sign. Ask if she wanted to join him in the- Oh. No. Oh. No. No. Damn it. No.
Erdene ripped the ear bud from her ear with wide eyes and dropped it on the bed like it burned her. She glared at herself in the looking glass on the wall. Tonta mujer, thinking of falling for the most unavailable male in this world.
Thinking of falling wasn't quite right. Because she didn't have day dreams of potentially sleeping with someone who she just liked. Nor did she dream about guys she just liked. Erdene followed her mama's approach to relationships, all in baby.
And that wasn't very fucking helpful. Thorin was out of her league. Far, far, far, parsecs out of her league.
Not just as dwarven royalty, but because he was hot. He knew he was hot. He probably looked in the mirror every morning and said, damn you so fine to his reflection.
Flopping back on her bed, Erdene huffed. Goddamn.
How would those hands feel squeezing her - you are not thinking about - ass. Her brain, her brain. It couldn't just ignore or forget things.
It was a blessing and a curse.
Because the detailed fantasy she started before bed ended up becoming a vividly detailed dream that night. Dream Thorin fucked her like a man who hadn't touched a woman in years. He'd kissed her like a drowning man kissed land. And he hadn't been gentle. He got rough the way she liked it. He put one hand at the base of her throat and asked her if he needed a condom or could he fuck her raw. He told her he was going to come inside her. She'd clung to him, locked her legs at the ankle around his back and begged him not to pull out. He'd begun to pound into her harder than she'd ever had, teeth gritted as he spilled himself against her womb and she came on his hard cock like this was her first time again.
He kissed her again, this time lovingly, and asked her to dinner.
She'd laughed, kissed him back, why do I feel like I'm going to end up keeping you around?
This time when they kissed it was less fire and more need.
He'd nuzzled her cheek. I've a feeling I might need to wife you up.
They had sex again, slower, with no less need or desire.
She let him come inside her again. And again. And again.
She woke in the morning a needy, wet mess. Except the rest of the house was already going. She could hear the girls chattering their inane morning chatter. Did you sleep well? Oh yes, did you? She heard Warren asking where Erdene was. And there wasn't a damn thing she could do about the problem between her thighs.
Getting up and getting dressed like she had to was ridiculous. Her body, specifically her vulva, wasn't catching up with the message that they weren't going to get laid any time soon. She had to sit with the girls and Warren during breakfast with her clit still throbbing a demand that she do something about it.
Sunday morning, Erdene forced herself out of the house, down the road, past the turn and toward the dwarven district.
It is the first night he dreams about Erebor. He is standing in a room he knows, but cannot remember how he knows it. There are large open windows allowing spring sunlight and sweet air through them. Sheer, pale green curtains billow with the breeze. There is a sweet humming coming from another room to the left.
Before him there is a small dwarrow child, with curling black-brown hair, and eyes like his. She can be no more than four or five years of age.
"Adad." Her arms go out to him.
Father.
His throat clenches and his heart wrenches. Why would his dreams show him that which he cannot have? He is without a one. Many of his fellow dwarrow are the same. There are so few dam, and he has never felt drawn to any of them.
The dwarfling girl pouts at him when he doesn't pick her up. She stamps both tiny feet in her pale lilac shoes and crosses her arms over her chest. He opens his mouth to tell her not to wrinkle her dress.
"Papa!" A small voice comes from the room on the left. His head turns, and a twin of the child before him runs with open arms at him. He crouches, catches her, heart aching. Twin girls. He swallows hard as she pulls a long loose braid over her shoulder.
"Mama tried a," she thinks, a small tongue sticking out of one corner of her mouth. "French braid." Her head bobs. She leans in, whispering, "she can't do it like you do papa." She too pouts.
He laughs, her pout makes him smile. "Your mother tries Ariadne."
His gaze strays to the doorway half open with the crest of his house emblazoned on the door. He knows this room now. This is the nursery in the royal wing. He hasn't been here since Dís was born and he was very young.
The humming is lovely. A sweet tune he does not know. He takes the hands of both girls, earning him twin smiles from his twin girls. They look up at him as if he placed the moon and stars. His heart, despite the pain of knowing this is not real, swells.
As he takes a step towards the door a boy with dark hair runs out with a similarly colored smaller boy on his heels. They're younger than the girls, possibly three or four for the bigger boy and two or three for the younger. They're battling with wooden axes much like he had when he was a dwarfling.
They laugh. The older boy calls to Thorin, "Adad, watch!"
His heart pounds. His wife has given him four children? Two girls and two boys.
There is a soft gurgling laughter from beyond the doorway, it sounds much like an infant laughing. Five children then? That is more than any king has had in centuries. He wants to see her, the woman he married that gave him a life so full. Even if this is a dream, he would like to see her once. He takes one step toward the door, towards the humming and the sound of a babe he knows is his. Towards his wife.
Thorin woke in his bed, alone, one hand outstretched to touch the door that had been before him.
The same hand formed a fist and fell to his side. He sat up, saddened by the absence of the dream. It was wonderful and heartbreaking. Living in the royal wing of Erebor once more.
His beautiful children.
A wife with a sweet hum.
What a life that would have been.