Adults having foreplay and kink, you have been warned. Kink discussion below. Like actually defining it. :)
Chapter 9
"For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
It took Thorin some time to make a decision while he worked, to go over the implications, ramifications and what might be the expectation. Her expectations. This bare faced daughter of men, a woman, who gave him sweets. If she'd been dwarrow, he would have refused them.
She is not dwarrow. He could take them as payment. Dís would not ask further questions if he said they were payment for helping someone.
When he gathered the small package from the table, the smell of butter, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and molasses hit him. His taste buds flooded in response. "You made these?"
She nodded with a real smile this time, small, shy and still melancholy at the edges. "My mama's recipe. She loved to cook and bake and think up recipes."
Her mother. She had mentioned hearing her voice earlier.
She's gone, the girl had told him with a bitter sadness written on her young face. "May I ask when she passed?"
She blinked large dark green eyes at him, slowing between steps. "Oh, no, my mama is alive, or at least her body is. Her mind is gone. Has been since I was eleven. That was a damn shock when I got up to go to," sophomore year of her musical theory degree, "school and my mama didn't move a muscle from lying on the sofa. I thought she might have gone back to work after I went to bed, so I made my own breakfast, got ready for school on my own and went. Spent all day there. When I got home there were," emergency services and police and her grandparents speaking to CFS. "Neighbors and my grandparents there. My mama never woke up. Her eyes open, but they don't blink. Her body can be moved but she doesn't move on her own. She breathes. She's just not up here." Erdene tapped her temple.
Her mother's soul was somehow moved to Arda. She didn't recall having watched the old Hobbit movie, the cartoon one from the late 70's with her mother any time in the days before her mother was gone. Or reading The Hobbit. But they did own the first Lord of The Rings trilogy since her mother had a huge crush on Orlando Bloom and found it hilarious that the guy from Sliders was Gimli. Actually, her mom had been lying on the sofa, in front of the TV.
Had her mom been pulled through as she fell asleep?
And if that was what happened, what triggered Erdene's transition to Arda? How had she, Erdene, come through whole? Bags and clothes and soul, all where they were supposed to be.
She shrugged, resigned. "I said goodbye to her this past February."
Her alarm earlier made sense to him now. He too would have been to hear his father speak only to see nothing of him.
The olive tree that marked where he would take a left toward the dwarven district and she would go forward toward the slightly more affluent homes of the children of men was just ahead. A long branch bent at an angle, a cracked spot lower to the ground. Erdene slowed in her walking.
"Wait." She said as he took a step.
He watched as she patted her dress, then the case of her violin, then cast about for something in the ground. Thorin opened his mouth to ask what she was doing when she pulled up a frayed edge of her cloak and tore it hard.
Riiip.
She stepped upward on the brick separating the tree from the walkway. "It must have happened in the storm," she said, though he wasn't certain she was speaking to him.
Erdene wound the strip of cloth around the branch carefully, tying it tightly once she was sure she had the pieces sealed back together. She stepped down once finished, flashing him a small, guilty grimace. "I…I can't walk by something broken if I know I can fix it." She tucked a long curl behind her ear, bowing her head, "sorry."
Those are not words he expected to hear from the lips of a child of men.
There is something different about Erdene Thoroughfare. There are many things different, but something overall that stirs his interest. It is why he walked her home again. Why he took the sweets, despite knowing he should not have. Even if he took them as payment. Why he asked about her mother.
It is why he walks her to her door, and wishes her a goodnight.
It's why he walks her home the next night.
If Dís had anything to say about the time he returned home, she kept it to herself. If his sister's sons noticed, they too said nothing. The payment of cookies he took for walking a young girl home he left to them on the center of the table they took breakfast at, without explanation. If they had questions, no one voiced them. For that he was grateful.
It is also the second night he dreams of Erebor again.
He finds himself waking in a familiar room, where once his grandmother combed and plaited his hair as a young dwarfling. Where he was told fantastic stories of the Durin line. Where he would dream often of being a great warrior of legend like his ancestors before him. He would remember the view all of his life, even in old age. From these windows, his grandfather and grandmother's windows, one can see the whole valley.
He never thought to see this room again.
It has changed.
There are curtains on the windows that were not there before. Again the sheer pale green, these with embroidered pine trees weighing the base of them down. On top of them, pulled back, a darker green set of curtains, nearly black to blot out the light, these embroidered with the juniper, lavender and hydrangeas that grew around the Lonely Mountain.
The furniture has changed, though the bed frame itself has not. There are tapestries on the walls. The one in his line of sight is of a great white horse with a single white curved horn from between its eyes standing amongst a forest and other beasts. The other a dwarven lass standing amongst greenery with a dark blue ocean before her.
The bedding he lies on is a deep, dark green that reminds him of the pine trees at the base of the mountain with a heavier cream color blanket over the top and a knitted slate blue throw at the base.
There is a large harp set neatly by the windows next to a large polished desk with a stack of notes, books and a bowl of red apples.
Apples? Is it fall?
Again there is humming. Sweet humming. He closes his eyes to listen to it. A tune he does not know, different from the last. His wife. What a voice she must possess to sound so to his ears.
He wonders if their daughters and sons have inherited their voices.
He wonders if they ever sing together, he and his wife. He and his family.
He can hear her moving around the room, humming to herself in low tones. It feels much too early to be awake. There is gray in the light, it feels like pre-dawn, and yet the heavier curtains, the ones that block the light have been drawn.
He hears her move to his side of the bed, a hand, smaller and cooler than his, gently touching his right shoulder. He catches her wrist in his hand, tugging her down to his bare chest. Everything is hazy and gray in the barest of light. She is shrouded by dark brown hair in her face and shades of gray as she leans across his chest. As if she isn't quite solid, yet he feels her delicate wrist in his grip. "Come back to bed, wife."
She sighs a small contented sound, touching his chest with her other hand. Also small and cool. Her voice is a low, patient murmur. "If I come back to bed we will be late to the meeting with Dain and the Iron Hill merchants."
Still she doesn't fight him when he takes her hip in his hand and draws her into straddling his waist. Her skirt bunches around her thighs as he grinds the hardest part of him into the softness and heat between her thighs. "They cannot hold council without their king and queen."
She moves her hips against his, moaning as his clothed cock abrades her sensitive clit through her small clothes. "Fuck…Thorin."
Fuck indeed. He intended to fuck her until she cannot think about anything but his cock. His wife, he can never have enough of her.
He rolls them over, bracing his weight on one hand so as not to crush her. His fragile wife, with her tight, needy cunt. His fingers under her skirt, her small clothes soaking already for him. He hooks two fingers around the damp cloth ready to tear it away from the part of her he needed most.
"Don't you dare destroy another pair of underwear." She pushes at his chest. "You're lucky Valis and her apprentices aren't gossip mongers, or the whole of Erebor would know we spend more money on replacing my underwear in the year than we did on the twin's birthday celebration." She lifts her hips, shimmies, pulling her undergarment off and tossing it over the side of the bed.
He chuckles, adjusting her legs over his hips and pressing two fingers up and into her wetness. Mahal. Yes. Tight and wet and needy for him. "Mayhap, wife," he began to move both fingers within her, drawing high soft sighs of pleasure from her lips, "you should go without them from now on."
She bites her lower lip and glares at him half heartedly through heavy lidded lashes. "Your kinky self would love having easy access to my pussy all day."
He kisses her soundly. "Aye wife, I would. You have no idea how often when we hold court I dream of ordering everyone out, having you on the throne, and filling you." His fingers press up, stroking the soft spot behind he pubic bone. She grabs his shoulders, pushing up against his hand, groaning his name while her fingers dig into his skin. "Would you enjoy that? Sitting with my seed in you while we finish holding court?"
She moans wanton and needy, wiggling against his fingers. "You're-" her spine bows as he strokes her, "Thorin, if you don't fuck me right now-" her threat lost on a low groan of pleasure as he stroked her clit with the meat of his palm. Heavy-lidded eyes gazing at him. They were almost topaz-
His eyes opened as the sixth bell began to ring. There was a raging need between his legs that demanded he pay attention. Instead, he willed it down and relieved himself in the privy.
He missed the plumbing of Erebor more so on mornings like this. He would much rather wash with hot water rather than the cold of the basin. He would rather piss in a real toilet. Sleep in a bed made for a dwarrow from stone rather than the beds of wood he and his people had been sleeping in for nearly two hundred years.
He rinsed his hands in the basin on the dresser before beginning to dress for the day. The quiet movements he made reminded him of the dream. A wife with a sweet hum, who desired him as much as he did her. He stilled in dressing for the day, looking at his right hand.
Her small wrist, it felt so delicate and fragile. Her skin was cool, not warm. As if she wasn't dwarrow. There was a skin mark. Strikes of black, a line, dots below, another line, dots and strikes below that.
He scrubbed the same hand over his face. It wasn't possible. If he did ever take back Erebor, as king it would be his responsibility to marry a nobel dwarrow-dam and produce true blood heirs.
What's more is that he dreams these dreams at all. They are reserved for those with a one. As a glimpse of happiness to come. To encourage the bond and foster feelings that may not be fully defined or acknowledged yet. Mahal knew his kind were stubborn and dragged their feet when it came to acknowledging they may have found their match.
He hasn't met anyone new. Not in almost three months. The last being Erdene Thoroughfare the Minstrel. And the dreaming began not a week ago.
Nearly two full days after Er - Miss Thoroughfare was attacked.
No. That wouldn't have been the reason. It couldn't be. She's a daughter of men even if she could pass as a dwarrow were one not looking too hard at her. The lack of beard was the first indicator, and the small ears another. Small hands and feet.
Wrists.
No.
It is not her.
It cannot be her.
His day had a new pattern, and, if he was more honest with himself, Thorin might have admitted a new reason to get up in the morning. Dwarves, however, are stubborn, and Thorin son of Thrain more so than most. He has a kingdom riding on his shoulders even if he's allowed his younger brother the regency these past fifty years. The dwarves of Ered Luin still looked to him for a great many things.
Thorin ignored the desire to watch Erdene Thoroughfare the Minstrel when she arrived at the corner the next morning. It isn't clear to him (yet) why he can tell when she enters the plaza. Perhaps he picks up on the way people greet her. They stop to listen to her. She's a better musician and entertainer than the last minstrel.
No small amount of talent. He wondered, as he had several times before, why it was, a talent like hers was wasted on a street corner when she could make a comfortable living working for those with the means to keep a minstrel or bard employed.
Today she wore a dark almost purple blue, long sleeved tunic with dark brown leggings tucked into her similarly colored shoes. She paused just within his line of sight, crooking her pinky and ring finger in a partial wave with half a smile thrown his way.
They could be friends.
Of a sort.
Evening arrived much faster than he thought it might for such a warm day. The shadows grew longer just after the third bell, by seventh it was full dark. Durin's Day would come early this year. The dam seeking to make themselves his wife would begin their trek to South Yard soon if most had not already.
A hundred years ago he would meet with their fathers. Those were the days when Dís lived with Théli. He did not share a home with his sister. He lived in Thorin's Hall where Frerin now sat regent. He would meet with the dam and their fathers and if he did not feel the connection of his one, he would thank them for their time and wish them a good day.
In the last fifty years Thorin had come to realize he was like many of his fellow dwarrow, without one. He named Fíli and Kíli his heirs. The line of Durin would endure through them.
(And yet…he dreamed. Had begun to dream. Of a wife with a sweet hum. Who gave him five children. At his age. Mahal.)
Thorin resigned himself to a life without the love that both of his younger siblings had managed to find for themselves. He decided to stop meeting with the same dam over and over, leaving the decision to Dís should she meet one who might think he could take as a wife.
In fifty-four years his sister had yet to bring a single dam to his attention.
He set his bag over his shoulder, turning toward the archways to exit the blacksmith's.
"Good evening Master Oakenshield." Erd- Mistress Thoroughfare called to him with a small smile, her gaze once again the gray of hematite.
Mahal. Will the way she says his name ever not affect him? Like a tug below his left rib, tied in a knot that her voice could strum like no other.
(He should have known then, but again, he is dwarrow and stubborn. She is not dwarrow and he would never believe such a thing was possible. [Because, until now, it never has.])
"Mistress Thoroughfare," he acknowledged.
A cold blast of air made itself known, tossing her hair into her eyes. The wind toyed with his hair as well though his was tied still. She shivered, pulling her cloak in around her body.
Where was her coat?
She crossed her arms over herself, cursing under her breath.
She cursed like a dwarrow. That's for certain.
"Despite the deceptively warm days Mistress Thoroughfare, you might begin wearing your coat." He told her, taking the handful of steps to join her just outside the archways.
He knows the look she crossed her face intimately. Shame, and guilt and sadness. Oh. He realized as she pulled the cloak tighter.
"I can't afford a coat right now." She told him. "And there aren't any hand-me-down coats at the house, so…" She shrugged, not looking at him.
Why? He has seen the money she makes. It's far more than the prior minstrel made. There is never a day without silver in her purse.
The girl chewed her lower lip, "sorry."
And now she apologized to him for what? The lack of her coat? She is young. He knew that. Thorin removed his coat, holding it out to her.
Jade eyes rimmed in amber and gold went wide, "oh, no, I couldn't, that's- you don't have to-"
He cut off her by draping it over her shoulders. "dwarrow, do not feel the cold the way you do." It reminded him once more, that she was not for him to want.
He found himself only a little taller than her. And once again, he wondered, perhaps she did have dwarrow blood somewhere in her ancestry. Perhaps a grandfather. He knew of no dam who had taken a man into her house. He knew of very few dwarrow that chose to have a life and child with a daughter of men, though those happened immediately after exile from Erebor.
Balin called the unions affirmations of life. Perhaps she is the result of one of those affirmations.
She blushed, a bright burning reddish-pink, that did indeed reach up into her hair and down neck and… Stop thinking about her. She's a child for pity sake. Thorin took one full step back.
"I," she whispered, watching him with large amber-green eyes, "thank you."
He hummed in response, but said nothing. He didn't trust himself to speak. Or stand that close to her again. The last dwarrow-dam he attempted to court had not affected him so, why does she? She is a pretty thing for a child of men. That's no reason to loan her his coat. Or walk her home. Or watch the small smile she directs at him and relish it.
Mahal.
"The winters here are unforgiving," he told her with another healthy step away, toward the direction they both had to go in. "You've earned enough to buy a coat second hand at the very least, have you not?"
Again, the bite of her lower lip between her teeth as she avoided eye contact even as she joined him in walking. "I've spent enough money on myself with the dress and this outfit and new boots. The cloak will have to do for now."
Stubborn woman. "You'll catch your death before winter is out."
"I'll just layer my old stuff under my new stuff. That should-"
There is no reason it should make him angry. It is her right. Her choice. Her earnings. "You survived the minstrel's attack to die from a preventable disease caused by the cold."
She in turn glares at him and snaps, "I didn't ask you to save me!"
They're stopped no more than fifty feet from where they both work. He scoffed, returning her glare with one of his own. "What would you have preferred, leave you there to be strangled?"
"No!" She drew in a sharp breath as if he'd wounded her. He regrets his words instantly but he will not take them back. "It's just. I…I need the money to save someone else's life."
That, again, is not a series of words he expected to hear from the mouth of a daughter of men. He wanted to keep being angry but he found the fire behind his anger lacking. "To save another's life?"
"I…" why does she bow her head in shame if she works toward something most others would not do? "The girls I live with, their father. He sold the youngest, Cathy, to a man fifty years her senior." She shrugged off his coat, holding it out to him. "I need at least fifteen more gold to stop this farce before a young girl's life is destroyed."
All the anger he had built up toppled rather quickly with that admission. And the return of his coat. Which he did not take from her. "Her father made the match, why would you stop a betrothal?"
Her nose wrinkled (and he would not admit that it made her freckles more obvious). "Because the only thing that nasty pervert wants is to bed an unwilling virgin before he dies and that's disgusting. There is a huge and significant difference in their ages, she doesn't know what it feels like to live and love and be happy, and wouldn't with that marriage looming over her head for three more years. She's a child. And that sick twisted monster knows that."
She huffed, her free hand moving with wild, angry motions, "it's not like the difference in life experience say between yourself and myself." She pointed to him and her chest. "I assume, because you're dwarrow you are probably older than me, forgive me if I'm wrong."
She wasn't. He did not doubt he was far older than her.
"But, I have lived. I'll be thirty-one next March."
Mahal. She is a child. He suspected as much but to hear it. It is a perversity that he even entertained a basic attraction to her.
"I have the experience to know what I want, what I like and what to say no to. If, hypothetically, someone like yourself showed interest in myself, I can handle the situation because I have been in a position to communicate what I want and need, which would be beneficial in a healthy, mutually respectful relationship."
She does not sound like a child, he will admit that. Those are the words of an adult. With the experience of someone who has reached maturity.
What would she do if he made his interest known?
"Cathy doesn't have that." Erdene went on, oblivious to his thoughts. "She doesn't know that sex shouldn't hurt, even the first time. That her husband, intended, whatever, should be treating her with care and preparation and gentleness."
The way she speaks of love making. He should not be listening to this.
He doesn't move.
"That you shouldn't be terrified of your husband or what he's going to do to you if you say no. That you can say no. That you shouldn't cry when he touches you. That you shouldn't have bruises unless that's something you both like and agree on."
Surely she wasn't about to say-
"I'm not one to kink shame. If Cathy actually loved him and wanted to marry him, okay, fine. You wouldn't hear a damn peep out of me. But a sixty-three year old man who tried to pressure her father into allowing them to marry now?" She turned green, gagging.
It is unheard of for a dam to be molested and assaulted. Underage dam are protected by parents, brothers. An arrangement could be made for her hand should she agree, but selling a child to someone who would harm and violate her? Thorin too was disgusted. Men did such to their daughters and wives?
"So yes, I am trying to earn enough money to stop her father from selling her. Cathy deserves to be a child and when she's ready marry someone who is going to treat her with love and respect."
He had questions. A great number of them. First and foremost, because this is the second time in a day he had heard the word, and once was in his dreams. "What is the meaning of the word kink?"
Mahal, she'd said it not a moment ago and now, he could see her skin burn scarlet, and the catch of her lower lip between her teeth.
"Um," she averted her gaze, "something someone prefers during sex that may not be within the range of typical expectations with an average person or partner." The girl began to twist her own fingers nervously.
Again. Does he make her nervous? Is it the subject?
She's nervous because Erdene was certain he probably had a kinky side. Anyone that in control of themselves, to not show much emotion externally, had a darker side they kept under wraps. He had big warm hands and those ridiculously strong arms. She had absolutely zero doubts he could pin her hands down, wrap one his hands around her throat and fuck her until he came as deep as he could.
Christ almighty woman. Knock that shit off.
Stop thinking about Thorin like that. He's not available.
Why, why was Thorin so suddenly quiet? He hadn't taken his coat back either. The wind snapped again, and despite her attempt to fight it, Erdene shivered from both the cold and the way his blue eyes cut to her in the semi-dark. She felt stupid holding his coat out to him, especially because it was so dang heavy. It felt like thick leather, and when he put it around her a couple of minutes ago it definitely felt like real fur. It had been ridiculously warm, and it smelled good.
Really good.
Like pipe tobacco, which made sense because Thorin did smoke a pipe, and-
He took his coat and his very warm fingers brushed hers for an instant and holy shit. There is no reason that should have felt good. Erdene bit the inside of her cheek to stop a small gasp leaving her as he once more draped it around her shoulders. Wait, wasn't he angry with her? His brow was furrowed and he looked like he wanted to yell. Instead he pulled the collar close around her neck.
"Th-" She began.
"Do not thank me again." He replied flatly, with the barest edge of annoyance behind his words. "A child should have an opportunity to live life. It's regrettable her father would not value his daughter." It is not done among his people. "But," he again stood back, watching her with blue eyes alight with something she didn't quite understand. "What help are you to her if you do not survive the winter?"
He watched her open her mouth, close her mouth as a dozen thoughts passed over her face. Mahal, she cannot hide her emotions or what she thinks. Her eyes shifted a half dozen shades of amber, green and blue. Gray.
Her lips parted again, this time she sighed. "I did warn you, my sense of self preservation doesn't alway work properly."
He'd noticed.
"So thank you for talking some sense into me. I appreciate it." And once again, a shy, sheepish shrug. "We should, um…" She nodded to the streets ahead.
The rest of the walk is silent aside from their steps. The olive tree with its broken branch dipping. She frowned at it even as he pushed it up and out of their way lest it tangle in either of their hair.
They came once again to her doorstep. This time when she divested herself of his coat, he took it.
"I feel ridiculous always thanking you." She murmured, "but I guess that's what friends do."
Friends. He did not pull on his coat immediately, instead catching movement from above. Two very young looking faces looking down through a window directly above. "Aye," he agreed, "friends."
"Good night Master Oakenshield."
Perhaps, one day, after he has heard his name from her, it will not be quite as striking (he should have realized but in his mind he thinks he is past the age this should have happened). He nodded his head, "Good night Miss Thoroughfare." He attempted to take no note of the jasmine, and lemongrass scent clinging to the fur lined neck of his coat.
Thorin's walk home was the same as it was the night before. Darker than when he normally returned. He went around to the entrance by the kitchens where, upon entering, he found both of his sister's sons and his sister engaged in a card game. Between the three of them, on a plain white handkerchief, one last cookie.
Tonight, Dís gave him a quizzical glance. As if to ask him silently where he'd been.
His sister's sons, however, greeted him as if they noticed nothing.
Then, Kíli said, as Thorin was hanging his coat by the door. "Winner of this round gets the last one."
Fíli, never one to back down from his brother's challenge, opened his mouth - no doubt to agree - when their mother folded the handkerchief over the cookie and removed it from the table.
Both of her sons began to protest immediately with, "Amad!"
Dís clucked her tongue at them. "You two gluttons have had enough." The knowing look on his sister's face as she met him just outside the doorway to the kitchens from the hall that led toward the living part of the house. She held the small package out to him. "Should I ask what dam gave you these?"
"They were a thank you from a friend." He told her, hands at his sides.
His sister hummed at him, "a friend." Still she held out the handkerchief.
Still he did not take it. "A friend. No more." He cannot want more.
She is of men.
And he is not.
He has a one who will make herself known.
It is not Erdene Thoroughfare with her shy smiles and pink blushes.
Dís, whether she believed him or not, took one of his wrists, placed the small package in his hand and told him. "A friend who bakes like this is a friend I would like to meet."