Chapter 17

"The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space." - Marylin Monroe

Mahal's breath. Two gifts. First those damn - the one he had was delicious, he hoped she would make them again - cookies and now she brought him pipe weed. The coy little smile she directed at him while handing over the packages drove him mad.

Then as if his one knew how to get under his skin, Erdene added, "because the cookies seemed to make you a little uncomfortable."

What would he receive next Monday? If she gave him anything more…

He knew what he wished to receive. A yes to the question would you agree to court with me? He'd begin the courting bead tonight and would finish it by Durin's Day. Thorin planned to ask Erdene to court the day after Durin's Day.

One to spare her having to contend with the many dam who would inundate his home come next week. Two he wished to start the New Year with his one by his side. His one who has given him two gifts. As a child of men so she would not know after two gifts, if he accepted her request to be courted he needed to give her something in return.

The traditional gifts for royalty and nobility were jewels, jewelry, broaches and waist chains. Those of the merchant class gave things like clothes, belts, shoes, items that required crafting. Those who were not of any status gave flowers of the mountain. Sunflowers, lavender, lilacs, hydrangea, violets, forget-me-nots, or if one were pressed, a juniper branch still laden with berries.

There were exceptions.

To win his mother, Thorin's father Thrain had tried to gift her a hundred diamonds. She rejected them and him. A ruby the size of her palm was next and it received similar treatment. Thrain sent her an entire lavender field delivered to her over the course of the last week of summer. Thorin's mother finally agreed to court once her family home had no sitting or standing space. Thorin remembered how his mother laughed and shook her head, touching his dark hair as she brushed strands from his eyes.

His persistence was admirable, but I was a daughter of a Dale born weaver. I knew nothing of jewelry and precious stones. When he gave me flowers, that was when I knew he was my one.

When Frerin found Gillis, he had little to give her. Those were the first years in Ered Luin, when Thorin and Frerin, Dís and their mother (the surviving members of Erebor's royal line) were fighting to hold their people together. Frerin brought Gillis a crown of sunflowers, golden like her hair, and promised her:

I cannot tell you we will not want for things in the beginning, but if you will court with me, my one, I will make you happy every day of our lives.

Thorin's gaze rose as it often did these days, to see his one. A violin pressed under her chin and cheek, her eye closed as she played. Her long hair fell from where she attempted to tuck it behind one ear. Brown-red curls in the sunlight. Mahal how he wished to wind those curls around his fingers. He turned back to his work, thinking as she played.

When she finished, he glanced up once more to see her frown and tuck the same lock behind the same ear. It fell out a breath later. Had she no pins?

No, now that he thought about it. He supposed she didn't. Thorin could not recall a single time he had seen her put her hair up or pull it back or fasten it out of her way.

Hair pins. He could easily make some. Mold flowers from metal. He had the tools here. It wouldn't take long at all. Two pins, with the five pointed star of a forget me not.

Watching him work was becoming a guilty pleasure. The things those hands could do. Erdene bit her lower lip and tried not to think dirty thoughts about the way his hands might feel, calloused and rough, big and strong as they slid up the inside of her thighs. Or how they might grab her ass and hoist her up or hold her against the wall (bed, table, bet he has a desk in his room - wonder if he has a library in his home?).

He was so strong. A hundred times stronger than she was. And he was still so careful about how much of his strength he used around her.

Here she was firmly back in lusting territory. Only now she didn't feel quite as guilty about it because Thorin was going to be hers one day. Maybe, one day soon. And she would be his. And they were going to have kids.

Unable to keep the stupidly happy grin off her face, Erdene stepped off her platform to gather her things.

Her mother made an appearance earlier, gently playing with her hair. It could have easily been mistaken as the wind, if she couldn't see the translucent fingers moving just to her right. Evelyn hadn't spoken, but she had spent a good half the day just standing by, listening to Erdene play. But there was also a light rain earlier. Barely more than a splash, but her mom hung out for it the entire time. When the rain moved along, so did Evelyn in a flicker of blue sparkles.

Which side of her family did the seeing ghosts thing come from? The dwarven or the human? Was it a side effect of having interspecies children? Or interworld travel? Could her father see ghosts and that was why he was so into archeology?

Or was his interest in archeology because he was looking for a way to get his family back to Arda? Or was it the instinct or a dwarf to dig and discover?

Erdene knew the need to discover and know things. She always thought it was because she was a genius. Now, as she looked over at Thorin who was hard at work with something small in his hands, she wondered if that was an inherent trait. Something written in her genes.

Was it in her nature because she was distantly dwarrow? What about learning to use a katana? She was six years old watching One Piece and Zoro shouting at Luffy that he would never be defeated again. That's when she decided to learn. Her mom had no problems enrolling her in karate classes but she was a lot more wary of letting her daughter use a sword. It was supposed to be a phase. Only it wasn't and Erdene never grew out of liking shiny sharp things.

She never grew out of reading a dozen books a week. Or begging to go to the library or bookstore every few days. Erdene never grew out of asking why something was the way it was or how something was made. She had a whole repository of how to make and build things in her brain from years of asking why.

And…Erdene bit her lower lip as she began to walk over to the blacksmith's shop. How much of her knowledge could be spent on a cultural and science win for the dwarven people? Making a few cotton candy machines and teaching people how to make lollipops was small time. With her brain and everything she learned earning her mechanical engineering degree, she could drag dwarven society into the industrial revolution before the rest of Arda could blink. Hell. A combustion engine, enough metal and some track - a train system wasn't all that advanced.

The Misty Mountains were in the way of a cross country system, granted but dynamite was easy to make. How to deal with the Balrog? The goblins were another problem. Then there were the orcs. The storm giants.

Christ almighty.

But how happy would Thorin be if she could design a way for his people to take back Moria and hold it? How many other dwarven lands had fallen that could be taken back with a small jump in technology?

What if-

"Mistress Thoroughfare," Thorin's voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

Amber-blue eyes focused on him. Amber. If brown is joy and green is sadness, what is amber? Or blue? Gray? A mix of colors? He watched her for a moment as her furrowed brow smoothed and whatever thoughts she had been entertaining dissolved. "Master Oakenshield, good evening." The smallest of gentle smiles while her eyes shifted once more to entirely blue. "Hard at work?"

His fist closed over the pins. No. He'd finished working over two hours ago. The points of the flower pressed into the palm of his hand.

The last time he attempted to court a dam she rejected his request. He'd been ninety-eight, and there was pressure from certain areas to have an heir. He managed to find the only dam in all of Thorin's Hall with no interest in him or the throne. Thorin made the simple mistake of believing the dam's disinterest in ruling might make her amenable to his plight.

Erdene's smile widened as he watched her. "Thorin?"

Mahal how his name sounded from her lips. "Forgive me," he murmured, watching with fascination as her gaze did once more drop to his mouth before meeting his again. Erdene is not a dam. She is his one. His fingers relaxed in their grip. "I want to thank you for the pipe weed."

Her smile was immediately bashful, her gaze blue-gray, a pale pink gracing her features. "You already said-"

Erdene blinked at his open palm and the two black-silver pins in his hand. Twisted wire and pressed metal formed into two five pointed forget me nots on each hair pin. Large blue eyes lifted to meet his. "Are those for me?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"If you want them." Let her want them. If he asked nothing else of the Maker for the rest of his days, let her want them.

A single breath held in his lungs before her lips part and, "Why wouldn't I want them?" For the first time he was giving her something and it made her all kinds of giddy. Biting her lower lip, how far could, should, she push this?

Deep breath.

Erdene tucked a curl behind her ear, "Would you mind putting them in?" And then she turned her head, giving him access to her hair.

There are very few things he thought could still surprise him in life. Having met her, he should have realized Erdene would be full of surprises. Thorin swallowed hard, unable to calm the frantic staccato of his heart. She would allow him to touch her?

She knows. She must.

His fingers itched to move. To dig into mahogany spirals and tug her attention back so he could crash his mouth against hers. The cold of the wind snapped a distant fabric elsewhere, it helped to steady his thoughts.

He has yet to hear word from Balin.

But that will not stop him from claiming what she freely gave him. Erdene held her hair out of the way for him, waiting for him.

Mahal's breath.

Thorin carefully opened the first pin and gently pushed it in at an angle against the hair just before her ear. The second following slightly above and to the left of the first, the inner edge of his thumb brushed the delicate shell of her small ear, making her shiver. His fingers squeezed into a fist as he took one full step backwards.

"You're really warm." Erdene managed to whisper while refraining from brushing her fingertips over where he'd touched her. He was so close she could reach out and touch him. Blue eyes searched hers in the quiet of the evening.

Okay. Okay. Forget the no big or grand gestures thing.

"We should go." He said, going to gather his things and removing himself from where he had just stood.

Damn it.

Okay.

Ask him something. Talk. Bring up- Oh. Yeah. Thank you Valis.

"If," she licked her lower lip once, drawing his attention to her mouth, "if you don't mind me asking, and you can tell me it's none of my damn business, how long has it been since Erebor was taken?"

That…is not a question he ever thought to hear from her mouth. A daughter of men. He stilled for a moment as they walked, caught between one step and the next.

She too stopped, fidgeting with her hands, head bowed. "Never mind it's none of my-"

"One hundred and seventy years." He told her quietly, his voice still seemed to echo off the buildings around them though he knew it did not. "I have not seen my homeland in one hundred and seventy years."

Mahal, the way her eyes softened, water filling them. Tears for him? He's not worthy of her tears, not when he dreams the way he does of her touch.

Her left hand moved and small fingers touched his shoulder. "I'm sorry, that's," her voice caught in her throat, "Thorin, that's…I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

That she did ask, that she cared to ask, it strikes in a place inside him he has not touched since he was younger than Kíli is now. They were standing looking at one another in the torch lights, her eyes green with sorrow, her small hand squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. She was so different from every other child of man he has ever met in his long life. Her head bowed and her fingers fidgeted and one hand lifted to tuck a long wild curl behind one of her ears.

Once more the itch to wind his hands into those curls made his fists close tight. Control yourself.

Yet the want does not ease.

Not when her eyes were so green in sorrow and she bit her lip as if she was fighting to say something and holding back. For the briefest of moments he thought her eyes fell to his lips but then her head was turned and she was looking down the street toward where she lived.

"In April, it will be a year since I saw my home." She told him in an equally low tone. Her eyes were the dark green of the shaded juniper that grew on the north side base of the lonely mountain. "I can't imagine not seeing where you were born for nearly two hundred years. I'm sorry I brought it up." She sniffed, wiping at the corners of both eyes. "Forgive me, Thorin."

Oh Mahal, how she whispered his name. He swallowed hard, motioning with one hand toward the street ahead. Her head bobbed once before they began walking again. "There is nothing to forgive." He told her. "I have not thought about it in many decades."

Eyes now blue-green in the moonlight, "decades? Master Oakenshield, are you tellin' me you're over 200?"

Mahal. He chuckled, "I'm well over 190 Mistress Thoroughfare."

She stilled, watching him with wide eyes. "You…then you were just a kid when…" she bit her lip, her head and gaze snapping away quickly.

"I was twenty four." He admitted. "I may have looked an adult by the standards of men. I wasn't a fully grown dwarrow yet."

Her laugh in response was almost self-deprecating, "an' here I am, fool that I am, badgering you. I apologize for asking so many dang questions."

Dang. He doesn't know that word. "What does dang mean?"

"Um…alternative to cursing. Use instead of damn."

They walked once more. As always he pushed the olive tree branch up and away. "Might I ask, Mistress Erdene, why you would ask about Erebor?"

Again the nervous fidgeting of her fingers except Mahal, she began to wind one curl around her index finger as they walked. Was she trying to break his self control? No. She couldn't possibly know about his fascination with her curls.

"I was talking to a friend of mine," She waved her free hand toward the left, "Valis, daughter of Valdis, you know her?"

He did. He knew her when they were children. She was, is, a thrice distant cousin of his. They are friends? A daughter of man willingly befriended a dwarrow-dam? "I do, my sister visits her from time to time."

Her face lit up and her fidgeting fingers stilled, dropping the curl, leaving it hanging at her shoulder. "You have a sister?"

"Aye," her smile is infectious, he finds himself returning it with equal enthusiasm, "and a brother."

"I always wanted siblings." The corners of her eyes crinkled. "To answer your question, Valis was telling me over tea," tea? They eat together? "about her home and how it was carved into the interior of the mountain itself. Then she told me about the city and…I…the amount of skill, preplanning and sheer stubborn willpower it would take to carve out an entire kingdom inside a mountain."

The awe in her voice. Mahal. Who is she that she speaks so freely? Awe of dwarrow? Truly? From a child of men?

Sheepishly she shrugged. "You know the saying, curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back."

He has never heard that expression before. They have stopped again, her eyes are a mix of blue and green he has never seen before. It reminds him of pine trees against a winter sky.

"I suppose." He answered, watching her wind that one curl around her finger and then unwind.

They began walking again and she began to hum.

Thorin knew the song, he knew the sweetness of her hum. He had heard it twice now in his dreams. His lips parted, as she took another two steps, pausing once more to turn and look at him. Her head canted to the side, blinking those blue-green eyes which were becoming more blue as they walked, at him.

No. He has heard that song before. He must have. She has played it before. He cleared the lump forming in his throat, "that song, Mistress Thoroughfare." His mouth has gone dry. "You've played it before?"

Her head shook. "No. I…the chord progression requires a secondary instrument to make it sound the way it should." A flash of guilt crosses her face only to be replaced by sadness. "It was my mom's favorite song. She used to sing it to me when I was little. Why?"

Hope filled his lungs with air, his soul with fire hotter than his forge. "It is a song of Rohan then?"

A secretive smile graced her face, curving her lips. Mahal that mouth, he would kiss her and that smile. "No, my good sir, it is not. It's not a song from anywhere you might know of." Her gaze assessed him, curiously.

They were less than a full block from her home. He doesn't have the time to beat about the bush asking questions now. And yet, "Have you ever sung it before?"

"Here? No." She shook her head, "You wouldn't understand the lyrics if I did."

His dream came back to him in stark clarity. Both girls had curling hair, the boys too. The one that called him father, her eyes had been his while the eyes of the eldest boy looked much like those of the daughter of man before him.

"It's about a boy and a girl," she told him unprompted. "They are both escaping their homes, ready to go anywhere. They meet in the city, both having lived different lives and they're looking for a connection, anything in this sea of people they feel lost in." Her eyes searched his face, "have you heard it before from someone else?"

He cannot tell her. He cannot tell her. It will curse the union. He cannot speak it to her. Not if he wants to keep her, and Mahal forgive him, he would keep her as his if she agreed.

"I have not." It is not a lie. She is his one, she is his future, then he has not heard it from another. He heard it from her lips. Many years from now.

The spark of interest in her gaze. He lost his breath when she took his right hand in hers - she was touching him of her own will! - and turned his hand palm up to face her. She set her left hand against his. "I've been wondering if you are just as warm as I thought you'd be."

She has wondered if he is warm. Mahal. This woman.

Erdene didn't release his hand, instead spreading her fingers so they lined up against his. It's laughable how big his hands are compared to hers. And he hasn't pulled away yet. Or pushed her away yet. Her heartbeat nearly pounding its way out of her chest.

Dark, hooded blue eyes watching her with intensity. His mask of neutrality was still very much in place. It's so frustrating not to know what he was feeling when her emotional turmoil was broadcast by her eyes.

Withdrawing her hand made her heart sore, a lump forming in her throat. If he wanted her, wouldn't he have made a move by now? Fuck. Do not cry. Do not pout. Her left hand felt so much warmer than her right now. She bowed her head to hide the shine of tears.

"Well, I suppose that's good night then, Master Oakenshield." Her voice, rough with a dozen things she doesn't even want to acknowledge.

"Thorin," he murmured, taking one step closer so he was in her space, looking at her with dark "son of Thrain, son of Thror, heir to the King Under the Mountain."

Huh? What? She blinked teary eyes at him. It's not as if she didn't know that already but he had been keeping it under wraps like he didn't want her to know. "Wha-"

"There…I cannot be as free as you are with your emotions Mistress Thoroughfare." He was definitely looking at her mouth, and his hands, they were tight fists at his sides. "No matter how I may wish to be."

Was he…is he saying…please let him be saying what she thinks he's saying. "Because you're royalty."

Mahal, she's quick. "Aye. There are rules I must follow."

Her eyes shifted to green-amber, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or be too forward or-"

"Erdene," he called her name like a lover.

She shut up instantly, blushing a dozen shades of pink.

Mahal, he loved watching that blush spread over her. One day, he hoped to see it when she wore nothing at all. Until then, "I would ask that you wait. Please."

Wait. He wants her to wait. "How long?"

"Until the day after the seventeenth of this month."

The day after Durin's Day? With a small shuddering breath, "if you insist."

He gave her the smallest of relieved smiles, "I will see you tomorrow morning, Mistress Thoroughfare."

"Good night Thorin." Her lips parted and there was hope in her gaze.

What it would be if he could give in to his wants the way she could. He would spend a lifetime in her arms and regret none of it.

His walk home had been quick. He did not call out to his sister or her sons that he'd returned nor did he spare a look at the supper placed by the kitchen hearth for him. He went to the forge, pulling out the miscellaneous drawer of bits and stone and semiprecious gems they had.

Thorin found it, the stone he kept for over a century. The geode he'd broken open after he found Frerin half alive with the Easterling called Ronin defending Thorin's brother against not one but four orcs. He remembered the flash of a sword nearly as tall as a dwarf and the sweeping movements of Ronin's feet as he defended.

What were the chances of finding such a stone, Thorin's birthstone, on the battlefield of Azanulbizar after finding his brother alive when Thorin had been certain Frerin had fallen?

A deep blue agate, with small white ripples through the center and strikes of gold throughout. He held it up to the fire light. Such a small thing gave him an ounce of hope in the face of tragedy once.

"Brother?" Dís asked, sleep still in her eyes as she pushed open the door to the forge room and walked into the room. "It's late. Wha…" her voice faded as she eyed the stone in his hand. "Are you…are you making a bead?"

He did not fight the slow tug of a smile. "Aye, sister, I am."

Dís darted toward him, taking his right hand in both of hers. "For your lark?"

His lark. He had no doubt after hearing her hum that Erdene could sing. Mahal, how he wanted to know what her singing voice sounded like. "For my lark."

Dís had been so happy, she threw her arms about him and kissed his cheek. "Might I know the name of my soon to be sister?"

"Erdene Thoroughfare."

Now you know you inspired a large section of Erdene's musings Ninja. Just saying.

Enjoy your holidays!