Trigger warnings for death, suffocation, burying alive, bodily harm! You have been warned. And sexy times, because we all know Thorin and Ery have a very healthy, active sex life.

Chapter 33

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." - Carl Sagan

Despite having fallen asleep on Thorin during the ride today, her bones ached with exhaustion. Erdene found herself stumbling as she tried to gather her things to deposit in her bedroom. Just like back in South Yard, she and Thorin technically had separate rooms. However their rooms in Ered Luin were connected by a single door. One that locked from either side.

If she had been more awake, she might have appreciated that. Instead she found herself lifted in a bridal carry by Thorin while Fíli snickered. She had half a notion to scold him, but it just took too much effort and Thorin's shoulder was just so nice. She fit right up against him and that was lovely.

There were skylights made from a variety of colored gemstones that would allow sunlight into the main rooms throughout the mansion. The thin gold and silver veins of metal ran through each and every exterior wall, gathering and throwing candle lights. Large round wood and metal wheel shaped chandeliers holding a dozen candles each lit each room with further tall black wrought-iron candelabras stood in darker corners.

So much fire when a single light bulb would work.

Thorin touched her chin, a gentle but bemused look in his eyes. "What is a light bulb?"

Oh. She said that out loud. Now he wanted her brain to work when all she wanted to do was curl up in his big warm arms and nap. "Um…a sealed piece of glass with a thin metal filament suspended inside."

And these would light up a room? "You know how to make them?"

Erdene yawned, pressing her forehead to his neck. Her eyes closed as she sighed out, "I understand the mechanics of it. Practical application is a different story."

Electricity was a different story. Though…there was a mine. Iron was clearly abundant. All I need is a decent lighting storm and I'll have magnets. Toying with the collar of his coat, huh, she was still wearing hers too, Erdene kissed his pulse.

And caught her own hair in her mouth. "I need a haircut," she groused, throwing the strands out of the way. They were half way up a new set of stairs. Just him and her.

Thorin stopped moving. "Cut your hair? You cannot."

Her brow furrowed as she lifted her head. "If I want it to grow, and get rid of the split ends I kind of have to?" Did he think she was going to chop it all off? Silly dwarf. "It's just a trim, half inch at most."

The alarm slowly bled out of his form. He forgot sometimes her hair was, as she put it, human not dwarrow. While he had thick hair that grew very little, broke even less, and did not have what she referred to as dry spots and split ends, her hair did. Her hair had grown quite a bit since first they met. Thorin took a breath to calm the speed of his heart before moving them up the stairs once more.

He did not take her to her room, the queen's room, instead depositing her gently on the king's bed, a room he had not slept in since Kíli was an infant.

The linens and furs were fresh. The scent of the lye they used to clean the floor still hung in the air with the smell of dried bundles of lavender and rosemary that were inconspicuously distributed around the room. There were candles lit on each nightstand, one on the desk and one on the dresser.

Erdene managed to sit long enough to shed her coat and dress. She toed off both boots and climbed under a soft layer of fur. She only just closed her eyes when the door opened and a trunk was brought in. Except, no, she'd been facing the door when she went to sleep and now she was facing curtains? A plain if pretty long blue and silver curtain over what looked like one wide central arched window.

Bleary-eyed she turned over and there was Thorin, still in his coat, dropping her bags beside the trunk.

"Thorin?"

"Go back to sleep, bantîth. I will join you in a moment."

A hard yawn escaped her. "How long was I asleep?"

He took off his coat, tossing it over a chair. "Less than an hour."

She hummed and held out one hand. "You look yummy. I could climb on top and ride you all night."

He laughed, shaking his head. "You will fall asleep before either of us reaches peak."

Maybe. Prossibly, but still. "No I won't. Promise. Besides, aren't we practicing for later?"

"Later?" His eyebrows rose even as he made his way to kneel on the bed next to her.

Erdene tugged him closer. "Mmm, when we start actively trying for a baby."

"I think, ekûnê, when the time comes we won't have needed the practice." Yet he was still kneeling half on the bed. He opened his belt regardless and tossed it away. "Tell me, ibinê," He cupped one of her breasts and squeezed. "Am I allowed to finish inside you yet?"

Her head shook side to side. "Not yet."

Thorin let out a resigned, if frustrated breath. "Pity. I want to feel you squeeze my cock when you come."

"Thorin, if you use that tone and talk dirty like that I am not responsible for the things I do to you."

"Will you withhold intercourse?"

She gazed at him with raised eyebrows. "No, that's for the day you manage to make me angry enough that I want to sleep next door."

"I shall endeavor to manage my temper and avoid angering you." One of his hands gripped her bottom, squeezing roughly. Thorin thumbed her lower lip, "did you enjoy tasting me?"

She lapped at the roughness of his thumb. "Did you like it?"

"Aye. That was the first time I have ever been tasted." He had hands on him, inexperienced ones that made more painful mistakes than pleasurable ones.

For fucks sake, really? That is awful. He had a nice cock. Thick, not too long, and he stretched her just right. Wait. "Thorin."

He busied himself kissing her neck, the swell of her breasts, "hmm?"

Digging her fingers into his hair she gently but firmly encouraged him to look her in the eye again. "Are you asking me to suck your cock?"

"Would you, if I told you I kept thinking about that and your bottom?" He'd been distracted by the soft plush of her pushed right up against him. Had there not been a snow storm, he might have taken her into the woods, and had her against a tree.

Her eyes darkened to a new shade, a rich deep, dark, almost black-brown hue. "Mmm, are you asking as my significant other or my king?"

Mahal. He slid his thumb between her lips watching with fascination as she sucked on it, wrapped her tongue around it. "If I said as your future king…"

"...are you going to dig your fingers into my hair and come down my throat?"

He pushed his thumb back in, watching with fascination as her talented tongue did things that made his cock ache to be free. "Do you want me to?"

"I told you, I am submissive in bed. As long as I don't refuse outright, I'm fine with all kinds of things." She licked his thumb once more. "Or…if you're interested, you could lick me."

His lips fell open.

No way. Really? "Have you never…?"

Thorin paused before saying, "I did, once, I could not seem to satisfy her."

Ugh. Lady Rhia again. Lord help the dam if Erdene ever met her. "I promise, I'm easy to please, just these thick fingers and your talented tongue on my clit and I will definitely come all over you." Her smile seemed to change into something more mischievous. "How about we get cleaned up and see where the night takes us?"

He hummed, kissing her, pushing the blankets and furs out of the way.

Gillis was a hugger. She was almost the same height as Frerin, being an even five foot one, with gorgeous blonde hair that turned to soft waves that fell past her shoulders to mid-back and wide, happy blue-green eyes. She practically grabbed Erdene a moment after being introduced by Dís at breakfast and squeezed her tight.

"I'm so happy you're here!" Her accent was surprisingly not British, Scottish, Irish, or Australian. She sounded vaguely like someone from Iceland. Her hands were large like Dís, Thorin's, Fíli and Kíli's, yet her fingers looked thinner. More nimble. Gillis arranged Erdene's hair gently in the meantime, "Oh I've made a mess of your hair. Forgive me."

Frerin was quite obviously Thorin and Dís' brother. The nose, though a little broader at the bridge and tip, was the same straight nose. Blue eyes, though unlike Thorin's they were not sky blue. Frerin's were oceanic blue and just as dark. Black hair, more straight than Dís or Thorin's.

Frerin took both of her hands in his, holding them close together to kiss the backs of her hands a day then spreading them wide to take a look at her. "My lady, and soon to be sister, welcome home."

Oh. Frerin was the charming sibling. Erdene blushed, shaking her head. "Dís warned me you have a silver tongue."

Abashed, Frerin let go of her hands to feign shock, a hand over his heart. "Sister."

Dís, who was solely focused on spoiling tiny Gillis, who, at twelve years old, looked more like a seven year old, didn't bother looking up. "Your adad is terrible. Did you know that bunnanun?"

Cillis giggled, answering entirely in Khuzdûl.

Interesting. Was it like Monica's home where until the kids were fourteen they only spoke Spanish in the house?

Gillis looped her arm with Erdene's, tugging her toward the set breakfast table and the delicious smelling foods spread out. "Dís tells me she calls you nan'ith. May I?"

Nervously Erdene glanced at the door she came through not ten minutes ago. Thorin said he would be right behind her. And both Fíli and Kíli were missing. She felt Gillis' warm hands squeeze her arm.

"Oh…I'm sorry, yes, of course you can, Gillis." Erdene smiled, but she chewed her lower lip after a moment and glanced back at the door.

Gillis began chatting about the trip while Frerin left to check with his brother what was taking so long. The plan, as there was something of a plan, was to distract Erdene while Thorin (he explained in her culture the male presents a ring to ask for her hand) went over the final details of this proposal. Last night they'd gone over this briefly after Erdene had gone to sleep. This morning, Frerin found his brother almost apprehensively listening to his nephews.

Kíli held the ring up to the light. "It's perfect. Some of your best work uncle."

Frerin took it as well, thumbing the gems to make sure they didn't move. Of course they didn't. This was his brother's work. Thorin's crafts rarely had imperfections. "I agree. Not a stone out of place, not a single impurity." He handed it back to his brother. "That is a ring fit for a queen."

Uncertainty was never something Thorin was accustomed to. He knew what needed to be done and did it. This, however, was a different tradition than his own, and his One had given him little information beyond a ring. He took the ring back from Frerin, placing it into a small black cloth before tucking it into an equally small lacquered wooden box. An oak box.

His nephews, Fíli and Kíli were the ones to gather the complete information from Erdene.

"She said," Fíli reported not a week ago, "that it's usually done at a meal, dinner but can be done at breakfast. The suitor asks his intended to marry him."

"No," Kíli corrected, "he gets down on one knee, opens a box with a ring in it and asks 'will you marry me. He doesn't have to get down on one knee, but it is romantic.'"

Fíli rolled his eyes and went on. "Uncle, there is another part. The potential suitor is supposed to give her the ring in front of his and her family."

They would have today, tomorrow and mayhap the next before word spread through the halls of Ered Luin Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror had returned with his sister, her sons and his One. A few days before the nobles of Ered Luin began to request his time and by extension, their ladies would want Erdene's time. If she wore a token of his, a ring that in her culture meant they intended to be bound together by marriage, it might make her transition into society easier.

Frerin's brow furrowed. Anyone else would think his brother tired or annoyed. Frerin knew better. "Lads, go distract your aunts and mother." The moment after he was certain they were out of hearing distance, "You're nervous."

The scowl he received in return held a wealth of warning. "If you are here to point out the obvious, leave."

Rolling his eyes, "you best get that temper under control. You'll scare her into tears. Or make her hit you, I'm afraid I don't know your lass well enough to say."

Which drained some of Thorin's ire. "Erdene is capable of both." He held the box so tightly his fingernails were white.

In return, Frerin chuckled and shook his head. "I look forward to her rule as your queen." He put his hands on both of Thorin's shoulders, looked his brother square in the eye and said, "She is your One. She will accept you. There is no reason for nerves. By the end of the year you two will be married and by next spring I expect I'll be an uncle again."

Thorin laughed, somewhat relieved and yet still pensive. Much as Frerin used to jibe him when they were younger, Thorin echoed something they used to say to one another when they were much younger. "Is that an order?"

Frerin broke into a shit eating grin. "Ah, there's my brother. Good morning to you too."

Even after fifty years apart, Thorin had no idea how he would have managed without Frerin. Together they walked into the less formal dining room. Erdene looked up immediately, tension easing from her frame when her amber eyes set on him.

The amber gave way to gray-blue immediately upon him taking the seat at the head of the table. Dís sat across from Erdene, with Frerin taking the seat next to her, bouncing Cillis in his lap, while Gillis sat next to Erdene and Fíli and Kíli sat across from one another just after that.

Once again Erdene felt like she was taking someone's seat. Except now that she'd taken lessons in court etiquette, her seat was where the queen or the king's intended sat. Good thing she wore the purple dress today. She may not have felt like a ruler, but she did look pretty good right now. She wore the bronze belt with the hammers. It felt like the right impression to make on his brother and sister-in-law.

The food was being passed around, and familial chatter followed. The traditional comments about Fíli and Kíli looking like they've grown, Cillis is so big now (she was tiny compared to a human twelve year old), Dís the cut of that dress, I want one, from Gillis, Frerin ribbing at Thorin for all of his new gray hairs.

"Though your One doesn't seem to mind." Frerin teased with a rakish wink directed toward Erdene.

So this is where Fíli and Kíli learned it from.

Erdene reached over and stroked one side of Thorin's face. "I don't mind at all."

The faintest of red colored the top of Thorin's ears. He caught her hand with one of his, kissing her palm and wrist. "Eat, bantîth."

Gillis immediately fawned even as she passed the sausages, "he calls you kitten? Oh isn't that sweet!"

Pink coloring her skin, Erdene managed a small, "Gillis."

"He," Gillis nodded at her husband, "used to call me ibrizinlêkh. It means-"

"Sunshine." Erdene nodded.

Gillis blinked her blue-green eyes at Erdene for a moment in surprise. "I thought you've only been in lessons for two weeks?"

Dís smacked the table. "Less than!"

"Aunt Ery has a quick mind." Kíli said from further down.

"And a quicker wit. The first time we met," Fíli noted, "Aunt Erdene cut me to ribbons."

Frerin's brows rose.

"I did not." Erdene chided gently.

Across the table Cillis grinned at her like only a little girl could, all teeth and bright blue-green eyes, the pale scruff of a baby dwarf's beard. Pink cheeks, giggles and such pretty brown hair with soft waves.

A big warm hand covered one of hers. Erdene glanced at Thorin who too was looking at Cillis and how Frerin doted on his daughter.

Blue eyes met gray. Thorin set her hand down on something. Brow drawn together, Erdene looked down at the box under her hand. It was small and simple and the top was carved with an…oak tree?

She looked at Thorin who was watching her with almost more intensity than he did while he was inside her. "What's this?"

His voice was rough when he said, "Open it, ekûnê."

She glanced at Dís who's poker face was good. Much too good. Erdene sent her gaze down the table at everyone else who were all looking like they were holding onto something exciting and they were all ready to pop. Except baby Cillis who just looked like a chipmunk with stuffed pink cheeks.

Okay.

Her thumbnail caught the simple brass clasp, flipping it open to a small bed of soft black silky cloth that held a sheen in the light filtering through the dozen amber skylights above the table. Erdene looked at Thorin once more curiously. He nodded at the box. Erdene reached in.

Why was he being so-

Her fingers met a hard, metal object in the cloth. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh!

A wave of emotion brought tears to her eyes as she uncovered a beautiful gold and silver ring, the two metals melted together creating a beautiful waving pattern between them, set with a triangle shaped sapphire, somewhere between blue and green with flecks of yellow in the center. Two small diamonds, pale yellow, also triangles, faced away at either side of the central gem, with small chips of pale green emeralds sitting alongside like flower petals.

A tear slipped down her right cheek, almost immediately after, another down her left.

Thorin took her right hand again. When did he get down on his knee? He took the ring, "you may have guide me in this."

Sniffling, giggling, Erdene put her left hand out, flexing her ring finger. "It goes on that one, close to my heart."

"Erdene Juniper Thoroughfare," Thorin asked as he slid the ring, which of course fit perfectly, onto her left hand ring finger. "Would you consent to be my wife?"

Formal idiot. Handsome, silly, ridiculous, gorgeous idiot of a dwarf. "Yes, yes," she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Yes."

Derren Andenos, the only living member of House Den on Arda (to his knowledge), was spending his fifty-first birthday working and alone. As he had last year for his fiftieth and the year before for forty-nine and the year before when he was forty-eight. Since he returned to the world of his great-great-grandmother's birth a little under thirty-one years prior. And, as he had every day for the last thirty years, he touched the drawing of his wife sitting on the nightstand beside his bed.

"Good morning Evie." She smiled back at him, forever frozen at nineteen in the drawing he'd done from memory.

Their daughter would be turning thirty-one soon. He scrubbed one hand over his face, his clipped beard an additional reminder of what he lost leaving earth. His beautiful wife and their unborn daughter. How happy he'd been knowing their baby was a girl.

Surviving the tunnel collapse was a miracle. Truly, to whichever God heard his prayer, he was thankful. He only wished…as he had more often since he came to Arda and found his place amongst the dwarves of Ered Luin, that he could have retrieved his family too. His father and mother, grandfather. His pregnant wife.

He pushed out of bed, grunting at the old ache of his snapped tendon and high ankle sprain, his twisted knee and improperly reset his knee. He escaped that hole in the earth with such small wounds. None of which ever healed properly, they wouldn't have here. Arda was not nearly as advanced in medicine as Earth was.

He dressed, exiting his bedroom to move through the nearly empty halls of the House of Den. A handful of servants moved about cleaning. It was a large estate for someone who lived alone.

Several of the other nobles presented him their daughters this past Durin's Day, and just like he had the last fifteen years, Derren declined. He'd met his one and married her.

They had a child.

And one day, some day, he prayed to Jesus or the Valar or the many multitude of gods or goddesses he knew of, his wife might come here to him. Or he might fall back through to Earth. Might he fall back through and find Evie waiting for him. Find his daughter waiting for him.

The hell Evie would give him for being alive when she probably thought he was dead. It would be worth it to hold her again.

When he reached the archives that morning, Derren found Harl, Hared, Harec, Harv, Harr and Haret sorting, straightening and their father Harel updating records. Harel informed him Thorin, son of Thrain had returned to Thorin's Hall yesterday. His nephews and sister and, proving the rumors true, his One in tow. The archives would be toured by their soon to be queen later today.

If they came to the archeological and anthropological section he would be happy to give them a tour. His work was, after all, new to this world. The dwarves did well preserving older texts, but they didn't study their people's histories. They didn't study the patterns of their history.

Which was due, in no small part, because their people were driven repeatedly from their homes.

Sauron.

Moria.

Smaug.

Derren had seen the cartoons and read the books the other dwarrow never saw. He knew where to take an expedition to dig up history thought lost. He was brave enough to travel to the ruins of Dale by himself and uncover homes of Dale born dwarrow. He stood alone before the gates of Moria and spoke friend. A single dwarf who was not entirely a dwarf, who knew how to muffle the sounds of his feet and breathe quietly. Books thought lost were in his section of the archives and the history of the dwarves was a little more pieced together than it would have been if he had not been moved to Middle Earth by the gods.

He was in the middle of cataloging a recent survey he conducted on several half-dwarrow on their aging compared to that of humans. Despite the human genes, the half-dwarrow were aging almost as slowly as a dwarrow, but their minds were somewhat more developed than their full blood counterparts. His findings were far from surprising. Derren was often mistaken for a dwarf just past majority and not someone reaching middle age as a human. He could pass for a thirty-five year old on his best days, and someone near forty on his worst ones.

Dwarrow genes were dominant, he found, every single child of a dwarrow/human union looked like identical copies of their dwarrow parent. Just as he looked like his father with his mother's coloring, would his daughter look like him?

"Ah, Master Anden," Harl called as he entered the archeological and anthropological section carrying not one, but several paperback and hardback novels. "It seems our jester has once again delivered a pile of nonsense once more."

The stack hit his table, reaching quite high this time. If he could have simply explained to the other archivist that he suspected there might be a small, semi-open portal to an Earth library or bookstore somewhere in their sacred halls, he would have. He imagine they might have found it somewhat entertaining. He said nothing because he harbored some small hope that he might one day find that portal. Might the gods allow it to be somewhere near Savannah, Georgia and his wife and child.

"Thank you, I will dispose of them." Derren nodded, standing and sliding the book pile across the table. Harl nodded in return, thanked him and left.

Once he was gone, Derren began to sort through the pile. Mass market media had changed somewhat since 1993. He thumbed open one of the newer looking paperbacks, Iron & Flame, with its orange and black cover. Published 2023.

It was February 1993 when he came to Arda.

Another copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban. That he would break down and pulp for writing materials. He didn't need a fifteenth copy. Finally the next book in the Nightshade series, he'd been hoping for that. Around the World in 80 Days, he hadn't read that since he was a boy. It Can't Happen Here, that looked ominous. He added it to a pile to take home. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The Federalist Papers. Ella Enchanted. Warm Bodies. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume Two. A Tale of Two Cities. Several volumes of a comic book series called Rat Queens.

The portal between worlds was probably a library drop box.

(His assumption was close. It is a donation box to the Lancaster Public Library in Ohio.)

He placed them in a wooden box to take home later. The shelves of his private library were lined with the works of his former world, both the good and the poorly written. He had novels where he had only odd volumes, damaged university textbooks he rebound to disguise should anyone attempt to read them, a variety of graphic novels in various stages of repair (missing Sandman Volumes six and nine much to his disappointment), several comic book series, a hardback first edition copy of Ready Player One with a CD tucked into the back. CD's were new when he first came to Arda, this one looked older and had scuff marks on the plastic case. He had all of the Harry Potter series, all of a The Hunger Games, The Divergent Series, The Wheel of Time and, under lock and key in a chest in his bedroom under his bed, two copies of The Hobbit (one fifty edition print battered and bruised the other a paperback in almost pristine condition), a boxed set of The Lord of the Rings damaged as it was, a copy of The Similarion, and the appendices.

Which brought his thoughts around to Thorin, Son of Thrain son of Thror once more.

Next year, this coming March, Thorin Oakenshield would put out the call to his fellow dwarrow to join him in the quest to retake their homeland. Derren planned to volunteer. He had gone by himself more than once when he was surveying Dale. He stood before the gates of the fallen empire and remembered the tales his great-great grandmother, who told everyone she was eighty one when she was well past 281.

The great halls were lined with black and green marble, gold and silver, the forges and the glassworks, the mines with great seams of precious metals running for miles upwards and downward. Thror hadn't taken the throne yet when his grandmother lost her way.

She told him many times when he was younger the last thing she remembered was her bare feet sliding on smooth rocks on the bank of The River Running and then waking up in a small hospital in Calama, Chilé just outside the Atacama desert. She was thirteen. Too young to understand what happened, and being unable to speak or understand Spanish, she couldn't stop anyone from sending her to an orphanage.

Derren looked up when he heard the Har family greeting someone. He caught sight of Harl speaking to a male dwarrow who was partially hidden by the stone pillars, in both Westron and then Khuzdûl. The rumors did mention the One of Thorin, son of Thrain, was human.

They called her mannish.

Some called Derren mannish. He had small ears and his hair didn't quite have the thickness of a full blood dwarrow. His eyes didn't see as well in the dark as someone who was half. He was a sixth, and yet, still quite dwarrow.

He pushed up from his desk, walking to the opening of his section of the archive when she spoke. And his feet stopped of their own accord. No. It can't be. He listened with his mostly human hearing, his heartbeat fluttering in his chest like a panicking bumblebee. No. No it wasn't Evie, but the voice was close, the accent nearly identical.

His feet carried him the handful more steps until he was standing just outside his section of the archives.

"Ah! Master Anden!" Harel, a good friend of twenty years, greeted him heartily. "May I present Master Anden, he reclaimed House Den a few decades ago."

Thorin Oakenshield had lived in South Yard for nearly three decades when Derren had proven he was the last living member of House Den. Until today they had never met, and by all rights, should never have met except in passing. But fate is odd. Fate can be fickle and cruel, or kind and gracious.

Derren's gray-amber eyes met eyes that quickly went from blue-brown to equally gray-amber. She had her mother's delicate jaw and her mother's frame, though she was taller than he was by perhaps a few millimeters. Her mouth and forehead was her mother's, her nose was his, and she wore her mother's freckles so beautifully.

And, just like her mother, she had a terrible habit of taking the lord's name in vain. "Jesus Christ almighty…"

Evie, language. Was right on the tip of his tongue.

"Your grace, my lady, may I present our local historian-"

"Anthropologist." Derren corrected at the same time Erdene threw out, "Archeologist."

Despite his shock, a small part of Derren was proud. His daughter knew his profession. Had Evelyn told her stories about him? She must have. Evie. His One. How beautiful their daughter was. Did Evie come to Middle Earth as well? Mahal the things he would give to see his one again.

"You…" He did not even know the name of his daughter, "look like your mother."

Erdene shook her head, with a small, wry grimace, "everyone always says I look like you." She released a shuddering breath. "My mother told me you died."

As far as anyone on Earth knew, which sadly also included his parents, cousins, and his wife and child, he had. What would have been left of him in that hole? With the sand shifting under his feet and trying to force its way down his throat, into his nose, eyes, his lung filling with dust. They might never have found his body had he died there. The Atacama took no prisoners.

His lungs had demanded air and he prayed. He paid to the gods of his grandmother, the Valar he read about in books and Mahal, Aulë who made dwarves. After all, wasn't he a dwarf? He prayed to Jesus Christ, and begged the Christian God for mercy. He prayed to Hera, Greek goddess of home and marriage to allow him to survive to see his wife and daughter. He prayed to Isis, goddess of marriage, ruler of his mother's people's heaven. He might never know which gods heard his prayer, only that the sands under his feet stopped shifting and began dropping instead.

Fast.

So quickly, in fact, Derren's stomach dropped at the same time his body began to fall. He felt like the poor bowl of petunias must have in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. First, what is happening, second, I am alive, though I may not be in a moment.

He crashed face first into the thankfully soft banks of the Brandywine Riverbank, just east of The Shire. He accidentally terrified three hobbits who were on a small fishing holiday.

"If not for the kindness and generosity of three hobbits, I don't doubt I would have died." Derren said ruefully. His nose had broken on a rock, the bridge never healed properly, and he'd snapped the tendons of his left ankle in addition to a high ankle sprain. He broke his left wrist, wrenched his left knee, and snapped something in his left shoulder that ached something awful come deep winter. He bruised all the ribs on his left side and hit the left side of his temple so hard someone put a handful of small pinholes in his skull to keep his brain from swelling so much it would kill him. He had a thin, long scar cutting his cheek and eyebrow on that side. Another on his chin like road rash though it was hidden partially by his beard. The last a thick slash on his neck, a few millimeters shy of his carotid artery.

Did his daughter even know what a hobbit was? Her mother knew he enjoyed Tolkien's work. Evie didn't understand his affinity. How could she?

Hobbits. Of course her father was saved by hobbits. Why wouldn't hobbits be involved with some weird half-dwarven man appearing out of the blue practically on death's doorstep. Erdene bit her lower lip to keep the snarky, even if it was a genuinely curious question of, Tooks or Brandybucks? She genuinely couldn't imagine a Proudfoot, Gamgee, or Baggins (definitely not a Sackville Baggins at that) taking in a fubar dwarf-man.

Thorin was the next to speak and he did not sound happy. "If you lived, why did you never seek out your wife again?"

Derren caught the stiffness of his daughter's shoulders, the quick press of her lips into a tight line and the bleed of pure amber into her gaze. If her eyes were anything like his, amber was both uncertainty, discomfort and insecurity. And sometimes fear.

This was a thin line to walk, but he took the chance and braced for impact. "Because, your grace, I had no way to reach her. I am not certain of how I arrived where I did, nor was I certain of when I arrived. I spent months recovering and the damage to my mind caused issues of memory. I knew I was married. I knew I had a child coming. I didn't know where they were."

And Savannah wasn't going to be on any map of Middle Earth no matter how much someone looked. Erdene pressed a kiss to Thorin's cheek. He turned his attention to her immediately, the hard expression he wore softening.

"It's all right." She whispered, one hand on his chest.

"It isn't." Thorin held her hand in his against his heart. "A father wouldn't abandon his child. A husband would never leave his wife."

"Voluntarily," Erdene corrected him gently. "You're right, but my father didn't leave me or my mother on purpose."

Derren looked away as Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, took Erdene's hand from his chest and brought her palm up to kiss. She cupped his cheek in return and smiled at him the way Evie used to smile at Derren. He almost forgot that look. The look of a woman in love.

They were One. His daughter was the One of Thorin Oakenshield. The gods had a wicked sense of humor. Making two people from different worlds soulmates. Making his daughter the one who would suffer most if Thorin was killed next year.

Derren swallowed his apprehension. "Your mother," his voice was scratchy with the need to speak something else. Something he couldn't voice just yet. Not in present company. Maybe later if he could speak to his daughter alone.

Gods. He wasn't even certain of his own child's name. "Did…did she name you…we agreed on a name, but…" Being dead tended to absolve one of their rights and wants.

"Erdene." His daughter said in her southern accent, "Erdene Juniper Thoroughfare."

What else did he expect? Their marriage was legal in Peru and thereby several other Southern American countries but it ran into red tape in Georgia when he first joined Evie at her family home in Augusta. That and her abhorrent family refused to acknowledge Evie had married at all.

They referred to him as her visitor. Tried to make them sleep in separate rooms. There was a very clear screaming match between Evie and her mother. Derren had grabbed her father's arm when the man began taking off his belt.

The two of them escaped the house almost thirty minutes after arriving and relocated to a motel for the day. The registrar in Augusta would not register their marriage. Something about paperwork.

There's no law preventing them from legalizing our marriage, Der, just old fashioned racist assholes. They drove to Savannah in Evie's old, beat down trusty rusty pickup truck. A restoration from the late fifties. She had it painted a shimmering blackberry reddish purple. Cost more to paint her than restore her. But Evie had laughed and drove them south east. Their paperwork was filed the next morning. They spent the night in a bed and breakfast that seemed to encompass the beauty and antiquity of the city.

She had one request before they left. I wanna see Anne Rice's house. I love the Vampire Chronicles.

He hadn't read the series at the time, but he owned them all now. Even the new ones. Lestat grew on him. How could he not. Lestat was his wife's favorite character.

"How is she, your mother?" Did his own voice sound so desperate?

The small half smile she wore faded. "I…think maybe you might want to sit down."

No. No. If she were dead he would have known. He would have felt it. His knees buckled. "She…she isn't…we were One. I would have known."

Sad green eyes met his worried amber-gray. "No, she's alive. At least her body is. Her mind is gone. It happened when I was about eleven."

Twenty years ago.

Unbeknownst to either of them, his memory was almost as good as hers. Almost. He had gaps when it came to surviving after the Brandywine River and his months in the Shire, in Hobbiton were sparse until the handful of days before he left. His last few days at the dig in the Atacama were sparse at the very best. He didn't fully remember the last conversation he had on the phone with Evie.

Twenty years.

He had to grab a table. Quite literally. His hand clamped down on the first available table corner and the wood creaked from the force.

"Thorin, love, can I talk to him in private about my mama?"

Him, not 'my father.' It felt like a stab to Derren's chest.

Thorin, son of Thrain did not looked pleased with the notion, yet he nodded all the same. "I will speak with the Hars. Come and find me when you are done." He kissed her palm again and waited as she walked to Derren and offered to take his arm.

His daughter. With his curls and her mother's freckles. Her skin was slightly lighter than his too, more bronze and pink where he leaned toward brown and neutral undertones. She was taller than him too, in flats. Not by much, a handful of millimeters at most. Derren, or perhaps Erdene, lead them back to the archeological section.

"Yo hablo Español." She said softly.

Spanish. He took her right hand in his, and began speaking in Spanish as well. "Your mother…"

Erdene sighed, squeezing his hand once before letting go. "Can you see the same things I see?" She blinked at him, her eyes a mix of colors.

Just like his. "Spirits you mean."

"So it is from your side of the family."

"It is, magic of the eyes, it runs in our family from your great-great-great grandmother." He sighed, feeling his age now more than ever, "we're one of the few lines of dwarves that still have magic."

Magic. Her eyes were magic. Well that explained seeing the shit she'd seen.

"Mama's soul is here." Band-aid, rip, "what I can gather is that she watched the first Lord of the Rings movie. She went to sleep. She said she was dreaming about you in a large library. I assume you were here already. You were coming down off a ladder. Someone bumped into her spirit and sent her sideways. I assume she was-"

His fist hit the table. "Alatar the Blue visited almost twenty years ago. He fussed over everything I had here before giving me a generalized threat not to share my shift between worlds with anyone here. Nor my knowledge of the future."

Interesting. The wizards no doubt knew about the portals. And they were probably responsible for closing them. And stranding the poor suckers who landed on the wrong side of the universe.

Her fingers tapped on the wooden table between them. "What other languages do you speak?" Erdene asked him with a curve to the corner of her mouth. "I assume my big brain was courtesy of you."

He chuckled, "My mother, actually, but yes. I speak Greek, English, Spanish and some Arabic. I understand British sign language. My mother was very young when she moved to Greece, so I don't speak fluent Masi. You?"

Huh. "You didn't list Khuzdûl."

Derren grimly shook his head. "I am not good with Khuzdûl. It is a difficult language to speak for me. I expect you've been expected to learn it because you're going to marry the king."

Her shoulders, wide like his, like a dwarf, shrugged, "It's just another thing in a long line of what else do I have to do to be his wife."

"Erdene, you know about him, don't you?" He asked hesitantly in Spanish.

Her head bobbed, her voice dropping low, "I've read the book, and I've seen all the movies."

Movies?

Her laughter was light, tired and she rolled her eyes when she said, "They made Lord of the Rings into three movies in the early 2000's and then in the 2010's they made The Hobbit into three movies."

The Lord of The Rings was only three movies? Were they like Dune and six to seven hours each? As for The Hobbit, he could see it being one movie, but three?

"Thorin…" Erdene went on, oblivious to his internal thoughts, "he looks like the actor who played him in the movie. I think, or at least I suspect, we are in a universe parallel to our own."

It was pointed out to me that I didn't give translations last chapter. My bad. I wasn't thinking.

Bakn galikh - Good morning

Jalâdishi 'ala badm - I hate this weather

bantîth - new/young cat, kitten

So that temp promote that I was offered back in November and didn't get because I hadn't been there long enough? Congradulate me. I just got that job permanently. :)