Usurper, thief, traitor. A few of the endless insults Thorin could cast your way. Before he could snap out of his sickness you had stepped forward to name yourself King Under the Mountain with his Arkenstone aloft. Naming him as your heir only to further the shove of the insult of a blade into his rib cage and give it a firm twist.
True he became just what he feared and succumbed to the sickness but sight of you atop his throne once was a loving imagining as his future intended and now he would have to kneel, not in matrimony to his Queen, but in fealty and obedience as second to this usurping King.
Fair and firm you had ruled for five months now pressing firmer than any imagined you’d dare to bend the Dwarf clans to submission and solid deals of trade and equality, what he hoped to have had your aid in acquiring at his side as partners, now he sealed the deals and finalized the contracts alongside Balin as you held the weight.
True he should have been proud the one he loved had done so much for his people and could be so formidable a contender in battle of words and twist of legal strongholds to bind such clans to these clever inescapable terms that should have him pouring endless affections and praise for his one true love. But he knew he’d failed you.
At the core of it all it was not the theft but the need you must have felt to have taken the reigns where he had failed and fallen. So now he would be obedient and toil to regain his strength in your eyes to be deserving to be chosen as your Prince Consort should you so wish one day to propose marriage to him. And to both hinder and not harm those chances for three months now he had barely spoken a word outside of the tasks assigned to him with you.
He would prove himself, no matter how long it took. Five months now everyone had learned of his slip but to his confidence already the people had seen his stride to become worthy again in their eyes that now shared the lingering hope one day he might be proposed to and they could have that aspired dual wedding and coronation for their prized leaders.
It had been written long before his birth, this numerical Kingship in which his reign would have fallen was marked to have been cut blisteringly short to just a gasp within the coronation. He was not fated to have had long to reign, but what time he could have had he hoped to have shared every moment he could with you. To have built a lifetime out of mere moments he was destined before some unknown sentence to befall him and pass his throne to you and hopefully to any heirs you might have been gifted. And now he stood open mouthed just as the swarms of Dwarves here to hear the proclamation scheduled for all the citizens now for a week, to ensure all could be here. Abdication, by means of infirmity hindering the ability to rule. He had fallen and failed you and now that fate had been dealt upon his love and to his dying day he would wear the same crown of his love cut down in his place. Perhaps as it has been joked in ages past Durins were long destined to fall and rise only to be brought down again and again. Every day he would bear this crown without you would be a kind of death all it’s own.
Radagast had stepped forward and done the duty of passing the crown over the Thorin for the stunned Dwarf Lords who bowed once you had pressed the Arkenstone into the new King’s palm and simply left him to speak to his people for the first time.
“You are ill?” The frail splintered plea for the truth escaped Thorin’s lips as he cast the unwanted crown onto your bed now littered with clothes organized to be placed within the open trunk at the clawed foot of the bed frame.
Mention of a time in the Elven Forest was given and true to your word you seemed to be ready to flee and spend what time you had left upon this earth far from Thorin and his halls. To be buried far beneath the rites and tomb of a King as you had justly earned even in such a short rule whenever the time came. Somewhere he might be forbidden to know location of to not welcome his token of honor to his greatest love in the deepest show of distrust stretching beyond the grave as well.
“That is what I have said to your people, yes.” You replied without looking up at him only urging his body to react before he could stop himself and turn you himself with hold of your arms. Gentle hold, but a hold none the less. Across your lips the most perplexing smirk when, for the first time in months his eyes were locked upon yours to face you dead on.
“What ails you? Surely there must be some course of treatment we might find for you here. The Elves are not the only ones to know old healing magic. Merely flaunt theirs about to strangers. What are your symptoms? You have seemed a little tired, yes, but there is nothing beyond my notice you could have concealing so easily.” His eyes flooded with tears and concern for answers or some way for this to not be true that he had brought this too upon you to the hasten of his words. The dragon was a harm you had knowingly chosen while this curse predestined to him was another matter all together.
“You know, there’s a culture where I come from where young girls have their stars read and those who are foretold to have husbands cut down young are married to goats.” Tears spilled down his cheeks in the confused furrow of his brows to the perplexing notion. “The goats live their lives and all die before the girls are of age to marry, now seemingly safe of their earlier fates to be widowed young.”
“What?” His voice escaped in a crackle of what it had aimed to be when what you had said fell utterly short of anything understandable to what illness you were concealing from the man you’d once spent nights whispering dreams of a future tucked securely in his arms in words of such an unshakable hope one day the both of you would achieve it. Like you had carved it into stone and no creature, even Eru, could dare to change that path you laid.
You simply bleated and stepped out of his hold to walk around him to fetch his crown you brought back to him. Every step urged his body to turn and follow where you were aimed until you raised the crown you put back atop his head. “It would seem my rule ended painfully close to my coronation, and now you are King.”
Sharp and swift his lungs filled with air as the explanation dawned upon him as you added, “Prince Legolas was kind enough to share your fate escorting us to the dungeons while you argued with his father. But I do feel after a few months away I might just make a miraculous recovery. I do expect you to write me.” Now your hands had lowered to frame the face unable to hide his tearful but adoring gaze with his hair and bead decorated braids. Down to the fur lining of his outer jacket to the pool of all his love and gratitude he bore for you into those heart stopping blue eyes your hands eased to straighten the lay of that as well.
Casually you spoke with a playful grin easing across your lips, “Frerin is planning a wedding alongside that coronation of yours, now you will have to woo me, oh grumpiest King Under the Mountain.” Widely a smile cracked across his face in the fact you did not seem fazed by his behavior of late beyond some irritation, “Three months of stubbornness, I expect a fabulous proposal as well. Just with you there it would be marvelous so not much required for to reach the task.”
“You wish to marry me?” He asked almost in a bashful tone at the lingering disbelief to the notion.
“Well I certainly wasn’t going to propose to you behaving like that,” you teased back poking him in his middle as you had done hundreds of time on the journey to this very same mountain.
A poke that seemed to hit an unseen button and have him step forward to crash his lips into yours, arms following after to bring you flush against his chest. A welcome place you burrowed for a breath stealing few minutes of you in his enamored embrace he would never break until the fingers curled to clench onto his shirts and into his beard would release to let him loose again when he’d begun to show he was ready to make all that frustration up to you. His future Queen, the former King Under the Mountain, to rule at his side until Mahal called you both back to the stone.
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