Thorin Oakenshield X f!Reader
Summary: When Thorin's Company gets a chance to rest at the hidden valley called Rivendell, you get the chance to be pampered like a noble. Thorin notices, and you notice him noticing, and there's no way you can't talk about it. (wc. 3k)
Warnings: Reader is female body coded; she/her pronouns.
Listening to: 'Black Swan' Instrumental cover by NUMERO
Masterlist || AO3 link
If the water was food, you would call it delicious.
After weeks spent on the road, days of horseback and nights laid in soil and stone, the steam and hot water felt heavenly. Delicious, divine, mouthwatering. You swore when you sunk into it, never once having the pleasure of anything other than a lukewarm bath in your whole life, let alone the streams of cold river water in recent times.
Then again, you’d never been to Rivendell before either.
You were no dwarf, however your ancestors had been one of the handful to escape Dale. Not many men survived the day Smaug attacked that city, the ones that had were forced to relocate to a town on the nearby lake. Not your family. For as long as you could remember you’d been travelling merchants, convinced that one day - some day - your family could lay their roots back in Dale.
After all, even dragons couldn’t live forever.
You’d overheard the exiled dwarf-king Thorin speaking with the grey wizard Gandalf at an inn. An accident really. You were there on your own business, but you couldn’t help insert yourself into the conversation.
You had convinced them - though Gandalf was on board with a lot less convincing - to go back to your own kin and try and rally them to join too. Thorin was to meet with representatives from seven kinds of his kinfolk, and between them and your ever-growing clan of man you could amass enough bodies to take back both the city of Dale and the mountain. You’d left with a pep in your step, convinced yourself that it would be an easy feat.
It was not.
You’d forgotten the last person to be as convinced as you that your family would return home was your grandfather, and he was laid in an unmarked grave at a wayside. No one else thought it possible except you.
Remembering the feeling that settled in your stomach when they looked at you like you were a little girl with a foolish idea still made you feel sour and heavy. Worse? The feeling you got when Gandalf and Thorin and all those people in Bilbo’s house looked at you when you told them you were the only one of your family to come join them.
Soaking in the hottest bath of your life in a hidden elven valley made all that feel like an age ago.
You closed your eyes. Your limbs were weightless. Steam rose and kissed your cheeks and eyelashes. The scent of healing salts and relaxing oils filled your nose. Just about anyone could walk in on you at that moment and you’d care very little.
Eventually someone did walk in, two she-elves, and you spent the rest of your time in the bath with them both carefully untangling and washing your hair. They had the patience of angels, and fingers that worked like magic. They almost put you to sleep.
By the time dinner rolled around, you were wandering the halls behind your escort like you were walking on clouds. Your hair was loose, and they’d given you slippers and a temporary gown to wear while someone mended and washed your clothes. Both must’ve been made with the same fabric, coloured like starlight and softer than silk, flowing around you like chiffon. You’d come across fabrics of many kinds in your life as part of a merchant caravan, but never for your own use, and never anything like this.
You felt like you were in a dream. You felt like a princess, not the daughter of an exiled wanderer.
Walking into the balcony dinner was being served in, you stopped in your tracks. If you cared more you would’ve been embarrassed that none of your companions seemed to have had the same treatment as you.
They were still in their travel clothes, though their unwashed state wasn’t unusual - you came to learn they were messy eaters and often bathed after dinner, not before. Besides the elves, you were the only one in such fine clothes.
Though you quickly decided they must’ve declined any offer that you received of fresh clothes, and you also decided it was their loss. You’d never felt nor looked better in your life.
“Well well, don’t you sure scrub up nicely.” Bofur was the first to notice you, and the first to make a comment. You - having had any shyness melt off you during your bath - milked all the comments that followed for all their worth.
You winked at Bofur, twirled when Dwalin asked, even did a curtsy before turning away and walking over to the only unclaimed seat in the room at the table with Gandalf, Elrond, and Thorin - all with a big grin on your face.
“You made use of the hospitality.” Gandalf said, eyeing you with a cheeky look on his face as you sat down.
“I’ll have you know in some places it’s very rude not to let someone extend generosity. I wouldn’t want to disrespect our gracious host.” you replied.
“From what Mithrandir had told me you’ve all had quite a journey to get here. I’m glad to hear you made yourself comfortable.” Elrond said, gesturing toward the food and drink laid on the table. Gandalf picked up the conversation from there, you presumed about whatever small-talk they had before you walked in.
You couldn’t help how your attention drew to Thorin - it normally did, no thanks to the big fat crush you’d grown for him over your time spent on the road. This time your attention was his because he was being very, very quiet. When you caught his eyes - which wasn’t hard, since he was already staring at you - he cast his sight away at his plate so fast it was like he was burnt.
“Are you alright?” you asked, quietly, leaning closer to his side.
“I’m fine.” he said quickly, keeping his eyes fixed down, “Just trying to stomach this food.”
“Thorin,” you hissed, nearly kicking him under the table. You looked up at Elrond, who thankfully either didn’t hear or chose to ignore his comment, “These people have been nothing but kind to us, you could at least pretend to be grateful while in their presence.”
He looked at you. You were prepared for him to throw some anti-elf snark your way but instead you watched as his eyes filtered over your face and body and his face softened. He heeded your words, letting it go with a grunt.
If you wanted to get to the bottom of his strange demeanour - because he was acting strange outside the expected sourness - you’d need to corner him later.
Thorin physically felt like throwing up when you walked in on dinner. He could barely stomach any of the leaves on his plate after you sat beside him.
You were just so, so beautiful.
You were pretty, obviously so. Many of his company would treat you with more kindness or softness than they should because of it, and it didn’t go past his notice that he himself was like that too. Then you proved yourself worthy beyond your good looks.
Back when they camped at the ruined farm you’d chased after Gandalf when he and Thorin disagreed. Everyone let you go, convinced that since you held no dwarven stubbornness that you could persuade the wizard to not stray too far. It got late, and neither you or the wizard returned. It ended up being a blessing when everyone else got captured by trolls.
You’d burst through the brush and all but gorged out one of the trolls' eyes before they cornered you in turn. Thorin remembers as clear as day the way you circled on the spot and held out your sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, eyes keen and feet light. Some warrior goddess personally made by the smith sent to save them. You’d landed a few heavy blows, held your ground for a time all on your own, before your weapons were knocked from your hands - then Gandlaf saved the day and brought daylight a few inches closer before it was too late.
Thorin could also remember the way you turned to look at him - well, them all really - after. The way the sun shone past your features, like a halo with your skin glowing, and he believed for a moment that perhaps you were a she-elf who’d bewitched him. There was no way a daughter of a man could have his heart beating like a field mouse by just looking at him.
Then you walked into dinner here at Rivendell, and well… He couldn’t look at you at all.
The gown those elves put you in was a floor-length white, off-the-shoulder, with sleeves that were almost dramatically long. Showing off your collarbones as it shimmered in the evening sunlight, fitting you perfectly. It made his throat swell up and his chest tight and his palms sweat like a madman.
Not that Thorin didn’t love you in your regular travel clothes, but - wait.
Love?
Oh Mahal, this was more than just some silly fondness or superficial feelings. He was in love with you. He could feel it now, almost see it in front of him - the pull. The feeling all those before him spoke of but he was yet to believe. It tied around his heart, tight and strong and warm, and it stayed there all night long.
Even while getting Elrond to read the moon runes on map to the mountain, that underlying tug toward you once the realization awoke never once let up. It was always there, right from the moment he warmed up to you - a stranger - at the inn in Bree. It stayed all the while, lying in wait until he was able to give it a name, which by doing so he also gave it weight and, above all, power.
Dwarves were a very private kin, very rare occasions were marked for pomp and celebration, and this? This was something marked by a quiet conversation, and something to mark outwardly to only those who noticed. But you were no dwarf.
You were a daughter of man, and he had no idea how to confess that you were his One. He had no idea if you even knew what that meant.
“Thorin, can I talk with you?” Your voice jolted him from his thoughts.
You stood beyond him in the hallway, face and features lit by moonlight, which a look on your face as gentle as your words. Balin, who had been walking with him back to their temporary room, bid him goodnight. Thorin might’ve missed his quiet and knowing look if he was less careful.
Then he was alone with you.
“Is everything alright?” he asked, joining you as you shifted toward one of the alcoves. This place was full of hiding holes - if Thorin didn’t think any better he’d say they were for all the scheming of elves, but for this moment he was grateful for the privacy.
“Everything is fine with me,” you started, a wistful look upon your face before you seemed to remember why you’d called him over, “I just wanted to make sure you were alright, you were acting more stand-offish than I expected at dinner. And before you start I know you said you were fine but I don’t think you are.”
“Why might that be?” he asked, looking up at you carefully.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess I can just -”
“- feel it?” he suggested. You looked at him surprised, and slowly started nodding.
“Yes. I feel it. Is that too strange of a thing for me to say?” you asked.
“Not at all.”
“You answered that very fast.” you replied, smiling carefully, and Thorin felt his heart starting to beat faster despite how composed he was determined to remain on the outside.
“I suppose that just means I knew what to say,” he said. You hummed in reply, then lent back, waiting. “What?”
“You never answered my question.” you said. “Something is bothering you, isn’t it? You’re not usually one to beat around an answer. You’re normally so straightforward.”
“You never actually asked me anything,” Thorin was quick to say, then lent back against the wall and crossed his arms - as if that was a suitable defence for what was going to be your oncoming onslaught to his decision to keep his true feelings to himself.
There was no way he could just blurt out that he loved you, that his feelings were so deep it was as if he was made with them already engrained in his soul. He needed to wait for the right time.
“Well then, your majesty, tell me what’s bothering you.”
Thorin stood there for a moment, watching as you made yourself mirror him on the other side of your alcove. The soft look on your face, the kindness in your eyes, how that dress made you look more precious than any jewels he remembered from the mountain hoard. What was bothering him was easy to name, because it was you.
“Me?” you said, face freezing, and so did his heart.
Did he just say that? Out loud? That you were the one that was bothering him? You certainly were the one on his mind, making him act ‘strange’, but you’d never been a bother once in the whole time he knew you.
“No, I didn’t mean -” He started quickly, breathless.
“Thorin it’s fine,” you started, pushing off the wall slightly, and with your voice stiffer than before, “You’ve always been honest, I like that about you. You can be honest with me, if there’s something I’ve done to upset you I’d want to know.”
That weight in his chest, the feeling in his heart, felt like it was cracking with every word you said.
“You’ve never upset me,” he said, stepping forward as if he’d be able to stop you if you chose to leave. He would’ve reached for your hand if he wasn’t so concerned about you fading away. “You’ve never bothered me. It’s me, it’s all me. I can feel myself reacting in some certain way around you and tonight it just became too much. I didn’t know how to act, so I didn’t act in any way at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I feel for you is beyond love. It’s like how I feel was built into me, I’m made to feel this way about you and after years alone it’s strange how naturally it comes to me now.”
Thorin watched your face twist to one of hurt to confusion, then a hopeful kind of bittersweet, before you spoke.
“Love?”
Ah, he did say love, didn’t he.
“I suppose men have no other word for it.”
“Alright,” you started slowly, “So what word would you have for it?”
“Lansel. Amrâbulnâs. Take your pick.” He said, and he could tell from looking at your face that you had no idea what they meant. He sighed, taking a moment to translate before speaking again. He could feel heat rising to his cheeks before he even said it out loud. “Love of all loves. True love, or soul-mate.”
“Soul-mate?” you said softly, as if in a dream. He finally was able to meet your eyes again. “You believe in that?”
“We call them our Ones. That there is one person made for us and drawn to us, just us, to love. One great true love for a lifetime, only to be found once. Men do not have this?”
“For us it’s just a story. Fairy-tales. No such a thing exists for us.” Thorin felt his heart sink. Men did not have soul-mates, so they did not have Ones. Was he doomed to a one-sided all-consuming love for the rest of his long miserable life? “We do have something else, though.” you said, voice soft as you looked out the window.
“What is it?” he asked, daring to be hopeful one last time tonight before giving up.
“Black swans.”
“They do not exist.” He said, and you smiled.
“That’s what everyone thinks. One of my cousins said his father found a flock of them once, on a lake far far away. Men do not have all the knowledge in the world. Black swans can be seen as a sign that rare and unpredictable events can exist too, that impossible things aren't so just because they haven’t been seen to happen. Soul-mates may just be rare or unseen in mankind, so they perhaps are black swans too. Not non-existent, just unheard of.”
“You think yourself one of these swans?” Thorin could see your beauty liken a swan, soft and graceful.
“I think I’ve felt a pull to you since we met. I’ve felt it turn into love, a love of all other loves I’ve felt before.” you said, and Thorin could feel himself drawing closer to you as you repeated his earlier words. “It comes naturally, like I was made for it.”
“Are you sure?” Thorin asked, close enough now that he could could every one of your lashes, and every mark on your face. His question was double-edged. Were you sure about this? About him? Were you sure about how you felt?
“Yes.” you said, and he felt you lean closer. Now he could feel your breath on his lips, smell the wine from dinner and all the oils your hosts let you use on your skin during your bath. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life, more sure than when I forced you to say yes to me all the way back in Bree.”
He smiled. So did you, so wide and full he could almost feel it as much as he could see it. Your eyes were bright, and he felt young again.
“Alright then.” he said, feeling your hand slip into his, soft and cold compared to his large calloused fingers. “My One.”
“Amrâlime,” you said, whispering against his lips. He pulled back slightly, registering your word. He frowned, then smiled.
“You know Khazdul?”
“I’ve lived amongst you for months, and you all speak it all the time. I know a word or two.” you said, smirking.
“You could’ve said that before you made me explain myself.” he said, but all you did was laugh, light and carefree and Thorin felt his heart flutter in a way that made him feel more alive than he ever had before.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
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