The River
Happy summer, @lathalea!! Here is the your story that I wrote as part of the @gatesofsummerexchange Tolkien Summer Exchange! I hope you enjoy it! 💜 💜 💜
Summary: Pre-Quest for Erebor
Pairing: Thorin Oakenshield x Fem!Dwarf Reader
Characters: Thorin Oakenshield
Warnings: Some fluff, some angst
Rating: T
Words: 2,983
***
“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”
~ The River, Bruce Springsteen, The River, Columbia Records, 1980
The river held a special place in your heart and always would, even if sometimes, when you looked back upon it, the memory of it could and did hurt like a thousand small blades cutting into your skin at once. You sat there, just listening to the rush of the water, so harsh when it slapped against the rocks, when it washed over the downed tree limbs, and whisked along all of the other debris that found its way into the waves, but then it calmed once more and carried everything its swift currents as it wound around the bend and out of sight.
“There you are.”
You looked up as the shadow fell over you and you smiled as Thorin sank onto the ground alongside you. He looked more disheveled than usual, with bits of leaves and twigs in his hair, his dark gray henley spattered with dirt, with more dirt smudged across his face as well. “Did you meet up with a pack of orcs between here and the village?”
He responded with a low laugh, shaking his head. “No. I was thrown from my pony, actually.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“Something spooked him and before you ask, I’ve no idea. He threw me, then bolted and I can only hope the fool finds his way home before much longer.”
“Are you all right?”
“I had the wind knocked from me and my shoulder took the brunt of my fall, but I’ll be fine. Just a bit sore.”
“Do I dare hope that means you’ve changed your mind?”
“About heading to the Iron Hills?” He shook his head. “No. I’ve not changed my mind about that at all. I thought you understood that.”
“I don’t understand any of it,” you told him, looking back out at the water. The late afternoon sunlight sparkled across the surface, made it look as if the waters themselves were precious diamonds rolling off into the distance. A hint of summer hung in the air, carrying on it the soft sweetness of the honeysuckle and jasmine that grew throughout the forest.
He’d told you of his plans to leave Ered Luin and travel to sit down with his cousin in the east and from there, to head toward the Shire, where he was to meet up with a wizard and a hobbit, of all creatures. He had a plan, he’d said, to reclaim his ancestral home of Erebor from the northern firedrake who’d stolen it so many years ago. You tried not to think about it, but as the time for his departure loomed imminently now, it was the only thing you could think about.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“No,” you said without thinking, “but you expect me to wait for you.”
He offered up a long look, but said nothing. Instead, he rose abruptly, striding away from you, away from the village, following the river as it wound like a diamond-studded black ribbon across the earth.
“Thorin, wait!” You scrambled to your feet to give chase, and caught up with him just where the river rounded the bend. Grabbing his arm, you tried to stop him, digging your boot heels into the ground for traction.
He stopped. “What?”
“Can you fault me for being upset?” You reached up to finger the small sapphire he’d woven into your hair only three nights earlier. No one knew it was there, and that was how it would stay for now. No one knew you and Thorin had moved beyond friendship, that he passed the last seven nights in your bed, loving you beyond reason, beyond sanity, beyond anything you ever thought possible.
“I thought you understood.”
“I do,” you nodded, meeting his pale blue eyes to hold his gaze, “but I don’t at the same time. I told you, whether you are king or blacksmith, I don’t care. I want you, regardless of what title you hold. And I thought you wanted me the same way.”
“I do.” He caught your hands in his and your heart leapt at the first touch. His hands were huge, with thick fingers. Hands trained to kill, but hands that knew how to be gentle, how to touch you in ways that made you feel as if you were the most delicate thing he’d ever stroked. “But, there is little future here for us, and if I can give us something better, something brighter, I have to try.”
“Thorin…” Your heart beat so hard against your ribs, you’d swear he could hear it as well, “our future here would be fine. It’s you who won’t be content, not me.”
He eased one hand free to curve it against your cheek, his thumb moving lightly along your chin, causing the beads in your beard to clack softly. “I have to do this. You know I’d not leave you otherwise.”
Your eyelids grew so heavy with each pass of his thumb against your skin. Until the previous week, you could only imagine what it would be like to be loved by him. And now you knew, and now you had to let go of him. He’d be gone at least a year, possibly longer. And it was entirely possible he would not return—a thought to horrid to contemplate and yet to real to ignore.
Your eyes stung, and the last thing you wanted was to let him see you cry, so you gave into the urge to close your eyes. As you did, he caught your face in both hands and tilted your head to meet his kiss.
His lips were sinfully soft and moved with exquisite slowness against yours. At the gentle probe of his tongue, you parted your lips, welcomed the sensual invasion, your toes curling in your boots as his tongue glided along yours. He kissed the way he did everything else, wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm, and you let your hands curved about his wrists as he drew your tongue into his mouth now to taste, to savor, to stroke.
You slid your hands along his forearms, up over the bulges of his biceps. Your fingers slid through the tangle of his dark hair, and when your fingertips brushed his nape, he shivered softly against you.
He drew back and smiled down at you. “Come with me.”
“Come with you where?”
He didn't answer, but led you down a narrow trail, back to the river, south of where it bent and vanished beyond Ered Luin’s borders. His blue eyes danced with the devil as he murmured, “No one will trouble us here.”
Another sweep of his lips against yours and he stepped back to strip his henley over his head. The late afternoon sunlight brought a golden aura to his skin, highlighted the swells of muscle along his shoulders and wrapped down his arms, across his broad chest. It glinted off the dark hair that curled away from his firm skin from just below his collarbones to his navel, and from there, it narrowed into a trail that vanished beneath the waist of his trousers. He held your gaze as he kicked off his boots, loosened his belt, shed his trousers and your mouth went dry at the sight of your powerful dwarf naked and aroused before you.
He was beautiful. Just so very beautiful, indeed.
But he gave you no time to admire him. Instead, he laughed, brushed your lips with his, and whispered, “Join me,” before turning to the water. Three long strides and he dove in, cutting into the water like a scythe, causing barely a ripple along the river’s surface.
He was a third of the way across the river when he surfaced, droplets clinging like molten silver to his skin, his hair, his beard, beaded across his barrel chest. His laugh rang out as he called, “Are you shy, amrâlimê? It’s nothing I’ve not already seen, remember.”
“You are an ass, you know.”
Another booming laugh echoed, loud enough to startle birds from where they nested in the trees. You kicked off your own boots, shed trousers and tunic, and walked with a purposeful stride toward the water, a sense of headiness surging through you at his growled, “Mahal, you are stunning. And all mine.”
The water was cold, especially against your already-heated skin, but you bit down on your bottom lip and threw yourself into it, letting the icy chill devour you all at once. When you surfaced and swept your streaming hair from your eyes, he was there with you, and snaked one arm out to catch you about the waist.
His lips found yours, beaded with water, hot and cold at the same time. You wound your arms about his neck, your legs about his waist, and caught his soft moan in your mouth. His arms tightened about you, pulled you hard against him, and as his body met yours, you shivered against him this time.
You drew back as he swept a kiss down over your chin and along your neck, your head lolling back as he flicked the tip of his tongue into the hollow of your throat. He lifted you easily, to kiss his way down your breastbone, along the inner curve of your right breast. Down along the supple swelling, and up to capture your nipple with his lips.
The tip of his tongue flicked across it, fluttered back and forth until it tightened into an aching pebble. You twisted your fingers in his hair, rocked gently against him, unable to hold back your sigh as the friction of coarse hair against your sensitive flesh created a delicious sensation rippling through you.
You slid one hand free, let it graze down through that damp hair, along his belly, into the swirling depths of the river. You found him, hard and proud and when you curled your fingers about him, he let out a sigh against your breast, tightened his arms about your waist.
He shivered and you knew the river water had nothing to do with it. It was your touch, your caress, that had him moaned softly into your wet skin and trembling against you. With gentle teeth, he nipped your breast, whispering, “Amrâlimê, have you any idea what you do to me?”
“I’m fairly certain the answer is yes,” you murmured back, smiling as he pulled back, his eyes smoky with desire and heavy-lidded with need. You loved when he looked at you as he did right then. He made your knees weak even when you weren’t standing, and made your bones feel as if they’d gone to jelly.
You bent to meet his kiss and with the hand wrapped around him, guided him into you and with a low moan, he thrust to fill you. You joined him in that soft moan, linking your fingers at his nape as you moved with him. Water sloshed around you with each slow, teasing thrust he offered, and when you met his gaze, you melted from the inside out.
“I love you,” he whispered. “And I will be back for you. I promise you this.”
“You had better,” you whispered back, a slow tremble taking root deep inside you. The end bore down upon you, you felt it in the tension winding through Thorin’s body, in the knots that twisted so sweetly within your core. You were nearly at the summit and once you reached that… there was no going back.
He thrust harder now and you couldn't hold back your smile as you said, “And I do love you back, Thorin. Nalish.”
You tightened your legs about him, rocked hard to meet him, and when his lips found yours again, you shivered in his arms, arched hard against his body, and sighed deep into his mouth as your release came upon you. The muscles in his arms bulged as he moved harder against you, as he lifted and lowered you against him, and then…
“Amrâlimê… oh, yes…” He moaned, shuddering and arching hard against you as he surrendered to his own release.
You sank against him, nuzzling him as you whispered, “Promise me you will be careful, Thorin. It’s such a dangerous thing you will be doing.”
He trembled in your arms, pressing a tender kiss into your shoulder before murmuring, “I will be fine, mesmel. And when I return, you will be my queen.”
You lifted your head, which still spun from his attentions, and stared. “What?”
A slight smile played at his lips. “If you will have me, that is.”
“Thorin…?”
“Say you will marry me, and let me carry that with me on my journey.”
Your heart beat faster against your ribs, your eyes searching his even as you managed to reply, “Do you mean that?”
“I do, yes. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Even when you were nothing more than a wee pest following me about with my sister, always underfoot and wanting my attention.”
“It worked, though,” you replied with a smile, “for I now have your undivided attention.”
He tightened his arms about you. “You’ve not answered me, you know.”
“Do you think I will say anything other than yes?” You caught a long black curl to tuck behind his left ear. “Of course I’ll have you.”
His smile stretched into his pale eyes, brightening them as he drew you in for another soft, lingering kiss.
You lay entwined on the river bank, in the soft grass, your head on his chest, his heart beating softly beneath your ear. His fingers coursed lightly along your hair, and the only sounds were those of the forest getting ready to settle down for the night. As the sunlight died, twilight crept in, stars spangling the purple-streaked sky, and a soft breeze danced over your bare skin. Without thinking, you trailed your fingers through the soft hair curling away from his broad chest, and as you lay there, you thought you could spend the rest of your days just like this, lying in his arms, in tranquil peace.
“I wish this night would never end,” you whispered.
“As do I,” he said. Grass rustled softly as he shifted onto his side to gaze down on you with sleepy eyes. “But unfortunately, time halts for no one, not even lovers.”
“I don’t want you to go, Thorin. I know you feel you must, but I wish you wouldn’t. I have such a terrible feeling about this, that something terrible will befall you.”
“You need not worry.” He came over you, forearms braced in the grass on either side of your head, his broad body blotting out the remnants of sunlight that still streaked through the sky, tinging the indigo with pale coral and soft pink. His eyes glittered softly as they held yours and his lips were gentle when they caressed yours. Your eyes closed at the soft scruff of his beard against yours, and they stung when he murmured, “I will be back for you, amrâlimê. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, so you had better come back or else.”
“Good.” He reluctantly pulled away and stood, gilded by the dying sunlight and more beautiful than you’d ever seen him look. “Now, as much as I hate to see this wonderful day end, we both need return to the village before gossips run wild.”
You both dressed slowly, neither one of you in any hurry to return to reality. But it was unavoidable, as he was right. Time would not halt for either of you no matter how much you wanted it to.
As you made your way back toward the village, at the edge of the woods, Thorin turned to you, his massive hands coming up to cradle your face as he murmured, “I will miss you.”
Tears stung your eyes, but you managed to hold them back. Come the morning, when he departed for the Iron Hills, you would be allowed to do no more than wish him well and offer up a smile that only he would understand. You’d see his emotion in his eyes, but wouldn’t be able to bring any attention to it.
But now? Now you were able to anything you wished, and so you slid your arms about his waist, and closed the space between you to let your head come to rest against is chest. “I will miss you as well, you know. And I will worry endlessly.”
His arms came tight about you, he pressed a kiss into your head, and then his cheek came to rest upon it. “Do not worry for me. I am taking my best men and will be fine when all is said and done. You need only worry about planning the celebration to end all celebrations when Erebor is ours and we announce our betrothal.”
You looked up at him. “Hurry back.”
“I will.”
He bent to you then, his kiss long and lingering and unlike any other kiss he’d ever offered. Passion. Desire. Love. Lust. All were rolled into his kiss, and when you parted, an icy finger seemed to trail down along your spine. You couldn't put into words the fear that swirled thorough you, and it was just as well, for you knew he’d just reassure you that all would be well if you were able to voice that fear.
You parted then and as he disappeared over the crest of a hill toward his house, you stopped and turned to look at the river once more. It would always hold a special place in your heart, even if sometimes the memory of it could and did hurt like a thousand small blades cutting into your skin at once.
***
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