Thorin's Journey: An Unexpected Love" (Gratiana Lovelace, 2015)

Ch. 1: Thorin's Unexpected Love

"Thorin's Journey: An Unexpected Love", October 8, 2015 by Gratiana Lovelace

(an original fan fic short story, copyrighted by Gratiana Lovelace, 2015; all rights reserved) [(1) story cover image]

"Thorin's Journey: An Unexpected Love": Wattpad Description

We know from JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, that the Dwarves of Durin go on a quest to reclaim their Erebor homeland. But before they uproot their lives--yet again--this short story explores one possible scenario for Thorin Oakenshield's pre-quest life. The question remains, will he leave his new life to go on a quest, or not?

"Thorin's Journey: An Unexpected Love", Ch.1:  Thorin's Unexpected Love

Gazing lovingly down upon Sulisha's sleeping form, Thorin stands at the edge of the bed in his rustic cave home bed chamber near the blacksmith's forge building where he works as a blacksmith in the Blue Mountains. The waning embers from the hearth illuminate his bed chamber in a soft glow. His love Sulisha is tall for a Dwarven lady, though not reaching above his shoulders with him being a very tall Dwarf man--her long softly haired legs curling around the bed sheet tantalizingly revealing and teasing him about her alluring nakedness. Her pink lips puffing out with each breath, inviting him to kiss her. Thorin is also naked, preparing to join her in their bed. Thorin wants only to delight in their mutual desires and in their loving tenderness.

Sulisha and Thorin have only recently entered into an understanding that they will make a life together, make a family together. Their romantic couplings are new and exciting for one such as he who has sacrificed all to keep his Dwarves of Durin community whole after their losing their homes and their lives when the dragon Smaug took Erebor from the Dwarves of Durin 170 years ago. And Thorin had not allowed himself to even think about living a normal life until all of his peoples were first helped to build new lives in the Blue Mountains, Ered Luin [(2)] . Thorin could not have imagined that seeing to every person and every family's needs would be so all consuming, but it was.

And then she providentially came into his life one rainy day three months ago in Thorin's 196th year, when her horse went lame because it threw a shoe. So Thorin reshod her horse for her. Suli, as he calls her affectionately when they are alone, is not a princess--nor even a high born lady. She is the daughter of tapestry weavers, destined to be a tapestry weaver herself, an artisan, as she is now at the age of 150 years. With Sulisha being born after Durin's exile from Erebor, she knows nothing of Erebor and of life as it was in Dale but what she has been told.

Though Dwarven tapestries are prized for their artistry and for their historical representations, and their cultural symbolism, in his old life as Prince Thorin, Sulisha and he would never have met. Prince Thorin would have merely appreciated a tapestry from her skilled hands as one of the many beautiful objects surrounding him in the Erebor Palace. With walls of precious lapis lazuli, the grandeur of Erbor was so stunning that even the snobbish Elves were in awe.

Thinking back on it now--his former princely life of 169 years ago--Thorin feels that the Dwarves of Durin's centuries of wealth and power might have caused them to become too complacent about the real threats to their existence that the then world of Middle Earth posed. Of course there were the wretched Elves to contend with as trading partners--them also providing security with their realm bordering Durin's stronghold of Erebor, in exchange for the precious minerals mined from Erebor's incalculable depths. The Dwarves tended to ignore the men of Laketown--so contentious were the humans amongst themselves. And then there were the evil ones that plagued all of Middle Earth--the annoying goblins and the nefarious Orcs, among others--who were all believed to be orchestrated, if not controlled, by the oppressive Necromancer. So in reality, a little thing like a dragon drake was the least of the Dwarves worries--until it became the worst of their nightmares.