Iron and Oak - Short Stories for Rainy Days

Love Explained

"How long have you been here?" 

He sighs, "I got in late last night. Come." 

He holds his hand out to her, but she shakes her head a little, "I don't need help; you must be exhausted. Why didn't you just come to bed?" 

"I fixed the door." 

Esja sighed and looked at the securely latched door, "And cleaned the dishes, and started the fire, and swept the floor and bathed the girls and took them to town?" she noted, her eyes filling with frustrated tears. He takes a step toward her, surprised when she steps back.  

"Esja?" 

"I can at least bathe myself."  

He does not drop his hand or move away, "I know you can," he says.  

Esja starts to turn away from him, but he steps and catches her arm, wrapping her tightly against him. 

"Thorin, don't. I need a bath." 

She feels his hands at the ties of her robe and tries to push them away but quickly finds herself sitting naked in the tub as he pours warm water over her head. He quickly soaps and rinses her hair, then offers to help with more, from under half-lowered lashes. Ejsa washes quickly and as she steps out, reaching for a drying cloth. Thorin grabs it and dries her. He leads her back to the bedroom. Esja climbs under the fur and watches him undress. Surprised by how tired she suddenly feels, she lies still, wondering why she isn't even tempted. Thorin climbs wearily into bed and lays quietly. When Esja makes no move to come closer, he turns on his side and pulls her over beside him.

"You must be exhausted," she whispers, snuggling her face to his chest.

He kisses her forehead, his hand squeezing her waist, sliding across her soft skin.

"What happened while I was gone?"

Esja takes a shuddering breath and whispers, "Nothing."

He knows she is crying, but he doesn't know why. "Esja?" he says.

"It's t-true!  Nothing happened! No goblin attack, no lurking evil, no dragon to defeat, no army to face! Nothing!  It was just the girls and me, and I couldn't even keep the dishes washed."

He tightened his hold on her shaking shoulders, pressing his mouth to her damp hair as she cried.  After a few minutes, she relaxed against him a little, her stream of tears turned to little gasping breaths, then she quieted, and he felt her lips move on his skin. She moved to sit up, but he tightened his arms around her.

"I'm alright now," she whispered into his beard, "let me look at you."

He loosened his hold and watched as his wife sat up. He wiped her tear-stained cheek with a careful hand.

"Stop," she said, climbing out of bed and washing her face with a soft towel and cold water. He shifted slowly to his back, stretching out his legs, sore and tired from the long ride. The mattress shifted as she climbed back into bed, kneeling next to him.  He lifted a hand to the soft curve of her breast, but she caught his fingers and pushed his arm back down beside her.

"You must have ridden non-stop yesterday," she said as she uncorked a bottle of oil and poured it into her hands, warming it.

He smiled, "I missed my girls," he said.

Esja shook her head a little, and he just caught a glimpse of her smile as she pushed the blanket away and moved her oiled hands firmly over his right thigh, then his left. He closed his mouth to keep from groaning in relief as she worked the tight muscles, slowly moving down to his calves and finally his feet.  She worked silently, enjoying touching him, having him back with her.  She noted the way his body relaxed and his eyes closed, his breathing slowing.

"You shouldn't think it's nothing," he said, his voice causing her to jump a little.

"I thought you were asleep!"

He smiled and held out a hand to her, watching her rub the last bit of oil from her hands onto her own legs and then crawl up to him, pulling the blanket over both of them. She traces a sensual pattern on his stomach, and he lets her hand wander slowly over him, mapping old scars, comforting herself with his familiarity. "What shouldn't I think is nothing?" she finally asked.

"Everything you do."

"Thorin,"

"Faelyn and Kelylah are merciless.  It's amazing to me you let them continue to breathe.  Someday I'll tell them how lucky they are that their mother allowed them to grow to adulthood.  I'll tell them about a young girl brought to a city to marry a boy she'd never met. I'll tell them how she traversed the Greenwood alone, and years later, ambushed an entire company of dwarves in an attempt to stop them from facing a dragon."

"Quit!" Esja demanded, laughing.

"I'll tell them she could have been the queen of the dwarves, but instead, she settled for me, a blacksmith.  For a small house in a small village. For two small, but diabolical, daughters."

Esja laughed again and squeezed closer to him.

"Then I'll tell them how the responsibilities of even the greatest king of the dwarves pale in comparison to the work that a mother or father does every day of their life."

"Please stop!" Esja giggles,  "The 'greatest king of the..."

Thorin cuts off the sentence with a hard kiss, "Now we battle every day, but with no armor to prevent our little opponents from injuring us, exhausted from the constant fight and without the grateful tears and thankfulness of more common people.  I fed them breakfast, bathed them, and walked them to town, all by myself.  And when I dropped them off with Ellie, it was the exact same feeling of tired exultation that I felt when I opened the secret door."

"Oh, for pity's sake....let go of me," Esja laughed, trying to free herself.  He held her tighter, laughing a little himself.

"It isn't nothing, just because we do it every day." Esja stills and looks up, meeting his eyes, stretching to kiss his mouth.  He smiles, and she snuggles back down against his shoulder, one hand reaching to tangle in his beard. It is less than a minute before she feels his hand go slack at her shoulder, and she wraps her arm across his chest. His breathing deepening.  

"I love you, too," she whispers against his skin.