Archive of Our Own

“Who’re you? Haven’t seen a Blacklock in the Mountain in centuries. Why’d you come here?”

“That’s a lot of questions.”

“An’ I notice you didn’t answer them.”

…

Dwalin gradually became aware of the dawning of the day. It was very early still. Beside him, his wife was curled in her customary sleeping position: upon her side, her hand beneath her pillow. It had been three years before she had stopped keeping her knife there.

The skin of her shoulder smelled sweet, and he rolled over and pressed his face against her shoulderblade. She alternated between scars and smooth dark skin, and he let his forehead drift over them, feeling the difference.

…

“I’m Orla, daughter of Ara. And you’re Dwalin Fundinul.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Everyone knows you.”

…

He knew she was awake when he felt her shift slightly, her legs flexing against his. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “Good morning.”

“Mmm,” she grunted, and hunched down further into the covers. The scar beneath Dwalin’s cheek was particularly interesting, and he let his nose run along its length before touching his tongue to it. Bumpy and raised ridges of skin, a white line against her darkness.

“Tickles,” she slurred, before yawning hugely and backing further into his embrace. “But don’t stop.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good. I’ve trained you well.”

…

“Who trained you?”

“Does it matter? You wouldn’t have heard of them.”

“You’re the best axewoman I’ve ever seen. But that axe is also the weirdest damned axe I’ve ever seen. You always make ‘em with such long handles?”

“A long handle is better. It may double as a walking stick, and gives you more reach.”

“Don’t you sacrifice the power behind it?”

“No. My axe is sharp. It does not need a lot of power to cut through the skull of an idiot.”

…

Dwalin knew that Orla liked his hands. She hummed in appreciation as he ran one down the indentations of her spine, skittering here and there over her scars. She rounded her back, her muscled and sturdy shoulders curving as he traced the bumps of thick, Dwarven bone. She was so strong.

“I’m still too old fer you,” he murmured against her neck, and kissed it. He said it every morning.

“And I still don’t care,” she growled, and her hand wandered behind her to settle with greedy propriety upon his thigh. He felt his interest quicken.

“Gotta be anywhere this morning?” he whispered in her ear, and took the lobe in his teeth. She was quiet for a moment or two, as she normally was. A taciturn Dwarrowdam, his wife: silent and stern.

“No,” she answered eventually, and her thumb ran a slow circle upon his thigh, stirring the hair there. “No, there’s no rush.”

…

“A pitiful attempt, Hogun. Now come at me again.”

“Durin’s beard and balls! Have a little mercy, Sergeant?”

“Do you expect your enemy to show mercy to you? Get up and come at me. I will not say it again.”

“Why should I have t’ do what you say anyway? You’re not a proper Dwarrow – you’re a damned Blacklock!”

“Yes. And this Blacklock will starting cutting off your beard piece by piece – unless of course, you are able to stop me.”

Dwalin, watching, nodded approvingly. This one is good.

…

Forty years and three children. That is what she had given him. Forty years and three children, and he still couldn’t believe it sometimes, still couldn’t roll over in their bed without wanting to touch her and make sure that she was real, that he simply hadn’t dreamed her up.

Forty years and three children had left their marks on her. Where he looked like the old warrior that he was, she had begun to match him. Her great black sweep of hair, wiry and thick, had begun to be touched with grey at her temples. Her eyes had always been lined from squinting with purpose into the sunlight and glaring at her opponents, but now the lines were deeper and harder, cracked-looking. He loved them – loved that each one meant another year spent together in their careful, soft silence.

He tucked his body around hers (no mean feat – she was close to his height) and took her breast in his wandering hand. She loved his hands, he knew: his big, Durin hands with their tattoos and their great thick fingers. Her breast was heavy in his palm. They had been generous before they had married. Three children had made them an even more hefty handful, and he could barely hold them at all. Her flesh spilled around his kneading fingers, and she breathed slowly and deeply, her ribcage expanding.

“They’ll be awake soon,” she murmured, sounding more alert.

“Then we’ll be quiet,” he said against the scarred skin of her shoulder, and kissed it, soft and lingering. “We’re good at quiet.”

…

To her credit, she didn’t bother with foolish questions like ‘why me?’ She knew she was the best of all his new recruits.

“Others will not approve,” she said, her face impassive as always.”I am not a Longbeard, and I am but four years arrived at Erebor”

“They can go chew rocks. You’re my deputy.”

She gave a bow, her great tail of black hair falling over her shoulder. “I am honoured.”

“I warn you, you’re goin’ to have to work for it. Not much honour involved.”

She straightened. “I can always work.”

…

Her breath hitched as his palm brushed over her nipple, fingers ceaseless. The sheer size of her breasts had made feeding the children somewhat difficult at first, but she had persevered with all the stubbornness that was a Dwarrowdam’s birthright. He brought up his other hand to weave it in the thick fall of her hair, massaging at the scalp. She groaned and pressed her bottom back against him.

“All right. Then we’ll be quiet,” she whispered and rolled over to face him. Her dark eyes were half-lidded and her beard was mussed from the pillows, and damn it if Dwalin didn’t think she was the most lovely thing he’d ever seen.

Her fingers, as scarred as his, tangled in his beard as she kissed him.

…

“Why’d you come here?”

She looked up. “Am I not supposed to have an ale along with the others?”

“No, I didn’t mean the tavern. I mean Erebor. How come you left your home?”

She was silent for a moment, and then she took a sip of her tankard. “My people dwindle. We are a dying clan. No children have been born in over sixty years.”

Dwalin frowned. “Then why would a Dwarrowdam leave?”

“Because I could not be a warrior amongst them. They would have me be a wife and a mother and nothing else. Do you see?”

“Aye, I think so.” He sat and thought, scowling into his own tankard as around them their soldiers whooped and made merry. “Did you not want children?”

“I do not want to be forced to choose between children and my calling. I will be a warrior whether I am a mother or not, or I will leave and find a place where I can be what I wish.”

“I think that’s the most words I’ve ever heard you speak at one time.”

“You weren’t asking the right questions.”

…

Dwalin nosed along Orla’s neck, her head tipping back to allow him access. Forty years had made him as familiar with her body as he was with his own. He mouthed along her jaw, listening to the changing of her breath and the whisper of her hair against the bedclothes.

The dense muscles of her arms wrapped around his sides, her fingers stroking the horrible scar given to him at the Battle of Five Armies, nestled in the small of his back. Her breasts pressed against his chest, the only soft part of her.

“Ah,” she breathed as he bent his head to the thick muscles beside her neck and bit gently. She took a sharp inhale of air through her nose, and then she melted against him. One of her hands crept around to splay against his chest, her index finger rubbing his nipple-ring lightly. A shiver ran through him.

“Won’t stay quiet for long if you keep that up,” he warned her, his voice husky with want.

“I’ll have to give that mouth something to do then,” she said, and then she kissed him again, her lips sliding over his.

…

She didn’t say anything when she came upon him in the sepulchre, the torch in her hand flickering.

“I know, I know, they’re looking for me to begin the celebrations,” Dwalin growled. “They can go on looking. I’m not moving til I’m good and ready.”

She nodded and made her way down the short flight of steps before looking up at the white tomb. “How long is it now?”

“Thirty years since they died,” Dwalin said, and blinked his red eyes.

“That is a long time to grieve.”

“Oh, I don’t. Not usually, anyway. Life moves on, and there is always work. But today is the day they - well. Died. So I remember them on this day. Him. My cousin.”

“He was your friend.”

“Aye. A stubborn prideful fool of a Dwarrow, but he was my friend. My dearest friend, my cousin, my King.”

“Was he your One?”

Dwalin blinked again, and then shook his head. “Nope. Don’t think I didn’t at least consider that once, when we were younger. But Thorin was always about duty duty duty, and then it was obvious that he was meant for someone else, and me… I never looked beyond being his soldier.”

She regarded him with that stony, expressionless look she had, before she touched her forehead to his. “Achrâchi gabilul,” she murmured.

Dwalin sighed out, long and slow and shaky. “Âkminrûk zu.”

…

Orla’s questing fingers wrapped around his length, and he groaned again, his breath hitching, as she began a long, smooth stroke that turned his knees to jelly. His hand skimmed down the strong planes of her side before settling against the slight dint of her waist. Her hips flared, stout and sturdy, under the heel of his palm.

“Quiet,” she reminded him, kissing the corner of his mouth.

“You first,” he retorted, and ghosted the pads of his fingers over the crease between leg and stomach. The muscles of her belly quivered.

“Ohhhhh,” she said, her mouth halting in their kiss as his fingers crept higher.

“Now who’s being loud?” he said, and grinned. He could feel the twitch of her lips against his. She so rarely smiled.

“Don’t tease,” she said in a half-growl, half-plea, and he chuckled into her kiss, before bringing his fingers where she wanted them most.

…

“You what?!”

“Courting,” she said, grim and stern as always.

“Y’ can’t be serious.”

“I assure you, I am entirely serious.”

Dwalin ran a hand over his head. “But me? Orla, you’re a fine Dwarrowdam, in the prime of her years an’ the height of her strength. I’m a battered old soldier, over two hundred years old, bald as an egg, with a glass eye an’ a leg that plays silly buggers when it rains.”

“Nevertheless.”

“How is that an answer? Orla-”

She interrupted him, her hands clenching at her sides. “Yes or no?”

He looked at her helplessly. “I’ve never thought to…”

“Yes or no?”

…

“Yessssss,” Dwalin hissed as she took his nipple ring in her teeth and tugged gently. A bolt of hot tension shot through him directly to his groin, where Orla’s huge breasts pressed, warm and heavy, around his length. He could see her fingers working between her own legs, soft and syrupy the way she liked.

She laved the ring with her tongue as he gently pushed upwards with his hips, sending the head of his length bumping and sliding into that soft vast warmth. She laughed silently against his chest - he could feel the puff of air on his wet skin, pebbling his nipple further – and brought up her rough, scarred hand to fist his length gently, her forefinger slipping over the slit. His head dropped back against the pillows.

“Love you,” he said, his voice deep with desire. “Love you.”

She pulled away from him and sat up on his legs. Her lips were red against her dark skin.

“Quiet,” she said, her eyes glinting with amusement.

…

Dwalin chewed his lip.

“What do you think about it, then?” he said, and then he growled and shook his head. “That’s not gonna work.”

Balin poked his white head in the doorway, and when he saw his agitated and pacing brother his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “What are you doing?”

“None o’ your business. Don’t you have Dáin to annoy nowadays?”

“And I’ve done such a good job of it he told me to get out of his throne room,” Balin said, and smiled.

“Serves you right, talkin’ about Khazad-dûm.”

“He’s a blind, scared old fool,” Balin snorted contemptuously. Then he narrowed his eyes at Dwalin. “So, what is it you are doing?”

Dwalin rubbed at his eyes with one hand, before waving the other haphazardly at the box upon the table.

Balin crossed to it and opened it, and his mouth dropped open. “You’re not…?”

“Gonna try. If I can manage to say it without sounding like a half-wit.”

“Well, just ask her!”

“How many have you proposed to? That’s what I thought. So shut up an’ let me do it my own way.”

Balin held up his hands in surrender. “Far be it from me to interfere. Are you sure, nadad?”

“Yes,” said Dwalin immediately.

Balin’s face creased in a smile, and Dwalin batted his hand at his brother in irritation. “Oh, get away with you an’ that sappy grin. Go on, get out o’ here.”

Still beaming, Balin left.

…

Orla was as strong as him. It was no surprise any more. He did not have to be careful with her. He did not have to temper his strength.

But he did anyway. They were tender together not because they had to be, but because they wanted to be. That was all the difference.

Her hair was falling out of its long tail as she sank down upon him, her mouth parted. He held her hips in his hands, palming the skin and touching the silvery stripes left upon her belly by their children with his fingertips. More marks, more scars. She was a landscape made by time, as was he.

Soft and wet and welcoming as always, and he wetted his lip with his tongue and gazed up at her with his one good eye. She began to move, her stout hips rocking back and forth and the muscle in her thighs flexing, thick and ropy. Sweet Mahal but she was strong, so strong.

“Dwalin,” she gasped, and he gave what she wanted. He pushed himself up on his elbows to drive into her with more force, and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking hard. She cried out, and then muffled her cries with the crook of her arm.

“I like it when you’re the noisy one,” he said, smiling against the abundant bounty of her, rolling the nipple between his teeth. She swore into her arm, her rocking ceaseless.

Then she clamped down on him with her internal muscles and it was his turn to swear, lost in the hot wet grip of her all around him. She gave him a rare grin, white teeth flashing.

“Revenge is sweet,” she said, panting.

“So’re you,” he said, and lifted himself up to kiss her.

…

“Will you marry me?” Orla said, her face hard as always.

Dwalin gawked at her (You look ridiculous, said a voice in his head that sounded rather like Thorin. Answer her, she’s waiting) and blinked a couple of times.

“I’m too old for you,” was what came out of his mouth.

(Idiot, said his brain.)

“You are two hundred and ten,” she said levelly. “You are bald and you have a bad leg and a glass eye and more scars than you can count. Yes, Dwalin, I know the whole thing.”

“You shouldn’t want me,” he said. “I don’t know how to be anythin’ but a soldier.”

“But I do want you. Don’t make me ask you to say yes or no.”

“Wouldn’t dare,” he said, and smiled before standing and removing the box from the table drawer. “Here.”

She took the box, her face perplexed and her eyebrows drawn together. “Open it,” he said.

She did, and her eyes widened immediately. “Dwalin,” she said, and for the first time ever she sounded a little lost, a little less than perfectly composed.

“I got Dís to help me a bit with the details, an’ I hope I got that Blacklock knotwork right,” he began to say, but he got no further. Orla grabbed him in her scarred hands and dragged him into a kiss, and he chuckled against her, his arms wrapping tight around her shoulders.

When she pulled back, Dwalin got to see her smile for the very first time.

…

She shuddered as she reached her peak, her breasts thrust into his face and rubbing against his beard as he bit down upon them. He thrust harder and harder, before pressing his thumb over her little nub and rubbing in firm circles, prolonging her pleasure.

Her cry was strangled this time and it escaped before she had a chance to muffle it. “Careful,” Dwalin panted. “Don’t want… awkward questions…”

“Wee Thorin’s old enough now to…” she said crossly before breaking off to moan under her breath. A flush was rising upon her neck, staining her dark skin rosy.

The fingers of one of her hands twined in his beard again, and she pushed him back against the pillows once more, her body fitting upon his, her knees either side of his hips. The angle made him slide nearly out of her at the apex of each thrust, and the return glide into her all along his length made him curse and turn his head, snarling into the pillow.

She took full advantage, sucking his ear into her mouth and tonguing the rim, her teeth scraping over the missing chunk and clicking against the heavy bands. Her other hand wandered over his tattoos, following them with nimble caresses and hard pinches that left the indents of her nails in his skin.

More marks. Marks from her, and he would wear them proudly.

…

“Dwalin, I’m pregnant,” she said, no nonsense and blunt as always.

“Pregnant?” Dwalin’s legs gave out, and he sat down heavily, staring up at his young and severe wife.

“Yes,” she said, and her nose wrinkled the slightest amount. “Maybe five weeks, Óin said.”

He gaped at her, his head spinning. “But… but you don’t…”

She sighed and sat down beside him. “Dwalin. Do you intend to set me aside as your Deputy?”

“No,” he snapped immediately. “There’s no-one else t’ do the damned job, you’re the best Mahal-cursed trainer we’ve got, an’…”

She did not smile, but her eyes warmed. “Good.”

He swallowed hard, his thoughts flying apart. “Orla, you’re…”

“Yes.” She did smile, this time. “You’re going to be a father.”

He gawked a moment longer, and then he caught her in his arms and buried his face in her great black wealth of hair. “We’re goin’ to have a baby!”

…

“Close,” he panted, his neck straining.

“Yes,” she said, breath catching around the words. “Yes, we are.”

…

“She won’t stop working,” Dwalin growled, nursing his tankard. Glóin patted his back sympathetically. Dwalin scowled into his ale. “She looks like she’s about to tip over, she’s so damned big, an’ she still spins that long-handled axe o’ hers like it weighs less than a feather.”

“Mizim never stopped either. Don’t let it worry you. She’s not goin’ to do anything harmful for herself or the little one.”

“It’s just,” Dwalin gritted his teeth. “Just seein’ her picking up her axe an’ training the recruits as she gets bigger an’ bigger, it worries me. I trust her to know what’s best for her – but those numbskulls can barely cut their evening meal without drawing their own blood. That’s my wife an’ child there with those idiots, and then we put an axe in their hands!”

Glóin covered his smile with a hand. “She knows what she’s doing,” he repeated, and pushed Dwalin’s tankard towards him. “Now, drink that. Sounds like you need it.”

…

Dwalin gasped for air, gasped for more of her even though the sumptuousness of her filled even his big hands to overflowing. He squeezed and pinched and massaged her breasts brushing against his chest, her hair skimming his sides, her thick thighs hemming him in. He was lost in a sky made of her.

He could feel the moment nearing, his length pressing into her even harder and longer in readiness. She puffed and panted against his jaw, strands of his grey beard catching in her mouth. He tugged the short neat ends of her sideburns with his teeth and then nibbled at her ear and she stiffened and let out a long, low moan, her hips gouging against his and her inner walls fluttering.

“Dwalin,” she managed, her voice throaty and her body trembling as she crashed from her heights, thrown into her sea of pleasure again, “Dwalin, oh âzyungel…”

“Orla,” he choked, and then with a great thundering wave, he drowned in her.

…

“I want to call him Balin.”

“What, after my brother? I thought you wanted to use a Blacklock name.”

“They will be of the Longbeards as they will be raised in this clan. Besides, it’s a good name.”

“Aye, darlin’.” Dwalin carefully transferred the tiny sleeping child to the crook of his arm and then bent and kissed his wife gently. “Thank you for giving him to us.”

She yawned, and her skin smelled of sweat and pain. “Where’s Wee Thorin?”

“Outside, scowling at the door of course,” Dwalin said and grinned. Tiny Balin’s hands twitched in his sleep, his mouth moving. “Now, come here, Wee Thorin, come meet your brother!”

His eldest slunk in through the door, as though he hadn’t been listening.“He’s real little.”

“So were you, once. This is your little brother Balin. You must mind him.”

Wee Thorin gave the baby a determined look. “All right. All the time?”

Orla actually smiled and stroked Wee Thorin’s mohawk-like shock of hair. “All the time.”

…

Dwalin caught Orla’s head as she collapsed across his chest, and he cradled her closely. Her muscles relaxed slowly as her heart stopped galloping and she absently carded a hand through his chest hair.

“Love you,” she mumbled against his skin, before kissing a scar.

Silence settled back over them and he ran a hand along her hair, smoothing it back down. He kissed the top of her head, and she smoothed down his beard, and then their foreheads pressed together and they stayed there, breathing in the silence of the other.

“We’ll have the breakfast terror in here any minute,” he said eventually.

“He can wait,” Orla grumbled, but she sat up and let him slip from her anyway. He watched from their bed as she stood and tied on her robe before disappearing into the bathing room for a moment. The sound of running water could be heard, and he drowsed.

He was brought to full alertness by his youngest peering at him from the end of the bed, his little eyes hovering just over Dwalin’s toes. “Daddy, m’hungry,” he said.

“Are you now?” Dwalin said, tutting mock-sternly. “What d’you suppose we should do about that then?”

“Can I have cookies?” Frerin’s eyes grew to impossible proportions, and Dwalin bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop his grin.

At that moment Orla reappeared to scoop up their son in her arms as he shrieked in laughter. “Cookies are not for breakfast,” she said to him, and blew a raspberry against his soft, bare little cheek. “Bread and butter is for breakfast, and perhaps if you are very good I may be persuaded to part with some of the gooseberry jam from Dale.”

“Goosebrees!” Frerin cheered, and Dwalin sat up to watch them, the blankets pooling in his lap and a smile tugging his mouth: His beautiful and stern and scarred young wife, his madcap little tribe of children.

…

“Orla?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you pregnant again?”

“Possibly. Yes, I think so. I’ll have Gimrís check.”

Later she came back and nodded without a word. The language of their shared silence was so well-known to him now that he burst into a grin immediately.

He ran his hand down her back, before hugging her tightly. “You marvel, oh, Orla…! My warrior wife, mother of three! Look, you did it!”

She put a hand against her belly and raised an eyebrow. “I feel you might have had some share in the blame as well, you know.”

He put his hand over hers, big and scarred and tattooed and far too old for her really, just the way she liked it. “Happy to share that particular blame, darlin’.”

“Mmm. Oh, Dwalin?”

“Aye?”

“Please don’t hover in the practice yard this time.”

…

END