#AND THE QUEST WHERE THEY LITERALLY MAKE YOU PLEAD TO HIM FOR HELP!!!!!!! *laughing nervously* IM IN DANGER

[lululeighsworld]

NOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOO I TAKE IT BACK NOOOOOOOOO

[fuckstickdotcom]

He Sees Fire (Chapter 4)

Warnings: fluffy fluff, more fluff, romance (smut coming up yeeee)

Blaise's POV

His adoring smile twisted into an awful, horrified grimace.

Blaise kept his head steady as he grit his teeth, pushing the magic back past his temple, a complex braid appearing where her hand passed over. Lazy sparks bubbled up between her fingers, and her harmless blue fire licked over Thorin's ears as she worked a special braid over him.

The heat shouldn't have been bad, she told herself. She channeled just enough to conjure the braid and weave the bead, no more. It would feel only as if he were standing just a touch too close to a bonfire, harmless but uncomfortable.

She knew she needed to do something else. These feelings she had, her love for him, had to be insured against the peril she knew he would eventually find himself in.

She had to protect him. He was worthy of it.

So she bound the braid and used his dazed recoil to plunge a hand into his tunic and flatten her palm on his shoulder. She avoided the skin decorated with traditional tattoos and found a an unclaimed spot on the ball of his shoulder.

She closed her eyes and grunted, reaching far into her mind to find her reserve of magic. Finding it, she called it up, opened her eyes, and began working a spell.

She was binding him to her.

Pouring her fire into him, giving him a tenth of it. A tenth, she thought, could reduce the Lonely Mountain to a smoking crater.

It would be enough. It would have to be enough. Her blue fire began to consume him, starting at the site of the spell and spreading slowly until he was covered. Her spell was almost finished, and she bore down and smote her rune on his arm. He winced, almost out of his daze.

She quickly sealed it, locking her fire inside him. The azul flames died on his skin, leaving him limp in her arms. She pulled away slowly, pushing his weight against the tree to support his weight.

He came to and groaned, hands lifting to touch the new braid and the warm bead. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the magical haze. His eyes found and focused on her.

She pinned her lip under her teeth nervously, a sheepish, guilty look on her face as she gauged his reaction. She needed to apologize, and try to explain.

His hand shot out, grabbed her arm.

Thorin's POV

Thorin held his breath as she seared his braid on. The pain was bearable, but blinding. The shock coupled with the pain paralyzed him, made him sit still while she muttered and worked. Soon, however, it became too much, and a strange red haze fell around him.

He thought briefly of how beautiful she looked while she worked. He could see her, but nit touch her. The red haze made his limbs heavy and sluggish and halted his speech. It also muted his pain, he realized. Her face looked strained, but there was unmistakable love in her eyes.

Something else was there too. It pulled at her mouth and hollowed her eyes.

It was fear.

She shoved her hand to his shoulder and he felt a sharp, hot jab that shot through the haze as she bore down, eyes narrowing, then closing with the exertion.

Then everything was warm. His hands and feet, his face, his arms, his chest, everything was warm.

It felt like he was standing in a forge, but the heat was gentler than that. It loved him. It was hers.

It licked up his spine and down his arms and made him shudder. He tried to think. His rational side told him she was giving him a gift, and his heart told him he would never be able to repay it.

He looked at her again and the fearful look shifted. She looked more at ease now, as if she had just found something she lost.

He understood then what she was doing. He had given her what she had been craving for years. She needed love beyond any fear of her capabilities. He saw her for what she was, and he loved all of it. She was his One.

And now she was suffering to give him a piece of herself. She was giving back, the best way she knew how.

The haze was lifting, and he hung his head, shamed he had nothing more than himself to offer this woman who had quite literally, given him a piece of her soul.

He shook his head, trying to clear the rest of the haze so he could speak to her.

His eyes lifted and met hers. She was so exquisite. Working that spell had done what he thought was impossible. It made her more lovely.

Her velvet lip was pinned against her teeth, her cheeks flushed and her brow glistened with sweat from working such a powerful incantation over him. She looked up at him from beneath long, full lashes and he saw a flash of fear again.

She was afraid he would be angry.

His hand shot out of it's own accord and gripped her arm. The fear returned and painted her features, wrenching them into a distorted version of the woman he loved.

He pulled her instantly to his chest and she sobbed openly. Great, shuddering gasps wracked her small body as she wept into his marked shoulder. His huge hand cradled her head and he let instinct take over.

He began humming, low and deep in his throat. He rocked her slowly, his other hand latching at her back as he pulled her completely into his lap. He sobbing abated somewhat, and he opened his mouth to croon the words in a soft, steady baritone,

'Far over... the misty mountains cold...'

She fought back a sob, tears still streaming,

'To dungeons deep... and caverns old...'

The tears now stopped, her weeping stilled.

'We must away...' he pushed his face into her hair to softly croon the next into her ear,

'Ere break of day... to find our long forgotten gold...'

His last note shifted back into that deep, baritone that made her heart swell. He hummed the rest to her, all the while rocking her in his arms. She raised her head out to meet his loving gaze, and choked out an apology.

'I am so... sorry. I've never... done that... before,'

Her eyes were still swimming when he stilled her with a word.

'Don't,' he held her closer,

'By the gods I will toil the rest of my days to be worthy of you,'

She twisted her grip on his coat and pressed her face to his chest, hot tears escaping, but no sound came out.

'I would leave Erebor for you,'

he said quietly, almost to himself.

She could not but be stunned. The King of the dwarves would abandon his quest for her. She furrowed her brow and bit back a sob and spoke,

'I... will give you both. I will give you everything. And you should know something...'

'And what is that, amrâlimê?

Her heart fluttered.

'Before... when I raised the wall and burned the horde. I told you there was a price. I said I would tell you what it was when you retook the Mountain.'

He chuckled, 'You shall have it... and the mountain too.'

'My price was you.'

There was a moment of deafening silence.

Then Thorin's face broke into a grin so wide she thought he'd gone mad from the force of the spell. It reached his eyes, which sparkled with relief and pride.

'Is that it, that's your price, it was me!?' His laugh boomed through the forest, his braids shaking as he laughed deep in his belly. She had never heard him laugh like this, nothing past a chuckle.

Blaise, for her part, was a bit indignant.

'Gandalf suggested it!' she yelped, mortified.

Thorin's laughter ceased.

'I beg your pardon?' he growled.

Blaise's eyes widened at her mistake.

'I told Gandalf long ago that I needed someone worthy,' she said, backtracking frantically, 'a king who was worth my support,'

She looked down '...worth my love,'

Her voice was quiet, but when she looked at him, Thorin saw she meant it.

His eyes softened.

'And when you saw me? That night on the cliffs?'

'I knew then, as I do now,' she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek, 'I can never, will never, love another. I wanted you badly, and from the very start. Enough to try to make you love me by yourself. Enough that if you hadn't, I would have let you go,' her eyes opened and pleaded with him to understand.

'I have never loved but you, Thorin Oakenshield. You make me feel alive. I'll give you the rest of my life to make you feel the same,'

Thorin felt a surge of warmth as she touched his face, ran a gentle hand down his jawline, and pulled him to her.

The kiss told him anything he didnt yet know about her. It told him how long she had been alone, desolate in her solitude. Told him how she had wandered the land, trying to help others, trying to fill the hole in her heart with something worthy.

It told him she stopped looking when she saw him raise his sword and prepare to do battle with a Gundabad Orc horde to save his friends.

Her mind was made up before her feet touched the ground.

Here, here was a king she could love. Here was the piece of her heart.

So what did she do?

She incinerated a small army and promised to annihilate his enemies and reclaim his ancestral home for a chance to love him.

To be loved by him.

She startled him by breaking the kiss and rising out of his lap.

'Come on,' she said,

'I want to reach the Lonely Mountain by Durin's day. We don't have time to waste.'

Thorin beamed with pride as she wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked back to the others, ready to break camp and set off again.

Far away, below a mountain, a sea of gold shifted.

A great claw tucks under a monstrous jaw.

An absurdly large scaly tail twitches restlessly.

A dragon somewhere has a nightmare of searing, blinding, anhiliating blue fire.