Work Text:
“You know. . .” Clara muses to herself as she rests in bed, Thorin warm next to her and the sun still yet to rise, “We never really dated—courted! We went straight from fighting, kissing, fighting again, and then death.” Thorin’s face is unreadable as she continues, “But then I came back to life, and we fucked and made up. If you count all the travel—half of which you hated me-.”
“I did not!”
“Then absolutely thought I was a moron—we had maybe four months of courting, which I have to say is cringy even in my world.” She looks at him with a gleam in her eye. “Careful or you’ll make me think I’m easy.”
Thorin rolls his eyes, except there’s very real exasperation there. “Ukrad, the last thing you are is easy.” The second the words are out of his mouth; he realizes how it sounds. He whips his head over to her, finding her trying not to grin. “I meant no disrespect.”
Clara disarms the tension with a giggle. She knows exactly what he means. “No, no, please continue!”
The poor dwarf looks well aware he’s on thin ice. “I was always trying to know what you were thinking. Your opinions are so different than my own—this whole world’s—that there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them. You changed with the winds, and the bond with Lena! You two were of one mind and in lockstep! How was I to get close to you when you both raised your hackles and snarled?”
“Oh, so you were frightened of two women?”
He raises both eyebrows and stresses, “Two psychics. Until you told us of your world and that you were unable to read minds, I was sure if I thought too loudly, you would hear me.”
“Alright, alright! So I wasn’t easy, but still we never courted. Will that be a problem in the future? Will I be marked as a whore or something?” She doesn’t really mind, knowing she’s done nothing out of the ordinary for her world, but it brings up insecurities from the quest.
“No, not while I am king, and I was king when we were abed. I will court you if that’s what you wish. I do not know how it’s done in your world, but it is very complex among dwarves.”
She nods and turns toward him fully and just has to smile. He’s handsome in this morning light. “Kiss me.”
Thorin smiles with her and leans in to kiss her. His lips barely brush hers and she can taste herself on his lips from earlier. She can almost press herself against him when he whispers, “There’s no kissing in dwarven courting.”
A groan that’s almost a growl rattles her chest. “What a fucking tease!”
“We should also not share chambers let alone a bed. There’s also quite the dowry involved-,” Clara cuts him off with a goofy smile and flails her arms.
“That’s it! Call it off! We’re doing it my way and that means starting with questions. I’m curious because I know about you, but I don’t know about you,” she presses. “We can start easy: What’s your favorite color?”
Now Thorin’s just amused. This interesting morning is getting better by the minute. Firstly, a morning breakfast of his lady, and then a real breakfast in bed and all before anyone has bothered to look for either of them? And now she wants to truly court him? Well, who is he to deny her.
“Gold.”
‘Of course’ she thinks to herself. “Why?”
“It’s more than you think. It’s the color of my craft, one of the core crafts of my people, some even say dwarves eyes were once flecked with it as a blessing from Mahal. And yours?”
“Green.” Thorin’s taken by surprise at how quick she answers. “It’s the color of the plants, the trees, the grass. I like the way it looks in the sunlight and how it’s calming. Now it’s your turn to ask me a question, something basic.”
In Thorin’s defense, he does try and think of a normal question he would ask someone, especially a romantic partner, but he gets choked up since small talk isn’t his strong suit. “What is your favorite gemstone?”
Thorin can almost see how she closes off inside her mind and her expression as she thinks. “You won’t laugh?” He nods his head, managing his own expression with practiced ease. “Tanzanite.”
The laughter comes out of nowhere, bursting out of him like a geyser and he can’t seem to stop. The more he thinks about her ‘tanzanite’ answer, the harder he laughs.
“You liar!” She pushes herself up and onto him, shoving him playfully as she laughs with him.
“Clara, that’s not a gem!” he finally gasps in between breaths.
“Well. . .,” she pauses and purses her lips. “Well, I can tell you what I don’t like; I don’t like diamonds or rubies. I like emeralds and sapphires, but don’t take too much from that because I could be persuaded.” An idea pops into her head and it makes her tongue itch to tell Thorin. “Can I tell you a secret? Like a secret from my world?”
He nods and she can’t wait to see his reaction. “We can create gems in laboratories that are as good as the real thing. In fact, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them with your naked eye.”
It’s like watching the dwarf go through seven stages of grief right in front of her. He bunches his strong eyebrows and his lips gently part in shock.
“That is an affront to nature, to Mahal himself! To create gems and riches for us to uncover and then to make them ourselves? Who are we—who are your people—to do such a thing?” He wavers between disbelief and shock that Clara decides to put him out of his misery.
Her eyes soften as she murmurs, “They can make diamonds out of the dead too. Their ashes are used.” Thorin’s eyes soften in return. “It isn’t that we don’t want to uncover them, it’s that we’ve uncovered too many. I don’t think you can comprehend how bare we’ve striped our home. The population of my world is 7 billion.”
The king has forgotten anything about gems and courting questions now. His ears ring because she’s correct. He can’t begin to comprehend the amount of area 1 million people would need let alone 1 billion and then 7 billion. He’s faced armies in the thousands and that was with an equally sized army of his kin at his side, both totaling nearly fifty thousand and ending horribly bloody.
“-orin? Thorin? THORIN?” he snaps back in the moment to find Clara worried next to him. “Are you okay? Did I break you?”
“You may have,” he admits. “What of your trade? Did you ever think past your education?”
She nods. “I told Balin that I wanted to work with animals, but I never really had the chance to look before I came here. The only career that was advised was research or further education after I finished.”
“How could your education be furthered without ever beginning your trade? You have experienced as much education as most kings!”
“Well. . . welcome to my world where we’re overeducated and underpaid. I don’t know what to tell you-,” she shrugs. “If-,” at that moment, a knock sounds at the door and they both know their relaxing morning is over. It’s confirmed as there are two more knocks and the far door in the front room opens for their attendants (Thorin’s attendants).
“More questions later?” he whispers quickly as they hear the small army bustle through the front apartment.
“Yes,” Clara responds. The last kiss of their morning is short and sweet.
A few hours later, they find enough time to sit together in Thorin’s office. For once, he’s looking forward to small talk. He just doesn’t know where to start. And so, like most times, he waits until Clara starts for him.
“What’s your favorite sweet food? Like a pie or cookies. . .?”
It’s been so long, Thorin hasn’t had many sweet foods in his exile, and when he had money, the last thing he spent it on was sweets. But a memory, one as refreshing as spring and clear as a steam still floats in his mind. “Pies; strawberry pie. Dís would make it when the traders brought them back from Bree. What do you prefer?”
“I like just about everything, but I make some pretty mean cookies. I would bring them to every family event. It was more of an assigned task, but they were always gone by the end of the night.”
He nods and files this away. A challenge fires in his chest; to make cookies as good as hers. ‘I have to impress her somehow.’
“What’s important in dwarven courting? I know something from my world about beads and courting braids, but I don’t know the specifics.”
Thorin’s breath catches. No matter how many times he reminds himself she’s from a different world, that she’s not psychic, it always seems so damn real when she has knowledge she shouldn’t.
“Yes, beads are an important part of courting. It’s traditional for the couple to make a bead for one another, to show their skill of craft, their intent.” He watches her nod and file this away. He hopes, but he doesn’t dare voice it, that she’ll show an interest in a craft. Any craft.
Their chat is once again interrupted by more work and there’s no more talk of courting for the next two days.
The restoration is long and arduous. It takes a lot of good dwarrow to clean and put things to right, and Clara’s more than happy to help when she has time. It’s on one of these days that there’s a plate of cookies with her name on them. Literally.
“And what are you?” she mutters to herself, looking at the cookies on the plate. Some are a little burnt on the edges, some are mishappen, but they look handmade. “Does anyone know who made these?” She casts the question to the workers and staff and misplaced soldiers in the room. They stare back blankly. “I won’t eat them if I don’t know who made them.” Now that gets them moving.
Orek, one of the most soft spoken of hers and Thorin’s staff, is the first to speak up. “My lady, I believe they are from the king. I saw him carrying that plate earlier.”
‘Now I can feel safe eating them’ she sighs. Wrong. One bite and she’s gagging at the overwhelming amount of salt and the unseen char on the bottom of the cookie. It takes everything in her to swallow the bite and nod her head like she likes it.
To avoid having to eat any more, she excuses herself to the hallway, taking the plate with her.
When she catches Thorin later that night, the plate is still full. He does a double take when he sees the one bite and the number of cookies still left.
He doesn’t have to guess. “You hate them.”
Clara neither confirms, nor denies it, as she replies, “You’ve never baked.” It’s a statement. Non-accusatory, of course.
They stare, and this time Thorin breaks the standoff. He storms forward to grab the plate. Clara knows from his body language that he intends to throw them in the fire or break the plate or express his anger some other way. So, she curbs it.
She meets him halfway and holds his shoulders, “You’ve never baked, but you tried it for me.” She tries to keep her expression open and her smile gentle. She never knows how he could take a smile or laugh, but it fits too well this time.
“And it failed.”
Clara’s heart breaks at his tone. Thorin is. . . a mystery to her in so many ways. No matter how much she thinks she knows, his depth surprises her. He feels so deeply and is quick to wound, especially when it comes from people already under his armor.
‘This,’ she thinks, ‘is why we need to properly court.’
“But you tried it for me anyway and that means more to me than any batch of cookies. Although, I’ll still try every cookie you make—just for quality control,” she laughs, and by all the gods it brings Thorin out of his slump. Now, she just has to find out how to impress him.
The opportunity comes a week later.
Thorin is hard pressed to miss Clara’s gift and in the wake of his own poor gift to her, he understands her ‘I’m glad you’re trying’ reasoning perfectly. A rectangular wooden bead is sitting on his bedside table. Clara’s already gone for the day.
It’s not perfect. She’s copied the size and shape of his other beads but the symbols on each face are unfamiliar to him.
The fluttering of his heart only grows as he puts it back on the table. ‘I’ll have her braid it in herself tonight,’ he decides after staring at it.
When Clara joins him at the end of the night, she doesn’t press him. He does notice, however, that she stares.
He’ll let her stew. At least for a few pages of light reading. By her fifth glance, Thorin’s done waiting. “What do these symbols mean?” he asks as he pulls out her bead.
He watches in amusement as Clara blushes clear past her cheeks and the tips of her ears practically glow.
“Um, well, it’s silly now that I’m saying it out loud!” she groans, and then rolls her eyes as she mutters, “-and very nerdy.” When she finally gets her thoughts straight, he swears the sun shines behind her eyes.
“So, these letters are from my alphabet, and they correspond with elements in the periodic table. It’s used to categorize all my world’s elements based on their features; stable and reactive gases, earth metals, alkali metals, stable and reactive nonmetals, and radioactivity. Amongst other things.” Thorin is lost at this jargon, but he’ll continue to humor her.
“This symbol here is for the most stable element in the table: Iron. The one on the opposite side is the most unstable nonmetal: Fluorine. This one here is Tungsten, the strongest element and metal in my world, and the last one here is most important because it makes up every living thing: Carbon.” It’s a lot for the dwarf to take in.
“I didn’t know your peoples symbols or patterns and they were extremely complicated, and I’ll be honest when I say they look the same, and I didn’t want to copy another one of your beads, so I hope it’s alright.” He’s stunned as he re-examines the bead with this new knowledge. Yes, there are rough edges, but he loves it. He loves it so much he doesn’t notice the nervous silence of his partner until it breaks.
“Please don’t feel pressured to like it because I can just make another bead that fits you more, or I can try and make one that’s metal because wood isn’t very kingly, and I can find a different design because I know it’s a lot and there’s-.” Thorin has to physically cut her off with a finger against her lips to stop her rambling.
‘By Mahal she’s nervous’ he finally realizes. He’s accepting a gift that he loves, and in turn, he’s terrified her with his silence. ‘I’ll have to fix that right away.’
“Clara, this is beautiful and extremely thoughtful. Should I ask how many attempts it took?” he smirks with a raised brow. She shakes her head no, and he laughs outright at the thought of her sitting amongst a pile of rejects. “I did not wear it today because I wanted you to braid it into my hair.”
“Oh.”
They stare at each other for another minute before Clara whispers, “You know it’s gonna look as bad as the bead. . .”
She’s trying to make a joke but Thorin knows it’s wrapped in nerves. And ‘Oh!’ Thorin’s heart quivers in his chest at how sweet she is, and how she’s worried about this, and can’t help but lean forward and kiss her.
“Ibinê, I will love it regardless.”
“And does this mean I’ve officially asked you to court me first?” she asks with smirk.
His chuckle is enough, but he responds, “It will cause quite the scandal but yes. Clara Jones, I happily accept your court.”
She leans her forehead against his and closes her eyes as if in prayer. She might as well be praying with how she whispers, “And we’ll keep trying new things for each other? Even if they don’t end up perfect?”
Thorin’s nose touches hers as he exhales. The burnt cookies play in his mind and the balm of Clara’s assurance that soothed it afterward act like a balm even now. “I will try as long you’ll allow me to.”