Day 14: Blame It on Cider, part 3
Here's today's fic for the Writer’s Month 2021 challenge (see@writersmonth for more info).
Today's prompt: word: duck | setting: dystopia
The setting for today was supposed to be a dystopia, but since it wouldn’t quite fit the overall mood of the fic, I sort of cheated and only made the story a bit darker. Don’t worry, there won’t be any angst (well, maybe a pinch…), after At Dawn I promised myself to be gentle this week… (Or at least I’m trying to!)
Thank you so much for your comments and support! Especially for you, I made this part a bit longer. Hope you like it (or hate it, that's also good!) 💙
Anyway… happy reading and brace yourselves! 😈
Fandom: The Hobbit
Relationships: Thorin x Yrsa (Dwarf Female OC)
Warnings: one grumpy king, one terrified herbalist, one writer you're going to hate really soon
Rating: T
Word count: 2,7 k words
You know the drill: a grumpy blacksmith met a cheeky herbalist from Ered Luin at a village wedding and then one thing led to another...
Let's see what happened later.
As usual, you can read this fic here and on AO3.
Khuzdul:
Ursarusê - my tiny fire
Khaglâ-dûm - Blue Halls (name of a Dwarven settlement shamelessly made up by me)
Thorinuldûm - Thorin’s Halls (the place in the Blue Mountains where Longbeards lived after Sack of Erebor)
The baby was wailing at the top of her lungs.
“Shhh, Ursarusê, there is no need to cry,” Yrsa murmured softly to the little bundle strapped to her chest. The pebble’s cheeks were red, her pink mouth open wide, and a tuft of dark brown hair fell over her tiny wrinkled forehead.
The little one wailed again.
“I know, I know, you don’t like it when the pony walks so slow, but you have just eaten,” Yrsa smiled at the grimacing baby girl, caressing her cheek, while holding the reins in her other hand. “And we learned that you hate getting hiccups, don’t you, sweetling?”
The nanny goat that trotted next to her pony bleated gleefully.
“You see, Ursarusê? Even Buttercup agrees with me,” she added and began humming a peaceful tune. That did it. The wailing stopped almost instantly, and the little one opened her big blue eyes, her mouth still open, but no sound came out of it this time.
“That’s better, my sweet little girl,” Yrsa kissed the tiny forehead with a sigh of relief. Traveling through wilderness with a crying baby, even as dear as this tiny bundle of fire in her arms, could draw unwanted attention, especially if one was alone (not counting her pony nor that voracious goat). But Yrsa had no choice.
They rode on through the whole afternoon, stopping only for feeding breaks. If Yrsa’s calculations were correct, on the next day they would finally reach Khaglâ-dûm, the closest dwarven city in these parts, not far from the Bay of Forochel. She also hoped that the few last coins in her pocket would be enough to rent a room there for one or two nights, until her business in the city was concluded. After countless nights spent on the cold, hard ground, sleeping in a proper bed sounded like a dream.
After leaving the city, she would have to follow the trail along the northern part of the Blue Mountains, uncomfortably close to the settlement where the refugees from Erebor lived. Thorinuldûm. That thought made Yrsa grit her teeth. Thorin’s Halls. How vain one had to be to give his own name to a city?
Unfortunately, this was the only trail that led to her destination. It was already October, and she needed to visit several mountain villages before returning to her family home for the winter. She would just have to quickly pass the place where the Longbeards lived. Very quickly. Just in case. Meeting Thorin, His Grumpiness, was absolutely not on her agenda. Yrsa wasn’t a coward, oh no! She had been avoiding that area for a year for purely practical reasons. As they say, out of sight, out of mind. Besides, he had probably forgotten her by now. Just like she did. Their encounter was buried at the bottom of her mind, under tons of cobwebs and old dust. Seriously! Yrsa herself barely remembered that grumpy blacksmith who turned out to be a royal. She certainly hadn’t been dreaming about him! It had been over a year, for Mahal’s sake! What woman would dream about a Dwarf’s face, or his touch, or his lips pressing against her skin after such a long time? Besides, she had absolutely no memories of their encounter whatsoever. The way he effortlessly twirled her around and then held her in his arms when they danced? Her mind was devoid of any recollections whatsoever. The way his scorching hands slid along her curves? Nope, didn’t ring any bells. The way he smiled at her in that special way, making her feel as if she was the only person in the entire world worthy of smiling at? Nope, still nothing. Was he even broad-shouldered, looking more like a warrior than a blacksmith, and not, perhaps, portly? She couldn’t say. Her mind was completely blank. What about his dreamy blue eyes, darkened by passion? No… Were they really the color of the sky at sunset? And not, for example, brown? See? She didn’t even remember his eye color. All was well.
She rode ahead with Ursarusê sleeping soundly in her arms.
