“Thorin’s Dream of Love”, Ch. 8 (PG-13)--Delight Turns into Devastation,   

October 24, 2013 Gratiana Lovelace

(This is an original fan fiction story by Gratiana Lovelace; All rights reserved;  The characters from “The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey” and “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” are owned by Warner Brothers, no copyright infringement is intended)

[From time to time, I will illustrate my story with my dream cast of:  Richard Armitage as Prince Thorin Oakenshield, Lucy Griffiths as Lady Kiralin, Jeffrey Thomas as King Thror, Mike Mizrahi as Prince Thrain, Lee Pace as King Thranduil, Graham McTavish as Lord Dwalin, Orlando Bloom as Prince Legolas, Evangeline Lilly as Captain Tauriel, Ken Stott as Lord Balin, Hugo Weaving as Lord Elrond, and Adam Brown as Gralin, etc.]

Author’s Mature Content Note:  “Thorin’s Dream of Love” is a story of romance and intrigue set amidst the backdrop of Middle Earth.  As such there will be some passages in this story involving heartfelt love scenes (R rated) and some passages involving highly dramatic moments.  I will label the maturity rating of those chapters accordingly.  Otherwise, the general rating for this story is PG or PG-13 due to some mature situations and topics.  If you are unable or unwilling to attend a movie with the ratings that I provide, then please do not read the chapters with those labels.  This is my disclaimer.

Author’s Recap from the previous installment:  After happily seeing the Elven delegation off the morning after Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin wed, King Thror and Prince Thrain’s attempt to broach the topic of court protocol training for the new Princess Kiralin--did not get very far with Prince Thorin, who countered that he would be her guide.  There was also the negotiation of where they will live--in the Dale Villa gift from Princess Kiralin’s family or inside the Fortress Palace of Erebor.  A compromise was reached there as well.  Then Princess Kiralin happily moved her clothing and personal effects into Prince Thorin’s bed chamber and an adjacent room that they commandeered for a sitting room.  Sadly, they have lovely plans that will never be realized.

“Thorin’s Dream of Love”, Ch. 8 (PG-13)--Delight Turns into Devastation

Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin sneak out of the Erebor Fortress Palace to tour the Balin Family Villa on the beautiful hillside of Dale [(2) right]  that is to be given them by Princess Kiralin’s father Lord Balin as part of her wedding dowry. 

Corbin:  An old family retainer of nearly 300 years haltingly admits Prince Thorin and his bride to the Dale Villa.  “This way if you please, My Prince and My Princess.”  His grandfatherly eyes twinkle to have his favorite mistress Kiralin now a princess and she smiles back at him.

Princess Kiralin: “Thank you, Corbin.  You rest and I will show Prince Thorin our new home.”  Corbin nods and goes to attend to other duties. Princess Kiralin shows Prince Thorin the main living areas and the private bed chamber wing, then out to the back veranda overlooking  the beautifully tended garden that goes up the hillside.   Looking hopefully at her husband as they end their tour of the Dale Villa, Princess asks. “So do you truly like it, my husband?”

Prince Thorin: “Like it?”  She nods.  “No.”  He states blandly, amusement trying to peek out of his eyes.

Princess Kiralin: “Oh.”  She pouts.

Prince Thorin:  Pulling her into his warm embrace, he says huskily.  “I love it!”  Then he kisses her soundly for several minutes. 

When they come up for air, Princess Kiralin [(3) right]  has an almost beatific look upon her face as she gazes lovingly at her husband Prince Thorin.

Princess Kiralin: “I never knew that I could be so happy.  It is like a dream.”  Then tears of joy fall gracefully from her eyes.

Prince Thorin: Tears also brimming in Prince Thorin’s eyes [(4) right],  he softly kisses her lips once more.  “You are my whole life’s happiness, my Kiralin.  And I will endeavor to always make your happiness my life’s goal.  You are my first thought upon waking and my last thought before slumber.  And even then, you inhabit my dreams--and you always will.”  It is a tender moment of a promise filled future.

Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin pronounce the Dale villa perfect! There is plenty of room for them and little princes and princesses which they hope for in their future.  They are young--Prince Thorin is twenty four years and Princess Kiralin is thirty years--so there is plenty of time yet to just enjoy each other as newlyweds for the next twenty years or so. Afterall, they have until their one hundredth anniversary to produce a male heir or the marriage is dissolved by law.  And they plan to accomplish their goal of having children together well before then.

That evening, Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin share a quiet evening meal celebrating their nuptials with her family in the Dale villa before they return to their now shared bedchamber in Erebor.  It is a sensuously loving night for the two of them as Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin express their love and tenderness for each other.

***

The next morning--the second day of Prince Thorin and Princess Kiralin’s wedded life--Princess Kiralin and her mother Lady Helga elect to tour the Dale villa with an eye to more particularly identifying which furniture and decorative items will stay versus which will be packed up to go to the Balin Family country estates.  Naturally, Princess Kiralin wants to make the Dale villa a reflection of her and Prince Thorin’s tastes and wishes.   

Prince Thorin and Lord Balin remain behind in the Erebor Fortress Palace to attend to their respective duties.  Though newly married, Prince Thorin is still an heir to the Dwarven throne of Durin and he must attend to his court duties of leading the palace sentinel guards.  And Lord Balin as archivist must begin a new chapter in Durin’s historical records to include his daughter Princess Kiralin now married to Prince Thorin.

It is on the Erebor viewing balcony once more--where they had stood yesterday watching the Elven delegation leave--that Lord Balin finds Prince Thorin surveying the city of Dale with a critical eye [(5) right]. 

Lord Balin:  “You look troubled, Prince Thorin.  What is wrong?”  He asks in a fatherly tone.

PrinceThorin: “I do not know, Lord Balin.  But I feel, … I feel that there is an ill wind.”  Indeed, the wind has picked up since yesterday and the sky has darkened--though it is not quite mid day and the sun should be bright.

Lord Balin: Sensing why Prince Thorin is worried, he gives some fatherly advice.  “Do not be uneasy, my son. Married life will come with joy and with vexation--preferably more of the former than the latter.”  He winks.  “But I know that you and Kiralin love each other and that will carry you through any rough times ahead.” He says sagely.

Prince Thorin: Only listening with half an ear, his eyes are trained on a black cloud in the distance that is headed toward Dale and Erebor.  “I know, it is just that …”

Prince Thorin’s words are stilled by a distant horn, and then another nearer horn, and finally, the horn at the top of the watch tower of Dale.   It has been decades since these horns sounded the alarm, and dread creeps into Prince Thorin’s mind.  Lord Balin turns his eyes and ears at the sound.

Lord Balin:  “Oh no.  It cannot be.”    Lord Balin looks painfully at Prince Thorin.

Prince Thorin:  Tilting his head, Prince Thorin [(6) right] grimaces to Lord Balin. “Dragon!”  Then Prince Thorin turns and sounds the alarm inside of Erebor with a roar.  “Dragonnnnnnnnn!”

Instantly, every person inside Erebor and in the city of Dale is on alert and scurrying.

Torn between his duty and his love, Prince Thorin’s father-in-law sets his mind at ease--while also trying to calm his own fears.

Lord Balin: “They will be safe at the Villa. If a dragon drake does come, he comes for the gold of Erebor.”  For the dragon sickness of gold worship is well named.  Sadly, his words have the effect of immediate prophecy.

In the next moment, fire spews out of the approaching dark cloud--hitting towers in Dale, incinerating people running trying to get away, and licking at the stone fortress that is Erebor [(7ab) below].   All is chaos as the Dwarves in Erebor and in Dale cannot believe the destruction that is befalling them.

Prince Thorin instinctively grabs Lord Balin from the Erebor balcony and pulls him behind a stone pillar as another fiery blast consumes the balcony and those left on it to disintegrate into ash.  The stone pillar--carved out of the mountain of Erebor--is barely big enough to shield the two of them.  But somehow they are spared from being more than merely singed. [(8ac) below]

Once the Dwarves of Erebor regroup from the first wave of the dragon’s attack, Prince Thorin, his Father Prince Thrain, and the Sentinel Guards of Erebor attempt to prevent the dragon from entering the Erebor Fortress Palace, but it is no use and the dragon Smaug breathes fire and melts the heavy metal Erebor gate to gain entrance [(9abcd) below]. 

So the Dwarves of Durin have to reluctantly abandon the Erebor Fortress to the dragon.  Somehow, Prince Thorin manages to find his Grandfather King Thror and drag him to safety [(10abc) below] out of the mountain of Erebor where the dragon Smaug now resides.  The Dwarves flee Erebor and its city of Dale’s walls. 

And then Thorin and the Dwarves have a glimmer of hope as they look up to the high hillside.  The Elven Delegation leaving Erebor the previous day--who had only just made it to the high ridge plateau on their Journey home, had turned back to Erebor when they saw enormous plumes of smoke--are visible on the ridge.  Prince Thorin waves to the Elven King to seek their assistance.  But help will not be forthcoming.  As the Dwarves look on in uncomprehending despair, King Thranduil bids his delegation to stand down and they do not come to the Dwarves of Durin’s aid [(11) right].    Prince Thorin, especially, cannot fathom why King to King the Elves do not help them.  The Dwarves seek the Elves assistance not for politics nor for brinksmanship, but for survival.  Prince Legolas and Captain Tauriel feel shame, but they do not cross their Elven King Thranduil’s decision as the the Elves turn their backs on the devastated Dwarves.  And Prince Thorin vows to seek vengeance one day for the Elves abandoning them.  

***

Once the royal family is safely away from the façade of Erebor--to avoid being attacked by Smaug again when they are defenseless--Prince Thorin leaves his Grandfather King Thror with his Father Prince, brother Frerin and little sister Dis at a Dwarven Lord’s home that was not fully destroyed. Then Prince Thorin goes with Lord Balin to search the Balin family’s hillside villa in Dale to see if their wives are still alive.  Prince Thorin is frantic--as is Lord Balin, who tries to keep up with the agile and athletic Prince Thorin racing up the hillside, but he cannot.  Prince Thorin reaches the Dale villa first and finds it partially smouldering and in ruins--the roof having burned off  in sections and now a gentle rain falls dampening the lingering fires within the once stately home that was to have been his and Princess Kiralin’s first home together.

Prince Thorin: “Kiralin!   Kiralin!  Kiralin!” 

Prince Thorin runs through the villa calling her name, trying to remember what rooms were where--thinking strategically about where they might have sheltered if they wanted to keep hidden from the dragon.  For it is well known that dragons will eat flesh almost as eagerly as their fires destroy homes.  There are downed timbers where room ceilings have collapsed and no one is about.

Then Prince Thorin smells a sickening stench of burned flesh and turns aside at the sight of a blackened figure who once drew breath, stilled forever in the middle of a charred room with a ceiling now open to the sky.  It is, … it was the old Balin family retainer Corbin who could not move quickly enough to seek shelter.   But Prince Thorin cannot stop. Princess Kiralin could still be alive, but hurt. He must find her.  Prince Thorin runs outside and Lord Balin has finally caught up with him.

Lord Balin: “Did you find them?   My Helga and your Kiralin?”

Prince Thorin: “Not yet.  I searched everywhere inside.  But nothing.”  Prince Thorin does not mention the smell of burning flesh--nor who it belongs to--for he does not need to, its odor is so prevalent.

Lord Balin:   “Ah! They might be in the back courtyard, in the water well.  There is a lower level access tunnel from the house--for maintenance purposes.”

Prince Thorin nods and they find their way around the burnt debris of the villa to reach the back of the villa--what was once a beautiful garden is now black with soot.

Prince Thorin: “Kiralin!  My Kiralin!”  Then Prince Thorin hears a faint reply as he gets closer to the well, that soon becomes louder.

Princess Kiralin: “Thorin!” Thorin!!!    THORIN!!!!

Prince Thorin:  Looking over the edge of the well, Prince Thorin cannot see anything--it is too dark.  “Kiralin!?!

Princess Kiralin: But Princess Kiralin can see her husband as she looks up to the mouth of the well with the sky beyond. “Thorin, we are here!   Mama and I are here!”  They are standing on a stone ledge just above the water line.  They would have returned to the house via the access tunnel, but their way is blocked.

Lord Balin: Leaning over the lip of the well, Lord Balin shouts.  “Durin be praised!  Are you all right?” 

Lady Helga:  “What do you think, husband?”  She says annoyed with Lord Balin for so obtuse a question. 

Princess Kiralin: “Mama has injured her wrist. She cannot climb up--and the walls are too slick for me to climb up as well.”  And in truth, Lady Helga’s climbing days are long past.

Then Lord Dwalin and his nephew, Princess Kiralin’s brother Gralin turn up.  So they scavenge the home for rope and find a plank.  Then they make a makeshift seat for Lady Helga to sit on as they pull her up.  Princesss Kiralin insists that her Mama is lifted out first.  Then she goes.  The four men make short work of  their women’s rescues.   There is a teary reunion of husbands with their wives--and parents with their son and daughter. 

Princess Kiralin embraces her husband Prince Thorin as if she will never let him go and they take shelter in a piece of  the villa still standing.  Then she looks up at him questioningly as he caresses her face [(12) right].

Princess Kiralin:  “What happened?”  

For Princess Kiralin is too young to remember the last dragon attack.  But as a royal, Prince Thorin’s life has been steeped in the battles of old--and he remembers tales of the dragons well. 

Prince Thorin:  Prince Thorin leans against the still standing wall and gazes at his wife with love, then in a gentle voice tells her of their changed reality [(13) right].  “The dragon Smaug plundered the city of Dale and invaded the Fortress Palace of Erebor.”  Prince Thorin says the word fortress with no little irony. “Both are lost to us, for now.”  For he still harbors hope that they might return one day and reclaim their home and their kingdom.  “And we must put distance between us and the dragon for our safety.”

Princess Kiralin: “But where will we go?”  She asks in worry for there are not much in the way of necessities left unscathed at the villa for them to take with them. 

Prince Thorin: “I do not know.  But we will find our brother Dwarven communities and make our way, somehow.”  He says resolutely.

The Dwarves of Durin--royal and common alike--are left to fend for themselves as they travel away from the Mountain of Erebor and their beloved city of Dale--exiled from their homeland, from their birthright, and from their source of wealth and power. 

But yet on this day, Prince Thorin knows that his treasure lies not beneath the dragon Smaug sitting on the piles of Dwarven gold, but his treasure is walking by his side in the love of his life, his wife, Princess Kiralin.  And Prince Thorin will move heaven and all of Middle Earth to give her a life, and a home, and a future again--as he will for all of his people.

To be continued with Chapter 9  

“Thorin’s Dream of Love”, Ch. 8 , References, (Featured images in Wattpad are:  2, 3, 4, 6, 8c, 9d, 10b, 11, 12, 13 ), 10/24/13 Gratiana Lovelace

1)   “Thorin’s Dream of Love” story cover graphic original image link: Richard Armitage portraying Thorin Oakenshield in “The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey” was  found at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=177921775727384&set=pb.140357729483789.-2207520000.1379123868.&type=3&theater

2)  The City of  Dale image is from The Hobbit:  An Unexpected  Journey (THAUJ), 19h41m51s225 Mar2613 Gratiana Lovelace Cap

3)  Princess Kiralin image is Lucy Griffiths as Lady Marian in Robin Hood and was found at http://www.robinhoodwinked.net/images/Characters/LucyGriffiths.jpg

4)  Prince Thorin image is Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield  in THAUJ found at richardarmitagenet.com/images/gallery/Hobbit/HobbitShortTrailers/album/TVSpot6-01.jpg

5) Smaug Attack02 Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Balin (Ken Stott) in THAUJ 19h58m07s21 Mar2613GratianaLovelaceCap-crop

6) Smaug Attack03 Thorin (Richard Armitage) saying “dragon” in THAUJ 20h01m07s28M ar2613Gratiana Lovelace Cap

7ab & 8abc)  Smaug Attack in THAUJ; 8c Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Balin (Ken Stott) escaping the dragon fire  Mar2613 Gratiana Lovelace Caps

9abcd) Smaug Attack in THAUJ; 9d is Erebor’s Gate melting in THAUJ Mar2613 Gratiana Lovelace Cap

10abc) Smaug Attack in THAUJ;  10b is Thorin (Richard Armitage) helping King Thror (Jeffrey Thomas) escape Mar2613 Gratiana Lovelace Cap

11)  Elven King Thranduil  (Lee Pace) refusing to help the Dwarves of Erebor  in THAUJ Mar2613 Gratiana Lovelace Cap

12) Princess Kiralin is Lucy Griffiths  as Lady Marian and Richard Armitage as Sir Guy (hand) from Robin Hood found at richardarmitagenet.com/images/gallery/RobinHood/album/seasontwo/Episode6/slides/rh206_156.jpg

13) Prince Thorin is Richard Armitage in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey found at  richardarmitagenet.com/images/gallery/Hobbit/Hobbit-AUJ/album/HobbitAUJ-153.jpg

“Thorin’s Dream of Love”, Ch. 8 link on my blog with embedded illustrations is:

http://gratianads90.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/thorins-dream-of-love-ch-8-pg-13-delight-turns-into-devastation-october-24-2013-gratiana-lovelace-post-461/

“Thorin’s Dream of Love”, Ch. 8 Wattpad Images link is:

http://gratianads90.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/athorinsdreamoflovech8imagesoct2413gratianalovelace.jpg