#heyho

 “Will you wear this?” Thorin whispers into her ear, her beard scraping Bilbo’s cheek. This close, Bilbo can feel Thorin’s bosom press lightly against her back. On a chest before them lies a breath-taking dress and matching cloak, both spun from pure gold. Even in the chamber’s dim light it glows bright as a sun, and Bilbo finds a shiver runs down her spine.

“For me?” Thorin adds, her warm breath tickling Bilbo’s skin, as an arm wraps itself around her shoulders.

Bilbo swallows, and nods. Oh, she knows this is the gold’s spell at work, understands that Thorin’s sensibilities are being twisted. But her own fingers tingle at the splendor laid out before her, and she cannot deny she desires what she sees.That the want in Thorin’s voice echoes the want within her own chest.

“Yes,” she says and steps forward, out of Thorin’s embrace. Unfastens the belt holding close the faded blue coat, allowing it to slip past her shoulders. It drops to the ground with barely a sound, and left in the worn blouse she carried all the way from Bag End she shudders in the cool mountain air.

Thorin brushes past her, a breeze of warmth and soft furs. The black of her cloak is darker than the night sky, but the gold trimmings sparkle with their own light. It nearly devours her, and yet it fits her all the more, Bilbo thinks as she unbuttons her blouse. Wrapped in a cloak made from night itself and crowned with gold, Thorin is a queen from legend. 

Immortal, untouchable.

Meanwhile Bilbo strips off blouse and trousers, leaving her in her bloomers and binder. What a contrast they must make, she thinks idly, wrapping her arms around her. A chubby hobbit and a fairytale queen.

“Undo your binder, too,” Thorin instructs, blind to the picture Bilbo sees. Her eyes rest on the golden dress, and with care she peels layer from layer. There lies a future in this gold, one that compells and frightens Bilbo at the same time.

But her heart knows what it desires.

So she lets the binder fall without a care, draws a deep breath and enjoys the what she knows will be a short reprieve. Dresses like this rarely come without a corset of some form of stabilizing undergarment. And much as Bilbo enjoys allowing her breasts to sag, her back will start complaining before too long.

Thorin casts her a playful smile. Bilbo feels her cheeks flush - oh she remembers the last time they were like this, remembers the feeling of Thorin’s lips wandering down from her collarbone toward her nipples all too well.

She wonders if the fingerprints she left on Thorin’s hips are still visible on that soft skin underneath all those layers of fur and damask.

“You look happy,” Thorin observes, carrying over the first layer; a corset and a crinoline. “I thought you didn’t like corsets?”

Bilbo gives her her best smoldering look. “I was already thinking about taking them off.”

Thorin laughs, bright and cheerful, and no one under any enchantment ought to be able to laugh like this. “I cannot deny I will enjoy that as well,” Thorin replies, the smile on her face a stark contrast to her utterly regal clothes. “But first we need to settle matters with the outside world.”

Bard. Thranduil. Gandalf.

Bilbo feels her own mood darken. She cannot begrudge the men their need, but she does share Thorin’s misgivings pertaining to the elves. And she does not think Gandalf can see the whole situation either.

The dwarves have suffered so much misfortune for so long; surely they are entitled to most of that gold?

She slips into the undergarment and stifles her protest when Thorin laces up the back. The fabric sits hard and unforgiving against her skin; the structure forcing her breasts up in a way the Shire would consider indecent. But Thorin presses gentle lips against the side of her neck, and calloused hands ghost over the soft, exposed skin.

Very indecent and highly titillating. Bilbo bites down on her lower lip.

The next layer covers the undergarment in a length of sheer golden fabric, far too long on Bilbo. The hems drag on the ground, the sleeves nearly cover her hands, and the neckline balances precariously on her shoulders. A third layer of thin golden lace makes a pretense of covering her décolleté, but in truth the sheer amount of gold on the dress has long since directed attention away from the figure wearing it.

It’s heavy, too, Bilbo thinks, and suddenly finds herself glad that tonight’s meeting will happen within Erebor.

“I’m not going to walk very far in this,” she quips, while Thorin skillfully braids golden ornaments into her hair.

“That was the idea,” Thorin returns breathily with that note of possessiveness that makes something between Bilbo’s legs tingle. The light in Thorin’s eyes as she looks down at Bilbo reminds her of the way Thorin looks at her treasure.

And oh, she is not a thing to be owned, but she will not protest belonging to Thorin. Her heart has been Thorin’s a long time ago, and the hands softly carding through her hairs speak of loving her in return.

Our gold, Thorin had whispered and looked at Bilbo. Ours.

She may just be a hobbit from the Shire, and Thorin a dwarf queen right out of a fairy tale, but -

“Take a look,” Thorin says, gently turning Bilbo toward the large, ruby-framed mirror on the far wall.

But just as underneath the legendary queen Thorin is a woman with a body made of flesh and with bruises and bite marks on her skin, the hobbit from the Shire has turned into a fantastical being as well.

She can, after all, feel the magic humming in the mountain. Sense the spells lingering in the earth, twisting beneath the gold. She knows what that little golden item she found underneath the Misty Mountains is.

(And there is a reason the necromancer fell, a reason the nine failed to fully take form, a reason the magic at Dol Guldur started fading).