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When Thorin is a young dwarfling he gets lost in Erebor’s vast market hall. He’d only wanted to get a closer look at the baker’s stall and its delicious smelling bread but now mother is gone and he doesn’t know what to do. At first he looked for her but he was too small to see properly in the bustling crowd. He doesn’t recognise any of the other stalls around him and there are too many people and they’re all so much taller than him. Thorin hops from one foot to the other, hands shaking as he rubs at his eyes and tries not to cry.
He’s still blinking back tears when someone crouches down beside him. Peering around his hands, he finds himself staring at a serious looking dwarrowdam with brown skin, long black hair and a short beard.
“Are you alright, child?” Her voice is deeper than Thorin expected but it’s also steady and slow, which calms him a little. He sniffs.
“I can’t find mother.” He bites his lip a little as tears threaten to spill over again. A large hand smoothes gently over the top of his head and he takes a tremulous breath, leaning into the touch.
“Don’t worry, little one, you’ll find her again. Why don’t I help you look?” She smiles at him softly.
Thorin nods and swallows. “Okay.”
“Here, will you let me carry you?” the dwarrowdam asks. “Then you’ll be able to see over the top of all these dwarves, and you can tell me if you spot your mother.” Thorin nods again moves his arms up so she can lift him more easily. Once he is set upon her hip he wraps his arms around her neck and buries his face in her shoulder until the urge to cry goes away.
“There, now. You’re alright. My name is Dagný. What’s your name, little one?”
“Thorin son of Thrain, at your service,” He sniffles. Now that he’s a little calmer, he’s remembering his manners, which mother says are important. The hand that’s been rubbing soothing patterns on Thorin’s back stills for a brief moment before continuing.
“You have a lovely name, Thorin. Now, why don’t you tell me where you last saw your mother?”
“Near the baker’s stall. I went to look at the bread and then when I turned round I couldn’t see her.” As Dagný begins walking Thorin turns his head a little. The fabric against his cheek is soft, and when he looks down he sees that Dagný is wearing a dark, thick-sleeved red dress with a sort of criss-cross pattern that starts below the waist. The hem of the dress flows out dramatically behind her as she walks, and Thorin thinks it would be nice to own some clothes that flare like that.
“I like your dress,” he says. “It’s very soft and flow-y.”
Dagný chuckles a little. “Thank you, Thorin. I like it too.”
They walk for a little longer in silence before Dagný tells Thorin that they’re at the baker’s stall. He raises his head and is just starting to look around when he hears a sudden shout to his left.
“Take your hands off my child!”
A swell of relief washes through Thorin as he whips his head around and sees his mother dashing towards them. “Mother,” he cries enthusiastically, wriggling out of Dagný’s grip and running towards her. His mother picks him up and holds him close to her chest, arms secure around his waist, and he clings back as tightly as possible. He has found her again and now he is safe. Or he thinks he is, at least, until he hears his mother’s voice, harsh and cold, in a way that she only usually reserves for when she's very, very cross.
“Why were you touching my son?”
Thorin looks up at her and startles to find that the lines of her face are twisted with anger. At first he thinks she’s really mad at him for getting lost, but then he remembers what she just said and sees that the force of her icy glare is directed at Dagný. Thorin suddenly realises that his mother must think Dagný was trying to kidnap him. He’s been warned about that before; he’s a prince, so some people might want to steal him and make his parents pay money to find him again. But it’s okay, because that didn’t happen. Except Dagný doesn’t tell mother that; she doesn’t say anything, just stares silently at the floor. He feels his mother draw herself up to full height like she does when she’s losing patience and he decides it’s time for him to help.
“Mother, this is Dagný,” he says, smiling up at her. “She was helping me look for you after I got lost.”
His mother’s eyes settle on him, her glare not softening in the slightest. Thorin shrinks back a little, biting his lip. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Mother’s head swivels back to look at Dagný, anger still etched upon her face.
“If you ever touch him again,” she says, quietly but intently, “I will have you thrown in prison. Do I make myself clear?”
Dagný nods.
He doesn’t understand what just happened but, confused though he is, Thorin still manages to wave goodbye to Dagný as his mother starts carrying him away. Dagný doesn’t wave back.
Later on, once she doesn’t seem so angry anymore, he asks mother why she had been so cross with Dagný when the dwarrowdam hadn’t been kidnapping him and was only trying to help. Mother sighs a little, drawing a hand down her face.
“Dagný has committed grave crimes against Mahal.”
Thorin scrunches his face up in confusion. “What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out when you’re older, Thorin. For now I just want you to promise that if you see… her again you won’t speak to her. Can you promise me that?”
He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand at all but he loves his mother and she’s asking him to promise, so he does. By the end of the week he has mostly forgotten about the whole thing anyway.
--
Father says that Thorin is heir to the throne and that one day he will be a king to all their people. Kings have to be wise and fair so they can make good decisions and uphold justice. They have to be mighty warriors so they can protect their home and their people if orcs attack. But kings also have to be clever so they can outwit those bloody, thieving tree-shaggers who’re always trying to bargain for more gold than they’re due. (Mother gives father a very stern look when Thorin recites the last one to her.)
Thorin likes the idea of being wise and fair, and he can’t wait to learn how to be a mighty warrior. He wants to be clever too, but that one’s less fun because it means he has to do schoolwork. Most of all he wants to make father proud.
Thorin understands his duties well, but he isn’t sure why he needs to be a king in order to carry them out. Grandfather is a king. Thorin just wants to be himself.
--
Thorin’s sister is born and his parents are very happy. Sisters are special, they tell him, because they’re much rarer than brothers. Privately Thorin doesn’t see how Dís can be so special when all she does is sleep and eat and cry. He tells his brother and Frerin agrees that Dís is a bit boring. Frerin also tells him that he thinks Thorin is special, even if brothers are not so very rare. It cheers Thorin up a bit.
Most people seem to agree with mother and father though because Dís is given lots of presents, some from people that they don’t even know. The nursery is filled with toys for his sister to play with, like dolls and miniature soldiers and puzzle boxes. She is also given a number of very ornate knives and a double-headed axe, but his parents keep them out of the way for now. The clothes stay in the nursery though, despite Dís being too small to wear any of them at the moment. She’ll have a very fine wardrobe when she gets a little older, mother tells him, and when her hair grows a bit more we’ll be able to weave ribbons into it so she looks even more beautiful.
Thorin wonders why no one has ever given him ribbons to wear in his hair.
--
He is old enough to start training properly now. It’s exciting, but he’s the youngest in the class at the moment and everyone else is so much better than him. Dwalin will be starting soon too and then he won’t look quite so bad at it, but for now he just has to do his best to spar with the older dwarves. They tease him sometimes, even though he’s a prince. They say he is too short and his nose is too big and his beard is not long enough.
His mother says to ignore them – that they’re not worthy of his attention. He shouldn’t worry about it, she tells him, because even though he’s small now he’ll grow up to be big and strong. His shoulders will get wider and his arms will have more muscle and he’ll look fierce, like his father.
It isn’t particularly comforting.
--
His muscles eventually do begin to develop, along with everything else. His shoulders grow broad, just like his mother said they would, but his legs also become thicker, sturdier, and his chest becomes hard. He has hair now in places where he didn’t have any before and his beard has become long enough for a short braid. It’s satisfying but it’s really not satisfying. He’s starting to look the part of a dwarven prince but he’s lost control of his own body and he doesn’t know how to get it back.
He loves singing but he’s started to hate the sound of his voice so he stops doing it so often.
--
He and Dwalin are mucking about on one of Erebor’s grand staircases when he sees Dagný again. It takes him a moment to place her, but she looks much the same as she did when they met all those years ago, except for the streaks of grey scattered in her hair. He’s just deciding whether or not to go and say hello when Dagný is suddenly crashing down the stairs, the cloth she’d been carrying flying from her arms and billowing out across the staircase as she lands with a sharp cry in a heap at the bottom.
Peals of laughter ring out from above and Thorin looks to the top of the stairs, catching sight of a small group of dwarves who appear to be slightly older than him fleeing the scene. Anger begins to simmer inside him as he realises what must have happened but he forces it back and heads down the stairs, gathering up scattered linens and silks as he goes.
Dagný is still on the floor when he reaches the bottom of the stairs and she looks up at him almost in trepidation when he offers her his hand, her eyes wide and shocked. Thorin’s eyebrows knit together in confusion and he draws his hand back a little. After a moment she pushes herself up on her own and bows her head.
“Your royal highness,” she mutters, and then hurries off down the hall before Thorin has the chance to say anything. He’s still staring after her, cloth clenched in his hands, when Dwalin moves to stand next to him.
“Don’t you know who that was?” he whispers. Thorin turns to regard him carefully.
“Her name is Dagný, isn’t it?”
Dwalin fiddles a little with the hem of his tunic as he glances around, and Thorin suddenly realises that the dwarves who are still milling around the staircase are all staring at them.
“Come on,” says Dwalin, stealing the bundle of cloth from Thorin’s hands and dropping it on the ground. Thorin stares at it for a brief, bewildered moment before Dwalin is placing a wide palm on his shoulder and steering him down the hall, away from the stairs.
“What in Durin’s name is going on, Dwalin?” he hisses.
Dwalin sighs. “Maybe we should go to see my brother.”
--
Thorin ends up going to see Balin on his own. Dwalin claims he has duties to attend to, but Thorin has known his friend long enough to realise when something makes him feel uncomfortable, so Thorin drops it and leaves him be. When he recounts what happened on the staircase the older dwarf hums and tells him to sit down.
Balin talks for a long time about how dwarves are brought into being. He explains how their Maker crafts each one of them individually, pouring deliberate intent into every dwarf’s unique make-up. Each dwarf is born exactly as Mahal intended, if perhaps with a little room to grow. Thorin knows all this already, of course.
“You’re not actually explaining anything,” he says impatiently. “I still don’t understand why those boys pushed Dagný over, and why she practically ran away when I tried to help her up!”
“Dagný isn’t a ‘she’, Thorin. He’s male.”
Thorin blinks.
Now, Balin tells him about dwarves who try to alter themselves against Mahal’s wishes. Some of them will take up a name or form of address that isn’t meant for them, or start wearing clothing which disguises the way they truly look. Balin says he’s even read of one particularly nasty case which involved self-mutilation. They are very rare, he tells Thorin, but they bring shame upon themselves and all those who indulge them.
“They reject themselves and in doing so reject our Maker’s intent.”
“And Dagný is one of those kinds of dwarves?” asks Thorin, and receives a nod of confirmation. Something occurs to him.
“You said that Mahal gives us room to grow, though. What if he intended Dagný to grow into a dwarrowdam?”
Balin stares at him for a moment. “Because that isn’t possible, Thorin. Our anatomy can’t be changed, and Mahal doesn’t make mistakes.”
He mulls that over in his head. “So Dagný is… she’s pretending to be something she’s not? He’s pretending, I mean.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what he’s doing. Do you think you understand it now?”
Thorin nods, but privately he thinks that he has never been more confused.
--
As a dwarfling Thorin was taught to walk with his chin up, his back straight and his hands folded behind him, as befitting a member of the royal house. The king needs to look confident and fearless, his father had told him, and one day you’ll be the king, my son. The lessons have stuck with him and now, decades later, as he’s on the cusp of adulthood, his stride is proud and strong. It takes effort though. Some days it’s an active struggle not to hunch his shoulders or cross his arms over his chest. Things are easier in winter when he can wrap himself up in layers upon layers of clothing. On winter mornings he dresses in front of the mirror and feels almost satisfied with what he sees.
--
There are Mirkwood Elves visiting the mountain to do trade and Thorin cannot tell which are male and which are female. When one Elf politely corrects him when Thorin refers to them as ‘she’, as if his mistake is nothing to be ashamed of, he experiences a surge of jealousy so strong that it leaves him reeling. He excuses himself hastily and spends the next few hours wandering the high corridors of the city in an attempt to distract himself.
After the elves have left, Frerin, grinning cheekily across the dinner table, suggests that if Prince Legolas ever returns to the mountain they should present him with a dress instead of jewels.
“After all, he didn’t seem to object much when Thorin called him ‘she’,” he says, quirking a smile at his brother. “Who knows what he really keeps down there?” The table bursts into appreciative chuckles. When Thorin looks around he sees that even Dís is giggling, though she’s probably too young to really understand the joke. His heart is pounding.
He flees the table as soon as he is able without seeming rude, leaving the room quickly so that Dwalin and Frerin won’t have the chance to corner him about his unusually reticent behaviour. He sits on the corner of his bed with his knees up, head pressed firmly between them as he wills his racing heartbeat to slow.
Thorin doesn’t know what in Mahal’s name is wrong with him.
He just feels upset and angry and overwhelmingly alone.
--
Except that’s not entirely true, if Thorin is honest with himself. He knows exactly what’s wrong with him. He suspects he has done ever since that day he went to see Balin. Or maybe he’s always known, on some level.
He hates himself for it. He’s a prince, and princes aren’t supposed to be this way. Princes are supposed to be confident and self-assured, not– not freakish.
He thinks he might be sick, but he wonders if that’s too generous. Grandfather is sick, but that isn’t his fault; he doesn’t know he’s sick. Thorin, by contrast, is entirely aware of what’s happening. He knows exactly how wrong these feelings are. But if he is sick… Maybe he can get better, if someone else knows. Maybe they’ll know how to cure him.
But whenever he thinks about telling someone his breathing stutters. He doesn’t want anyone to know how wrong he is. Mahal doesn’t make mistakes and he doesn’t want to bring further shame upon himself by daring to admit that he thinks their Maker might have made him wrong. He doesn’t want them looking at him like he’s seen them look at Dagný. He doesn’t want them to know he’s a–
He tries not to think about it.
--
Not thinking about it is much easier said – or, in this case, thought – than done.
Some mornings he wakes up and wishes he hadn’t. On these mornings he curls up on his side and tugs the furs of his bed about him as tightly as he can, trying to escape the feeling that he’s wrong, wrong, wrong. He stays in bed as long as possible, and sometimes even a little longer, wishing that he didn’t have to leave his room at all, that people didn’t have to see him. Getting up takes gargantuan effort and he spends the rest of those days desperately wanting to be alone, speaking only when it is required of him and pretending to ignore all the concerned looks thrown his way.
Some mornings he looks at himself in the mirror and runs his hands across his hard, flat chest, wishing for curves instead and hating himself for it. He wishes his body were different, and he wishes he didn’t wish that, and he wishes he knew why he was like this. He is a disgrace to himself and his family and his people and he doesn’t know how not to be. Mahal doesn’t make mistakes, but his body doesn’t match the way he feels and he doesn’t understand why the Maker would have chosen to make him so wrong.
He consoles himself with the fact that no one else knows. If his shame is kept secret then no one has to know what a disappointment he really is. He’ll carry on like he always does: he’ll keep trying to ignore it even if it sometimes feels like he’s tearing himself apart from the inside. That’s best way of dealing with it; indulging himself would only make things worse for everyone.
Wouldn’t it?
--
Thorin tries, just in her head, just for today, to think about herself differently. It’s not permanent, she reasons, and if she keeps it to herself she’s not harming anyone. That isn’t enough to alleviate the sense of guilt she feels at such behaviour but she pushes it to the back of her mind in favour of focusing on the giddy tingling that’s taken root in her belly.
Her name is Thorin.
She is sharpening Deathless.
Something inside her settles in a way that she can’t quite understand. She’ll be trying this again tomorrow.
--
Except tomorrow a dragon comes and everything that Thorin knows is destroyed in what seems like a few short moments. Numb, Thorin stands at the edge of the Long Lake, watching as Dís sobs uncontrollably into their father’s chest. Thrain has one arm wrapped around her, the other squeezing one of Frerin’s trembling shoulders in what looks to be a vice grip. His remaining eye skitters about what’s left of Dale before swiveling to meet Thorin’s gaze. He looks so lost.
So it’s Thorin who tries to round up their people into some semblance of order, Thorin who encourages those who still have strength in them to help carry the wounded, Thorin who decides which direction they should take. And when that is done they walk, and Thorin grieves. It’s grief shot through with guilt because grieving for oneself is surely selfish in the face of so much loss. Thorin grieves anyway, because Dís and Frerin have just lost their mother. Because Thrain has just lost his wife and he shouldn’t have to lose his son as well. Because their people are homeless and wandering and they need some measure of constancy. Enough misery has befallen them all now without adding Thorin’s own misery and shame to it all.
So he’ll stop thinking about it. It was only ever a fantasy anyway.
--
He can hear the faint murmurings of dwarves coming from the direction of the campfire as he returns from his watch duty. Thorin isn’t even trying to listen. He wants only to collapse in his makeshift bed, bone-weary as he is, but he freezes in his tracks when he overhears them talking about that Blacklock freak who thought he should’ve been female.
“At least tha’s one good deed the dragon did,” one dwarf comments, somewhat bitterly. “He won’t be burdenin’ us nae longer.”
“Aye,” agrees another, “the dragon was probably a warning from Mahal in the first place. We an't got no place disrespecting his work like that.”
The conversation continues but Thorin doesn’t hear it as he runs to the cover of the nearby forest and collapses heavily against a tree. He’s trembling all over and for a moment he thinks he’s going to throw up. It doesn’t happen, but his hands are shaking and his breathing is too quick and he needs to get his galloping heart to slow down but he can’t stop thinking about how they might believe it’s his fault and how they might wish him dead too if they knew what he really was and oh, Mahal what if it was his fault, what if the dragon came because of him? He can’t breathe, he can’t think beyond inescapable panic and he doesn’t know when he started crying but he can feel tears on his face and the shock of it is enough to make his mind just stop for a moment. It briefly crosses his mind that the shock has helped, that his breathing might steady out, but then he realises he’s sobbing in earnest and he can’t stop; it’s like he’s just exchanged one problem for another. He pitches over to his side and draws his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly, hair falling over his face as he cries and cries and cries.
He couldn’t say how long he stays there like that, but when he eventually does return to his tent the sky is noticeably lighter.
--
Azanulbizar is a disaster and there is no joy when Thorin is proclaimed king. How could there be when half their people are dead and the other half are starving and there is no home to return to? Still, he tries to be a good king, even without the kingdom. His people are still depending on him and so he’ll try his best to be dependable. He decides to lead them west and, though it takes many long and arduous years, they eventually find themselves in the northern range of Blue Mountains.
It is sparsely populated in the North but there is one small settlement whose council agrees to let Thorin and his people stay, provided they are able to work and will not be a burden for those already living there. Thorin knows it is the best chance they have. His people slowly but steadily find employment in the town, as the residents gradually become aware that many of their new neighbours honed their skills and crafts in Erebor at the height of its wealth. Thorin himself works as a blacksmith and, while it is not the life he ever envisaged for himself, he finds a certain freedom in it, finds he can lose himself in the process of crafting.
Certainly, it makes it easier to ignore the curious stares that follow him around the settlement during that initial period. Makes it easier not to flinch when one dwarf nudges another and whispers that’s their king.
--
He thinks about it at night, even though he’s told himself not to. He wonders what might have happened if the dragon had never come, if his people hadn’t needed him quite so much. He thinks back to that day before the world came crashing down, thinks about how right it felt when he was, for a brief moment, a ‘she’. He imagines he might have been happy if he had continued down that path. Well, maybe not happy, but happier than he is, perhaps. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved that he never got the chance to find out.
--
Dís marries a miner from the Blue Mountains and Thorin is happy for her. He is glad that his sister has managed to find some measure of joy, despite everything. When, a few years later, Dís grins up at him says and she is with child, he wraps his arms around her in an uncharacteristic show of exuberance and laughs openly to know that they have been so blessed.
Thorin doesn’t desire children of his own, but as his sister’s form changes over the coming months he can’t help but wonder what he might look like were a child growing inside him.
--
Sometimes Thorin catches himself gazing at the market stalls that sell garments for dwarrowdams. Once Dwalin even catches him and, despite managing to mutter something convincing about wanting to surprise Dís with a present, Thorin still has to put up with a day of relentless teasing that makes something inside him feel like it’s breaking. He goes to bed early that night.
It’s not particularly helpful though, because his mind almost always comes back to the same thing when he tries to sleep. He ends up picturing himself in one of the dresses from the market, the blue one that would match his eyes and disguise the broadness of his shoulders just a little. Shame washes over him, but it’s accompanied by a quiet sort of yearning that proves hard to get rid of. He wishes–
But it’s pointless. His people need their king, and he needs to stop thinking about it.
It was only ever a fantasy.
He eventually does buy Dís a dress. In truth he probably can’t afford it, but that doesn’t stop the pleased warmth that curls through him when Dis beams and hugs him. Even so, as she twirls in front of him looking beautiful and happy it takes a lot of effort to convince himself he isn’t jealous.
--
The thing is that it’s hard to stop thinking about it when it seems to bleed into everything he does. Thorin sweats his way through hot days in the forge, refusing to be anything less than covered at all times even when Dís and Dwalin remove their tunics. Communal bathing is hardly an uncommon activity amongst dwarves, especially in poorer areas like their current settlement, but Thorin turns down all invitations and instead wakes in the early hours of the morning so he can bathe on his own. His little nephews clamber all over him without a care for where they put their hands and he loves them, he loves them so much, but he’s sometimes he’s so aware of their grip against his chest that it’s hard not to throw them off.
It’s like everything always circles back to his secret shame and, no matter how much Thorin tells himself to stop, not thinking about it becomes harder and harder every day.
--
But of course, he has other things to think about too. Reclaiming a mountain for one.
He meets the Hobbit and it crosses his mind, as it has before, that other races might accept people like him. Mahal doesn’t make mistakes but maybe the Great Maker fashions his creations with room for change.
Likely he’ll never get the chance to actually ask the Hobbit; the soft creature faints at the bare mention of a dragon.
--
Bilbo turns out to be quite the surprise. It’s surprising that he chases after them when they had mostly given up on him, surprising that he is brave enough to stand between Thorin and certain death, surprising that he has the cunning to sneak them out of an elven dungeon, packed neatly in wine barrels.
But the biggest surprise comes as their quest is nearing an end, in the house lent to them by the Master of Esgaroth. It is the night before they are due to leave for the mountain, and earlier Thorin had escaped from the general revelry to share a quiet smoke with Bilbo. The pipe weed has relaxed him, and now he stares up at the ceiling of his borrowed room, the bed big enough for him to lie beside Bilbo without them touching. He feels comfortable and sleepy as they trade inconsequential facts about themselves back and forth, beneath the din of dwarven drinking songs still emanating from below.
Bilbo has just finished describing the three days he spent as a child wanting to be what Hobbits call a bounder, before abruptly changing his mind when he realised his odious cousin Falco wanted to be one too, much to Thorin’s amusement, when he pauses and asks, tone entirely curious, “If you’d had the choice, would you have wanted to be a king or something different?”
Nobody has ever asked him that. Before Smaug came no one even seemed to consider that he might want his life to be different and after… Well, after, everybody had wished for a better life. He has an answer ready and waiting, though. He knows exactly what he’d be, if he were given the chance. But he shouldn’t say it. The word grocer rests on the tip of his tongue, which he knows would make his companion laugh, but he finds that he doesn’t want to lie to Bilbo. And maybe, just maybe, part of him is desperate to tell someone, even if they might hate him for it. At least then he won’t be the only one burdened with it. He’s probably going to die soon anyway, because he’s marching off to face a dragon tomorrow, and it’s not like he’ll get a better chance than this. If he’s lucky, Bilbo might even know how to help him. Maybe there are Hobbits like him who have been cured of this sickness. Or maybe, a traitorous voice in the back of his head murmurs, maybe Hobbits don’t mind.
“Thorin?” He can feel Bilbo looking at him intently and realises he is too tense, has been silent for too long. Thorin opens his mouth quickly before he has the chance to change his mind.
“Queen,” he whispers hoarsely, heart pounding. “I’d be a queen.”
He stares fixedly at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to see the look on Bilbo’s face. The silence stretches out. Thorin begins to regret saying anything at all. He wonders desperately if Bilbo would think any worse of him if he were to flee the room, or if he could possibly convince the Hobbit that this is all some big joke. Bilbo suddenly clears his throat, making Thorin startle.
“My uncle Hildibrand was originally called Rosaria,” he says, almost delicately. Thorin blinks, unsure what to make of that. He can still hear his pulse rushing in his ears.
“Rosaria is a girl’s name,” Bilbo clarifies.
Thorin doesn’t quite understand what he’s hearing. Does Bilbo mean–?
Possibly he’s been quiet for too long again because Bilbo speaks up once more, “I mean to say that my uncle was originally a girl.”
Thorin swallows. He jerks his head round to look at Bilbo and finds only honesty in those eyes.
“Your uncle,” he chokes out. “You mean he’s–” He trails off, and tries to just breathe for a moment. “He’s allowed?”
Bilbo’s eyebrows knit together as if he doesn’t understand what Thorin is asking. “Allowed?”
Thorin scrabbles for more words. “I mean… other Hobbits don’t mind that he’s..?”
“Oh,” says Bilbo. “Well, not really. There were some of the more pompous families who objected, of course, but the Bracegirdles object to just about everything. Uncle Hildibrand was a Took, though, and a change of gender is hardly the most scandalous thing to come out of that family.” Bilbo chuckles a little. “Besides, he wasn’t exactly the first Hobbit to do it.”
Thorin is left reeling.
“Is it–” Bilbo hesitates. “Is it not the same for dwarves?”
Thorin shakes his head from side to side numbly. It takes him a while to find his voice. “Mahal does not make mistakes. Each dwarf is crafted with careful intent. To deny the truth of his work is–” He cuts himself off sharply and closes his eyes, taking a few steadying breaths.
“I’ve never told anyone,” he admits quietly. It suddenly seems a very important thing for Bilbo to know. Thorin needs him to understand that this is the first time.
A small hand finds its way on to Thorin’s thick forearm; it’s a gentle but firm pressure and Thorin takes a small measure of comfort in it, despite feeling like he’s about to crack open. He’s never felt anything but pride in his race before, even though he himself was slightly defective, but now, with this new knowledge, he can’t help but feel that if he’d been born a Hobbit–
“You know,” Bilbo says into the darkness, his thumb rubbing gently against Thorin’s skin, “I don’t think wanting to be different denies the skill of Mahal’s craft. Maybe he factored that in when he made you. Maybe it was intentional.”
Thorin squeezes his eyes together more tightly. “Why would he intentionally make something so wrong?” He hears Bilbo’s sharp intake of breath.
“He wouldn’t, Thorin. There isn’t anything wrong with you.”
Maybe Thorin had once been desperate to hear those words, had wanted so badly not to be a mistake. But he’s lived with this knowledge for well over a century and now Bilbo’s false reassurance just make him angry. What would a Hobbit know about it? Bilbo doesn’t know a thing about dwarves.
“I am wrong,” snarls Thorin, eyes snapping open. “Mahal made me male and I spend my every waking moment wishing he hadn’t! He made me like this and I insult him by rejecting it! Everything I feel and everything I want is a denial of what I should be!” Bilbo is staring at him, eyes wide with shock. Thorin’s temper abruptly deflates. “There is nothing right about me,” he finishes, more subdued now than his initial outburst.
After a short beat of silence Bilbo seems to gather himself. “But… You feel female, don’t you?”
He huffs. “How can I? I was born–”
“Forget about that, just for a moment,” Bilbo interrupts. “Are you female on the inside? Does it feel like you have a female soul?”
Thorin lets out a slow, weary breath. “Yes,” he confesses. “Yes, that’s how it feels. My soul doesn’t match my body. I am wrong on the inside.”
But Bilbo shakes his head, tutting softly. “Who said they have to match?”
Thorin has no answer for that. His mouth opens and closes a few times but when no sound comes out Bilbo takes it as his cue to continue.
“A body doesn’t make a person, Thorin. This isn’t you.” He waves his hand to encompass Thorin’s form. There is a short pause. “Well, okay, it is you, but it’s not the part that matters. It’s your soul that makes you who you are, and your soul is female. Mahal doesn’t make mistakes, you said. If he didn’t want you to have a female soul then he wouldn’t have given you one.”
He doesn’t–
But that’s… That would mean he’s–
Thorin’s world feels like it has tilted on its axis.
--
They are still lying together as the early morning ticks by, the room quiet now except for the distant sounds of gulls. It is comfortable and somehow very intimate, though they are barely touching, and Thorin feels like he would live in this moment forever, if he had the chance. He has almost fallen asleep when Bilbo’s voice breaks through the morning hush.
“If you wanted I could call you she. And maybe queen? Or miss, if you prefer? Just when we’re in private,” he reassures, “and only if you’d like me to.”
Thorin thinks he must be blessed to have found such a friend as Bilbo. He smiles softly in the dark.
“I’d like that a lot.”
And when they wake Thorin feels inescapably giddy as Bilbo greets him with a sleepy good morning, Miss Thorin.
--
Thorin asks Bilbo to wait until after they’ve taken care of the dragon to start doing it regularly, as much as his heart clamours for more. It’s not like they’ll get much privacy between now and then, he reasons, and afterwards they’ll have the peace to really focus on such things. (Thorin resolutely ignores the possibility that there won’t be an afterwards.)
Of course, once the dragon has been taken care of it seems less important. Thorin’s far more interested in their recovered gold.
--
His torso is littered with wounds and he’ll never regain full use of his right leg. They think he’ll live though. Thorin knows he should probably be worrying about that last part but frankly he’s more concerned that someone had to undress him in order to wrap bandages around his stomach. He doesn’t know who it was and he’s fervently trying not to think about just how many people might have seen his bare chest. The healers have told him to stay on his back but he feels embarrassed and exposed. He wishes someone would bring him a blanket.
With a soft swish the tent flap lifts and, tilting his head to the side, Thorin sees Bilbo enter, looking battered and bloody but wonderfully, blessedly alive. Bilbo stops abruptly just short of the bed, as if he’d meant to come closer but couldn’t quite manage it. Thorin’s heart clenches.
“Master Baggins,” he croaks out, falling back on formality as a means of buying time to compose himself. Wide, brown eyes stare down at him for a moment as Bilbo swallows.
“Miss Oakenshield,” he returns, and all the air leaves Thorin’s lungs in a rush. That Bilbo would still– even after everything Thorin did.
He tries to stop himself from crying, really he does, but it feels so good to hear Bilbo say that. He’s ashamed of his actions and embarrassed of his half-naked body but Bilbo called him Miss and before he knows it he is weeping openly, whether from sadness or happiness or sheer relief he isn't sure.
“Oh, child of the kindly West,” he chokes. “There is more in you of good than you know.”
In the face of Thorin’s distress Bilbo seems to forget his hesitance and moves to sit beside him on the bed, gently taking Thorin’s undamaged hand in his own. It is an anchor as Thorin works desperately to calm himself down, so he can give Bilbo the apologies he is owed.
Bilbo sits with him for a long time, his grip on Thorin’s hand never slackening. He accepts the apologies but asks Thorin to please give him space for a while; it might take him a little time to work up the courage to approach the mouth of the mountain again, he says, after what happened there. Thorin agrees readily, privately thinking that he doesn’t deserve Bilbo’s forgiveness. Of course, Bilbo, a very astute Hobbit, catches on to his line of thinking and quickly disabuses him of the notion.
“You might be a royal bloody queen, Thorin Oakenshield,” he scolds, wagging his finger, “but don’t think that means you can command how I feel!” There is some genuine umbrage in the words but Bilbo’s eyes are soft and his hand is squeezing gently. The corners of Thorin’s mouth pull upwards, just slightly, and he squeezes back.
Things are not perfect (when are they ever?) but Thorin thinks he might finally have found a glimmer of hope.
--
Some months later Thorin is crowned properly in the halls of his mountain.
Dain places the crown of Erebor upon his head with great ceremony and Thorin rises to his feet, standing proud and triumphant as the rows of dwarves, and even the few rows of men and women, facing him break into cheers and applause. His eyes settle on Bilbo, standing at the front amidst his Company, as a chant of ‘King Thorin’ begins to reverberate around the hall; the hobbit winces slightly, offering him a small, sad smile.
Thorin is not sad because it is a good day, but he still allows himself a brief moment to wonder what it might have been like to be a queen instead of a king.
But then, when Bilbo greets him the next day with a quiet good morning, my queen, Thorin reflects that he might still have the chance to find out.