How I Leave You

The Ruins of Rhûn

 For the first months in Rhûn, I spend my days rebuilding the ruins of what once was my home. While a century and a half might have passed between the last time I was here and now, not much else has changed. More algae grows on the white pillars. More mussels have made a home of our broken floors. I do my best to scrub them clean. It's the only thing I can do to keep my mind off Erebor.

Of what is happening in there. What has happened.

After I left, not a day has gone by that I have not thought about the halls of the Lonely Mountain. About its people. Its king.

When doing mindless tasks like carrying stones from fallen walls, or rebuilding new ones, my thoughts often stray from Rhûn and down River Running, until they meet the mountain at its end. How did Thorin react when he learned that I was gone? Did he go looking for me?

But then I grimace at my own hopefulness. Naïvité. If he went looking, he certainly did not find me. Not that I am looking to be found, anyway.

For no one has. Found me, that is. Only the fish are here to keep me company. It's quiet in my kingdom of one. I touch my belly, which is large enough to get in the way of my work now. Soon it'll be a kingdom of two.

The rebuilding takes longer than I expected. But perhaps this is not so strange, granted that I am both alone and pregnant. It's worse at night, the loneliness. When it is dark and I don't even have the Moon to keep me company.

In those hours, when I let the tide sway me gently back and forth, rocking me to sleep, I let my mind drift. Often, it lands on Thorin. On the realization that, somewhere out there, he exists just as I do, going about his day or perhaps laying awake at night, dreaming of me, too.

Surely, he must be married now. He must have taken another woman as his wife and promised himself to her for as long as they will live.

Freiya.

In my dreams, she is small and fair, with long, braided hair and deep eyes. Probably, she carries her weight in jewelry. I do not doubt that she loves him. Maybe one day, she might even make him happy, too.

Sometimes, the thought of that makes me so sick I fear I might not make it through the night. When that happens, only one thing keeps me afloat. The memory of how Thorin told me I was his One. She might have taken him from me, she might be keeping his bed warm and his needs met, but she will never have that. She will never be his in the way that I once was.

In the mornings, I'm grateful that I wake up without the taste of vomit in my mouth. After becoming one with the sea again, my nausea ceased, and I no longer feel the need to empty my stomach with every turn I take.

It makes it easier to go about my day. To feed myself and the child I carry, and to work towards making a home for myself. For us. I hold my hands to my belly, and let myself fill with love.

For if I do not overflow with love, it will instead be with something much more bitter. Vile, even. Sometimes, when I'm not careful enough with my distractions, the betrayal stings so badly that I want nothing more than to crumble together and scream until nothing else is left of me.

He kept it from me. All that time together, and not a word about his betrothed. About the woman he was destined to marry.

The betrayal. Oh, gods, it hurts.

And worst of all is that all of this is my own fault. My own damned fault for not seeing it coming.

I do not know how much time has passed. Only that my stomach is growing by the day, soon becoming so large that I no longer will be able to see the end of my tail.