The Fifteenth Member (Thorin Oakenshield/OFC)

Chapter 59

My mom was right. I preferred it when the twins weren't kicking. They were getting stronger, so strong it was at the point when I felt like they had given me bruises. The midwives had officially put me on bedrest, seeing how I was due to give birth in about two weeks, but I was bored. Thorin spent most of his time in the council chambers. He had just taken two weeks off to build a pair of cribs for our children. He put deep care into them and would not accept help from anyone, he wanted to do them himself. He had also refused to show me what they looked like, he said they would be a surprise I would like and was hiding them in Dis's room. I had read every book of interest to me in the whole of Erebor, my hands ached from knitting and sewing too much during the first week and everyone else always had other things to do. I was snapping at everyone, I couldn't blame them for not wanting to be around me. Eleanor was the only one who wasn't fazed by my outbursts. I spent almost all my time with her or her little brothers. It was fun watching them play with the kittens but if I laughed too much, kicking would follow. I couldn't sleep either, I was always hungry, always cranky, always bored, and I had to use the bathroom like once an hour. Every day when I woke up, I wished it was already over so I could spend time with Thorin when he got home. The twins were always at peace when he was around. We had had no word from Lord Elrond since he said he was coming and I was starting to worry. What if I had to give birth without Thorin? The midwives had forbid me from using my mind powers, they claimed that if I did that too much it would sap my energy or force me into a premature labor.

Tauriel and Kili were now married and Wani and Fili planned to have theirs as soon as I was able to attend it. Wani was starting to think that the healers were wrong about her being pregnant, she was five months pregnant and had only gained a little weight, she was not even close to the size I had been three and a half months ago. Fili and Wani had decided to adopt the white kitten and I had no objections. At six months old, they took up a little more space– ok, a lot more space– than they had when they were kittens. Axel seemed to be worried about me being in bed all the time and had taken to sleeping next to me whenever he could, at least one midwife would come in every couple hours to ask how I was doing and most of them would kick him off the bed. He had learned to jump down and hide whenever he heard one of them coming and then hop up again after she'd gone.

At the moment, I was playing chess with Wani and she was kicking my butt. She had just put me in checkmate for the third time in a row.

"Ha! Checkmate! I win!"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's play again and this time I'm going to beat you!"

"No you won't!" She sang. I rolled my eyes. As she spoke, the door opened and Tauriel came in.

"Hey Mereniver, have you seen–you two are having a girls day and you didn't invite me?!"

"Oh....yeah....I kinda....sorta....forgot." Wani stammered.

"But we were supposed to go shopping in Dale!"

"Hey Tauriel, wanna help me beat Wani at chess?"

"And you're playing chess? You two are traitors, that's my favorite game!" I laughed but it was cut off when I received a particularly harsh kick to my lung.

"Hey, are you ok?"

"I'm fine. Are we going to play?"

An hour later, neither side was close to a victory. We had lost an equal number of pieces and none of our remaining ones were doing us any good. That's when the blonde midwife decided to check on me.

"Is everything alright–hey is that chess?" She and I were as close to friends as we could get, the lead midwife objected to our friendship but she was very friendly and we made sure she didn't get caught.