What the mirror showed by Raiyana

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

He found her standing before the full-length mirror that Rhonith had so carefully sent to Amon Lanc, carried in a straw-padded crate and assembled in its silver-filigree frame by three grumpy Dwarrow who had sniffed suspiciously at the food they were served but were happy enough to accept payment in form of Heart-Fire wood.

“It is well-made,” he praised, knowing enough of metal-craft to speak truly, though he would have said so either way for love of the giver – and more for his wife, who possessed a nearly Dwarven pride in Rhonith’s skills.

“Beautiful,” Nínimeth said, running a finger down the silver frame, tracing her own shape with a small smile.

“Like you,” he smiled back, coming to a stop behind her, kissing her pointed ear softly. “All three of you.”

Nínimeth laughed. “Oh?” she teased, running her hand over the slight swelling of her middle that was their growing sons. “I think you’re biased, my love,” she murmured, turning her head to kiss him once, twice.

Thranduil hummed into her mouth, placing one hand over hers, stroking the curve slowly, the other running up her body to cup her breast, weighing the fullness in his hand. “Yes,” he admitted, nipping at her lips and pinching one hard nipple through her dress.

Nínimeth squealed, laughing as she leaned back against him, sliding her hands slowly up her body, dragging the hem along upwards, revealing her knees, and then her shapely thighs, golden in the candlelight.

Thranduil swallowed, torn between looking at the picture they made standing entwined in the mirror and gazing down her front, rapidly undoing the lacing on her dress to free that stiffened peak, dark red like it had been stained with wine.

Pressing into the cleft of her arse, he cupped both her breasts, running his thumbs slowly around her nipples.

Nínimeth’s head fell back against is shoulder, her hands letting go of the fabric to let it pool on the floor at her feet. Stretching her arms up, she wrapped the fingers of one hand in his hair, using her hold to turn his head, and kissed him deeply. Moaning softly into his mouth, she pressed back against him, her free hand falling to cover his on her breast.

“Just look at you,” Thranduil murmured, nodding at the mirror and using her distraction to attack her neck with suckling kisses. “My beautiful wife.”

“Thranduil…” When he homed in on that spot below her ear, she gasped, trembling in his arm. “Touch me…”

“Such delicious curves,” he said, moving their hands down to her waist and over her stomach. Looking at the mirror, he smiled, pressing a kiss against her temple, watching her golden skin flush with delight and passion. "You're so soft and warm," he whispered in her ear, nipping gently at the lobe before returning to the spot that made her shiver, “how could I not want to touch you?”

She whimpered slightly, caught by the way they looked in the mirror, staring at the naked lust on her own face.

Thranduil smiled, moving their left hands up to caress her other nipple. “I could swear these are fuller,” he murmured, grinning when she gasped, her eyes closing and her lips parting around a sigh of pleasure. “And perhaps more sensitive…” Grinning against her neck, he moved his mouth up a little, nipping at her ear. “Open your eyes, beloved,” he breathed, feeling her tremble as he left her hand to play with her breast, his own moving down over her ribs to tease the spot below her hip that always made her jump.

“Hwi-in!” Nínimeth whined, but she opened her eyes, glaring at him in the mirror.

Thranduil wrapped his lips around the tip of her ear, sucking gently.

Nínimeth moaned, her glare fading into lustful impatience. She watched his eyes roam over the display they made, the stark appreciation on his face as heady as the skilful touches of his long fingers.

“Look,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her collarbone, “I am the most fortunate of husbands that you would be my wife… the mother of my children.”

“I had wondered,” she admitted quietly, interrupted by a soft moan as one long finger parted her folds. “If you would see this pregnancy differently to my last.”

Thranduil frowned, his fingers and lips stilling for a moment.

“I love you,” he swore, “as I love our son, so I love his brothers.” Hugging her tight to him, he smiled, kissing her cheek once. “And twins are… you do not understand how uncommon they are, my love, how loved our sons are, already, among our people.”

“But Thalion…”

“Thalion will love them, too,” Thranduil whispered, “his are the worries of the first born – Naneth told me my eldest brother feared the same afore the birth of Glaerdor… though Nengelien was only ever excited to have younger siblings – that his parents will not love him the same when there is a new babe to steal their attention.”

Sighing, feeling tension she had not realised she carried seep out of her spine, Nínimeth sank into his embrace. “I do not remember feeling so when naneth told me she was with child,” she murmured. She rarely spoke her brother’s name, the guilt she felt – unwarranted but strong – for his early death still haunting her spirit.

“All will be well, my dearest one,” Thranduil replied, squeezing her gently, his hands splayed on the slight swell of her belly. “I promise.”

 

 

“You wished to see me, Ada?” Thalion asked, knocking on the door of Thranduil’s study.

Looking up from a missive from Lindon with a small frown at its contents, Thranduil nodded.

“I am wondering,” he began, pausing to gesture Thalion to take a seat, “if you have reservations about the coming of your brothers?”

“No!” Thalion denied swiftly.

Thranduil waited silently; he had learned the value of keeping his own counsel from childhood, and Thalion was not yet old enough not to fidget under his gaze, despite being more than a century past when he was counted an adult.

“Perhaps… naneth, she…” Thalion muttered, staring at his feet.

“She was much the same when it was you growing beneath her heart,” Thranduil soothed. “She worries that she will do wrong, somehow, let her child come to harm…” Raising a knowing eyebrow he caught Thalion’s flush. “Just as she worries for you, ionneg… though you are old enough to defend yourself and those you hold dear.”

“And you worry not, Adar?” Thalion wondered.

“Every day,” Thranduil admitted, pushing himself up from behind his desk to come stand by his son’s shoulder, praying that he could find the right words to heal this hurt. “Your naneth and I… we both know what it is to lose a loved one.” Turning to look out the tower window, he sighed. “Do you truly think I worry less for you – that we love you less – because we are expecting more children?”

“No,” Thalion replied. “…yes…? Adar, I-”

Moving back to Thalion, Thranduil put his hand on his shoulder, drawing him in until Thalion’s head rested against his stomach. “You are my son, my firstborn,” he whispered, running his hand through the hair that was so like Nínimeth’s, “there is nothing you can do, no power in the world that could make me love you less, ionneg.” Stroking Thalion’s ear, Thranduil ignored the slight wetness seeping into his fine spring robes. “Your brothers… they have their spaces in my heart, as your naneth does. You will know, one day, the joy of loving your child, I hope… the way it feels as though your heart grows another size with each one, just to hold the love and worry you feel for them.”

Thalion’s strong arms wrapped around his middle for a moment, no sign of the tears when he drew back, his smile joyful if a little wobbly.

“I have been cruel to naneth,” he mumbled, looking down at his soft leather boots.

“Then you will put it right,” Thranduil replied, “and tell her that you bear her no ill will for the new souls our love has born.”

“Yes, Ada,” Thalion nodded, the familiar mischievous grin back on his face. “And perhaps I should make up a list of the things I will teach my new brothers.”

Thranduil laughed. “Perhaps begin with loving them,” he advised, “and then you may start with enough mischief to give your grandfather curls.”

“There’s an idea,” Thalion chuckled. “One of me wasn’t enough… but perhaps between the three of us we shall manage!”

Thranduil wondered what exactly he had unleashed on Oropher, but at the same time he knew it would not matter what tricks his sons played on the King. Oropher had been a reasonably indulgent Adar to him and his siblings… but it was nothing to the soft-hearted way he treated Thalion, spoiling his first grandson rotten, and Thranduil expected his glee at the newborns would be no different to the pure joy he had felt at Thalion’s birth.

A smile played around his lips as he returned to the missives on his desk, looking forwards to the day he would once more hold the newborn form of a child who was part him and part Nínimeth.

The thought of presenting the babes to their older brother – and their grandparents, of course – made his smile grow.