In honour of @fishfingersandscarves‘ podcast on The Dork Forest, here’s a little sneak-peek of

Sansûkh! Congratulations again, dearest Fish! *hugs and hugs*

It’s not really an excerpt of the next chapter, tbh… it’s more of a short interlude between Chapters 39 & 40. I had to take it out of Chapter 40 due to pacing and length (seriously, ch40 is gonna be MONSTROUSLY LONG lmao please forgive me Ricky & HD)

I hope you enjoy!

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“What else?”

“I need to go to the lavvy a lot,” said Bomfrís bluntly, and
Gimrís’ lips quirked beneath her fine red moustache.

“That’s normal. And don’t expect it to get any better,
either. I felt like I was living in there, right at the end.”

“That’s reassuring,” Bomfrís said sourly. From the seat
beside her, Alrís chuckled.

“I promise, it’s not that terrible. Uncomfortable, aye, and
annoying at times, but liveable. I’ve done it twelve times, my girl: I wouldn’t
have bothered doing it even twice if it were as horrifying as all that.”

“Yes, but you’re you,”
Bomfrís muttered, and she picked at the hem of her tunic. “I can’t eat a damned
thing either. Everything smells foul. I nearly threw up when Barur came back
from the smokehouse last week: his clothes, they just -” she broke off and
tried to make it plain with a series of grimaces just how revolting her brother had smelled.

“I know.” Gimrís said, and there was a gleam of sympathy in
her eyes, though her demeanour remained strictly professional. “That’s also
fairly normal. At least you’re keeping down what you manage to eat.”

“Small meals,” Alrís said, nodding.

“But I’m not hungry,” Bomfrís protested. “And my gums keep bleeding.”

“Wash your mouth out with salted water, and eat anyway,” said Gimrís matter-of-factly.  

“I know your appetite’s probably down to naught, but your
body is doing a fairly remarkable thing right now, my lass,” said Alrís. “You
have to give it something to work with.”

“You’d know all the tricks,” Gimrís said to her, “get her
eating before she stands up, an’ don’t let her skimp just because there’s
rationing. I’m happy to give up some o’ our share of the milk and cheese. She
needs dairy.”

“That’d be a kindness, but I suspect the King won’t be going
begging,” said Alrís dryly.

Bomfrís shuddered. King.
It was an absurd thought. Her awkward, stumbling, sweet Thorin – now the King.

Then she remembered the fire in his eyes, the easy command
in his voice as he ordered the Elves and Dwarves to make their ambush, and she
shuddered for an entirely different reason.

“How’s Bofur doing?” Alrís was asking softly as Bomfrís
pulled herself together. Gimrís shook her head slightly.

“He still has terrible headaches,” she replied, and her
professional tone didn’t do a thing to hide her concern. “He’s getting better
at using his stick too. Bomfrís, anything else? Do you get headaches, or feel
any pain in your belly at times?”

“I get dizzy spells when I stand too fast, sometimes,” she
said, and for the first time Gimrís looked a little concerned.

“But no headaches or fluid gain, an’ you’re not being
sick… Hmm. Get red meat into you, not only dairy. You ought to get as much of
it as you can. Don’t argue!” she said as Bomfrís opened her mouth to protest.
“I know it doesn’t taste right, but you can’t go keeling over because you’re
not getting what you need. Find a way to eat it that you can stomach. Plenty of
water as well.”

Bomfrís groaned. Alrís patted her hand.

“So, nothing else you want to ask about?” Gimrís made a note
in a book, and then looked down at Bomfrís with a pleasant, expectant air, as
though she hadn’t just told Bomfrís that she had to try choking down something
that smelled and tasted like chalk and cardboard to her.

“Um,” said Bomfrís, and her hand came to hover over her
bodice.

“Ah, yes.” Gimrís said, and a glimmer of her normal acerbic
wit shone in her eyes. “Don’t be standing face-first under running water for a
while. You’ll regret it.”

Alrís gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like a
hastily-covered laugh. Bomfrís glared at them both, her ears burning.

“I’ll want to check your blood pressure too,” Gimrís
continued, and she directed Bomfrís to lie down on a long leather-covered
bench. There she was fitted with an odd contraption. It had a soft round pad
that pressed against her wrist and a long tray that rested against her forearm.
Once it was strapped in place and the pad was positioned over her pulse to Gimrís’
satisfaction, the tray was then gradually loaded with small weights until Gimrís
nodded.

“Aye, very low,” she said, her lips pursing. “Well, that’s
safer than if it were the other way around. You can take it off now, and then
we’ll get onto the rest of the check-up.”

Bomfrís took off the weird thing, and wondered at the
strange sense of apprehension that clawed at her.

“All right, relax,” said Gimrís, her tone smart and
clinical. Bomfrís looked up at the ceiling and tried very hard to make each
knotted muscle unclench. It wasn’t working all that well.

Gimrís leaned over and began gently pressing into Bomfrís’
abdomen with practiced fingers. Bomfrís sucked in a breath and stared up at the
ceiling. Off to one side she heard her mother laugh.

“Relax, Bomfrís, you’re in good hands,” said Alrís gently.

“What if there’s something wrong, though?” Bomfrís
whispered, and she reached out her hand blindly. Alrís caught it.

“No use borrowing trouble, we’ve enough of that on our
doorstep as it is,” said Gimrís briskly. “And just there – no, the top of that
round ball, you feel that? – that’s the top of your womb. Everything seems to
be fine.”

Gimrís directed Bomfrís’ free hand to a spot low on her
belly. If she pressed in slightly she could feel a resistance that hadn’t been
there before, even with the layers of Dwarvish muscle and fat that her family
were so rightly proud of. “Huh,” she said, nonplussed, and tapped the little spot with
a forefinger. “Right.”

“You won’t feel anything for quite some time, your bairn’s
far too small to make ‘emselves known that way,” Gimrís said to her, gently
pressing down again. She then stretched a measuring tape over

Bomfrís’ abdomen, before shaking her head and re-taking the length. Then she frowned. “Hmmm.”

Bomfrís’ grip squeezed tight upon her mother’s hand,
clamping down like a vice. “What?”

“Just…” Gimrís wrinkled her nose, and then she stood back
and gave Bomfrís a puzzled look. “Two months, did you say?”

“Well, I can promise that it wouldn’t have been earlier than two months…” Bomfrís said,
and her face flamed scarlet. Alrís chuckled.

“Chip off the old block, aren’t you lass? Your father and
I…”

“I don’t want to hear the rest of that sentence, Ma,” Bomfrís
cut in hurriedly. Alrís smiled, but it was a bittersweet sort of expression.

“No. I suppose not,” she said, and her eyes lowered. A
hint of her grief stole back into her expression.

Gimrís glanced between the measuring tape in her hand and Bomfrís’
anxious, flushed face. “Well, we’ll keep an eye on things,” she said
eventually. “I’d say you must be more than two months along, if the fundal
height is any indication. Perhaps it’s just a big child.”

Bomfrís’ fingers tightened over that little spot on her
belly. “Nothing is the matter, is it?”

“Too soon to say,” said Gimrís, but she patted Bomfrís’
shoulder. “We’ll see if we can’t find a heartbeat, eh? That should put your
mind at ease.”

“There’s a heartbeat this early?”

“Aye, though it’s as soft and rapid as fluttering wings.” Gimrís
smiled, and she brought out a curious contraption that looked rather like Oin’s
ear-trumpet, but with a long tube affixed to one end. “Now, don’t be too
alarmed if we can’t find it,” she warned as she pressed the end of the tube
into one of her ears, pushing the bell-like end against Bomfrís’ belly. “At
this size, we’re lucky if that’s the case. The bairn may be lying at the back
of your womb and so we won’t hear…. oh.”

“Oh?” Alrís and Bomfrís echoed. It was Alrís’ turn to
squeeze Bomfrís’ hand, almost to the point of pain.

“How about that, found it straight away,” said Gimrís
softly, and then she looked up at Bomfrís. “Eager, whoever they are. Lying
right at the top, I should think. Here…” and she pulled the tube from her ear,
wiping it and handing it to Bomfrís. “Fast as a robin’s heart, it is.”

Bomfrís gingerly pressed the tube into her ear, and
concentrated. She could hear a gurgling that she supposed was her own poor
hungry stomach complaining (the child hadn’t let her eat any lunch, again; everything smelled so wrong!).
Swallowing her worry and annoyance, she tried hard to ignore her hunger and to
keep listening for this fluttery sound that was supposedly her baby.

“I can’t hear a thing,” she announced after a moment.

“Keep listening,” Gimrís said, and she moved the bell of the
trumpet a little to the left.

“No – wait!” For she did hear a small something. It didn’t
sound like a heartbeat ought to; not at all like the familiar thump-thump she
had half-expected. It was a tiny whooshing rhythm, regular and rapid, as soft
as the brush of feathers against her face.

“Oh my Maker,” she said in wonder, and pressed the ear-piece
into her ear even harder. “That’s….”

“Aye, that’s your child,” Gimrís said, smiling at her. “It’s
a good strong heart, Bomfrís.”

Alrís carefully hid a wet sniff behind her hand.

“Thorin should hear this,” Bomfrís said, still listening. It
was with a detached and dreamlike sense of fear and awe and shock that she
finally acknowledged that this was really and truly happening, that there was a
brand new little possibility taking form inside her. She’d been so caught up in
everything else – her misery over her morning-sickness, the dratted Elves, the
ever-looming dread of impending royalty, and always the war, of course. 

Always,
always the war.

Her father’s cold face flashed into her mind’s eye, and she
swallowed. Papa would have been happy.
He’d be happy. “D’you have another of these horn things I could borrow?”

Gimrís grinned. “For you, my Queen? At your service.”

“Urgh,” Bomfrís pulled a face at her, and then went back to
marvelling at that little noise.

…

_{Notes: The machine used to measure blood pressure that is referenced here is based on the sphygmograph. I figured that if Dwarves are medically advanced enough to have discerned the presence and purpose of the nervous system, then presumably they will have made other medical discoveries (and the machines to monitor them).}