Chapter Text
Deep in the Old Forest, where almost no one goes, is a little incongruous cottage.
It is made of both wood and stone, and although it is small, there is enough space for someone with four legs and antlers to manoeuvre around easily. Inside there is a spacious larder and a fully-stocked bookcase. Not far from the house is a small forge that sees regular use.
In this cottage Thorin and Bilbo live quite happily together for much of the year, content in each other’s company. But Thorin is still a dwarf, and still craves the reassurance of stone over his head. Bilbo is still a wild creature, used to the freedom of the forest, and sometimes one, or both of them would leave for a short time.
There is never any doubt that they would return, however, and that little cottage regularly sees visitors, both Dwarven and Istari, and more rarely, Elven or even something stranger.
It is an unusual life, they both knew, but it is a happy one.
(And many years later, when Thorin was a very old dwarf whose hair had turned the colour of burnished iron, he lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes.
He did not wake again, at least not as he had always been, not as a Dwarf.
The Old Forest was filled with the sound of Bilbo’s laughter as Thorin tried to work out how he was meant to walk on his four shiny new black hooves.)