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Piles of gold slid underneath his feet.
Dragon's gold that had once belonged to Erebor's dwarven.
Bilbo Baggins scrambled for hold, but he slipped and fell head over heels, fear running all over his veins, his heart beating madly, pain stabbing at him as the coins and the treasures collided against his skin. Bilbo managed to stop his fall, digging his fingers into the gold underneath him and pushing himself back against a large stone, gold cascading all around him like a waterfall as the dragon landed not far from him. Bilbo was scared.
So very scared. He was trying to slow his breathing, trying to stay quiet, covering his mouth with a trembling hand and looking up.
"I can smell you," Smaug said, growling deep in his throat, "I... can smell your fear, thief. You reek of it..."
Bilbo had to stop being afraid. But how?!
He lowered his hands, trying hard to slow his breathing as the gold continued falling, the foul beast drawing closer and closer every passing minute.
He looked up to find the dragon's glowing eyes looking down at him, its mouth curled into a cruel smile only beasts such as it could make, inspiring fear into men's hearts.
Bilbo thought he had known fear until then. But frozen in a sitting position, looking up at the beast, he realized that he had never trully known it.
"You have been used," Smaug drawled, lowering his enormous head closer to the frightened hobbit. "Those dwarves used you to steal the stone... They do not care for a little, pathetic creature as yourself."
"Y- you lie!" Bilbo stammered. The dragon chuckled humorlessly.
"We will see about that."
Bilbo helpelessly watched as its jaws stretched wide open, the orange glow visible up its throat. Bilbo accepted defeat, watching as the flames left the dragon's mouth--
A sudden yell disturbed the silence that filled the halls of Bag End. Its owner jerked awake, sitting up in bed with one sudden movement, eyes wide and scared, breathing uneven, heart beat quick and painful in his chest. His entire body trembled, and for a moment, he thought that the land was being shaken by an Earthquake. But it was just him. He wrapped his thin arms around his thin frame, tightly, very tightly, to remind himself that this was reality, that this was where he needed to be, where he wanted to be. He covered his mouth with his left hand, shutting his eyes tightly and curling his back, trying to level his breath and slow down the beating of his heart, regain control of himself--
The door opened.
“Uncle Bilbo?” came Frodo’s voice from the doorway. Bilbo dropped away his hand, opened his eyes and straightened up, trying to look calm and being able to do so.
“I- I’m fine.” he said, a slight tremble in his voice.
“I heard a yell.” his nephew wasn’t convinced, and Bilbo knew this both by the tone of his voice and the expression the light of the handle the younger hobbit held let him see.
It wasn’t the first time it happened.
Frodo wasn’t stupid.
“Just another nightmare, Frodo. Get back to sleep.” Bilbo said, knowing that he would understand. His nephew stayed by the door a few seconds longer, looking torn between leaving and staying.
He sighed. “Alright. Good night.”
“Sleep well.” Bilbo replied, watching as the door shut, the light disappearing along with it and leaving the shadows and the dark to drape over the room once more. He waited in silence, listening to the sound of his nephew’s feet fade away before falling back onto his pillows, staring at the ceiling and unconsciously pulling his bed’s covers higher up to his chest.
“It’s not fair.” the hobbit whispered to the dark.
Years had passed. The seconds had woven themselves into minutes, hours, days, months and eventually years. Bilbo had watched them all pass by steadily with the change of the seasons, the ever changing world around him.
The nightmares did not pass.
They decided to stay in his head.
Bilbo slowly climbed out of his bed, shivering as he left the warmth of his blankets, the cold air sending shivers down his spine. He lit a candle, the little flame flickering and giving him a little comfort in the darkness that surrounded him. He quietly padded to his desk, setting the candle down on the smooth surface of his desk to open a drawer, digging underneath the many papers to pull out an old-looking book, the cover made of faded leather and half the pages looking old and brittle to the touch. He sat at his desk chair, taking a quill in his slightly trembling hand and opening the book to a random page. He paused there, the quill hovering over the paper. He then wrote the following sentence with shaky but neat handwriting: I saw more fire tonight.
He had seen fire.
He had seen fire during all these years, every single night, burning up trees all around him, the heat suffocating him as a dark shadow flew above him. The shadow of the dragon who lived in the darkest part of his mind, hiding, waiting for the right moment to show himself in.
Other times it was torch fire, reflected on the surface of a sea of gold. He fell in it, scrambling to get to the surface, but the coins, the treasures all around him, dragged him down as soon as his hands reached the surface, laughing ringing in his ears as he struggled with all his might but never got out, the gold toying with him, pulling him down.
The fire could also be caused by lightning strinking a tree, swarms of black, giat spiders emerging from the shadows of the forest, making him flee, toying with him until he had run out of energy to keep running and stumbling over a root, landing at the feet of one of the foul beasts.
But the worst...
It was the most realistic, his mind piecing toguether memories to re-create the chain of events he had lived all those years ago, the last battle, the battle he wanted but could not forget.
He sobbed with a terrible pain in his chest every time he woke from that one.
It was always the same.
It barely ever changed.
He sometimes wondered why thr nightmares had not driven him mad.
Bilbo held the quill in his trembling hand, staring at the sentence that meant so many different things all at once.
He hated it.
oOo
"Uncle?"
Bilbo looked up from the little cup of tea he had preppared himself, his hands wrapped around the warm object. Frodo stood at the kitchen entrance, still dressed in his night clothes and looking a little sleepy.
"Good morning. Why don't you get yourself some breakfast, mmm?" he said, mustering a small smile. Frodo didn't return the smile like usual, giving him a look that told Bilbo that the younger hobbit had something in mind bothering him.
"You didn't sleep." his nephew said quietly.
"I was not tired." Bilbo replied, getting to his feet and slowly walking over to the window with the cup in hand.
"Uncle... is there something you are not telling me?" his nephew questioned, his tone suggesting that he was hurt or sad. "And... and before you say no, I know you are. I just do not know why you don't tell me anymore. I know there is something wrong with you, Uncle. Something is troubling you."
Bilbo didn't reply immediately. He thought carefully. He knew fairly well that hobbits-- especially hobbits from his family-- were known for being both generous and stubborn when it came to caring for one another.
He might not say anything then, but Frodo would not just let it go.
That was probably one of the things that made Bilbo so proud to be his uncle. He turned his head to the jounger hobbit, who still stood at the entrance, waiting for an answer.
"Do you remember that time you had that silly fight with Sam?" he asked, walking to the table and sitting down. Frodo blinked, something lighting up in his eyes-- victory, probably-- and then slowly moved to the table to sit.
"Yes." Frodo said as he pulled back the chair and sat down.
"You two said some nasty things to each other and then refused to talk to each other for a week. Do you remember?"
Frodo looked down at his hands. "Yes, I do."
"Do you remember how much you cried? I remember you telling me that you regretted saying all those things to Sam and that you missed your best friend. But pride kept the two of you apart. You were depressed all week long. Eventually you fixed it. Do you remember how bad it was for you?"
"Yes... It hurts everytime I think of it. But why are you telling me this?"
"Because memories can be either very good or very bad. Sometimes they can be so bad that they will pain you for years on end. Sometimes, they cannot be resolved. Frodo, that is my pain."
Bilbo Baggins didn't regret his past. He did not regret having chosen to go on the journey that had changed him in his earlier days. He did not regret having found what he had been missing.
But he knew he could do without the pain memories kept with them.