Chapter Text
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A great calm had settled over Rhovanion.
It was syrupy, thawing the great cold of the mighty winter that had swept across the north, and mottled it in patches of warmth that caressed him in sporadic bursts of will. The Battle of the Five Armies had been won, and the line of Durin preserved in hard-won life. Now it was that, wherever they lay, wherever they had been carried, they were far away from him - friends, indeed, but now entirely more than a kingdomless line. Amidst the uncertainty of what to do and what can be done, great comfort had been found in the company of a certain wizard intent on, perhaps, meeting his own end with twinkling eyes and half-knowing glances.
Bilbo considered that the only reason he hadn't left Gandalf to entertain his own company was that, of everyone around him, he was of the most familiarity. Had he not been, well . . . He reckoned he may not have spent another wishy-washy moment in his twinkly-eyed airspace. Truly, it was maddening. Never the mind that the dwarves who had erected camp afore Erebor's gates stared at Bilbo most oddly whenever he walked amongst them, even the manner in which the Company - Gandalf himself - looked at him had changed. The east was so very unfamiliar, whereas the west was Home and warm; green and bright. Nothing like the dour canopies of the Mirkwood, or the unyielding Lonely Mountain which had not a bountiful garden to boast of.
His dear mother's friend had not a qualm about it at all, however, and simply hummed with poorly-hidden amusement as Bilbo recounted, for the umpteenth time, his frustration of a never-ending turn of eyes unto him. "Why, Bilbo," began Gandalf, rather patiently. "Was it not you who flew to warn the king and his heirs of ambush; a simple Hobbit in the company of a dozen dwarrow? A humble fellow, I would say . . . Albeit with a tongue too clever for his own good." His bright eyes turned sidelong to regard him with a gleam he could not decipher. Wizards! He wanted to scoff, yet Bilbo resisted, and instead fiddled with the long-stemmed pipe held between dusty fingers.
"That's not the point," he pressed. "These- these people, Gandalf, they look at me everywhere I go. Like they've never seen anyone like me before, regardless of whether or not they're Tall Folk." Being stared at as if he were an enigma were nothing new to Bilbo Baggins at all, had you asked him. Even in the Shire he had faced scrutiny for seventeen years when, upon his majority, he had made it plain for all in Hobbiton to see that he would remain firmly a bachelor for the rest of his foreseeable life. But not since he had signed that bloody contract and hauled himself halfway across the world had Bilbo ever been looked at for anything more explicit than his keen mind and strange mannerisms.
The elves were treespans taller than himself, wiser than Bilbo, perhaps, could ever hope to achieve with age; the dwarrow, whilst not especially long-lived in comparison, were stockier and stronger than Hobbits and fierce warriors of culture. Neither race appeared to much care for wits in battle. All of them, Bilbo knew, wondered in hushed tones as to just how he had managed to survive; how he had managed to weave the trust of the Company and battle a dragon with naught else but a silver-tongue.
Gandalf laughed shortly, and from between puckered lips puffed out a wisp of ringed smoke grey as his robes. "Why, I don't believe they ever have." he told Bilbo, in a mimicry of sageness. "You are a Hobbit, dear Bilbo, and most this side of the Misty Mountains have never so much as heard of a Hobbit!" His jovial manner was beginning to grate. Bilbo half-considered leaving right then, had it not meant he would have to brave the camp once more and flutter about until he found a quiet corner to sequester away in. Bebother it all, he thought grouchily. Undeterred did Gandalf resume, staring afar to Ravenhill where the crumpling watchtower had been weathered by the ages to mere ruins. "And I dare say none have ever met a fellow so curious as yourself, you realise. There are not many, I say, who have faced a calamity as Smaug and lived to tell the tale."
It was not a glum tale, indeed, though even the mere mention of the fire-drake had Bilbo stiffening on his perch. He sighed, felt his shoulders unwind, and wriggled his nose slightly. They simply weren't used to his kind - himself, of course, being the first Hobbit many of them came across. "My contract's fulfilled," said Bilbo, wearily. "The Mountain won't have any use for me, and I much think I'd like to return home now." He thought of Bag End; its cozy comforts, long winding halls of carved wood, and his plush armchair settled afore his hearth in the drawing-room. Even the meagre springiness of a cot had elicited in him a spot of joy, the first time he had been shown to a tent of his own.
When he looked over to Gandalf, the wizard was already staring at him, a curious gleam in his gaze. "You wish to leave so soon?" he questioned, light-hearted and intrigued. Bilbo shrugged, thinned his lips, and fiddled once again with his unlit pipe. The grain of the finely-carved wood caressed his roughened fingertips, which had once been unblemished and soft; there was not much of him that could admit to missing soft hands, truth be told.
"What would I do?" asked the hobbit, more self-deprecatingly than he had intended. Lips quirking upwards at their corners, a weak tilt, he felt the lowering of the evening sun lick across his skin. His knuckles were swollen and sore, and the soles of his feet itching for respite. The battle had been won, and the line of Durin had been preserved. "I want . . . well, I want my books, and my smial and, oh Gandalf, I want my bed." The prospect of a bed of soft mattresses and sweet-smelling sheets had his heart aching with want. But it was not to this that the sparkle in Gandalf's eye diminished, instead flaring brighter.
In reply to his wobbly smile, Gandalf beamed, clapped his hands to his knees, and stood with nary the groan of the elderly. Bilbo noted it curiously, and craned his neck to meet the wizard's stare. "Erebor has plenty of space for use, Bilbo Baggins, and plenty beds wishing for purpose." declared his good friend, before promptly disappearing with a muted whoosh of grey robes.
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Leaving was, ultimately, harder than he had initially thought it may be. Yet, it seemed as if Bilbo, though nursing his many wounds, ought not to be worried at all for it: Oin now held the firm belief that Bilbo, other than himself, was the only one in the dwarven camp competent enough to not poison all of the wounded. Somewhere left behind in his tent, half-full, was his pack - ready to be worn in adventure once again. Bilbo was far removed from it, now, a worn leather satchel swinging at his hip (courtesy of the healer himself, who had seen him off with a merry smile that betrayed nothing) as he scavenged the Desolation of Smaug for flora.
Days had passed since the end of the battle, and even the magnificent volume of courage that had drawn him to face Smaug would not allow him to near the king's tent. Gathering herbs was a perfect distraction, to his sensible mind, and so with a jaunty step to his vaguely wobbly feet had Bilbo set off that morning. But the ruined ground had proved to be frustratingly barren, even two-hundred years following Smaug's sack of Erebor. Wandering near Ravenhill, though the crumpling watchtower sent little wracking shivers down his spine, was more fruitful and offered him two fistfuls of feverfew and, on the distance, his keen nose picked up the sweet tang of poppies hardy in the mud.
Picking his way through the mud, the thick soles of his feet did not slide frictionless as boots would make them (even the thought of wearing boots, admittedly, horrified Bilbo) and were sure as a ram's across mountainous terrain as he neared the foot of the mount of Ravenhill itself. Its shadow was long, but no longer as oppressive as it had felt on the near horizon the first few nights after their reclamation of Erebor. Few wandered near it, however, except those tasked with the clearing of orc and goblin corpses from the snow; an unpleasant task, to be sure, although those few that Bilbo did come across had seemed to take particular delight in stripping the bodies of their weaponry and setting them aflame.
The memory left a pungent reek in his nose.
Breadseed flourished in his palm a number of unripe seed capsules he pocketed eagerly, daring not to pry them open just yet, but instead thrilled at the prospect of bringing them to Oin - prideful with his discovery of the plant. Bilbo smiled upon them, flipping one over between his fingers, and rose from the ground to make his way back to the dwarven encampment. 'Twas a large labriynth made of hardy cloth brought with the forces of Dain Ironfoot. Of the kingly dwarf himself Bilbo had seen few and little, and perhaps wished for it to remain that way, recalling a past conversation he had shared with Gandalf. If Thorin was the more agreeable between the cousins, then perhaps he feared what the Lord of the Iron Hills would have to say about his betrayal.
Eyes followed him. They burned with intrigue, others with perplexity, and the last few with smidges of wonder or distaste. There were few places in the wild for folk of comfort, and Hobbits were just that. Bilbo shrugged it aside, tilted his chin up, and promptly strode for a young dwarf apprentice nearby, who startled to attention at his swift approach. She - or was it he? - blinked owlishly and looked him over, before her face smoothed over. A litany of rings swung from her ears, clinking gently when she moved, and the dwarf herself wore a pair of thick gloves smeared in the blood of wounded soldiers. No longer did his stomach churn so terribly at the sight, but to say he was unaffected would be thoroughly untrue.
"Begging your pardon," began Bilbo, ears burning whilst he cleared his throat rather primly. Master Baggins, indeed. "I don't suppose you've seen Master Oin anywhere? I've a delivery for him." For emphasis, he pat a hand against his satchel. Amber eyes followed the movement, before snapping back up to meet Bilbo's gaze.
After a few moments of silence, in which the dwarf did not appear to know how to respond, the mention of Oin's name brightened her vivid eyes and she jerked her head towards a nearby canvas tent. Jutting a thick finger towards it, she smiled happily at Bilbo before skipping away, the rough syllables of Khuzdul following her air. Bilbo watched her leave, dumbfounded, wondering what had just happened. Then, without another moment's hesitation, he swivelled on his heel and stormed into Oin's tent. He'd had it right up to here - and it was quite high indeed - with being treated as he was.
"Ai, laddie!" cried Oin with joy at the sight of him, straightening his crooked back. He had been bent over a fussy patient, a greybeard soldier with sharp eyes of flint and a terrifying myriad of weapons resting nearby him. "Come, come. Did ya find anything?" Horn set on the end-table of the rickety cot the greybeard was lain on, Bilbo shortly wondered if the healer would be able to hear him at all, before swinging the satchel over his head and settling it down on a squat table nearby. There was only one other cot in the tent, rumpled yet empty, and he supposed that the greybeard must have been rather high-ranking to have a space all to himself.
Upon seeing the breadseed capsules, Oin exclaimed with delight and waved Bilbo and his thatch of feverfew over as he collected the capsules in his large, callused hands. "Good lad, good lad. Wash the things and administer them, would ya? Got a few more silly numpties, need a good lookin' to." He tutted with exasperation and, with no opportunity for Bilbo to get a word in edge, he departed with a pip in his step. The next few days were filled with routine that was much the same. Busy hands were not hands that thought of any other matters but immediate duty, and so, the hours that were spent tending to the wounds of recovering soldiers had swept away any thought of leaving from his mind.
There were a great many things, however, that were simply unavoidable.
"No." repeated Bilbo, sure that his tongue had gone dry over the repetition five words ago. His brow was furrowed weakly, the dwarf beneath his diligent fingers not stirring from sleep, feverfew paste brushed along his gums and honey swept across his stitches. At his back, a decidedly resolute Oin had recruited the assistance of Balin in attempting to sweep Bilbo away from his work. Other matters, so they claimed, had to be tended to in likewise. Other matters more specific to their dear burglar. "I'm working, thank you very much, and this sort of work, if you haven't noticed, is rather volatile. So, if you will . . ."
Yet even the purposeful trailing of his voice had not swayed them from the medic's tent, and so was he resigned to an afternoon of incessant badgering. He knew, after all, exactly why they had bothered him in the first place - yet to visit Thorin upon his sickbed was to tremble the foundations of the tumultuous peace he had found in the repetition of every-day life. If the king awoke and found Bilbo by his bedside, his greatest betrayer, what might he do? Nay, thought the hobbit. It was better for them all if he kept his distance. Behind him, Oin scoffed loudly. Bilbo twirled on his heel and stared at him, brows raising with shock at the dismissive tut.
Then a heavy hand clapped his shoulder, and he ground his teeth to force himself to not buckle beneath its weight. After many months of being doled the treatment of dwarrowkind, he liked to think he had gotten rather used to their peculiarities; including the obliviousness to their own strength. "The world will not fall to ruin without you, Master Baggins," cajoled Balin, a warm smile colouring his aged face. "Not for many months, at the least. I wouldn't think our burglar well-suited to a long-term life of healing wounds, anyhow. Come, let us talk outside, Bilbo." The promise of fresh air was too enticing to resist. With some sensible measure of half-shame, Bilbo dried his sticky hands with a rough rag and promptly followed the dwarf beyond the tent.
After so long spent travelling to Erebor at the hail of Thorin, the dwarves of the Iron Hills had begun to, finally, settle. The worst of their wounds were being cared for, and the honourable dead transported in small caravans back to their homes. Even time spent amongst his people had not given Bilbo a particularly keen idea of where Dain, himself, had wound himself up. Some part of him hoped frailly that it had not been in the company of the Elvenking, whose own encampment lay not far away, on the outskirts of the city of Dale amidst its reparations. Abreast to him, Balin kept hold of Bilbo's shoulders and steered him through the camp. Hours spent bustling around, looking after their injured, had meant that the eyes of the dwarrow did not find him so often as once they had. Still, there were those who gawked and stared boldly.
It first began with Balin politely clearing his throat - a simple tut and a wetting of his lips, a step taken away from Bilbo as if minding a tempestuous animal. "There are those who would prefer to meet with yourself, Master Baggins," informed the newly-hailed seneschal, placidly. He folded his hands atop his middle and looked unto him knowingly. "I would understand if you feel otherwise, and wish to depart, instead, although-"
Bilbo shifted his weight from one foot to the other, an odd bubbling of anxiety frothing in his blood. His fingers had gone cold, and when he glanced over Balin's shoulder, he recognised the tent that stood behind him, taller and grander than all the others in its midst. Oblivious, or perhaps not, Balin continued. The smile upon his face had turned kinder. "You are easily missed, dare I say. Whatever has troubled you since your arrival in this camp shall be dealt with accordingly. As Company Burglar, of course, 'tis only natural to be rewarded with the grace and friendship of our people." Sweet words, to be sure.
But none of them especially soothed him; not when he knew starkly, behind the canvas of the entrance-flap, lay a cot within which lay a dwarven-king. For no reason he could identify, Bilbo nodded jerkily and steeled himself. "I would be . . . honoured." He winced. The politics of the Shire never had been quite as intricate as those of the wider world; in Hobbiton, though the favoured grandson of the Thain he had been, Bilbo had been merely a landlord. Not a prince, or a king - even a revered burglar, as batty as that sounded. As Master of Bag End, he had settled petty disputes and calmed anxious nerves. Never had he battled the wits of high lords and nobles and fought battles amongst orcs.
Still. He would take from Balin whatever strength his friend offered.
Rather rationally, in his opinion, he staggered as he took a step forward and turned over his shoulder to look at Balin. Searching for something, maybe. "You sure he's going to want me in there?" asked Bilbo, uncertainly, a mere hairsbreadth away from wringing his fingers like a faunt. "Our parting wasn't on very friendly terms, I'm sure you well know. What if he - . . ."
As if he could not glean a single reason to worry, Balin hummed and made a little shooing gesture with his fingertips. "Oin was insistent our king receive only the most sensible care in Erebor. It was not the word of a healer, alone, that desired your presence here anyhow." Oh. Stomach swooping dangerously, Bilbo swallowed and nodded dumbly at Balin before foolhardy courage took over. He must have lingered outside for too long, for what felt like a second later came a nudge, and he stumbled into the tent. Inside it was warm, heated by the will of a brazier tucked into one corner; and rather cozy, it was too, with furs and fine sheets stacked upon the only cot that lay as inhabitant. Upon it, Bilbo saw Thorin's dark hair before he took notice of his face, ashen and slack with slumber.
Although broad as he could recall the king being, without his armour and fur coat, Thorin appeared much smaller as he lay there. For moments he watched him, for moments he despaired at his own presence in the king's tent, before he reminded himself just why he was there. Oin had wanted him there, hadn't he, to look after Thorin? It would be unHobbitly to refuse the order given the kindness that the dwarves had extended to him within the past few days, he determined. With hands that trembled, he unclasped the satchel at his hip and drew out a wrap of bandages that Oin had shoved into his hold not an hour afore - huffing that a good healer ought not to run about the place frantic for supplies.
Carefully unprying them, he stretched for the furs draped across Thorin's chest, and marvelled at his extraordinary stillness. There had never seemed to be a moment where Thorin had not been moving; where he had not been strong and so utterly righteous in his task that it would have taken a marvel to not follow him to death. Seeing him stagnant caused his throat to thicken, and a weight in his gut to sink. Beneath his furs he wore only the thin wrap of a tunic to cover the modesty of his upper half, and with hardy determination did Bilbo force himself to not linger. To not let himself, if for a second, indulge in the quiet. He had a duty. A singular duty afore he was permitted to leave.
... Leaving was, ultimately, harder than he had expected it to be. Re-wrapping Thorin's bandages had revealed to his clever eyes a wound at his breast too gruesome to behold with a firm stomach. Azog's blade had buried deep in the cavern of his chest, and although the laceration had been meticulously, painstakingly, stitched together and scabbed, it would take a miracle for the king to survive through the fever that ripped through him. 'Twas a vicious thing, and Bilbo felt naught but a peculiar sense of agony as he tied off his fresh bandages and discarded the old, taking to hand a cloth softer than any that occupied the tents of common soldiers. It wasn't simply Oin's demand that had brought him here. Balin had said so.
But with Thorin there, no ounce of lucidity nor consciousness within him, who could it have been? Some part of him still dared to hope. Some part of him did not think of being dangled over the ramparts of Erebor's front gate, did not think of the hue of Thorin's rageful eyes that had glistened beneath the sunlight that day. Eyes that had gleamed with the faintest sheen of tears, and the bitter rot of betrayal. This treasure is ours, had once declared the king. There was nothing of the dragon-sick beast laid out on the cot, then. Forlornly he sat at his side, thus, and watched keenly every twitch of the king's face. He dipped the soft cloth in a shallow basin of water and swept it gently across his gleaming hairline; beneath the closed eyes that sung with shadows dark as purpling bruises.
He had been a fool, to avoid him, and a fool to return. Ultimately Bilbo knew the time would come when his departure would not be so easily evaded, when he would leave the Lonely Mountain as nothing but scripture in an ink-line novel; the memories of his friends passed between letters that arrived each year scant and late. There is more of good in you than you know, Child of the Kindly West. Go back to your books, and your armchair. Plant your trees, watch them grow. If more of us valued cheer and food and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Tears stung his eyes, and in the shadow of the king's tent he felt like a faunt of fifteen once more, dabbing at his eyes with the hem of his sleeve, tattered and frayed and weathered. Bilbo sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and shied his gaze away from Thorin, achingly still on his bed. When his hand slipped absentmindedly into the crease of his vest's pocket, his fingers skimmed not the thin slip of gold within, but the rounded grit of an acorn nestled in the lines of his palm. The light of the brazier kissed the uneven surface of the acorn's curve, its head shielding itself from the beams of flaming light. Bilbo ran his thumb over its small frame. It was not fragile as many would take it to be; it was not lifeless. Within, he imagined, was life awaiting blossom. Soil, somewhere beyond the western edge of the Misty Mountains where foothills turned to green meadows and stuffy neighbours.
You've carried it all this way?
...It's a poor price to take back to the Shire.
Plant your trees, watch them grow.
Blue eyes shut. Skin bronzed from forge-fire paled against melting ice, stained crimson with life. With death. Bilbo's fingers furled over the acorn, hiding it from his eyes. If he did not see it, mayhaps it would henceforth bring him no grief. Thorin would live, he told himself, eyes trailing mindlessly back to the king. Sleeping, healing. Thorin would live, if by his life's own force he bid it so. When finally he rose from the bedside, it was many hours later; he felt it dearly in the ache of his knees and the soreness of his arms. Glimpsing impulsively back over to the fur-laden cot as he approached the entrance of the king's tent, Bilbo's weary mind could have almost sworn it had gleaned a flash of sapphire. A flicker of an open eye. Then he was gone, drenched into the night cast over by the shadow of the Lonely Mountain overhead.
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It became startlingly apparent that something in the encampment had shifted, not days later when yet another dwarf shied from Bilbo's path, eyes bugged. Something, meaning the shape of his shadow, he gauged, turning a corner in the labriynth of tents. His arms were bustling with every sort of silly instrument Oin had requested he deliver to the main medic's tent. He had forgone his jacket that day, for the winter had warmed somewhat, and he had become rather fed up with having to scrub blood and . . . other bodily fluids from the garment each night before he rested. The drift of icy wind against his skin had made Bilbo more alert, rather than a shivering mess. Something was wrong.
As a firebeard almost dove to the ground to remove himself from the hobbit's path, he forced himself to an abrupt halt and glared at the dwarf. Then, with no pomp, Bilbo turned upon his heel and levied the ferocity of his glower unto the figure looming stocky and so purposefully intimidating that everything, now, made sense. "Why, hello," snapped Bilbo, clearing his throat loudly. Dark, amused eyes flicked up from the ravaging of an apple by a particularly scary-looking dagger. Muscles beginning to strain beneath the weight of all of Oin's requests, it hardly helped the irritation that clouded him like a bothersome storm. "Just why are you following me around?"
Dwalin snorted softly and scraped a slice of apple from his dagger, munching upon it as if he had no other care in the world. "Dunno what yer talking about, Master Baggins." he said, with a solemn tone that he did not trust. Not one bit. "Free land's free land."
Bebother it all!
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