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These are the things that you wish for, that you want to bury yourself beneath and pretend are true (except you don’t pretend, you smother the fantasies and choke the dreams and go on like they never existed. You will not be so pitiful, so weak, as to live your life wondering what if?):
You watched the dragon turn away.
There was no fire. The wind did not blow warm and heavy against your face. You grabbed Balin only in a wild moment of panic, and he gripped your arm in return, told you to stop, wait, and together you watched as the creature circled overhead, flapping its great wings and letting out a shriek that made the pebbles at your feet tremble.
Smaug veered back towards the north and your knees nearly gave way, adrenaline gone, and you were so relieved that it mattered not at all when Dwalin laughed at you, when your brother chuckled and smacked you hard between your shoulders.
There was never a reason to flee, never the taste of ashes in your mouth, the scent of charred flesh lingering in folds of your clothing. The elves did not abandon you. Thranduil did not meet your gaze as you called for help and then looked away, leaving your people to burn or wander or starve.
And on that day you did not learn what it was to lose something so entirely, to have hate and bitterness clog your throat and forcibly swallowed down.
Your Grandfather was getting better. He did not turn a blind eye to you standing by the door of the treasury, did not always favour gems and riches to the company of the court, his family. He slept through the night, he ate more, he let you coax him outside the walls of Erebor to hunt and breathe in the scent of pine and earth and rain.
Frerin did not once take you aside and ask why you wasted your time. Dis did not offer you compassion, kind touches and sad eyes and oh, brother, you cannot fix everything.
Thrain died in battle along with the King. He did not flee when the white orc tossed your Grandfather’s head to your feet, did not lose his wits to fear and grief. You did not have to watch him turn his back to you, couldn’t see him clawing at his face and hair as he ran. His axe never fell, never clattered against stone and dust. It wasn’t lost beneath fallen bodies and blood and you did not ever have to face the shame of failing to retrieve it.
Balin had no need to take you aside after the battle had finished and explain that even if your Father lived his claim to the throne was gone. Dwarves would not follow a deserter, a coward and a madman. Balin did not need to look so regretful when he said you are to be King, now.
--
These are the things that you do not tell yourself. They are the small reliefs, the comforts, the arms around your shoulders and the soft hands in your hair that you will not accept:
When you walked and walked from Erebor, Dwalin did not need to drag you to your feet after you fell. You weren’t tempted to lie down and curl in the mud when it rained and all you knew, all you could think of, was the cold.
Your feet did not bleed. Your legs did not ache. You did not hunch over and vomit from exhaustion until there was nothing left in your stomach to empty.
There was never a need to steel yourself against the sight of fire. Not for a moment did the flames give you pause, did you flinch away from a warm hearth. You did not have to hide your fear, to grind your teeth and clench your fists, to stomp out the weakness from yourself.
You did not hear the men laughing. They did not cheat you out of your earned pay when you handed them swords and daggers, shields and axes, fine weapons and armour that they could never had hoped to craft themselves. No anger pooled in your belly and flooded into your chest, filled you up and spilled over your frayed edges. Your wrath was kept bottled, it was contained and controlled and it did not conquer you.
Happiness was never fleeting. Your steps grew no heavier when you traveled further away from your sister’s small home (a home that did not fill you with regret. You never noticed the rotting wood, the leaking roof, the weeds growing up through the stones in the kitchen). You thought back to your nephews hanging off your arms and crashing into your knees, the way they laughed when you picked them up and swung them about, and it was enough to keep you going.
Your desire to reclaim Erebor was for the good of your people, for the memory of your Father and your Grandfather, for your nephews that had never known their true home. You didn’t want the mountain for yourself. You did not think about the gold piled beneath the earth, the silver-white gleam of the arkenstone. You were never struck with such conceit, such entitlement, that you wanted to scream that you were King by right, that Erebor was stolen but it is still yours yours yours and you will have it back.
You never feared that you may share your Father’s madness, your Grandfather’s unquenchable greed.
--
And this is the secret you now keep, the one lie that you allow yourself to have, recited again and again in the hopes that, eventually, you’ll begin to believe it:
The hobbit is a companion, and nothing more. Bilbo Baggins is small and he is weak and you spoke honestly when you said that you would not be responsible for him.
When the trolls lifted him up and threatened to pluck off his arms you dropped your sword without thinking. When Bilbo hung from the edge of a cliff and you plummeted over the rocks to save him it was for Gandalf’s sake, to stop the others from tumbling down after the fool as they reached for his frail, grasping hand.
You changed your mind only because the hobbit proved himself, and because it would be a misdeed to sneer at your saviour. There was not a moment before Bilbo lunged himself at the orc that you had wondered if you had judged him too soon. You had not already paused to consider his cleverness or quick wit. You were not learning to like his wide-eyed looks of wonder at the world, the occasional sharp and stubborn turns of his temper.
It bothers you not at all that Bilbo yearns for green hills and tilled land and that he looks back over his shoulder whenever the company departs for somewhere new. His eyes slowly turn forward but his heart remains miles behind, and it no concern to you at all that no sooner that Bilbo enters Erebor will he be aching to leave it.
And if there was a night that Bilbo sat beside you, winding a clean strip of cloth around a gash in your forearm, fretting beneath his breath, you did not take a moment to enjoy the warm flush rising along his throat, the soft press of his fingers against your skin. You ducked your head downwards for comfort, and not just enough to catch the bright flash of Bilbo’s eyes through the curls falling over his brow.
When Bilbo noticed, looked up and smiled, nothing inside of you turned warm or stilled. You did not lean even lower to make it easier for him, did not nudge your nose against the line of his cheek out of any kind of affection. Kissing him was not like letting out a breath that you had been holding for too long.
Afterwards, you were unmoved, steady as a stone. These words did not nearly spill from your mouth: Stay and I will give you anything you desire, be it riches or jewels or every last, rotten scrap of me. I will hollow myself out and lay all there is within me at your feet until there is nothing left and it will be worth every excruciating moment if only you remain by my side.
You know that Bilbo is temporary, and you are prepared. You will hardly spare him a moment’s thought when he is gone.