Work Text:
It is dark in here, almost too dark. The walls under the mountain shine and glitter, but Billa Baggins can find no rest within their confines.
Perhaps it is the noise, for a feast had been called to honour the Ironfist guests, and continues even now. Billa had been invited and couldn’t fairly refuse- especially since Thorin had chosen tonight to hold Freya up before his court and kin and name her his daughter, blood of his blood.
Blood of the Lonely Mountain.
Billa turns over onto her back, huddling under the furs. The feast had been…pleasant, if she tells the truth. Bessr had kitted her out again, in one of her own dresses this time, a lilac gown that had been her mothers, and she had danced with Fili and Ori and Bofur- and with Nori, recently returned from wherever he chose to take himself off to.
The thieving dwarf had been trying to avoid her, but she’d cornered him and he had, to her surprise, turned all apologetic. It had been uncomfortable for both of them and when the minstrels had begun to play again dancing had seemed the natural way to get rid of the awkwardness.
She has never danced with dwarves before. Well, Fili and Kili had tried to pull her up onto the table at Laketown, but Thorin had slung her over his shoulder and made for the stairs before they could finish.
Most of the feast though, she spent in the company of an Ironfist dwarrowdam named Rekel, who has astoundingly long hair the colour of silver and a drop of amethyst pierced through either brow.
She is also lord Migan’s consort, and Billa has spent the past few days showing her around Erebor. They invariably end up in Dori’s teashop since it’s the only place Billa knows and feels welcome, and whilst she and Rekel are certainly not friends (the dwarrowdam does not have much Westron and what she does have is confined to traders talk because apparently her mother was a cloth merchant before she met Lord Migan), they get along well enough.
Rekel’s approval has somewhat softened the attitude of the other Ironfists towards Billa, yet the hobbitess realises now that these guests are the least of her worries. It is the dwarrows of Erebor whose approval she must seek, especially given the impending arrival of the Lady Dis, apparently a week or so away as the raven flies.
It irks Billa that she should have to court the favour of the dwarves who whisper behind her back (and Rekel has told her what they say since Fili and Kili and everyone else will not and it makes tears smart behind Billa’s eyes). What does she owe them?
Nothing, is the answer, but she will not be petty. She knows her daughter needs acceptance from her father’s people if they are to stay in Erebor- and it seems that they will. Every day a return to the Shire looks less and less likely. For Billa at least.
She does not know if she can stand the indecision. Probably, she should simply send Hamfast and Paladin back to stop her fellow hobbits from marshalling for battle. Her frustrated love for her homeland, its genteel snobbery and the judging faces of her fellow hobbits comes at her in a rush, and she abandons the hope of sleep.
Instead, she remembers.
Remembers how when she first walked back into Bag-end, the scorn of the eyes on her back. What did she expect, running off with a bunch of good-for nothing dwarves. Doubt she even knows the true father…
Remembers the gossip at market, how respectable wives and mother tittered behind their hands at how proper Billa Baggins spread her legs for a filthy dwarf and got sent packing for her trouble. They made an example of her alright.
She remembers the Thain coming to her house and asking in hushed tones if anyone forced her into anything. Being offered a smial in Tuckborough to cover her shame and shaking her head at both just to get him and his love and pity away from her because she could not bear it.
Recalls the happier moments too- how Freya stood up and toddled across the kitchen floor before falling over with a bump late one summer afternoon. How Prim left apple pies on her doorstep that first winter, determinedly not taking credit.
Billa remembers the nights- cold, bitter. Her parents' bed too big for her alone, even when her daughter clambered in next to her. Now though, Freya sleeps in a cot by the dying fire, safe and snug, and this bed, though made for one, feels empty as she curls within it.
She resigns herself to getting up and sleeping in a chair as she so often did at Bag-end (the last time she felt truly comfortable in a proper bed was Laketown, for the beds at Rivendell were too big and her stomach too heavy for comfort. And before that, in Thorin’s chamber those few fraught days before the battle she had been in too much of a state with loving him and betraying him and breaking her heart.
Her eyes twitch a little, but she is distracted from foolish tears by her door swinging open- swinging, not creaking, for dwarves are master craftsmen and their doors do not ever creak. Especially not doors under the Mountain.
Billa scoffs to herself at how protective she has become of Erebor, because it is hers in a way, she sent the dragon out didn’t she, and she defends it against Rekel’s testing wit even though she grudges herself to love the place. And its king, who spent the whole night tipping back drink and watching her dance with his nephews, has all of a sudden come stamping into her bedchamber in his shirtsleeves.
“Thorin…Thorin what…Thorin Oakenshield are you drunk?” Billa pushes herself up against the mattress, grabbing a bedfur to ward against the cold and taking in the spectacle that is Thorin II of the Line of Durin, King Under the Mountain and Lord of Erebor, tipsy as a tween on midsummers eve.
She never thought she’d see the day- or night as it more probably is, though under the mountain days and nights seem to blur together somewhat. The dwarves of Erebor rest when it suits them, rise when they wish, hold feasts so long and lavish that the hours are easily confused.
It unsettles her less than it should. She has not been here long, but already the rhythms of life under the mountain have lulled her into their sound and shape. As it was in days of old, now it will be in Erebor made new, the dwarves have decided. Can anyone grudge them the joys of their kingdom when they have spent so long outcast to the edges of the world?
Billa Baggins will do nothing of the sort. She will, however, object to this sudden infringement on the privacy of her bedchamber. “Thorin?” She repeats. “What in Arda are you doing?”
“You…” Thorin advances a few steps towards her, letting the door swing shut behind him. His eyes are that hungry kind of dark they used to go before he took her clothes off, and oh that is not good. Billa gathers the fur closer around her, despite the damp flush of warmth that is spreading across her skin. “You refused my gift.”
He does not sound accusing so much as baffled and wounded, and he can count her for the former as well. “What gift?” she asks, wondering whether she should get out of bed and prop Thorin up before he collapses and wakes Freya- but she worries that if she does he will fail utterly at keeping his hands to himself. Their stay at Laketown can attest to that.
“My courting gift to you. Pins for your hair, better than this tat.” Thorin stumbles across to her dressing table and runs his hand derisively along the everyday hairpins she has been wearing since her arrival.
“Thorin, I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.” Billa says, trying to keep the snap out of her voice. The thought of him sending her courting gifts is ridiculous, of course- they are adults with a child, not a pair of twitterpated adolescents. But that’s how it makes her feel- as though fireworks are starting inside her belly and exploding inside her chest.
How she used to feel, when they were in love.
Only now she’s not so sure about the when. Thorin has progressed from the chest of drawers to the chair her petticoat is slung over, sloppily untied, and she remembers, oh she remembers when he would take his hands to the laces and pull, there at the front so her breasts spilled into his rough smiths hands. He’d smile at her like she was a jewel and cover her up with calloused palms, make her arch into his grip.
This line of thought is not helping and nor is the fact that Thorin is caressing her discarded clothes. She has not been asleep long from the sounds of the feast still hurtling through the halls, and her head is full of sad confused want and that befuddled feeling that comes of waking too soon and too early.
“I never got a gift.” she tries to explain and focuses on not sounding relieved because she honestly isn’t sure whether she would have refused it or not.
“Made ‘em for you. Would’ve…” Thorin pauses, searching for the right word in his drunken state (she should not find his confusion in any way adorable) “Should’ve given ‘em myself.”
“Why didn’t you?” She finds herself asking, the words falling between them stark and unbidden.
“Not proper.” Thorin replies with a husky bark of laughter. “Dwal' said Fili should…oh.” He pauses for a moment, a look of satisfaction coming over his face and Billa remembers that a drunken Thorin makes for complete loss of his normal kingly reserve as well as wandering hands.
“What?” Billa asks, scuffing her face with the flat of her palm- her nose is getting chilly and she can’t help but think of a broad strong chest she used to bury her head in when the air grew cold. That and Thorin’s drunken, bitter smile makes her a little sad and so she lets him speak rather than lecturing him on not barging into other peoples bedrooms even if you might once have shared sheets with them.
“My nephew.” Thorin announces (or rather slurs in an opulent manner) “Fili.” Billa nods in hope of moving the sentence along somewhat. “Took it 'pon himself- to refuse my gift. On your behalf.”
Having finished his announcement, Thorin gives a jerky nod, growling a little under his breath as Billa remembers this afternoon in the tea shop, the box Fili palmed in his coat and told her was nothing.
“That makes no sense…why would he?” she says, indignant. If anyone’s refusing Thorin’s gifts, it should be her. And she would have. Really. She scrunches up her cold nose as she tries to convince herself.
“Perhaps he considers me an unworthy suitor.” Thorin says, flippant now in a manner she has not seen him before. His eyes go hooded as he begins to pace up and down along the rug. “Or perhaps he does not wish for competition for a place in your heart.”
Billa is not sure how to describe the noise she makes just then, but apparently it only serves to increase the King’s nonsensical conviction. “Or in your bed.”
She finds herself gaping at him in horror, and when he finally sees her face past the glaze of alcohol and defensive certainty and accusation he has built up, Thorin grunts. “Do you deny you now prefer my heir, Billa? I will not trouble you if that is so.” He says, affecting a light tone.
“I do deny it!” she says, furious at his presumption. “With Fili! I might as well go to bed with Bofur.” She realises too late that this is not the best comparison to make, for although she only means it in the sense that, just as Fili views her as family, Bofur’s tastes to not tend towards her sort- but Thorin will not take it as such.
He proves her right when he glowers down at her. “And would you?” he asks.
“Do not even pretend to be so ridiculous.” Billa struggles not to snarl at him. “I want you, always you, it’s only ever been- oh.” She realises a moment too late what she has said and covers her mouth with a chilled hand, berating herself for being tricked into such a confession.
From the expression on Thorin’s stupid Oakenshield’s face, he is both delighted and perturbed by her slip of the tongue. “But you will not have me.” He says, simply and drunkenly. He takes a few steps towards her, until she can see him much better in the half light of her chamber. “You see now the nature of our dilemma.”
She feels small all of a sudden as she never has before, lonely and bereft in this bed meant for royalty with this perfect awful thick-headed frustrating dwarf smiling darkly at her. “Would you, though?” she asks, feeling she already knows the answer. He has made the existence of his continued regard no secret, though she cannot credit it.
Truly, does she fear another rejection? It hurts her head to think about it, perhaps from the mead she has drunk, perhaps from wounds only half healed over, so she says it aloud instead. “Would you truly keep me this time? I’m…I’m afraid.” It is foolish, probably, to cleave herself to him in this way, but there is to much churning within her not to speak.
“Afraid?” Thorin repeats, rolling the word over in his mouth. “Of me?” It is then that he gives a dark, bitter laugh. “I do not blame you, Billa mine. If you were to rise from your bed this instant I’d have you half clothed upon the floor.”
His words drive pink spots to her cheeks and send a deep ache between her legs. For all he likes to claim she has a clever mouth, it is he who can set her fluttering on fire with a sentence. She is not entirely sure she would stop him if he tried to do just that, if not for their daughter asleep in her cot.
Billa Baggins bites her lip. Is there so much to lose by being honest? Chances are he will not even remember this conversation in the morning. “I do not fear that.” She says pointlessly. She has never feared that, for she knows that in his right mind he would never hurt her. “That or you.” she supplements, for she wants the hollow longing in his eyes to go.
“What then?” Thorin asks, looking at his fists which are clenched before him as they always are when he cannot make sense of what is happening and is holding off from making a demand. Billa looks at him, head on one side. He is beautiful, her King Under the Mountain, drunk and destructive as he is.
But she is afraid, and she thinks she might know why. She has feared for years, feared knowing herself and recognising her reflection. Billa Baggins of Bag-end is a skin she fears she will no longer fit, now that she has been there and back and there again.
That is not how it is supposed to go.
“I fear what we may make of one another.” She says at last. “Can you not see…” She can barely force out the words, but it is enough, it seems, for Thorin is in front of her in shambling strides all of a sudden, cupping her face in one hand and gently angling it upwards.
“Could make it better, love.” he murmurs, and she can smell the ale on his breath. He is not asking anything, nor is he offering.
She sits there and fights the urge to lean against him, and does not know what to do. Denial makes a ready shield, so quickly, before his touch and its long-missed warmth can fill her with hope, she retreats into platitudes. “I never…with Fili. Him or anyone else.” she says, a little plaintive for she knows her closeness with Hamfast and with her cousin, for all its innocence, is galling to a king who once had a burglar for his own.
He is not trying to make her feel guilty, and she really, really doesn’t. So she can love him a little for that, her jealous old dwarf king. (and honestly who is she to talk of possession when she has seen dwarrowdams by the dozen around him this night and it upset her so much she left the feast early. hypocrite, the cold little voice in her mind whispers)
Thorin lays the back of his hand against her hair, which is curling freely now, grown long in the months since she left the Shire once again. “I had it from Dain’s men that the two of you bedded in the same room. I thought it a fancy, but I feared…”
Billa cannot stop herself then, she takes his hands in hers, frustrated and relieved all at once. “That was only two nights. For Freya.” she explains gently. “She was ill, and we did not want to le-”
She regrets her words almost instantly when Thorin’s face falls into a paroxysm of panicked horror, the drunken ardour leaving his eyes. She has scarce seen him move so fast as now when he darts to Freya’s bedside and picks her up in his arms, blankets and all, cradling her close to his chest.
“Ill, you said?” he growls, peeling back the blankets wrapped around their precious bundle. Freya makes an indignant, sleepy noise, confused at being woken so suddenly. For all she is fascinated by Thorin, the little one is still wary of being handled too much by any dwarrow.
Dain’s men Thorin said. She does not think on it especially, but the knowledge is cold inside her head. Thorin’s cousin had seemed like he was trying to apologise for something. She wonders if she could look any of them in the face after what they have done to her child, and feels colder still.
“There now, little snapdragon.” Thorin murmurs, shifting Freya as she begins to stir. “You are well. I’ll let nothing touch you here.” He presses his lips to Freya’s forehead, a wild look in his eyes. “What happened to her?” he demands, almost furious.
“It was a cold, Thorin.” Billa says dryly. Snapdragon, she thinks with a flare of suspicion. “Oh, do come along.” she says briskly, when Freya begins to fuss, and Thorin reluctantly surrenders their daughter to her arms. Billa soothes her daughter back to a fitful sleep, stroking her warm cheeks in wordless comfort.
She looks at Thorin then, and it may be a trick of the light but he seems to be sobering. “You are so lovely.” he says, and no, definitely still drunk. He sees the quirk of her eyebrow and shakes his head. “No. You are. Lovely, my girls, my treasures.”
His hands find her hair again. “Diamond.” he murmurs. “Rubies and white gold. For you, my azyungal.”
That is a word she knows all of a sudden, and she frowns at him. “We are not lovers, Thorin.” she says, wanting to sound waspish and not really achieving it.
He gives a slow chuckle, dropping down like a log onto the bed behind her. Startled, Billa twists around to see him smirking- tired, drunk and probably past his patience.
“We were.” he says, cupping the round of her hip and making an appreciative noise. “I will go if you wish.” he adds, oddly sincere.
“In your state?” Billa shakes her head, stilling when the motion causes Freya to startle. “You’ll probably fall of a ledge.” she mutters- he hears her though, and squeezes her hip, almost teasing.
“Do come along then.” he repeats her words, extending his arms and maybe a little mocking. She looks at him for a moment, half amazed, and then hands him their daughter. Freya immediately moulds herself to Thorin’s chest like a small rug and falls right back to sleep. Thorin soon follows her, eyes drooping and chest rumbling.
Billa looks at them both, asleep in her bed. A picture with their dwarvish features, long lashes over sharp blue eyes, rounded ears poking through wiry black hair. Thorin’s is streaked with silver and quite grey around the temples, but his beard is longer than it was, bound with a single clasp and thickly grown.
She likes it a little, Billa has to admit. But that is not all the new she can see. For along the line of her daughter’s jaw, receding the further away it gets from where her cheek meets her ear, is the faintest hint of a downy beard, barely thicker than the crop of hair on a newborn babe’s head.
Sitting up in a bed that is not her own, looking down at her daughter and the dwarf who gave her everything and still might take it away in spite of how irrational that fear suddenly seems, Billa Baggins tosses her head, and huffs.
*
Gleli son of Gali is having a bad day.
No, scratch that. A bad week. A bad month. A bad year, by the looks of things.
How was he to know he would end up here? (well, if he had known he’d certainly have steered clear of bitey little princesses, that’s for sure.)
Still, it’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. He’d be surprised if he sees the outside of this holding cell for another decade, given how furious Lord Dain and the King Under the Mountain seem.
He misses home, though. Misses his parents and little sister. Wonders what Dwlla thinks of him, napping a babe from her mother. He’ll be surprised if she doesn’t smack him one when he gets back.
If he gets back.
If she’ll even see him…
“Hey kid.” Hisses a voice all of a sudden, and Gleli practically jumps out of his skin. He hasn’t heard a single voice since they slung in here, unless you count Hanr shouting a load of stuff about titles and influential friends and how certain people were going to regret certain things very soon.
Gleli doesn’t think that’s likely, somehow.
“What?” he asks the figure leaning on the cell bars.
“Good news, kid. There’s a baggage train heading back to the Iron Hills and you and your little friends are on it.” The voice says, disdainful almost, but Gleli hardly hears that.
Thanking Mahal and whichever other Valar happen to be listening right now, he springs up and through the cell door as fast as his rescuer can unlock it. And then, just as fast, he finds himself pinned to the wall with a knife at his throat.
Fuck. Is all he can think, as the dwarf who freed him leans in close, pressing another knife to his ribs.
“You made me look like a fool, boy.” the dwarf hisses, and Gleli cannot fathom who it is. Instead, he focuses on not moving a muscle lest he lose his lifeblood. “I don’t much like it. But you know what I like even less?”
He doesn’t dare answer, and if he did the dwarf would probably slit his throat without a second thought. “Didn’t think so. I’ll tell you something. I don’t often make promises, but when I do, and little idiots with jumped up captains break them for me…well, I can’t just let you walk away.”
Gleli swallows, feeling the knife blade press against his throat through his beard, wicked sharp. And then, to his horror, it starts to cut.
Not his skin, but his beard. He chokes, but doesn’t struggle. The pain is bad enough. The dwarf saws through Gleli’s braids meticulously, until only the barest stubble remains, less than the archer prince under the mountain.
His cheeks burn with shame, and when the dwarf finally releases him, he has to blink back tears. It is a fitting punishment for what he’s done, he supposes, but how can he return home with the whole world to witness his shame. His family…
He feels he might faint. The dwarf who freed him, threatened him, cut him leads him down the darkened passage, and when they pass under a lantern he gets a glimpse of his tormenter’s face. Red hair, braided eyebrows and gaunt nose. It is a face he immediately wishes he could banish from his memory and never see again.
And knows he never will.
Gleli thinks he hears a scream in the distance, but when they finally come up on the outer side of the mountain into the pre-dawn air (colder than cold on his beardless face, Mahal save me), there is just his friends, if he can still call them that after what they’ve done.
What’s been done to them.
Rilin and Debur, both of them shorn to the quick like he is, eyes downcast in shame and postures hunched.
“Well, I think my work here is done.” The dwarf says, and Gleli thinks he realises who he is, but then the memory is gone again. “Not that you’d be tempted, but I wouldn’t recommend showing your faces anywhere near this mountain again. I’m told there’s two extremely angry princes and homicidal hobbitess who’d be more than happy to cut you to ribbons in more ways than one.” his voice is arch and rings in Gleli’s ears.
“Who are you?” Debur finally gets the courage to ask, as Rilin seemingly is choking on the stale, cold air. “Where’s Hanr?”
“Me? I’m someone who knows things.” The dwarf flicks out that knife and all three start backwards. “And don’t you worry ‘bout your esteemed captain. We’ll take good care of him.” The words are casual, thrown over the dwarf’s shoulder as he heads back inside the mountain, rising sun catching on the gold clasps of his three-peaked hair.
Some days later, in the bowls of the mountain, Hanr son of Halfren was found bled out on the floor of his cell. The head Guardsman was told it was likely a spear of some kind that had caused the injury, and was advised to ask the Spymaster General to unearth the culprit.
When asked, the spymaster laughed, the guardsman rolled his eyes and their associate, a wild haired dwarf with an axe embedded somewhere slightly unfortunate, offered to buy the spymaster and the guardsman a drink.