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The feast hall of Erebor glittered like a cavern full of captured stars.
Gold-veined pillars climbed toward vaulted ceilings carved with the deeds of Durin’s line, every inch illuminated by chandeliers wrought from crystal and hammered bronze. Hundreds upon hundreds of candles burned in iron sconces along the walls, their heat gathering beneath the stone like a living thing. Music thundered through the hall; deep drums, sharp pipes, the ringing of dwarven string instruments mixed with laughter and tankards crashing together in a ceaseless roar.
The battle was over and Bilbo had lived, they all had, somehow. As soon as the company was well, restorations began. Pillars were rebuilt, mines were reopened, and forges became fired up once more. It took the better half of a year and all of Bilbo’s sanity, but alas, the mountain stood just as proudly as it once did. It seemed as though the entire dwarrow population and then some came together in celebration.
Miners still dusted with stone powder stood shoulder to shoulder with jewelers in embroidered coats. Smiths with burn-scarred hands drank beside lords draped in silver chains. Children darted beneath tables, shrieking with delight as servants carried towering platters of roasted boar, glazed roots, honeyed nuts, river fish, dense dark breads, and pastries jeweled with candied fruits.
Bilbo stood at Thorin’s side near the great dais, smiling until his cheeks ached.
His royal consort attire weighed heavily upon him, thick velvet layered over lined wool, a fur mantle clasped with gold at his shoulders, jeweled cuffs biting faintly at his wrists. The high collar brushed constantly against the underside of his jaw and the gold threaded embroidery of the under-tunic scratched his skin. Heat pooled beneath every layer until he felt wrapped in damp fabric and fire. Still, he wore it.
When Thorin had first seen him dressed in the garments of Erebor’s royal house, his face had gone soft with wonder and reverence, plucking Bilbo’s heart strings like a harp. So there he stood, enduring the discomfort for his One.
A dwarf approached. Then another. And another.
“And how fares the Shire, Master Baggins?”
“Did you really step between Azog and the king?”
“Is it true hobbits eat seven meals a day?”
“How did you escape the spiders?”
“Are all hobbits so small?”
“Did Smaug truly speak to you?”
Questions crowded against him from every side. Friendly and well-meaning of course, but pressing nonetheless. Bilbo answered as politely as he could despite everything going on around him, sweat gathering on his brow.
Then another dwarf arrived. Then three more.
Hands clapped his shoulder and back, tankards were shoved toward him, and the questions kept coming and coming. Voices overlapped until words stopped sounding like words at all. The hall blurred with movement gold, red, candlelight, polished gems reflecting too brightly from every direction.
The air felt thick as he tugged subtly at the collar of his tunic. Someone laughed loudly near his ear and he flinched despite himself.
The band suddenly launched into another song. Faster, louder, triumphant, and the crowd erupted in shouts and cheers. Boots slammed against stone in rhythmic thunder making Bilbo jerk at the sudden cacophony.
He pressed his hands over his ears in instinct, breathing shallowly as the music vibrated through the floor and up into his bones. Around him dwarves were singing now, great booming voices filling every corner of the hall.
The lights seemed sharper somehow, every torch painfully bright as his clothing clung to him like chains. He could feel every seam, every bead of sweat beneath the layers, every brush of fabric. The noise became physical, pressing further and further into his skull until it hurt.
His fingers had begun fluttering anxiously against his sleeves, rubbing the embroidered edges over and over in frantic repetition and his heel tapped rapidly against the floor. No one noticed, or perhaps they did, Bilbo could no longer tell or care.
Hobbit parties were loud too, certainly. But they were outdoors, beneath open skies, lanterns swinging gently in trees while guests spread across wide fields. There was cool air to breathe, grass beneath bare feet, and room to move instead of being packed shoulder to shoulder amongst beings a head or more taller than him.
The music swelled again and something inside him snapped tight. Bilbo turned abruptly, muttering excuse me’s as he pushed and weaved through the crowd.
He hardly knew where he was going, only that he had to get out.
The hallway beyond the feast chamber was blessedly dimmer, quieter, but the relief did not come quickly enough. The noise still echoed through the mountain as his ears rang, breath hitching painfully.
He pulled at the fur mantle first, unclasping it with trembling fingers and nearly dropping it onto the floor, then the outer coat, and the heavy jeweled cuffs. It was still too much.
Bilbo hurried onward through unfamiliar corridors, trying to calm himself as the vastness of the mountain twisted around him. Every hallway looked like the same stone arches, carved pillars, and flickering lanterns.
He was utterly lost. Wonderful. He swallowed hard against rising panic, sighing in relief at the sight of a half-open door with cool night air drifting through it. Bilbo slipped outside as quickly as his feet would take him.
The balcony overlooked Erebor’s lower terraces, where distant lights glittered against the dark mountainside like scattered embers. The night sky stretched endlessly overhead, deep blue and crowded with stars. It was quiet, not silent, the faint pulse of music still drifted through the stone behind him, but blissfully quieter.
A small bench sat near the railing, and Bilbo collapsed onto it heavily, elbows on his knees as he pressed shaking hands against his face. His chest still hurt and his skin still crawled from the lingering sensation of too much everything.
Slowly, slowly, he rocked faintly where he sat.
When he was young, he would hide during parties in Hobbiton just like he was now.
He allowed himself to be submerged in a memory from long ago, far away from the lonely mountain.
*. * ·
Everyone was laughing and dancing as he curled beneath a table with his hands over his ears, trying not to cry because of the shrill laughter echoing and relentless scrape of fiddles that seemed to pierce directly behind his eyes.
He remembered overhearing whispers sometimes.
Odd little Bilbo Baggins. Much too sensitive, too fussy, too strange.
His breathing wouldn’t settle. Every inhale felt too quick and shallow, his chest tight and fluttering painfully. He hated that everyone else seemed able to enjoy parties while he always ended up hiding.
Then, a pair of familiar yellow slippers appeared beside the edge of the tablecloth. There was a soft rustle as Belladonna crouched down, smiling softly, not angry, not embarrassed.
“Well now,” she said gently, as though discovering him there was the most ordinary thing in the world. “I had a feeling I might find a certain little faunt beneath here.”
Bilbo scrubbed quickly at his eyes. “I’m not a baby.”
“No,” Belladonna agreed immediately, chuckling lightly. “You are certainly not that.”
Her voice carried no amusement, no scolding. Only warmth.
“The fiddles are too loud,” he mumbled miserably. “And Cousin Rosamunda keeps pinching my cheeks and everybody talks all at once and the lights are bright and, and—”
Belladonna’s expression softened with instant understanding.
She carefully lifted the edge of the tablecloth and slipped beneath beside him despite her fine party dress. The space was cramped for a grown hobbit, but she settled comfortably at his side as though she belonged there, and perhaps she did.
Bilbo kept staring at the grass. “Everyone thinks I’m strange.”
Belladonna was quiet for a moment.
Then, softly, “Do you know a secret, Bilbo?”
He glanced up reluctantly.
“When I was your age,” she confided, “I used to hide in the pantry during parties.”
Bilbo blinked.
“You did not.”
“I absolutely did,” she said solemnly. “Once for nearly an entire hour during Midwinter because your Great-Aunt Myrtle decided to sing directly beside me.”
Despite himself, Bilbo let out a tiny snort.
“She was terribly loud,” Belladonna continued gravely. “I thought my ears might fall clean off.”
Bilbo ducked his head, fighting a smile.
“But you’re good at parties.”
“Oh, darling.” Belladonna reached over and smoothed his curls back gently from his damp forehead. “No, I am practiced at parties.”
Bilbo frowned slightly at that, tilting his head in question.
“They are different things.” Her thumb brushed soothingly along his temple. “Sometimes the world feels very big to certain people. Noises feel louder, crowds feel heavier, lights seem brighter.” She offered him a small knowing smile. “You and I are rather alike in that way.”
Bilbo stared at her.
“You get like this too?”
“Oh yes,” she said simply.
“But…” He looked genuinely confused. “You don’t hide under tables.”
Belladonna laughed softly. “Not anymore, perhaps. Though I still think about it now and then.”
That coaxed another tiny smile from him.
“When I was little,” she continued, “my mother taught me ways to help when everything became too much. Would you like me to teach you?”
Bilbo hesitated before nodding.
“Very well.” Belladonna shifted so she sat cross-legged beside him. “First, breathe with me.”
She placed one of his small hands against her own chest.
“Watch carefully.”
Bilbo felt her breathe in slowly beneath his palm.
“One… two… three…”
Then out again.
“One… two… three… four…”
“Longer out,” she explained softly. “It helps tell your body you are safe.”
Bilbo tried to copy her, though his first breath wobbled badly.
“That’s all right,” Belladonna murmured at once. “Again.”
So they did.
In.
And out.
Again.
Again.
Gradually the awful tightness in his chest loosened little by little.
“There now,” Belladonna said quietly after several moments. “Better?”
“A little.”
“A little is wonderful progress.”
Bilbo leaned against her side, exhausted from the effort of calming down. Belladonna immediately wrapped an arm around him and kissed the top of his curls.
“Why are we different, Mama?” he asked after a while, voice small.
Belladonna was silent long enough that he thought perhaps she would not answer.
Finally she said, “Everyone is different in their own way, love. We just happen to feel things more deeply than most.”
Bilbo considered that.
“It hurts sometimes.”
“I know.”
“Do you wish you weren’t different?”
Belladonna’s arm tightened around him.
“No,” she answered softly. “Not always easily, mind you. But I think feeling deeply is not the worst thing a person can do.”
Bilbo traced anxious little patterns against the ground.
“Even if people think it’s odd?”
She hummed thoughtfully. “There will always be people who do not understand things they have never experienced themselves.” Her fingers combed gently through his curls again. “That does not mean there is something wrong with you, it’s simply a part of who you are.”
Then, she gently tilted his chin up to fully look at her, a small smile on her face.
“And I would not want you any other way.”
Bilbo finally smiled properly at that.
Belladonna smiled too, brushing her nose lightly against his.
“Would you like to stay here awhile longer?”
Bilbo contemplated for a moment before nodding.
“Then we shall.”
“Aren’t people waiting for you?”
“Mm. Probably.” She sounded unconcerned. “But they shall survive my absence admirably.”
She wrapped her arms around his small frame, resting her chin atop his head.
“Whenever the world becomes too loud,” she murmured, “you do not have to endure it alone, Bilbo.”
*. * ·
Bilbo missed her so fiercely his throat ached and he wished, not for the first time, that she were still here.
What would the dwarves think of him now? Their king’s consort hiding from such an important celebration like a frightened child. Would they whisper the same things the Shire once had?
And Thorin… Bilbo’s stomach twisted painfully. Thorin would have noticed his disappearance by now. The thought of disappointing him hurt worse than all the noise combined, making his heart rate picking up again.
He caught himself, recalling what his mother taught him that evening.
“One… two… three…”
Then out again.
“One… two… three… four…”
And so he did.
In.
And out.
Again.
Again.
The balcony door creaked open behind him.
Bilbo stiffened. Heavy footsteps, which he recognized immediately, crossed the stone slowly, then stopped.
Then, softly, “There you are.”
He felt the bench shift under an added weight, and for a long moment, Thorin said nothing.
Bilbo stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry.” He said, the words emerging automatically.
Thorin moved closer. “For what?”
“For leaving.” Bilbo swallowed hard. “For making a spectacle of myself. I tried to stay, I truly did, but it became too much and I—”
“Amrâlimê.”
Warm hands settled carefully over his own, and Bilbo felt himself slowly coming back to down earth.
When he looked up, the lines of Thorin’s face were etched with worry, and his gaze was soft.
“You need not apologize,” Thorin said gently.
Bilbo laughed weakly. “It is a rather poor quality for a consort to go hiding halfway through a royal feast.”
“Says whom?” Thorin asked. “Dwarves?”
Bilbo looked away.
Thorin crouched before him, the King Under the Mountain kneeling on cold stone without hesitation, and gently removed Bilbo’s hands from where they twisted anxiously together.
“You endured all of that for my sake,” Thorin murmured. “I saw you trying.”
The simple acknowledgment nearly undid him.
“It was loud,” Bilbo admitted quietly.
“I know.”
“And everyone kept touching me and speaking and asking so many questions-”
“I know."
Bilbo blinked rapidly.
“I should have realized sooner,” Thorin continued, thumb brushing lightly across Bilbo’s knuckles. “You grow strained in crowded halls long before others notice. I saw it in Laketown as well. I did not understand then.”
“You do not think me foolish? Or–or strange or–”
“Foolish?” he said, frowning, almost offended at the notion. “That you endured discomfort tonight because you love me?”
Bilbo’s eyes burned.
Thorin glanced toward the discarded royal garments abandoned near the doorway and huffed softly. “Frankly, I am impressed that any creature survives wearing that monstrosity for more than an hour.”
A laugh escaped Bilbo before he could stop it.
Thorin smiled faintly at the sound, and tension in his chest loosened slightly
“You are not too strange for Erebor,” he said firmly. “ And I apologize for my people’s eagerness, it seems they are quite fond of you already.”
Bilbo ducked his head, overwhelmed in an entirely different way now.
After a moment, Thorin rose and removed his own heavy outer cloak before draping it carefully around Bilbo’s shoulders instead, the wool was softer and it smelled of pine and metal and home.
“Stay here as long as you wish,” Thorin said quietly. “The mountain will still be celebrating when you are ready. And if you are not ready…” His expression gentled further. “Then we shall let them celebrate without us.”
For the first time all evening, Bilbo could finally breathe.