Chapter Text
It was a quiet April night, and I was leaning against the porch railing. The birds had just finished their evening chorus, the horses were put away, and the perimeter of the land had been checked not twice, but three times. I had been in charge of Bag End before, but not in April. Not when this part of New Hanover actually began to warm up and wasn’t just cold winds and rain, when people got more bold. Bag End had nearly been robbed when Bilbo was home, and now that he wasn’t…anything was possible, and it was the wise decision to take precaution.
“Right.” I said, to no one but myself, and slung my rifle back around my shoulders. I never intended to use it often, being an inexperienced shot, but at least I had experience. How Bilbo managed to survive despite never actually shooting a gun in his entire fifty years was a mystery. My cousin, in general, was a mystery. I chewed my lip as I reentered the house, watching my hands as I locked the door. Tonight would be uneventful, as the past three nights had been, and there was no reason to think otherwise. It was silly to think that, even though Bilbo said that a strange man had approached him the morning he left, telling him to be “wary of surprise that came knocking”.
The night continued to be mundane as I engaged in a simple evening routine of dressing down for the night, washing my face, and settling in the armchair by the west window. That one had the best view of the willow tree in the yard, and since I was a teenager I had found myself wondering if the tree was beckoning to me, waving me forward with sweeping branches. Bilbo thought the idea was all too romantic.
Everything was so mundane and familiar that I had to catch myself from falling asleep in the chair with one of Bilbo’s novels - until there was a great commotion at the door, a mix of shouting and knocking. I started up instantly, and cursed myself when I remembered that the west window only provided a view to the side of the home, and not the back or front of it.
Fetching the rifle from above the mantle for the second time that night, I made my way to the door. The commotion had not stopped, and I could hardly make out what was being said.
“State your business or leave us be!” I shouted, pressing my shoulder against the door. Every pounding knock vibrated through my body.
“Please, help us!” Cried a man’s voice - a young man. “My brother, he’s been shot, you’re the first sign of shelter I’ve seen - I beg you!”
I hesitated. The voice sounded desperate, but I hadn’t heard any shots fired earlier in the evening. If the other man had been shot so long ago, then there was likely little hope, depending where the wound lay. But, there still could be time. I stepped back, and opened the door, rifle in hand.
They were a sorry sight, the two men. The first was dark-haired, looking younger, with stubble that seemed to be just coming in. The other, the man’s brother, was blond and despite his head hanging low I could make out some facial hair, and the bullet wound just underneath his collar that was hard to miss. I bit my lip and prepared for the worst.
“Please, miss.” The man, no, the boy repeated, struggling to hold up his brother.
“Yes, yes. Of course, let me-” I started, setting the rifle by the door and helping the pair inside. With the movement the blond brother groaned, and I could hear his ragged breaths as we slowly made our way through the parlor and into the dining room.
“You’ll need to help me get him up on the table, I’ll need to see the wound.” I said, and the boy nodded shakily. With a heave, the other man was up, his eyes half-shut and his breaths occasionally broken by pained gasps. The boy moved his hair out of his face - both of theirs was just past the shoulder - and partially unbuttoned his brother’s shirt.
I sucked in a breath, trying not to throw up. It was a nasty thing, a large wound done by a large firearm, possibly a shotgun as I could hardly make out where the bullet had entered, with so much blood. My original estimation was wrong, the shot was not taken just below the collarbone, but in the upper ribs. I wasn’t a surgeon - I had sewn up wounded animals before, but this…
“I’m not sure what can be done for him besides relieving pain. I’m sorry.”
We remained in silence for a moment, save for the sound of struggling breaths.
“That’s Fili.” The boy said, his voice low. “My older brother. We were camped out by the Kamassa, near the border to Lemoyne, ‘til someone came up to us. Threatened us, but Fili wouldn’t stand down, even though I told him to. Gave him what we had but it was too late.”
“And you ran to the first sign of shelter in the direction of town.” I supplied, though I frowned. Bag End was a short ride to the Kamassa, so surely I would have heard the noise? And surely, they would have found help sooner if - it didn’t matter. A young man was dying. “I’ll fetch him something for the pain.”
The boy nodded in thanks. “Kili.” He said, and I nodded with a strained smile as I left the pair together. It was truly awful, especially if Kili was as young as I expected him to be. He couldn’t be older than eighteen, surely, though Fili’s age was harder to decipher. It didn’t take long to root through the medicine cabinet for a bottle of laudanum, almost entirely full.
“This should keep him comfortable.” I said as I returned to the dining room, to find Kili bowing over his brother, holding his hand tight. “Would you like to…”
“Yes!” Kili shouted and reached for the bottle, though he quickly looked down at the ground again. “Please. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.” I said. As I passed the bottle to Kili, he nearly dropped it when another round of knocking broke the somber air. These weren’t frantic as the last, but were powerful, purposeful. We both shot up straight, but Kili didn’t look surprised, instead…hopeful.
With a look back at the brothers, I crept to the door, listening for any voices. The stranger knocked again, and I swung the door open in the middle of the racket, which surprised the stranger as planned. He was taller than the two brothers, broad shouldered with long, dark hair. His eyes were a startling blue, and he looked oddly familiar. He glowered down his pointed nose at me, but before he could speak, his eyes landed on the sight in the dining room.
“Kili.” He said, his voice gruff and low, and I stepped out of the way. The man first went to Kili and clapped him on the shoulder before moving to Fili, and they both bowed their heads as Kili recounted what had happened. When the stranger looked up at me again, he nodded in thanks, or perhaps just acknowledgement, I didn’t know. The situation was odd. Fili had been administered some laudanum and looked to be asleep or at least at peace, so he couldn’t tell his perspective of events.
“How did you find your…” I began, realizing the man had never introduced himself.
“Sons.” The man replied, looking over my shoulder at the door. “Frerin, and my sons, Fili and Kili. Though I suppose they told you that already.” He said, and gave an odd look to Kili. “I returned to an empty camp, and followed their tracks here.”
“I see.” I nodded slowly, looking between the three of them. I approached the table, and Kili handed him back the bottle.
“He’s not writhing around anymore. Thank you.” Kili sighed.
“Of course.” I gave the three some space, returning the laudanum to the medicine cabinet. As I tucked it behind the various tinctures and clutter, I realized something odd. There was no light in the washroom, so I found a match and lit it, holding the bottle up close. The bottle was empty. I swore under my breath.
There was no way in hell that Fili was asleep with a wound that big, not with all the buckshot and…but there was no buckshot, was there? I couldn’t tell where the bullet had entered, so who was to say there was a bullet at all? I placed the bottle back in the cabinet and paced the room. There would be no bullet if there was no altercation, no gun fired in the first place. If there truly were shots fired near the border, they would have been closer to the outskirts of St. Denis anyway, as opposed to coming across a home just by chance. “Frerin” seemed upset with Kili for telling me his name, which was another problem. He looked familiar, like someone I should have known, but I couldn’t quite place it.
I stepped back out into the dining room, and cleared my throat. “Ah, Frerin, was it?”
He nodded, looking at me strangely. “Yes.”
“May I speak with you, for a moment?” I asked, hoping that I seemed none the wiser, just concerned for the wellbeing of his son.
The man nodded, and followed me into the hallway. I let him walk forward a few paces, letting a healthy but not suspicious distance fall between us.
“I’m afraid your son will not survive his attack.” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m sorry.”
The man seemed not to react at all, which set me further on edge. The dim light of the oil lamp seemed to further muddy his features, though I had a suspicion. There were rumors of a band of outlaws roaming around Lemoyne, and I had seen posters for a certain man who also had blue eyes and dark hair.
“...His brother gave him some laudanum, to keep him out of pain. He said you were camped by the Kamassa, near the border?”
The man nodded and turned around. “Yes, they were. I was comin’ back from a job when I heard the shot, and when I returned, they had fled. I told you, I had followed their tracks here.”
“Yes, of course. It’s just odd…I’m certain I would have heard the shot from here.”
The man paused, and when he spoke again he sounded tense. “You must have not heard it. You and your cousin live outside of Van Horn, surely there's-”
“I would have.” I interrupted him, taking a small step backwards. “I can assure you, if you and your sons were camped near the border, I would have heard it. And I never told you I had a cousin.”
The man was silent. I chewed my lip and swallowed the lump in my throat. I was right. The posture, the eyes, the nose. This man was Thorin “Oakenshield”, the head of the Sons of Durin, plastered on posters from St. Denis to Tumbleweed, and I had been stupid enough to allow him and his cohorts inside, and now I was defenseless. Defenseless, but reckless all the same.
“I’m not stupid, I’ve figured you out. You’re Oakenshield, and you’ve come here with your boys to rob me or god knows what. Well, I won’t have it.” I said, bracing my shoulders. Thorin looked unimpressed, and refused to respond as he turned around to face me. In the dim light he looked menacing and almost larger than life, the shadows acting like a set of armor. I was fucked. The rifle was still in the parlor by the door, and my revolver was in my bedroom, which was past Thorin, who seemed more than capable of preventing me from getting there. There was a chance that I could tackle the man, though that was unlikely. My only hope was to run past him and retrieve the revolver.
“It’s just you and me in here. One of yours is fighting death on my kitchen table and I know the other won’t leave him, so what’ll stop me from either turnin’ you in or taking care of your folk myself?”
“That won’t happen.” Thorin said, his voice low and almost a growl. With a breath I rushed at him, but Thorin was faster, and the next thing I knew, my feet were out from under me and something collided with my head.