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Birds cawed in the distance, but otherwise, there was silence. Thorin lay on his deathbed, staring sightlessly up at the wall of the tent.
He hadn’t heard birds when he’d lain on this cot in the mortal world. Whether they had truly been there or not, he didn’t know. He’d been hardly conscious at the time, and when he did wake for a few short minutes, he’d had eyes and ears only for Balin, Oín, and Bilbo.
The birds existed here. They were vultures, mostly. Sometimes, one of the eagles would descend to desecrate a corpse, but Thorin didn’t believe that had truly happened, and so it would not occur in this place, beyond those times when his memories wavered and even worse happenings spewed forth.
This was not the real battlefield.
The silence was proof enough of that. As Thorin had lain dying, there had been others around him in the same position. The next tent over, and the next after that, and all the way down the line, dwarves and men and elves had cried and gasped and screamed their last. Outside the tents in the open air were shouts for aid and wails of grief. There had been hoofbeats and boots pounding the ground, boxes of supplies dragged or dropped on the ground.
Here there was silence, because Thorin was alone.
He sat up on the cot, setting his boots on ravaged soil, and looked down at his own bloodstains on the sheet. He remembered those moments before his death, as the fact of Kíli’s loss settled into his bones. He’d watched Fíli fall to his death, but Balin had been forced to inform Thorin that his other nephew had passed into the halls as well. Before that moment, Thorin had thought that perhaps he might yet pull through, but the knowledge that he’d gotten both of his nephews killed was like another blade to his gut. What was there for him, after that? If he lived, what would it be for? He would never produce an heir of his own body, and Fíli and Kíli were gone. Thorin could rule over Erebor, a worthless shell of the king his people deserved, until his heart gave out and Dain took the throne anyway.
And then Bilbo had come, fetched by the wizard.
Yet another whom Thorin had wronged, had betrayed. Bilbo, a mere hobbit, brave enough to defy a mad dwarven king, who had nearly been killed for it by one the who had claimed to love him. Thorin had felt life slipping away from him, but as long as he got the chance to deliver his final words to the one whom he had hurt the most, he knew he would not regret letting himself fall away from the mortal world.
Perhaps, he had thought, in the beyond, there would be silence. But he had been wrong.
The birds cawed in the distance. Thorin sighed, lowering his head until he cradled it in his hands.
Beyond, he had learned, there was only more pain.
His nephews had arrived at the halls first, perverting the order of life and death as it ought to be. Thorin’s parents had been at the entrance to the halls, his grandparents, his brother. Brothers-in-arms, friends, ancestors, waiting to welcome him, joyously to hold him again, to break bread and share ale, to celebrate eternity in bliss. Nothing that Thorin deserved. Nothing he ever could deserve, after the failures of his life.
They hadn’t understood. Fíli and Kíli perhaps the least of all, and it was the pair of them who had badgered him the most at first, while Thorin built up the scene of his worst crimes in his own part and parcel of the afterlife, recreating from memory what he could never be allowed to forget: the field on which he had allowed so many to die, in his weakness. His nephews had appeared on these bloodstained grounds, whole and hearty, had paled in shock and reddened in anger to see him mourning over their broken bodies. They had argued with him, pleaded. Finally, Balin had fetched them away, glowering at Thorin as his own peaceful afterlife was interrupted.
Thorin had never asked any of them to put aside their bliss for him. They deserved the joy of the afterlife; he alone did not.
But the dwarves he loved were not so easily put off. Again and again they invaded his damnation, trying to force forgiveness on him, as though his sins were so mild that they could be brushed away. Thorin’s father came first, then his mother, then his grandfather. Frerin, who knew him best, didn’t try for a long while. And then, unwilling to sully a dwarf’s creation by entering it himself, Mahal sent Bilbo.
Not the real Bilbo.
“Thorin,” someone said.
‘Will they never desist?’ Wearily, Thorin raised his head to face the invader, then stiffened when he saw that it was another foul recreation of his hobbit. Was it one of Mahal’s untouchable mirages, or perhaps Kíli, this time, wearing Bilbo’s face? It was unforgivable, whatever it was. And although it looked exactly like Bilbo in the last moments Thorin had beheld him, bloody and dirty and exhausted, it was obvious that this facsimile was not the hobbit Thorin had loved.
The thing lit up to see him, a disgusting mimic of the way Bilbo had once beheld him. Thorin snarled.
“Do you think me such a fool that I cannot see through this guise? I am not so easily swayed by tricks.”
The false Bilbo looked down at its own hands, tugged at its ghostly mithril armor and bloodied trousers. “Alas! These old things! Why, I’ve not thought of them in many a year. How strange.”
It shook its head and focused instead on Thorin. Its upper lip twisted in a gross imitation of the way Bilbo’s nose would twitch, at times, the way he would smack his lips. And then the counterfeit smiled, sickly sweet, and stared at him in open adoration as the true Bilbo never had.
“You are… so very beautiful,” it said, rapturous. “I feel somehow that I have forgotten details of your face, though I see it all the time, in my dreams. Would you smile for me, my love? It will pain me when I wake, but for now, as I sleep… I would dearly like to see it again.”
Thorin only glared. Whoever was behind the puppet had earned his wrath by stealing Bilbo’s visage. To mock what they had shared was salt on the wound, but he would not reward them by engaging with their pathetic act.
“No, no, of course not. I don’t deserve that, do I? I will wake up to the sun, as I always do, and return with the memory of your censure, as I deserve.”
Thorin snorted in agreement.
The false Bilbo wandered away to the opening of the tent, reaching out with one trembling hand to lean on the pole that spliced the entrance in two.
“This was the worst day of my life,” it mused. “You know, I think it looks different this time, than it normally does. I used to dream of the Battle of the Five Armies– that is what they came to call it– all the time, in my younger days. When I first returned to the Shire. Two, or three, or even four nights out of seven. And of course, it was with me all my waking hours. Well, it could hardly be otherwise, could it? The worst day of my life, and all my fault.
“But I lived on! Ah, I lived on– though the days pass strangely when one feels that they ought not to pass at all!– and with time, the most bitter edge of the memories faded, and the dream came less often. I wrote a book about our journey– did you know that?– the fourteen of us, and of course, our old friend Gandalf– that meddler!– as well. It took me quite some time, to get my notes together, and make any real headway in it. And of course, there was my nephew, dear Frodo, who was a quiet fauntling, relatively speaking. But even so, looking after him took up much of my time. So it wasn’t until many years after the battle that I realized you had lied to me, here. Yet, how could it be otherwise?”
The mirage’s vacuous ramblings trailed off as it stared out towards the battlefield. Though that final, murmured inquiry was an obvious ruse to draw him into conversation, Thorin’s offense was great enough that, scowling, he took the bait. “Lied? What lie?”
“Oh!” The false Bilbo started, turning back towards Thorin and the inside of the tent as though he had forgotten Thorin’s presence. It huffed, and then adopted once again that saccharine loving expression that better belonged on an old dwarf recounting his youth than a middle-aged hobbit speaking of war and loss. “When you told me that you forgave me, of course.”
Such an insult was too great to bear, even if this vision had been sent by Mahal himself. Thorin stood from the cot, squaring himself to threaten the usurper, but it tutted, waving at him in a way that was, truly, a close mimic of the hobbit it copied.
“Now, now, I’ll have no theatrics from you. This is my nightmare and my penance, I’ll not bear any heroic insistences or your typically dwarven commentaries about ‘great deeds’ and ‘glories’ and how they ‘clear debts’ or such malarky. For I caused your death, and the deaths of your nephews. I have accepted that. I do not hide it. I do not deny it. I do not pretend that I deserve your forgiveness, any more than I deserved the kindness you visited upon me here, on this day. Indeed, I wonder if that is not why I have returned here, more and more often these past months. Perhaps I allow myself to forget, too much, the guilt I carry. In Rivendell I have spent my last years, reading– such incredible books, Thorin!– and looking at the most beautiful maps; and listening to the songs the elves wrote about us, and, naturally, telling them where they got it wrong; and enjoying all the luxuries with which my dear friend Elrond has appointed me. And more and more, I find, I return to you, here. And I walk upon the Ravenhill, and I see Fíli’s blood where it flew across the rocks and the ice when he fell from the heights. And I see Kíli’s body where he fell– which, did you know, I didn’t really see that for myself; at the time I was unconscious, struck down by a goblin. And I come here, and I see… you…”
It looked like Bilbo, as he had been, but the expressions it made were strange. The way it spoke was similar to how Bilbo had once spoken, but not as measured, not as clever. And of course, its words were ridiculous. It was the worst copy that had ever been sent to him. There was no possible way to pretend that it was the Bilbo whom Thorin had known.
But there was something entrancing about it nonetheless. Something magnetic in its movements. Something of wisdom and memory in its bright eyes. Something of pain in its bearing. Thorin was curious: he did not stop the thing’s monologue.
“I see you…” the facsimile said, its eyes shining with unshed moisture. “And I confess to you. I apologize, from the depths of my heart. I throw myself on your mercy! I tell you!: I have realized my folly. I withheld the Arkenstone from you on the word of the dragon. He told me that it would drive you mad! And you were already beset by the gold sickness! I feared that, if there was any chance of a recovery, handing over that entrancing rock would snuff it out. But that was not the case, was it? The heart of the mountain– your mountain. Having it would have brought you back, wouldn’t it?” Tears began to fall down the mimic’s bare cheeks, leaving behind shining trails. “If I had only done as you asked and brought the stone to you… things would have been different. You would not have died on this day. Fíli and– and Kíli,” the false Bilbo choked on the name, “would not have died. It was my fault. All of it was my fault.”
“What new torment is this?” Thorin whispered, stunned.
None had ever been so cruel when they came to cajole him from his resting place. They told Thorin that he ought to forgive himself. They shouted at him, they tried to drag him away. They tried to embrace him. They argued with him. They sent these false moving images of the one Thorin had betrayed, which begged him with sick words of love, to leave the battlefield and his shame behind. None had ever made their counterfeit Bilbos cry.
“And you tell me you forgive me.” The facsimile chuckled, a wet, bitter thing. “You speak of my courage and wisdom and say that you wish to part in friendship. A kindness, I came to understand, in time. You were so much older than I was, in those days. You had seen so much more of the world, so much death. You knew that I would realize the depth of my culpability and you sought to protect me from its burden. And I love you for that kindness. I love you for so many other reasons. But your kindness, in its many, sometimes strange forms– yes. I remember that.”
“I did not lie!” Thorin ordained with all the force he could muster.
Infuriatingly, the false Bilbo only laughed. “No, you wouldn’t see it as that, would you? No doubt you decided that you owed me something– you dwarves are very concerned with debts, I have learned. But I no longer pretend to myself that you would have forgiven me if you had not known it was the last time we would speak.”
“How dare you accuse me of rendering falsehoods with my final words? Which of you is it?! Balin? Fíli? Amad?”
“All passed on, and with you in the halls of your ancestors, I imagine,” the monstrous image mused, looking past Thorin as though he weren’t shouting at him in a small tent. “I wonder… Some of the texts suggest that the dead may look to those they left behind, in the lands of the living. I wonder: do you ever look out at me? Or do you prefer to forget this little old hobbit, who caused so much grief?”
That was too much. Thorin stormed across the small distance between them and shoved. The puppet, whatever its makeup, had only a hobbit’s weight, and it near flew out the open flaps of the tent, landing on the torn up ground beyond. It stared at him in shock and confusion as he came to stand over it, as menacing as he knew how to be.
“Begone, you loathsome thing! Spit at me, lash me, beg me as you will, but I will not suffer you to take his form any longer! Release Bilbo’s visage or I’ll tear it off you myself!”
“Thorin,” the intruder said, the imitated voice wobbling strangely behind the mask, and Thorin saw that it was in fact a mask over a being, not a puppet. “I don’t understand… this has never happened before.”
Thorin knelt beside them, whoever they were, and dragged them up from their back to a seated position by the false mithril collar. “Show yourself,” he demanded.
“I– I will try,” they stuttered, closing their eyes tightly.
For a moment, nothing happened. And then.
And then Thorin was holding the lapels of a light brown coat in his hands, wrapped around the shoulders of an elderly hobbit with white hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Blue eyes peered up at him from behind the lenses, curious and nervous. The hobbit’s nose twitched.
“...Who are you?” Thorin whispered. “This cannot be… another lie–”
“Well, that really does take the cake, does it not?” the hobbit muttered, glaring up at him. “I should have woken up, shouldn’t I? Such fanciful invention– the real Thorin never would have had trouble recognizing me. I must have had too much Old Tobey before bedtime! Yes, that’ll be it, one must always remember not to overdo it in the evenings…”
The hobbit patted at his pockets in such a familiar way, brushing aside Thorin’s hands. He let go of the coat, letting the other do as they wished.
“Not here,” the hobbit said, desisting from his search of the coat and the cream-colored waistcoat which lay beneath it. “But of course, it wouldn’t be, now would it? I didn’t have my pipe with me the day you died,” he said apologetically, looking up at Thorin once again. “And I never get to smoke with you when I dream. Now, that would be quite the thing!”
“You’re not dreaming,” Thorin told the hobbit, “but perhaps I am.”
The hobbit’s head drew back abruptly and there was a familiar downturn of his lips. He suddenly turned his head, craning his neck one way and then the other.
“No, I’m quite sure that this is the field on which the Battle of the Five Armies was fought. And that makes it quite clear that this is my dream. I have it often, as I told you. It is my penance.”
The hobbit nodded then, just once, and it was exactly the motion that Bilbo would make after finishing a statement, as though he were reviewing his own words and agreeing with himself.
“...Bilbo?” Thorin whispered. “Can it be you?”
“Of course it is me,” the hobbit stated mullishly, glaring now. “You, on the other hand, are acting entirely strange. Why, Thorin has never shoved me to the ground in such a way. And then– Well!– to insist that I am not myself? How absurd. And rather beside the point of it all, to be sure. Why, I might as well not come here at all. Bothersome, waste of a nightmare,” he mumbled. “Shoving and saying silly things. Not much of a punishment, I’ll say.”
“This isn’t your punishment, this is mine.”
“Poppycock,” Bilbo declared. “I am here to relive your death, as I always do. I deserve to be here.”
“No, I am here to relive my failures, the deaths of my kin, as I have since my death,” Thorin proclaimed in turn.
It was a rather strange disagreement to be having. Thorin had argued the rationale behind his eternal ensconcement in this field of battle with various kin over the years, but he’d never had someone argue that they deserved to be here instead of him.
“You were under the influence of a kind of madness,” Bilbo explained, affecting easy, rolling tones that made him sound as though he’d explained this exact point many times before. “You fought it off eventually, but your actions before that cannot be laid entirely on your shoulders. You gave your life to defeat the Pale Orc and secure Erebor for your people. No one can say that you carry any debts forward.”
Thorin could only gawk at his deepest shame being brushed aside like a minor faux pas.
“Whereas I caused the death of people I loved, by choices I made while entirely in my own mind,” the elderly hobbit continued. “It was not by design, not by intention, but it happened. There is no way to take it back, only to carry it onward. As I have done, for all these years. It will never be any other way. That is why I come back here, in my dreams, to relive the last moments I will ever share with you. To apologize, to beg your forgiveness, to receive it and know that it is not true, that I do not deserve it. That is why I wake, back home in my bed, and remember that you are gone from me forever, and will always be. ”
Tears welled and spilled down Bilbo’s aged cheeks again even as he spoke with calm certainty. Thorin felt the burning behind his own eyes, horror and denial welling in his chest.
“Did my final words mean nothing to you?” he demanded, forcing the words out through an aching throat. “My apologies, my blessings, the absolution I granted you. How can you ignore my dying wishes?”
Bilbo vigorously waved away Thorin’s words again as though they did not ring with righteousness. “Forgiveness, even if it were sincerely given, would not change the consequences of my actions. You are gone from me, Thorin,” he cried, screwing his eyes shut. “No amount of dreaming can change the fact that even when, some day, my sleep does not end, I will wake up somewhere apart from you and it will ever be so– for dwarves and hobbits do not share an afterlife. I will wake up and know that I can never really apologize and I will never really be forgiven, that there can be no forgiveness for what I allowed to happen.”
“This is the afterlife, Bilbo!” Thorin said aghast. “I have been here for decades, would I not know?”
The hobbit frowned, and drew from his waistcoat pocket a handkerchief, which he used to dab at his face. He then squinted up at Thorin for a good long while, humming and then looking away and muttering to himself and gazing back at him again in thought.
“This is the afterlife, you say? Well, that would be quite unusual. I can think of no reason why it would be so. But, I must admit, this is rather a longer dream than what I usually experience, and much stranger. There must be a reason for the deviation. But, I should not listen to a figment of my own consciousness. Therein lies madness,” he chuckled at himself.
“If I am to grant that you are not a heartless act put on by my kin, or a lifeless puppet of my Creator,” Thorin pointed out with only a small amount of bitter irony, “then you must acknowledge I am no figment of your consciousness.”
The handkerchief was used to wipe down Bilbo’s glasses before he perched them back on his nose.
“Hmm…” the hobbit considered. “No, I don’t believe I have to.”
Thorin glared. ‘The gall!’ “You grew as stubborn as a dwarf, I see.”
“Ha! Gandalf likes to say that. Now I am more certain than ever that I am in fact dreaming.”
Bilbo grinned at Thorin smugly, as if he had proven something beyond that he was capable of being even more irritating than Thorin’s nephews.
“I will prove it to you,” Thorin said firmly.
He looked to the side, where there stood, in the middle of the mess of tents, a door.
Bilbo startled to see it, then stared, then peered curiously. “That has never been here before! Why, I daresay I’ve never seen it before in my life!”
“It is the exit to this place,” Thorin explained. “And if we leave here, and I learn that you are a false creation, I will return here and take an axe to it, so that none may ever disturb me again.”
“But, I cannot leave!” Bilbo protested. “Even if it is as you say, and this is the afterlife– how can I go on? Bask in the eternal fields and orchards? Meet my parents and grandparents, join them in peace and contentment, knowing that you and Fíli and Kíli are off in some distant hall, dead because of my actions? Knowing that I will never have the chance to offer my apologies to you, not at such a time that you are free to shun them? No,” he said firmly, crossing his arms over his round hobbit belly. “No, I will stay here. And you can shout all you like, Thorin, but if it’ll be your moodiness and your ungracious ways for eternity, then so it will be! Why should I go off and be happy when you died in this soulless tent because of me?!”
Thorin was struck by a horrible thought, even as he put all of his energy into not rolling his eyes. ‘Is this what I have sounded like for the past several decades?’
“Do you really believe that I, or Fíli or Kíli, would wish suffering upon you?” he demanded. “That even if we blamed you for our deaths– on the battlefield, defending our home, as you say– we would wish for you to reject the halls of bliss?”
Such arguments had not worked on Thorin. But perhaps they would work on a hobbit.
Bilbo’s glare and the jut of his wrinkly chin put paid to that thought.
“You are not yet so bloody-minded as I,” Thorin warned. “I know you, Bilbo Baggins. Your determination to be guilt-ridden and melancholy will not stand up to two moon-eyed young dwarves.”
Bilbo’s lower lip followed the forward thrust of his chin, but the yelp and flail Bilbo made as Thorin picked him up bodily overrode his stubbornness.
“Put me down this instant!” Bilbo yelled, pushing uselessly at Thorin’s chest and arms. “I’ll not be dwarf-handled by you, Thorin Oakenshield!”
Thorin strode forth and kicked the exit door, and, though it was of solid dwarven design and ought not to have so much as rattled in its frame, it swung open easily. Beyond it was a stone corridor, lit by a different light than the pale sun of the battlefield. And in that corridor, impatiently as ever, Thorin’s nephews waited, joy growing across their eternally young faces.
Unwillingly, suspiciously, and many decades later than they ought to have arrived, Thorin and Bilbo crossed the threshold to the halls of bliss and left their battlefield behind.