FIC: Slumbers Deep and Dreams of Gold (Hobbit, Thorin/Bilbo)
Title: Slumbers Deep and Dreams of Gold
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Aulë, Thorin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3000
Summary: Bilbo Baggins, late of Bag End in Hobbiton, now of Avallónë in the Undying Lands, is invited to go on another journey with Gandalf.
Bilbo Baggins, late of Bag End in Hobbiton, now of Avallónë in the Undying Lands, was sitting on a silver bench set with pearls and watching the swan boats sail in and out of the glassy harbor, on their way to Alqualondë and Tirion. He was working on a new poem, sounding out a line that refused to scan correctly, when he heard a rustling behind him as of great wings. He turned to see a figure of radiant light, clad in the purest samite, and he leapt to his feet and bowed deeply. "My Lord," he murmured. "Good morning."
"Don't be ridiculous!" snapped a familiar and irritable voice, and when Bilbo looked up again the figure was Gandalf, in his old grey robes and pointed hat. "Bowing and My Lording me, what has the world come to."
And then he smiled at Bilbo, and Bilbo smiled back.
"Are you doing well?" Gandalf asked as they walked slowly together through the shining streets of that city, under streaming silken banners and past laughing elvish faces.
"How could I not be?" Bilbo shook his head in wonder. "I feel--not young, precisely. Better than young. I feel new. I've explored every street of Avallónë, and I've even climbed the hills around it, walked around the whole island. Did you know that from the heights in the north you can see the mountain of Taniquetil on the mainland? Like a shaft of light, gleaming." He blushed slightly as Gandalf looked at him. "I've been working on some poems," he explained.
"I would be honored to hear them sometime," Gandalf said gravely.
Bilbo waved a dismissive hand, reddening even more in delight. "Sometimes I wander alone, and sometimes some of the elves come with me and we sing under the stars together and tell stories."
"You seem happy. I'm pleased."
"Oh, happy," Bilbo said. "It seems such a small word, now. Complete. Healed in body and soul, and nearly ready for..." He paused. "The next great Adventure, I suppose it is," he said. "I would have been afraid of that, once, but now it seems merely the next step." He smiled up at Gandalf. "Would you like a spot of tea? We're almost to my place."
"Lead the way, good hobbit," Gandalf said. "You said 'nearly' ready," he added as they came to the door of Bilbo's dwelling--a hobbit-hole, of course, set into a jade-green hill, incongruous among the soaring elvish architecture, yet somehow right.
"Well, yes," said Bilbo as he put the kettle on, and for a while he merely bustled around getting together the tea and some jam and scones. He didn't speak again until the tea was poured and the scent of camomile and lavender filled the hobbit-hole. "It's just that--something is still missing," he said, looking puzzled. "It's like I'm still waiting for something." He took a thoughtful bite of scone, gazing off into the distance. "I've been here such a long time now. They've been happy times, but even Frodo and Sam have gone on now, and I'm still here. I don't know why I don't feel ready to leave yet." He shrugged. "I just know I don't."
Gandalf finished his tea and four whole scones in comfortable silence. Then he brushed the crumbs from his beard and stood, his hat bending against the ceiling. "Bilbo Baggins," he said, "Come with me."
"Where are we going?" Bilbo asked as he pattered after the wizard through the streets of Avallónë and down to the docks. "And will we be back for dinner?"
Gandalf grumbled something about hobbits and their stomachs and gestured at one of the great swan-boats. The elves smiled and bowed as they approached, as if they had been expecting them.
"This is not your last great Adventure, not yet," Gandalf said, turning to Bilbo. "But would you care to go on a...relatively small one, with me?"
"With you, Gandalf?" Bilbo beamed up at him. "Why yes, of course, anywhere! Um, so, where are we going?" he asked as the wizard swept onto the great white ship.
"We are going further in," Gandalf said.
: : :
"Shadowfax!" Bilbo nearly fell off the ship as he leaned out to wave at the great silver stallion waiting on the shore. Shadowfax raised his head and whinnied to hear his voice. "Oh, how often I envied young Peregrin that he got to ride him."
"Well, now it is your turn," said Gandalf. "If you behave yourself and do not tug his mane."
Bilbo cast him a reproachful glance as they stepped off the silver dock and onto the diamond-bright sands of the Pass of Light. As his foot touched the sand, he felt a strange shock go through him--not painful, but as if a gust of wind shook him like a gossamer curtain.
"Yes," said Gandalf at his gasp, "You are the first mortal to set foot on the mainland of Valinor since the world was sundered and the Undying Lands removed forever from it."
Bilbo took a moment to get his breath. "Well," he said eventually, "I'm honored, to be sure! Too much of an honor for a mere second-rate burglar, indeed."
Gandalf smiled. "But a first-rate hobbit, and that is saying a great deal."
Shadowfax had trotted up to them across the sand; he nickered and lipped at Bilbo's hair. "I wish I had an apple for you, old boy," said Bilbo.
"There are apples aplenty in the forests we shall ride through, and sweet grass to graze on the way," Gandalf said as he lifted Bilbo onto the horse and leapt lightly up himself.
"How long a trip will this be, exactly? Apples are all well and good, but grass doesn't suit a hobbit's digestion."
"It will be as long as it is, Mr. Baggins!" Gandalf glowered, then his expression softened. "But no worries, I have brought provisions to satisfy even a hobbit."
"That's good," sighed Bilbo, settling onto Shadowfax's broad back. "Valinor is lovely and all, but supper is supper."
: : :
On Shadowfax they rode through the Pass of Light, where Tirion gleamed in the distance upon the green hill of Túna, and across wide fields that rippled like emerald waves. Swiftly they rode, and steadily, but with no sense of urgency, and Bilbo had time to take in all the wonders along the way. They stopped often, and there was food enough for even the hungriest of hobbits: apples and lembas, honey and sweet mead. They camped in forests as old as the world itself, and talked late into the night, telling riddles, singing songs, and blowing smoke rings that played in the branches of the towering oaks.
Bilbo never asked their destination; it was enough to be whole in spirit and together with his friend, journeying once more in a world of infinite beauty.
They crossed a wide plain that grew more rocky as it went, although Shadowfax's sure feet never faltered. In the distance, a great ridge of mountains that made the Misty Mountains look like a garden furrow rose into the sky, Bilbo had to blink several times and swallow in awe as they drew closer. "Are we...going there?"
"Yes," said Gandalf, and urged Shadowfax on.
As the sun dropped low in the sky, they reached a sheer cliff face, its vast shadow falling across a deep valley. Before them were a set of massive stone doors, carved into the cliff-face, so tall Bilbo had to crane his neck to see the top of them. "Oh," he whispered, and Shadowfax nickered back at him like a reassurance.
"Hail, Olórin!" called a booming voice that rolled across the valley like thunder, and Shadowfax drew to a halt in front of a tall bearded man, a full head higher than even Gandalf, stripped to the waist and wearing a leather kilt. He was holding a hammer that was as tall as a normal man, slung over his shoulder, and his eyes--
His eyes were as old as stone, and full of a music deep enough to shake the roots of Arda.
Shadowfax sank forward into a graceful bow, and Gandalf and Bilbo slid off his back. This time Bilbo did not bow; he knelt, awe filling his heart as he felt Gandalf kneel beside him. "My Lord Aulë," murmured Gandalf. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us here."
"Oh, stand up," said the booming voice. "Formalities and fuss." Bilbo raised his eyes to the figure, who bent and peered at him. "Ah, so you are one of my wife's children," Aulë said.
"I--I do beg your pardon," stammered Bilbo, "But I'm afraid you are mistaken. My mother was Belladonna Took, eldest daughter of the Old Took and Adamanta Chubb, who was the daughter of--"
Aulë threw back his head and his laugh rattled the mountains. "So this is the Bilbo Baggins you find so amusing," he chuckled to Gandalf. "He does seem a droll fellow. No, little one," he said to Bilbo, "I mean that your people are much beloved of my wife, Yavanna, Queen of the Earth and Giver of Fruits, she who above all things loves the flowers and trees of Arda."
Bilbo was much flustered at the idea of hobbits being beloved of anything quite so grand as a Queen of the Earth, but he managed to mumble his thanks. Oh dear, Bilbo Baggins, how exactly did you get into something as mad as this? he couldn't help but wonder. It is all Gandalf's fault again, I suppose. Then he jumped as Aulë took his hammer and smote the gigantic stone doors with a deafening crash.
"Brother Mandos!" called Aulë. "We request entrance to your halls!"
Slowly, slowly, the great stone doors swung open. Inside was darkness, complete and total, and a chill breeze wafted from the blackness and stirred the hair on Bilbo's toes.
Aulë and Gandalf stepped forward into the doorway, then turned around when they realized that Bilbo wasn't following them. "What are you dilly-dallying there for?" snapped Gandalf.
"Now, now--" Bilbo waved his hands in the air appeasingly. "Um, I know I said I was almost ready for the last great Adventure, but I did always rather think--" He turned back toward the way they came, then cast an appealing look at the two figures in the darkened door, "--I did rather think it would be from my comfortable hobbit-hole, perhaps in my nice feather bed, with a variety of friends around. This is--well--doesn't this seem just a bit too direct, perhaps?"
Gandalf scowled at him from the semi-darkness, his face cast into strange shadows. "Bilbo Baggins, did I not say this was not yet your time? Trust me, and come along!"
Bilbo swallowed very hard, and plucked up his courage, and passed through the doors into the Halls of Mandos.
Gandalf's staff glimmered into light, so Bilbo could see the that he was in a wide corridor, lined with tapestries that fluttered and swayed in the constant breeze. As he hurried behind his guides, he could see figures flickering on the rippling cloth--great titanic figures locked in battle, or forms of surpassing beauty. Some he recognized from the old tales: Lúthien Tinúviel dancing under the trees, Eärendil the Mariner with the morning star bound to his brow. Once he thought he saw a great volcano with two tiny forms crouched below it; and once he thought he glimpsed a small figure with a sword and a brazen ring ablaze on his hand, hesitating in a cave before a wizened little being.
Shuddering, he turned his face away and picked up his pace.
After what seemed like hours, they passed through an archway and into vast hall that stretched far away into the darkness. And in the hall, in row on row too many to number--
Statues. Stone statues with broad shoulders and muscled arms and great beards.
Statues of dwarves.
Aulë and Gandalf began to pass between the ranks of stone figures, moving with purpose, but Bilbo's steps flagged as he gazed in wonder at the carved dwarves. They were made from all kinds of stone: marble and serpentine and granite, dark or with flecks of mica shining within them. Most were in heavy mail, warlike and stern; some held harps or pipes; a few had massive crowns on their heads. Bilbo looked and looked as if he could never look his fill, until his eye fell on one figure in plate mail, with the mark of a Lord of Khazad-dûm on his chest.
"Balin!" he gasped. "Gandalf, there's a statue of good old Balin here!"
But Gandalf merely cast a glare back at him from the end of a row of statues and moved on.
And now Bilbo hurried to follow him, past statues of dwarves both known and unknown: Kili with his bow nocked, Dori with his plaits half-hidden under a heavy helmet, Dwalin brandishing his knuckle-dusters. His steps quickened, as did his heart, until at last he found Aulë and Gandalf stopped and waiting for him next to a statue of dark grey granite.
Bilbo stopped with a gasp at the sight of Thorin Oakenshield recreated in stone, every seam of his leather armor and every lock of hair carved in loving detail. He held Orcrist unsheathed in one hand, and his old shield in the other, and his stone face was fierce and noble at once.
Bilbo gazed as though time itself had stopped and there was nothing left to do in all the worlds but look upon the carved face. "It's perfect," he whispered.
"One of my finer works, I think," said Aulë, nodding, but Bilbo hardly seemed to hear him.
Finally he stepped forward and held out a hand--it shook slightly in the air in front of him. "May I?" he murmured, and the god, looking amused, nodded.
He touched the stone hand that brandished Orcrist, feeling each weathered knuckle cold and hard beneath his fingers. "Oh, I am glad," he whispered, and bent to touch his lips to the unyielding stone, a swift gesture of fealty and friendship, "I am so glad that he is remembered."
For a moment he merely stood, remembering, and the silence of the great hall seemed to echo with unheard song and with laughter, and with the sounds of great battle. And as he remembered, he felt another emotion creep into his heart, and his hands clenched on the stone and found no purchase, and his jaw set.
"But this isn't right," he muttered, and then more loudly: "This isn't right."
"What?" Aulë said, and his voice was a long slow rumble of a gathering storm.
Bilbo glared up at the being whose song helped shape the world. "You did it wrong! He should be in his full plate mail, not these traveling leathers! His great golden battle mail, with the Arkenstone ablaze on his breast, and with his crown--you forgot his crown!" he cried. "He was King under the Mountain, he gave up everything to win his home back, and you remember him like this!" He was shaking with rage, still clutching the stone hand in his. "He should be King," he said, his voice cracking, and then he bowed his head to the cold stone and could speak no more.
After a long time he heard Aulë's voice as if from far away, low and grave: "You were right, Olórin. I do like this one." And then a hand reached out and touched his head, and he felt strength and a fierce comfort flowing into him. "Little one," said the god of the dwarves, "You misunderstand the purpose of this hall. This is his best and his truest self. This is how he wanted to be remembered, at the end."
"Oh," gasped Bilbo, "Then I do beg your pardon. But it's just--I just--" His words ran out once more and he leaned against the statue, resting his head on the unyielding stone.
He heard Gandalf's voice, gentle and reproachful: "My Lord."
"Yes, of course," said Aulë, with a thread of apology in his vast voice. The god whispered something in a harsh tongue: Bilbo recognized the rough cadences of Khuzdul, the language of the dwarves.
And then the stone hand under his grew warm.
Bilbo stared as the dark granite under his fingers softened to sinewy flesh, the fingers flexing on Orcrist's hilt. The cold stone against him gave way to leather and cloth, and he staggered, whirling to look up into the living face of Thorin Oakenshield. The King under the Mountain's eyes were no longer blank and fixed; they were alive, full of the solemn majesty Bilbo remembered, but free now of the suffering and anguish that had haunted Bilbo's memories.
"My King!" Bilbo stammered, and started to fall to one knee, awe and wonder filling his little heart until he thought it might burst. But Thorin, dropping his sword and shield, threw his arms around Bilbo before he could kneel, catching him in a fierce embrace.
"My burglar," a well-remembered voice growled in his ear. "My hobbit." There was laughter in it, and affection, and all bitterness was washed away forever in joy.
"Bilbo Baggins, my friend."
Aforetime it was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet that is not their own belief. For they say that Aulë the Maker, whom they call Mahal, cares for them, and gathers them to Mandos in halls set apart; and that he declared to their Fathers of old that Ilúvatar will hallow them and give them a place among the Children in the End. Then their part shall be to serve Aulë and to aid him in the remaking of Arda after the Last Battle. --The Silmarillion
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Aulë, Thorin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3000
Summary: Bilbo Baggins, late of Bag End in Hobbiton, now of Avallónë in the Undying Lands, is invited to go on another journey with Gandalf.
Bilbo Baggins, late of Bag End in Hobbiton, now of Avallónë in the Undying Lands, was sitting on a silver bench set with pearls and watching the swan boats sail in and out of the glassy harbor, on their way to Alqualondë and Tirion. He was working on a new poem, sounding out a line that refused to scan correctly, when he heard a rustling behind him as of great wings. He turned to see a figure of radiant light, clad in the purest samite, and he leapt to his feet and bowed deeply. "My Lord," he murmured. "Good morning."
"Don't be ridiculous!" snapped a familiar and irritable voice, and when Bilbo looked up again the figure was Gandalf, in his old grey robes and pointed hat. "Bowing and My Lording me, what has the world come to."
And then he smiled at Bilbo, and Bilbo smiled back.
"Are you doing well?" Gandalf asked as they walked slowly together through the shining streets of that city, under streaming silken banners and past laughing elvish faces.
"How could I not be?" Bilbo shook his head in wonder. "I feel--not young, precisely. Better than young. I feel new. I've explored every street of Avallónë, and I've even climbed the hills around it, walked around the whole island. Did you know that from the heights in the north you can see the mountain of Taniquetil on the mainland? Like a shaft of light, gleaming." He blushed slightly as Gandalf looked at him. "I've been working on some poems," he explained.
"I would be honored to hear them sometime," Gandalf said gravely.
Bilbo waved a dismissive hand, reddening even more in delight. "Sometimes I wander alone, and sometimes some of the elves come with me and we sing under the stars together and tell stories."
"You seem happy. I'm pleased."
"Oh, happy," Bilbo said. "It seems such a small word, now. Complete. Healed in body and soul, and nearly ready for..." He paused. "The next great Adventure, I suppose it is," he said. "I would have been afraid of that, once, but now it seems merely the next step." He smiled up at Gandalf. "Would you like a spot of tea? We're almost to my place."
"Lead the way, good hobbit," Gandalf said. "You said 'nearly' ready," he added as they came to the door of Bilbo's dwelling--a hobbit-hole, of course, set into a jade-green hill, incongruous among the soaring elvish architecture, yet somehow right.
"Well, yes," said Bilbo as he put the kettle on, and for a while he merely bustled around getting together the tea and some jam and scones. He didn't speak again until the tea was poured and the scent of camomile and lavender filled the hobbit-hole. "It's just that--something is still missing," he said, looking puzzled. "It's like I'm still waiting for something." He took a thoughtful bite of scone, gazing off into the distance. "I've been here such a long time now. They've been happy times, but even Frodo and Sam have gone on now, and I'm still here. I don't know why I don't feel ready to leave yet." He shrugged. "I just know I don't."
Gandalf finished his tea and four whole scones in comfortable silence. Then he brushed the crumbs from his beard and stood, his hat bending against the ceiling. "Bilbo Baggins," he said, "Come with me."
"Where are we going?" Bilbo asked as he pattered after the wizard through the streets of Avallónë and down to the docks. "And will we be back for dinner?"
Gandalf grumbled something about hobbits and their stomachs and gestured at one of the great swan-boats. The elves smiled and bowed as they approached, as if they had been expecting them.
"This is not your last great Adventure, not yet," Gandalf said, turning to Bilbo. "But would you care to go on a...relatively small one, with me?"
"With you, Gandalf?" Bilbo beamed up at him. "Why yes, of course, anywhere! Um, so, where are we going?" he asked as the wizard swept onto the great white ship.
"We are going further in," Gandalf said.
: : :
"Shadowfax!" Bilbo nearly fell off the ship as he leaned out to wave at the great silver stallion waiting on the shore. Shadowfax raised his head and whinnied to hear his voice. "Oh, how often I envied young Peregrin that he got to ride him."
"Well, now it is your turn," said Gandalf. "If you behave yourself and do not tug his mane."
Bilbo cast him a reproachful glance as they stepped off the silver dock and onto the diamond-bright sands of the Pass of Light. As his foot touched the sand, he felt a strange shock go through him--not painful, but as if a gust of wind shook him like a gossamer curtain.
"Yes," said Gandalf at his gasp, "You are the first mortal to set foot on the mainland of Valinor since the world was sundered and the Undying Lands removed forever from it."
Bilbo took a moment to get his breath. "Well," he said eventually, "I'm honored, to be sure! Too much of an honor for a mere second-rate burglar, indeed."
Gandalf smiled. "But a first-rate hobbit, and that is saying a great deal."
Shadowfax had trotted up to them across the sand; he nickered and lipped at Bilbo's hair. "I wish I had an apple for you, old boy," said Bilbo.
"There are apples aplenty in the forests we shall ride through, and sweet grass to graze on the way," Gandalf said as he lifted Bilbo onto the horse and leapt lightly up himself.
"How long a trip will this be, exactly? Apples are all well and good, but grass doesn't suit a hobbit's digestion."
"It will be as long as it is, Mr. Baggins!" Gandalf glowered, then his expression softened. "But no worries, I have brought provisions to satisfy even a hobbit."
"That's good," sighed Bilbo, settling onto Shadowfax's broad back. "Valinor is lovely and all, but supper is supper."
: : :
On Shadowfax they rode through the Pass of Light, where Tirion gleamed in the distance upon the green hill of Túna, and across wide fields that rippled like emerald waves. Swiftly they rode, and steadily, but with no sense of urgency, and Bilbo had time to take in all the wonders along the way. They stopped often, and there was food enough for even the hungriest of hobbits: apples and lembas, honey and sweet mead. They camped in forests as old as the world itself, and talked late into the night, telling riddles, singing songs, and blowing smoke rings that played in the branches of the towering oaks.
Bilbo never asked their destination; it was enough to be whole in spirit and together with his friend, journeying once more in a world of infinite beauty.
They crossed a wide plain that grew more rocky as it went, although Shadowfax's sure feet never faltered. In the distance, a great ridge of mountains that made the Misty Mountains look like a garden furrow rose into the sky, Bilbo had to blink several times and swallow in awe as they drew closer. "Are we...going there?"
"Yes," said Gandalf, and urged Shadowfax on.
As the sun dropped low in the sky, they reached a sheer cliff face, its vast shadow falling across a deep valley. Before them were a set of massive stone doors, carved into the cliff-face, so tall Bilbo had to crane his neck to see the top of them. "Oh," he whispered, and Shadowfax nickered back at him like a reassurance.
"Hail, Olórin!" called a booming voice that rolled across the valley like thunder, and Shadowfax drew to a halt in front of a tall bearded man, a full head higher than even Gandalf, stripped to the waist and wearing a leather kilt. He was holding a hammer that was as tall as a normal man, slung over his shoulder, and his eyes--
His eyes were as old as stone, and full of a music deep enough to shake the roots of Arda.
Shadowfax sank forward into a graceful bow, and Gandalf and Bilbo slid off his back. This time Bilbo did not bow; he knelt, awe filling his heart as he felt Gandalf kneel beside him. "My Lord Aulë," murmured Gandalf. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us here."
"Oh, stand up," said the booming voice. "Formalities and fuss." Bilbo raised his eyes to the figure, who bent and peered at him. "Ah, so you are one of my wife's children," Aulë said.
"I--I do beg your pardon," stammered Bilbo, "But I'm afraid you are mistaken. My mother was Belladonna Took, eldest daughter of the Old Took and Adamanta Chubb, who was the daughter of--"
Aulë threw back his head and his laugh rattled the mountains. "So this is the Bilbo Baggins you find so amusing," he chuckled to Gandalf. "He does seem a droll fellow. No, little one," he said to Bilbo, "I mean that your people are much beloved of my wife, Yavanna, Queen of the Earth and Giver of Fruits, she who above all things loves the flowers and trees of Arda."
Bilbo was much flustered at the idea of hobbits being beloved of anything quite so grand as a Queen of the Earth, but he managed to mumble his thanks. Oh dear, Bilbo Baggins, how exactly did you get into something as mad as this? he couldn't help but wonder. It is all Gandalf's fault again, I suppose. Then he jumped as Aulë took his hammer and smote the gigantic stone doors with a deafening crash.
"Brother Mandos!" called Aulë. "We request entrance to your halls!"
Slowly, slowly, the great stone doors swung open. Inside was darkness, complete and total, and a chill breeze wafted from the blackness and stirred the hair on Bilbo's toes.
Aulë and Gandalf stepped forward into the doorway, then turned around when they realized that Bilbo wasn't following them. "What are you dilly-dallying there for?" snapped Gandalf.
"Now, now--" Bilbo waved his hands in the air appeasingly. "Um, I know I said I was almost ready for the last great Adventure, but I did always rather think--" He turned back toward the way they came, then cast an appealing look at the two figures in the darkened door, "--I did rather think it would be from my comfortable hobbit-hole, perhaps in my nice feather bed, with a variety of friends around. This is--well--doesn't this seem just a bit too direct, perhaps?"
Gandalf scowled at him from the semi-darkness, his face cast into strange shadows. "Bilbo Baggins, did I not say this was not yet your time? Trust me, and come along!"
Bilbo swallowed very hard, and plucked up his courage, and passed through the doors into the Halls of Mandos.
Gandalf's staff glimmered into light, so Bilbo could see the that he was in a wide corridor, lined with tapestries that fluttered and swayed in the constant breeze. As he hurried behind his guides, he could see figures flickering on the rippling cloth--great titanic figures locked in battle, or forms of surpassing beauty. Some he recognized from the old tales: Lúthien Tinúviel dancing under the trees, Eärendil the Mariner with the morning star bound to his brow. Once he thought he saw a great volcano with two tiny forms crouched below it; and once he thought he glimpsed a small figure with a sword and a brazen ring ablaze on his hand, hesitating in a cave before a wizened little being.
Shuddering, he turned his face away and picked up his pace.
After what seemed like hours, they passed through an archway and into vast hall that stretched far away into the darkness. And in the hall, in row on row too many to number--
Statues. Stone statues with broad shoulders and muscled arms and great beards.
Statues of dwarves.
Aulë and Gandalf began to pass between the ranks of stone figures, moving with purpose, but Bilbo's steps flagged as he gazed in wonder at the carved dwarves. They were made from all kinds of stone: marble and serpentine and granite, dark or with flecks of mica shining within them. Most were in heavy mail, warlike and stern; some held harps or pipes; a few had massive crowns on their heads. Bilbo looked and looked as if he could never look his fill, until his eye fell on one figure in plate mail, with the mark of a Lord of Khazad-dûm on his chest.
"Balin!" he gasped. "Gandalf, there's a statue of good old Balin here!"
But Gandalf merely cast a glare back at him from the end of a row of statues and moved on.
And now Bilbo hurried to follow him, past statues of dwarves both known and unknown: Kili with his bow nocked, Dori with his plaits half-hidden under a heavy helmet, Dwalin brandishing his knuckle-dusters. His steps quickened, as did his heart, until at last he found Aulë and Gandalf stopped and waiting for him next to a statue of dark grey granite.
Bilbo stopped with a gasp at the sight of Thorin Oakenshield recreated in stone, every seam of his leather armor and every lock of hair carved in loving detail. He held Orcrist unsheathed in one hand, and his old shield in the other, and his stone face was fierce and noble at once.
Bilbo gazed as though time itself had stopped and there was nothing left to do in all the worlds but look upon the carved face. "It's perfect," he whispered.
"One of my finer works, I think," said Aulë, nodding, but Bilbo hardly seemed to hear him.
Finally he stepped forward and held out a hand--it shook slightly in the air in front of him. "May I?" he murmured, and the god, looking amused, nodded.
He touched the stone hand that brandished Orcrist, feeling each weathered knuckle cold and hard beneath his fingers. "Oh, I am glad," he whispered, and bent to touch his lips to the unyielding stone, a swift gesture of fealty and friendship, "I am so glad that he is remembered."
For a moment he merely stood, remembering, and the silence of the great hall seemed to echo with unheard song and with laughter, and with the sounds of great battle. And as he remembered, he felt another emotion creep into his heart, and his hands clenched on the stone and found no purchase, and his jaw set.
"But this isn't right," he muttered, and then more loudly: "This isn't right."
"What?" Aulë said, and his voice was a long slow rumble of a gathering storm.
Bilbo glared up at the being whose song helped shape the world. "You did it wrong! He should be in his full plate mail, not these traveling leathers! His great golden battle mail, with the Arkenstone ablaze on his breast, and with his crown--you forgot his crown!" he cried. "He was King under the Mountain, he gave up everything to win his home back, and you remember him like this!" He was shaking with rage, still clutching the stone hand in his. "He should be King," he said, his voice cracking, and then he bowed his head to the cold stone and could speak no more.
After a long time he heard Aulë's voice as if from far away, low and grave: "You were right, Olórin. I do like this one." And then a hand reached out and touched his head, and he felt strength and a fierce comfort flowing into him. "Little one," said the god of the dwarves, "You misunderstand the purpose of this hall. This is his best and his truest self. This is how he wanted to be remembered, at the end."
"Oh," gasped Bilbo, "Then I do beg your pardon. But it's just--I just--" His words ran out once more and he leaned against the statue, resting his head on the unyielding stone.
He heard Gandalf's voice, gentle and reproachful: "My Lord."
"Yes, of course," said Aulë, with a thread of apology in his vast voice. The god whispered something in a harsh tongue: Bilbo recognized the rough cadences of Khuzdul, the language of the dwarves.
And then the stone hand under his grew warm.
Bilbo stared as the dark granite under his fingers softened to sinewy flesh, the fingers flexing on Orcrist's hilt. The cold stone against him gave way to leather and cloth, and he staggered, whirling to look up into the living face of Thorin Oakenshield. The King under the Mountain's eyes were no longer blank and fixed; they were alive, full of the solemn majesty Bilbo remembered, but free now of the suffering and anguish that had haunted Bilbo's memories.
"My King!" Bilbo stammered, and started to fall to one knee, awe and wonder filling his little heart until he thought it might burst. But Thorin, dropping his sword and shield, threw his arms around Bilbo before he could kneel, catching him in a fierce embrace.
"My burglar," a well-remembered voice growled in his ear. "My hobbit." There was laughter in it, and affection, and all bitterness was washed away forever in joy.
"Bilbo Baggins, my friend."
Aforetime it was held among the Elves in Middle-earth that dying the Dwarves returned to the earth and the stone of which they were made; yet that is not their own belief. For they say that Aulë the Maker, whom they call Mahal, cares for them, and gathers them to Mandos in halls set apart; and that he declared to their Fathers of old that Ilúvatar will hallow them and give them a place among the Children in the End. Then their part shall be to serve Aulë and to aid him in the remaking of Arda after the Last Battle. --The Silmarillion