Clarity of Vision, Chapter 4
Title: Clarity of Vision, Chapter 4
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Dwalin, Balin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2300
Story Summary: In a Middle-Earth where Erebor never fell, a shadow remains in the heart of the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins finds himself drawn reluctantly into a quest that will lead him across the continent--from Bree to Lake Evendim to the icy North and beyond--with a party of five dwarves searching for an artifact that will cure the ailing King Thrór.
Chapter Summary: Fleeing a barrow-wraith, Thorin and his party take refuge in the warded library of Fornost.
Bilbo Baggins stared as Thorin stepped from the fog, his drawn sword gleaming dully in the flickering witchlight. "Help!" he called--or tried to, though it came out as a wordless squeak of entreaty.
Thorin's eyes went wide for a moment as he took in the scene before him. Then he was charging forward toward the skeletal army. "Balin! Dwalin! To me!" he cried in a great voice as he swept his sword around to catch the nearest skeleton in the neck.
A shower of bones pelted Bilbo, and he threw up a hand to try and deflect the flying chips. There was a sharp tug on his umbrella, and he realized one of the skeletons had grabbed the end of it. "Let go! Let go!" he shrieked, trying to yank it back. It popped open and the skeleton gave a confused rattle as it disappeared behind a screen of daisies.
Bilbo could hear voices bellowing: "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!" Another hail of bone chips filled the air, pattering on the open umbrella, and Bilbo was vaguely aware that two more dwarves had joined the fray.
The crowned spectral figure, which had been merely standing and watching, began to move forward, one hand outstretched.
"Retreat!" cried Thorin. "We cannot fight it!" Bilbo gasped as strong arms seized him, driving the air from his lungs and ripping the umbrella handle from his hands. "Retreat to the city!" With a jolt, Thorin slung Bilbo over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and began to run.
Looking backwards, dazed and breathless, Bilbo saw Balin and Dwalin running after them, bearing the bodies of Fíli and Kíli. Behind them he could see the skeletons shambling forward in pursuit--all but one, which was holding Bilbo's daisy-patterned umbrella, gazing up at it in puzzlement until it was lost to view in the mists.
: : :
"The library is to the west!" Thorin's voice was hoarse but he seemed unwinded by the run to the city gates, even carrying Bilbo over his shoulder the whole way. "We must reach it!" They charged through the city gates, under the watchful eyes of two mutilated statues, and kept running west.
Bilbo was so shaken and jarred that all of his energy was taken up in trying to cling to consciousness as he struggled to process what he had just experienced. Undead armies! Some kind of ghost! It was all insane, and nothing a Baggins of Bag End should ever be involved with, he thought bitterly as he was carried deeper into the dead city of Fornost.
Thorin stopped with a jolt. Balin and Dwalin were right behind him, and Bilbo glimpsed their drawn, fierce faces as they carried their limp burdens. A skeleton reached out and seized Balin's scarlet hood, and Balin whirled to slice at it with his axe. "Hurry, lad, or we're all dead!" cried Dwalin, and Bilbo heard Thorin growl something.
Stone grated on stone, and then they were through some door and into darkness, total and enveloping. Bilbo found himself dumped without ceremony onto cold flagstones. As he scrabbled to his feet, a torch flamed into guttering light. Thorin jammed it into a holder on the wall, then turned to stare around the room.
It was large, nearly a hall, with a stone table in the middle littered with maps and scrolls. Thorin swept the paper onto the floor. "Here," he said, and Balin and Dwalin stepped forward to lay Fíli and Kíli down on the stone.
The brothers' faces were pale and drawn, their eyes closed. "Are--are they--" Bilbo heard his own voice waver in the silence, but the dwarves ignored him.
Balin leaned over Fíli. "He breathes still," he murmured, and Bilbo saw Thorin's shoulders relax the tiniest fraction. "But they are gravely injured--not in body, but in spirit."
Thorin rounded on Bilbo, his eyes blazing. "You," he growled. "In Mahal's name, what are you doing here with my nephews?"
"They--I met them in Bree and they--said they needed a guide, they were looking for--"
"--you imbecile!" Thorin's hands were clenched into fists. "I would have expected you to have enough sense to not drag children into the haunted wilds of Arnor. You could have gotten them killed--!" His voice broke off and he turned away from Bilbo to stare at his nephews, silent and wan on the stone slab. In a choked voice, he said something Bilbo couldn't understand, something that sounded halfway between a curse and a sob. "Care for them, Balin--as clearly I cannot," he snarled, and walked away into the darkness of the library.
Balin sighed, still holding on to Kíli's wrist. "He means, 'I'm very worried about my nephews,' lad," he said to Bilbo's stricken face.
"He also means, 'Thank you for trying to protect them,'" Dwalin added.
"Well, thank you for the translation," Bilbo stammered, "But he could find a rather better way of expressing it than yelling."
"You would think so," Balin mused, looking down at his charge. He brushed the hair from Kíli's forehead, then lay his hand across it, frowning. Kíli's blue-tinged lips were moving as if he were speaking in his sleep, his eyes flickering behind his eyelids. "Kíli. Laddie," murmured Balin. "Come back to us."
Kíli sucked in a breath and sat up with a cry, his eyes wild and staring at some vision beyond the sight of his companions. Fíli whimpered at the sound, shuddering, his eyes half-open. But neither responded to Balin and Dwalin's voices: they sat and shivered, lost in some phantom world.
"They've suffered a terrible shock," Balin murmured.
"Shock? My grandmother always used to say that something sweet was a good remedy for shock," Bilbo said. "Wait--hold up a moment--"
He grabbed the little box from atop his pack and ripped the paper wrapping from it. Inside were his spun-sugar animals, most of them in fragments now. He pulled out two of the whole ones: a lion and an olifaunt. Hopping onto a chair, he held the olifaunt out to Kíli. "Here, Kíli. Eat this." When Kíli didn't respond, he pressed it into his hands and lifted them to his mouth. "Just a bite. You'll feel better, I promise."
When the sugared animal touched his lips, Kíli drew back, staring at it in something like horror. Bilbo pushed it between his slack lips, and Kíli bit without seeming to realize he did so. His throat worked as he swallowed. His eyes almost focused on the sweet, and he took another careful bite, his fingers curling around it.
"That's good," said Bilbo soothingly. "Eat it up, we'll get you some more. There's plenty, don't worry. Just eat." Beside him, Balin was coaxing Fíli into eating his sugar lion; Dwalin handed them both more fragments of sugar when they were finished, which the brothers ate mechanically. Bilbo was relieved to see that some color was creeping back into their cheeks, the deathly pallor giving way to a more natural hue. Finally, Kíli's eyes fluttered and closed; he curled up on the table still clutching a bit of spun sugar in one sticky hand, his breathing steady once more. Fíli joined him soon after, his arm thrown over his brother as if to protect him.
Balin checked their pulses with gentle hands, touched their foreheads. "I believe they may be out of danger," he said, and Bilbo sagged with relief. For the first time, he lifted his eyes from the quiet forms on the stone table to take in the rest of the room. It was lined with bookshelves that stretched off into the shadows, leather spines shining with gilt ink and tightly-wound scrolls sealed with intricately-stamped wax.
He started when he realized Thorin was standing in one of the doorways, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on his nephews. Bilbo had no idea how long he'd been there. "The library is vast," Thorin said. "There are two other exits, each warded against the undead like this one, so we are safe as long as we stay here."
"But--but we can't stay here forever," quavered Bilbo.
"We will stay here until I find the answers I seek," said Thorin. "And then--well, we shall cut that gem after we unearth it." He hadn't looked away from Fíli and Kíli, nor had he left the doorway.
"Thorin, don't hover over there," snapped Balin.
"I don't wish to wake them."
"A fine impulse, lad, but being woken by their uncle is perhaps the best medicine for them."
"They ran away from their group to find you," Bilbo said. "There was a delegation of dwarves going to Ered Luin." Thorin took a few almost hesitant steps into the hall, then settled on a stool at the end of the table, still fairly far from Fíli and Kíli's sleeping forms. "Oh, I met your sister."
Thorin looked startled. "You met Dís?"
"Yes, she seemed to approve of the boys going to find you. She said to tell you that she believed in you."
Thorin blinked and opened his mouth, then closed it again. "That is...a comfort," he said.
"I told you she would never lose faith in you," rumbled Dwalin.
"It has been a long time," Thorin murmured. "People change."
Dwalin shook his head. "Not Dís."
Fíli murmured something and rubbed at his face, and Thorin was suddenly on his feet once more. Fíli threw his hand back over his brother and it landed on his face, and Kíli made a sleepy protest and threw it off, then scrubbed at his own eyes and blinked up at Bilbo.
"I had the strangest dream," he said, yawning. "There was a ghost, and it touched me and I got so cold, and then it became an olifaunt and...I ate it?" He frowned, puzzled. "It was delicious."
Then his eyes went past Bilbo to see Balin and Dwalin standing behind him, and he sat up with a start.
"Balin! Dwalin!" His voice was a yelp of delighted surprise. "Fíli! We found them!"
"I think it's more that we found you, lad," said Balin as Fíli sat up, blinking.
"Is--is Uncle Thorin--" Kíli swiveled until he saw Thorin standing at the end of the table, and his face lit up with joy.
"By Durin's beard," snarled Thorin, "I am disappointed in you both. Running away from your duties at home, abandoning your people--" He pointed at Bilbo, apparently unaware that his hand was shaking slightly. "--and choosing, of all the peoples of Middle Earth, the most sheltered and least qualified one to be your guide--such an error in judgment is unworthy of--"
His voice cut off as Kíli and Fíli leapt forward in unison to throw their arms around him; after a moment his closed around them as well.
"But Mr. Baggins isn't unqualified," Kíli said eventually, his voice a bit rough and his face still hidden in Thorin's vast fur collar. "He can cook the best rabbit stew, and he tells funny stories that make us laugh, and sings silly songs--"
Thorin shot Bilbo a look over the top of Kíli's head, and Bilbo shrugged, feeling awkward.
"Then he would make a fine babysitter, but not a--"
"--And we're not babies, Uncle Thorin," protested Fíli, pulling back and squaring his shoulders. "We're both adults now, we've gone through the givesh-tharakh, we're not children! And it was important we find you--"
"--the King?" Thorin's hands tightened on their shoulders. "Is he--"
"--King Thrór lives still," Fíli said, his voice going formal for a moment. "But he emerges rarely from his quarters, and speaks to none but the Prince-Regent."
Thorin's mouth tightened, and his eyes met Balin and Dwalin's with a grim intensity. "And what of my siblings?"
"Mother is...getting by," Kíli said, his voice subdued.
"She speaks out when she sees things that need to be said," Fíli said.
"That doesn't always sit well with...with Regent Thráin," Kíli added.
"And Uncle Frerin is...much as he always is," Fíli said.
Another exchange of glances around the room; Bilbo was definitely getting the uncomfortable feeling that a great deal was remaining unsaid. It seemed Thorin had managed to make enemies of both his own father and of this Regent Thráin fellow. No wonder he hadn't gone home for a decade.
"I gather my father is in good health," Thorin said.
"He is...well in body," Fíli said.
Thorin took a deep breath; exhaled it slowly. "Time is short," he murmured, more to himself than anyone in the room. "Balin. Dwalin. I'll need your help. The north wing of the library seems to be mainly books in Westron. I need you to go through them and sort out any that seem to be about curses or healing artifacts. Look for certain words: dragons, gold, fever, shadows, and of course any mention of Durin's Scourge. If you find books you can't read, put them aside and I'll go through them later."
"What can we do, Uncle Thorin?"
"Yes, we're here to help!"
Thorin looked at his nephews, then roughly rumpled their hair. "There's an army of undead waiting for us outside this library," he said. "I suggest you teach Mr. Baggins how to hold a knife and perhaps even take a stab at a foe." He looked at Bilbo and the corner of his mouth tilted wryly. "He has now attacked two different enemies with his umbrella--a skeleton and, earlier, myself--and has proven remarkably ineffective at stopping anyone. We shall see if the fault is in his choice of weapons or his spirit."
He clapped them on the shoulders, then whirled, beckoning to Balin and Dwalin. "To work!"
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Dwalin, Balin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2300
Story Summary: In a Middle-Earth where Erebor never fell, a shadow remains in the heart of the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins finds himself drawn reluctantly into a quest that will lead him across the continent--from Bree to Lake Evendim to the icy North and beyond--with a party of five dwarves searching for an artifact that will cure the ailing King Thrór.
Chapter Summary: Fleeing a barrow-wraith, Thorin and his party take refuge in the warded library of Fornost.
Bilbo Baggins stared as Thorin stepped from the fog, his drawn sword gleaming dully in the flickering witchlight. "Help!" he called--or tried to, though it came out as a wordless squeak of entreaty.
Thorin's eyes went wide for a moment as he took in the scene before him. Then he was charging forward toward the skeletal army. "Balin! Dwalin! To me!" he cried in a great voice as he swept his sword around to catch the nearest skeleton in the neck.
A shower of bones pelted Bilbo, and he threw up a hand to try and deflect the flying chips. There was a sharp tug on his umbrella, and he realized one of the skeletons had grabbed the end of it. "Let go! Let go!" he shrieked, trying to yank it back. It popped open and the skeleton gave a confused rattle as it disappeared behind a screen of daisies.
Bilbo could hear voices bellowing: "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!" Another hail of bone chips filled the air, pattering on the open umbrella, and Bilbo was vaguely aware that two more dwarves had joined the fray.
The crowned spectral figure, which had been merely standing and watching, began to move forward, one hand outstretched.
"Retreat!" cried Thorin. "We cannot fight it!" Bilbo gasped as strong arms seized him, driving the air from his lungs and ripping the umbrella handle from his hands. "Retreat to the city!" With a jolt, Thorin slung Bilbo over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and began to run.
Looking backwards, dazed and breathless, Bilbo saw Balin and Dwalin running after them, bearing the bodies of Fíli and Kíli. Behind them he could see the skeletons shambling forward in pursuit--all but one, which was holding Bilbo's daisy-patterned umbrella, gazing up at it in puzzlement until it was lost to view in the mists.
: : :
"The library is to the west!" Thorin's voice was hoarse but he seemed unwinded by the run to the city gates, even carrying Bilbo over his shoulder the whole way. "We must reach it!" They charged through the city gates, under the watchful eyes of two mutilated statues, and kept running west.
Bilbo was so shaken and jarred that all of his energy was taken up in trying to cling to consciousness as he struggled to process what he had just experienced. Undead armies! Some kind of ghost! It was all insane, and nothing a Baggins of Bag End should ever be involved with, he thought bitterly as he was carried deeper into the dead city of Fornost.
Thorin stopped with a jolt. Balin and Dwalin were right behind him, and Bilbo glimpsed their drawn, fierce faces as they carried their limp burdens. A skeleton reached out and seized Balin's scarlet hood, and Balin whirled to slice at it with his axe. "Hurry, lad, or we're all dead!" cried Dwalin, and Bilbo heard Thorin growl something.
Stone grated on stone, and then they were through some door and into darkness, total and enveloping. Bilbo found himself dumped without ceremony onto cold flagstones. As he scrabbled to his feet, a torch flamed into guttering light. Thorin jammed it into a holder on the wall, then turned to stare around the room.
It was large, nearly a hall, with a stone table in the middle littered with maps and scrolls. Thorin swept the paper onto the floor. "Here," he said, and Balin and Dwalin stepped forward to lay Fíli and Kíli down on the stone.
The brothers' faces were pale and drawn, their eyes closed. "Are--are they--" Bilbo heard his own voice waver in the silence, but the dwarves ignored him.
Balin leaned over Fíli. "He breathes still," he murmured, and Bilbo saw Thorin's shoulders relax the tiniest fraction. "But they are gravely injured--not in body, but in spirit."
Thorin rounded on Bilbo, his eyes blazing. "You," he growled. "In Mahal's name, what are you doing here with my nephews?"
"They--I met them in Bree and they--said they needed a guide, they were looking for--"
"--you imbecile!" Thorin's hands were clenched into fists. "I would have expected you to have enough sense to not drag children into the haunted wilds of Arnor. You could have gotten them killed--!" His voice broke off and he turned away from Bilbo to stare at his nephews, silent and wan on the stone slab. In a choked voice, he said something Bilbo couldn't understand, something that sounded halfway between a curse and a sob. "Care for them, Balin--as clearly I cannot," he snarled, and walked away into the darkness of the library.
Balin sighed, still holding on to Kíli's wrist. "He means, 'I'm very worried about my nephews,' lad," he said to Bilbo's stricken face.
"He also means, 'Thank you for trying to protect them,'" Dwalin added.
"Well, thank you for the translation," Bilbo stammered, "But he could find a rather better way of expressing it than yelling."
"You would think so," Balin mused, looking down at his charge. He brushed the hair from Kíli's forehead, then lay his hand across it, frowning. Kíli's blue-tinged lips were moving as if he were speaking in his sleep, his eyes flickering behind his eyelids. "Kíli. Laddie," murmured Balin. "Come back to us."
Kíli sucked in a breath and sat up with a cry, his eyes wild and staring at some vision beyond the sight of his companions. Fíli whimpered at the sound, shuddering, his eyes half-open. But neither responded to Balin and Dwalin's voices: they sat and shivered, lost in some phantom world.
"They've suffered a terrible shock," Balin murmured.
"Shock? My grandmother always used to say that something sweet was a good remedy for shock," Bilbo said. "Wait--hold up a moment--"
He grabbed the little box from atop his pack and ripped the paper wrapping from it. Inside were his spun-sugar animals, most of them in fragments now. He pulled out two of the whole ones: a lion and an olifaunt. Hopping onto a chair, he held the olifaunt out to Kíli. "Here, Kíli. Eat this." When Kíli didn't respond, he pressed it into his hands and lifted them to his mouth. "Just a bite. You'll feel better, I promise."
When the sugared animal touched his lips, Kíli drew back, staring at it in something like horror. Bilbo pushed it between his slack lips, and Kíli bit without seeming to realize he did so. His throat worked as he swallowed. His eyes almost focused on the sweet, and he took another careful bite, his fingers curling around it.
"That's good," said Bilbo soothingly. "Eat it up, we'll get you some more. There's plenty, don't worry. Just eat." Beside him, Balin was coaxing Fíli into eating his sugar lion; Dwalin handed them both more fragments of sugar when they were finished, which the brothers ate mechanically. Bilbo was relieved to see that some color was creeping back into their cheeks, the deathly pallor giving way to a more natural hue. Finally, Kíli's eyes fluttered and closed; he curled up on the table still clutching a bit of spun sugar in one sticky hand, his breathing steady once more. Fíli joined him soon after, his arm thrown over his brother as if to protect him.
Balin checked their pulses with gentle hands, touched their foreheads. "I believe they may be out of danger," he said, and Bilbo sagged with relief. For the first time, he lifted his eyes from the quiet forms on the stone table to take in the rest of the room. It was lined with bookshelves that stretched off into the shadows, leather spines shining with gilt ink and tightly-wound scrolls sealed with intricately-stamped wax.
He started when he realized Thorin was standing in one of the doorways, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on his nephews. Bilbo had no idea how long he'd been there. "The library is vast," Thorin said. "There are two other exits, each warded against the undead like this one, so we are safe as long as we stay here."
"But--but we can't stay here forever," quavered Bilbo.
"We will stay here until I find the answers I seek," said Thorin. "And then--well, we shall cut that gem after we unearth it." He hadn't looked away from Fíli and Kíli, nor had he left the doorway.
"Thorin, don't hover over there," snapped Balin.
"I don't wish to wake them."
"A fine impulse, lad, but being woken by their uncle is perhaps the best medicine for them."
"They ran away from their group to find you," Bilbo said. "There was a delegation of dwarves going to Ered Luin." Thorin took a few almost hesitant steps into the hall, then settled on a stool at the end of the table, still fairly far from Fíli and Kíli's sleeping forms. "Oh, I met your sister."
Thorin looked startled. "You met Dís?"
"Yes, she seemed to approve of the boys going to find you. She said to tell you that she believed in you."
Thorin blinked and opened his mouth, then closed it again. "That is...a comfort," he said.
"I told you she would never lose faith in you," rumbled Dwalin.
"It has been a long time," Thorin murmured. "People change."
Dwalin shook his head. "Not Dís."
Fíli murmured something and rubbed at his face, and Thorin was suddenly on his feet once more. Fíli threw his hand back over his brother and it landed on his face, and Kíli made a sleepy protest and threw it off, then scrubbed at his own eyes and blinked up at Bilbo.
"I had the strangest dream," he said, yawning. "There was a ghost, and it touched me and I got so cold, and then it became an olifaunt and...I ate it?" He frowned, puzzled. "It was delicious."
Then his eyes went past Bilbo to see Balin and Dwalin standing behind him, and he sat up with a start.
"Balin! Dwalin!" His voice was a yelp of delighted surprise. "Fíli! We found them!"
"I think it's more that we found you, lad," said Balin as Fíli sat up, blinking.
"Is--is Uncle Thorin--" Kíli swiveled until he saw Thorin standing at the end of the table, and his face lit up with joy.
"By Durin's beard," snarled Thorin, "I am disappointed in you both. Running away from your duties at home, abandoning your people--" He pointed at Bilbo, apparently unaware that his hand was shaking slightly. "--and choosing, of all the peoples of Middle Earth, the most sheltered and least qualified one to be your guide--such an error in judgment is unworthy of--"
His voice cut off as Kíli and Fíli leapt forward in unison to throw their arms around him; after a moment his closed around them as well.
"But Mr. Baggins isn't unqualified," Kíli said eventually, his voice a bit rough and his face still hidden in Thorin's vast fur collar. "He can cook the best rabbit stew, and he tells funny stories that make us laugh, and sings silly songs--"
Thorin shot Bilbo a look over the top of Kíli's head, and Bilbo shrugged, feeling awkward.
"Then he would make a fine babysitter, but not a--"
"--And we're not babies, Uncle Thorin," protested Fíli, pulling back and squaring his shoulders. "We're both adults now, we've gone through the givesh-tharakh, we're not children! And it was important we find you--"
"--the King?" Thorin's hands tightened on their shoulders. "Is he--"
"--King Thrór lives still," Fíli said, his voice going formal for a moment. "But he emerges rarely from his quarters, and speaks to none but the Prince-Regent."
Thorin's mouth tightened, and his eyes met Balin and Dwalin's with a grim intensity. "And what of my siblings?"
"Mother is...getting by," Kíli said, his voice subdued.
"She speaks out when she sees things that need to be said," Fíli said.
"That doesn't always sit well with...with Regent Thráin," Kíli added.
"And Uncle Frerin is...much as he always is," Fíli said.
Another exchange of glances around the room; Bilbo was definitely getting the uncomfortable feeling that a great deal was remaining unsaid. It seemed Thorin had managed to make enemies of both his own father and of this Regent Thráin fellow. No wonder he hadn't gone home for a decade.
"I gather my father is in good health," Thorin said.
"He is...well in body," Fíli said.
Thorin took a deep breath; exhaled it slowly. "Time is short," he murmured, more to himself than anyone in the room. "Balin. Dwalin. I'll need your help. The north wing of the library seems to be mainly books in Westron. I need you to go through them and sort out any that seem to be about curses or healing artifacts. Look for certain words: dragons, gold, fever, shadows, and of course any mention of Durin's Scourge. If you find books you can't read, put them aside and I'll go through them later."
"What can we do, Uncle Thorin?"
"Yes, we're here to help!"
Thorin looked at his nephews, then roughly rumpled their hair. "There's an army of undead waiting for us outside this library," he said. "I suggest you teach Mr. Baggins how to hold a knife and perhaps even take a stab at a foe." He looked at Bilbo and the corner of his mouth tilted wryly. "He has now attacked two different enemies with his umbrella--a skeleton and, earlier, myself--and has proven remarkably ineffective at stopping anyone. We shall see if the fault is in his choice of weapons or his spirit."
He clapped them on the shoulders, then whirled, beckoning to Balin and Dwalin. "To work!"