Clarity of Vision, Chapter 17
Title: Clarity of Vision, Chapter 17
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Dwalin, Balin, Gandalf
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: Descriptions of depression.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3700
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: With the glass that was Thorin's hope destroyed, the party searches for a new path.
"Now what?" muttered Dwalin, gazing out at the rain from their makeshift shelter.
No one answered him. Fíli was bandaging Kíli's head, while Balin and Gandalf stared out at the downpour. Thorin was sitting, his eyes fixed on something only he could see.
Bilbo listened to the rain fall and watched Thorin's face.
After a while, Bilbo pulled himself to his feet, trying not to wince too obviously as muscles protested in agony. Opening his pack, he rummaged through it and pulled out his forlorn little packet of lemon drops. The brown paper crinkled as he opened it and found them still mostly intact.
Limping slightly, he went to Fíli and Kíli and handed each of them a drop. They took them from him wordlessly, gently, as if he were offering them a great gift. Balin and Dwalin silently picked out a drop as well, and Gandalf even murmured his thanks as he extricated a piece of sweet from the package.
"Here," Bilbo said last to Thorin. "Won't you have one? Please?"
Thorin's eyes went from his face to the package in his hand, the glittering glassy fragments there. He shook his head, a tiny motion, and turned to the wall.
They sat and listened to the rain for a long, empty time.
"My road leads me south," Gandalf said abruptly, and Bilbo started at his voice. "I have business there. Where does your road go now?"
"Thorin," said Balin. "We must choose a course. Shall we go to Erebor? Shall we travel south with the wizard?"
"I care not," said Thorin without looking at him. "All roads lead nowhere to me now."
"In the south is Lothlórien, and the lady Galadriel," said Gandalf. "She is ancient and wise, and could--"
"--Elves," snorted Dwalin. "I've had enough of elves to last a lifetime. I say we go on to Gondor, to the libraries there."
"Perhaps things have changed in Erebor," Balin said. "Perhaps it is time to go home."
"If we could get back to the Blue Mountains, we could meet up with Mother," Kíli said.
"I care not," said Thorin once more, and said nothing else.
The conversation became a debate and then an argument, with each person struggling to make their voice heard, their reasons accepted. The noise drowned out the sound of the rain, rising until--
"--Enough," said a clear voice. Everyone turned to see Fíli standing, his legs braced against the ground and his jaw set. "If Uncle Thorin will not make a decision, then someone must. And I say we should go to Lothlórien, as Gandalf suggests."
"But we must--"
Fíli cut off Balin's words with a gesture. "I value your advice, Balin. But I believe in the forests of Lorien is our best chance for more information...and, perhaps, for healing." The stalwart set of his mouth wavered as he looked at Balin, and for a moment he looked very young. "Will you support me, Balin?"
Balin glanced at Thorin, whose expression had not changed. Then he got awkwardly to his feet and bowed. "Yes, Prince Fíli."
Fíli looked at his uncle. "Unless Uncle Thorin has an opinion..." Thorin shook his head without looking at him, and Fíli nodded once, sharply, as if the motion pained him. "My decision is Lothlórien," he said.
Dwalin cleared his throat. "Then Lothlórien it is, laddi--" He broke off. "Fíli."
: : :
Had Bilbo thought the two weeks riding across the northern plains were the worst of his life? He found that hard to believe now. At least then, there had been hope. At least then, Thorin had been...
They followed the Anduin south through cold, gray days, the leafless trees scratching at the sky above them. Bilbo did his best to keep spirits up, singing and cooking the best food he could. But his songs faltered in the brooding silence, and no one seemed able to savor his meals. Thorin had no interest in eating, and Bilbo found himself cooking dishes that were bland and nourishing rather than inventive, coaxing Thorin to eat even a few mouthfuls.
Fíli had pulled Bilbo aside the second morning. "You're a light sleeper, right? I mean, I gather, since you complain so often about us snoring."
Bilbo's laugh was short, but it felt good to have even that. "I do wake up more easily than the rest of you, it seems."
"Then I need to ask a favor of you." Fíli had put his hands on Bilbo's shoulders. "I'm taking you off night watch duty. But I want you..." He hesitated and bit his lip, "I want you to sleep near my uncle, so you will wake if he were to...attempt to leave us. Will you do this for us all, Mr. Baggins?"
"I..." There was no need to tell Fíli that he had already spent the night before nearly-sleepless, listening to Thorin's breathing in the dark. "Yes, I will."
Fíli's smile was strained but sincere and he clapped Bilbo on the shoulder. "I knew I could count on you," he had murmured.
Even Gandalf seemed affected by the shift in mood. His eyes turned often to the forests looming in the south, and his thoughts seemed far away.
They trudged onward, the days blending into each other, a blur of gray and brown. Thorin spoke only when spoken to, and then only in curt monosyllables.
But sometimes, late at night, Bilbo could hear him murmuring to himself, words too low to be heard.
: : :
He was empty inside. He had failed. He was nothing. People spoke around him, spoke to him, but they were phantoms, weightless and transparent compared to the stone in his chest. They made noises that didn't matter, they stretched their mouths and blinked their eyes at him, but there was nothing behind the masks of their faces, just as there was nothing behind his own. He ate what was given him and he walked forward when the others did, but only from a lack of desire to do anything else. The days were filled with emptiness, gray and total.
The only time he felt anything was in the depths of the night, when he would slip his ring from his pocket and hold it in his hand. It seemed the only thing in all the world that still held weight, that was worth noticing. When he slid it on his finger, the void within him seemed to lessen fractionally, the numbness recede just enough for him to feel grief and loss once more. The sorrow was strangely sweet after the stunned absence of his days, and so he lay and grieved alone, let despair empty into him as into a bottomless chasm.
Not truly alone, the thought came to him once in the cold wastes of the night, and he shuddered as if some vile hand had touched his brow. But even the revulsion was better than the nothingness, and so he closed his eyes and clasped his ring tight, feeling its warmth against his icy skin like a tiny beacon.
: : :
"Must you leave us?" Bilbo's voice shook in the cold, but Gandalf merely nodded gravely.
"There are things stirring that must be dealt with, Mr. Baggins, and I can wait no longer. You must travel on without me to Lorien. If all goes well...I shall meet you there." He raised a hand in salute to the dwarves. "Fare you well," he murmured.
"Take us with you," Thorin said.
Everyone turned to stare at him, but he looked only at Gandalf, and Bilbo found his eyes strangely difficult to look upon.
"We should travel with you," he said. His voice was low, compelling. "To help you. Perhaps this way our lives could have some purpose once more."
Gandalf blinked. "These struggles are...not yours," he said, but there was an uncertain undercurrent in his voice that Bilbo had never heard before.
"Wizard," said Thorin, "We took your advice to go under the mountains, and it cost me dearly to follow you. It is your fault that we are here rather than on our way to Erebor in triumph. You owe me. And I say we travel with you."
It was the most he had said since leaving the mountains, and his voice was steady and resolute, filled with power. Bilbo looked around and saw the relief on Fíli's face, the delight on Dwalin's. Balin was nodding.
And Gandalf paused, irresolute, seeming to struggle with the decision. "Perhaps..." he muttered.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Bilbo stepped forward, waving his hands in the air. "Are you all mad? If he's talking about the thing that was powerful enough to send that storm down on us in the High Pass, I want nothing to do with it, no sir, count me right out."
Thorin looked at him, and his face was a stranger's. "Are you then a coward, Mr. Baggins?"
"I am not interested in getting squashed like a bug, Prince Thorin. This thing has Gandalf worried, and I don't fool myself that I'd have anything to add to a conflict like that."
"Perhaps you would not, but I believe we could," Thorin said, but the moment had passed. Bilbo's voice had broken the strange mood, and Gandalf was shaking his head, smiling again.
"I have allies in this struggle already, Thorin of Erebor," he said. "No, this is not something I am willing to lead you into."
Fury went across Thorin's face like a lightning-stroke. "You would take my last hope from me," he said, and his voice was bitter.
Gandalf frowned and looked a long time at Thorin's face. When he spoke again, his voice somehow reminded Bilbo of a fire on a hearth: a banked but warming glow. "Thorin," he said, "Nothing can take hope from you but yourself. And I do not think all hope is lost forever." He looked at each member of the party, his gaze coming to rest last on Bilbo. "It never truly is."
Someday far in the future, Gandalf would shudder as he told Bilbo the parts of the story that had gone untold, remembering that moment of indecision.
But for you, my dear Bilbo, I might have delivered the greatest weapon of the Enemy directly to his doorstep.
: : :
The river wound south and they continued along its banks, with the Misty Mountains always at their right and the gnarled trees of Mirkwood crouching on the far bank. With Gandalf gone, Thorin lapsed once more into monosyllables, and the party stumbled on, weary in body and in heart.
"I don't like the look of this weather," Balin said uneasily one evening, a few days later.
Dwalin grimaced, looking at the strange orange-tinted clouds that cast eerie greenish shadows everywhere. "Aye, it feels..."
"...Unnatural," said Kíli and Fíli as one.
Bilbo was combing out Thorin's tangled hair; he had taken to doing it in the evenings when Thorin showed no inclination to do it himself. Thorin was lying down, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. At least he was sleeping for a change. Bilbo glanced up at the sky. "It feels...grasping," he said. He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, that's stupid."
"No, no," said Kíli. "I feel it too." He pulled his coat tighter around himself, shivering.
"Look," murmured Balin, his eyes on the east. Over Mirkwood, black clouds were gathering, lightning-flashes stabbing through them. The wind was picking up, and Bilbo hastily finished re-braiding Thorin's hair as gusts started grabbing strands of it from his hands. Thorin pulled away from him and curled up on his side, his breath becoming ragged.
"Thorin," whispered Bilbo, some obscure fear closing around his heart. "Wake up." Thorin's eyes moved frantically behind his eyelids, but they didn't open.
Pale lightning painted their camp in stark whiteness for an instant, and then thunder cracked through the air. Fíli pointed, his hand shaking; the clouds were swirling like a vortex centered over some spot in the south of the forest, boiling black and furious. The insane thought came into Bilbo's head that it looked almost like an eye, a baleful eye lit from within by flickering lightning, gazing out toward--
Another thunderclap, and Thorin jerked wildly in his sleep. "No," he muttered. "No. I need to take it to--I must take it to him. He needs it!"
Bilbo found himself smoothing his hair, swallowing hard. Was Thorin still trying to take his lost glass to Erebor even in his dreams? "Shh," he whispered.
"No!" Thorin's voice cracked. "He sees me, I must--I must--"
His words were cut off as the a pillar of pure white flame erupted within the distant storm cloud, piercing its heart like a sword. Bilbo could see the trees bend and flatten as the shockwave rippled outward; when it reached them the entire world seemed to disappear in an obliterating roar as the wind pummelled them.
Stunned, half-deafened, Bilbo found himself lying next to Thorin. Thorin's eyes were closed, his mouth working wildly and his back arcing in some kind of convulsion. He didn't seem to be breathing.
"Thorin!" cried Bilbo, desperately ripping his coat open. "Thorin, wake up, please!" His hands skittered vainly across Thorin's mail, seeking to loosen it somehow, to let him breathe.
Thorin's hands closed over his, seizing him in a grip of iron. "You! You want it back, but you can't have it!" Thorin yelled. "I won't let you take it away from me!"
Bilbo found himself on the ground with Thorin above him, his hands at his throat, shaking him. He tried to croak Thorin's name, but nothing came out.
"Don't you understand? I can't lose it! It's all I have left!" Bilbo could see Dwalin and Fíli at Thorin's elbows, grabbing him; Thorin released Bilbo's throat and sank to the ground, covering his face with shaking hands, hoarse sobs racking his body.
The world had gone quiet once more, the strange gale blown out. A scattering of raindrops blew against the party with a gust of wind; the dwarves stared wordlessly at Thorin and then at Bilbo.
Bilbo picked himself up carefully from the ground and went over to where Thorin was sitting on the ground. He put a hand on his shoulder; Thorin flinched. "Um," Bilbo said, then had to stop and try again as the voice rasped in his raw throat. "That's not true, you know." He shook Thorin's shoulder gently, but it was like stone beneath his hand. "I know you feel alone. And I know you feel like there's no hope, but you're wrong that you have nothing. You have us. I mean, you have your nephews, and Balin and Dwalin," he added hastily as Thorin raised his head and looked at him. "Everyone who admires you and cares about you and--and loves you." He swallowed hard. "And...that is to say...you have me as well," he said softly.
After a long moment, Thorin reached up and touched Bilbo's neck with a shaking hand. Behind him, Dwalin took a step forward, but Bilbo didn't flinch.
"Bilbo," whispered Thorin. "What have I done?"
BIlbo cleared his throat, feeling his Adam's apple move against Thorin's unsteady fingers. "Well, you dwarves are a passionate bunch," he managed. "I'm getting used to that." He shrugged: See? Nothing to get too upset about. Just a normal day's travel with dwarves.
"Forgive me," Thorin said.
"If it will make you feel better, I will," said Bilbo. "But there's nothing to forgive. You've had a very bad week, after all. It's natural you'd be upset. You'll feel better when we reach Lorien, I'm sure of it." He looked around, wanting and yet reluctant to look away from Thorin's eyes. "See? The storm has broken."
"He's right," Balin breathed, and the dwarves looked around as if waking from a nightmare. The black clouds were dissipating, revealing a sky streaked with silver and rose in the sunset. The air seemed sweeter, easier to breathe, and Bilbo took a deep breath of relief.
"We'll be all right," he said, looking back at Thorin only to find that Thorin's eyes had never left his face, unheeding of everything else around them. "We'll--we'll be all right," he repeated, resisting a sudden mad urge to draw closer, to let Thorin's hand slide up from his throat to his face.
Thorin didn't agree, but he didn't disagree, either. After a moment, he drew his hand back. "I..." He paused, looking faintly surprised. "I'm hungry."
"Oh!" Bilbo jumped to his feet. "I found some garlic earlier, and I believe that over there--" he pointed, "--is a chestnut tree. The wind should have knocked a fair number of chestnuts down, if you'd go get some?"
Fíli and Kíli leaped to their feet, grinning. "At your service!" they chorused, and ran off.
Bilbo pulled the garlic out of his pack and soon was busy peeling and chopping it. "Balin, Dwalin, could you go back to that bend in the river we were at just before we camped and pick some of those hedgehog mushrooms I pointed out? We've no fresh meat, but mushrooms with garlic and some roasted chestnuts would probably be quite nice."
"Indeed, Mr. Baggins!" said Balin, and the two of them tromped off to the north.
"Could you rebuild the fire?" Bilbo asked Thorin, nodding at the ash and coals the wind had scattered. "Can't roast chestnuts without a fire." He kept his voice light, as if he were certain Thorin would follow his suggestion. When Thorin rose slowly and began to gather together the half-burned logs and re-light the flame, Bilbo felt the tightness around his heart ease just the slightest bit.
When the fire was blazing nicely once more, its warmth blissful on Bilbo's toes, Thorin sat down next to him. "Can I...help with that?" he said, gesturing at the little pile of mostly-chopped garlic.
"Oh, wait," said Bilbo. He pulled out a package of dark green leaves. "Sage. Could you chop that up as well?"
Thorin pulled out his knife and began to slice up the sage. Its rich verdant scent mingled with the sharpness of the garlic and the sweetly acrid wood smoke, and Bilbo inhaled deeply. "We all could use a good meal," he said. "It'll have us all right as rain soon enough."
Thorin said nothing, but his hands were busy on the sage; when he finished with the herbs he pulled Deathless out of its scabbard, frowned at it, and began to meticulously clean and oil the blade. The fire crackled cheerily, the owls hooting in the trees sounded cheeky rather than spooky, and Bilbo felt no need to chatter--it was enough to sit and share the warmth of the fire and look forward to a good meal.
The other dwarves returned soon, bearing armfuls of mushrooms and chestnuts, and after peeling the nuts--a chore accompanied by much enthusiastic cursing at the prickles--they began to roast them as Bilbo simmered the mushrooms with garlic and sage.
"Oh," said Bilbo as he watched Fíli juggling five of the spare chestnuts, "After dinner I can show you how to play conkers!"
Thorin looked up from his mushrooms, which he had been eating with a sort of intense concentration. "Conkers?"
"A game. I was the best in Hobbiton as a boy," Bilbo said. Polishing off his meal, he showed Fíli and Kíli how to attach a string to the glossy nuts and knock them together. "I had an eye for spotting which nuts were good and solid and which ones had hidden flaws," he said, holding a chestnut up in front of his eye and squinting at it.
Dwalin snorted. "So you're telling me hobbits spend your free time knocking nuts together."
"Hey," said Bilbo indignantly, "Don't knock it till you've tried it." This had the effect of sending Fíli and Kíli into gales of laughter, which only got worse when Bilbo noted that knocking nuts was much healthier than knocking heads.
Thorin looked at his nephews chortling and pounding each other on the back as though he had forgotten what laughter was. After a moment he exhaled sharply, frowning. "I need sleep," he said, putting aside his empty dishes and grabbing his bedroll.
Bilbo looked after him as he walked to the far side of the camp, feeling his forehead crease in worry.
"At least he ate all your food, laddie," said Balin in a low voice.
Bilbo nodded, still frowning. Behind him, Fíli and Kíli were banging their conkers against each other and insulting each other cheerfully, and he forced himself to join them, forced himself to laugh.
He dreamed that night that he held a perfect glossy conker in his hand but didn't dare to play it for fear it would shatter like glass, empty inside.
: : :
The worst of the despair had broken, somehow. The horrible emptiness was gone, the sweetly loathsome whispers quiet once more. For a moment, standing with his hand against Bilbo's bruised skin, he had even felt something that was not pain. What had it been, Thorin wondered, trying to recapture it. Remorse? Pity? It had been...warmer than that, he remembered dimly. A desire to reach out, to connect.
A dangerous emotion, whatever it had been. The hobbit hadn't taken advantage of it, hadn't demanded anything from him beyond a fire built, some herbs chopped. His hand crept once more to the pocket where his last treasure hid. A dangerous emotion nonetheless.
He heard his nephews laughing and frowned. Hadn't he once told Bilbo that he would always value their laughter over gold? He slipped the ring from its pocket, feeling it heavy and real in the palm of his hand. You couldn't touch laughter, couldn't hold it close to you.
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth chase the last of his icy doubt away. He had failed in his quest, but there were always new goals, new horizons.
New golden dreams to achieve.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Dwalin, Balin, Gandalf
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: Descriptions of depression.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3700
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: With the glass that was Thorin's hope destroyed, the party searches for a new path.
"Now what?" muttered Dwalin, gazing out at the rain from their makeshift shelter.
No one answered him. Fíli was bandaging Kíli's head, while Balin and Gandalf stared out at the downpour. Thorin was sitting, his eyes fixed on something only he could see.
Bilbo listened to the rain fall and watched Thorin's face.
After a while, Bilbo pulled himself to his feet, trying not to wince too obviously as muscles protested in agony. Opening his pack, he rummaged through it and pulled out his forlorn little packet of lemon drops. The brown paper crinkled as he opened it and found them still mostly intact.
Limping slightly, he went to Fíli and Kíli and handed each of them a drop. They took them from him wordlessly, gently, as if he were offering them a great gift. Balin and Dwalin silently picked out a drop as well, and Gandalf even murmured his thanks as he extricated a piece of sweet from the package.
"Here," Bilbo said last to Thorin. "Won't you have one? Please?"
Thorin's eyes went from his face to the package in his hand, the glittering glassy fragments there. He shook his head, a tiny motion, and turned to the wall.
They sat and listened to the rain for a long, empty time.
"My road leads me south," Gandalf said abruptly, and Bilbo started at his voice. "I have business there. Where does your road go now?"
"Thorin," said Balin. "We must choose a course. Shall we go to Erebor? Shall we travel south with the wizard?"
"I care not," said Thorin without looking at him. "All roads lead nowhere to me now."
"In the south is Lothlórien, and the lady Galadriel," said Gandalf. "She is ancient and wise, and could--"
"--Elves," snorted Dwalin. "I've had enough of elves to last a lifetime. I say we go on to Gondor, to the libraries there."
"Perhaps things have changed in Erebor," Balin said. "Perhaps it is time to go home."
"If we could get back to the Blue Mountains, we could meet up with Mother," Kíli said.
"I care not," said Thorin once more, and said nothing else.
The conversation became a debate and then an argument, with each person struggling to make their voice heard, their reasons accepted. The noise drowned out the sound of the rain, rising until--
"--Enough," said a clear voice. Everyone turned to see Fíli standing, his legs braced against the ground and his jaw set. "If Uncle Thorin will not make a decision, then someone must. And I say we should go to Lothlórien, as Gandalf suggests."
"But we must--"
Fíli cut off Balin's words with a gesture. "I value your advice, Balin. But I believe in the forests of Lorien is our best chance for more information...and, perhaps, for healing." The stalwart set of his mouth wavered as he looked at Balin, and for a moment he looked very young. "Will you support me, Balin?"
Balin glanced at Thorin, whose expression had not changed. Then he got awkwardly to his feet and bowed. "Yes, Prince Fíli."
Fíli looked at his uncle. "Unless Uncle Thorin has an opinion..." Thorin shook his head without looking at him, and Fíli nodded once, sharply, as if the motion pained him. "My decision is Lothlórien," he said.
Dwalin cleared his throat. "Then Lothlórien it is, laddi--" He broke off. "Fíli."
: : :
Had Bilbo thought the two weeks riding across the northern plains were the worst of his life? He found that hard to believe now. At least then, there had been hope. At least then, Thorin had been...
They followed the Anduin south through cold, gray days, the leafless trees scratching at the sky above them. Bilbo did his best to keep spirits up, singing and cooking the best food he could. But his songs faltered in the brooding silence, and no one seemed able to savor his meals. Thorin had no interest in eating, and Bilbo found himself cooking dishes that were bland and nourishing rather than inventive, coaxing Thorin to eat even a few mouthfuls.
Fíli had pulled Bilbo aside the second morning. "You're a light sleeper, right? I mean, I gather, since you complain so often about us snoring."
Bilbo's laugh was short, but it felt good to have even that. "I do wake up more easily than the rest of you, it seems."
"Then I need to ask a favor of you." Fíli had put his hands on Bilbo's shoulders. "I'm taking you off night watch duty. But I want you..." He hesitated and bit his lip, "I want you to sleep near my uncle, so you will wake if he were to...attempt to leave us. Will you do this for us all, Mr. Baggins?"
"I..." There was no need to tell Fíli that he had already spent the night before nearly-sleepless, listening to Thorin's breathing in the dark. "Yes, I will."
Fíli's smile was strained but sincere and he clapped Bilbo on the shoulder. "I knew I could count on you," he had murmured.
Even Gandalf seemed affected by the shift in mood. His eyes turned often to the forests looming in the south, and his thoughts seemed far away.
They trudged onward, the days blending into each other, a blur of gray and brown. Thorin spoke only when spoken to, and then only in curt monosyllables.
But sometimes, late at night, Bilbo could hear him murmuring to himself, words too low to be heard.
: : :
He was empty inside. He had failed. He was nothing. People spoke around him, spoke to him, but they were phantoms, weightless and transparent compared to the stone in his chest. They made noises that didn't matter, they stretched their mouths and blinked their eyes at him, but there was nothing behind the masks of their faces, just as there was nothing behind his own. He ate what was given him and he walked forward when the others did, but only from a lack of desire to do anything else. The days were filled with emptiness, gray and total.
The only time he felt anything was in the depths of the night, when he would slip his ring from his pocket and hold it in his hand. It seemed the only thing in all the world that still held weight, that was worth noticing. When he slid it on his finger, the void within him seemed to lessen fractionally, the numbness recede just enough for him to feel grief and loss once more. The sorrow was strangely sweet after the stunned absence of his days, and so he lay and grieved alone, let despair empty into him as into a bottomless chasm.
Not truly alone, the thought came to him once in the cold wastes of the night, and he shuddered as if some vile hand had touched his brow. But even the revulsion was better than the nothingness, and so he closed his eyes and clasped his ring tight, feeling its warmth against his icy skin like a tiny beacon.
: : :
"Must you leave us?" Bilbo's voice shook in the cold, but Gandalf merely nodded gravely.
"There are things stirring that must be dealt with, Mr. Baggins, and I can wait no longer. You must travel on without me to Lorien. If all goes well...I shall meet you there." He raised a hand in salute to the dwarves. "Fare you well," he murmured.
"Take us with you," Thorin said.
Everyone turned to stare at him, but he looked only at Gandalf, and Bilbo found his eyes strangely difficult to look upon.
"We should travel with you," he said. His voice was low, compelling. "To help you. Perhaps this way our lives could have some purpose once more."
Gandalf blinked. "These struggles are...not yours," he said, but there was an uncertain undercurrent in his voice that Bilbo had never heard before.
"Wizard," said Thorin, "We took your advice to go under the mountains, and it cost me dearly to follow you. It is your fault that we are here rather than on our way to Erebor in triumph. You owe me. And I say we travel with you."
It was the most he had said since leaving the mountains, and his voice was steady and resolute, filled with power. Bilbo looked around and saw the relief on Fíli's face, the delight on Dwalin's. Balin was nodding.
And Gandalf paused, irresolute, seeming to struggle with the decision. "Perhaps..." he muttered.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Bilbo stepped forward, waving his hands in the air. "Are you all mad? If he's talking about the thing that was powerful enough to send that storm down on us in the High Pass, I want nothing to do with it, no sir, count me right out."
Thorin looked at him, and his face was a stranger's. "Are you then a coward, Mr. Baggins?"
"I am not interested in getting squashed like a bug, Prince Thorin. This thing has Gandalf worried, and I don't fool myself that I'd have anything to add to a conflict like that."
"Perhaps you would not, but I believe we could," Thorin said, but the moment had passed. Bilbo's voice had broken the strange mood, and Gandalf was shaking his head, smiling again.
"I have allies in this struggle already, Thorin of Erebor," he said. "No, this is not something I am willing to lead you into."
Fury went across Thorin's face like a lightning-stroke. "You would take my last hope from me," he said, and his voice was bitter.
Gandalf frowned and looked a long time at Thorin's face. When he spoke again, his voice somehow reminded Bilbo of a fire on a hearth: a banked but warming glow. "Thorin," he said, "Nothing can take hope from you but yourself. And I do not think all hope is lost forever." He looked at each member of the party, his gaze coming to rest last on Bilbo. "It never truly is."
Someday far in the future, Gandalf would shudder as he told Bilbo the parts of the story that had gone untold, remembering that moment of indecision.
But for you, my dear Bilbo, I might have delivered the greatest weapon of the Enemy directly to his doorstep.
: : :
The river wound south and they continued along its banks, with the Misty Mountains always at their right and the gnarled trees of Mirkwood crouching on the far bank. With Gandalf gone, Thorin lapsed once more into monosyllables, and the party stumbled on, weary in body and in heart.
"I don't like the look of this weather," Balin said uneasily one evening, a few days later.
Dwalin grimaced, looking at the strange orange-tinted clouds that cast eerie greenish shadows everywhere. "Aye, it feels..."
"...Unnatural," said Kíli and Fíli as one.
Bilbo was combing out Thorin's tangled hair; he had taken to doing it in the evenings when Thorin showed no inclination to do it himself. Thorin was lying down, his eyes closed, his breathing deep and even. At least he was sleeping for a change. Bilbo glanced up at the sky. "It feels...grasping," he said. He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, that's stupid."
"No, no," said Kíli. "I feel it too." He pulled his coat tighter around himself, shivering.
"Look," murmured Balin, his eyes on the east. Over Mirkwood, black clouds were gathering, lightning-flashes stabbing through them. The wind was picking up, and Bilbo hastily finished re-braiding Thorin's hair as gusts started grabbing strands of it from his hands. Thorin pulled away from him and curled up on his side, his breath becoming ragged.
"Thorin," whispered Bilbo, some obscure fear closing around his heart. "Wake up." Thorin's eyes moved frantically behind his eyelids, but they didn't open.
Pale lightning painted their camp in stark whiteness for an instant, and then thunder cracked through the air. Fíli pointed, his hand shaking; the clouds were swirling like a vortex centered over some spot in the south of the forest, boiling black and furious. The insane thought came into Bilbo's head that it looked almost like an eye, a baleful eye lit from within by flickering lightning, gazing out toward--
Another thunderclap, and Thorin jerked wildly in his sleep. "No," he muttered. "No. I need to take it to--I must take it to him. He needs it!"
Bilbo found himself smoothing his hair, swallowing hard. Was Thorin still trying to take his lost glass to Erebor even in his dreams? "Shh," he whispered.
"No!" Thorin's voice cracked. "He sees me, I must--I must--"
His words were cut off as the a pillar of pure white flame erupted within the distant storm cloud, piercing its heart like a sword. Bilbo could see the trees bend and flatten as the shockwave rippled outward; when it reached them the entire world seemed to disappear in an obliterating roar as the wind pummelled them.
Stunned, half-deafened, Bilbo found himself lying next to Thorin. Thorin's eyes were closed, his mouth working wildly and his back arcing in some kind of convulsion. He didn't seem to be breathing.
"Thorin!" cried Bilbo, desperately ripping his coat open. "Thorin, wake up, please!" His hands skittered vainly across Thorin's mail, seeking to loosen it somehow, to let him breathe.
Thorin's hands closed over his, seizing him in a grip of iron. "You! You want it back, but you can't have it!" Thorin yelled. "I won't let you take it away from me!"
Bilbo found himself on the ground with Thorin above him, his hands at his throat, shaking him. He tried to croak Thorin's name, but nothing came out.
"Don't you understand? I can't lose it! It's all I have left!" Bilbo could see Dwalin and Fíli at Thorin's elbows, grabbing him; Thorin released Bilbo's throat and sank to the ground, covering his face with shaking hands, hoarse sobs racking his body.
The world had gone quiet once more, the strange gale blown out. A scattering of raindrops blew against the party with a gust of wind; the dwarves stared wordlessly at Thorin and then at Bilbo.
Bilbo picked himself up carefully from the ground and went over to where Thorin was sitting on the ground. He put a hand on his shoulder; Thorin flinched. "Um," Bilbo said, then had to stop and try again as the voice rasped in his raw throat. "That's not true, you know." He shook Thorin's shoulder gently, but it was like stone beneath his hand. "I know you feel alone. And I know you feel like there's no hope, but you're wrong that you have nothing. You have us. I mean, you have your nephews, and Balin and Dwalin," he added hastily as Thorin raised his head and looked at him. "Everyone who admires you and cares about you and--and loves you." He swallowed hard. "And...that is to say...you have me as well," he said softly.
After a long moment, Thorin reached up and touched Bilbo's neck with a shaking hand. Behind him, Dwalin took a step forward, but Bilbo didn't flinch.
"Bilbo," whispered Thorin. "What have I done?"
BIlbo cleared his throat, feeling his Adam's apple move against Thorin's unsteady fingers. "Well, you dwarves are a passionate bunch," he managed. "I'm getting used to that." He shrugged: See? Nothing to get too upset about. Just a normal day's travel with dwarves.
"Forgive me," Thorin said.
"If it will make you feel better, I will," said Bilbo. "But there's nothing to forgive. You've had a very bad week, after all. It's natural you'd be upset. You'll feel better when we reach Lorien, I'm sure of it." He looked around, wanting and yet reluctant to look away from Thorin's eyes. "See? The storm has broken."
"He's right," Balin breathed, and the dwarves looked around as if waking from a nightmare. The black clouds were dissipating, revealing a sky streaked with silver and rose in the sunset. The air seemed sweeter, easier to breathe, and Bilbo took a deep breath of relief.
"We'll be all right," he said, looking back at Thorin only to find that Thorin's eyes had never left his face, unheeding of everything else around them. "We'll--we'll be all right," he repeated, resisting a sudden mad urge to draw closer, to let Thorin's hand slide up from his throat to his face.
Thorin didn't agree, but he didn't disagree, either. After a moment, he drew his hand back. "I..." He paused, looking faintly surprised. "I'm hungry."
"Oh!" Bilbo jumped to his feet. "I found some garlic earlier, and I believe that over there--" he pointed, "--is a chestnut tree. The wind should have knocked a fair number of chestnuts down, if you'd go get some?"
Fíli and Kíli leaped to their feet, grinning. "At your service!" they chorused, and ran off.
Bilbo pulled the garlic out of his pack and soon was busy peeling and chopping it. "Balin, Dwalin, could you go back to that bend in the river we were at just before we camped and pick some of those hedgehog mushrooms I pointed out? We've no fresh meat, but mushrooms with garlic and some roasted chestnuts would probably be quite nice."
"Indeed, Mr. Baggins!" said Balin, and the two of them tromped off to the north.
"Could you rebuild the fire?" Bilbo asked Thorin, nodding at the ash and coals the wind had scattered. "Can't roast chestnuts without a fire." He kept his voice light, as if he were certain Thorin would follow his suggestion. When Thorin rose slowly and began to gather together the half-burned logs and re-light the flame, Bilbo felt the tightness around his heart ease just the slightest bit.
When the fire was blazing nicely once more, its warmth blissful on Bilbo's toes, Thorin sat down next to him. "Can I...help with that?" he said, gesturing at the little pile of mostly-chopped garlic.
"Oh, wait," said Bilbo. He pulled out a package of dark green leaves. "Sage. Could you chop that up as well?"
Thorin pulled out his knife and began to slice up the sage. Its rich verdant scent mingled with the sharpness of the garlic and the sweetly acrid wood smoke, and Bilbo inhaled deeply. "We all could use a good meal," he said. "It'll have us all right as rain soon enough."
Thorin said nothing, but his hands were busy on the sage; when he finished with the herbs he pulled Deathless out of its scabbard, frowned at it, and began to meticulously clean and oil the blade. The fire crackled cheerily, the owls hooting in the trees sounded cheeky rather than spooky, and Bilbo felt no need to chatter--it was enough to sit and share the warmth of the fire and look forward to a good meal.
The other dwarves returned soon, bearing armfuls of mushrooms and chestnuts, and after peeling the nuts--a chore accompanied by much enthusiastic cursing at the prickles--they began to roast them as Bilbo simmered the mushrooms with garlic and sage.
"Oh," said Bilbo as he watched Fíli juggling five of the spare chestnuts, "After dinner I can show you how to play conkers!"
Thorin looked up from his mushrooms, which he had been eating with a sort of intense concentration. "Conkers?"
"A game. I was the best in Hobbiton as a boy," Bilbo said. Polishing off his meal, he showed Fíli and Kíli how to attach a string to the glossy nuts and knock them together. "I had an eye for spotting which nuts were good and solid and which ones had hidden flaws," he said, holding a chestnut up in front of his eye and squinting at it.
Dwalin snorted. "So you're telling me hobbits spend your free time knocking nuts together."
"Hey," said Bilbo indignantly, "Don't knock it till you've tried it." This had the effect of sending Fíli and Kíli into gales of laughter, which only got worse when Bilbo noted that knocking nuts was much healthier than knocking heads.
Thorin looked at his nephews chortling and pounding each other on the back as though he had forgotten what laughter was. After a moment he exhaled sharply, frowning. "I need sleep," he said, putting aside his empty dishes and grabbing his bedroll.
Bilbo looked after him as he walked to the far side of the camp, feeling his forehead crease in worry.
"At least he ate all your food, laddie," said Balin in a low voice.
Bilbo nodded, still frowning. Behind him, Fíli and Kíli were banging their conkers against each other and insulting each other cheerfully, and he forced himself to join them, forced himself to laugh.
He dreamed that night that he held a perfect glossy conker in his hand but didn't dare to play it for fear it would shatter like glass, empty inside.
: : :
The worst of the despair had broken, somehow. The horrible emptiness was gone, the sweetly loathsome whispers quiet once more. For a moment, standing with his hand against Bilbo's bruised skin, he had even felt something that was not pain. What had it been, Thorin wondered, trying to recapture it. Remorse? Pity? It had been...warmer than that, he remembered dimly. A desire to reach out, to connect.
A dangerous emotion, whatever it had been. The hobbit hadn't taken advantage of it, hadn't demanded anything from him beyond a fire built, some herbs chopped. His hand crept once more to the pocket where his last treasure hid. A dangerous emotion nonetheless.
He heard his nephews laughing and frowned. Hadn't he once told Bilbo that he would always value their laughter over gold? He slipped the ring from its pocket, feeling it heavy and real in the palm of his hand. You couldn't touch laughter, couldn't hold it close to you.
He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth chase the last of his icy doubt away. He had failed in his quest, but there were always new goals, new horizons.
New golden dreams to achieve.