Chapter Text
In some ways, it is easier to hate. It is easier to take all the anger and the frustration stewing in his blood and shove it into a mould that gave him leave to dress it up as something else. Hatred was so much easier than sitting and working through the rage.
Hatred was easier and Bilbo wanted nothing to do with it. (The secrets he had revealed had been kept by his people for centuries . If even one of the dwarrow decided to speak out, to spread the word… it would not only be Bilbo who suffered.) But Bilbo was tired. He was tired and in some ways, he wanted to let the anger go. So what if Balin was avoiding him? So what if Golin had started to wear his axe again? So what?
But perhaps he was a coward, destined to avoid conflict and wait out the fear and the distrust with distance. He split his time between the library and the gardens. Lists and plans piled on the edge of his table, and when translations and conjecture ran together, Bilbo slipped out into the gardens and put himself to work, weeding and speaking to the plants that needed encouragement.
His moods ran hot and cold, changing from anger to cold indifference as quickly as Balin had taken to spinning on his heel and striding away when Bilbo approached. So, perhaps it was not surprising when a headache bloomed behind his eyes and Bilbo roughly decided to abandon his work for a jaunt in the afternoon sun. (Later, he would wonder if the headache had come from his work or from Rivendell, from the croons that had been steadily building all day.)
It was impossible to miss the tension that had settled across the valley. For a paranoid moment, Bilbo had thought the silence, the fear, was because of him. The dundain had made their thoughts clear in regards to his presence. For all the polite respect, Bilbo had found there was an unspoken policy of avoidance when it came to him.
Bilbo would have thought the tension was due to such thoughts, if it weren't for the way the Valley had suddenly come alive.
There was a serine sort of beauty in Rivendell. If Bilbo were to try and explain it, he might say it was timeless. Aside from natural growth such as grasses and flowers, the valley appeared frozen in time. Decades could have passed while hidden behind her cliffs, and you would never have known. Occasionally Estel's laughter or the sight of him running off between lessons would dispel the frozen quality to the scene. A mortal child in an immortal place.
No wonder the child's presence was so jarring.
But the serine placidity of the last homely house shattered when Bilbo realized there were elves running every which way. Few were in the flowing robes they all seemed to favour, instead long limbs were covered in the leathers Bilbo primarily associated with the Rangers. Long hair was pulled back into braids and nearly everyone had some sort of hat or helmet tucked under their arms.
The few that were still in the fine elven robes were just short of frantic. Their movements were controlled, but Bilbo spied more than one turning to stare West, before hurriedly continuing on with their tasks.
All of that wasn't even including the barked orders and calls that flew through the air. Quickly tucking himself into the doorway of one of the lower residences, Bilbo watched as an elf in working clothes came down the street leading a series of horses taller than the devil steeds of the company. (Bilbo had not thought the dwarrow accusation of elves being demons as accurate. But those horses, with their hooves the size of dinner plates and mouths bigger than his head, Bilbo realised there might be credence to the insult after all.)
“They have been running around like this since this early afternoon.”
Bilbo jumped, eyes wide and hand hovering over his heart as Oakenshield stepped up to join him in the doorway. His heart hammered in his chest and there was the uncomfortable prickle of fright crawling along his shoulders. Scowling, Bilbo went to tell the dwarf off for sneaking up on him, when Bilbo actually looked the dwarf over.
He looked… off.
Different.
Bilbo squinted, mentally trying to put his current appearance next to the many memories of their travels. What changed? What was different? His braids were the same and he still had that absurdly short beard (when compared to his fellows at least). But when the silence stretched, Oakenshield gave him a slightly puzzled look and the difference snapped into place.
The dwarf was well rested.
There were no bags under his eyes and his skin did not hold that pallor Bilbo now knew to be unhealthy, even when applied to a people who dwelled beneath stone and away from the warm sun. The dwarf was well rested, and there was an angry screech of talon and claw beneath Bilbo’s ribs that snarled at the fact the dwarf had found rest here. In the valley of the elves. (Far away from the safety of the Shire and the warmth Bilbo offered freely. There was anger and unrest and Bilbo wanted to scream. )
(If Bilbo looked closely at the unrest in his bones, what would he find? Would it be rage or would it be…)
Jealousy was for faunts who had not yet learned the dances of the Harvest Festival. Jealousy was not for Master Baggins who were comfortably middle aged and overburdened to boot. (It was enough that the dwarf had gotten some measure of rest, even if it was in the too big halls of the elven valley. It should have been enough. ) In the end, Bilbo snapped his jaw shut and turned away, acknowledging the dwarf’s words with a sharp nod.
“Come Master Baggins.” Oakenshield called as he stepped out into the street. “We have been summoned to the Lord’s Study.”
“We?” Bilbo couldn't help but ask as he jogged after the dwarf, practically running away when the devil steeds glomped by. He hadn't thought the dwarrow and the elves civil enough to be in closer proximity than the mess hall.
“You.” Thorin corrected, the dwarf forced to duck as a pack flew over his head. “But no member of my company needs to face the treeshaggers alone.”
Now that was more accurate and Bilbo couldn’t help the fond smile that fell across his face. At least here, in the aftermath of the revelation of his ancestry, the dwarf did not flinch away from him. Not even when Bilbo flashed his teeth.
“You spoke of your Tooks being taken.” Oakenshield rumbled as the two of them ducked into the Lord’s House.
It was a very lovely house, Bilbo couldn’t help but think, if not a bit drafty. The elves seemed to value architecture filled with sweeping arches and wide open windows. Considering they were in a valley and the city was built along the cliffs, there was the passing thought that winters must be a harsh thing. Filled with snow and billowing winds that howled through the crevices.
There was probably a way to block up the open spaces. Folding screens and treated wood that would not falter in the face of the winters.
“Master Baggins?”
Having large fireplaces and hearths would be impractical. The heat would escape far too quickly and for all that the elves were immortal, all living things felt the cold. All living things felt the ice.
“Master Baggins?”
Bilbo stopped, gaze stuck on the scene of bustling elves and packs being strapped to devil steeds. Had he explained what was happening to his Tooks, or had he simply glossed over it, confident in the assumption the dwarrow could not help?
“Bilbo?”
“I think,” Bilbo said as he tore himself away from the scene and the low murmur of the valley, “you should stay for this meeting.”
…***...
“I will not rehash it!” Bilbo spat, shoulders up around his ears and the croons of the valley echoing through his bones. “I have told you of the paths and what I have seen. I have told you of what I remember, and of what Fern passed along to me! Further details would need to be gathered from the Shire, from the mayors and the council of masters! You'd be better off speaking to the Thain.”
“Please, Master Contractor, tell me of the paths.” Peredhel nearly begged, a map spread across his desk and his eyes far too wide and wild for Bilbo’s liking.
“I have!” Bilbo cried, hands thrown up in the air due to the ridiculousness of the situation. The two of them had been at it for nearly two hours by this point and Bilbo had long since given in to the realization that the lord wanted to speak circles around a topic Bilbo knew nothing about. “There is something in the East, the ruins were old, and whatever the hell it is, it eats people. ”
At this point, Bilbo was thinking about eating people, specifically he was thinking about biting Peredhel for the frustration the elf was causing. His teeth ached and Bilbo was two seconds away from snapping and storming out of the room.
“If you would tell us what you were looking for, perhaps the hobbit would be able to answer, elf.” Oakenshield muttered, head tilted back and his tone dryer then Bilbo thought possible.
For all intents and purposes, it appeared Oakenshield had actually begun to nod off. His cousin occasionally jabbed an elbow into his ribs, but for the most part Oakenshield was left alone. Dwalin had appeared at some point after the third time Bilbo had bit his tongue to stop himself from yelling, and appeared to be greatly entertained by the expressions that kept crossing Peredhel’s face. Considering elves were known to be ‘expressionless’, Bilbo could not blame the dwarf for his amusement.
He could, however, blame Dwalin for throwing out the occasional comment and watching with a smug grin at the red that tinted the elf’s cheeks.
“Your so-called burrowwright just tried to eat one of my soldiers!” Peredhel snapped, hand slamming down onto the map as he loomed over Bilbo.
And oh, oh those were words that brought the rage in Bilbo’s blood back up into a boil. Bilbo was not a tall hobbit. He had never been able to loom or physically intimidate any being he came across by standing. But he was a contractor and there were plenty of other ways to scare a man.
(There were probably half a dozen he could use to scare an elf.)
(There was an empathy there, hidden beneath all the rage and the anger. Bilbo did not want anyone to be harmed by the thing on the paths. He had come here to stop such an event. He had written the letter, spoken to Gandalf, and pled to an elf. He had given away the secrets of his people and begged for the information he would need to help his people.)
“That thing, ” Bilbo spat, hands carefully tucked together before him and his chin tucked in such a way that the elf would be forced to stoop down to properly read his face. “That thing is not mine. ”
“That is not what I meant.” Peredhel snapped, jaw clenching in something far too similar to mortal rage.
Bilbo could sympathise, he felt it too.
“I am a Contractor.” Bilbo reminded the elf, fingers twisting into claws and nicking the palms of his hands from his gnawed and jagged nails. (He had spent days in the library, pouring over maps and pulling down account after account. He had spent days trying to find a way to save his people, and yet every elf he spoke to had asked him to be patient until the White Council could be gathered.) “I am a Contractor. Be aware of the weight of your words and the edges of your accusations.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bilbo saw Oakenshield fullbody flinch, his eyes slamming open and the relaxed slump of his form transformed into movement as he scrambled up to his feet. Beside him, Dwalin pulled a short knife as he half stepped in front of his cousin.
“Your burrow…”
Bilbo cut across Peredhel before the elf could gain any traction. “That thing is no burrowwright. I know burrowwrights, and this was nothing like those accursed beings. No, this was far worse. ”
“Bilbo,” the Inbetweener called, smoke heavy around his face and his eyes oddly piercing through the haze. “Bilbo, you are not a Bounder.”
Whatever the Old Man had meant to accomplish, he had not managed it. Instead, Bilbo reared back and turned towards him with a snarl. “You are right! I am no bounder! But that thing wanted blood and names, and no burrowwright of the Old Forest has such power to call. ”
“We need to know what and where it is!” Peredhel hissed, that same rage coating his face and twisting his features into an ugly parody of elven grace.
“And I am telling you, I only know what and where it is not!” Bilbo snapped again.
Oakenshield opened his mouth as if he were about to jump into the mess and Bilbo shot him a scathing look. The dwarf’s mouth clicked shut and there was a grudgingly impressed look on Dwalin’s face as Oakenshield took a step from the fray. (For his own sanity, Bilbo was not going to think about what that look meant, not now.)
Turning back to the lord of the valley, Bilbo heaved in a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He could not walk away from this conversation, the Old Man was propped up against the doorway and had ‘innocently’ placed his staff across the frame, preventing anyone from entering and leaving. Besides that, the lord had summoned him and Bilbo had not been given leave. His father’s teachings and his clan’s responsibilities would not allow him to duck out.
But his tongue was still jagged and the valley had been screaming and rolling with drums and marchbeats for hours. The urge to taketaketaketake was braced against his clenched teeth and Bilbo wanted to lunge for the elf’s throat…
“Vilya Peredhel,” Bilbo breathed out the name, relieved that the lord had chosen a name long before Bilbo had entered the Valley. “Vilya, I beg you to speak carefully.”
“I need to know.” Peredhel whispered, no longer looming. (Thank Yavanna for small mercies.) “The thing has harmed one of my own.”
The study went oddly quiet at that proclamation and Bilbo wanted to scream . How many of his Tooks had suffered? How many of them had been taken? How many wanders had gone missing? How many were there before an elf ?
“I will help you.” Bilbo ground out, desperately keeping his gaze on a faded little mark on the map. From the looks of things, the mark was nothing more than a general scuff mark. An absent scar on the paper that no one had bothered to correct or mask. “I have no problem helping you, but I do not appreciate the interrogation! Remember, it was me and mine who came to you first. It was me and mine who were told to wait until a council could be formed. It was you who pushed aside our concerns and did not offer further protection to my people. It was you who did not ask or bother to learn more before the issue until your own people were harmed!”
“I will help you,” Bilbo repeated, voice as soft as the frost had been at the beginning of the Fell Winter. “I will help you because I will not stand for others to be harmed as my clan has been. I may carry the Baggins name, but I am as Took as any of my cousins.”
The elf took a step back and Bilbo could not help but take one forward, stalking after the lord with the phantom weight of his mantle on his shoulders.
“I will not forget that your people only mobilised after the threat had come after one of your own. Cousin.” The silence in the room continued and Bilbo forced himself to stay in place. He had aimed for his words to hurt, an instinctive lash of the tongue that would have caused even his Grandfather to bow low in shame. If the elf wanted him to be a fairy, then Bilbo would hold that claim over his head without a hint of mercy.
The elves felt they had abandoned his ancestors once. Let them feel that sting again.
“The White Council will gather in less than a week.” The Inbetweener groaned as he hauled himself up to his feet and leaned heavily on his staff. “If the reports from your healers are true, then we may not have such time.”
“Sauraman will not like this.” Peredhel ground out, head turned away from them all even as his hand came to a rest on the map.
“I do not say this lightly, but Sauraman does not need to know.” Gandalf shot back just as quickly, his gaze heavy and sliding about the room as if checking for listeners in the shadows and corners.
Bilbo could not help but mirror him, the weight of the call from the paths and the scent of blood heavy in his nose. He had never feared the paths, had never feared Arda’s twists and turns for all that he had never been one to walk them. But to know they had been corrupted? To know that the paths had twisted and no longer cradled his feet as they should?
There were far worse things than death and the paths had twisted to lead right to it.
(For now, the paths only went one way. They only led to the thing. What would happen when more power was racing through it? Would it be able to get up and walk? To wander and feast as it liked? BIlbo had not thought of such horror, had not wanted to.)
(The Shire could not defend against such a thing. And the gods only knew how long it would be before the thing in the ruins could crawl its way out into the night.)
“He is the head of your order.” Peredhel snapped as he turned towards the Inbetweener in shock.
“And yet he was tasked with watching over Aiwendil on behalf of Yavanna. What does it mean when Aiwendil came to me, rather than to Curumo? What does it mean when Curumo does not know of such decay on the paths?”
And oh, whatever those names meant, they held power. Bilbo could taste it, could nearly bite and chew on the weight they held. (His mouth watered , and the only reason Bilbo did not lunge was because of the lack of connection. No court. No thread to link them. There was power, but there was a tang of danger to them that kept Bilbo from even attempting to reach out and grab hold.)
(Inbetweener’s were dangerous, and Bilbo had enough problems as it was.)
“I had not thought of that.” Peredhel whispered, head bowed as he sank down into a chair.
“No,” Gandalf said just as quietly, “I had not thought of it either until now, and I find I do not like the weight of such thoughts.”
And while Bilbo wanted to know more, there were more pressing matters.
“I had last spoken to Glory. He was there when we went over the paths and potential ruins.” Bilbo said as he gestured to the map and tried to ignore the siren call of names. “If your attacked guard gave you any further information, we may be able to narrow down possible sites.”
“If the attacker is from the East, we may be able to help with updated information.” Oakenshield broke in, causing Bilbo and Peredhel to flinch back at the interruption. In all honesty, Bilbo had forgotten they were there.
“We,” the dwarf gestured between himself and his cousin, ignoring the side-eyed glare he was receiving from his kin, “are more informed on the movements of settlements and Orcs to the East. It is common for Men to hire a dwarrow guard to move trade from settlement to settlement. Aside from that, our kin in the Iron Mountains provide patrol and settlement news as part of an Aid Agreement.”
The room fell silent but to Oakenshield’s credit, he did not baulk at the attention. “It may be a few months out of date, but Master Baggins’ kin have been going missing for longer.”
The room fell silent again, the two dwarrow sharing a series of gestures and headtilts until Dwalin sighed and hauled himself over to the map with the clank of many knives and a sigh heavy enough to bring down a smial. “Alright then elf. What places are we looking for?”
With that the attention turned back towards Bilbo and for a moment, Bilbo wanted to throw his hands up and declare they figure it out for themselves. He had spent too long going over the same information, at this point there was little he had not already said.
“Bilbo.” Gandalf began.
Dwalin cut him off with a grunt, eyes steady as he glanced up from the map. “Oh shut it, ya great storm crow. You ain’t been asking the right sort of questions.”
Gandalf sputtered for a moment, but Bilbo was more intrigued by the fact a wide grin had suddenly split across Oakenshield’s face. (It was in moments like this, when Oakenshield’s expression brightened and his shoulders dropped their tension, that Bilbo could see the hint of the dwarf’s nephews. He could see the mischievousness and the conniving spark that danced between the twins just as easily as it slipped out from behind Oakenshield’s teeth.)
(Bilbo hadn’t seen the expression all that often, had only really noticed it in short moments when no one else seemed to be paying all that much attention.)
(Part of him couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to see that expression more often.)
“Alright then Master Dwarf,” Gandalf said with a frown and a shared look with the elf. “What are we missing?”
“Architecture.” Dwalin gruffly answered, head already turned towards the map and arms crossed as his eyes traced unknown paths along the parchment. “Stone. Were the ruins old and weathered, or had the place been burned to the ground? Abandoned settlements will be overgrown, but if it had been built correctly, it could take decades before a foundation is completely gone. Besides, one can tell at a glance who built an area. No one would mistake a dwarrow build for an elven one.”
Peredhel leaned over, head tilting in bewilderment. “And how would you know this, guard?”
“That is exactly why I know this.” Dwalin grunted as he leaned a touch closer to the map, utterly ignoring the elf before him. “I have guarded many caravans and seen the failure of just as many settlements. Men are foolish and the wilds are not kind to such fools.”
Apparently Oakenshield had the right to look so smug if those were the sort of questions they could have been asking for the last two hours. On the other hand, they could have said something earlier! Oakenshield’s smug grin faltered under Bilbo’s sharp glare.
Dwalin for his part turned towards Bilbo, and suddenly Bilbo was under the gaze of the entire study once again. But this time, he had an answer.
“There was stone. Old stone, like the washed out smials out by the bend of the Brandywine. Smoothed over by time, not by hand.” Bilbo slowly murmured, his gaze drifting down to his feet as he felt the valley croon in his ear. He had stepped off the paths into leaves, a thick carpet of moulding and crumpling earth that was slick with the rot of it all. “There were pillars knocked over and half hidden in the ground.”
Dwalin muttered something about ‘old builds’ and ‘detailing’ but Bilbo wasn’t paying attention. There were leaves under his feet and his heart thud with the weight of name and blood. “The air was thick, heavy, but not with the weight of humidity. I didn’t realize until I was back beside Toymaker later that it had hurt to breathe. It wanted my Name and it wanted my Blood.”
Bilbo looked up, his gaze far away as he tried to push through the haze of terror and panic that clouded the memory. “Wherever it was, there was power. Arda had no foothold there, not anymore.”
From the doorway came a small noise of realisation, and Bilbo turned towards the Inbetweener before he could think.
“I have,” the Old Man said, his fingers white around his pipe, “perhaps been remiss in some of my…”
“What did you do?” Peredhel asked, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in a move that was so utterly mortal Bilbo did a double take. “Gandalf.”
“I have been reminded that I am not the only one with a stake in this endeavour.” Gandalf admitted as he lowered his pipe and blew the smoke from his lungs. “Your guard made that very clear.”
If possible, Peredhel seemed even more exasperated with the Old Man. Bilbo couldn’t blame him, he wanted to strangle the Inbetweener at least once a day since the Old Man had shown up at his door.
“Several decades ago, I heard rumour of movement in Dol Guldur.” Gandalf began, face cast in shadows as he leaned back against his chair. At mention of the city, Bilbo realized all the other occupants of the room instinctively looked to the map, various hands reaching out to trace paths along the parchment until a city in willowly script was found. “At the time, Sauraman dismissed the whispers as ‘foolishness’ and ‘superstition’. He declared the ruins off limits.”
Peredhel made a pained sound and Bilbo might have looked to the elf, if he weren’t stuck looking at the city. (There were stories of burrowwrights and bandits in the Old Wood. Those pale to the horror of the thing in the tomb.)
“I went anyway.”
“Naturally.” Peredhel sighed.
“Yes, well.” Gandalf coughed, footsteps echoing in the study as he came to stand beside the map, his own aged hand settling atop the dreaded city, covering the place in shadow. “It was there that I found…” he trailed off, gaze shifting to land on Oakenshield.
“You found what?” Bilbo bit out, half stepping up and in front of the dwarf. (There were some things that Bilbo did not want to think about. Half of them were being laid bare in this room, the other half were long buried under ice and frost.)
“Thrain.” The Inbetweener said, voice oddly gentle. “King Thrain.”
From the sound Thorin made, it would have been kinder to stab the dwarf through the heart. And for a moment, Bilbo was confused. A thain was not a king, why would any king be named ‘king leader’? It made no sense.
Then Dwalin began to curse, the air blistering as he slipped between languages and insults. If it were not for the way Oakenshield had staggered back, Bilbo thought Dwalin might have rushed the Old Man, wizard or not.
“I found your father.” The Inbetweener whispered, his gaze slipping towards the edge of Thorin’s coat. A place where Bilbo had seen the dwarf compulsively check for the last few weeks. A place, Bilbo realized, that might hold a certain map.
“Gandalf.” Peredhel breathed, a hand coming up to cover his heart. “What did you do?”
“‘E left our king to rot. ” Dwalin growled, voice cracking out like a whip as he paced forward to stand beside Bilbo, blocking Thorin from view completely. “We thought King Thrain died at Azanulbizar. We thought him eaten by Orcs and left with no honour.”
Thorin choked. Bilbo reached back, fingers curling around a trembling wrist. (There would be no more bodies left in the frost. Bilbo would make sure of it.)
“I could not save him.” The Inbetweener defended, gentle in all the wrong ways. “There was little left to save.”
“You could have told us!” Dwalin roared. “Our people have been divided. Our king recognized by a default, not by clarity. You should have told us!”
Bilbo was cold. The frost was heavy on his shoulders and the snow had piled in his lungs. He could not decide what was worse. That the Inbetweener had been given the map and key as a last attempt by the late king, or that the Inbetweener had pillaged them from the body. Regardless, the worst of the situation was that the Inbetweener had not told anyone. In fact, he had held onto the late king’s last words for decades.
“Gandalf.” Peredhel whispered.
“Were there hobbits?” Bilbo breathed through the ice and snow in his throat. The Inbetweener’s gaze was heavy. Oakenshield’s grip was tight.
“I do not know.”
And somehow that hurt worse.
“You went into the seat of the Shadow, his court, and then you walked away ?!” Peredhel nearly shrieked, hands slamming down onto the table in a rough and desperate thud. Somehow, Bilbo wasn’t sure if the reaction was due to the fact that Gandalf had managed to make it out alive, or if it was due to the fact the Inbetweener had gone at all.
“Once that land was called Amon Luc.” Gandalf rebutted, staff tipping forward as he gestured to the noted city on the map.
Peredhel’s skin paled to a waxy sort of white. “You went to Thandril’s old seat.” The Inbetweener opened his mouth as if to respond in kind, but the elf waved away the attempt. “That land is cursed. ”
The Inbetweener waved away the concern. “It is no Moria.”
The fact Moria was even a reasonable comparison was concerning.
“You said nothing about this.” Peredhel ground out, complexion still washed out and faded. “You have said nothing. ”
“Sauraman ordered…” The Inbetweener attempted to defend himself.
“When has that stopped you before?” Peredhel cried out, half sinking back into his seat with his hands covering his face.
To be honest, Bilbo wasn’t sure if they had forgotten he and the dwarrow were still in the room. As it stood, Oakenshield still held a tight grip around his wrist and Bilbo half thought Dwalin might take his axes to the Inbetweener, no matter how much the journey hinged on the Old Man’s knowledge.
Although there were other beings who were just as knowledgeable, Bilbo thought as he gently tugged at Thorin’s grip. Slowly, oh so painfully slowly, the dwarrow shuffled after Bilbo as he led them towards the door. That, if nothing else, proved that the elf and the inbetweener had forgotten about them.
Nobody stopped them as they left through the door.
(Bilbo couldn’t do this. There was frost on his tongue and the ice nipped at his fingers. He couldn’t stay here, trapped in a room with an unapologetic istari and an elf who had forgotten what mortality meant.)
Tugging Thorin into an alcove, Bilbo watched helplessly as the dwarf sank down to the ground. Bilbo followed him only a moment later, their wrists still clasped together. There were a hundred different things he wanted to say, a thousand different words that pushed at his tongue. But Bilbo remembered the ice, he remembered the howls, he remembered the frost. And Yavanna, he had hated the platitudes that had been offered when he had sent his parents off to the Garden.
He hated the words then.
He didn’t think he could say them now.
Thorin’s back rested against his cousin’s legs and Dwalin for his part had braced himself, the butt of his axe placed against the ground as he stood guard for a king that could not stand for himself. (Bilbo didn’t want to think of the expression on the guard-cousin’s face. Part of him wondered if it would be anything like his mother’s when they had sent off his father, heartbroken and devastated, held up only by duty and a fair amount of spite.)
“There were so many dead, we had to burn them.” Thorin whispered, his head bowed over their hands.
One of his braids slipped from the rest of his hair, the bead swaying like a pendulum as the dwarf stared off into nothing.
(There was frost in his throat and Bilbo habitually counted the dwindling woodpile, the numbers fluctuating as he tried to make the wood stretch longer and longer. If he subtracted a log here, there would be less heat there, but there would be more embers later. If he shoveled the ash now, there would be a cold bath later, his skin scrubbed raw by snowmelt. If he did this now then later… )
“The gods do not like us.” Thorin whispered, one hand coming up to clasp his bead the same way a faunt might hold onto a stuffed toy or a parent’s hems. “The elves and men had made that abundantly clear. The only one who watches us is Mahal, and even he is bound by the will of his Father.”
The ice climbed up Bilbo’s fingers to swirl along his palms. When he was a child, he loved to watch the frosted flowers glint on the glass of the smial and the well buckets. All hobbits loved flowers and aside from the rare winter growth, the frost was one of the few ways Yavanna blessed Arda with her domain in the dead-season.
Bilbo had loved the frost flowers.
“I could not send my father or my brother to the Halls with honours.” Thorin rasped, knuckles white around his bead. “It is said Mahal cannot find us without the connection to stone.”
Bilbo hated the frost.
Thorin’s head lifted just enough for Bilbo to see haunted eyes and the overlay of gaunt cheekbones as the frost climbed from his palms to his wrists.
“I ordered my people to be burned, with naught but the stone on the battlefield and the mine beneath our feet to guide them to the Halls.” Thorin whispered as if Bilbo had any sort of hope to offer absolution. “I had to do it. I had to. There were too many dead. There were too many.”
There was a keen and Bilbo did not know who it had come from. Was it ripped from his throat? From the fallen king? From the guard ?
“And then my father came back. And I did not know. ”
Bilbo closed his eyes, as if he were a faunt and if he hid away from the world it would not hurt him. Bowing low, Bilbo placed his forehead against Throin’s hands. The frost was climbing into his lungs and Bilbo could not make the wood last long enough to make the thaw. (His father was so cold and his mother was numb. They had begun to burn the furniture, to strip away the upholstery and carve up the heirlooms of the house. His father’s palace, his father’s castle that he gifted to his wife, stripped bare for the fire.) He had to share the only warmth he had. He had to share the only thing he had left.
“I did not know!”
Bilbo could not offer absolution. He was no farmer, no dancer to commune with the Green Lady. He gardened and was good at it, but he was no famed priest. He knew contracts and oath, ink and blood. (He knew far too much about grief.)
Part of him wanted to sit there, to stay in the cold and the numbness. Part of him wanted to whisper words of comfort and oath. To wash away the sharp edges of the pain and promise that it would be ok. (Bilbo would not lie. He would not promise. Not when he remembered the cold ground and the branding heat of his Uncle’s hands as the mantel was passed into his hands. A mantel that was unfinished and incomplete, ill omens whispering up and down his skin with every moment.)
Ever so slowly, Bilbo slipped forward, his head pushing against the fur of Thorin’s coat, his nose turned in towards the dwarf’s neck. For all the frost and the cold, all Bilbo could offer was the warmth. (There was not enough wood to make it to thaw.)
“The Green Lady is not so cruel as to leave the souls of her husband’s children in the cold.” Bilbo whispered into the dwarf’s braids. “It is no stone Hall, but the Garden is warm and I cannot see the Mother turning away her children from the hearth.”
Thorin shuddered and Bilbo leaned back, his hand brushing against the dwarf’s jacket for just a moment, fingers drifting towards the hidden pocket. Then he stood, knees aching from the hard stone and a banked fury that danced along his bones.
“Guard him.” Bilbo murmured as he stepped around Dwalin, the dwarf a rigid statue in the hall.
“Always.” The guard murmured, his own expression tight with restrained grief.
For a heartbeat, Bilbo picked up the thread. For a moment, he held the promise in his hand and felt the weight of it on his tongue. He could bind it, perhaps not as tightly as he would to a Man, but the oath was heavy in the dwarf’s voice. In the end, Bilbo dropped the thread. He let the oath fall and the promise slip away into nothing.
As he walked down the hall, the map he had stolen from Thorin was as heavy in his pocket as the Xs on his collar.
…***...
The argument between the Old Man and the elf shattered into silence the moment Bilbo threw the study door open. Both Big Folk turned towards him in eerie synchrony, and the frost in Bilbo’s lungs thawed under their gaze.
Under his feet, Rivendell crooned and nudged him, acting for all the world like an affectionate cat. From the tightness around Peredhel’s eyes, Bilbo was willing to bet that affection was not shared with the elf.
Walking forward, Bilbo slipped the map from his pocket and carefully placed it on the table between the Big Folk. This was not his heirloom, it was not his to break and tear. Anger and fury had no space around fragile things and Bilbo had long since learned to breathe through the pain.
“There is a map we cannot read.” Bilbo said, his gaze stuck on the elf.
His back prickled at the realization he had the Inbetweener behind him, but Bilbo would not falter. Not now. Not with this.
“If we stay in your halls, we will never leave.” Bilbo continued, face twisting into a wordless snarl when Peredhel opened his mouth to speak. “The White Council will detain us citing the threat we pose towards waking a dragon. You will hold us until you have wrought vengeance on the thing in the tomb. And the Inbetweener will say nothing until the information is too late to be helpful. ”
Peredhel sucked in a breath as if he had been struck. Absently, Bilbo wondered when the elf had picked up such mortal reactions.
“My people have died. ” Bilbo pressed on. “And a whole kingdom in exile is desperate enough to risk the wrath of a dragon to protect their children.”
He paused, silently waiting for the elf to do something. Anything. To react to him beyond a shocked stare and a fear he poorly hid. (He refused to be disappointed when the elf did nothing. He refused.)
“Cousin.” Bilbo sighed as he gently pushed the map closer to the elf. “Do better.”
Peredhel shook with a depth of grief that Bilbo did not dare to fathom.
“Help us.”
…***...
The next time Bilbo went to the library there was a map and a scroll tucked into his notes. He did not need the seal to know who it was from.
"Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the key-hole."
The White Council convenes in two days. The next patrol sets out at dawn.
Do not be caught.