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Bilbo Baggins had never met his soul mate, and he was quite content with that.
It wasn’t particularly common, not in the Shire when everyone knew everyone and you were bound to have met three quarters of the hobbits living there by the time you came of age, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of. Sometimes people went years without knowing who their soul mate was even after they had met them, because they had happened to catch each other’s eye in a crowd quite by accident, and when they had gotten over the shock of colour flooding into their vision had lost their soul mate in the hustle and bustle.
Besides, everyone knew that the gentlehobbit living in Bag-End was entirely respectable, as polite and friendly as they came, always willing to set out tea for guests and slide treats to fauntlings who happened to play near his smoking bench. Everyone was more than willing to overlook the fact that he was quite unable to tell which of his marigolds were orange and which were pink, because he tended to them so diligently regardless.
On a day to day basis you couldn’t even notice – he’d long ago asked his tailor to sew labels inside of all of his clothing with their colour written on, so he didn’t even go wandering about the place in mismatching clothing, like disreputable Big Folk still searching for their One. Of course it was unusual in the Shire to never marry, but only right that Master Baggins had not: it wasn’t that he did not have a one person meant to be his own, merely that by some trick of fate he had never found them.
All in all, he was quite proper, and if he occasionally mixed up his brown sugar for white, well, no one was going to blame him.
He himself didn’t particularly mind – of course, when he had been young he had wondered what colour the grass was, and the sky, and what colour his own eyes would turn out to be when he finally was able to see them, but such things were a childish fancy, and he quickly got over them.
‘The grass is green, the sky is blue, and your pipe is brown,’ he would remind himself in his best imitation of his father’s voice whenever thoughts of colours threatened to weigh down his mood. ‘You’ve known those things since you were a faunt, and you don’t have to see them to know them, so buck up, old chap. You can live your life quite contentedly only seeing in black and white, you know.’
His father had only been trying to help, but it never occurred to Bilbo that it was all well and good knowing the colours, but it was a poor substitute for seeing the real thing.
Those thoughts became less and less frequent as he reached his middle age, and he settled down quite comfortably into the life that he had been given, perfectly happy with his own company, his quiet, peaceful life, and his monochrome vision.
Soul mates are like adventures, Bilbo consoled himself. All well and good for those who want them, but entirely unnecessary additions to a happy life. It was no great hardship that he had never met his, even if he couldn't tell which of his petunias were blue and which were purple.
Which was why, when a Wizard appeared, he was rather adverse to the idea of an adventure.
“Nasty, disturbing and uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
Late, or perhaps miss it entirely, as he later found out when a host of Dwarves arrived in his cosy little smial, raiding his pantry and trekking mud through the halls and throwing his mother’s china about with absolutely no respect. He had had quite enough by the time one final knock had rang out from the door, quieting the crowd of Dwarves whose names he had not quite managed to catch in the flurry of their arrival.
“He’s here,” Gandalf had remarked, quite seriously for him, and every eye had swung to the flustered hobbit, until he realised that he was expected to get the door.
And so he did, rather unhappy, swinging it open to reveal-
Oh, my.
The Dwarf on the other side looked as equally perplexed as he at the sudden abundance of colour that washed over his vision in a wave of unexpected brilliance. They stared at each other, blinking.
Well goodness gracious.
He had heard stories, of course, about the joy of being colour-struck, that moment when the world came swimming up to meet you in all of its vivid truth, everything so much more than you had ever imagined. He’d heard about people who’d laughed, or cried, and even the few that had had to cover their eyes at the brightness of it all, quite unaccustomed to a world that wasn’t entirely picked out in shades of grey. And the stories had always continued about the happiness at finding your soul mate, the way that you knew, in your heart, that this was the person you were supposed to be with, and not just because you could suddenly see in technicolour. Some threw themselves at each other, some embraced more hesitantly, some stared shyly at the floor…
Bilbo had occasionally wondered how he himself might have reacted. He never would have thought he would just stand there, dumbstruck, completely lost for words.
Now this won’t do, he told himself firmly. He was a Baggins, of Bag-End, and he wasn’t going to stand here like a scared faunt just because his soul mate was a, well, a dwarf, and an unexpected one at that.
He took half a step forward, but then the Dwarf took half a step back.
And his face just shut down.
The surprise which had slapped across his expression was suddenly gone, all lost as if the dwarf had slammed a shutter across an open window, locking his emotions away. In its place rested a neutral but unfriendly expression, disinterest bordering on unimpressed.
Hobbits were honest folk. They didn’t hide behind masks. Even when they were nasty, they were always upfront about it.
Bilbo didn’t know what to do.
Then the dwarf just pushed past him, as if he were a spare bit of furniture, and the brightness of the colours seemed to fade a little. The dwarf faltered, seeing it too, but did not turn back to him.
“Gandalf. I thought you said this place would be easy to find. I lost my way, twice. I wouldn’t have found it at all had it not been for that mark on the door.”
Bilbo was in far too much shock to process what was going on, but that brought his attention back.
“Mark? There’s no mark on that door. It was painted a week ago. Painted… green.”
He glanced at the still open door.
So that was what green looked like.
Well, his father had been quite wrong. It was a very different thing to see it for himself.
Gandalf hummed, a melodic, pleasant hum with absolutely no indication of a guilty conscience.
“There is a mark; I put it there myself. Bilbo Baggins, allow me to introduce the leader of our company, Thorin Oakenshield.”
Bilbo looked at him, and Thorin looked right back, his face stony.
Perhaps it was just shock, Bilbo found himself thinking desperately. Just shock at seeing it all for the first time. He hadn’t known what to do. Surely he’ll say something now.
“So, this is the Hobbit.”
Bilbo found himself leaning, imperceptibly, closer.
“Tell me, Mr. Baggins, have you done much fighting?”
He faltered.
“Pardon me?”
Thorin’s voice was beginning to sound impatient now, an edge to it.
“Axe or sword? What’s your weapon of choice?”
What was going on?
By this stage, Bilbo was thoroughly confused, and more than a little disheartened. It was quite one thing to be content never have met your soul mate, and entirely another to have actually met them only for it to turn out that they seemed entirely unwilling to acknowledge the bond. A chill shot through him at the very thought, and he stammered out a reply.
“Well, I have some skill at conkers, if you must know, but I fail to see why that’s relevant.”
Thorin’s impatience was audible in his tone.
“Thought as much. He looks more like a grocer than a burglar.”
And that was that. Bilbo’s soul mate turned away from him, a clear dismissal if ever he had heard one, leaving the poor hobbit wondering quite what he had done to deserve such a reaction from a dwarf who had never met him before. A heavy weight settled on him that did not shift for the rest of the evening, though it was hardly a light hearted one. The strange conversation about mountains and dragons and doors and burglars, a contract thrust in his hands for reasons he still did not entirely understand, and then-
Funeral arrangements.
He’d spent fifty years without his soul mate, only to discover that not an evening after he did the rude creature was going off on a quest with little to no possibility of success, only to face a dragon at the end? He mumbled lines from the contract out loud, the thought of this Thorin dying, of all the possibilities lost, and the colour seeping back out of his world once more…
“I feel a little faint.”
The dwarves seemed to have got entirely the wrong impression, glancing amongst themselves, one particularly mischievous looking fellow grinning up at him from under his funny hat.
“Think furnace with wings.”
Bilbo fainted.
Of course, he’d ended up going.
He really didn’t have a choice in the matter.
--
He ran out the door the next morning only to almost trip over his feet.
His mother might have taught him that the grass and leaves were green, but she had never explained just how many types of green there were.
And his tomatoes.
That was what colour red was?
He didn’t think he’d ever look at them in quite the same way again.
--
It was several weeks of travelling before he slipped up. They were still in the wilds, travelling east, and the days were a monotonous drag of waking, riding and sleeping rough, not having stopped in an inn since Bree, much to his dissatisfaction.
It was on one evening, not long after they had made camp, that Bilbo came across Oin grumbling to himself near the campfire, on his knees. Bilbo was on his feet, a little unsure of what he was supposed to be doing with himself: whilst no one had told him to do anything, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was expected to be doing something none the less.
“Where is my blasted brother when you need him?”
Bilbo fiddled with the buttons of his jacket.
“Um, Master Oin, he left to collect firewood. Is there something you need?”
He realised that the older dwarf was looking at a patch of plants, holding the delicate little flowers between his hands. Oin sat back, sighing.
“Nothing, lad, but for someone to tell me if these flowers are white or purple. Purple and they’re useless, white and they’ll make for a handy salve.”
“They’re white,” Bilbo reassured him without thinking.
The dwarf looked up at him in surprise, and the other members of the Company, gathered around the campfire, all suddenly seem to forget what they were doing in order to look their way.
He swallowed, lacing his fingers together uncomfortably.
“Well, Mister Boggins, I didn’t know that you were colour-struck!”
Kili sounded incredibly cheerful about the whole thing, and some of the older dwarves shook their heads at his lack of tact. Bilbo didn’t blame them. What would any right-minded person who had met their soul-mate be doing wandering around, so far from them?
The dwarves exchanged glances. No wonder Master Baggins had been so unwilling to leave the Shire.
Bilbo cleared his throat.
“Well, umm, yes. That is to say, I am, but it is complicated, you see. I’d much rather not talk about it.”
Kili opened his mouth, as if to protest, but his brother elbowed him in the side, hissing at him to shut up. Several dwarves shot him sympathetic looks as he took his place by the fire, pulling his knees to his chest and very determinedly not looking at Thorin.
Soul mates were a complicated and private business. No one questioned him further.
The not looking at Thorin thing was growing increasingly difficult by the day. Regardless of how either of them felt, the Valar had made them as two halves of a whole: it was difficult to fight the urge to move closer to him, look at him, talk to him. It had been with a strange contradiction of emotions that Bilbo had realised Thorin’s eyes were the same colour as the sky, that his hair was shot through with lines of silver.
He wished he’d had a chance to examine his own silver-wear before running off on an adventure: it must have been really quite attractive, if it was anything close to the same colour as Thorin’s hair. No wonder Lobelia was always trying to steal them.
It had been very difficult, particularly in the first few days, not to give himself away as recently struck. Everything around him appeared as if it were brand new to his adjusted gaze, flowers he had known his entire life given a new depths of colour, sights he’d seen a thousand times rendering him speechless as they appeared in their full glory.
He shuffled off a little way after dinner, still within sight of the camp fire but far enough away that he could look as utterly miserable as he felt without anyone commenting or wondering. He probably would have stayed away for quite some time had Kili not come to find him, throwing himself down next to the discouraged hobbit with a half-smile.
“Sorry, Mister Boggins. Fili’s always telling me to think about what I’m saying.”
Bilbo waved his apology away, a little touched that the young dwarf had searched him out to apologise.
“That’s quite alright, Kili. You weren’t to know.”
The young dwarf huffed, leaning back against a tree.
“I forget about it sometimes, you see, because I’ve always been colour-struck, and it’s hard to remember that-”
“What?” Bilbo interrupted. It really was quite rude of him and his mother would have scolded him for such a thing, but out in the wilds his manners seemed much less important than before.
Kili blinked.
“Oh, well. I’m sorry again, Mister Boggins. It’s a bit of a famous story back home, so it doesn’t occur to me that people might not know it.”
Bilbo smiled at him, perhaps the first genuine smile he’d managed since he’d left home.
“Don’t worry. Would you tell it to me?”
Kili nodded, an eager puppy wanting to please. “See, when our Ma was carrying me, Fee was acting really strange, and no one knew why. He’d not leave Ma’s side, even though before he’d always be tearing away, playing with friends and exploring and the like. Everyone was really worried about him, and he couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to do anything but sit with Ma. And Fee…”
He trailed off, glancing back over his shoulder at the campfire. “Well, you’ve seen him, he’s beautiful, and he was always bright. Fair hair is rare amongst our kind, Master Boggins, even if doesn’t seem to be among yours, and we don’t have many children, so everyone loved him, from the bakers to the blacksmiths. And everyone worried, not just our parents and Uncle Thorin. Everyone.
“And then I was born, and they brought him in to see me, and he just started laughing.”
Bilbo stared at him, shocked at the implication, but Kili continued, not noticing, his face lit by a warm, affectionate smile.
“They kept asking him why he was laughing, but he just couldn’t stop, and in the end all he could say was that I had brown hair, like he’d thought.”
He grinned at the hobbit then, who swallowed.
“Master Kili, are you saying that your brother is your soul mate?”
The cheerful dwarf nodded, still smiling, but there was a sudden tension to his shoulders that had not been there before. That he talked about it so freely implied that such a thing was not unheard of among dwarf-folk, but that tightness made Bilbo wonder what other people had had to say over the years about it. Big-Folk, Bilbo knew, were not always as understanding as they might have been about things that they did not readily understand.
Goodness, but Kili was young, wasn’t he, still willing to tell the story despite all that, and without knowing the reaction he’d get.
Bilbo thought about it for a moment, before patting his hand.
“That is truly a lovely story. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard a nicer one about a pair being colour-struck in all my years. The pair of you are blessed to have found each other so young.”
Really, who was he to comment on who the Valar had chosen for another?
Kili stared at him, his mouth slightly opened.
Then he beamed.
Bilbo suddenly had arms thrown around him, in a rough but well-meant embrace, and there was hot breath by his ear.
“Thank you, Mister Boggins.”
He wondered for a moment at the impropriety of it, and then almost laughed at himself. Really Bilbo, he said to himself, who cares?
He hugged the dwarf back, his own mouth turning up into a smile.
“I hope you’re alright,” the young dwarf murmured against his shoulder. “I don’t think I could stand being so far from Fee.”
Bilbo patted his back, feeling a little awkward, unsure of how to respond without either lying or revealing the truth. But then Kili pulled out of the embrace, looking at him seriously.
“We’re here for you, Mister Boggins. You’re a part of our Company, and if you ever need anything, or just want to talk, well… come and find me, okay?”
Then he was on his feet, clearly a little embarrassed at himself, and with a short bow was bounding off to the campfire again.
Bilbo tucked his feet under himself, feeling a little less despondent than he had been before.
--
Bilbo felt a little guilty that everyone was much nicer to him after that.
Clearly the thought that Bilbo had a soul mate that he was apart from made up for his moaning, or perhaps excused it in their eyes: certainly no one was at their best when they were forced to be apart from the other part of their heart. It was why everyone put up with Gloin’s constant prattling about his wife and son, and why no one took offence at Bombur’s unwillingness to join in with any conversation, though normally he was a very chatty fellow indeed.
It was also pain that many of them could all understand – of the Company, only four had mentioned being colour struck (not including Bilbo and, of course, Thorin), but he rather suspected from the sympathetic glances he received that several more had been, but had lost their partner, either to the dragon or to some other tragedy.
Only Dori had actually mentioned it, patting his head in a way that Bilbo might have taken offense to had it not been so very comforting.
“It’s a sad truth that being apart from your One renders almost everything else unimportant,” he commented without prompting, perhaps having seen Bilbo’s maudlin expression (Thorin had snapped at him that morning, casting a dark cloud over the rest of his day).
“The first few years after I lost my colour were very hard, but I got through it in the end.” He ruffled Bilbo’s curls. “You’re doing very well. Be glad your simply apart for now, and not separated forever.”
Bilbo hadn’t known what to say to that, but Dori had not seemed to expect an answer, darting away to slap Nori around the head as he showed young Ori a particularly lethal looking knife trick.
So now the dwarves ignored his complaining, rather than rolling their eyes or mocking him, and though it was still a far cry from the sympathy he would have received from hobbits he found that it was actually enough to make him stop – the idea that they were tolerating him for a lie was uncomfortable, and the only way to resolve it without admitting the truth was to simply bite back his complaints.
That, in turn, made the dwarves warm up to him all the more.
This was helped significantly by Kili, whose made a deliberate effort to include the hobbit in as much as he could, and by extension, Fili, though the older of the brothers seemed divided between his brother’s clear affection for Bilbo and Thorin’s adamant disinterest in him.
Disinterest was probably the kindest word that anyone could come up with to describe the way that their leader steadfastly ignored the Burglar, having not said a word to the smallest member of their Company since the Shire with the exception of an occasional, barked order or sharp comment. He was the only one that refused to acknowledge him, or include him in anything, despite the fact that he was gradually becoming of more use, darting away from camp to collect firewood, or helping with the cooking and the brushing down of the ponies.
Which was why everyone was a little surprised that he had sprang to his feet without a word when Fili had run back to camp yelling about trolls, and burglars, and ponies; he’d darted out of camp soundlessly and without giving any orders, leaving the rest of the Company to stagger to their feet and follow, a little bewildered.
It had been even more shocking when the trolls had gotten a hold of Bilbo for the second time, and Thorin had thrown his weapons to the ground before the great brutes had even had a chance to issue an ultimatum, glaring up at the three of them and the struggling hobbit as if his very gaze could melt them away.
Kili, always a little optimistic, had perhaps thought that Thorin might offer some words of thanks when Bilbo’s successful delaying tactics had brought about the sunrise and the trolls’ demise, but it was not to be.
He’d merely given their burglar a dismissive glance, snorting quietly when Gandalf had pressed a short blade from the troll horde into his little, unsuitable hands.
Thorin’s youngest nephew was quite decided that it was time to talk to his Uncle about his rather unfair prejudice, but they had been quickly distracted by a mad-cap wizard riding a rabbit-sleigh, and an approaching pack of orcs. By the time they’d reached Rivendell it had quite slipped his mind, and would continue to be forgotten about for quite some time.
None of them were too pleased to be housed in the valley of the Elves, though several would secretly admit to enjoying the couple of nights sleeping on full stomachs and on soft mattresses, dragged from the rooms they had been allotted to be placed in a rough circle in a wide alcove, because no Dwarf trusted the Elves enough to sleep alone and unprotected.
Bilbo, however, loved Rivendell. It would have been beautiful enough in black and white, but its warm light and beautiful architecture were stunning in full colour. He spent his days wandering in the gardens, examining flowers whose colour he had never known before.
The elves were happy to help him name the ones he didn’t know, and it was a wonderful few days spent away from Thorin’s perpetual glaring.
“You could always stay here with us, Master Hobbit,” proposed one elf to him, but Bilbo had shaken his head.
He’d left the Shire to follow his soul mate, for all that the dwarf seemed to have no interest in him.
It was with a sad heart that Bilbo said goodbye to what might be the last port of safety before the end of their journey, and his grief was made worse each passing day as the brightness of his newly discovered coloured dimmed a little, continuing to fade as their bond went unrecognised. If it was affecting Thorin the same way, he could not tell: their leader’s temper only grew worse, but that could have been down to a great number of factors, not in the least the threat of Goblins and the worsening weather.
It was a gradual fade up until the unfortunate incident with the Stone Giants, when Thorin’s harsh words caused a sudden and alarming greying of his vision. He’d stared up at the Dwarf, seeing his own shock reflected back at him in those cool, blue eyes, but Thorin had turned away from him before he had had a chance to say anything.
He was quite resolved to leaving, after that. Better to sit at home in the warmth and comfort of his parlour and watch the colours fade than endure cruel words and harsh conditions only for the same thing to happen.
But before he could the floor had fallen out beneath them, toppling them into a whole new hell.
--
When Bilbo stumbled out of the caves he thought he might pass out from shock. The world had resolved back to grey, and it hit him with a terrifying understanding that Thorin must have died, though he had not felt the pain in his breast that other’s had described upon losing their soul mate. The constant ache he had been feeling since Thorin and he had first met was still there, though, and he pressed a hand against his breast as if he might stop it.
None of those people, he reminded himself despondently as he half-fell down the hillside, had had a soul mate so clearly unhappy with the decision of the Valar before. Perhaps the sharpness of loss did not come when your soul mate hated you, only the long lingering ache of regret and rejection.
He wondered when the colours had gone: the caves had been so dark and grey that it might have been at any point, and it wouldn’t have even noticed. Had the others made it out alive? Was he the only one left?
His grief rioted around his mind, leaving him cold, and not just for the soul mate he had never really known.
But then he’d come across them once more, loudly discussing where he might be.
“He’s dead, then,” said one dwarf as Bilbo caught up with them, and Bilbo realised with some shock that they truly couldn’t see him – it hadn’t just been the shadows and that strange creature’s madness that had caused him to be overlooked in the cave.
Thorin opened his mouth, staring back up the hill, but then shook his head, unwilling to contradict the claims even though Bilbo was sure he knew that he must still be living.
“I’ll tell you what happened. Master Baggins saw his chance, and he took it. He’s thought of nothing but his soft bed and his warm hearth since first he stepped out of his door. We will not be seeing our hobbit again. He is long gone.”
Bilbo scowled.
Weeks of frustration and pain welled up in him, and he thought for a moment that he might cry like a faunt. But now was not the time, and he was already not the same hobbit that had run out of his smial months earlier. His fingers found the ring that must have been the source of his strange new power, and he pulled it off, his irritation momently blinded by relief as colour slammed back into his vision.
“No, he isn’t.”
The dwarves stared at him in shock for a moment before Kili barrelled into him, embracing him roughly, his relief genuine and comforting to the hobbit. Bofur mussed his curls, and several others laughed, reaching over to offer him friendly pokes or pats, as if making sure that he was really there. Gandalf leant on his staff, looking genuinely relieved.
“Bilbo Baggins! I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life!”
Balin was smiling at him, Dwalin was looking him up and down appraisingly, and Bombur had his head thrown back in elation. He patted Balin on the shoulder affectionately as the older Dwarf reached to squeeze his wrist; Kili’s arm still a comfortable weight around his shoulder.
“Bilbo...we’d given you up!”
Fili was grinning as brightly as his brother, his relief overwhelming his loyalty to his Uncle for a moment.
“How on earth did you get past the Goblins?!”
“How indeed,” murmured Dwalin, who managed to look both suspicious and impressed at the same time.
Bilbo considered the possibilities for a moment, before tucking his ring safely away and shrugging.
“Well, what does it matter? He’s back,” remarked Gandalf, smiling kindly down at him.
Thorin was the only one who still looked unhappy.
“It matters! I want to know - why did you come back?”
Really, thought Bilbo, who’d thought for a brief, mad moment that Thorin might actually be glad that his soul mate lived still. He rounded on the Dwarf, scowling in a way that he had never had cause to do before.
This quest really was bringing out a whole new side to him.
“Look, I know that you doubt me, that you always have.” He nearly stuck out a finger to jab Thorin in the chest, but thought better of it at the last moment. “You’re right, I miss Bag-End, but I would have thought that you would understand that. Because that’s where I belong, that’s where I was born and raised, that’s my home. And you don’t have one. That’s way I came back. It was taken from you. And regardless of what you may presume, I want to help you take it back, if I can.”
Thorin stared at him, and Bilbo right back, a little out of breath. The dwarf looked genuinely stunned by his outburst, but before anyone had a chance to say anything the echoing howl of wargs reached them.
What followed was worse than the trolls, worse than the stone giants: it was quite possibly the most awful few hours of Bilbo’s life. And not because of the chasing wargs, or the orcs, or their mad scramble up trees without hope of escape. It wasn’t the fear of them catching them, or the fire that spread from Gandalf’s burning pinecones – and honestly, what was the daft wizard thinking, setting things on fire in a dry pine copse? It wasn’t even the sudden uprooting of the trees, the horrific lurching as they began to fall, leaving them to jump desperately from one to another.
No, it wasn’t any of that, though all of those ranked very highly on Bilbo’s list of things never to do again.
It was being there, clinging to a branch, and watching Thorin advance into the fray, flames licking around him, striding into what they both knew was certain death.
And there, in the cold heights of the Misty Mountains, Bilbo Baggins found courage.
Because he’d felt the fear at the world turning grey again, the sudden and overwhelming loss at thinking the colour had been taken from his life, that Thorin had died, leaving him to a life without a soul mate. He didn’t want to have that happen again. If the colour faded gradually as their lived their life apart, then so be it, but he could not watch it all disappear in one moment again. In that moment he realised – he didn’t care that Thorin hated him, that theirs was not to be a story like his parents’, or like most. He would rather live knowing that Thorin was alive, even if they were not to be together, than in a world where he had lain back and let his soul mate die.
He would rather die himself, first.
So he had found his way to his feet, and charged in after him.
--
Bilbo was not entirely sure what had happened. One moment he had been standing, oddly calm for all that he was shaking, quite ready to die. The next, he was on the back of a giant bird.
He could hear the rest of the Company calling to each other from around him, yelling to Thorin, who hung unconscious from the claws of one bird just ahead of him – an eagle, he told himself absentmindedly, remembering the bird watching he had done with his father as a faunt. They were eagles.
Just, giant ones.
Thorin wasn’t dead, though he couldn’t blame the others for fearing: if he hadn’t the visual proof around him, he might have thought so to.
Not knowing what else to do, he lay down against the feathers, and closed his eyes.
He was roused many hours later by the swooping descent of the eagle that bore him, dropping down through the sky towards a great pillar of rock, oddly shaped and jutting out of the landscape like a beacon. It took him a moment to realise that they were being dropped off there, like errant faunts who had hitched a ride on the back of a hay-cart, and then he too was deposited, the birds winging away with loud caws to each other.
Gandalf was kneeling over Thorin, who still lay unconscious, calling to him, his hands spread out over the Dwarf’s chest.
It took a moment, but then Thorin’s eyes opened.
“The halfling?”
Bilbo blinked, barely noticing the brightening of his vision as the other dwarves crowded around their leader, helping him to his feet.
“It’s alright,” Gandalf replied, with a twinkle that made Bilbo wonder just what the wizard knew. “Bilbo is here. He’s quiet safe.”
Thorin was up by then, his eyes casting about himself quickly until they found the hobbit. If Bilbo was expecting any affection, or gratitude, he was disappointed. Thorin rounded on him, shrugging off his dwarves despite the pain of his wounds, glaring furiously.
“You! What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed!”
Bilbo may have barely noticed the colours getting brighter, but it would have taken a fool not to notice when they reversed, becoming greyer than ever before, as if a great storm cloud had rolled across a summer’s day.
“Did I not say that you would be a burden? That you would not survive in the wild, that you had no place amongst us?”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, but the pain in his chest had grown ten-fold, his hand rising to press against it once more. It was at that gesture that Thorin blanched, only then noticing what he had been doing. His face softened almost imperceptibly and he strode the last few steps towards the hobbit.
“I’ve never been so wrong, in all my life.”
Then Bilbo was in Thorin’s arms, crushed against his chest, face pressed into his shoulder. He closed his eyes as the pain receded, though it took him a moment to remember to embrace the Dwarf in return.
“I am sorry I doubted you.”
Thorin’s words were muffled against his shoulder, and he did not know what to say. It had been perhaps the worst of beginnings that anyone could have asked for, and he highly doubted that things would somehow become a field of roses from this moment on, but his heart was singing at the acknowledgement. When he opened his eyes the colours were as bright as they had been that first moment they had seen each other, the damage of the previous months all but gone, but still he pulled out of Thorin’s embrace gently, looking up at him.
“I would have doubted me too. I’m not a hero or a warrior...not even a burglar.”
Thorin was smiling at him now, but before Bilbo could say anything else – to ask what was to happen now, to ask for an apology, to ask anything – Thorin caught sight of something over his shoulder, and his smile grew all the wider.
Bilbo turned.
“Is that…”
Thorin stood beside him, the other Dwarfs gathering around them, but it was Gandalf that replied.
“Erebor - The Lonely Mountain. The last of the great dwarf kingdoms of Middle-earth.”
And from next to him, their shoulders close enough that they were almost touching, Thorin spoke. It was to them all, and to himself, but also somehow just for Bilbo, too.
“Our home.”
--
Balin was not a foolish Dwarf.
He’d seen the way Thorin dismissed the Hobbit, though he had not been able to understand why, and it had set his mind to racing. There were few reasons that anyone might take against a stranger in such an obvious and unprecedented way, and he had resolved himself before they even reached the Misty Mountains to find out why. Others might have left it be following the scene on the Carrock, and the inclusion Thorin had shown in the brief time between there and their current location in this strange shape-shifter’s house, but not he.
He was concerned.
Certainly, Thorin was now treating the hobbit like a proper member of the Company, for which he was glad. Bilbo had certainly not got off to the best of starts with the group, with his groaning and obvious displeasure at the lack of comforts of the road, but he had gotten used to it much quicker than many had before him, and he was keen to help and quick to learn. Gandalf might have been the only one who believed in him to begin with, but even by the time they had reached Rivendell that had no longer been the case: Kili in particular had taken the hobbit under his wing, and Bofur always seemed willing to pull Bilbo into a joke or song.
And then Bilbo had gone one step further, first escaping the goblin caves without aid or injury, and then stumbling into the middle of a pack of orcs to defend Thorin from the inherited enemy of his forefathers.
That in itself had earned him the right to be treated as one of the Company.
But it should also have earned him more, for though Thorin was being polite and accepting, it was only insofar as he was not being rude, or dismissive. Balin had expected better of his friend, if he were to be quite honest: Bilbo had saved his life, and all Thorin could seem to do in return was act as if he were a normal travelling companion, one who pulled his weight, but no more?
No. Balin didn’t like it one bit.
The hobbit seemed perfectly content with their new relationship, giving small, genuine smiles every time Thorin acknowledged his help or made a friendly comment in his direction, but by sacred law if another saved your life, that Dwarf became honorary kin, to be accorded the same affection and trust you would give to your own blood, and that was still certainly not the case. Thorin had never been a dishonourable dwarf, and though their friend was a hobbit Balin saw no reason that the same laws should not be applied to him in turn.
He said as much to Thorin when he managed to get his King alone, having sought him out only to find him smoking his long-stemmed pipe on the veranda of Beorn’s large house.
Thorin turned over what Balin said to him for a time, drawing the smoke through his mouth and puffing it back out again gently.
“You are incorrect if you truly think I do not hold our Burglar in the highest regard, old friend,” he answered finally, brow knit in a deep frown, and said no more.
“Then why do you not treat him as you should?”
Thorin’s shoulders slumped, he seemed to fold in on himself a little, and Balin was suddenly reminded of the small dwarfling that had hidden behind his mother’s robes when his grandfather yelled too loudly. It had been a long time since he had seen Thorin look quite so wounded, so vulnerable: had he not, he might have pressed his friend for an answer, but instead he packed his own pipe, waiting to see if Thorin would confide in him or not.
“Balin…” Thorin offered eventually. “I have been colour-struck.”
His pipe clattered from between his teeth to the wooden deck, and he stared at Thorin in shock. Of all the things he might have said, of all the arguments he could have put forward, this one had never crossed Balin’s mind.
“When?” He eventually managed to ask, wishing for clarification, though Thorin’s implication was clear.
“As a round door opened, and a Burglar looked out at me.”
Balin’s mouth, he realised, was still open, and he swallowed dryly.
“You mean, since that night in the Shire…”
“Yes.”
“And still you have been-”
“Yes.”
“And yet he-”
“Indeed.”
“Oh, Thorin,” said Balin, at a loss. “You impossible fool.”
Thorin said nothing against this, for really, what was there to say?
Balin shook his head. “Why? He may not have been what you were expecting, but to toss aside a gift such as this… it is unfathomable.”
Thorin frowned.
“It was not who he was, not a question of his suitability. For all that I might question the fairness of the life that has been handed to me and my people, I would not think to believe the Maker wrong in his creation of the other half of my soul. And time has proved that – he has a bravery and spirit that I never would have expected.”
“Nor I,” Balin replied. “But if not, then why?”
Thorin was silent for a long while, his forehead creased and his eyes downcast so that Balin could not read the emotions running through them.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Thorin admitted eventually, his tone leaving no doubt in Balin’s mind to the cost of these words to his friend. “I’ve lost so many already, in my life. I never wanted a soul mate, not since Erebor fell. It would just be one more person to lose: I thought I would rather never know colour or love, than to see it only for it to fall from my grasp.
“You remember by Grandfather, Balin? The madness never hit him until my Grandmother died. He missed her, and all colour was gone from his world, so he consoled himself with the shine of his gold instead, thinking that if he could not see the colour of his wife’s eyes, then at least he could still see the gleam of metals. The gold-sickness is in my blood, Balin. What if losing my soul mate thrust the same condition upon me?
“I am afraid, Balin, though I have never been before.”
Balin sighed, feeling impossibly old.
“Then as in all things, Thorin, you must be brave.”
There seemed to be some retort on the younger dwarf’s mind, but Balin held up a hand to silence him.
“To love anything, old friend, is a risk and a burden we all must face. Love is neither as easy nor as simple as we might believe it to be as dwarflings. If life teaches us any lesson, it is that anything can be taken away from us, and that every moment is filled with possibilities that may lead us to elation or despair. But would you give up dreams, for fear of nightmares? Would you give up laughter, for fear of sorrow?”
Balin gestured behind them, to the house where the rest of their Company were. “Would you give up your nephews, and have never known the love you feel for them nor the joy they bring you, just to ensure that you could never come to grief over them?”
Thorin shook his head.
“Thorin, death isn’t the only way you can lose the colour in your life.” There was a cruel twist to Balin’s mouth that Thorin didn’t understand, and found himself too afraid to ask about. “They say you don’t see the true brightness of colours until you accept the bond and your other in your heart; it works the other way, too. You push that bond too far, and it’ll break, and once it is gone it is beyond repair. The colours will fade into grey, or disappear all at once, and they’ll be nothing you can do to bring them back.”
He patted Thorin’s head, in a way he hadn’t done since he was a child, and Thorin had to fight the urge to press up into that touch for comfort, his ribs aching from the warg bite still, his body exhausted.
“You are right to fear your madness, and I would be lying if I were to tell you that I did not fear it too, for gold that lies under an enchanted beast has a stronger pull than any other. But your Grandfather lost sight of his heart, and the things he truly cared for: pushing away your soul mate may only have the same effect.
“If you fear that bond too much, you may lose it before you even have a chance to feel it to the full.”
Thorin nodded.
“You are wiser than any mortal has the right to be, old friend.”
Balin laughed.
“It is not wisdom, just the experience of a long life full of many regrets. But the one thing that I shall never regret was letting my One into my heart, even if it was only for the briefest of times.”
He sighed, his eyes wistful, before he turned back to Thorin with a warm, affectionate smile, patting his shoulder.
“Stop thinking of it as a burden, and think of it instead as a blessing, and you’ll be alright.”
Balin rose to his feet then, knocking his pipe out on the deck, and retreated to the warmth of the great hall.
Thorin remained outside for quite some time, staring up at the stars.
--
Mirkwood was quite possibly the most unpleasant place Bilbo had ever been in his life, and that included that creepy cavern in the Misty Mountains where he had found the ring. It had been bad enough when they were travelling through it, huddling together in the unnatural darkness of the forest, and even worse when their food had begun to run low. He had almost regretted being colour-struck when, waking up one night, he had rolled over only to come face-to-face with a wall of eyes staring out of the darkness at him, coloured in various shades from yellow through to deep, burgundy red.
This, he had to say though, was the lowest part of the whole thing.
He was never going to usher a spider gently out of his smial again.
Now his Dwarves had been captured by a group of Elves, which would have been bad enough except that Thorin was missing and his nephews were panicking, trying to get information out of the silent guards who were leading them god-knows where. Bilbo wouldn’t have even been able to tell them that Thorin was still alive without revealing himself if he’d have been with them, but as it was he was trailing behind them with his ring on, shuddering slightly at the grey world that it thrust him into.
He really, really didn’t like using the ring.
It was as unpleasant as last time, though at least he no longer felt the ache of rejection in his chest. Since the Carrock Thorin had been much more accepting of him, and after he’d recovered his strength at Beorn’s he’d been almost kind on occasion, every now and then catching Bilbo’s eye from over the campfire and offering a small, hesitant smile.
Bilbo would have loved nothing more than a long afternoon tea with the dwarf, a chance to really figure out what it was that their intimidating leader wanted to do about their bond, because like hell Bilbo really knew anymore.
But that was not to be, and instead they had found themselves dealing with dwindling supplies, enchanted rivers, glowing lights and then spider attack, which were plenty enough distractions for the time being.
Bilbo trailed the group into the fortress that had appeared suddenly from between the trees, darting out of sight every now and again to pull the ring briefly off to check that Thorin was in fact alive, trying not to wince as the gates closed behind them.
And then, of course, capture.
The elves were not fools, for all that they were misguided in thinking them enemies: they separated all of Bilbo’s companions, pulling them off in different directions after thoroughly disarming them. When they’d pulled Fili and Kili apart it had pulled such a pained noise from the pair of brothers that the two elves parting them had paused, their eyes wide, and glanced up at their Captain. But she had shaken her head gently, and for all their struggling the brothers were separated, for what Bilbo suspected was the first time in their lives.
He winced as he heard them calling for each other, their shouts growing more and more desperate as their voices grew fainter.
Not for the first time on this quest, Bilbo found himself entirely at a loss. Who should he follow? Which dwarf should he remain near? By the time he had made up his mind to trail Balin, the dwarf had already been pulled away, and before he made another decision he realised that they were all being hustled away in different directions. He was at a loss before he noticed an elf gathering up their collected weaponry, and he opted to follow him instead. Their various swords, axes, mattocks and knives – and goodness, how many knives had some of his dwarves had hidden on their person? – were taken to a small room off what Bilbo guessed was the main armoury. It was heavily guarded, and to his dismay he realised that he would not be able to sneak them back out, but before he was forced to leave he caught sight of Orcist, a great blow of relief hitting him at the sight.
Thorin was here.
The next few weeks passed in a depressing blur of hunger and exhaustion. It took him over a week just to locate the main body of the Company in the extensive dungeons. Not only large, the Elf-King’s cells were placed along confusing, winding tunnels, and on more than one occasion he had lost entire days going around in circles, only realising he was doing so when he came across the same dwarves again and again – on one particularly exhausting day, he’d circled around Nori eight times, at which point the dwarf handed Bilbo a small piece of flaky chalk he had hidden somewhere about his person.
“Mark corners,” Nori told him, “But keep the markings low and small, or they’ll notice, trust me.”
Bilbo wondered what kind of life Nori had lead that had left him so well versed in navigating around prisons, but decided not to question it.
By the end of the second week he had found everyone but Thorin, and all but Balin seemed to fear that Thranduil had already had their king killed. But the older dwarf did not seem too concerned, simply humming every time Bilbo slumped by his bars, admitted he had still had no luck.
“Aren’t you worried?” He eventually asked, after another long day of thankless searching. The other dwarves were becoming more and more despondent with each passing day. “He might have been killed before the elves even found us, or they might just have found his body, and taken his sword.”
Balin shook his head.
“I trust you would not be wasting your time if you knew he was dead.”
Bilbo stared at him for a long moment.
“And how would I know?”
Balin raised his eyebrows at him.
“There is only one person on this earth that knows whether Thorin Oakenshield is dead, Master Baggins, and I am well aware it is you.”
Bilbo gaped at him.
“How did you-”
“He told me.”
That stopped Bilbo in his tracks. He had not known that Thorin had told anyone of their bond: certainly, no one else seemed aware of the fact. Balin’s smile seemed to soften in the face of Bilbo’s obvious confusion.
“Do not think he is ashamed of you, Bilbo, or that he does not want to have a soul mate. Nor even that he hates you. Having a soul mate is just something he never thought he would have. He is… taking a little while, shall we say, to adjust.”
Bilbo dwelled on this for quite some time over the next few days, passing between the dwarves like a shadow, avoiding the elves as much as possible. He spent much time passing messages between Fili and Kili, who grew more desperate to see each other with each passing day, and doing the same thing between Ori and his two older brothers, who he missed terribly. He listened to Gloin’s stories about his wife, and joined in with Bofur, who was trying to pass the time by coming up with songs, many of them incredibly rude towards the elves. As Bilbo grew more tired and hungry he began to take a certain malicious pleasure in passing the words along to all the different dwarves, only to watch the elves mutter in confused irritation as all their prisoners began to sing the same, insulting ditties as they passed.
When he eventually found Thorin it was not through trying: in fact, he had to throw himself against a wall to avoid a swift-footed elf who appeared from behind a corner, muttering angrily about dwarves. Bilbo was a little surprised, as he had not thought there were any prisoners in this part of the prisoners, which was largely empty: he normally came down to this end to find a corner to sleep in where no one would discover him.
He checked the passage way that the elf had come down, only to find that he had not marked it off: it had not yet been checked.
It was very narrow, and lead not to a row of cells but to one. The bars were open, an elf inside, feeding the last of a tray of meagre rations to a figure knelt on the floor. A second elf had a blade pressed to the throat of their prisoner to keep him still.
“We’ll be back tomorrow, dwarf, by which point you may want to reconsider speaking to our king.”
The other cell keys were all kept on one great ring, held by the Captain of the Guard, but the key that hung in the lock of this cell was a single one, the lock itself much larger, older. After they shut the door the key was hung beside it, presumably safe enough to risk, out of reach of any prisoner.
Bilbo waited, very still, until he was quite sure that the elves had gone, before he turned his attention to the dwarf. It was quite certainly Thorin, though his eyes had been blindfolded and his face was covered in grime and dried blood.
He slid his ring off with a sigh, and unlocked the cell.
Thorin twisted at the sound, chains clinking, and Bilbo realised with some horror that he was manacled to the floor, on his knees, by both his legs and his wrists. He might have the room to shift his legs from one position to another, but Bilbo doubted he could move his arms up higher than his shoulders, which was no doubt why his blindfold was still in place.
Thorin was tensed, as still as possible, listening for any sound.
“Who is there?”
“Shh,” Bilbo whispered, shutting the door behind him and locking it once more, the key safely in his pocket. “Be still.”
Thorin did not relax, not even when Bilbo’s hands began to work at the blindfold around his eyes. His shoulders only slumped when it was eventually freed, his eyes screwed against even the faint light of the lamp outside. He tried to focus on Bilbo’s face nonetheless, his eyes gradually adjusting once more.
“Burglar?”
Bilbo nodded.
“Thank the Maker. The others?”
“All here,” Bilbo reassured him, his stomach twisting at the thought that Thorin had spent all this time ignorant of even one of their Company’s wellbeing. “All well, though Fili and Kili are not taking being in separate cells very well. They sleep little, and eat less.”
Thorin nodded.
“We need to get out of here.”
It was only then that he seemed to register exactly what Bilbo’s presence meant. He stared down at him in shock.
“How are you here?”
Bilbo shuffled a little. Luckily, he had already had to explain this to the rest of the Company, so the story came easily to him: that in the caves beneath the Misty Mountains, he had come across a ring, that seemed to render him invisible. Thorin made him take it on and off several times before he was convinced, but when he was he offered Bilbo a nod.
“It was a useful fall after all, then, for all it seemed unfortunate at the time. You have done well. Have you any thought on how we might leave?”
Bilbo had, though it had seemed pointless to execute it before he had found Thorin. He filled their leader in, and he nodded his approval.
“It will not be the most comfortable ride, nor the most dignified, but if it will get us out of these cursed halls I will suffer through it. Tell the others to ready themselves. Our weapons?”
Bilbo shook his head.
“I will have trouble enough sneaking thirteen dwarves out of here. I might be able to get in and grab a few, but only what I can carry on myself. Knives, nothing more.”
Thorin nodded.
“Do not risk capture, take only what you can. Make haste.”
Bilbo hesitated.
“I’ll have to blindfold you again, in case they come back before I do.”
Thorin started, his mouth opening slightly before his jaw tensed. “Of course.”
Bilbo began to wind the heavy fabric back around Thorin’s eyes.
“Why did they blindfold you?”
Despite the situation, Thorin’s smirk was as self-assured as it had ever been.
“Apparently the King did not like how I looked upon him.”
“And how was that?” asked Bilbo, trying not to smile in turn.
“Like the dog that he is.”
Bilbo shook his head, glad that Thorin couldn’t see the fond exasperation that found their way to his expression.
“Did you call him that?”
“I did.”
Bilbo huffed.
“Ridiculous dwarf. No wonder he chained you away down here. When was that?”
Thorin leant his head forward a little, so that Bilbo could better reach.
“Weeks ago, the day they first found me.”
“I think they must have found you before us, they did not seem surprised by our presence.” Bilbo paused for a moment as he tied the knot, trying to make it look as much as it had before as he could. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”
Thorin’s hand found his wrist, holding it in a bruising grip for just a moment.
“Do not be sorry.”
He let go, and Bilbo moved back to the doors, locking them behind him.
“I’ll be back soon,” he reassured Thorin, who nodded his head, still managing to look regal even chained to the floor.
“Burglar…”
Bilbo paused, turning back to the King.
“I have spent the last weeks unable to see if you are alive or dead.” Thorin hesitated, his brow knitting into a frown. “I am… glad, to see you well.”
Suddenly, the exhaustion and hunger didn’t seem quite so terrible any more.
--
The barrels were even worse than he had imagined, and he had thought that they would be pretty bad. He’d managed to get everyone in by bringing them in individually and sealing them in in case any elf happened to stop by, but the journey down the river and to Laketown had been torture. He was freezing cold, and had thrown up on more than one occasion as the rolling water had spun him around.
But at least they were free, he thought as he dragged the first of the barrels to shore, opening it up to reveal a shivering Bofur. Despite the miserable conditions, the dwarf still managed to give him an only slightly shaky grin as he stumbled out, wringing his soaking hat out before shoving it back on his head and going to help Bilbo drag the rest of the Company to shore.
“That,” hissed Dwalin, looking much less intimidating than usual, a half-drowned kitten of a dwarf, “Was the most piss-poor excuse of an escape plan I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ll send you back if you like,” remarked Bilbo conversationally as he pulled the lid of another barrel to reveal a scowling Thorin, hair plastered back to his skull from a leak.
He offered a hand to Thorin, and something settled in his chest when the dwarf accepted it, staggering a little.
He turned back to Dwalin, suddenly very frustrated.
“It’s easy enough to criticise when you’ve been sat in your cell,” he spat, “But I’ve spent the last three weeks running messages between you all, and I’m cold and tired and starving, and at least I bloody well got you all out. If you don’t like it, you can march right back up that river and tell the elves you’d like to give it another go, but I am not listening to any of you complain when I got you out of there alive!”
He stomped off to the next barrel, the water splashing around his large feet, leaving Dwalin feeling suitable chastised. Thorin, ankle-deep in water, stared between the two, wondering exactly what he had missed.
Bilbo was struggling to turn the barrel right way up when two large hands appeared, helping him.
“Sorry lad,” came Dwalin’s muttered voice. “It’s been a long day.”
Bilbo sniffed.
“That’s quite alright.”
As soon as Fili’s barrel was open he was back in the water, dragging the few left to shore in an effort to find his brother. Kili almost fell out of his and into his brother’s waiting arms, knocking the both of them back down into the cold lake, though neither of them seemed to mind.
Faces buried in each other’s necks, they muttered promises to each other, vowing never to be separated again.
They remained close together as they trekked, soggy and dispirited, into Laketown, their shoulders and arms touching as they stood behind their Uncle as he made his impassioned speech to the Master, gaining them a promise of respite and supplies in exchange for dreams of wealth.
So, after months of journeying, Bilbo Baggins found himself back in a bed, and rather content with matters.
The only downside was waking up the next morning with what felt like half of Mirkwood stuffed up his nose. He eyed the light outside the window blearily, wondering if he could get away with going back to sleep, before the smell of frying bacon made its way through his stuffed up senses. He tugged a blanket around his shoulders: even full of a cold, there was no way a Baggins was missing a breakfast, particularly since it had been months since he had bacon.
To his surprise, when he reached the full table Dwalin shuffled along, making a place beside him wordlessly.
Hmm. Maybe he should have yelled at the dwarves earlier, he thought to himself. It might have made his whole job a lot easier.
Bilbo must have looked as bad as he felt, because with one look at his face every dwarf sat around him began piling his plate with food from the large serving plates, until he was left with a meal large enough to satisfy any hobbit. He polished it off without any problem, but declined seconds.
“Where did you put all that?” asked Fili, eyes wide. “There’s not enough of you to fit it all in.”
Bilbo rolled his eyes, sniffing unattractively.
“A proper hobbit would have had another plateful, and then a round of toast.”
Bofur grinned.
“Are you no longer a proper hobbit, Mister Baggins?”
Bilbo glared at him.
“I’m wandering the wilderness with a group of dwarves, hiding from elves with an invisible ring, and half-drowning chasing barrels down a river. My respectability has been forever shattered.” He sniffed again. “Particularly because I still don’t have a handkerchief.”
He spent the next three days sleeping, emerging only to eat: on the second afternoon he found a neatly folded pile of linin handkerchiefs outside his door, upon which he lunged with as much enthusiasm as he had breakfast that first morning.
“You’re hoarding them,” Kili remarked when he realised that Bilbo was keeping three stuffed up each sleeve.
“I’m going to meet a dragon soon,” remarked Bilbo, blowing his nose. “And I still have to work out what to do with it, should it not be dead. I thought I’d try and get into his frame of mind first.”
“I don’t think handkerchiefs are quite the same as gold, Bilbo.”
The hobbit looked at his friend with distain.
“They are to hobbits. A hobbit-dragon would hoard handkerchiefs, sausages and pipe-weed.” He paused. “And possibly his mother’s china. But then, hobbits have a lot more sense than any other people, it seems.”
Kili’s laughter followed him all the way back to his bed.
--
Eventually of course, he did have to meet the dragon, and it easily topped the list of terrifying moments, knocking his meeting with Azog in the Misty Mountains down to seconds. The orc might have been fearsome, but he was nothing compared to Smaug.
Bilbo watched the dragon fire, burning even days later, reflected in the still surface of the lake, guilt a painful curl in his stomach. Regardless of what the dwarves said, it was their fault: they had roused the dragon, and though it now lay dead the town that had sheltered them was burning.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have felt so bad if his dwarves had seemed to show even the slightest regard for the poor people of Lake Town – but they hadn’t even cast a glance to the town, hundreds of people no doubt dead.
Instead they had focused on the great piles of gold.
He’d watched them, for a while, because at first it had been fun.
They’d all been so happy: after all this work and all this time, their mountain was theirs again, and they were as rich as anything. Their joy was infectious, and their laughter bright. He’d watched Fili and Kili crown each other with first one coronet then another, leaning close to whisper to each other, still unwilling to be far from each other’s sight even though they’d been free from the elves for weeks. Gloin had been comparing sapphires, lamenting aloud that none were quite the shade of his beloved’s eyes.
Nori had been draping his brother in fine chains inset with jewels, Ori laughing as they tangled around him, Dori keeping a weary eye on them but smiling none the less, running handfuls of coins through his fingers. Bofur filled each of his fingers with rings, and hung necklaces off the axe embedded in Bifur’s head; Bombur had hesitated for a while, until he had come across a platinum pendant, the kind made for storing pictures, and then had proceeded to find other gifts suitable for his beloved.
Dwalin had made for the ceremonial weaponry, Balin had found a long, jewel encrusted pipe, Oin a rather unnecessarily ornate hand mirror… and Thorin had been looking for the Arkenstone.
They were all so happy, but the flicker of gold had just reminded him of fire, and after a while, when their enthusiasm still did not wane, Bilbo wandered off.
The days had passed, and the fires over the lake had eventually subsided, and it became very clear that there was something wrong with the Company. They didn’t seem to care about food, or securing the mountain, or calling for their kin: they barely listened to Bilbo when he implored them to drink from their water skins, only taking a draught if the hobbit first poured it into whichever bejewelled chalice was nearest to them. They were draped in finery but growing thinner; they had all that they could have asked for but didn’t seem to care about their families any more.
It was only when news came that armies were approaching Erebor that Thorin seemed to register that there was a world outside of his treasury, and even then it was only to bark quick orders at the raven to fly for his kin in the Iron Hills, before calling to the Company to continue to search for the Arkenstone.
Bilbo padded away from the group of them, making sure he was out of sight before throwing himself down on a pile of gold. Bah, what good would all this metal do when armies came to their door? What good was it for anything?
You couldn’t eat it, or smoke it, or share a friendly conversation with it. A jewel couldn’t tell you a joke, and a sceptre wouldn’t listen to your woes. He shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t even good to sit on.
What good would it do them when they were all dead?
He held his head in his hands, despairing. Despite their initial difficulties he had become inordinately fond of the dwarves, and the idea of the men and elves outside sent shivers of fear through his body.
Young Ori, killed before he’d had a chance to finish his epic account of their journey.
Bofur, never writing another dirty sonnet or humorous limerick.
Fili and Kili, shot down by archers with jewelled crowns still on their brows.
He wondered how the gold would look to Thorin then, covered in blood.
If only there was some way to send the armies away, he thought to himself idly, some promise he could give them to assure his friends safety. Oh, where was Gandalf when you needed him? Surely that damnable wizard would have had some advice for him, or would at least have knocked the dwarves over the head until they saw sense.
And it was then, as he sat grumbling to himself and trying not to weep, that Bilbo found the Arkenstone.
Had Thorin been a different dwarf, things might have turned out differently. Had he embraced their bond to begin with, Bilbo had no doubt that loyalty and love for his soul mate would have had him place that jewel in his hands, madness or no. Perhaps even if Thorin had not accepted it immediately, but had shown more overtures of interest since he had – if he had ever, in fact, given Bilbo any indication of attachment or fondness – Bilbo would have handed it over, and wept as Thorin’s eyes glazed over at the sight of it.
But Thorin had done none of that.
Thorin had rejected the bond until Bilbo had saved his life, and even his acceptance of it had come with no further word, no explanation for his behaviour, no apology. The only time he had ever even acknowledged their bond’s existence was when they had been at their lowest, in the cells of another king.
If Thorin truly cared for him, then he had done nothing to show it, nothing to make Bilbo believe it.
And why should Bilbo give him what he wanted, when it might very well kill him?
Despite how far he had come, Bilbo Baggins was still a hobbit, who valued food and good cheer above all else – particularly if that cheer was to be found among friends who were very much alive, thank you.
Bilbo stared at the Arkenstone, completely aware that not all that long ago he wouldn’t have been able to see its shining colours, the patina of shades that flowed under its surface like water. It would have just been a shiny stone, perhaps more noticeable than most, but still just a grey, lifeless rock.
And if he died, or Thorin died, then it would simply go back to that.
His fist closed over it.
--
It was the moment the colour bled from his vision that Thorin realised what was going on.
One moment he’d been staring up at the Burglar’s face, pale but for the flushes of colour high on his cheekbones, and the next the entire sight was grey. He’d seen only in black and white for nearly two hundred years, but in the scant months since colour had appeared to him he had grown so used to it that the sight of grey was jarring to him. Ice seemed to run through his blood, and became suddenly aware of a fierce pain in his chest, shouting from around him, and above all else, Bilbo’s eyes.
He’d moved without thinking, pulling Bilbo back to him as quickly as he could, stumbling in his horror and haste so that the two of them fell back against the stone parapet, his own body cushioning Bilbo’s fall.
Propped up against the rock of his mountain, he ignored the aches from his head and body from where he had landed in order to wrap his arms around the hobbit, pressing him as close to his chest as he possibly could. Bilbo made no sound, but he did not try to escape the hold of the dwarf’s arms: his hands scrambled to find skin, but when they could not make their way through the heavy layers of dwarven clothing they satisfied themselves by taking a tight hold of the fabric.
Thorin was breathing quick and shallow, as if he had sprinted a mile, only half-listening to the mutters of ‘no’, going over and over again, that he still had not realised were coming from him.
It was Bilbo’s eyes.
He didn’t know what colour they were.
He’d never looked.
All these months of travelling with his soul mate, months in which he could have been finding out any and every conceivable detail, learning and listening, and he’d never bothered to look at the hobbit long enough to see what colour his eyes were.
He’d thought the pain of their fragile bond had been dispelled on the Carrock, but he realised now that had only been the surface layer to a much deeper ache, one that had taken over his whole body so gradually that he had not realised it was there until it had spiralled wildly out of control as he hung Bilbo over the precipice.
Over a fall high enough to kill him.
What was going on?
He tried to steady his breath, his eyes still screwed shut, Bilbo’s hands fisting convulsively in the fabric of his clothes. There was a crown around his head. Erebor. They’d made it to Erebor, and the dragon, the dragon was dead. What then? Gold, there had been gold.
Thorin felt suddenly nauseous.
The sickness of his line had found him, just as he had always feared it would, and like Balin had warned, his actions towards his soul mate had not done anything to help him. He had been convinced that he had the strength to overcome it, and yet it had snuck upon him without him even noticing, taking control of him until he’d ended up here, ready to thrown the other half of his soul to his death for a stone. A unique jewel, the pride of his people, but still, what was that compared to the creature that the Maker had forged alongside himself?
There were armies around his Kingdom, it dawned on him them. No, not armies – an army of elves, for certain, who had no place there. But the men were more refugees than soldiers, their home burnt to the ground by the dragon that his Grandfather’s greed had drawn. The elves came for pretty jewels to decorate their pale skin, but the men came for food and shelter.
He had been willing to go to war with them for that.
He had called on kin from the Iron Hills to fight not for pride, or for protection, or honour, but to spare an amount that wouldn’t even dent one fourteenth of Erebor’s wealth.
And he would have led his own Company into the fray, his friends… and his nephews. He could hear them now he listened, now the pounding of his own heart was steadying; they were murmuring to each other, confused. It had not just been himself, then, though that was no excuse.
He would have led them all to their deaths.
It had only been the sudden wash of grey, the monochrome wave of a breaking bond, that had managed to stir him, to bring him back from his madness. The bravery of one hobbit to stand against a king, to go against his maddened soul mate’s wishes and give a jewel away, had been enough to pull him back.
Bilbo seemed to sense his feelings, his hands moving quickly from his chest to wrap around his neck, his face still buried against his shoulder. He moved as if he were afraid Thorin might disappear, or move to throw him of. The thought caused another wave of nausea, and he tried to move a hand reassuringly up and down Bilbo’s back, although he was not sure if he succeeded.
He had thought he had been afraid before, in the face of a bond he had never anticipated or wanted, but that fear seemed but a pale shadow now that he realised he may have broken the bond between him and his soul mate, before he’d ever even seen what the colour of the hobbit’s eyes were.
“Burglar,” he choked out, and the hobbit tightened his hold about Thorin’s neck.
“Mister Baggins,” he tried again, but that still wasn’t right. “Bilbo.”
Bilbo shifted, raising his head, but Thorin could not open his eyes, could not bear to see his expression, whatever it may have been, rendered in black and white.
“I never thought to look… Bilbo, what colour are your eyes?”
Silence, and then a sudden, choked noise that could have either been a laugh or sob, he wasn’t entirely sure. His eyes opened instinctively as Bilbo answered.
“I… I don’t know. I didn’t have time to look before we left, and I haven’t seen a mirror since.” He sounded half –mad, caught between a myriad of emotions. “Thorin, I don’t know what colour my eyes are.”
But Thorin was just staring up at him, mouth open a little, the glassy-haze of the gold-sickness gone from his expression.
“Green, Bilbo,” he managed. “They’re green.”
--
“I have done you a great wrong.”
A hum, perhaps of agreement, perhaps not.
“You owe me nothing; not your company, your forgiveness, nothing.”
Gentle hands, pushing the hair back from his face, running through it soothingly.
“But I will ask one thing from you, and then nothing more. Tomorrow, stay close to my side.”
A warm chest, pressed against his.
“If I can protect you, let me.”
His own hands, at his sides: they had not earned the right to touch freely.
“And if you can protect me, then don’t.”
The hands in his hair stilled, and then pulled out.
“Don’t,” he repeated.
A sigh, and then his arms were being lifted, placed around Bilbo’s waist, settling over his hips in a way that felt comfortable, like coming home.
“You’re utterly ridiculous.”
--
The battle had been everything that Bilbo had feared, and so much more. The mithril that Thorin had pulled over his head in the flurry of activity following the debacle on the bridge and Gandalf’s sudden arrival and announcement hung much lighter than he expected, but his body was exhausted, though the only wounds he had ended up with had been a stinging graze to the head.
He remembered his joy at seeing the colour of his door for the first time; the realisation that that was what blue looked like when he ran out of his smial the morning after the dwarves had arrived only to stop in shock at the sight of the sky.
That memory seemed so far away now.
The battlefield was a mire of brown mud and red blood, and Bilbo almost wished that he couldn’t see the colours.
But now it was over, and he couldn’t stop looking.
Because at any moment they might disappear again.
“Bilbo!”
He span on his heel, realising that he had been standing, staring out at the countless dead for what could have been hours for all he knew.
“He’s awake. He’s asking for you.” Balin’s face was grave. “The healers don’t know what will happen.”
Bilbo sprinted back to the healing tent without even bothering to reply. He’d been ushered out of there when the healers had set to work stitching Thorin’s chest back together, apparently only in the way – he’d insisted on darting back and forth between Thorin’s bed and the large, man-sized one that had been brought in for his nephews. They had curled around each other even as they had fallen unconscious on the battlefield, and stirred every time someone had tried to separate them, even if it was only to stitch them up.
The healers had been optimistic about the pair of them: Fili’s shoulder was broken, crushed under Azog’s mace, and would never be as strong again. It was his weaker arm, but he would never draw doubled bladed again. Kili was missing half an ear, and a good chunk out of his right thigh – the bleeding had been difficult to stem as they could not stich the wound together, but they’d padded it with gauze and silver foils, which seemed to be working.
He threw himself at the bed, giving in to the urges he’d fought since the night Thorin Oakenshield had set foot through his door, running light fingers over his arms, his shoulders, his jaw. The healers back slowly out, willing to give the two of them some privacy.
Thorin’s eyes were open, bleary.
“Bilbo?”
“I’m here.”
He tried to smile reassuringly, and Thorin smiled back, though it was laced with pain.
“I fear I am not long for this world. How are my nephews?”
Bilbo’s hands ran carefully over the bandages wrapped around the dwarf’s chest, hiding a multitude of stich-work.
“Resting. They’ve both woken since we brought them here, the healers think they will be fine.”
Thorin nodded.
“Then at least I can go to halls of my fore-fathers knowing I did not bring about their deaths, as well.”
He looked up at the hobbit, and with what must have been great effort raised his hand to touch his cheek.
It started to slide, falling back towards the bed, but Bilbo caught it, pressing it back to cup his face with his own hand.
“I am sorry, for everything I have done to you.”
Bilbo nodded, swallowing.
“If I could go back, I would change everything. The months I have known you have not been enough. But it seems that we were not meant to have more. The fates are cruel. Farewell.”
Bilbo stared down at him in disbelief.
Thorin’s eyes slid slowly shut.
Now, that wouldn’t do at all.
“Thorin Oakenshield, if you think for one minute I have followed you across half the bloody world, put up with your sniping and bad temper for all this time, only to have you go and die on me, then you have another thing coming!”
The healer’s outside the tent winced at the fury in the hobbit’s words.
Thorin’s eyes shot back open.
“That’s better. Enough of this, stop your pessimism and drink your tea, you’ve got a kingdom to try and run, and if you honestly think I’m letting you die just to leave your blasted nephew’s in charge, then you had better think again.”
He stared wordlessly up at the hobbit.
“Besides,” said Bilbo, a little quieter now that he had Thorin’s full attention. “Don’t think a shiny shirt and the colour of my eyes are going to make everything better, you’re going to start talking to me, do you hear? I promised myself that we’d have afternoon tea as soon as this whole thing was done, and work out what we wanted to do about this soul mate business that you’ve been ignoring up until yesterday.”
“Marry you,” Thorin managed to choke out, still blinking in bemusement. “If you’d have me.”
Bilbo sniffed.
“Well, if you insist.”
He gave in then, and threw himself down onto Thorin, carefully avoiding his injured chest. It was one thing to shock his soul mate out of his pessimism, but it would be quite another to accidentally kill him afterwards with a badly placed embrace.
He buried his face in Thorin’s shoulder.
“You’re not allowed to die, do you hear? You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
Thorin grunted, his hands running across Bilbo’s back.
“When I can stand,” he promised, “I’ll kiss you all you like.”
“You’d better,” came the response, muffled against his skin. “Or I’m stuffing you in a barrel again.”
They both ignored the muted laughter coming from their nephews, who had been woken in the ruckus, clinging on to one another instead.
--