Chapter Text
Gandalf sat at the edge of the party, enjoying his pipe and the excellent food of his hobbit host. He’d found himself in the area on Belladonna’s birthday, and it would not do to pass by without giving his old friend a visit. They were always lovely occasions, the birthdays of hobbits, finer even than the more elegant revelries of the elves, if he may admit so in the privacy of his thoughts.
However, Gandalf was not expecting a light tug on his robes, and looking quite far down to see Belladonna’s son, Bilbo, standing beside him, clutching a note in his hand.
“Good evening, my dear Bilbo. How may I help you?”
The boy looked rather nervous and proffered the folded paper. On it was written a phrase in a child’s handwriting, as if copied from sight rather than understanding. “Can you read this?” Bilbo said. “To me?”
“But of course,” Gandalf replied, and what he found what seemed to be a bit of poetry. “’If more people valued home over gold, this world would be a merrier place.’ Why, that’s quite lovely, Bilbo. Did you write this?”
“Can’t read yet, I just it saw on my, on my…” the boy said, looking down at his wrist, and there Gandalf too saw the words. “Mama said it’s private, and I shouldn't ask until I’m grown.”
It then dawned on Gandalf what he had just read.
“Are those the last words he's going to say to me? My soulmate?” Bilbo continued, looking up with tear-filled eyes.
“Oh, Bilbo,” Gandalf said sadly, kneeling down in front of the child. “That is indeed true, but it need not be so grim as that. The words may mean any number of things, and these are beautiful ones. What is important is that you must never take them for granted, or give in to despair. The world is not set in stone unless we make it so, which is both a warning and a comfort.”
The boy nodded and took back the note, crumbling it in his hand as he sniffled.
Words perhaps he should have said to a certain fatalistic dwarf as well when they met in Bree. Gandalf could just see the script on Thorin’s inner wrist, make out the word “eagles” but at the sight of his glance Thorin grimaced, and pulled up the corners of his sleeve. “It means nothing,” he muttered. “Just a bit of poetry.”
It was the mention of poetry that made Gandalf pause, and consider, and hatch the beginnings of a plan.
When he looked at Bilbo, Gandalf had seen green fields and icy waterfalls, the flicker of fire upon ramparts, and burning pines. He had seen a thousand visions, for in truth no life was set in stone.
Some were better, some worse.
" I’m certain your fourteenth share is no burden on your decision to stay,” Thorin growled, but seemed uncertain. There was shame in his eyes still at Bilbo’s words, yet Bilbo only shrugged.
“Nowhere I could really put it anyway. Even were it only for the perils, and no reward at all, I think I would share them with you, Thorin Oakenshield,” Bilbo said. Thorin started and his eyes went wide, his expression hard and suspicious, and then dawning soft.
“If that is indeed true, Master Baggins, than I owe you more than just my apologies. If more people valued home over gold, this world would be a merrier place,” Thorin said, musing half to himself.
Bilbo went pale, and opened his mouth to speak again, but a horn blast sounded over the hills.
Azog had come.
From there, there was only fire, and a cacophony of voices. Bilbo screamed, trying to get to Thorin, because he knew what was coming and no, no, no it could not happen so soon, not when he had just learned, but the tree was shaking too hard to free himself without tumbling over the cliff, and the orc was raising his sword above Thorin, and Bilbo looked up, and up, and saw wings against the sky.
“Hold on, Thorin! Thorin, the eagles! The eagles are here!” He cried, and yet the sword flashed down...
And elsewhere…
The ramparts blazed and the Men of Minas Tirith ran from fire to fire, putting them out with desperate cries. Of what note were two smaller figures on the battlements? Bilbo and Thorin looked out over the walls, too aged to take part in the fighting, but still they had come to lend what wisdom they could in the battle against Sauron. Bilbo had almost not made the journey, but their lives together had been long, and both had agreed to do what they must.
“Thorin look, the eagles are here,” Bilbo said, barely above a whisper, looking out.
There was a great rumble from Mount Doom, and he clutched at his chest. There was so little time, so little to tell Bilbo all he had meant to him, but Thorin tried nevertheless, holding his husband in his arms as he died...
And again…
The fields of Valinor were emerald. Not merely the green of grass, but shimmering in the sunlight beyond mortal ken. It was the final day before that place would move on beyond the reaches of the world. All elves and creatures of the Valar made the journey there, and Thorin and Bilbo waited with them, their hair and beards snowy white, aged beyond the lifespan of either of their race.
That morning Bilbo had grumbled when Thorin tried to drag him out to see those great works of Elven jewelcraft, a taste acquired later in his life, and when Bilbo protested that he wished to remain home, Thorin had said those fateful words on Bilbo’s wrist without even knowing. Bilbo had paused, and gone silent, and Thorin had been too caught up to notice when they said nothing more that day, always able as they were to speak to one another with silence.
He looked up though, and heard Bilbo’s aged and creaking voice as he pointed out over the water, to a shadow coming in over the waves. “Thorin look, the eagles are here,” Bilbo had said, and indeed they were, their great wings rising and falling as they returned to the Blessed Land, to their home.
When Thorin realized he wept, but they were not bitter tears. Their lives had been long, and their joy greater than any may ask. They’d had much, when they might have had so very little.
Gandalf sees each possibility flicker above Bilbo’s head as they sit side by side next to the battlefield. Watches as they shiver in the air, and shatter, and fade. Until there is only one reality left hovering in the air above him, sliding from present to past.
There is nothing for it, and so he only offers a pipe because it is too late to offer words.
Bilbo clutches at Thorin’s hand, leaning down so their faces were inches apart. He has heard the words, and yet in his heart he cannot accept them.
"Thorin, look, the eagles, the eagles are here…” he whispers, pointing to the sky.
Thorin heard, and knew. He had known from the minute the eagle rose above Azog’s head, and he had known when he allowed the blade to slide home. Prophecy, after all, could not be outrun. Still, he would have smiled had he been able to, to finally have the answer to that mystery.