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Dwalin parted from the rest of the caravan several weeks from Ered Luin, peeling off on his own down a delicate path that hadn’t been traveled in too many decades. Younger guards wanted him to have an escort, of course, as if he hadn’t been fighting in grand battles when they were cutting their baby teeth, but they backed off easily enough with a glare or two.
Dwalin didn’t need looking after by well-meaning infants.
The land was little changed since the last time he travelled it, fifty years previous (too long, he should have come sooner, but there was always so much to do, and how could he face him after…everything?). There was still a delicacy to it, despite the ancient trees. Of course, all trees were children in comparison with the depths of Erebor, but still-
Perhaps it was the feet that occasionally walked these trails, broad and silent.
Hobbiton spread before him in less than a week, paths of warm windows and bright flowers, chattering neighbors and sunlight. There was something warm and inviting about the place, for all that it perched in part above ground – they at least had the good sense to build their homes under the earth where a home belongs.
Dwalin dismounted, and led his pony down the delicate lanes, feeling somehow very huge and very dirty under the scrutinizing stares of the surrounding Hobbits.
So soft and delicate, he thought, as if a wind would knock them over. You’d certainly never know they’re made of steel, underneath.
At least the one of his acquaintance was.
A pair of young Hobbits went tearing past, with another on their heels, shouting what he presumed were their odd Hobbit names at the top of his lungs – “Merry! Pippin! If you don’t stop right this instant I’ll have you both bundled back home!”
“Won’t!” the smallest one said. He couldn’t be more than a knee high, and slippery as a snake as he shot through a series of carefully managed bushes. “You’d miss us and get all old and boring again!”
“I am not-” The dark haired lad stopped and turned, wide eyed, at the sight of a huge dwarf in the path, joined by an equally impressive pony. “Hello.”
Dwalin nodded. “Hello,” he answered gruffly. The boy had eyes of a blue such as he’d never seen before, and he was pink-cheeked and soft as Hobbits should be.
Their Hobbit had been thin and hollow-eyed, worn down by time and care, but blood he shouldn’t have seen and lives they shouldn’t have lost.
By betrayal from those he trusted and called friend.
“Are you here for Uncle Bilbo?” the lad asked. He looked near-grown but something weedy about him made Dwalin think he wasn’t quite there yet. “You-oh!” his eyes widened, and he grinned, bright and sunny. “You’re Mr. Dwalin!”
Dwalin’s eyes widened a bit. “Aye,” he said carefully, “that I am.”
“I’d know you anywhere from Bilbo’s stories and pictures!” The lad straightened up before executing a perfect bow. “My name is Frodo Baggins, and if you’re looking for uncle, he’s at home. I’ll be there too as soon as I can catch these two utter brat cousins of mine.”
He started to straighten, caught himself, and huffed out, “At your service!”
Dwalin felt a hint of a smile tug at his lips. “Young cousins can be hard to manage.”
Frodo huffed, rolling his eyes and planting his hands on his hips. “Especially mine!”
“But they’re worth all the trouble lad, don’t you forget.”
Frodo’s eyes darkened a moment, and Dwalin wondered just how much he’d been told-
Funerals in the dark, souls to the stone
-and suspected it might be more than Dwalin wanted to see in eyes so innocent.
“I won’t,” the lad assured him. Then he grinned again. “And I bet they’ll come faster if I tell them you’re visiting!”
He scampered off, light as air, shouting out those names again, along with, “And there’s a visitor you’ll miss if you don’t stop acting like toads!”
Children laughing was a welcome sound, and the way those two little ones stuck together-
Well.
He found the door easily, round and green, the rune long gone. It was a heavy, solid thing made light and airy with color and the riot of flowers growing all around it.
Dwalin took a deep breath and, mustering the courage that let him survive battles and wars and failure, lifted his hand to knock.
Seconds that felt like minutes passed-
The door opened, and there was the round face and curling hair, and Bilbo’d grown back the proper belly he’d worried over so on the road.
The Hobbit’s eyes widened, all green and brown like the village he lived in, and his lips moved, but no sound came out.
What could he say?
What could Dwalin say?
Fifty years, and Dwalin too much a coward to write, much less to visit.
He couldn’t apologize for his failures, for how he protected-
No one.
Not even this Hobbit, saved by the princes and Bofur when their king ran mad, while Dwalin stared and did nothing.
He bowed his head.
And then he lowered himself more, to one knee, as he would before a king.
The words came automatically:
“Dwalin, son of Fundin,” and then, but seriously now, not light-hearted as they’d been the first time, when he’d practically laughed in this brave being’s face, “at your service.”
A hand touched his head, small and soft except at the very tips.
It felt like kindness.
It felt like forgiveness.
“Oh, Dwalin, do get up,” Bilbo Baggins said fussily, but there was a smile in his voice. “You’re much too old for this nonsense, look at all the gray in your hair! You’d best set the pony to the paddock and come inside to put your feet up.”
Dwalin lifted his head, met those eyes with his own wet ones.
Bilbo smiled at him. He looked exactly the same, young and kind and liable to launch into a tirade at any moment. “If you’re very good and wait until I serve you dinner this time,” he said with a teasing grin (though perhaps his eyes were unusually bright as well), “I’ll show you where I’ve hid the cookies for the last fifty years – just in case you might come by. It’s come in quite handy since I picked up an ever-starving nephew.”
Dwalin laughed, soft and rough, and pushed to his feet to follow his too long neglected friend into the colorful little home.