Chapter Text
It had been an Age or more, since Thranduil had seen the eagles of Manwë in the sky. Such a glorious sight could only mean they had been blessed, as they did not take part in petty fights or squabbles. That battle must have had more at stake than what could be seen at first glance.
Despite being overlooked by most of his fellow elves, like Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel, Thranduil wasn’t entirely provincial. He knew of the rise of the darkness at the East, and how its tentative advance across Middle Earth was slowly becoming more obvious and unstoppable. But even with this knowledge, there was very little he could do about it, except protect his people.
It was, perhaps, not the most heroic way to go around it, but he also lacked the resources his fellow elvish leaders possessed. He had no Ring of Power to support him, and his numbers receded as no silvan elf had been born after his own son, and they kept getting killed by orc raids and those ungoliant spawn that had slowly but steadily predated and taken over his forest.
Even in this battle, he had risked lowering his numbers even more, but the threat of a fire dragon escaping its self seclusion inside the mountain had been too great to ignore.
With the passage of time, even Thranduil himself had grown weary and dry, dispassionate and displeased with anything around him, bitter and tired. Sometimes he could hardly recognise himself, an old shadow of the radiant elf he had once been, which he could sometimes see in his son.
The same son whose life he had so graciously risked in this very battle. The son he had sent to the West, to look for a man called Strider.
Getting past the narrow, slippery steps that guided him up to the high watchtower, he saw a pool of blood on the ice, and the lifeless body of the pale orc, as one of the Great Eagles took flight. Carrying some precious cargo on its heels, no doubt, considering its careful flight.
The hill was painted with blood all around, red and black, from both orcs and dwarfs alike. He clicked his tongue, disappointed. So much death, and still not enough of the vermin of Sauron had been cleansed from the earth.
Something stirred to his right, and one of his eyebrows lifted. How… surprising.
He kneeled next to the body, his armour tingling as he lowered himself over the snow and the dead orc bodies. There was blood, sticky and already half dry plastering the honeyed curls to the head and partially covering a side of the face. Head wounds had a tendency to look nastier than they might be, bleeding profusely, so there was no way of assessing the gravity of them without moving the body or cleaning around. His fingers made contact with the neck, searching for a pulse and… there it was. Faint, weak, more like a tired bird’s flutter than a heart. But maybe it was enough.
Carefully, Thranduil detangled the body, half buried in snow and corpses, and held it in his arms. There appeared to be no swelling, maybe the snow’s cooling action, but he had no doubt there might be bruises in the incoming days.
Such a curious creature, so far away from home.
Left in the snow to die.
A cruel fate for one so brave. Unless he could do something about it.
—--------------------------------------
“Balin.”
Thorin’s voice sounded alien even to himself. Hoarse and feeble, as if he was going to break at any moment. He blinked the fog away from his eyes, and as soon as he moved to try and incorporate on the bed, gentle, firm, familiar hands pushed him back as a sharp jolt of pain left him breathless.
“My boys. Where are my boys?”
The image of Fili falling from the watchtower was still playing behind his eyes, the sickening sound of bones breaking that would haunt his nightmares for a very, very long time. The muffled, hard sound of the body making contact with the rock and ice below.
His ignorance of Kili’s fate, but his knowledge that he wouldn’t be as fortunate as to have him get out of the fray unscathed. What if he was somewhere on the snow, bleeding, waiting for help? Expecting his uncle to find him and make it better? What if, Mahal forbid, he had been…? No. No, it couldn’t be. Surely not his little ones. Not his nephews. So lively and excited and enamoured of life. Not them.
He tried to sit up again, but Balin's hands became more firm, and kept him down.
“They’re here. Recovering, just like you”, he said, voice low and soft.
Looking to the side, Thorin saw a couple of extra cots, improvised with old sheets and fabrics, cleaned, no doubt, and remains of wood and rock from unfinished construction areas that were left behind when Smaug attacked.
It wasn’t the best, but they had to make do.
Fili and Kili were each in one of the cots, their chests rising slowly. Most likely asleep. Both of them were clean, but Thorin could smell the familiar and metallic scent of blood in the air.
It made him anxious, as if the battle hadn’t been finished yet. He felt as if he had to jump off the cot and run, hit something, just to burn up the energy roaring inside his chest.
His head hurt.
“The rest?”
Balin smiled, but it didn’t quite reach the eyes.
“You’re still weak, Thorin. Rest.”
Someone, then. Someone had died. They had lost someone.
Who? Which one of them will they have to mourn? Which family would be broken? Which brave soul…?
Thorin snapped his head to the side, a hand reaching out to grab Balin as he turned to leave, as he remembered what had woken him up.
“What did Gandalf want?”
It had been the wizard’s voice, angry and booming, that had woke him up from the slumber of the poppy milk Óin had given him. The flow of his gray tunic leaving the medical tent had been the first thing Thorin had seen right before his cousin.
Balin stopped and sighed, and dread descended to the lowest pits of Thorin’s stomach.
“He asked about Bilbo.”
“Bilbo? Is he here? Is he hurt?”
His throat felt suddenly dry, and his heart was beating frantically in his chest. He knew which questions he wanted answers for, but he was unable to voice them. Not for all the mithril in the depths of Khazad-dûm.
“We don’t know. We can’t find him, and the men haven’t seen him.”
With a growl, he tried getting up again.
“Thorin! Enough!”
Balin pushed him back into the bed, forcefully this time, and even if his strength wasn’t comparable to Dori’s, it was enough. Thorin was as weak as a babe in his state. Pain was everywhere, exploding from his chest, his feet, his head. Everything hurt. His body refused to obey his commands.
“We must find him.”
The old dwarf gave a side look to the dishevelled braid Thorin had on his hair, just behind his ear and taking the hair at the left side of his face. It was clear that it hadn’t been rebraided for days, perhaps not even since they had entered the mountain on Durin’s Day. From the end of it, a wooden bead hung. It wasn’t expertly crafted, anyone could see it was not a masterpiece, but what one could easily see was the love in each stroke of the hand that had whittled the imaginary of ravens and oaks. He wondered, for a moment, how on earth the gold madness had managed to escape its presence.
After the whole show at the battlements, he had supposed the sickness would have driven Thorin to take it off, but apparently it hadn’t come to that.
“We will keep searching for him. There are many who need assistance, and all our allies are still scraping the battlefield looking for their missing ones”. It did not escape Thorin the small hesitation on Balin’s voice at the end of that last sentence, as if avoiding the word he most dreaded to hear. “And we will keep looking. With so many eyes on the ground, not even a hobbit will go unnoticed. Someone will find him eventually. But you must rest. You do neither yourself nor him any kindness by undoing Óin’s good work and injuring yourself any further.”
Thorin wished Balin’s voice could have sounded more convincing.
He wished he could push Balin away and get up. To wander the frozen fields until his feet bled and his skin chapped. To be comfortably laid down in a cot, warm and dry, while Bilbo might be out there hurting…
Last he had seen him, had been at Ravenhill, right before sending his nephews away to the watchtower to scout. Before facing Azog. After that, he hadn’t been able to see anything else. Just the pale orc and his flail, and the breaking ice upon which they fought.
Bilbo had gone to help him. Despite how he had treated him. Even after what had happened at the ramparts. Thorin couldn't even fathom the level of love and loyalty that would have driven Bilbo to go back and even look him in the eye. One Thorin surely did not deserve.
And he repaid that love with death.
“Ravenhill. He must be there still. Send someone…” he wheezed, coughing and feeling as the weight of slumber claimed him back down into the darkness. His body felt as heavy as a rock sinking in water.
Balin frowned and got half a body outside the tent’s flaps to bark orders to the dwarfs outside. Dáin’s soldiers, no doubt. As if behind a coat made of wool, Thorin heard the muffled sounds of the soldiers answering and the clinking sound of their armour as they went away.
As his friend came back inside, his eyes were already closing, exhaustion from his recovering wounds finally getting the best of him.
“Worry not, my liege. Death would not claim one so brave. We will find him.”
If only the fates were as kind as that.
Looking at the sky, Dwalin saw the dark clouds rising beyond the trees at the west as the wind picked up. They would have to move the tents and the injured inside the mountain and hurry with the blockade of the main entrance if they hoped to last the winter.
He had seen bad snow storms up at the Blue Mountains, but something told him this one would put all others to shame. They had a day, maybe two if they were lucky, until the first thick layer of snow settled.
“Master Dwalin?”
With a grunt and a sniff to get his emotions back in check, he rose from the patch of snow and closed his fist around the acorn he had found half buried on the blood painted snow, under a pile of orc corpses.
He had seen the hobbit fidget with it, as if deep in thought, with melancholy in his eyes. As uninstructed as he was in the way of things that grow, Dwalin was aware that the size of the seed was above average. It was most likely one of Beorn’s, since everything related to the skin changer appeared to be one or two sizes bigger than what was natural.
There was no doubt it was Bilbo’s acorn.
“Master Dwalin, Master Balin has requested a patrol to research the area. We’re looking for…”
“You won’t find nothing here”, Dwalin cut, cleaning his throat when he heard how shaken his own voice sounded. He pocketed the acorn, which appeared now to weigh a ton. “Let’s go back.”
The soldier ahead of the rest, a dwarf with a dark beard covered in snowflakes and dirt, frowned.
“But Master Balin said…”
“I’m not fucking deaf.”
He gave a last look around. He was no scout nor tracker, he did not know how to read stories of what had happened on the terrain like others did. He was made for a battlefield, for crushing things and cut ‘em. Not putting them back together. Not finding them.
But damn everything if he was going to leave without trying. The little blight was worth it.
“Alright, let’s give it another go. We make the most of daylight, spread and check every crevice, every corner. I want no stone unturned”, he barked, voice booming in the empty area, turning towards the field and directing everyone in the team of soldiers. “We’re looking for a hobbit. Small fella, big naked furry feet, beardless and pointy ears like an elf. Looks like a pebble to the untrained eye, but he is not . He might be hurt or disoriented. Our priority is locating him, and bringing him back to camp without use of force. He’s one of the Company, you get me?”
“Aye aye!”
Thorin remembered the sun had long set by the time he woke up again. Dáin had been visiting him, asking about how he was feeling and explaining the work they were doing at the main entrance to prepare Erebor for the harsh start of the winter they were going to get. They had just started discussing his report on their death count, the torches as their only source of light, when Dwalin entered the tent together with Balin.
As they approached, Thorin could smell the coldness of the outside and the humidity in their clothes, as well as see lingering, small flakes of white snow on the fur of their clothes and Dwalin’s beard.
His heart sank as he saw them coming alone.
Balin looked absolutely exhausted as he exposed the final recount of loses and missing people, and the King noticed the only one left to locate was Bilbo. The tally of deaths was higher than Thorin had hoped it would be, but less than it was expected considering the army they had faced when the orcs had overwhelmed them. The simple fact that they didn’t have more piled bodies was enough reason to be grateful.
As the report ended, his gaze shifted to Dwalin, who was approaching him with his elvish sword in one hand and reaching out into one of his pockets with the other. Thorin remembered the weapon falling from his bloodied hands on the ice as he lost his strength and fell on his knees, but he had been so worried about Bilbo, he had all but forgotten about it.
Dwalin kneeled next to his bed and offered him the acorn as if it were something fragile and precious. Thorin could see his eyes were moist and shiny with unshed tears.
He closed his hand around the seed like a small child held onto their favorite toy when facing the dark of night. Maybe, if he guarded it close to his heart, everything would be well.
Even if he knew the chances of finding Bilbo at this point, if they hadn’t already, were close to none.
“We will search again as soon as the sun rises. We’re not giving up.”
And so they did.
As Thorin and the boys joined the rest of the injured and were transported to the inside of the mountain, he saw at least a couple of patrols come and go from the battlefield, always empty handed.
It had been snowing all night, softly and steadily, and the valley that was once a lush forest was now covered in a superficial layer of white virgin snow, and the paths patched with ice that made the carts slip and the caravan of refugees and injured move slowly towards the warm belly of the Lonely Mountain.
One of the topics he had had to discuss with Dáin the previous day was the request from Bard the Bowman to procure shelter to the people of Esgaroth. With Dale in ruins and the carbonized bones of Laketown unavailable to offer protection against the incoming winter storms, the men had nowhere to go.
In exchange for their help, and hearing Bilbo was still missing, Bard had offered himself and a few trusted men, hunters by necessity but skilled nonetheless, to join the search parties that were still looking around in hopes of rescuing him before they were forced to leave him for dead.
Forced by his own shame and a feeling of needing to make amends, or driven by his desperation of finding his burglar, Thorin had accepted and ordered the men to be escorted and located within the mountain for the duration of the winter, until restoration works could begin.
The elves were long since gone, retreating back into their dark and eerie forest, and none but the men missed them. After their apparent support previous to the Battle, with carts filled with food and medical supplies, a temporary relief for their survivors of Smaug’s attack, the men had assumed the elves would stay and offer a helping hand. But as soon as they had tended their own wounded and patched up the worst of the mannish injured, they had retreated in a silent and infuriatingly coordinated wave of gleaming silver and gold.
Dwarfs like them knew better than to hope for them to help without ulterior motives, and a group of refugees had little to offer to those whose lives extended far beyond the grasp of a mortal life.
Thorin managed to sit on his cot, supported by dusty cuixons and rolled, ruined clothes. He had spent the majority of his day coordinating the construction efforts at the doors, the location of the refugees and the management of their supplies to last the winter. Which was good. Because so much work on his hands meant he had less time to think about other things, like the open, bleeding wound inside his chest that opened a little further every time the wooden bead of his braid touched his cheek.
The Company, to the best of their capacity, had joined the efforts too. Those who were needed inside couldn’t join, despite their best intentions. Bofur had the strongest stone sense in the mountain, and was required to assess which areas were safe to dwell in or needed to be quarantined until someone could take care of structural issues.
Dori had unparalleled strength and could single handedly manage most of the heavy machinery needed to fortify the entrance, as well as move heavy boulders that would require at least three dwarfs and some explosives to move. He was also proving vital in helping rescue injured workers when they got buried under falling rubble or debri.
Balin spent his time coordinating and managing the food stock and resources they had left with a couple of Dáin’s generals and Bard’s trusted friend turned counsellor, and Óin had a handful working with the injured and sick, and acting as head healer to those who had offered their knowledge and their hands to help. Bifur had been acting as Óin’s main nurse, his caring hands and experience with dragon fire damage, a balm to those from Laketown who had suffered the worst of the burns from Smaug’s attack.
Bombur spent his day collaborating with Balin to organise their food supplies and working on rationing the food so everyone would be well fed and healthy for however long their winter enclosure had to last. He drafted menus, cooked meals and instructed a few dwarfs, men, women and young lads and lasses on how to prepare them and the food they needed to store.
Fili and Kili were still, like Thorin himself, confined to bed rest, very much against their will. As for the rest, they had all focused on the search. Thorin saw them leave in pairs at sunrise, carrying improvised cots, medicines and supplies, and hoped for the best.
The search parties that returned that evening didn't bring any good news with them.
Beorn had joined them at the mountain, if only for a moment, his gigant self rising easily above any dwarf or man around him. He was covered in blood and snow, and his hair seemed thicker and more bear-like than ever, his eyes gleaming a clear shade of gold. It surprised Thorin. For some reason, he had expected him to leave for his home as soon as the Battle had been finished, much like the Great Eagles, who had apparently fled away with Gandalf not long after Thorin had woken to his argument with Balin over Bilbo’s disappearance.
And he did not expect him to join the search either.
As he bent and extended a gigantic hand forward towards the king, he appeared sad. On his open palm, laid something Thorin would recognise anywhere.
“I wish I had news on the bunny’s location, but I found this near the main entrance, half buried. It smells like you, so I thought it’s best if you have it back.”
The mithril courting bead looked so small and delicate, resting innocently on Beorn’s palm, that Thorin was almost scared to touch it. Reaching out a hand to take it, he felt the metal frozen to the touch. Not even Beorn’s body heat had managed to take away the coldness of the snow.
The vivid image of his same hand reaching to forcefully yank it off Bilbo’s braid at the ramparts, the memory of the anger and fury that had blinded him as he throwed it away over the walls, made his stomach churn and he wondered, for a second, what the skin changer’s reaction might be if he all but emptied the contents of his stomach right there.
He had hoped the River Running would take it away and dispose of it, in his ire. Now, he was glad it hadn’t. It seemed all that was left of Bilbo were small, misplaced tokens for him to find.
Thorin would give those and more, the riches of Erebor, just for a sign that his hobbit was hale and whole.
“I’m leaving these lands. A big storm is rising, and my animals need me. This winter will be brutal, I fear”, the giant announced, rising once more. “I shall keep an eye open for your mate on my way back. He will be welcome to shelter with me until the weather improves, should I find him.”
But it’s unlikely I will.
One needn't be a mind reader to know what Beorn had left unsaid.
He saw the skin changer bow his head to him and transform into a bear before turning around and leaving through the opening at the gates, which now looked more like an open wound than a door.
Thorin slept in his cot once more, bandages freshly changed, with the howling sound of the wind outside and his thoughts revolving around Bilbo.
The nightmares caught him in their snare as soon as he fell asleep, and he woke feeling restless, with a dreadful feeling of having a sword dangling over his head, waiting to fall down and strike him. The visions conjured by his mind of Bilbo’s lifeless body, cold and pale in his arms, his frozen eyes devoid of life looking at him as if piercing his soul, his blue lips moving to speak accusations of abandonment and death, chased him even hours after the morning bell rang.
The snowstorm appeared to recede during the night, and despite there being more snow outside that had accumulated, there appeared to be sun and clear skies.
Bard did not trust it.
“I’m sorry, Thorin, but I can’t risk my men anymore outside. When the next snow hits, and it will be soon, we won’t be able to find our way back.”
There was regret in Bard’s words, a pain that did not march his, but resonated all the same. Taking a deep breath and clutching both the mithril bead and the acorn in his hands, Thorin nodded.
“I understand. Talk with Dáin and Balin about the coordination efforts, they will surely be glad to have your help.”
“We will go back.”
Ori and Nori had packed their gear and were ready to head outside once more. Dwalin and Glóin were behind them, carrying matching bags and a look of determination.
“We will cover the other side of Ravenhill. Perhaps the lad rolled down and we missed it”, Glóin grunted, and his voice almost did not break. “We might bring him back home this time around, Thorin. Don’t lose your hope just yet.”
He made an effort to smile, and saw them leave once more.
Óin allowed him and Kili to walk around for a bit, using some improvised crutches and threatening Thorin with more bedrest if he went about putting weight on his right foot for too long. Said they were lazing around in bed too much and their bodies needed exercise.
Fili did not have such luck. His back injuries were still concerning, and Óin avoided answering whenever Thorin asked for a report. He said it was too soon to know, and he wouldn’t jinx it by saying the wrong thing.
Uncle and nephew moved around the area of the infirmary, checking out the good work their fellow Iron Hill’s dwarrow had been doing at the gate, and going all the way to the makeshift camp near the foundry, where the warmth of the forges and the improvised kitchens made it cosy and dry.
Sometime after lunch, the weather shifted and turned for the worst.
The wind picked up again, as Bard had predicted, and the sun was rapidly blocked by dark storm clouds. As the temperature dropped, heavy snow began to fall, and soon all that could be seen at the other side of the breach in the main wall was a white blank space. A couple of workers kept the entrance unblocked and torches lit, hoping the two remaining search teams would make it back soon, before the pace at which the snow was accumulating surpassed their efforts palling it away.
The construction team had the last piece ready to seal the entrance as soon as they crossed.
Thorin had no hope for good news.
You would let them die for this?
His friends, his Company, were still out there. Risking their lives. Fighting the wicked cold of the storm outside. If they got lost trying to come back home, they’d be dead. Just as… just as Bilbo.
I’m sorry, ‘ukrad. I’m so sorry.
“They’re here!”
Thorin turned so fast he almost tripped with his crutches and fell. Through the crack in the wall he saw Dwalin and Glóin come stumbling, covered in snow and throwing their supplies with them.
“They were behind us! Just there!” shouted Dwalin, hurriedly taking off his thick gloves, the hat and the scarf and furs he wore over his face.
True to his word, Ori and Nori came behind them, holding onto each other, and stumbled over the nearest brazier, shedding their frozen clothes and shivering. As Thorin hurried to get to where they were, he saw Dori jump from boulder to boulder and rush across the entrance floor to where his brothers were, fussing over them.
Thorin helped Dwalin out of his clothes as they too approached the brazier to warm up. Glóin’s beard, usually a lively red, was covered in snow and icicles that started to melt as soon as they got within the area of the flames.
“It was so sudden. Good thing we were close already, or we would never have managed to find our way back.”
Dwalin coughed, taking off his knuckle dusters and throwing them to the ground, extending his hands to warm them. His fingers looked cracked and bluish. Ori’s nose was a bright shade of red and his eyelashes were frozen, and Nori too had icicles hanging from his beard, his usually pointed hairstyle chafed frozen in place by the thick hat he had been wearing.
Thorin swallowed. He needn’t ask if they had found anything, as Bilbo was nowhere to be seen.
“We can go back”, Ori said, in between his clacking teeth. “We just need to warm up… And maybe a new set of clothes, something thicker…”
Dori, who was trying to warm up his brothers by crushing them together in a hug and rubbing his hands over their arms to try and create some friction, went pale.
“Absolutely not! You won’t go back out there! That’s suicide!”
“But Bilbo…!”
“Enough.”
He didn’t raise his voice, he had no energy left in him to do so. Thorin had slowly assumed, during the day, the reality he had to face. What he had to do. What the only correct option was here. He was King now, and his decisions had to consider the good of the many.
No matter how much it hurted to do so.
“Nobody else goes out. This is no regular snowstorm, and I won’t risk any more lives in this endeavour. He wouldn’t have wanted anyone to die for this.” Thorin swallowed again and closed his eyes for a moment, before taking a breath and turning to the barricade. “Seal the gate and move back to camp. I have… to update the casualty report. And thank you for your efforts, my friends.”
As he turned to walk back to his cot in the infirmary, where all his paperwork waited for him, he heard the protests from young Ori and the quiet acceptance of the rest, together with heavy breathings and quiet sobs.
His own tears started to fall as he felt both the mithril bead and the acorn grow as heavy as platinum inside his pocket.
Dáin took over the funeral arrangements. And, in the meantime, Thorin grieved.
Outside of the Mountain, the storm had become a White Beast. A well known name to those born in these lands, and one they had learned to fear. Thorin had only seen one in his lifetime as a Prince of Erebor, and even then, with all the commodities and resources they had had, it had been a struggle to get through it.
White Beasts were famous for their ruthlessness. The storm usually had heavy winds that carried not only snow, which made it difficult to see beyond your own nose, but ice that became heavy and sharp and could either knock you down or cut through you with how fast it flew around.
After the worst had passed, the layers of snow left behind became hard and compressed, and quite difficult to dig through safely. At other spots, the high levels of soft snow piled so high that they hid deep holes in the ground or dangerous crevices or ravines, and it was easy to take one wrong step, fall, and get completely covered, effectively buried by snow.
To sum up, one shouldn’t face a White Beast if one had a choice. The best thing one could do was burrow up and wait.
Which was the strategy they were following at the moment.
It was almost a week after they had sealed the Mountain, that they decided to host a funeral for those who had been lost at the Battle, both casualties and injured who passed away later on. Some of the bodies had never been recovered, especially those of the men from Esgaroth, who fell into the cold waters of the lake and sank, or were carbonised by dragonfire. Many of Dáins dwarfs had either been burned in pires at the battlefield to avoid infection and sickness, too damaged to be transported or been lost to the river or the terrain. A few of them were now resting under stone, deep down the belly of the Lonely Mountain.
“It would help with their grief”, Bard had muttered, during one of their daily control meetings. “They need some closure, to be able to move on from this. I think we all do.”
Thorin couldn’t disagree.
There was a knock on the door of his room, and Dwalin came in, carrying a black bundle in his hands.
All the regents had moved to closed rooms near the forges that had at some point belonged to the Guild Masters, and that allowed for a bit of working space as well as privacy for their meetings. Thorin had welcomed the solitude the rooms had provided, for he had seldom the energy to remain composed and in public for very long periods of time.
As he combed his hair in a single, tight braid, save for a single narrow one dangling at the front, the bed creaked and Dwalin sat next to him.
The bald dwarf was wearing a dark veil over his head, folded and held up so only his face was visible.
“Dori managed to sew some veils for the Company. He thought it was only appropriate”, he explained, as he patted Thorin’s knee. “They’re hardly the stuff he deserved, but it’s the best we can put together under the circumstances.”
Thorin turned around, grunting as the stitches at his belly tightened uncomfortably as he twisted. He took the veil and lifted it carefully, before placing it over his head.
The fabric was almost transparent, and the fact that it was black made it easy to see through it. It was lightweight, and soft to the touch, and floated around his head like a cloud.
The embroidered silver flower and leaf motifs at the edges did not escape his attention.
He fixed the raven crown in place, keeping the veil where it should be, effectively covering all his hair and his face.
“I’m so sorry, Thorin. I should have done more…”
“Don’t blame yourself. If there’s anyone at fault for this, it should be me”, Thorin admitted, reaching out to get his crutches and push himself off the bed. “Had I not banished him from Erebor, had I trusted him and shaken off the madness sooner, perhaps he would have been safe.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Thorin decided silence was enough of an answer. It had been his fault, they both knew it. For being weak and succumbing to the same fate of his grandfather, despite saying many times he wouldn’t.
Keeping himself up with one of his crutches, he picked up the mithril bead and the acorn at the auxiliary table. Caressing both the cold metal and the seed, he sighed.
“I’ve thought about making a memorial. What he did and what he sacrificed for our people shouldn’t fall into oblivion. Nor the rest of the lives it took to get it back.”
He heard Dwalin sniff and clear his throat, and then the bed creak as he got up and rested one of his paws over Thorin’s shoulder.
“I think that’s a great idea. Can’t say he would be fond of it, but it’s only right, and it’s our way.”
Bard, Balin and Dáin had arranged a structure at the area of the main gate from which to conduct the ceremony. Both Thorin and the Bowman, recently erected as the King of Dale, would direct the funeral to cover for both kingdoms. It would be something simple, as the few who died during their confinement had already been put to rest or burned to prevent disease or infection from spreading.
Bard stepped forward and proceeded with his part of the ceremony directed towards his people. It was simple, just a moving speech that spoke of neighbourhood and friendship. Of the deep bonds between the people of Laketown, and their lasting memories of those who had left.
Thorin, meanwhile, tried to collect himself for when his moment to step forward came, and looked around the crowd.
Dáin’s army was the most numerous, alongside the Laketown survivors. They did not mingle, the dwarrow and the men, and Thorin hoped the forced cohabitation between their peoples would be civil enough to last their winter reclusion and see them through without many incidents. The tentative and frail alliance they had forged needn’t be tested so soon, and much less under such dire circumstances. Despite their discipline, the Iron Hill’s dwarrow weren’t famous for their patience and social skills with outsiders, and the men were still suspicious of them all, and were short tempered. He really couldn’t blame them for their mistrust. After all, they had seen them off their town with promises of riches beyond measure, and been rewarded with dragonfire, destruction and death.
Bilbo would have known how to navigate this with ease, and end the winter in friendship, of this he had no doubt.
The Company was the easiest to spot, as every dwarf was covered by a dark veil similar to his. While the customs of their neighbours on the west were a bit more traditional, wearing their battle masks instead, the ereborians had developed the culture of veils as a more practical alternative. Out of a willingness to share their mourning, or of respect for their own ways, even those of their Company who had been born and raised at Ered Luin shared their veiling.
And amongst the black patch in the crowd, were his nephews.
Kili had a walking stick he used to lean on when he grew tired of being on his feet, but aside from that he was, out of the three of them, the one who was doing better and healing faster. Fili, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky.
Óin had spent most of his time working on him, and most of his fears had been proven true when Fili had woken up and tried to get on his feet. After falling from the watchtower, Fili had landed on his back over several rocks, and they had caused him great damage at the lower part of his spine. He could still feel most of his legs, minus some spots, and move his feet, despite having moments in which the feeling was replaced by an uncomfortable prickling sensation. Spending time on his feet exhausted him and his legs and knees weren’t able to take his weight for long. That, added to a bunch of cracked ribs, had confined him to a wheelchair for the time being.
Óin had said it was likely he would never walk again beyond a few steps here and there, but that time and recovery would tell.
He snapped out of his observations when Balin poked his side gently, and noticed Bard had finished his part and was waiting for Thorin to take over. Taking a deep breath, he moved to the front of the structure, right behind one of the two braziers, and heard Balin and Dáin follow him.
He gave his speech of bravery and courage, and a valiant heart. How he had managed to do so without his voice cracking was still a mystery to him, because his inner turmoil had been so loud to his own ears, he had barely been able to hear what he was saying. He trusted his heart to say what needed to be said.
“We bid farewell to our fierce brothers, sisters and loved ones. May we see them again at the Halls of our Forefathers when our time comes and the Stone claims us. Where we shall await the unmaking of this world, and craft alongside our Maker the one which was promised to us, the one in which song we’ll be welcomed. The one that is to come. Let their stories and deeds live in song and memory. May their bones harden the Stone which wards us, and the love they shared with us in life keep our forges burning and our hammers true.”
Shifting to rest on his good foot and freeing his right arm from the crutch, Thorin took out his pocket knife, bought it behind his veil, and holding the lonely braid dangling from his right temple, he began to sing.
Who will sing me
Into the death-sleep sling me
When I walk the road to Mandos
And the tracks I tread
Are cold, so cold
The blade of the knife slid easily and cut the hair off with a single movement, as close to the scalp as possible. Behind him, out of the corner of his eye, he could see movement as his cousins did the same to their own braids, even if none cut as much of it as he did. And so followed the Company, and every dwarf in Dáin’s army, as they sang their farewell.
Early or in fading day
Still the raven knows if I fall
This was highly unprecedented. To have outsiders witness a dwarvish funeral, a dwarf in mourning, their songs in their secret language, was something that had not happened since the Ages in which the elves of Eregion and Khazad-dûm’s dwarrow had been as close as brothers. Not since the time of Narvi. Something almost sacrilegious.
Perhaps a shared loss would ease their path into a time of peace.
When you stand by the gate of Mahal
And when you must tear loose
Follow you I shall
Across the Halls of Mandos
With my song
May the ground treat you kindly and your fields be evergreen, my love.
Fat tears rolled down Thorin’s cheeks as he threw his cut braid into the fire of the brazier, and he watched as the flames lapped and burned at the dark and grey strands, consuming them. Behind the veil, nobody would see him break. He could allow himself this weakness.
Beside him, Dáin and Balin followed, offering their braids to the fire too. Below, across the multitude, the dwarfs cut their braids and threw them into the fire.
The smell of burnt hair filled his nose, and he took hold on his second crutch as firmly as possible, fearing he might lose his balance. It had a lingering odour that would stay with him for days, and that had always been associated in his mind with pain, and loss and terror. Even if one would think that, after the amount of funerals he had sadly had to attend in his time, he would have grown used to it.
To cut his braid and burn it had felt so… definitive. He hadn’t realised there had been some lingering, unrealistic hope still burrowed deep inside him until the moment he felt it banish, together with his burning hair.
He tried to seek comfort instead in the deep voices of the dwarfs, that boomed and resonated in the entrance, making it seem like thousands of voices had joined. As if the very mountain itself was singing with them. In the old Halls of Loss, the sound would have travelled and enveloped them like a blanket, but here, it was as if it travelled and projected across the empty chambers and halls. It was hardly the proper placement to do so, or the most traditional way to go about it. It didn’t matter to Thorin.
This was a ceremony for the living, and exorcism of pain and loss.
Then why did he feel so broken still? So adrift?
Stone breaks, embers die
You yourself will also die
I know one thing that never dies
The reputation of those who died.
After the funeral, Thorin had established some new rituals for himself. Like making his physical rehab exercises, clipping his hair and beard dutifully every couple of days, or accommodating his veil under the raven crown.
It was common for widowers and grieving Longbeard folk to trim their hair and beards during their period of mourning. A way to freeze in time a loss, until the dwarf was ready to break their mourning, if one ever chose to do so. It was not unheard of some who chose never to break their mourning, and be veiled and trimmed until they themselves passed away. Veiling and trimming was a personal choice, and one every dwarf knew to respect.
For royalty though, tradition was not as kind.
“Laddie, I know your loss, but you know this is highly unorthodox.”
“I don’t care.”
His voice sounded detached even to himself. Lifeless.
He knew the pain would slowly pass. That the tears would some day stop flowing and the emptiness inside his chest would fade away to become a memory. That there would be a day in which he would be able to look back and remember with fondness and love all the moments they shared, without the bittersweet aftertaste.
Right now, those days seemed so far away as the earth was from the moon.
“There are rumours passing around Dáin’s high ranking officials”, Balin continued, and he sounded tired. “We’re doing our best to contain the situation before it escalates.”
“I shall deal with it today, Balin. Thank you for your concern.”
He patted his cousin’s shoulder as he passed by his side, leaning on his walking stick with every step he took with his right foot. The clicking sound of the metallic end upon the granite floor like a metronome for his own thoughts.
Longbeard monarchy was allowed a single day of mourning. The day of the service. After that, they were expected to unveil themselves and go back to posing as the head of their Kingdom with the soberty of one immune and unaffected by loss. Their hair and beards never expected to be trimmed.
In the past, those regents who had wished to remain in mourning had stepped down, considered unfit for ruling, and been succeeded by their heirs. Once out of the public eye, they were free to continue with their mourning as any other dwarrow. Thorin had seen his mother wear her veil and trim her hair for years after his father disappeared, until the very day the Stone claimed her. And had also heard the stories of his great grandfather, who abdicated in favour of Thror after the loss of his wife.
It wasn’t unheard of Durins to step down from ruling due to grief. The heir taking the mantle after this was commonly known as a Crown of Woe, and the most superstitious among the dwarfs thought it to be a sign of a damned reign.
The fact that Thror’s madness had attracted a dragon and left them with so much loss and homelessness had only reinforced that belief.
Thorin’s reign could ill afford such fearful beliefs, if he wanted Erebor to flourish once more as the great Kingdom it had once been. And even if his nephews were old enough to take the mantle, he wouldn’t leave them such a burden to carry. No matter how tired Thorin felt, he would soldier on and fulfil his duty.
Theirs should be times of peace and prosperity.
He pushed the doors of the closed room open.
They had taken upon the Stonemasters’ Guild main room to improvise a makeshift council hall, with the purpose of hosting short daily meetings with the ones organising supplies, reconstruction, healers, camp, the guard and the exploration of the areas around them to deem them safe enough to expand their temporary settlement or to avoid altogether and mark for cautionary demolition. It also served as the most private place in which Bard and Thorin could meet and discuss sensitive topics without many ears being privy to whatever they talked about.
Some of the heads of these areas were members of the company. Others, like the one in charge of the guards, was one of Dáin’s generals, a dwarf that always wore full heavy armour and a look of disdain that would make a seasoned soldier think twice before questioning his orders.
It didn’t impress Thorin.
“I’m aware”, he began, before anyone had the chance to open any other discussion, “that some of you question my decision to keep the veil, despite what the usual protocol dictates.” Thorin took slow, steady steps to the end of the room, both the walking stick and the scabbard of his sword clicking loudly in the suddenly quiet room. “I have gladly given anything and everything I had and I was for this Kingdom and its people. And I shall happily continue to do so, for such is my duty. But my grief is my own, and I will not abide in this matter. If I remain veiled for the rest of my days, so be it. By questioning my decision you do not only disrespect my position as King Under the Mountain, you also insult my mourning and those who I grieve for, and I will not tolerate that.”
Balin had never heard Thorin speak in such a tone. It was firm and with an edge of steel that promised violence and admitted no discussion. He couldn’t say he blamed him. He, too, would have been understandably upset had anyone presumed to boss him around after everything Thorin had done and sacrificed. Damn it all, he was already upset. If anything, they should have the chance to manage their losses however they could. And not be directed by some stupid traditions.
Dáin, who was sitting next to him, seemed to be of the same opinion, because he gave a look to his general that could have cut through diamonds.
“I’m glad that’s settled. Let’s begin with the reports, then.”
The ceiling of the room was oddly far away.
As used as he was to narrow, comfortably cosy spaces, this one made him feel quite small and exposed. He could feel his heart beating faster by the second inside his chest.
He did not know this room.
The clothes he was wearing were absolutely unknown to him, too, which made nothing but increase his alarm. It wasn’t that they were uncomfortable, mind you. One simply disliked waking up with different clothes that one had gone to sleep with in the first place. Especially if said clothes were lacking certain pieces. Like pants.
The bed, covered in clean, pale green sheets at which he had been sleeping, was awfully large too. More man sized than anything he had ever seen before.
His head hurt terribly too. If he had to guess, he would say a particular upset cow had decided to teach him a lesson by kicking him right in his forehead. There seemed to be no mirrors around the place, so he would have to make do.
Reaching out to touch and check if he had any mark or bump, his fingers found the relief of an already healed wound right at the place where his hairline started, over his right eyebrow. His curls felt soft and clean, and way too long for his taste. Definitely way longer than he ever remembered wearing them.
Had he... Whatever had happened to him?
“Oh, you’re awake! Good. It had me wondering, how much you slept.”
Bilbo turned around suddenly with a yelp, and grunted when his vision blurred and a sharp pain flashed inside his skull.
Perhaps he shouldn’t be moving around with such enthusiasm just yet.
On the further side of the room, sitting on the closest thing to an armchair, if an armchair could be made of tree trunks, was an elf. He had his legs crossed, a long, copper and silver cape draped around him and spilling all over the pale floor at his feet. His hair was pale gold and looked soft like silk, but his eyebrows, sitting over his clear blue eyes in a somewhat calculating stare, were thick and dark, and lacked the ethereal elegance Bilbo would typically associate with elves. Around the back of his head sprouted upwards what he could only describe as a crown, made of branches and ocre leaves.
Feeling suddenly underdressed and pretty overwhelmed, Bilbo found himself fisting the sheets and pushing them up into his chest, not daring to take his eyes away from the elf. There was nothing to fear, right? There weren’t bad elfs out there.
This was rapidly becoming simultaneously the best day of his life and the worst he would ever remember.
He cleared his throat, and hoped that he sounded collected.
“Excuse me, I seem to be a tad disoriented, but may I ask. Who are you, and where am I?”