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“Bilbo says Hobbits don’t ever leave the Shire, but for us he did. Have we...” he steeled himself for the question he had to ask, “Tharkûn, have we done him wrong?”
The question had been plaguing him more and more the longer this quest had gone on. He hadn’t cared as much at first, not when Bilbo had been an outsider to them, but as their quest had gone on, it had weighed on him. They had dragged Bilbo from his home, they had dragged him across the world, sent him against orcs and wargs and elves and a dragon, forced him to fight in a battle. It was a lot for someone who did not leave a place of peace. Who was never supposed to leave the place of peace. He had dragged his One into horrors and hardship.
His One who had stayed in Erebor with them, after reclaiming it. Who'd stayed by his side despite his sickness, his foul, evil sickness. That had robbed him of all sense and feeling, until even his most cherished had been lost to him. It was a crime he could never forgive himself for.
Perhaps it was why Bilbo had not yet decided if he would stay. If he would accept Thorin as his One.
He could not blame Bilbo for that, even if it tore his heart.
“Believe me, if you had, he’d be the first to tell you. It is indeed rare for Shire-folk to venture into the wider world, but it happens, and I firmly believed it was best for him.”
Something in his gut twisted bitterly. Gandalf believed, and if he believed then it must be so. Damn what anyone else thought or wanted or believed. He was glad of Bilbo’s presence, but the idea that they had done him wrong, pulling him from his home, lingered deep.
Before he could press the damned wizard for more answers, the door rushed open and the entire company poured in, Bilbo included. The rest of his company had arrived for lunch.
“What’s this about our hobbit?”
And there went any hope that his conversation had not been overheard.
“I was simply explaining that this adventure was good for Bilbo, and quite frankly necessary, given his Tookish blood and...”
“Gandalf,” he nearly flinched at the harshness of Bilbo’s tone, and he was not the only one, “it’s not your story to tell.”
“You are as much a Took as you are a Baggins, and after your parent’s died you forced down a side of you that...”
“And who’s fault is that?”
Bilbo's cutting outburst chilled the room like someone had doused the fire. Already he could see that the words had slipped out against Bilbo’s will, that he had not meant to utter such a thing aloud, to make such an accusation. Whose fault was that? That he’d been forced to push a part of himself down, or that his parent’s had died. Either way, it sat like a stone in his stomach. What had that wizard done? Even he seemed taken aback.
“Bilbo...”
“What I mean by that is that it’s a private matter, not for you to meddle in or air about. If we could perhaps move on to other topics of conversation?”
He wondered if all of Bilbo’s people reacted to insult that way. Pushing down the anger with an air of polite dismissal, covering the hurt with smoothed words. It may have worked in the Shire, but was not certain his kin would take the dismissal. Such an accusation could not be left to sit, to fester. It needed to be answered. It simmered, tense in every one of his people, the silence heavy and loud.
Bofur saved them from the tension, throwing himself into conversation and tucking into the food that had been laid out before they had all arrived. He might have pushed, if not for the look of gratitude on Bilbo’s face, or the way the wizard had fled.
Not now, not here.
The tension remained throughout the meal, constant worried glances and bitten back questions that Bilbo seemed not to notice, though he knew his One was too observant not to. Nobody dared ask, and topics hesitantly moved on, until the plates were cleared and they were forced to return to their duties spread far across the mountain. These meals never seemed to last long enough, and he deeply missed the company of his Company, his most loyal and trusted of kin.
Only Dwalin remained as he turned his attention back to his own duties, his own work, or at least tried to.
Thorin leant back in his chair as Dwalin paced back and forth in front of his desk. It was something his cousin did when he had to think, and Thorin doubted he was thinking about the request to clear the debris and reopen Kheleddûm, which had once been a community high in Erebor. It had been named for the glass blowers that lived and worked there, the same ones who’d crafted the mirror system they used to light the mountain even now. Higher above the great halls, it was potentially untouched by Smaug the way the lower towns and city had been. The suggestion that there might be materials or resources they could use was a good one, but he was not certain it was worth the effort it would take to get there now when other settlements within the kingdom were closer. Closer, though potentially in worse condition.
He hadn’t really been able to focus on it since that lunch, and from the crease in his brow, it wasn’t what was worrying Dwalin either. His head guard had grown protective of Bilbo on their journey, regardless of Bilbo being his One, before they’d known Bilbo was his one, his concern didn’t surprise Thorin in the slightest.
“You won’t make a decision on Kheleddûm with your head in your hands, Thorin.”
“I won’t be able to make the decision with your pacing, either.”
“Lunch wasn’t exactly the relaxed break it was designed to be.”
He pressed his lips in agreement. It was supposed to be a break from work, not putting more on his shoulders.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“What do you suppose he meant by it? Not often we see our Burglar snap like that.”
“No, it’s not. But I don’t know, he almost never speaks of what happened to his parents.”
He spoke of them vaguely, as legacies to live up to, as people who had cared deeply for him as a child. He told stories of happy days, of childhood games and storytelling and a childhood of love, nothing of losing them. He knew it was a sore topic for his One, grief often was, and he had not demanded the story. He was certain Bilbo knew his, how could he not. His story had become legend, the loss of the kingdom, the battle of Azanulbizar, even if they had not spoken of it, Bilbo knew of his loss. His grandfather’s death, his father’s vanishing, his brother’s death, that his mother and grandmother had never even made it out of the mountain. Bilbo had not pried, and so neither had he.
“Do you think he meant to imply Gandalf was at fault for their deaths, or something else?”
“I’m not sure, but that was a serious accusation if so.”
“Talk to him,” Dwalin’s tone was soft but firm, “he may share it with you.”
He did not know if they were at that place anymore. Certainly things between them were better now, far better than he could have asked for or expected after everything that had happened, but this still felt like a difficult line to cross. Still, if he didn't ask eventually Dwalin would, if not as Bilbo’s friend then as the head guard of Erebor.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“I can talk to the engineers about alternatives to Kheleddûn if it’s not feasible? And look at what's best from a safety point of view.”
“Thank you.”
He looked back at the papers already on his desk as Dwalin left. Having Erebor reclaimed was more than he’d ever truly allowed himself to believe he could achieve, and having a home was so much better than their days wandering the wilds or living as refugees in Ered Luin, but the burdens of kingship here in the mountain were so different from the challenges of his leadership before.
For the first time he was starting to wonder if it would be the paperwork that killed him.
~.~
The door didn’t creak or groan as it opened to let in a cold draft and a welcome guest. There were few who could enter this room, fewer still who could do so without knocking, and only one he was expecting. He barely needed to tear his eyes from the report he was readying to see it was his Bilbo.
Bilbo who looked so weary and worn, just standing in the doorway, and Thorin pulled his attention fully to him.
“Bilbo.”
It seemed a name was all that was needed to break Bilbo’s trance, and a soft smile formed as he crossed the room, joining Thorin by his desk.
“Are you almost done?”
“It seems unending, but I am ready to take a break from it until morning.”
It was something his advisors had insisted he did over and over again. That he had to pace himself, that this would be different from the ways he’d led their people before. He'd ruled like this as best he could in Ered Luin, but they had been guests in that mountain, and not all the responsibilities had been his. Nobody had batted an eyelid when he’d taken jobs in the towns of men and chipped in any way he could, served as regent after his grandfather died and his father vanished. Here, in Erebor, he was king, and he would have to adapt to it. Even if it was a lot of reports and not enough getting stuck in himself.
“Good, it wouldn’t do for Erebor to lose her king from exhaustion.”
Thorin found himself chuckling slightly. Bilbo, more than anyone, kept emphasising that particular point.
“You fuss over me, Bilbo, but I am certain Erebor thanks you for it. I thank you for it.”
He let Bilbo lead him away from the desk and towards the chairs set in front of the fireplace, letting the warmth wash over him as he sank down. He'd worked dawn til dusk in forges, fought in battles, how could reports be so exhausting. Bilbo looked just as tired, and he wondered if it was the weight of Erebor, or what Gandalf had implied earlier in the day.
“Bilbo?”
“Hmm?"
“What did he mean? Gandalf, earlier. About you pushing down a side of yourself, and your parents?”
Bilbo's whole body seemed to sag, and he almost backtracked. The last thing he wanted to do was cause Bilbo more grief than he already had, and today had clearly brought things to the surface. The wizard was good at that.
“All Tooks go on some sort of adventure,” Bilbo started, to his shock, “usually not much further than Bree, but they go off and see something for the sake of doing it. It’s in our blood, from back before our people settled in the Shire at all. Adventurous faunts grow into wild tweens, and then when a Took reaches adulthood, they’ll get it out of their system, before returning to the Shire and settling. Usually.”
A fond smile graced Bilbo’s face, bright and soft, and he marvelled in the way it seemed to melt the days weight away before he continued.
“My mother never really settled, and she’d already gone on several adventures when she was still a tween. People always said it was like she had a thousand years of wandering in one Hobbit; she simply had to see the things that there were to see. It would never have been acceptable if she hadn’t been a Took, it was barely acceptable even though she was one.”
“She sounds amazing.”
She sounded more like Bilbo than he probably realised. That wild spirit, that ability to push through, it had been buried deep, but it was there. He wished he’d been able to meet her, if only to tell her how wonderful her son was, and how proud she would be of him, but alas he’d never met a Hobbit before Bilbo, no matter how much travelling she’d done.
“She was. Went all the way to Gondor once, just before she hit her majority. Promptly declared a Gondorian alstroemeria her favourite flower, it was a scandal, she’d all but declared herself un-courtable. Except my father had contacts with big folk through his healing, managed to get a hold of some to grow in secret, all so he could present them to her to start their courting. He was respectable, a Baggins, he’d never have done it any other way. Had to be proper. He was proper, she was wild, as a child I was expected to fall somewhere in the middle.”
“Were you? Somewhere in the middle?”
He'd filed away the information on flowers for later, Bilbo so rarely opened up about these things, and he wanted to know everything. He could circle back to courting his Hobbit correctly another time, and he would circle back to it. He'd find a way to get whatever flower he needed to make it official, to prove his love, if that was what it took. He was a king, nothing would be beyond his reach for his One, but in this moment, only the story mattered.
“More or less. I ran off into hedgerows and studied maps and dreamt of the wider world, more than was probably acceptable, but I also paid attention to my every lesson and shadowed my father. I loved every story my mother told me, I wanted to be like her, though I knew when I came back from my journey, I’d have to take on the responsibilities of Bag End and all the Baggins clan.”
It seemed entirely sensible and entirely Bilbo, one prescribed adventure then back to the mundane. Like so many generations before him, save perhaps his mother. One brief moment of freedom before being chained to the life you were expected to lead. He could not imagine how just one jaunt could satisfy anyone's urge for adventure, if they had that urge. He could not imagine such social restrictions, yet clearly they worked for Bilbo’s people. Or maybe they didn’t, given Bilbo was here with them so far away from his home and his books and his garden.
“Where did you go?”
He could not help but wonder. To the coast perhaps, or somewhere south, maybe somewhere with grand gardens or libraries, or somewhere nothing like The Shire at all. He’d clearly never made it to Rivendell before, but surely he'd gone further than Bree. He’d come all the way to Erebor, surely his own journey would have taken him further, just on a well travelled route, one with cousins perhaps, escorts or caravans moving along it. Easy, safe transport, but still allowing him to take to the road as his soul called. And of course his majority had come many years ago, any skills he had learned may have been forgotten, coming back to him as they journeyed on. It would explain how he’d adapted so well to life on the road after a week or so.
“I didn’t.”
He nearly dropped his mug, head whipping over to Bilbo. He... hadn’t gone on his adventure. After all that explanation about tradition and his mother’s free and wandering spirit, only to then say he never got to go. He was denied his own tradition. Bilbo, who came all this way, and clearly had that spirit within him.
“You cannot tell me you didn’t have an urge to wander. You came all this way; it must reside within you.”
Grief shuttered that smile, sagged his shoulders yet again.
“I was still a tween when my parents died, and I was their sole heir. I didn’t have a choice. I could not adventure, I could not wander, I could not waste time with things that could not be. I had thousands of Hobbits to take care of, and in a time of crisis, the farms and the lands and the people, meetings to attend as a clan head, so much to be done. My coming of age came and went, I barely even remember it, and I remained in the Shire, the picture of respectability. I could not be anything less.”
The burden of leadership coming too soon, it was a tale he understood all too well. He had not expected it of Bilbo, and yet, it made a certain kind of sense. The person Bilbo was, the understanding he had of leadership, of duty, it all spoke of someone who had borne that responsibility himself. He had failed to realise that before, but he could not miss it now. Bilbo had inherited in the face of loss, and sacrificed for others, because that was the person he was.
“I am sorry. That was not fair.”
“Life is not often fair; we must simply step up and do what needs to be done.”
Dear Mahal, did he understand that.
“Did we pull you from those responsibilities?”
The thought struck him with the same intensity as his question to Gandalf had earlier, like a weight, a guilt. That he had wronged Bilbo, without even knowing, so long ago.
“You pulled me from nothing; I chose to come.” Bilbo’s tone had been cutting, but it softened as he continued, “But no, my cousin and heir, Drogo, had come of age, no adventures on his side, but he's married and I suspect he will have an heir of his own soon enough. I had already been slowly handing more responsibilities to him, in case something should ever happen to me, I simply handed it over the rest. Everything will be well in hand back in the Shire, though I’m sure a scandal and a half.”
“But you never left before? Even though it was traditional? Nobody made any allowances for you?”
He could not get his head around it. Surely someone could have covered his duties for a while, surely someone could have allowed him what he was owed. Though he supposed if there had been someone to do that, Bilbo would not have needed to take on such a duty himself before his time. He would have not been so burdened so young. Still, they could not have covered for him or managed without him briefly, not even for a few short weeks, so that he could undertake a cultural milestone.
“Technically, as I am a Baggins, not a Took... nobody really batted an eyelid. Not every hobbit with Tookish blood has that urge to wander, and the Bagginses are a very... respectable lot. Most never questioned that I never went, just assumed my father's sensible temperament won out.”
Assumed without proof, allowed him to shoulder his burden and crush his wildness down and fill his respectable role without taking the step before it, hoped skipping it wouldn’t negatively impact him simply because he was his father’s son too. Despite his mother’s drive to adventure being so much higher than most Hobbits, they’d assumed he had no drive at all, and left him unfulfilled.
It clicked only then that this was his true motivation for coming with them. Beyond honour and the idea of home, beyond the things that had kept him with them, this was what had pushed him out his door in the first place. The thing that had him running after him. It was in his blood, and he’d been pushing it down. For decades he’d been ignoring that he’d missed an important milestone, until it had overwhelmed him, and pulled him into their path.
“When Gandalf said it would be good for you, he knew you needed it, but that you’d never been able?” a deeply selfish thought struck him, “I am sorry you did not have the opportunity when you should have, though perhaps glad it led you to come with us.”
“As am I. I had thought the urge quashed completely. I had crushed it down so far, it was only once I let myself join you all that I realised how... unwell it had been making me.” the notion that it had been making him unwell turned his stomach, but Bilbo seemed not to notice, “Gandalf was right to say it would do me good, I should apologise to him. My words were harsh.”
“Were they true?”
“I...”
“You implied it was his fault that you could not adventure, that it was his fault your parents died. I have never known you to accuse with that severity without truth behind it, which makes me think your words were truth.”
He almost wished he could avoid this conversation. It was undoubtedly harder, and would be laden with grief and sadness, but it was a serious accusation if true. A grave one. He simply could not let it go silently if harm had been done.
“No... no not entirely. That is to say, most of the Shire blames him, but only because he contributed, he was hardly the one holding the blade. It was not even a blade at all.”
Most of the Shire held Gandalf as guilty. It was damning, in Dwarven law, such things would not go down well. He had been surprised to find it had been so long since there had been a murder in the Shire that Bilbo didn’t even know the punishment for it, and yet here he accused the same of the wizard he’d joined on their adventure. For what else could that accusation be but one of murder. In Dwarven law, at least, being responsible for someone's death was more than being the person holding the weapon, leading someone to a fall or failing to safeguard them when it was their responsibility, they were punished almost as harshly.
“My mother adventured, as I said. She went far and wide, and Gandalf supported and encouraged it. He often travelled with her or helped her find people to travel with. She was hardly the first Hobbit he dragged on adventures, and I surely won’t be the last, he seems to love meddling with our people. She did not settle after she hit her majority, nor after she married, nor after she had me, and they blame him for that. Never mind it was in her blood, never mind my father’s first courting gift to her was that bouquet of alstroemeria and a book on how to heal yourself in the wild, that he encouraged her too. He never wanted her to give up her passion for him. My father’s love was simply love, but Gandalf was an outsider, they blamed him for her... oddities. And when the Fell Winter came and she ran into the fight with a sword she actually had some skill wielding and her leather armour...”
His stomach twisted, understanding settling in. She had chosen to take up arms and died a warrior’s death. Such a thing could not be common in the Shire, he could see immediately how Tharkûn would end up with the blame, if he’d encouraged such actions. He could see how the wizard would be blamed for putting such notions in her head, the notions of outsiders, whether it was true or not. They would probably say the same of Bilbo, though he was sure that courage had always been inside his One.
“They blamed him for her choice to fight.”
“Hobbits don’t believe death in battle is noble or brave. The only true respectable death is old age, after a life well lived.” the notion had been hard to get his head around at first, but after some thought, he supposed he could understand such a belief well enough, for a place like The Shire anyway, “Even our bounders prefer to drive attackers away instead of direct confrontation, but the Fell Winter was so different from anything we’d faced before. A wolf clawed her open, and there was nothing the healers could do to save her. My father’s grief took him less than a month later, he withered away, nothing anyone could do.”
It twisted his heart, that Bilbo had lost everything so suddenly. Both parents in the space of a month, in a place that seemed so safe, so peaceful. Where old age is the only respectable death, both were gone before he reached his majority, how awful it must have been. Even when they’d lost almost everything with the dragon, his father and grandfather had survived, he had lost them, and Frerin, but their losses had been staggered, and he had Dis still. He was not sure he could have survived losing them all at once, and having to survive on alone. Lead alone. Perhaps it would have been something he could have weathered, but he would never know.
Bilbo had; he was strong, stronger than he had ever been credited for.
“You stepped up.”
“Of course.”
“Just as you stepped up for Erebor, Master Baggins, you never cease to amaze me. Spine of mithril. If more people acted simply because it was right, the world would be a different place indeed.”
Bilbo flushed slightly, lips pressed. Bilbo never seemed to understand the magnitude of the things he did, but Thorin would never stop being enamoured by them. The strength and courage and compassion and determination Bilbo kept hidden behind manners and this idea that he was too small to make a difference in the world around him. One day, Thorin would finally get through to him exactly how important he was.
Bitterly he wondered how much of that strength came from the hardships of losing his parents, of having to step into an ill-fitting mould after losing his parents to combat and to grief before even reaching his majority. That he’d had to cut himself off from the wider world before his chance to see it and could not, even now, see beyond the small corner that had been left for him to exist within. That he’d forced himself so thoroughly to fit into that mould that even still he could not fully see what more there was to him and his impact upon the world, or at least Rhovanion.
In this moment he found himself just as angry as The Shire at Tharkûn, if all this actually was his fault. If his actions had led to it all, except...
“I can understand why they see the issue with your mother taking up arms, but they blame Gandalf for your father succumbing to grief?”
Grief was a brutal thing, he remembered the days of numbness, forcing himself to get up and move for no reason than people needed him to, even if he could not have done so for his sake. For his little sister, his little brother, his cousins and his kin, for his father and grandfather, and then not for them anymore. One foot in front of the other, one mouthful of food after the other, until feeling came back, the drive to thrive returned, and the responsibility of his people became more than simply duty. He had not fallen to his grief, but even if he had, he was not sure any of his people would have laid the blame at another's feet for it. Not the way Bilbo made it sound like The Shire did.
“My parents exchanged their hearts; I think dwarves would call them Ones. My father was the only one who loved her deeply enough to get that flower, even if it was all cultural taboo. Most Hobbits avoid it, they don’t give that first flower over or their heart, even if the Shire is a peaceful place. Accidents can happen after all.”
“You don’t traditionally choose your Ones?”
That was... unheard of in dwarven culture. Your other half was a gift, if you were lucky enough to find them, you never let them go. Was this why Bilbo had been so reluctant to accept his courting, his advances, because to him such a thing was a cultural taboo. Even if it was one his parents had engaged in, he had been ‘respectable’, he had probably pushed such notions far to the side. In the excitement of finding his One, he had not considered for a second that things might be different for Hobbits. Not considered for a second that others would not see Ones the way his people did. He had assumed Bilbo’s reluctance to be many things, but this had not been one of them.
“Of course not. I know other races don’t mind the risks, but we’re a cautious people. The last thing you want is for a faunt or tween to end up without either parent the way I did. All it takes is a sickness or a storm or some bad luck and you’ll have two funerals; it was decided long ago that it was hardly worth the risk. Especially when my people love freely and easily, with passion and joy. You do not need the other half of your heart to live a long and happy life full of love.”
The risks? Two funerals? That could not mean what he thought it meant. It could not mean what Bilbo was implying, he had to be misunderstanding. Surely... surely...
“You’ll die if you... if... if we...”
Bilbo seemed completely taken aback by his horror for only a second, before his own confusion settled to realisation and a guilty horror of his own. His voice was painfully soft when he answered the question Thorin didn’t want answered, because from the look on Bilbo’s face alone, he knew the answer.
“We do. Hobbits do. Thorin... when I said I needed time to decide, I didn’t realise you didn’t know that. I would have explained, I would have. I am so sorry.”
He was sorry?
He was sorry?
When Thorin had so selfishly asked not just for his love but his life, asked for him to court danger and risk, to...
Nausea rose up his throat, bringing bile with it. He forced it down, but the rolling nausea refused to budge, his fingers cold and his mind spinning.
To put your One in danger was a crime above all others, and while everyone seemed to forgive him for what he’d done when his mind was sick with dragon sickness and gold fever, this had been done boldly and with clarity. He had brazenly asked his One to put his life on the line, openly asked his One to court constant danger. Ones were to be treasured and loved and protected, even if both were warriors in their own right, and he had failed his yet again.
He felt his hands shaking a little, and yet here was Bilbo apologising, like he was the one asking Thorin to take such a risk so carelessly, so thoughtlessly.
“No, no, I understand now, I should have realised, I should have talked to you.” he should have known Hobbits would not be the same as Dwarrow, he should have thought to ask, “I was asking for your love, I did not know I was asking for you to tie your life and your fate to me, I would have never...”
He needed Bilbo to know that he’d never have so easily asked for that. For him to tie their fates together, to risk life tied to a king, a king who would be a target. One lucky assassin and Erebor would lose them both, it was a horror he could barely comprehend.
“That wasn’t my concern, Thorin. I was concerned for you. I am no warrior, what would stop them targeting me to kill you, after all this work, I was not about to be the reason Erebor lost her king.”
His selflessness was sickening. His life on the line and he started talking about protecting Thorin. About not wanting to put him in danger.
“Even though you thought I had already accepted the risk by asking.”
“Even then. I watched my father die; I did not want to be the reason you suffered the same long death. I’m sorry Thorin, I truly didn’t know. I thought all races faced the same thing.”
“We don’t even know if it would affect me that way. Dwarven Ones are different, the loss changes us, but we persist. You are my One, I know it more than I know myself, but I cannot bear the idea that you would lose your life with me.”
“You are my heart, but until I give mine to you, I do not believe our roots will intertwine. That said, if I stay that may simply happen. And yet I find myself more and more certain that I will stay...”
Hope warred with horror, and he had no words to give in reply.
What was he supposed to say to that?