Author's Note: I should have left the library to go to class like ten minutes ago, but I was so close to finishing this, so I'm posting this and running across campus. Had this idea while watching DoS for the second time. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Orcist or Sting, but I don't own anything.
The King Under the Mountain falls in battle and dies in a tent, huddled under grimy furs, his last breaths heard by the small creature with the elf-like ears. Legolas hears the call go out from the elven side of the battleground, a brash voice declaring their leader dead, struggling not to let his voice crack as he does so. Tauriel sinks down into herself at the announcement and says nothing.
Tauriel has not been herself since the first moments they captured the dwarves. Or perhaps it was that Tauriel had only just begun to be herself from that moment, standing out and speaking her mind after centuries of holding her tongue against his father's decisions. But now she is dirty and bloody, her shoulders a rigid line, like a edge of a rocky chasm. Legolas watches over Tauriel now, to give her a moment to mourn for those that fell in battle. If he could spare he more than a moment to sit and ache, he would, but it is not long before he is forced to step forward and place his hand upon her shoulder. His skin is pale against the splash of blood that has soaked into her armor. He freezes, concern gripping his chest like the webs of the wretched spiders that invade their land.
"Tauriel, have you been hurt?"
"It is not of import," she says. Her voice is ragged, weak as he has never known her to be. He hears her as if she is miles away and she looks just as small to him, slumped down on the mud and muck of the battlefield behind his father's medical tents. He crouches down at her side immediately, reached to turn her so that he can study her wounds, but she brushes him off and stands. Her hands tremble at her sides.
"Tauriel," he repeats. Even as she towers above him she is like a star, small and pale against the grey skies. She has never looked as cold as she does now, distant. Legolas recalls the dwarves words about stars, his horridly incorrect view of the lights, only his view seems less incorrect now, looking up at the maiden who has fought beside him for so long.
"I am fine," she insists quietly. "Most of the blood is… not mine."
Is it orcish blood then, he wishes to ask, or that of the dwarven prince? But he will not be cruel, not to her, and for whatever reason the dwarven prince meant something to her. He stands fluidly, having come out of the battle mostly unscathed, and nods, swallowing.
"I am to find my father and ask what he wishes to do now," he tells her quietly. "Find me if you find yourself in need of my help." She smiles at him, like the waning curve of the moon, before nodding slightly. He turns, not waiting for her to speak, and strides away to find his father.
Thandruil does not share his captain of the guard's silence on the matter of the mountain king's death. Legolas finds him standing atop a rocky outcrop of the battlefield, away from the piles of corpses. He clears his throat to catch his father's attention, but the king does not stop pacing. Legolas grips the hilt of the sword at his hip and squares his shoulders, unsettled by his father's restless movements.
"Report," the king snaps.
"The King Under the Mountain is dead," Legolas announces. Unlike the dwarf who gave the cry to the dwarven camp, his voice is smooth and strong. "The line of Durin is now at peace."
His father made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat that startles Legolas. "He was never a king," he snaps, whirling to face his son. He's bloody and dirty, much like Tauriel, but where her light had seemed dim and far away his father's is too close, hot and agitated, bright enough to cause pain. "Do not degrade such a title by applying it to that scoundrel."
"Yes, father," Legolas responds, automatically, like a reflex. His father snorts and turns to look back over the battlefield.
"You fought well today," his father praises. Once he probably would have basked in such a raise, but now he has his father's agitation ringing in his ears and cannot pres past the uneasy feeling welling behind his breast. He nods his thanks to his father, even though the king is not looking at him, and Thrandiul continues. "We move out at dawn tomorrow to return to our own kingdom."
"I'll send word to the guards," Legolas promises. He bows shortly to his father and then leaves, but he does not go to the guards. A morbid sense of curiosity draws him to the dwarven camp, where he walks among the wounded, battle sore, grieving people as if he were the one who had passed on and now haunts them as a ghost. It is not until he reaches the tent wherein Thorin Oakenshield's body lays that someone tries to stop him, a dwarf he vaguely recognizes as one of the company, balding and tattooed.
"What do ya think yer doin'," the dwarf rages, stepping forward to block his path. There are tears streaked across his cheek, blood across his knuckles, and he shakes as he steps forward to block Legolas' path. "Have ya come to rub it in our faces," he spat. Legolas found himself fighting the urge to flinch back at that, at the thought he would ever mock someone for the death of their king. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but a voice speaks before he can, one he does not recognize.
"Leave him be, Dwalin. He means us no harm, I'm sure."
The dwarf freezes before twisting to look behind him at the tent. In the doorway, frame by an entrance too large for his slim, short frame, stands a creature the likes Legolas has never seen. He has curly air the same color as the leaves of the trees in the forest and hard upon his overly large, bare feet. The creature is haunted looking, covered in dried blood and filth, and wearing the scraps of a tunic that had once been blue. Underneath the fabric left of the tunic something glimmers faintly, like a thin coat of armor, catching the light of the setting sun even through the grime.
"Bilbo," the dwarf says. His voice creaks and breaks as he says the name. His hands shake even more. The creature, Bilbo, shakes his head, revealing a crusted cut at his temple as his hair flops limply around.
"Go find Balin," the small creature orders the dwarf. When the dwarf does not move the creature sighs, his shoulders sagging a little with exhaustion. "He does not need you to guard him anymore, Dwalin. There's nothing more you can do here, so go find Balin."
"Someone should stay anyway," the dwarf argues, nearly pleading. But the creature just gives him a small lopsided smile that holds no warmth and gestures him away.
"I'll stay at his side, Dwalin. Go."
The dwarf casts one last look at Legolas, so much hatred in his eyes, the kind Legolas has seen in the eyes of his fellows when they gaze at the spiders who linger in their woods. His stomach does something strange, but the feeling is gone as the dwarf turns to leave. He pauses several steps away, however, and his voice is nothing but a whisper in the wind as he turns to glance at the creature in the doorway of the tent.
"Aye, laddie," the dwarf agrees belatedly, "you always have, haven't you? Even when he refused to stay at your side, you've always been there." He turns and leaves then, striding with long, uneven strides of one who is injured but refuses to limp. Legolas turns back and sees that the creature is crying, his small face scrunched into an expression of misery. When he sees Legolas is watching he rubs at his cheeks with his wrists forcefully before wiping his hands on the sides of his pants and staggering backward to let Legolas in the tent. He had not meant to enter the tent, just walk past, but he finds himself stepping forward anyway, bending down slightly since the tent is of dwarven make and therefore too short for his full height. The creature is made into a doll by the tent, everything in it too small for Legolas and yet still too large for him.
"I'm going to assume you've come to see for yourself," the creature says, standing his ground. He looks too young and small for battle, but there is a sword strapped at his hip, small and delicate as the creature himself. The hilt is dirty with blood and muck, the small filth that covers his small hands. One of those small hands rests upon the hilt of the blade, but the other gestures behind him, to a cot in the corner of the tent. "Well," the creature says, his voice going rough and snide, "go on and look."
Legolas does not move. "I mean you no offense," he says, ignoring the bed for the moment, "but I'm not sure who, or what, you are."
The creature laughs then, a brittle thrilling sound like a bird being strangled. "Bilbo Baggins," the creature says, giving a most distasteful mock bow. His smile has even less warmth than before, when he offered it to the dwarf, and even more teeth. He bares the grin at Legolas as if he is a wild animal, cornered and injured. "I'm a hobbit from the Shire."
"The Shire," Legolas repeats. He has heard of such a place, but to his knowledge that land lay far beyond the Misty Mountains, past even Rivendale. What in Valar's name was a hobbit doing with dwarves? He gazes curiously at the little hobbit, the question on the tip of his tongue, but the little one snorts suddenly, his eyes caught on something at Legolas' hip. He glances down and finds that the elven sword at his hip is suddenly the focus of the hobbit's attention.
"Something funny," he asks, but the hobbit laughs again, giving him the same hollow, toothy smile and shaking his head.
"Thorin was really given that sword," he says, moving to walk to the side of the cot. The King Under the Mountain lie still and pale, his eyes closed, his counterance peaceful. The hobbit gazes at him as if he does not see him but a memory and he reaches to touch him only to draw back, hands falling limp at his sides. "In a manner of speaking, at least. We found it in a troll cave, along with my own blade and the blade Gandalf now wields. Elrond identified their blades and then blessed them as their new owners. I think his exact words were may this blade serve you well." He chuckles again, the sound wet with held back tears. "Thorin huffed and nearly threw a fit about the idea of an elvish blade serving him well, but he looked right fighting with it, tall and unstoppable."
Legolas grips the hilt of the blade at his hip and feels something stir in his chest. "And what of your blade," he asks, calling the hobbit's attention back to him. "Could the master of Rivendale not identify it?"
"Didn't ask him about it," the hobbit said, shrugging slightly. "It was so small and insignificant that I assumed it wouldn't have a name. Gave it one myself actually, in the woods of Mirkwood." He trails off, something sad crossing like a cloud across the night sky over his eyes. "I didn't get the chance to tell Thorin or the boys what it was called. Fili and Kili would have gotten such a kick out of the name."
Someone calls the hobbit's name from outside the tent and he turns, glancing at the opening. He sighs again, exhaustion visible in his every movement, but he goes to walk over, mouth already open to answer back. Legolas reaches out before he can move from the side of the bed, catch the little one's shoulder in his hand carefully.
"What brought you so far from home," he asks quietly, when the hobbit looks at him. "From what I have heard of your people you are far from home and the battlefield is no such place for one so small."
"There was a knock at my door one night," the hobbit said, without a pause. "I was tired and annoyed and my house was full of dwarves. When I answered it there was another dwarf, one different from the others. He was quiet and solemn and something about him made me feel more alive than I had felt in twenty years. I found myself wanting to see him made king, despite his grumpy and sullen disposition at times; I thought he would make a good king." He chuckled again quietly, though this time the noise is less bitter than before. "I guess you could say I saw someone who I could call king," he adds quietly, as if he is now talking to himself. When he glances up Legolas can see the tears in his eyes, the streaks that have worn through the filth on his cheeks already, and that causes something in his chest to tighten slightly at the sight.
"I'll be right back," the hobbit says eventually, when someone calls his name once more. He shakes off Legolas' hand from his shoulder and leaves the tent, apparently trusting such a stranger in the presence of his lost king. Legolas turns and looks at the dwarf lying on the cot again. Staring at the body, the hobbit's words still stuck in his ears, Legolas considers for the first time that his father might be wrong about the world. He leaves the tent before the hobbit can return and goes straight to his father's guard, giving them the orders that they are to move out at dawn the next day.
"Where is your sword," his father asks when they stand gathered before the troops, just before dawn. "I thought I saw it strapped to your hip after the battle."
Legolas shakes his head slightly, his back a rigid line. "I lost the blade in battle," he lied, his heart pounding oddly in his chest. "What you saw was a blade I borrowed from Tauriel just before I came to see you." His father says nothing, turning to address one of his guards after a long moment. Legolas does not relax, nor does his heart calm form its odd race. The king moves away, stepping forward to lead the march back to his kingdom, but Legolas stays where he stands.
"Thank you," someone says suddenly. Legolas glances over in the pre-dawn gloom and spots the hobbit, standing but three feet away. He had not heard him come forth, had not spotted his climb up to the elven camp. Tauriel, who has been standing at his side quietly, recoils slightly at the hobbit's appearance, showing the first side of emotion since the battle had concluded.
"You're a better man than your father," the hobbit says, "and if given the chance to rule I think you will be a good king too." Without waiting for a response the little one turns and leaves, walking past the lines of elven warriors and toward the dwarven camp.
"I leant you no blade," Tauriel says, once the hobbit is gone. Legolas does not look at her, even as she shifts beside them and their warriors march past. "You have never lost a blade in any battle," she adds. Legolas says nothing still and soon she sighs. She leaves him to his post and steps forward to join the march. Legolas watches the hobbit climb back to the dwarven camp in silence, only turning to join his people once Bilbo Baggins has entered Thorin's death tent safely.
The King Under the Mountain and his heirs are buried a forthnight later and another takes the throne. Orcist, Goblin Cleaver, is placed atop the tomb of Thorin Oakenshield and never disturbed again.