Birthday fic for Sapphireswimming—if you haven't checked out her stories, guys, you definitely should! She's pretty amazing! (And because angst is what everyone wants for their birthday, right?)
.
.
"And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave."
—Joseph Drake
.
.
Bilbo Baggins leaves for his home the day after the funeral.
It has been trying for all of them, of course—the aftermath of war is never pretty, even when they emerge victorious—but dwarves, at least, have been brought up to understand loss and bloodshed. To expect it, even. The world has never been kind to Mahal's children, and all of them have lost someone to war before.
Their hobbit has felt losses in his life, of course. But not like this…never like this.
His face when he came upon Thorin's dying form in the tents was nothing but a mask of horror; he swallowed down his nausea as he knelt beside their king's failing body, looked into his greying eyes, and grasped his bloody hand. They made peace before Thorin's passing, but it had not been a happy one; even as the dwarf's lips nearly twitched up into a reassuring smile ("If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world"), tears were leaking steadily from Bilbo's eyes, falling to the muddy ground and into Thorin's matted hair.
The king had succumbed to his wounds, then, his faint grip on the hobbit's hands falling limp, and Bilbo had collapsed.
(None of them were there when he composed himself enough to ask about the lads, whether Fíli would, by necessity, take up the mantle of his uncle's throne…when Gandalf gently took him by the shoulder and led him to a neighboring tent, where the two of them were laid out side-by-side, rent with too many wounds to count, nearly unrecognizable through the blood and gore.)
(None of them see Bilbo for hours, but all of them hear the retching.)
They all know he's lost his parents, years ago, now; they all know he's lost cousins and neighbors and friends—but they died in the way that hobbits usually do: of old age, or sickness, or even drowning—but not to war. Not to bloodshed and wicked weapons and—
Hobbits were never made for the battlefield. Though Bilbo is an exceptional creature, who has killed and lied and stolen and saved them all too many times to count, he is—and always will be—the quiet halfling who enjoys his life under the hill, in his cozy smial with its gardens and its pantries and its armchairs. No matter how much they have grown to care for Bilbo—and, they hope, he for them—he has never had any hope of surviving such bloodshed…at least with his heart intact.
Bilbo Baggins leaves for his home the day after the funeral, and nobody can convince themselves to be surprised by it.
—-—
The funeral is beautiful, by dwarf standards; though it is not crowded, all of the dwarves well enough to attend stand in the deep catacombs of the mountain, leaning on each other, on the walls…whether to support their weakened bodies or their weakened spirits, nobody has the heart to tell.
Even Bard the Dragonslayer has come, with his heir and his daughters—his arm is badly damaged by the battle, confined to a sling, and likely, he will not shoot a bow again; but he is welcomed all the same, for there is true regret on his face, and his daughters' eyes shine with unshed tears as they look upon the tombs.
He handles the Arkenstone with the utmost care as he lays it upon Thorin's cold breast, and they all know it will not be brought above the earth again.
Thranduil Oropherion is there as well, with his own son and a few somber-faced others; though many dwarves treat him with frosty acceptance at best, his face is a blank mask as he steps forward, a gleaming elven sword in his hands, and once the king's tomb is sealed, he places it gently upon the unforgiving stone. And then he gestures for his men, who silently step forward with more weapons in their arms; two swords, a hammer, and a dozen knives are arranged carefully on the crown prince's tomb, and a longsword and a beautifully-crafted bow are placed on the other's. Weapons stolen from their rightful owners…returned, now, as a sign of respect, but no longer of any use.
The rituals are performed in deep, throaty voices by the dwarves in attendance (in the Common Tongue, for outsiders are present; the Khuzdul rites will be performed later), singing of the king's great deeds and of the princes' courage, of the way they will be welcomed as heroes by their kin in the halls of their Maker…
(There is not a creature present that is not moved by the haunting, wistful hymns.)
And then, when the ceremony is complete and the elves and men take their leave, the dwarves stay a while longer, standing in respectful silence of those they have lost.
Eventually, they begin to make their way above ground as well.
Then there are twelve left—the remnants of a king's company: ten dwarves and a hobbit and a stooping wizard that finally appears every century he has lived, who have said nearly nothing throughout the ceremony. Gandalf leans down and mutters something in Balin's ear—the eldest of the Company, now, and he who must lead the others. The dwarf looks surprised and glances at a pale-faced Bilbo, who is grasping several bunches of flowers in his hands (where he found them in the middle of winter, in the midst of this desolation, is anyone's guess) and staring at his toes with watering eyes.
"Of course," he says immediately, nodding, and puts a gentle hand on Bilbo's shoulder. The hobbit sends a grateful look toward the old dwarf, but it is several seconds before he steps toward the tombs on shaky legs, his hands shaking violently as he grasps the flowers ever-tighter. He stares at the pink and purple petals for several seconds longer before carefully reaching out and arranging one group on the king's large tomb, and then one on each of the lads'.
He opens his mouth as if to say something, but chokes on his words, lets out an inarticulate sob, and rushes blindly up the stairs.
—-—
Bilbo Baggins leaves for his home the day after the funeral, believing his gesture of grief—his manner of coping with loss—will be overlooked and dismissed by these dwarves, born of stone as they are.
—-—
(And once he leaves the mountain, he never returns, and never learns the truth.)
—-—
They all realize quickly that flowers are a part of a hobbit's funeral—that much is obvious. Dwarves have never had much to do with that which grows upon the earth, though, so they can't hope to divine the meaning behind the different types of flowers that sit upon their kings' empty bodies (or even the purpose for laying them there), illuminated faintly by the skylights from above.
All they know is that they are important to their hobbit—to Bilbo—and so none are so disrespectful as to question it, to move them, even when the flowers quickly lose their color and their liveliness.
Stone statues of all three are hewn soon enough—they're beautiful likenesses, truly, though Thorin's does not quite capture the power behind his gaze, and Fíli's does not see the grace with which he carried himself, and Kíli's does not adequately portray the youth that had always—even until the end—graced his features. But they are beautiful statues nonetheless, and even if they do not perfectly reproduce the dwarves they represent, none of the Company wish them to.
The flowers, lying on the tombs now for several weeks, have long since withered and died; and though all of the Company have ventured down to the catacombs regularly, to be close to their departed friends and share in their private grief, none seem to know exactly what to do about them.
It feels wrong, somehow, to leave dead flowers on the tombs when the bright, living ones meant so much to Bilbo, when they were left as a final testament to those whom he has lost in ways unimaginable. So it is Bofur who leaves the mountain one chilly day after the turn of the year, ventures down to the city of Dale amidst the busy construction, and asks whether there is a florist he could talk to.
The withered old lady looks as surprised as any to see a dwarf in her shop, but takes it in stride; she barely rises above the top of his hat, so stooped and hunched-over she is with age, but she meets his gaze levelly and asks what on earth a dwarf might want with her.
"I was wondering—see, I have this good friend," he starts, because he will not think of Bilbo in the past tense, no matter the fact that, more than likely, he will not see the hobbit again. "Flowers are real important to him, and he left them on our friends' tombs before he left, and even though I'm bollocks at growing things, I feel like it'd make him—and Thorin and the lads—proud, were we to keep up the tradition. So, I was just wondering if you could help me a bit, here?"
He's rambling, he knows, and twisting his sleeves rather hopelessly in his calloused hands (they've never helped cultivate plants in his life, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try, right?), staring at this little old lady with something that's probably close to desperation. But her face only splits into a gentle smile, gesturing for Bofur to follow her, and leads him to a carefully kept room where different plants—beautiful, colorful plants Bofur has never seen in his life—are growing in neat rows, their roots buried deep in the soil and their heads leaning toward the sunlight streaming through the windows.
"Is there light and open air, on these tombs?" she asks, her voice kind as she squints down the rows, clearly considering the different options. "I know you dwarves bury your dead in the mountain, but flowers won't survive long without them."
"Aye, when the sun is in the east," he says carefully, also looking around at the plants. They're nice, as far as flowers go, though he has not the slightest idea of what would be appropriate, or even what would be the prettiest to adorn the tombs of some of his greatest friends. "Could we keep flowers growing on them, then?"
"I expect so, if you water them when you should," she says, glancing back and clearly seeing his rather lost expression, for she steps back toward him, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Laddie, I'm sure whatever you pick, your friends would have loved them."
"I suppose," Bofur mutters, though he thinks suddenly of what Thorin would say, should he know that such things were adorning his grave.
At one point, the mental image of his king's indignation would make him laugh, but now… Now, he can't help but think that Thorin would be relieved—so desperately relieved—that Bilbo has accepted his apology so completely; he would be grateful that the hobbit considered him such a dear friend, to honor him with his people's funeral rites.
And the lads—who, only earlier this year, would have laughed themselves silly at the sight—would now be struck speechless, and would only sweep their burglar into a rib-crushing hug.
"The ones Bilbo left," he begins carefully, because he did his best to memorize the details of them, in order to get the same ones again, if he could. "There were all sorts, four or five at least. And pink and purple, all of them—queer colors, but normal, I suppose, for flowers."
"Hmm," she says, narrowing her eyes a moment. "Your friend, he knows a lot about flowers?"
"I expect so," Bofur says, shrugging rather helplessly and thinking suddenly that he should know this. "He's a hobbit, see—he's got a great big garden, back at his home in the west."
She only hums again, considering her rows of carefully-cultivated flowers before approaching one, lifting its pot from the row and turning to him. "Did these happen to be one of them?"
It's a pot full of several pink flowers, each roughly circular, with many different petals branching out from the inside. "Aye, I think so," Bofur says, squinting at it for a moment. It certainly looks familiar enough to him. "What is it?"
"They're carnations," she says, and there's a bit of sadness in her smile now as she sets the pot aside, offering no other explanation before inviting Bofur to look around, to see if he can recognize any of the others.
In the end, he picks out three others, and he's not entirely sure they're the correct ones—but they look nice enough together (at least according to the florist, because he honestly has not the first idea), and he's able to get three hearty pots of each, to adorn each grave properly. When he pulls out his money purse, though, intent on asking how much it would cost to have these brought to the mountain, she shakes her head, putting her gnarled, wrinkled hands over his much larger ones.
"Don't worry about it, dear. We all lost loved ones in the battle—and if you care enough to give your friends such gifts of remembrance, I can't possibly ask you to pay more."
He's indignant, argues up and down and sideways, but in the end, she sends him away with promises to send her grandsons along in the next few days, and the purse still clangs merrily on his hip.
—-—
The others are surprised, to say the least, when they retreat to the catacombs and see the new flowers atop the tombs, carefully arranged with the weapons so as not to block the epitaphs engraved on the stone. The pots do not even reach the knees of the great statues…but somehow, they seem to light up the room all the same.
None of them question it, but read the instructions left with each kind of flower carefully—and Dori and his brothers take turns watering the flowers religiously, exactly when they should, in order to cultivate this new life when others' were so greedily taken away.
The flowers will never be as bright as those in Bilbo's garden—will never be as bright, even, as the bouquets Bilbo left behind in his grief and his longing—but it is the best they can do, and they pray it is enough.
—-—
Balin visits Bilbo several years later—makes the trip with Gandalf and a few of Dáin's guards, because missing their burglar has become unbearable and he can't stand to leave him in the dark any longer.
The mountain is still under construction, but the majority of the work has been finished over the past decade—Balin tells his friend this over tea and scones (something he's never had the chance to experience, but thinks he would come to enjoy, should he be given the chance). Dáin is a good king—wise and just—and he bears the weight of the crown with a certain solemnity, for he knows exactly what has been sacrificed to gain the throne, and who should be sitting it in his stead.
They share bitter, wan smiles at the mention of their dead friends, but no other mention of the elder line of Durin—or their tombs—is made that day.
Balin wishes to bring it up, to tell him exactly what they have done to keep his traditions alive this past decade (though not without failures—and they've had to replace the pots more than once, despite their best efforts). But the pain is still too fresh for him—him, who has lost nearly everything, save his brother and his closest cousins and this mountain that, much of the time, he wishes to cast away in disgust!—and the grief is evident in the lines around Bilbo's eyes that weren't there before, in the grey strands leaking into his curly hair.
And so they part ways several days later with hugs and promises of correspondence, and Gandalf gives Balin a hard look, but Balin only has eyes for the abundance of familiar pink and purple flowers that have nearly overtaken their hobbit's front garden.
—-—
The old dwarf visits him several times over the following decades—watches him age as a dwarf never would in so short a time, watches him take in a child whose parents drowned (dead, but a bloodless end—but Balin sees Bilbo's hands shake all the same as he tells him), watches him grow, slowly, accustomed to the old life he longed for but never seemed to love.
(Watches him grow ever-closer to death, where he will be buried in his homeland with all the flowers and green things he could ever wish for…all the things a dwarven funeral could never offer.)
Balin says one final good-bye to him, a few months before he and Ori and Óin lead a quest to reclaim Khazad-dûm, and wishes he had the courage to ask and to understand.
—-—
Gimli brings the news of the expedition after the terrible, bloody war, and though tears are shed and grief is wailed to the heavens, none can say that they are honestly surprised.
Tombs are hewn for all of the fallen soldiers—and for those of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, empty sepulchers are designed near the kings'. (If they do not deserve such an honor, after all, who would?) And Bifur—mad, loyal Bifur, who nearly lost his life to an axe at Azanulbizar and then threw it away again to slay a dragon—was finally felled by the Easterlings at Dale during the war for that damned golden ring, a battle cry upon his lips and his bloodied, ruined body doing its damnedest to protect a fallen Bofur.
Bofur survives to see the end of the war, but he will never forgive himself for his cousin's sacrifice.
And, just as he has so many times in the past, he travels to the florist in Dale—rebuilt in its entirety, now, though the shop is owned by the old lady's granddaughter many times over (once a sprightly young thing, now dampened by the war that nearly took everything from them all). She only looks at him solemnly and nods toward the back room, for she recognizes him easily enough from her girlhood and from stories told by her elders—
After all, how strange it is, that a dwarf should come in regularly, looking for flowers to put on his dwarven friends' graves!
But she has long since learned not to question it, only telling him the names of the flowers he picks up every several years, so that he can easily ask for them in the future—in case he outlives even her and her children. Carnations, and hyacinths, and irises, and sweetpeas: always these, never more, never less, coming whenever those queer dwarves' best efforts have failed, and the flowers atop their friends' graves have withered and died.
She's never asked him why he's picked up the odd practice that dwarves have never seemed at all interested in—the grief in his eyes, even after all these years, stops her breath in her throat, keeps her from prying too deeply. Perhaps certain dwarves appreciate flowers more than most. Perhaps…perhaps…
But the city and the mountain are still recuperating after the great battle nearly destroyed them all, and she has no thought to spare for strange dwarves on her doorstep after such horrors have entered their lands. (She lost her brother and two sons to the wild men of the East, and she's only recently opened the shop again, because too many graves need flowers to rest atop them, and she knows she cannot be selfish enough to wallow alone in her grief.)
The last person she expects to see step through her door is Bofur, with his ever-ratty hat and his greying pigtails and his somber eyes. But today, he reaches up to gently shut the door behind him instead of letting it slam, and his eyes are shadowed and bloodshot, and he is newly scarred and missing one arm from the elbow.
The dwarves, it seems, have suffered just as many losses as the men.
"I'm—I'm gonna need four more sets," he says, his usual false cheer absent as he stares up at her with dead, dead eyes. "The most beautiful ones you have, if you can spare them, though I suppose I'm never one to judge."
A shot of empathy courses through her veins, but she knows he would not appreciate such things if they were spoken aloud; so she only nods, gestures for him to follow her, and goes through her carnations and sweatpeas and irises and hyacinths until she finds the most vibrant, most bountiful sets in the store.
Bofur's lips quirk up, then, and he sends her a grateful look as she carries them to the front, careful as always with the pots as she takes quick inventory.
Sixteen pots for four more dwarves returned to their precious stone, and still nothing makes sense to her at all.
"Why do you buy flowers for your friends?" she blurts out before she can help herself, and immediately regrets it. Perhaps it is her own grief overshadowing her sense; perhaps she simply cannot take the mystery anymore. Perhaps Bofur will not deign to answer, and she wouldn't blame him for it.
But instead, he only closes his eyes for a moment before saying, "A very good friend of mine once gave nearly everything for us, and left us with flowers on their graves for his grief. I can't help but think that if we keep doing the same, we'll be a bit closer to Bilbo." He shakes his head, swiping at his eyes for a moment as he stares at the floor. "This was the greatest thing he could do at their funeral, in the manner of his people…but we still don't truly understand why."
She blinks at him, unsure of how to respond; but she only nods with all the solemnity the situation deserves, and says, very quietly, "I'm sorry for your loss."
(She means it in more ways than one, because she remembers the name Bilbo from stories passed down and told to her by her elders—and hobbits do not live so long as this.)
He smiles at her, then, a joyless smile that shares her pain so easily. "And I'm sorry for yours."
—-—
None of the Company truly understand the significance of the flowers, and none of the dwarves in the mountain understand why they continue placing them carefully around those seven tombs in the catacombs, but one look from their king (Thorin III Stonehelm, as strong as his namesake but as wise as his father) or Dwalin, son of Fundin (old and grey and blind, now, but fearsome and intimidating nonetheless), silences the questions many burn to ask.
It has been a century since the mountain was reclaimed, and many in the company are growing older: destined to wither away in this peacetime when they have thrown their lives away for so many years to hopeless quests made of the stuff of dreams.
They are legends: the sons of Fundin and the sons of Gróin and even those who have no ties to the throne of the kingdom. They are those who followed a mad line's dream of a long-lost kingdom, hoping to snatch a mountain from the maw of a fire drake—and they succeeded.
But they have lived through war and heartbreak and hell, more than any dwarf could be expected to survive, and slowly, they are fading.
Dori, master of the guilds, is the first—he is nearing two-hundred-fifty, a respectable age to die of longevity, and unsurprising after his beloved brother was lost to the goblins of the Misty Mountains.
And Nori, irrepressible, awful Nori who never allowed himself to show public affection for his brothers in life—follows Dori into a bloody death for his recklessness and his grief in—of all things—a bar fight he never should have lost, not five years later.
(Those of the Company have seen him spiraling, since the news of Ori's death—and Dori's passing simply pushed him over the edge. They mourn, but are not surprised.)
Glóin is old (and so, of course, is Dwalin—but then, the old captain of the guard has ever been too stubborn to play by the rules) and passes in his sleep, and his son Gimli mourns loud and long, returned from the Glittering Caves, though his father's death has been a long time coming. But seeing Glóin—ever the loudest of the Company—sealed in stone, silent and unmoving forever in this life, is unsettling, and many let their tears fall but turn away.
Gimli ensures, before he leaves, that there are ten sets of pink and purple flowers upon the tombs of his forefathers, for Bofur—bowed, now, in his grief and sorrow—rarely leaves the comfort of his family's quarters. And he speaks with Thorin (who shares his namesake's hair and nose but bears his father's eyes, and the beard he grows is not shorn in penance but long as the Oakenshield's should have been—and though the king scarcely knew his namesake, Gimli feels pain each time he looks upon him) about ensuring the flowers are upkept, because even if the dwarves do not understand, such things meant everything to the hobbit who saved their kingdom, and they owe this much to him, at least.
And Thorin does not understand, but honors his cousin's word and the halfling he has never known, and keeps on.
The flowers thrive.
—-—
Bombur dies amidst his children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a smile on his face as he goes to meet his cousin and his friends at long last. And Bofur, choking back sobs, ventures again to Dale to quietly asks the florist (the woman's grandson, who grew up on tales of the strange dwarf who used to come to the shop) what flowers he should braid into his brother's beard, to show him proper respect and love and grief.
And the small young man—kind-hearted as he is with his curly brown hair and hazel eyes that Bofur doesn't seem able to meet—sends him off with a bouquet of mixed zinnias, for daily remembrance and goodness and constancy and affection, for he is quite sure these dwarves carry such things in their hearts a hundred times over.
Then, a decade later, the King of Erebor himself appears on his doorstep, waving away his hurried, alarmed pretenses as he attempts a bow (for he has never spoken to Thorin Stonehelm, and why should he have?); the King Under the Mountain only asks with dark, saddened eyes whether he might be willing to sell him two last sets of flowers for the catacombs, for the last two heroes of the mountain...old and broken and mourning, and dead within days of each other.
Thirteen dwarves of legend, and thirteen tombs, and thirteen sets of flowers. (Promising remembrance, and giving thanks, and honoring friendship, and begging forgiveness, and he wonders, because wasn't there one more—a halfling, the lucky number in all the stories? And, after all, haven't dwarves ever cared so little for things that grow under the sun?)
But he dares not ask the King such trivial things, and only escorts him to the back with shaking hands and wide eyes, pointing out the flowers Bofur always asked for (he's dead, and though he never knew the dwarf well he wonders what his grandmother and her grandmother and her grandmother would think of such things) and asking whether they would suffice.
"Thank you, my lad," the Stonehelm says, and a bitter smile graces his face as he bows slightly to the stunned florist. "They would be perfect."
(Neither of them understand, but then, none are left who truly knew Bilbo Baggins.)
After all, even the dwarves of Thorin's Company died not knowing why they performed the ritual that they did… But they performed it with all the solemnity bred of their race, kept the tradition as steadfastly as they kept every other part of their culture, and perhaps that is answer enough for all of them.
I know next to nothing about growing flowers/whether these would even be available in/around Dale (let alone at this time of year), but if we can just forget that for the moment...! I imagine the flowers Bilbo leaves on the graves are these:
Purple hyacinth: I am sorry, please forgive me
Pink carnation: I'll never forget you (cover photo)
Iris: your friendship means so much to me
Sweetpea: goodbye, thank you for a lovely time