A somewhat short, early update with the cast still in grieving. Again, if anyone would like to beta some of the upcoming chapters for me, or just to have previews of the story ahead, message me on my tumblr, anonymously or not! ( .vu) I'll be discussing updates to this fanfic here: .vu/tagged/wtlre

Please enjoy, and do leave a review if you can! They make my heart feel warm and fuzzy!


II - IN MOURNING

The Company had fallen back into their tent, their faces white and disbelieving. They sat with bent backs upon the cots of their sleeping fellows, their brimming eyes glazed-over and lowered to the ground, unwilling to look up to find an absence in their presence. The King, meanwhile, sat straight-backed on his cot, staring straight ahead at dusky tent canvas. They did not know what he was or was not seeing.

In Bilbo's tent, Gandalf stood, shoulders slumped, over the body, wiping blood from the hobbit's twisted neck. Beorn stood at the mouth of the tent, watching the wizard silently as a whisper sped around the camp outside that the King's burglar was dead.

The skin-changer shook his head, his jaw set. "Found him under a large one with a mace—that's why we couldn't spot him," Beorn grunted after a long while, his voice straining to conceal an urge to return to his bear form and hunt more goblins. "Looks to be the one who killed him, from behind. It was felled by an elvish arrow—too late, I think."

"He should have been safe," Gandalf whispered, voice dry and cracked, as he wiped the final stain of dried blood away from the hobbit's jaw. "His ring—I don't understand—this could not have been meant to happen—throughout the whole journey, down that long road, through the mountains and the forests, I always knew he would worm his way out—I don't understand—"

The approaching footsteps of dwarves halted his train of thought, and he turned to see Fíli and Balin at the mouth of the tent, the older very tired and leaning heavily upon the younger, and the younger very pale and shaking as he was leaned upon. "Can we—" Fíli began hesitantly, but Gandalf sighed and motioned them in, Beorn bowing as he exited the tent (as it was too small for two more occupants, and he was too large to stay).

At the sight of the body, the younger of the two dwarves flinched, the corners of his mouth quivering in repulsion, but Balin squeezed his shoulder and nodded. Nodding back, Fíli looked away from the body, took a sharp breath, and faced Gandalf. "On—on the behalf of the King under the Mountain," he began in his best princely voice, shaking slightly, "we relinquish—we waive the former words of exile towards Bilbo Baggins, companion of Thorin Oakenshield, and—and bestow the chiefest and greatest honors of the Kingdom of the Lonely Mountain on him, and request that he be buried in the dwarvish crypts beneath the mountain." As he finished, Fíli took another deep breath, and Balin clapped him gravely on the back, nodding in approval.

"And does the King under the Mountain know of this?" Gandalf said, more sharply than he meant to be. He had a grave suspicion that "on the behalf of King under the Mountain" did not mean "Thorin said." At the shame with which Fíli looked away, Gandalf's suspicion was confirmed. Biting his lip, the wizard shook his head, and looked back at the little body stretched out in the shade of the afternoon. "Never mind that, Fíli—you are rightful Prince, so your word holds true. Your relinquishment will be honored, but I am not sure of how the King will respond to you speaking on his behalf." Relief washing over Fíli's pale face, he bowed shakily to Gandalf and excused himself, likely so he would not have to stare at the dead hobbit any longer.

Gingerly, Balin leaned upon a pole of the tent as Fíli pulled away. With a very deep, very knowing sigh, he turned to Bilbo's still form. "It was Kíli's idea, but he was weeping and did not want to present it to you while in such a state," he said softly, shaking his head as he stared at the hobbit's little form. "Fíli was more hesitant, but neither of them wished to consult with Thorin before coming to you."

"And how is the King taking this knowledge?" murmured Gandalf, straightening the hobbit's clothes. They were worn and stained with the grit of battle, but he doubted Bilbo would have liked to be buried in rainments recovered from the dragon's hoard that would have been given to him if Gandalf had requested for funeral clothes.

"He's brooding in his cot at the moment, I believe… he has yet to speak to anyone of Mr Baggins' death, or of repentance," Balin said heavily, closing his eyes. "I hope—I think he is very ashamed, and shame never went well with his pride, did it? Look where it has brought us now—to the battlefield. As it will always bring us. As it always has."

"This is not right," Gandalf muttered softly again, looking upon the corpse of the hobbit he had been so fond of. "I would have never—I cannot believe it—"

"Neither can I," Balin whispered. "As poorly as we all thought of Mr Baggins in the beginning, his death, somehow, I just can't—" His voice trailed off as the light of a shrouded sun filtered through the flaps of the tent, catching in the hobbit's curly hair. Looking down at the hobbit's empty hand, he murmured, "What of his ring, Gandalf? Where is it?"

"In his waistcoat pocket—he was not wearing it when Beorn found him," said Gandalf, almost absentmindedly. "And that is what I cannot understand—as brave as our Baggins proved himself to be, there was no logical reason to take it off in the midst of the battle, unless it was to trade it for safety, of course... No, this cannot be right. I do not believe it, nor do I accept it."

The two stood in silence for a long while, Balin hoping all the while that the King would appear at the entrance to the tent to grieve over the hobbit he very nearly threw from the gates of Erebor. The King did not come. The road between his shame and his repentance was long.

"I must speak with the Lady of Lórien," Gandalf said suddenly, breaking the silence. "I have a grave feeling—a very grave feeling that something is awry, and that a chess piece has been lost, and perhaps Lady Galadriel's sight could shed light for me. But I cannot leave here—I do not know how much the bloodshed swayed Thorin into being more generous—and more logical—in meetings with the Elvenking and Bard, and if I do not wish for Bilbo's efforts to have been in vain, and for a battle between three armies instead of five—"

"I don't know why you must leave," Balin said as he moved to the body's side, to mourn for their burglar, "but if you must, know that we will do our best with Thorin, and I have more trust in Thorin than you do, perhaps, Mr Gandalf."

Sighing, Gandalf stepped out of the tent into the pale sunlight, gazing down at the many bodies of dwarves and men that still must be interred, and on the fewer corpses of elves that would be carried back to the depths of the woods. "I shall stay until Bilbo is buried, until the sky clears again."

Back in the Company's tent, Ori awoke to silence. Attempting to pull himself upright from under a heap of blankets, he murmured feebly, "Has Bilbo been found yet?"

No one answered, and the King hid his face.

§-§

Though the ages wash over wizards like tides over sand, and do not change them, it seemed a very long time ago when Gandalf had been picnicking atop the Hill with Belladonna Baggins (née Took), her husband, and her only son. They sat upon a sunny lawn, dandelions tickling at them through their clothes, and the light filtered through the oak leaves above.

It was the first time Gandalf had visited the Shire since he attended Belladonna's (rather lavish) wedding some years ago, in which he had let loose a great many firecrackers to mark the union of the indisputably respectable Bagginses and the fabulously wealthy Tooks. From what Gandalf remembered, the match was quite agreeable to the Old Took (who quite liked the idea of Bella having the kind of husband that would prevent her from being eaten by trolls on her next excursion into the wild), but not quite as agreeable to Bungo's mother, who had declared Bungo's beloved far too flighty for a proper bride. (Indeed, Belladonna had evaded Bungo's feelings for quite a few years, both because she was unsure of her own and because she did not quite like the idea of having a husband get in the way of her and her adventures—when the former was sorted out, the latter became little more than an inconvenience.) It was Belladonna's rather impressive dowry that eventually sweetened the deal, and Bungo and Bella were wed under glittering fireworks above Hobbiton. And not long afterwards, Bilbo was born. Bungo Baggins, a shivery sort of nervous fellow who both feared and adored his wife, had exactly Bilbo's countenance, but the young hobbit's hair was as fair as his mother's, and his rambunctious "adventurer's" spirit certainly came from Belladonna as well.

"So," chortled Gandalf, in between puffs of pipeweed, "am I to understand that your adventuring days are over, my dear Belladonna?"

Belladonna laughed and pulled her son into her arms, running fingers through curly hair as her husband smiled nervously and buttered more buns. "Oh, I think I have enough adventuring to do here at home, with such mischievous spawn, Gandalf—he'll be fighting monsters soon enough!" With that, Bilbo wriggled out of his mother's grasp, and with excitable giggles, attempted to catch the smoke rings Gandalf made. He was far too little to reach them, but it was a delightful sight—the tiny hobbit child leaping for the smoke rings under the warmth of the Shire sun from under the branches of the beech tree they were picnicking under, the grass underfoot as green as it ever was. The checkered picnic blanket had become strewn with crumbs dropped from laughing mouths. The sky was blue and open, and the road weaving around the hills of the Shire stretched out east, beckoning to adventurers, unending.

"Perhaps Bilbo will be like me, and will learn that road in time," Belladonna mused, leaning playfully on Bungo as the three watched Bilbo attempt and fail, to catch a ring in midair.

"Oh, I hope not—" Bungo said, somewhat timidly. "He is a Baggins, after all, even though he seems takes after you, Bella..."

"Well, perhaps he won't, or perhaps he will," Gandalf said lazily, giving the child another puff to chase. "Perhaps that road will be necessary for him, one day."

The one time Bilbo had journeyed on that eastern road, he never returned.

§-§

The dwarves took turns in visitation of the body of their friend, and Gandalf preferred not to watch their comings and goings. He busied himself with the ordering of the camp and the cleanup and politics of the battle's aftermath, in an attempt to push the image of little Bilbo from his mind. There was much to fuss over—accounting for those slain, treating those wounded, arranging meetings for the leaders of the three victors. Even after all corpses elvish, mannish, or dwarvish were recovered, there was still the matter of identifying them, burying the men and dwarves, sending the elven corpses back to the woodland, and most foul of all, clearing all the corpses of goblins and wargs that littered the desolation grotesquely. Beorn aided in the gathering of the goblin corpses, collecting them in great heaps with ease as the Lake-men and the dwarves of the Iron Hills struggled to pull them in one by one.

"We must burn them, before the corpses rot and the Lonely Mountain smells of dead goblins as well as of dragon and more foul things come to feast on the carrion," muttered Beorn, to the agreement of Gandalf, Bard, and the Elvenking. But the dwarves protested—they must ensure that every dwarvish body has been moved away from the battlefield before the fires are lit, else they commit sacrilege. To the annoyance of the Elvenking and the understanding of Bard, it took three days for the huge expanse of the battlefield to be cleared for the burning of the goblin bodies. For the sake of ensuring that the orcs and goblins that had fled the battlefield would not return to strike on the allied encampment, the Elvenking organized a company of elves to drive the remainder of the orcs back to the mountains. These elves were accompanied by a still-bloodthirsty Beorn, and the encampments were forced to go without his help in clearing the battlefield. All the while, many tombs were hewed out deep under the mountain for the felled dwarves, and many graves for the men were dug at the mountain's foot, so a fair graveyard was created under the mountain's shadow. The fellows of the dead wept and grieved, but the world of the mortals keep turning, in the midst of a chorus of laments.

And as the world outside moved on, the Company of the King under the Mountain kept mourning. Some, namely Kíli and Ori, refused to see Bilbo's body, and wept out of tenderness away from the tent where he lay. Still, a very lovely illustration in Ori's ink was found, dedicated to the late hobbit, at the side of his cot, and Fíli's visits were always on his brother's behalf as well as his own. Some, like Dwalin and Gloin, visited the body surreptitiously, in shame of their King's last words to their former burglar. Some said their final words or thanks to Bilbo in their visitations. From Bombur, it was a tearful thanks for enjoying his cooking over the course of their journey, as well as a sorrowful apology for eating so much of Bilbo's larder on that first unexpected party. From Bifur, it was only a few words in Khuzdul that the hobbit would have never understood, but they certainly would have conveyed something very heartfelt.

As the funeral approached and the mounds of bodies at the foot of the Lonely Mountain gradually vanished, the remaining members of the Company did their best to busy themselves around the camp. Balin had scheduled the hobbit's funeral as soon as the victors of the battle were finished in the clearing of the battlefield, which would be within a couple of days, and to the surprise of the dwarves (and the expectations of Gandalf), both Bard and the Elvenking insisted upon their attendance. As humble as Bilbo Baggins was, he had prevented a battle for the treasure under the Mountain. Even though it had lost him the goodwill of the King, it earned him the greatest respect from the elves and the Lake-men. A lament was composed, chiefly by Bofur, who insisted that the members of the Company well enough to perform shall play their instruments at the hobbit's funeral. It was given the rather grand title of "the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," arranged with five of the Company's strongest voices and accompanied by flute, clarinet, viol, and fiddle. (Bofur had also written a part for Thorin's harp, in the hopeful chance that the King would attend the ceremony.)

When it came to the body itself, Óin fussed very much over it and its cleaning and embalmment, insisting that Gandalf had not done a proper job. Traditional dwarvish embalmment consisted of a great many preserving potions and post-mortem mixtures, not to mention the funerary fragrances and myrrh taken from the Mountain's stores. "I'd been preparing them anyway," Óin had said, "as I sort of expected more of us to die." But no, the littlest member of their Company would be the first of them to be buried. Burial arrangements were further complicated when Nori and Gloin disappeared into the Mountain one morning and emerged that afternoon, arms full of royal regalia (likely manufactured for young dwarf princes or elvish children) they deemed to be hobbit-sized, to dress the body in its long sleep. Such garments included a waistcoat of velvet and embroidered with thread spun of solid gold, a shroud fit for an elf-lord and beaded with rubies, and a full coat of battle-ready armor. Gandalf sternly objected to dressing the hobbit in such finery, knowing that in life, Bilbo would have certainly preferred to be dressed as himself at his burial, rather than to be dressed as some heroic noble. Thus his garments were washed and darned with care (they had become rather raggedy since the commencement of their venture). Fallen brass buttons were replaced with new golden ones, the fabric scented with dwarvish incense taken from the hoard. The only piece of finery the body was dressed in was the lovely mithril mail that had been bestowed upon the hobbit before the battle.

They then began preparing the hobbit's tomb—deep under the mountain with other fallen dwarvish warriors, in his own sealed-off crypt, specially designed, with the aid of Ori's artistic eye, as similar to a small hobbit hole as possible—its door was to be as green as Bag End's, far away to the West. The design of the tomb itself was also disputed upon (Gandalf insisted that this fuss was unnecessary and Bilbo really wouldn't have minded a simple wooden coffin; Dori was pushing for the hewing of a recumbent effigy). It was finally decided to have the sarcophagus carved without flourish, but to have an intricately-etched circular glass window, above the hobbit's sleeping face, installed upon the lid of the tomb. Noting that Bilbo would have certainly been embarrassed by the attention his corpse was being paid, Gandalf found himself watching the installment of a round green door with a golden knob in its center in the depths of the Lonely Mountain, all unknown to its King. He had still not paid respects to the body.