"Bilbo Baggins is dead, Lady Erabeth," Gandalf finally spoke through the eternity of silence that followed the mysterious being's words. "I was there when he passed on."
"You know better than anyone, Wizard, that it is never that simple," Erabeth huffed. "Really, you think I would let that poor creature suffer through eons with those snippety elves in the other world? Or cast him out to deal with those confounded dwarves in their hallowed halls? No, definitely alone. So I kept him with me!"
"You kept him with…you?" Balin breathed out. "That…how? That can't be!"
"The presence…" Dis gasped, covering her mouth.
"I knew there was a reason you were always my favorite, even when you just a little pebble. Well, you still are a pebble, but a little bigger now," Erabeth smiled fondly.
"You just…. kept Bilbo Baggins like some kind of pet?" Thorin's voice cut through the room like the crack of a balrog's whip. All eyes turned to the King Under the Mountain, the tension in the room thickening drastically. Thorin was standing, somehow unnoticed till now. He gripped the edge of the table with white knuckles, his eyes sparkling with anger as they glared daggers at the woman. His lips twisted into a snarl, "You thought to make him a toy? To drag him around, parade him like a preforming monkey? Use him to make us all suffer because we have not suffered enough!?"
"Never, King Thorin," Erabeth's face grew dark. "You are one of my children. I have protected you for years, for decades, for centuries. I watched you crawl over the ground before you found sanctuary in me. I would not have allowed it if I did not think your people was something special. I allowed you all those gifts. I thought you were special enough to guard my very heart, but I was wrong. I was angry with you, with all of you that I let the dragon enter, I let him inside of me, but he was not you. He would never be. I planned on slipping away, falling into the abyss that has been calling my kind since the first dawn. But then the most extraordinary thing happened. This little speck of dust followed you, my sons, across all of Middle Earth to rescue me from the beast. He wavered often, but he never backed down. He worked his way into your lives until you couldn't see it existing without him. I decided to test him, to see if he was worthy by giving him my heart. He never thought of keeping it, never bore a dark thought because of it. He only thought of using it to keep all of you safe. And for that you turned on him, hated him, just like you all had turned on me. But he did not let that stop him loving you, any of you and I understood then. And I brought him back here, to rest for a while before you and him were ready."
"Ready for what?" Thorin ground out.
"Ready to be together, of course!" Erabeth threw up her hands. "Dwarves!"
"That is not possible! HE DIED!" Thorin roared. "He is gone! Forever! You cannot just bring someone back from the dead!"
"Well, you can't and neither than I, but who says that Bilbo was ever really dead?" Erabeth shrugged. "I just moved his soul from his old body into a new one."
"Do you find this funny?" Gandalf stepped in as Thorin fumed, at a loss as to how to react. On one hand, he could have Bilbo back. On the other, what would it cost his hobbit or himself or his family?
"I do not! Love is no laughing matter. What I am doing here is righting a great wrong!" Erabeth seemed to shimmer before their eyes as the very room shook. "YOU should be thanking ME!"
"Thanking you? Thanking YOU? Do you know what you have done? We are not meant to live past our time! What sort of price will Bilbo have to pay now? What price will I have to pay? You do not play with death!" Thorin's hand went for his sword, but another hand gripped his, stopping him. He followed the pale, almost translucent hand up to where it connected with an arm, then a shoulder, then a neck, then a very familiar jaw line. His eyes continued further up, over lips a grey shade of pink, over sunken cheeks and sharp cheek bones to those eyes. Those sunken eyes, seeing to shine out of holes as deep as the deepest mines of Moria. Bruised flesh surrounded those eyes….oh those eyes! Thorin remembered when they had shown with their own light. Now, the pale blue eyes were empty, staring right through him.
"Bilbo," Thorin gasped, eyes never leaving his hobbit.
"Thorin….Thorin, are you there?" it sounded as though Bilbo was calling from a great distance. "Thorin….please….please be there….Its so cold…I don't…..help me…..please…..stop it….stop this…don't be….don't be dead…..so cold…"
"What have you done to him!?" Gandalf was the one yelling fury now. "You are messing with the lives of mortals, Lady Erabeth, and these are lives you know nothing about! You cannot just pull souls around as you please!"
"Its not my fault the hobbit is so stubborn," Erabeth huffed. "He was not coming willingly. Can't they see I'm just trying to help! They deserve a little happiness, do they not!"
"They had their happiness the few days they had together before Bilbo passed. They found their peace!"
"My children were sad! They were suffering! I was not going to allow it to continue!"
"They were in mourning! It is the right of all beings to mourn! You should know this only too well!"
"YOU WATCH YOUR TONE, EARTH WALKER!" Erabeth roared as the whole mountain shook. "I CONTROL THIS MOUNTAIN AND ALL WHO WALK IN IT! I CAN DESTROY YOU EASILY!"
"You say you love these beings, but you threaten them! You hurt them! You punish them for things they cannot control!" Gandalf was not backing down as the dwarves clung to each other. Thorin reached out to Bilbo, but his hands went through the hobbit.
"Thorin! What's happening?! Please! Help me!" Bilbo cried out, trying to grab the dwarf as he started to fade away.
"You release Bilbo this instance! Let him go and leave this mountain in peace! Follow your brothers into the beyond!" Gandalf roared. Erabeth screamed at the top of her lungs, the walks cracking, the table snapping in half like a twig as she lunged forward, her diamond hands turning to claws as she reached for the hobbit.
"If I am denied happiness, then SO SHALL ALL OF YOU!"