Epilogue: Bluebell

T.A. 2949 Erebor

Bluebell smiles at her husband as he sits next to her carefully, their eldest child in his arms. She holds their youngest, born only a half hour before and the baby still holds the glow of his life-light for all to see, a brilliant mix of green, blue and orange with threads of silver that is remarkably similar to that of his sister. All of the children born to hobbit mothers have show signs of being strongly gifted, it is this generation, after all, that will do the most with the sickened land further from the mountain. Their daughter looks at the baby with wide eyes as blue as her father's and reaches a finger out.

"He's covered in yuck, Mama," she objects.

"He hasn't had his first bath yet, sweetling," Bluebell replies, her voice tired after a long labour.

"Can I help?"

"Later, bunnanunê," her husband chuckles. "Let your Amad rest a while. Bringing babes into the world is hard work."

For a moment, as her family gathers close to her, Bluebell hears the mountain hum, and she drifts to sleep to the song as Fili lifts their son from her arms.

T.A 3367 Erebor

Bluebell looks up from her seat by the fire as her husband walks slowly into their shared sitting room. At five hundred- and eight-years old Fili is remarkably good looking for his age, his beard and hair still thick and lustrous although they are completely white these days and have been for the last century. He sits carefully in his own high-backed chair, sighing in relief at the feel of the padding after long hours in the throne room.

"One more day, dearest," she says, softly. He smiles wearily.

"One more day," he agrees. "Turvig is still being difficult," he adds.

"Turvig was born difficult," Bluebell replies with a sniff. One would think they have lived as long as they have purely to spite the old advisor.

She's half tempted to ask Erebor to sustain them for another handful of years just so that the miserable old coot will go before them. She feels thin, these days, stretched and exhausted. Even with the mountain slowing their aging and sustaining them until a suitable heir had been born, hobbits were never meant to live this long. She's four-hundred-and-eighty-seven and she's ready to rest. Such as it will be when she will become the mountain but neither of them has been further outside Erebor in ninety years than Dale and the hobbit town of Buckhill so it will make little difference. Neither of them is comfortable outside anymore, there's too much of the mountain in them and their eyes shine with the colours of the Arkenstone all the time these days. When it had begun a decade ago, she had realised that their time was coming to an end and Erebor was ready to choose their successors.

Their great grandson, Elin, is the one the mountain has chosen. Bluebell had known it would happen, the King and Queen of Erebor will ever be tied to the mountain now so that the line will never again forget what Durin's folk owe to their home and their ancestors. Tomorrow Elin will marry Azalea Cotton (a descendant of Bluebell's cousin and named for her) and during the ceremony they will join with Erebor as Bluebell and Fili did all those years ago, with the spirits of the others who reside within the Arkenstone giving their blessing as they had four years ago when Elin came of age. Even several generations after the reclaiming of Erebor there are those who doubt the story. Nearly the entire population of the mountain had been there to see Elin chosen, so Bluebell doubts there are any disbelievers left.

Swirling eyes turn upon the row of portraits above the fire, their age showing in the discolouration, but she will not have them reproduced and replaced. Some are Ori's work, others were done by her daughter, Rose. They show her family as it was when the mountain was retaken, the Company who came to mean more to her than any hobbits. Her mother and Frerin, who had two daughters after the son her mother conceived on the quest. Bluebell was always more an aunt to them than a sister, especially given the scarce eighteen months between Arin and Rose. A treasured picture of Kili, who has been gone two-hundred-and thirty-some years, and his brood sits in pride of place. His loss had been hard on Fili, his life taken during a skirmish with orcs to the north of Erebor while scouting. He should never have been out there, being late in his two-hundred-and-sixties but he had refused to let age slow him as it should have. Elin looks enough like Kili to catch Bluebell off guard some days and he responds to the name as readily as his own.

Most of the rest of the Company lived quiet lives after the quest, happy in their craft. Thorin ruled for seventy-three years, in the end, and he was good at it. The just and fair king that the people of Erebor deserved. His reign was not an easy one, shadowed by the efforts to rebuild both Erebor and the land around her. His people came out of it prosperous, however, and that prosperity has only increased since Fili took the throne. Some of the others married, some didn't. A few had families and Bluebell watches over their descendants fondly. Most were taken by old age, some weren't, and her eyes turn to a portrait of Dwalin done by one of her grandsons. Dwalin lived to be nearly three-hundred-and-forty but he was never the same after Nori was killed.

It was a botched assassination attempt; her friend had been dead before his body had even hit the floor so there was nothing that Bluebell could have done to save him. It hadn't stopped her from trying. The perpetrators were found quickly, she and Fili gained a number of advantages by joining with the mountain and Erebor has always been aware of everything that happens within her. It had turned out to be Tarl, Varl and Narl, three of the fanatical purists who had caused so much trouble for Fili, Kili and Frerin in Ered Luin and who had come to make the point that Erebor was for dwarves alone. Thorin had been nearly incandescent but had deferred to Bluebell, who had been the intended target. The three had sneered and laughed at the idea that the gentle hobbit girl would give them anything more than a slap on the wrist, until her eyes and Fili's had lit up as they joined to the mountain. The trio had screamed when the prince and princess had crushed them between two solid walls of stone, entombing them within the mountain for eternity.

Bluebell still has nightmares about what she did to them.

"Come back, amrâlimê," her husband says. He kneels before her, holding one age ravaged, tiny hand in his.

"Did I drift again?" She asks.

It's been happening more frequently of late. She loses herself in her memories of times gone by. Memories of times when her family was complete and her dear friends around her. Even Thranduil is gone now, sailed to the west after leaving the care of the now recovering Greenwood to Legolas. The damage to his realm was substantial, but the affect it had on him had been harder to shake off. It had been a kind of madness, a twisting of everything that had once made the Elf King happy. Legolas, too, departed in the end and the Greenwood had been taken on by an offshoot of the Brandybucks who have built a smaller colony there. All of the elves are leaving, and Bluebell has already bid farewell to Elrond. His sons come by from time to time, so long as there are orcs Bluebell doubts they will sail west, but they are all that is left from the time before Erebor.

The land thrives, now, she can feel it in the way the mountain hums happily. There is still a great deal of damage to undo, as in all things it has proved far quicker for the damage to be caused than fixed, and it could well be another thousand years before the land is what it was meant to be.

"I'm so tired," she sighs to Fili, this is the only place she can say it. The only time she can express it. Outside they must appear strong and timeless but even in a race as long lived as dwarves it is possible to live too long.

"So am I," he admits. His face is lined, now, carrying the stories of all his cares. He still looks as handsome to her as ever, although she misses the blue of his eyes. "One more day," he breathes. "One more day and we can rest."

Yes, she thinks. Rest sounds good. It is time to pass their task onto the next in line.

A.N: bunnanunê: tiny treasure.

And it's done, aside from the deleted scenes which will pop up over the next few days this is it. Fifty chapters, an infinite number of notes, pinned timelines on my walls, five notebooks filled with scrawled paragraphs and typed over the course of weeks while editing and changing little things. I left Kili's relationship a little bit open to interpretation, it would have taken me another fifty chapters to cover everything that happened in the winter before Bluebell returned to the Shire and the days of Erebor being rebuilt. Frankly, part of me didn't want to let this one go, I could quite happily live in this little universe and expand on some parts (especially Algirk and Liliana because I have their story planned out just in case I needed to reference other parts of it). I had originally intended this to be a trilogy, starting with Frerin and Belladonna, moving onto Bungo and Belladonna and then ending with the events of the quest for Erebor. Ultimately this way worked better, otherwise I would still be writing my first drafts. This is the culmination of six months of solid writing and research and two months of editing and posting. That's the most time I think I have ever dedicated to a story and after six years of silence due to children it's nice to have the creative side of my brain awake again. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again as soon as the house move has been completed. Thank you to everyone who has read and commented. It's been fabulous!