WAIT!
HAVE YOU READ CHAPTER 21? OR 19/20? IF NOT, READ THOSE FIRST! I'VE BEEN UPDATING VERY QUICKLY IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm very excited for the next couple of chapters, I can't lie. I spent so long trying to plan this scene out just the way I wanted and while it's not perfect, it's darned tootin close.
Also, I apologize for the feels. (but not really).
Inspired by a prompt I stumbled upon by lateforerebor on tumblr.
Summary: Bilba "Bell" Baggins decides that she's waited quite long enough to take her mother's advice and old stories and go on an adventure of her own. What she didn't expect was to end up in Ered Luin and be adopted by dwarves! AU, Pre-Quest, Undecided Pairings.
-;-
Any and all lightness that Bilba carried in her step faltered one morning as they woke to find ominous clouds hanging on the horizon. It was going to be a long day and longer still night of hiking the mountain path they'd come to that would lead them into the heart of the Misty Mountains. With how narrow the path was, there would be little time to pause and take a break; eve less so with the potential threat of a storm on the horizon.
From the exact moment her eyes opened, Bilba was unable to shake a deep sense of uneasiness that stole over, eyes warily watching the clouds rolling overhead. The night prior, she had already done a thorough part in attempting to convince of dwarrow to hold off on their departure until Gandalf had caught up to them. Now, she tried to convince them to wait until the storm passed.
As one would imagine, it went about as well as she thought it would.
The worst part of it all was that the hobbit didn't know why she felt so deeply affected by the weather. Every inch of her mind was warning her of great danger, but there was no obvious sign of danger. In fact, their company had been rather fortunate in avoiding trouble since leaving Rivendell.
Unfortunately, it would make far too much sense for something to go wrong now.
Thorin- idiot, cantankerous princeling- brushed aside her concerned protests as if she wasn't even there, ordering them to pack up their belongings and begin the trek up into the mountain pass. Balin, bless him, had tried pressing her for some form of information when they broke for their first respite later that morning, but Bilba was only able to offer a frustrated shrug in reply.
"Something bad is going to happen, Bifur." She said again to the dwarf in question. He glanced at her warily, as if she were about to bring some great misfortune upon them simply by saying it. "I can feel it to my bones. Something very, very terrible is to come from these mountains."
And if she had seen glimpses of gruesome creatures and the bright glow of a blade starkly in her mind, none of them could know. Lord Elrond had warned against it so strongly that to do anything but was sure to attract trouble.
Trouble that was going to find them first, she thought, startling as a clink of rock against metal jolted her out of her thoughts for a moment.
It was clear that Thorin was growing steadily more suspicious of the Hobbit. Bilba felt his gaze upon her more heavily than any other of the company. Likely due in part to her constant warnings heralding great danger, and that they should pause and wait for Gandalf, who was surely able to reach them before the end of the day. But the cantankerous fool denied it, citing the same excuse of having no time with Durin's Day fast approaching. It would come one way or another- they would not be set so far behind by a few mere hours.
In a far more polite way than she'd wanted to, she voiced as much, earning a derisive snort and an urge to move more quickly.
The answer was evidently no.
Bilba idly wondered if they would even make it to the Lonely Mountain at the rate that they were going. For so much to have happened in such a short period of time, she was inclined to say that somewhere along the way perhaps the number thirteen was more favorable than fourteen.
Thank the Lady Yavanna she'd already written her will.
-;-
The clouds finally burst open the next day. Arguably right about the same point that the company reached the most treacherous stretch of path that they could find themselves in.
The rain hit first; thick, fat droplets that only took seconds to drench all of them, despite their oilskins and covers. Then the wind- cold, biting, and sharp. One particularly brisk gust of it nearly toppled Bilba had it not been for Bifur standing behind her. Finally, there came the thunder and the lightning; thick bolts of white and pale blue that lit up the sky like the sun, followed by the most terrifying claps of thunder she had ever heard.
A storm of the ages, according to Balin. The older dwarrow had seen far more of these storms than any other member of the company, arguably. Though the Shire sat in a valley, they were thankfully too far West for any serious weather to blow through other than the odd rain and wind storm. Thunder and lightning were a new, and rather undesired change.
"Steady!" Thorin called over the rumbling of thunder as the path turned further upward. "Hold on!"
It was really quite unnecessary to remind the hobbit, who was very well aware of the extremely unstable rock path that was holding their weight. She'd been trying to focus on putting one Hobbity foot in front of the other for the last several hours, wincing as sharp shards of stone and other debris bit into her heels. Probably for the best that her dwarves were further ahead than she- she didn't think she quite had the patience to deal with anything else with how stressed she already was. She was a Hobbit, drat it all! She did not belong at these sorts of heights even if she wanted to be!
And be up this high she definitely did not, thank you very much.
"We must find shelter!" Thorin called.
Dwalin bellowed a warning the next moment.
A boulder the size of a small mountain sailed out of the thick mist with a whistle that could only herald something grim, slamming into the mountain face above them and sending what seemed to be all of the rock above them down. Trapped on their small path, Bilba could only allow herself to be tucked as firmly against the rock as Bifur could manage, one of his arms pinning her there as the rock slide cracked and roared around them.
Near deafening, it only took moments for the stuff to pass.
"This is no thunder storm- it's a thunder battle!" Balin cried out, alarm thick in his tone. "Look!"
Bilba wanted to say that the thing peeling itself out of the opposite mountain they were currently climbing on was a dream. A hallucination of some kind. But she knew it would be false. The mountains were quite literally alive.
And they were most definitely battling.
"Bless me- the legends are true! Giants! Stone giants!" Bofur cried as a petrified Bilba watched the mountain peel away from itself, hurling another massive boulder with an eerie, gravelly wail that raised every hair on her feet to stand on end.
Several things happened then.
One; the boulder slammed bodily into another giant, who had been drawn in by the challenge of the other- another rockslide sent debris crumbling and rattling around the harried company.
Two- someone; and Bilba wanted to say that it was either Fili or Kili- cried out in abject alarm as the rock under their feet crumbled further, barely even leaving a path to stand on. Bilba could only press herself mutely against the rock as she was left with only inches between her and a fall that would certainly take her life.
Three- well, there had always been a saying somewhere of "the worst was yet to come".
And come it did, as the realization rippled through their company that they had apparently chosen a path that lay directly over another stone giant.
Its knees, to be precise. Half of the company ahead were stranded on a ledge that seemed so very, very far away as Balin's proclaimed thunder battle continued overhead. To be quite fair, Bilba's mind had rather decided it would like to not be a part of the events and had sent her perhaps into quite a fair shock.
It didn't seem to end; the endless rocking and rolling sensation that swooped in her belly as the rock leg they stood on began to crumble and give between them.
For a heart-stopping moment, Bilba was certain they would all fall from their hazardous perch and to their deaths, flying past the other part of their group as the giant toppled. The stone face approached too quickly- and she had no time to brace herself as their crew toppled into the rocks.
Well, most of their number.
Bilba felt as though time slowed, if not downright stopped as the ground beneath her heels crumbled. The shale of the already dubious mountain path failed to hold her as the stone giant vanished into the deep valley below, mist swallowing it with no sign that it had ever been there.
Her shriek was swallowed by the clap of thunder overhead as her hands somehow found a grip on what could possibly be the single root of the entirety of the mountain and digging in for all she was worth. Knowing the alternative was certain death didn't hurt in bolstering that thought; the rain, however, had other ideas as the water soaked the root and her shaking limbs as she cried out in alarm.
Ori tried to lunge for her but found his grip just barely short as Bofur and several others did the same. With the wind and rain in her face, she could barely see right in front of her, let alone who her other would-be rescuers were. It wasn't until a rough hand gripped the scruff of her neck- grabbing hair amongst the fabrics of her jacket- that she was begun to be hauled up. Terrified, Bilba latched onto whoever her savior was, shocked to find Thorin of all dwarrow staring back at her.
"Hold on!" he bellowed, another ghastly flash of lightning illuminating the fearful faces staring back down at her. A mighty gust of wind accompanied the lightning, slamming into the dangling hobbit with the force of a winter wind against a leaf. Her hair whipped into her face as she trembled through it, sure that her fingers would be bruising Thorin's forearms.
But it was not her face Thorin saw when Bilba's vision cleared of sopping wet hair. No, his gaze was firmly affixed to a trio of carved wooden beads that adorned a strand of her hair, freed from its careful position in the chaos of the storm.
For once, Bilba was witness to more than a single emotion as a great number flickered across the prince's features.
Disbelief. Realization. Shock. Anger. They all tore across Thorin's features, his fingers digging more tightly into Bilba's skin as he pulled her up an inch further, other dwarves leaning over the edge of the cliff in order to keep Thorin from joining her. Belatedly, Bilba realized that they were quite literally using him as a living rope.
Nori was just reaching out a hand for her to grasp when another jerk of the mountain loosened Bilba's grip for only a moment.
A moment was more than enough.
For a split, horrified and hysterical second, she could only lock eyes with the started gazes of the dwarrow above her. For a weightless moment, they didn't realize.
And then she fell.
-;-
She didn't even make a sound.
For a single, breathless moment, none of them could do anything, say anything as thunder rumbled ominously above them. How could there be, when the unthinkable had come to pass?
Dori was the first to gather his wits about himself, immediately roaring accusations at Thorin as he single-handedly pulled him back up from his precarious position. Nori numbly reached for Ori, gathering the youngest into his arms to shield him from trying to look over the edge.
Balin- and by extension Dwalin- were the ones to bellow at the company of their discovery of shelter.
By some strange twist of fate, they'd come upon a cave. There were no signs of anything having inhabited it as of late, if at all, and thusly dubbed a suitable resting place for the night. It was there that they fell themselves, exhausted and already spiralling into varying degree of grief and anger.
Nori had yet to release Ori from his grip as they settled against a wall. Distantly, he realized he must have gone into a state of shock not unlike that of battle. Reliving the moment of Bilba's shocked gaze meeting theirs before the Hobbit disappeared into the mists of the damned mountains for which they were named.
Bofur appeared against Nori's other side as the downright foul argument continued between Thorin, Dori, Bifur and Dwalin. Accusations of betraying the line of Durin surfaced, Balin jumping into the fray as weapons were drawn.
Bofur tried to rub some measure of heat into the thief's shoulder, worried when Nori didn't so much as twitch. The miner looked uncharacteristically solemn as he continued to worry about Ori. The youngest Ri was weeping, but it appeared that the concern for his kin trumped his own needs for the moment. Mahal, Bofur felt his own tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, but now was hardly the time or place to try and work through such things. Not while there was still too much risk of danger lurking about.
Their Hobbit- their Bilba, was gone.
As much as any of them could deny it, wanted to try and makes their own reasons and change their own minds, there was simply no way that Bilba could have survived a fall like that. No one could, save perhaps a bird. A miracle willed by the Vala. But, as much as any of them hoped, it simply wasn't the cold reality that they had been left with.
Nori clung to what he had. Clung to Ori and buried his face into the crook of his kin's neck as though it would offer some measure of comfort as the group of fighting dwarrow came to an uneasy truce between one another.
Dori's fists were clenched so tightly it was a miracle in and of itself that the joints of his knuckles hadn't given out, Bifur's features grim as he growled in Dwalin's direction before retreating to the brothers Ri and Bofur. Bombur followed close behind, all of them watchful as they settled in a group. Dori's arrival meant that the eldest wrapped both of his siblings into an embrace bordering on painful, his own silent grief transferring through to his kin.
The eldest Ri had rarely- read, never- considered the lack of connection between the House of Ri and Ur. They had simply never come across the other's paths. Bilba and Nori had been the ones to forge the connections, build the bridges between them in recent times. Forging friendships where they might never have come about otherwise. Bombur in the Grey Goose, Bifur and his salves- gifted by their Hobbit or brought about by her. Nori could admit that he and Bofur had been on the fringes of friendship- due, in part, to Nori's frequenting of the Men's settlement the dwarrow had been mining in.
Bifur had seemed prepared to go to war with the son of Fundin on the House of Ri's behalf. And that was something that would not be forgotten by Dori any time soon. Perhaps he would be able to speak more upon it once they were free of the cursed Misty Mountains as they steeled themselves for a very long night.
Perhaps had all of this come about in literally any other way, it would not have imploded as spectacularly as it had. Not in the heat of the moment where a member of the company had been lost.
Instead, it had come to this.
Bilba was a sister to the House of Ri. There would be some measure of rights afforded to her as such, regardless of Thorin's involvement. Or Dwalin's, for that matter.
Sleep would not come easily to most, if any of the remaining company this night. Nor for many nights to follow.