WAIT!
HAVE YOU READ CHAPTER 22? OR 19-21? IF NOT, READ THOSE FIRST! I'VE BEEN UPDATING VERY QUICKLY IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
I'm not so mean to leave y'all hanging on that cliffhanger, though I admit I was seriously tempted to. No, we'll get a good look at the three days everyone gets to spend miserable in the goblin mountain. Don't you worry.
Or do.
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.
-;-
Bilba jolted awake to find herself staring hazily up at the sky, rain pelting down upon her face.
Either death had a strange afterlife- and sense of humor- or Bilba wasn't dead.
She wasn't dead?
She moved; pain flared through her shoulders and side as the hobbit lass twisted with a whimper, hand moving to clutch at her left side. Likely a dislocated, if not broken shoulder. Every inch of her felt like she'd fallen down a mountain.
Which she had, actually.
Somehow- as she slowly, stiffly managed to assess her surroundings, she'd managed to come to rest on a ledge. A half dead tree was the only thing keeping her from falling to her definitely assured death.
She had a feeling she wouldn't be quite so lucky a second time were she to go over the edge again.
Situation assessed to the best of her current ability, Bilba tried to sort out what exactly she was dealing with. Her shoulders- particularly the left, which she determined had definitely come out of joint- were the worst of it, though she appeared to have hit her head somewhere along the way down. Blood came away on her fingers when she gingerly prodded the bump that graced her scalp. It also explained the dizziness, nausea and slight double vision as the hobbit shifted into a sitting position, whimpering as the weight of her pack pulled her shoulder.
Bilba would need to get a look as what she had lost, but she couldn't do it where she was.
Groaning, she looked around, gaze seeking something that she could get to in order to regroup and gain her bearings. And, she realized in resigned horror and relief alike, there was an opening in the rock.
Twenty feet below her current perch. Rain slicked, smooth, with only several hand-holds that she could see. One in which Bilba would have to get to injured and with a distinct possibly of failure.
Failure wasn't an option. She was a Baggins and a Took, filled to the brim with the wildness that had so vexed so many in the Shire for generations, and a Tookish Baggins would never give up now.
Carefully, knowing how precariously she was balanced on her small ledge, the hobbit made slow work of pulling a length of sleeve from her shirt and tied the straps of her pack together across her belly, gritting her teeth against the primal scream that wanted to tear from her throat. Blinking tears from her eyes, she pulled another strip free to wrap her hands to provide some measure of grip on the slick rock, another still to stop a cut on her ankle from bleeding.
Bilba shivered as another gust of wind threatened to push her from her ledge, teeth chattering as she carefully shifted into a crouch, every Hobbity instinct screaming that this was not what she should be doing.
Considering her other options, Bilba ignored those instincts in favor of stepping carefully on the rock, steeling her nerves as much as she was able to before blinking rain out of her eyes and letting go of her ledge.
Agony.
Pure and simple, it blinded her for a moment as she clung there, her only chance of surviving below and at an angle she didn't even know she could make it to.
No, no. Now was not the time for this. Bilba would have more than enough time to lose herself in the enormity of her actions later. Preferably once she had found her dwarves and they got out of these accursed, confusticated mountains.
Yes, yes. That would do nicely.
Her hand moved to the next hold, shifting her weight as she blindly felt with her toes against the rock face. Dori would be beside himself- Bilba would be lucky if she ever made it out from his mothering again after all this nonsense.
She focused on Ori. Tried to think of their moments of mis-translated Sindarin as she fumbled with her left arm, pressing her cheek against the rock as she bit back another cry. Tear or rain, perhaps both, streaked down her cheeks.
Her foot slipped before finding a more solid hold, the hobbit closing her eyes to try and center herself. Bofur's smile, the songs he'd come up with to both bother and cheer her simultaneously, always a shoulder to lean on.
Chancing a glance down, she wasn't even halfway to her intended destination. A piteous noise left her throat as she exhaled.
If she survived this, she would snog Dwalin for all she cared.
Well, that one was a stretch. Though almost certainly, there was a great possibility of her hugging everyone. Non-negotiable. But most certainly her dwarves.
Bilba clung to that thought as surely as she clung to the side of the mountain, inching her way down and praying to whoever was listening- namely her Lady Yavanna- that she survive this long enough to see her dwarrow again.
Slipping again, Bilba found that rather than open air, the hobbit had made it to solid ground. Letting go, she landed on her knees and jarred every inch of her battered body as she scrambled to get away from the edge of the cave.
More than anything, she wanted to close her eyes, but she knew she needed to set her shoulder before any further damage could be done to the already injured limb.
She got into position, gritting her teeth as she slammed herself against the rock, a strangled yowl echoing into the storm outside the safety of the cave. Worse still when she felt the snap of her shoulder going back into its socket. Undoubtedly, it would have been much worse if left on its own, but she could not say that she ever wanted to experience such a thing again.
Bilba barely found enough energy left in her to rip a trip of her skirts into a makeshift sling to bind her arm to her chest and check her elven sword to ensure it wasn't glowing before she was asleep, exhaustion and pain dragging her into fitful rest after the events of the day.
-;-
The ground giving way beneath them was the only warning they had before the dwarves found themselves swallowed up by the earth. As if they needed anything else to go wrong.
Nori twisted to avoid crushing Ori, forgetting that Bofur and Dori had been sitting next to them and causing a rather spectacular collision of his and Ori's heads against the rock on their way down when Bofur clipped Nori's jaw and Dori's elbow doing the same to the youngest dwarf.
Funny things, head wounds.
One moment they were falling, the next finding them set upon by goblins, heavy blows raining down on all sides from all sorts of makeshift weapons as the foul creatures barked out twisted giggles of pleasure.
Head injury or no, no one touched Ori. The offending creatures who were ganging up on the younger dwarf both met swift and violent ends, another kicked from the rickety rope bridge beneath them when it tried to get involved.
Panic of course drove them to fight back as they were brought before the Goblin King, every one of them kicking and fighting for whatever they were worth considering the rather rude awakening that had come about. On the way into the large cavern, Nori shuddered at the presence of grotesque devices of torture that were brought out with them, a prayer to Mahal they didn't see them in use.
Nori knew there was some measure of time that had passed; it seemed as though he had only blinked. The next thing he knew, goblins were shrieking in horror; what weapons he had on him were stripped away. At least, those he hadn't hid quite as well as others. Someone- he suspected it may have been Dori- shielded him from something, covering him with his own body as he swayed on his feet.
Was he still standing?
Dizzy, nauseated, confused, he tried to keep awake. He knew all too well the risks with head injuries. To sleep stood a chance of never returning to wakefulness. It was a harder task made when their hosts were rather quite intent on beating them within an inch of their lives whilst waiting for Azog the Defiler's imminent arrival.
-;-
Bilba didn't know how long she stumbled around in the depths of the mountain she seemed to have found herself entrapped within.
Upon waking, still alive, still blessedly alone and without immediate fear of goblins- at least according to her letter opener of a blade- Bilba took stock of the state of her belongings. Somehow, her larger belongings- sword, bow, daggers- had not been lost in her tumble. Granted, she'd tucked her daggers into her pack for safekeeping.
A few arrows had been lost from the quiver, but aside from some scratches and new wear, the quiver and bow both came out the other side.
The same could not be said for some of her other things. Her bedroll, amid quite a number of other belongings, had either been lost or crushed in her pack. Rather than waste her time lamenting it, the hobbit emptied out everything she was not able to use any longer, repacking her bag and strapping her daggers, sword and bow where she could grab them easily.
After that, she sought an exit from the cave she'd found herself in.
That had been almost a day and a half ago.
At least, Bilba hoped she had calculated it right.
Even so, it was a day and a half too long trapped underground; injured, disoriented and wary with the glow of her sword lighting her path. Visions flickered before her in snippets only enough to prompt the ache of her head to deepen- nonsensical things she couldn't hope to begin to understand, let alone puzzle out while she was lost so deeply in the maze of paths she seemed to have found herself wandering. Despair doggedly set at her heels; coupled with her shredded nerves, it was enough to make her feel as though she truly was beginning to go mad.
She stumbled with a whimper, hand going to brace herself against a strangely familiar hat.
Bofur's hat!
She lifted her sword, hope blooming in her chest as the dim light illuminated more familiar belongings and packs. Ori's came next, his journal and quills scattered from where it appeared something had torn it open. Kili's, Dori's, and Balin's all scattered their belongings amongst the spongey mushrooms that the packs appeared to have landed on from somewhere high above them.
There were no signs of dwarves, however.
Bilba didn't know whether to laugh or cry, seeing pieces of the company surrounding her and yet find no sign of the dwarrow themselves.
Despite it, the hobbit knew that regardless of the outcome, she simply couldn't leave all of their belongings behind.
Painstakingly, Bilba went through the packs available to her, one by one finding belongings she was certain her dwarves would want to have back. Bofur's hat, Ori's journal and quills, a smoothened green stone that appeared to have runes cut into it for Kili, beads and combs and small photographs. The latter belonged to Gloin, if the lad depicted in one of his photos was his son Gimli. Other things that she was sure that the company would miss should they be lost to the dark forever.
Bilba collected all that she could, tucking it all away into the safety of her pack before packing what little undamaged food she could find into the small amount of empty space available. Along the way, she came across from of the elven lembas bread that had somehow survived their journey thus far, nibbling on it half-heartedly as she allowed herself a brief moment of time to regroup and replenish her fading energy reserves.
"What is it, precious?"
Something moved in the dark.
A low hiss of something along the walls had the hair on the back of Bilba's neck prickling to stand on end as she rose to her feet, sword at the ready.
Her distinctly not glowing sword.
"Is it… soft?" a voice purred lowly in the dark, the only light the faint cast off from light far, far above them.
"Is it juicy?" another returned, dark glee in its voice.
Trembling, Bilba turned, encountering glowing eyes staring back at her; silver, cat-like orbs.
"Can we eats it?"
She screamed.
-;-
The place they could all admit things went sideways was about the same time that one particularly curious goblin deigned to examine some of the dwarves' weapons beyond simply kicking them into a pile before the Goblin King.
There was a horrendous shriek of alarm from the Goblin King, scrabbling to climb atop his throne in an attempt to get away from Thorin's Orcrist; the Goblin Cleaver.
Nori's ears were still ringing from something that they had done… well, however long they had been here, so he missed the majority of what came next. But the intent was very clear once the horde of goblins began amassing anew, wrestling them down to the rotting boards beneath them amid shrieks and calls for dwarven blood.
(Something happened there, yelling and scuffling and all manner of foul Khuzdul aired to the creatures.)
Then came the blinding white light, accompanied by a familiar booming voice Nori wasn't quite able to place until Gandalf appeared, blade drawn and staff at the ready. He moved forward as though he were a lord of this kingdom, cautious of the goblins who had not been knocked back by whatever strange magic he had conjured.
"Take up arms. Fight. Fight!" the wizard roared.
Nori was the first to slide to his feet, a new wave of energy stirring in his blood at the thought of a fight. Bofur and Bombur weren't far behind as they dove for their discarded weapons, tossing them blindly over their shoulders and in the air for the rightful dwarf to claim them. The goblins swarmed around them like a sea of insects; finding out rather swiftly that the line of dwarrow blood would not go down without a fight.
For Thorin, Nori managed to slip underneath a goblin's legs, offering him Bifur's mattock before reclaiming a wayward hammer to fend off his own opponents.
Weapons flipped and traded partners as the dwarves fell into a rhythm of battle, a delicate balance of give and take that had been lacking amongst their number in the past. Now, however, it was a fight to the death. One that no dwarf wanted to see come to pass again.
Gandalf forged a path through the chaos, calling out for them to gather to him as he went. If he were perhaps a tad more aware and less inclined to lose whatever his stomach might hold, he would have thought it amusing.
Still handing Ori one of his extra blades, Nori started after the sorry lot, Dwalin taking the lead despite not knowing the directions to take. Even in this mountain, their natural instinct for stone and the song of the rock was dim at best, corrupted by the foul creatures that had tainted it.
Still, Dwalin seemed to have some measure of it driving him as they charged head on into the next group of goblins, Grasper and Keeper cleaving three goblins in two before they knew what happened.
It was a sight to see for sure- a company of dwarrow who had so loathed being unfamiliar with the others, drawn together in a common cause for survival. Especially with Dwalin trusting Nori to have his back in a fight as they came to it.
The light of the torches and the blur of the stone passing by made his already aching head pound under the exertion, his back crying out for some measure of relief as the wizard took the lead, risking all of them in his lack of knowledge of the stone beneath his feet. Nori might have been injured, but even his keen senses could tell that the direction the wizard brought them was odd.
The Goblin King lunged up from below the scaffolding ahead, firmly placing himself in the path of the blood drunk dwarrow and a wizard, the rest of the goblins closing in behind.
What the wizard had failed to consider, upon finally finishing the beast, was that the weight of the goblins was no match for the rickety beams supporting them. With a mighty creak of crunching wood, the part of the bridge they happened to be standing on gave way, sliding down the cracks of the rock as they hurtled toward what was certain death.
Except it wasn't.
Right before they hit the bottom of the trench they found themselves in, the long beams caught the rock on either side, slowing their descent just enough that they hit the ground with far less speed than they would have otherwise. Still, it was enough to jostle old and new wounds as the wizard pulled himself free from the rubble.
"Well that could have been worse." Bofur commented from above Nori, Dori groaning as he tried to get a lock on Ori.
That was the moment the large, dead, putrid corpse of the Goblin King caught up to them, crushing everything still beneath it. The wind in Nori's lungs was ripped from him as he felt something crunch terribly in his chest, already familiar enough with the sensation to know that he had broken at least a rib, if not a handful.
"You've got to be joking." Dwalin wheezed as the dwarrow slowly and painfully began to extract themselves from the weight.
A cry from Kili and they realized that the danger was not passed yet.
Above them, the hissing, watery cries of the goblins whose king Gandalf had just slain were crawling across the rock face like ants, rippling in waves as they approached.
Dwalin hauled Nori upright, barely conscious as Gandalf barked something at Dwalin.
By instinct and willpower alone, Nori followed the line of dwarves and wizard as Gandalf led the way, calling for them to follow swiftly.
Under their feet, the stone sense of their race seemed to become stronger. Once Gandalf started the way, they could feel the openings in the rock they had been unable to before, the path to freedom clear as they delved further within the mountain maze with the end in sight.
The first breath of air they took when they burst from the side of the mountain was one that Nori would likely never forget again in his lifetime; dirt and rock digging into his boots as they stumbled down the steep hill that they had been thrown out on.
Much as with creatures of the night, goblins would not be able to track them until night fell upon the world, which meant that they needed to put as much distance between them and the mountains as they were able before that time.
It was almost an hour later by the time that they slowed, the sun beginning to fall in the sky as they passed beneath trees situated deeply in the rock. Gandalf counted them as they passed by, confusion coloring his tone as he reached thirteen.
"Where's Bilba?" he queried, brow burrowing beneath the brim of his hat. "Where is our Hobbit?"
No one knew how to answer, Gandalf turning in a circle as he cried it again.
"We lost the Halfling in the mountains." Thorin spoke, tone cold. Try as he might, however, there was no mistaking the guilt that covered him like a cloak as he met Gandalf's gaze. "She slipped from the rocks and was lost."
"No, no. That can't be right." Gandalf protested. "She would not-"
"No, indeed. She isn't lost." a new voice answered. "But rather than stand around like this, we need to be gone from this place. As far as we can, as swiftly as- oof!"
For it was Bilba Baggins herself who had arrived. Dirtied, bloody, with clawmarks in her cheek and hollowed eyes, but Bilba nonetheless. And it was the brothers Ri who clung to her, weeping wretchedly as Dori clung on to her for all he was worth.
Something which earned a wounded noise and an immediate release from the eldest Ri's hold.
"You survived?"
"How?"
"We thought you lost!"
"And lost I thought I was. Let us be gone from this place." The Hobbit replied shakily.
"Why did you come back?" Thorin demanded, gaze proud as he levelled the lass with an unreadable look.
"There was hardly anywhere else to go, you insufferable idiot of a prince." Came the waspish reply. "Next time, you can fall from the side of a mountain and go through- through-"
Bilba couldn't even reply, trembling as she was. Her gaze turned haunted, as if she had seen something great and terrible in her path.
"That is enough." Gandalf barked, a solid thump of his staff upon the earth the distraction they needed. "While I am certain all of us would be glad to hear of how our Hobbit has returned from death, we must flee from this place before nightfall."
As if to spite them, the warbling howls of wargs in the distance had all of them straightening grimly.
"Out of the frying pan," Thorin started, tone dangerously low as he side-eyed Gandalf.
"And into the fire." Gandalf concluded grimly. "Run!"