Author's Note (26/12/2018): Hello... What's this? An update to The Most Precious of Treasures since August 2015?
Yup, um... 'nervous wave', Hi everyone, long time no see, right.
So I am made a promise to myself at the beginning of this year that I would finish this fic... and long story short, I've broken that promise to myself yet again, but I have written for this fic more this year than I have since 2015, so you know, I'm getting there.
I don't know how many readers are still interested and/or reading this fic. I get the occasional comment saying that they were on their fifth or so re-read of this fic which Wow(!), that's incredible! That utterly blows me away! That there are still people re-reading this fic after all these years, is amazing and heartwarming and makes me think, 'you really need to get your act together and bloody finish this fanfic already!'
So yeah, to all those people who are still reading/re-reading this fic, I'm trying to finish this fic for you. And myself, obviously, but you guys are a big part of me needing to finish this.
So this is the beginning of Arc 4, which is the last Arc of this fic (finally), and we're starting with a flashback to the Battle of the Five Armies. And more accurately, a flashback to what I thought BotFA was going to be like after watching the first film back in 2012. I have thrown some stuff in that actually does happen in the third movie, but overall what happens in the battle is my own imagination.
So yes, I hope you enjoy and thoughts are always appreciated. Also Merry Christmas/Happy Yuletide/Season Greetings to all of you.
Chapter 71
The End of Another Tale
Eleven years ago – The Battle of the Five Armies
Bilbo Baggins had accepted she was going to die this day. Fate was simply undecided on the manner of which she would meet her death.
It would be horrible; she suspected that much. And painful too and yet she was quite without fear. She had decided quite early in the day that she would meet death proudly, with her head held high and as if she was greeting a long-time friend.
She would not die afraid, cowered in the shadows as orcs and other monsters stormed through the ruins of Dale, but instead she would stand strong and fight until her last breath.
She fought by Gandalf side and by the side of elves though she couldn't help but feel that this is wrong. She should be with her company. Even if they have cast her out, she should be with them, fighting with them on the plains of Erebor, not fighting alongside those who had only hours ago threaten to massacre them over a few silly gems.
Maybe it is for this reason she finds her courage when it appears that Thranduil has lost his.
He feared further loss of his elven kin as she fears the death of her company, but while he was willing to run back to his woodland halls, leaving men and dwarves to fight and die together, she cannot.
If she is going to die this day, then she will die with her friends, with her company. They might hate her, but if she is to die this day, then she will die trying to warn them. To try, one last time, to save them.
She watched, hidden behind the ruins of a wall, to Gandalf approaching Thranduil, asking him to aid the Dwarves, to dispatch a force of his elves to Ravenhill, for another orc army was approaching and would overrun Thorin's dwarves.
She watched in anger as the proud elven king sneered at Gandalf words, hissing coward under her breath as he stormed past Gandalf, as if he were both deaf and blind to the lives being lost, a he were worlds away from the chaos raging around them.
"I'll go."
The words spill from her lips before she can regret them and even when Gandalf, having somehow heard her over the screams of dying men and elves, the roars of monsters and the clanging of metal against metal, turns to stare at her, she finds she doesn't regret them. Not even a little. Her Baggins side has all but packed up and retreated to the deep recesses of her mind, with her Tookish side having left her not soon after.
She is simply Bilbo now and she will be brave.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Gandalf rumbled his wise old eyes flickering from her to glaring at Thranduil and his royal guards retreating backs. "I won't allow it!"
"Why not?" she counters furiously. Her bravery takes a step side-ways to allow her frustration to move forward. They did not have time for this!
"Because they will see you coming," Gandalf moves to stand in front of her, causing her to have to crane her neck backwards so as to continue looking him in the eye. She suddenly found she hated it when big folk made a deliberate effort to make her feel small.
"And kill you." He puts emphasis on the word 'kill' as if to remind her of just how close she has come to being killed this day, by the hands of the person she loved with all her heart.
Not, she acknowledges, that Gandalf knows that she loves him.
"No they won't." She replies calmly, her fingers already sliding into her ruined waist coat pocket, the cool gold of her magic ring soothing the worst of her fears.
"They won't see me." She promises the wizard who is staring at her with dark eyes, eyes asking questions that she cannot and will not answer.
When he sees that this is the case, his eyes harden and his voice becomes gruff and commanding.
"It's out of the question! I won't allow it."
And despite herself, and the terrible situation they are in, where at any moment they and their friends, could all die horrible deaths, she smiles. Because despite his commanding stance and steel-like words, she could see fear in his grey eyes. Fear for her.
He would have done everything in his power, she saw now, to try and get her out of this terrible place alive. Only, that wasn't his choice. But she loved him dearly all the same for wanting to try and save her.
She hoped he would survive this awful day and return to the Shire, to her father, to inform her dear papa of her death. But she hoped also that Gandalf would tell him of how she had lived, oh how she had lived, and experienced so many wonderful things since running out their front door on her wedding day to join this mad venture.
She doesn't regret her choice. Not even now, her choice of leaving the safety of the Shire, of joining the company of Thorin Oakenshield, and she can only hope that Gandalf will make that clear to her papa, that she had lived and died by her choice and no one else's.
She smiled up at the wizard whom she loved like a grandfather, letting the tears flow freely down her cheeks as she spoke.
"I'm not asking you to allow it, Gandalf." They stare at each other for a long moment, neither speaking, for no more words were needed to be said. He didn't call after her when she finally turned away and ran forward towards her death, and for that, she was grateful to him. For if he had called to her, she might have lost all her courage and the strength to do what was right.
TMPoT
If she had thought the battle within the ruined city of Dale was terrible, it was nothing compared to the carnage outside of its walls.
The sheer number of orcs and monsters outside of the city was truly terrifying.
And a second army is coming!
Her heart clenched in fear as she broke into a run towards the battle raging upon the plains before the Lonely Mountain.
She had no idea where Thorin or any of the others were. She whistled and called to them as she ducked and weaved her way across the battlefield, narrowly missing being hit by stray axes and other nasty weapons.
She very nearly lost her head, hacked crudely off by an orc who is simply swinging his roughly made weapon around him wildly, unable to stop the scream that escaped her as she flung herself backwards onto the ground to avoid the metal sinking into the flesh of her neck. The orc could not see her, not with her magic ring securely on her finger, but it could certainly hear her and with the eyes of a crazed hunter, he swung his weapon again.
She scrambled backwards, her hand blindly grasping for Sting's hilt, wishing that she had thought to run with the little blade out and not solely rely upon her magic ring to keep her safe. She had doomed herself with her stupidity and in doing so, doomed her company.
Her back hit something solid and she had to fight to keep her eyes open as she waited for death's blow, remembering with some irony her thoughts only a little while ago of how she would meet her death with her head held high.
She finally had Sting out but the little blade was useless against the weapon the orc is wielding. But if she was to die, she at least wanted to do as much harm to the foul creature as she possibly can. But just as she was about to shove Sting into the orc's unprotected thigh, the orc let out a horrific howl of pain before collapsing dead at her feet, an axe buried deep into his skull. She had little time to think over her luck when she is suddenly snatched by her collar and dragged to her feet.
"Eh, what's dis then?" She was being shaken then, roughly by a huge and heavily armored dwarf.
Dain… her frighten brain was able to stir itself enough to recognize the reddish white beard of Thorin's cousin.
He shakes her again; reminding her both of her mission and that she is invisible.
"I'm…" She squeaks, fumbling with her magic ring, letting it fall from her finger into the palm of her hand, "There's a second army! Azog has a second army, coming from the north!"
"Eh, what's that?" Dain takes her sudden appearance in his stride, not even blinking as he gave her another shake to force her out of her frighten stupor, "The pale Orc has what?"
"Another army!" She is all but screaming now. "Coming from Gundabad, led by his son! It will be here at any moment!"
"Well, ain't that bloody brilliant!" Dain growls, but Bilbo can't tell if the large dwarf is actually disturbed by the news or seems to be taking it on as some kind of personal challenge. But she doesn't have time to decide on which when she is too busy trying to stay alive. She sees the orc before Dain does and lunges at the foul creature with Sting, plunging her little letter opener deep into the creature's throat before Dain has even reached for his hammer.
"Even." She gasps as he pulled her back by her collar and heaved her away from the orc's foul dead body, loosening Sting from the creature's throat as he did so.
"Aye, little bird, that we are." Dain nods and she thinks she can see him smiling under the blood and grim covering his face, "off ya fly little bird, yer not one to be fighting such battles as this."
She shook her head.
"I need to find my friends." She muttered, her gaze searching the battle for any of them. "If you see Thorin before I do, please tell him what I told you. Please." She waits until he swear it upon the lives of his beloved wife and son, before she slipped her magic ring back on and runs off into the battle once more.
TMPoT
There was no point trying to make it back to the city, even if she wanted to; the way was too thick with orcs for her to survive, even with her magic ring.
She runs instead around the battle, stabbing whoever she can and calling for the others. There are times when she thinks she can hear one of them calling back to her, but she can never pinpoint exactly where they are in amongst all the other noise raging around her.
When she comes across an outcrop of rocks, she is quick to clamber up them; eager for the height they can offer her to oversee the madness of the battle around her.
And at first, that is all she sees.
A sea of madness and death, air thick with the cries of the dying or of the victorious. What ground was visible was coated thick with red and black blood, the warriors fighting upon it smeared just as heavily as the landscape.
Her stomach rolled and bile built within her throat, but she forced it down, blinking back tears as she searched the horror and carnage for hope. Or terror.
She spotted Azog easily.
He cuts a terrifying image as he, astride his massive white beast, saunters across the battlefield, killing dwarves left and right of him with ease, his head turning as he does so, but his eyes do not see his kills. No, those horrific blue eyes are searching, searching, searching…
Found…
She doesn't stop the scream that escapes her when she finally, finally sees Thorin, fighting back to back with others of their company, utterly unaware of the danger he is in.
She screamed again, a warning to him, to the others, but her voice is lost within the noise of battle.
She doesn't think as she scrambles down the rocks, she only acts, running as fast her legs can carry her towards Azog and his warg, Sting clenched tightly in her hand and held out in front of her.
The feral scream that escapes her as she slams Sting with all her strength into the Warg white hide startles her for just a moment but in no way does it stop her from viciously twisting the blade between the warg's ribs.
The Warg howls and twists in pain, its giant red jaws biting furiously in her direction as red blood darkens its white fur.
She pulled Sting free and drops to the ground as the Warg continues to howl and snap and leap, throwing the great white orc from its back, sending him crashing to the battlefield.
She would have laughed if she hadn't been in such danger of becoming well acquainted with his warg's stomach, for the warg had caught her scent and despite the terrible wound at its side, it was leaping towards her with great and terrible teeth.
She leapt to her feet and ran, praying that Thorin would now be aware of Azog presences and ready to fight him.
She weaved her way through the battle, the white warg hot on her heels, mowing down all, allies or foes, it care not, in its path to get to her. Her legs screamed at her and her chest and heart ached with terror and lack of air.
She tripped several times as she ran only just managing to catch herself before the jaws of the foul beast closed around her. But it would only be a matter of time before her luck ran out.
She was beyond exhausted when the beast jaws finally closed around the bottom of her blue coat, snarling loudly in victory as it, using the ends of her coat to pull her with great tug to the ground.
Winded and bruised, she tore at the coat, tearing herself free of the rough, coarse material and rolling away as the warg shook the suddenly visible blue coat savagely between its jaws.
The beast was clever though, quick to realize that its quarry had escaped, spitting out the ragged and torn coat from its mouth before stalking, head low, red gleaming jaws parted, towards her. She clutched Sting tightly in her trembling hands and waited.
She had the barest of plans circulating within her head; it all came down to her luck and her quickness and for just the right moment.
The beast foul breath filled her nose and mouth, and she fought to keep herself from throwing up, the bile rising and falling within her throat, burning all the time.
She stared into the jaws of death as the foul creature snarled in triumph as it lunged directly at her.
She bit down hard upon her bottom lip as her shoved Sting forward and upwards, into the gapping jaws and down the throat of the foul monsters. Blood and saliva saturated her arm as she continued to push her little blade up into the creature's mouth until she was once more being dragged to the ground by the weight of warg. The sleeve of her shirt was ruined but otherwise her arm was unharmed by the creatures teeth thanks to the mithiril coat Thorin had gifted her before casting her out for her betrayal.
She lay for a time in a daze, her arm still fully shoved, almost to her shoulder in the mouth and down the throat of the monster creature before she finally was able to drag herself away.
She stumbled her way back across the battlefield, desperately searching it for her company, for Thorin. She watched in awed disgust as Dain took the heads of five orcs with one swing of his great Warhammer, but she didn't stop, she pressed on.
It felt like an age before she found them, fighting together, a scream pulling at her throat as Bombur fell as a pack of goblins swarmed over him. But it was only for a moment, with a great roar, dear Bofur and Bifur ascended upon those foul creatures, slaying them and quickly returning Bombur to his feet. And though he was covered in blood, he appeared to be relatively unharmed, returning to the fray with his brother and cousin with vigor.
She could see Dwalin, Fili and Kili fighting a little further away, appearing to be desperate to get to something… or someone, she can't quite make out from where she is standing.
Oh… Oh, no.
Her feet took off again before any thoughts have finished forming inside her skull, because she has seen all of her company, all of them, except for…
She weaved her away past the company who were fighting so hard to get just beyond a wall of orcs and goblins who are all but oblivious to her as she shoves her way pass them. The sharp orc armor scratches her face and tears her clothes but she keeps moving, she has to, she has to.
She almost doesn't see him when she finally stumbled free of the wall of orcs, at first she can only see the body of the pale orc, dead… finally, finally dead. But her hobbit eyes are quick to make out an arm, a torso of dwarf who is equally still and her heart simply stops beating.
"NO!"
She claws furiously at the foul creature, shoving and pushing brutally at his dead form, desperate and determined to get Thorin as far away from its foulness.
She sobbed as she worked; lifting the monster off of Thorin though she was unsure of what she would do once she had the beast off of him.
"Bill-Billanna?" Her heart stopped once again at the sound of his voice, to look down and see his intense blue eyes stare up at her as if he could see her, as if she were only invisible to all the rest of the world but not to him.
"Are-are you just going to lie there?" she whimpered breathlessly, the weight of the pale orc's corpse was heavy upon her shaking arms, "or are you going to help me?"
He continued to stare up at her for a long moment, the hand he had resting upon her leg, twitched restless before, without a word, he started to move. It took time and energy neither truly had left to spare to roll the monster of him, but there was a certain amount of satisfaction to be taken from watching the beast corpse flop pathetically to the rocky ground.
"His warg?" Thorin's wheezing query pulled her from her brutal thoughts and turning her attention back onto him, and realize with growing fear that he was still in danger. His whole body was covered in blood, his armor utterly ruined and every visible inch of his flesh appears to be covered in bruises or cuts.
"Dead." The word came out far more harshly than she thinks any other hobbit has spoken before, but she is not like other hobbits, not any more. She can feel Thorin's gaze upon her, questioning but she refuses to feel remorse over her harshness, for the coldness in her tone.
"You would know…"
"I just do." She doesn't want to talk about it any further, she just wants him safe.
"You should go," he speaks as if words are a struggle which terrifies her almost as much as his too blue gaze, "save yourself, return to the Shire, to your nice Hobbit-hole. To your books and armchair. To your garden."
She hated how he speaks, as if he is dying, as if they are never going to see each other again.
As if he has any right to die, she has spent far too many months trying to keep this arrogant, rude, mightier than thee dwarf alive for him to go and die on her now.
"Oh, I plan to." She replies rather primly, catching ahold of him beneath his underarms and starts to pull him away from Azog's corpse, "once I've saved you… again, I'm off!"
"Leave! Now!" He fights her as she drags him but it's a weak effort and she ignores his protests without even a flicker of shame.
"No."
"Stubborn Hobbit" He growls but the insult lacks any real heat.
"Arrogant Dwarf!" She returns the barb all the same, "Just shut up and let me help you."
He fell silent then and for several terrible moments as she pulls him to a small rocky shelter, away and hidden from the rest of the battle, she thinks he's fallen unconscious.
He only speaks again when she starts to fuss over him, trying without any gear on her to make him as comfortable as possible. And to keep him alive.
"Everyone else?"
"All still fighting." It hurts to think, that beyond the rocky walls of this refuge, her friends are still fighting for their lives. Anyone of them could have fallen since she last saw them.
"None have fallen?"
"Bombur went down for a moment or two but Bofur and Bifur fought off the Goblins who had jumped him. Ori got into a nasty tussle with a huge orc but he managed to fight it off all by himself, but he received a horrible wound to his arm. I don't know if he'll ever able to write again." Her words come out as barely contained sobs as she rabbles about the company.
"Why, why did you come back? Why are you here, instead of somewhere safe?"
"By the time we knew what was going on, the Goblins and Wargs were upon us, we – I had no time to get anywhere safe. Even if there had been…" she trails off, shaking her head, because even if she had been able to, even if there had been time to escape… as stupid as it was, she would have still stayed.
"You have your ring, and you have proven time upon time again that you are quick and silent on your feet. You could easily leave without being spotted." He continues, pressing for answers she isn't ready to give, not now, not after… not after what he did.
"Not when I have Wargs bearing down on me, I can't." She snapped, wishing he would stop asking questions she didn't want to answer, answers she no longer wanted to give.
"What? How?" She had distracted him, good and though the topic was uncomfortable and made her poor little heart skip at the thought of how close she had been to death, she was grateful to be speaking about anything other than the reasons upon which she had allowed herself to be swept up in this battle.
"It could smell me."
"Even through all this?" He asked skeptically, waving his hand weakly in the direction the huge battle still raging on nearby.
"Yes, even through all this. The White Warg gave me quite the chase before I managed to throw it off."
"The white… Azog's warg?"
"Yes, it was quite insisted on getting its teeth into me." She replied dryly but she know he can feel her body trembling.
"I'm…" what, she wondered, sorry? A simple sorry seemed fairly weak compared to everything she had gone through because of him.
"It's alright. They're both gone now."
"Are you hurt?" Yes, very much so. But the wounds are not physical. No warg or orc could ever hurt me so deeply as you have Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain.
She flinches when he catches her wrist, beggars luck, and tries to squirm away from him, a difficult feat with the rocky shelter being small at best and she was doing everything in her power to not cause him further hurt. His touch is gentle though, if a little clumsy, as he searches for her magic ring, sliding it free from her finger allowing for it to plop innocently into her other hand.
She does not know how she looks, she's almost afraid to know really, for however she looks, he doesn't seem to like it, his frown darkening as he looks her up and down.
"You should not have gotten involved." He says finally, groaning as he leant his back against one side of their rocky shelter.
"You would be dead if I didn't." she replied defiantly. She doesn't wait for him to respond, moving without looking back at him to peer cautiously out of their shelter
"Go, save yourself." He mutters, it sounds almost like a plea but she refuses to allow herself to hope he cared that much, not any more.
"I think I can see Dwalin and Fili. I'll go and get them and bring them here and then," she takes a deep breath before she looks back him. It's harder now, to look at him, with her being so visible, every emotion she is feeling, displayed clearly for him to read on her face. It hurt so much. Everything hurt!
"Then I'll go." And never come back, you'll never have to see me again. She promised silently but she was sure he understood, from the strange flare in his eyes at her words.
She lowered her gaze from his, unable to bear looking at him any longer. If she is going to leave, leave him and never come back as he wished, she needs to do it now, or she will lose all her remaining strength and courage.
She doesn't look at him as she pulls her funny little ring out of her ruined waist coat pocket once more, where she had tucked it the moment he had let it plop back into her hand.
He could keep her heart, but her ring was her own and he would not have it, she would not let the silly gold ring hurt him.
"Stay safe." She speaks with the firmness and strength she only feels as she slips her ring onto her finger, "Stay safe, do you hear me? And don't die! You're not allowed to die, do you understand me? I'm didn't go through all this for you to go and die on me!"
She leaves him then, without a backwards glance and starts to try and make her way back to the company, but the wall of orcs has only grown denser in the time she spent hiding the Thorin and she can only hope that they will not find him in his weaken state before she manages to get to Dwalin.
Letting out a little shriek of frustration, Bilbo scrambled up an outcrop of rocks, clambering to the top of them and scanned for the best route to get to her company.
It was… even worse than the last time she had looked upon the battle from the vantage point of an outcrop of high rocks.
Bilbo fought back a frighten, grief-stricken sob only to stop when she found herself suddenly blinking at the blaze of sunlight that had broken though the heavy grey clouds above the battle field.
Throwing up a hand to shield her eyes, Bilbo stared up at the sudden gleam of light that had broken through the terrible gloom. And as she did so, she gave a great cry, for she had seen a sight that had made her heart leap, for dark sharps, small yet majestic flew against the distant glow of light that was breaking though the clouds.
"The Eagles! The Eagles!" She shouted as loudly as she was able to over the noise of battle. "The Eagles are coming!" And her eyes were seldom ever wrong and indeed, the eagles were coming, flying line after line, swooping towards the battlefield.
"The Eagles! The Eagles!" She was dancing and crying upon the outcrop of rocks, not paying any attention to anything other than the majestic winged creatures, and so she did not see the rock that was thrown with deadly accuracy by an Orc who had been hunting for the source of her cries from almost the moment they started.
The rock hit her with a blow that was quick to knock her off her feet, sending her tumbling from the rock outcrop and with a tiny thud against the hard earth below, she knew no more.
She did not know how long she had laid in the ditch by the mass of rocks, only that when she stirred the world was dark and noise was nothing more than an annoying buzz in her ears. She did not know what made her start walking in the direction she had – it might have been simply been because it was the direction she had been facing when she had finally managed to crawl to her feet – but it was not the direction that she had wanted to go in.
Her feet led her in the direction of Dale and then further to the Long Lake even though in her heart all she wanted was to return to the Lonely Mountain and be with the company again.
And that was as much as what she had asked of Gandalf and Beorn when they came upon her, sobbing by the lakeshore, clutching her aching head and muttering almost incoherently. But they too took her in the direction that she did not wish to go in, but by this time Bilbo's mind was so muddle by infection from the wounds she had received in the battle that she barely had the strength to keep her eyes open, let alone try and argue with Gandalf on returning her to Erebor.
So she let the world take her in the direction that heart did not want to go in but possibly needed all the same and only hoped that one day the path before her feet met lead her back to the true home for her heart.