Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited! You guys are awesome! Sorry for the slight wait, I hope this is okay. It's a little bit more of a filler but I think it's pretty good. Some asked for more Luno and I was more than happy to oblige :)
As a side note, I am so grateful for all of the lovely reviews. They truly, truly make my day and there are so many more than I ever thought I would receive per chapter so thank you so much, I'm so glad you're enjoying it, from the amazing newcomers to the incredible peeps who've been along since day one!
And yes, Bofur has the ring… Mwhahaha!
Forgive any mistakes as ever :P
Read. Enjoy. Review.
Chapter Twenty # A Day of Relative Rest #
Bilbo ran as fast as his hobbit legs could carry him, sprinting through a suffocating wood. The trees rose up around him as tall as mountains, blocking out all sunlight and their branches reached across the thinning path to scratch at Bilbo's face and arms but still the hobbit ran. He had to run.
"Bilbo!" the screams continued, pain and terror pouring from the horrifying sound.
"Kíli!" Bilbo cried desperately, stumbling over his own feet. "Kíli!"
"Bilbo, help me!" the child pleaded, and Bilbo kept running.
He ran for Kíli's life, pounding foot after foot against the floor until finally he entered a clearing. The hobbit's young son was lying crumpled on the floor, blood oozing from a huge gash in his head, screaming his little head off.
"Kíli!" Bilbo gasped, staggering over and falling to his feet next to the shivering dwarfling. "Kíli, my boy, oh, Kíli…"
Kíli coughed, his tiny body shaking. "Bilbo…"
"Kíli…" the hobbit whispered, pulling Kíli up into his arms. "Oh, my little Kíli…"
"Bilbo…" Kíli rasped, tears staining his cheeks as he took a shuddering breath.
"I'm here…" Bilbo murmured, planting a kiss on Kíli's forehead. When he looked up, his son was no longer breathing. "Wh-what? Kíli, no, wake up! Kíli wake up, oh please! Don't leave me all alone, Kíli!"
The boy did not move, but stared up at the sky with unseeing eyes.
Bilbo sobbed brokenly and dropped his head to Kíli's chest. Even as he did so, groans of pain filled his ears.
Bilbo woke with a start, but to his horror the groaning did not stop.
The hobbit instantly sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes, looking around desperately for his son. "Kíli? Kíli?"
"I'm… here!"
Bilbo turned around at neck breaking speed to see a grown Kíli sitting a mere three meters away, gritting his teeth as Óin applied lotion to his wounds.
"Kíli…" Bilbo trailed off, his throat sticking.
Kíli offered him a weak smile. "I'm alright. I'm sorry I woke you…"
"Don't be…" Bilbo murmured, trying to swallow. It hurt him, seeing Kíli in pain. "Kíli…"
Kíli smiled a little. "Breathe, my dear hobbit…"
"I'm breathing…" Bilbo whispered. Now that they were in the relative safety of Beorn's house, there was nothing to stop Bilbo's mind wandering back to the goblin tunnels…
From his position between Bombur and Dori, Bilbo was slightly protected from the sudden attack of the goblins. Nevertheless, he still cried out and covered his head as various blows and scratches landed on his head.
As suddenly as the abrupt attack began it ended, and Bilbo's heart stopped altogether when he realised why.
"Kíli…" his lips mouthed the word but no sound escaped his dry mouth as he stared at his son lying at the base of the Goblin King's throne, staring up at the hideous creature intent on torturing them all.
The two swords crossed against Kíli's neck made Bilbo want to be sick, but they did their job and froze the entire company.
"Settle down now…" the 'Great' goblin cackled, and relief flooded Bilbo as Thorin dropped the sword to the floor. The creature loomed over Kíli and Bilbo swallowed, almost as terrified as his son. "Well, well, well, this shall be quite amusing..."
No! Bilbo wanted to scream. Stop, stop!
A goblin fell from the ceiling with a squawk and landed on Kíli's chest, and Bilbo actually cried out as the vile creature began to scratch at Kíli's face.
Kíli's own cry of pain sent jabs of agony across Bilbo's body and the hobbit stepped forward. He did not know what he could do, but-
"Stop!" Thorin ordered the goblins as Dori put a hand on Bilbo's arm.
"And why would I want to do that? It is obvious from the delightful looks on your faces that hurting this pathetic excuse for a dwarf is hurting you."
Bilbo wanted to punch the Great Goblin in the face. Preferably while a knife was clenched in his fist.
The hobbit watched helplessly as a whip smashed across Kíli's face and his son screamed. Bilbo whimpered and Fíli yelled.
"Kíli! Kee!"
"No, no!" Bilbo whimpered as Kíli's shirt was ripped away and the goblins' filthy whips lashed against his skin. "Oh, Kíli, Kíli!"
Kíli's clenched jaw tilted and his head stretched as he writhed on the ground, searching for something with desperate eyes, something that he could not find…
He was searching for Bilbo.
And there was absolutely nothing that the hobbit could do.
"Ah…and our lovely devices have arrived…" The Goblin King chuckled and Bilbo stopped breathing. "Put him on the Bone Breaker first."
"No, no stop!" Thorin cried and Bilbo stared at the spike filled device his innocent son was being dragged towards.
"Bilbo!" Kíli's voice was a terrifying mixture of a beg and a scream. "Fíli, Bilbo, Bilbo, Fee!"
Bilbo lurched forward. He did not know what he could do, but he had to do something, anything to save Kíli from his horrible fate.
Then the world went black.
Kíli's pain had tortured Bilbo, but the hobbit's own helplessness had made him feel sick. Now Bilbo felt just as helpless, and just as ill…
"There's breakfast just over there in the next room…" Kíli swallowed, interrupting Bilbo's thoughts. "If you want it…"
Bilbo's hobbit stomach rumbled painfully and he knew that Kíli could hear it.
"Go, Bilbo… I'm fine."
"This won't hurt him for long, Master Baggins…" Óin said gently, and Bilbo nodded, reluctantly walking away to get breakfast.
Óin sighed as the hobbit walked away. "We're nearly done, laddie."
"Thank you…"
Óin smiled slightly. "I half expected you to curse at me then."
"No," the healer could hear Kíli's smile. "That would be rude. You're only doing your job, and I appreciate it."
"That hobbit certainly brought you up with good manners." Óin laughed, patting Kíli on the back around his wounds.
A high pitched yap announced the presence of the wolf that Kíli had been playing with yesterday and Óin shook his head, getting to his feet as the younger dwarf laughed and pounced on the creature.
"You do realise lad that is a wolf and not a puppy?"
"I've already had this conversation with Fíli." The young dwarf replied. "His name is Luno and he is a puppy!"
Óin chuckled. "As you wish, lad. I don't have the willpower to argue with you. Just take it easy for today or I won't be impressed."
Kíli laughed lightly, tickling the wolf cub's ears.
In the other room the hobbit screamed and Kíli cried out, leaping to his feet.
"Bilbo!"
"Bofur, you absolute – urgh! Don't ever do that again you stupid, blockheaded scoundrel!" Bilbo's angry retort was loud enough and high pitched enough for even Óin to hear it, and the healer watched with pity as Kíli sagged with relief and picked up the startled wolf cub with trembling hands.
The hobbit stormed back into the room with a fiery glare and a very white head of hair. "That dwarf…urgh…"
Kíli snorted slightly, but even Óin could hear the tremble in the young dwarf's voice. "Are you alright, Bilbo?"
"I'm absolutely fine." Bilbo replied agitatedly, batting at this white hair. "Bofur decided that it would be amusing to empty a bowl of flour on my head. Good-for-nothing fool!"
"Well, that's a little harsh, don't you think?" Bofur declared nonchalantly as ducked his head around the doorframe.
Bilbo threw his spoon at the hatless dwarf, who ducked back around the corner quickly. Then the hobbit scoffed. "Very harsh indeed…"
Kíli swallowed, burying his nose in the wolf cub's fluffy fur to hide his heavy breathing. He did not want to admit to the stabbing pains of terror that had accompanied Bilbo's shocked screech. He did not want to admit that he was turning into a coward.
He wanted to close his eyes against the world but he was too afraid that he would watch the hobbit fall down into the darkness again.
"Kíli?" Bilbo asked quietly. "Kíli, are you-"
"Fine!" Kíli mumbled into the puppy's fur. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure? You can talk to me, you know…" the hobbit murmured as Óin left the room.
"I know," Kíli tried to smile. "I'm still a little…jittery."
"I can see that…" Bilbo sighed sympathetically. "We'll be alright, Kíli."
Kíli steeled himself and asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for almost a day. "What happened, Bilbo? What happened when you fell?"
The hobbit cleared his throat. "Well, I urgh…I landed on some funny looking mushrooms that broke my fall, and when I looked around I noticed that there was an awful smell about the place. I stood up and started to look around, when all of a sudden I saw a strange creature in the dark, leering to attack me!"
Kíli winced. "What sort of creature?"
"I don't really know. It was emaciated, with enormous eyes. It wanted…" Bilbo trailed off, looking at Kíli carefully. "It wanted to eat me."
"Eat you?" Kíli choked, tightening his grip on Luno, who yelped. "Oh, sorry Luno."
The pup yapped and wiggled in Kíli's arms until he was a little more comfortable.
"I ended up playing a game of riddles with him."
"Riddles?"
"Yes, riddles. He agreed to show me the way out if I won, which I did… But unfortunately he turned on me and I had to run…"
"That's it?" Kíli frowned, sensing that there should be more.
Bilbo offered him a decidedly weak smile. "That's it."
"Hmm." Kíli scratched Luno behind the ears. "Alright… I'm very glad that you didn't get eaten."
"Me too." Bilbo scoffed.
He did not know why he did not tell Kíli of the ring, but seeing as how he had lost it – a fact that he was still a little sore about, if he was honest – it did not matter anyway.
"What was all that fuss about?" Fíli asked, pausing when he saw Bilbo. "Ah. I see."
"Bofur." Kíli and Bilbo chorused, and Fíli laughed.
"I thought I'd let you know that we're leaving tomorrow, but that we have today as a resting day." Fíli informed the Bagginses.
"Are we allowed outside now? We weren't last night…" Kíli wondered, and Fíli nodded.
"We're allowed anywhere but there must be no hunting, and we're not advised to wander far."
"Let's go then!" Kíli grinned, grateful for a distraction. "Come on."
"Where?" Bilbo asked suspiciously.
"Just outside," Kíli shrugged, tickling Luno. "I want to play with the puppy."
"You're hopeless. You truly are." Fíli shook his head as the wolf cub barked happily, wagging its fluffy tail.
"Come on, Fee, he's so fluffy!"
"Alright, alright, I'm coming…Honestly…" the blond dwarf sighed as he followed his brother outside.
Deciding that he would watch, Bilbo grabbed his pipe and followed the boys outside. It was interesting – at the beginning of their journey he would never have considered calling Fíli a 'boy', having seen Fíli as far more mature and sensible than his raucous younger brother. By now though, he could see that Fíli was just as boisterous when he could be – he just had a better way of hiding it and a greater knowledge of when to do so. Bilbo had found himself feeling increasingly protective over Fíli as well as Kíli, an odd feeling in itself. In fact, now that he thought about it, there was not a member of the company that he would not risk life or limb for…
Well, that was a scary thought…
"Catch, Fíli!"
The blond dwarf caught the ball thrown to him by his brother with ease, even with the wolf jumping up excitedly around him. Hurling the ball back, Fíli laughed as his brother made a comical leap to the side to secure his fingers around the sphere.
Fíli had woken in the night to distressed murmurs from his brother, but once he had coaxed Kíli from his nightmares, he had noted with gratitude that there were no signs of further injury or infection caused by their frolicking in the river. When he had woken in the morning, Kíli had been as happy and bouncy as ever – until Óin applied the dreaded medication.
They all knew that Kíli was to take it easy, but a little game of throw and catch would not hurt anyone.
"Careful, Kee." Fíli hid his concern within his teasing. "Don't hurt yourself."
Kíli snorted derisively. "Why would I do something like that?"
"You spent half of your childhood doing that." Bilbo piped up from a nearby barrel.
"Bah, details, details..." Kíli threw the ball up into the air so that it fell just short of Fíli, allowing the wolf cub a chance to snatch it from the air. "Ha ha! Good boy, Luno!"
Fíli chuckled, before realising that what the dog held between its jaws was not the ball they had been playing with before.
It was his pouch of pipe weed.
"Kíli!"
"What?" Kíli asked innocently.
"That's my pipe weed!" Fíli made a lunge for the cub, who leapt away joyfully.
"Oh, it's all cheap stuff from the Blue Mountains; I've actually got some half decent Old Toby left. You're fine."
"Kíli!"
The brunette just laughed as his brother chased the gleeful wolf cub all around the garden, until Luno bundled into Kíli's legs, looking up at him imploringly. Kíli scooped the cub up, cuddling him like a teddy bear.
"Oh, you're lovely, aren't you?" he cooed, staring at Fíli with a taunting smile. "Drop it?"
Instantly the pup's jaws opened and he dropped the pouch in favour of snuffling Kíli's face and neck. Fíli instantly snatched his soggy pouch from the floor, opening it up to check the contents.
"There's nothing in here!"
"Of course not." Kíli scoffed. "It's all in your spare pouch in your new pack. I'm not a monster, you know…"
Fíli laughed, scratching the wolf cub behind the ears. "I suppose…"
Bilbo spent the rest of the day watching the brothers play like children with the ever energetic wolf cub and having the most fun he had had since leaving the Shire. Rivendell had been spectacular and incredible and amazing and interesting – but 'fun' was a word Bilbo thought better suited to the ridiculous games of almost-adults – to running and ducking and laughing and playing.
Yes, this was fun…
As the sun went down, Balin approached his king alone. "So we leave tomorrow?"
"At sunrise." Thorin nodded seriously. "We cannot afford to linger longer than that, but having spent today as a day of rest will have enabled the whole company to be fit for moving on."
"You mean Kíli." Balin pointed out, and Thorin glared at him.
"I mean the entire company."
"Everyone else would have been able to move on today…" Balin took a deep breath. "Thorin, don't you think it could be wise to leave Kíli here, where it's safe? He's too young for this…"
"He's capable." Thorin said stubbornly. "It would offend him, to send him away now."
"Thorin, you know I don't like the idea of them being here…"
"I know, and I can't send him away, Balin!" Thorin hissed, looking around as if to check that they were still alone. "I cannot send him away again, even if it appears to be for his own good."
Balin sighed. "Thorin-"
"This is not a discussion."
"Understood…" Balin sighed again, and put a hand on Thorin's shoulder. "He's done well to get this far. Who knows, perhaps we'll all get out of this alive."
Beorn entered the room and instantly picked up on the tension between the two dwarves. Choosing not to intervene, the skin changer sat down at his own table.
"I have a question."
Thorin inclined his head and the skin changer continued.
"Why was the dwarf Kíli not raised by you and your kin?"
"How do you know this?" Thorin whispered darkly, and Beorn raised an eyebrow.
"His behaviour." At the blank looks on the dwarves' faces, Beorn knew that he would have to elaborate. "He looks to the halfling before taking extra food at the table. His manners are different, his posture is softer. He is far gentler than most of your kind and he takes a notice of his surroundings. He was raised by one like Bilbo Baggins, unless I am much mistaken."
"He was raised by Bilbo Baggins." Thorin replied tightly. "He was lost to us as a child thanks to an orc attack and a storm, and it was by mere chance that we have found him again."
"Oh, I see…" Beorn's curiosity was sparked and he sensed the story like a wolf sniffing for its prey, but he could tell that Thorin and Balin were not necessarily the ones to tell the tale, so he waited until Bilbo and Kíli returned from entertaining Luno.
After listening to their interesting stories and Kíli's admittedly hilarious anecdotes, the misanthropic skin changer found that he did not mind the presence of Kíli and Bilbo Baggins in his home – they were unlike any creatures he had come across before and they interested him. The dwarves, being enemies of orcs had been tolerable, but when he found out that they had been responsible for the death of the Goblin King, his tolerance had extended almost to friendship.
For once, Beorn did not mind the visitors in his home. By the time the sun rose the next morning, he was almost sorry to see them leave.
"You may borrow my ponies so far as Mirkwood." He announced gravelly as the company set out, holding Luno to prevent the cub trailing after Kíli as he was wont to do. "I wish you luck in your task. Remember – stay away from the rivers of Mirkwood and stay on the path!"
"Thank you, Master Beorn." Thorin said regally.
"Yes, thank you very much." Gandalf looked very pleased with himself.
"You are welcome." Beorn inclined his head and watched them leave.
The pup in his hand whined sadly as he watched his new friend leave and Beorn carried the cub back inside. He found follow the dwarves at a distance to ensure that his beloved ponies were safe, but first he would have to make sure that the kitchen was secure and that there was no food left within reach of the pesky wolf cubs…
He did not know why it was a secret. It surely was just a trinket, just something that he found?
There was no reason to make such a fuss over a little ring, Bofur knew that. Even if it did turn him invisible.
It was just a little ring.
Wasn't it?
So, a teensy bit of Bofur's thoughts at the end just ta let ya know what's going on. Was that bit too out of place? I hope not.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed that chapter, I have BIG plans for Mirkwood with some DOS features in and some not. Oh, and that reminds me –
There will be NO Kíli/Tauriel romance here as it doesn't fit with where I want the story to end. However, there will be mutual PLATONIC interest because Tauriel is pretty epic (in my humble opinion) and Kíli is just interesting to everyone in this story, so anything that looks like it's going down the road of romance most probably isn't :P
Unless I see you before, have a very Merry Christmas!
