A/N: Thank you for the reviews! It's always nicer to write when I know there's someone actually reading. :)
Day One
There was something that Bilbo could only call "voiceless roaring" in his mind.
"T-Thorin ordered you to k-kill me?" he managed to choke out.
Dain nodded and withdrew his cold hand from Bilbo's neck.
The wooden block felt rough and unyielding against Bilbo's bruised face, but he was unable to move, even as Dain had just released him. He was frozen to the spot by the cold truth that Thorin hated him enough to want him gone, that Thorin had ordered Dain to kill him, that Thorin wanted him dead.
Thorin wanted him dead.
Thorin had ordered Bilbo to get beheaded. Thorin had ordered his warriors to find Bilbo and to bring him to the execution. Thorin, Thorin, hated Bilbo passionately enough to give orders for him to be killed. Thorin, Bilbo's friend. The one Bilbo cared for, worried for, had protected. The one Bilbo had laughed with, shared stories with, fought a dragon with...
A black axe appeared in Bilbo's line of sight. Dain lifted it up in the air, looking down at Bilbo with something akin to pity in his eyes. Bilbo didn't notice Dain's look, as he couldn't tear his gaze away from the glinting axe. He stared at the horrible weapon, transfixed, not quite processing anything that was happening.
The double vision caused Bilbo to see two Dains. Two Dains, both of them holding similar black axes. Two Dains about to execute him.
"You won't feel a thing, little one," the Dains grunted. "This axe is in an excellent condition and I shall be very quick about it."
"Quick about what?" asked Balin's voice, quite unexpectedly.
Bilbo couldn't look away from the axes for long enough to confirm whether it truly was his friend that had spoken. Instead, he watched as the two Dains turned around and lowered their axes upon recognizing the speaker.
A violent shiver ran through Bilbo when he realized that Dain's axe could have just gone through his neck, cut through his throat, separated his head from his body. Dain could have just hit him with the axe instead of letting it fall to his side. Dain could have just executed him.
By the order of Thorin.
When the realization hit him, when Bilbo fully realized that the dwarves were really about to execute him, that he was about to get killed, that the dwarves were determined to end his life, to prevent him from seeing another sunrise, another day, the voiceless roar in his ears intensified and something sharp wrapped around his heart, clenching it painfully. With a pained gasp, Bilbo began to struggle. He didn't want to die. Not now. And certainly not like this.
Not by the order of his dear friend.
To his surprise, there was no-one holding him down, no hands keeping him in place. Dain's warriors weren't even looking at his way, apparently not believing that Bilbo would run off, even though that was exactly what he was about to do.
Bilbo fumbled for his pocket and put his shaking hand into it, managing to slip the Ring onto his middle finger. As soon as the Ring was on his finger, his surroundings grew grey and shadowy, which meant that the Ring had thankfully worked, that the Ring's magic had once again managed to turn him invisible. It truly was a wonderful ring, most wonderful (though wearing it did make him feel rather anxious).
Bilbo began to crawl away from Dain as silently as he could. The lord was still talking with Balin – yes, the other speaker was indeed Balin, Bilbo noted (or two Balins as it currently looked like to him) – but even though Bilbo's ears heard every word, he was unable to focus on them, unable to fully grasp the meaning of the spoken words. The only words that penetrated the thick fog in his mind were Dain's, "merely following orders," and Balin's, "warm meals."
Bilbo thought it impossible that Balin would have agreed with Thorin on the execution. Balin had always been kind and patient with his hobbit friend, especially after Bilbo had stolen the Arkenstone – Balin, perhaps more than the others, had understood that Bilbo had been trying to keep all of them safe. Balin had very likely done all that he could to convince Thorin not to execute Bilbo, and when Thorin hadn't yielded, he had now come to ask Dain whether Bilbo – as a hobbit who valued food – could be served one last warm meal. Balin truly was a good friend.
Even though Bilbo was terrified and quite heartbroken, he was also relieved to realize that Thorin was well enough to be giving orders, that Thorin had survived the fierce battle. Unfortunately, it also appeared that Thorin was still under the curse of the dragon sickness, as he still hadn't come to realize that Bilbo had only stolen the Arkenstone to protect his friends, one of whom Thorin was.
If Thorin had been himself, he would have understood Bilbo's motives, of that Bilbo was certain. Thorin would have understood and felt horribly guilty of his own actions. Never would have Thorin ordered Bilbo to be executed had he been in his right mind.
But Thorin had ordered Bilbo to get executed, so he couldn't be in his right mind. He simply couldn't. That was, at least, what Bilbo wanted to believe.
Bilbo was shaken from his thoughts by a loud shout. Looking behind, Bilbo saw that Dain had noticed his disappearance. With a grave-looking Balin by his side, Dain began to yell and to emphasize his frantic yells by waving the black axe about. Dain was yelling orders to his warriors, but it was impossible for Bilbo to tell whether Dain was using Khuzdul or whether he himself was just too confused to understand Dain's words. In any case, Bilbo didn't understand anything, not one word. Even though he didn't understand what was being yelled, it was still quite obvious that Dain's words were about him: the lord was likely giving orders to the other dwarves to find the missing hobbit, the outlaw, the traitor who had dared to avoid getting executed.
Someone had rolled two large water barrels into the middle of the clearing and Bilbo did his best to made his way to them. It wasn't easy, as the ground kept rising and hitting him in the face, while his arms and legs were determined to reach their own, four completely separate destinations. Once Bilbo finally managed to force all of his limbs to follow his command, it became slightly easier to crawl to the two barrels and slip into the narrow gap between them.
Once between the barrels, Bilbo fell down to his side, worn. He pressed his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, trying in vain to keep the tears from flowing, trying to keep himself from hearing Dain's shouts, or the agonizing voiceless roar in his mind.
Bilbo knew that he couldn't stay in his shelter for long. If anyone was to move one of the two barrels, even by accident, a hobbit could easily get smashed by the weight of a rolling water barrel.
The trouble was, Bilbo was too weak to do much anything. Even in his confused state of mind, he realized that he was in no condition to try to outrun dwarves. He couldn't stay anywhere near Erebor, as he didn't want to get killed, but it was a long way to the Shire and Bilbo required equipment if he was to even dream about making it back home, especially during the rapidly approaching winter time. If he wanted to stay alive after escaping the execution, he had to be well-prepared, well-rested and very smart – a lot smarter than his friends, smarter than dwarves.
But first, Bilbo needed to rest, desperately. He needed for the fog to leave his mind, for his thoughts to become clearer. He needed time to rest and to... collect himself, before he could even try to form any sort of plans of action.
Bilbo couldn't rest in any place with dwarves running around, certainly not in between two heavy water barrels in the middle of the dwarven camp.
The camps of elves and men were far too far for him to reach in his current condition. He would collapse long before reaching them.
Eventually, he came to the conclusion that the best place for him to rest was probably among the dead wargs, as morbid as it sounded. No-one would think to look for a hobbit among dead wargs, would they, nor would anyone come to look for their missing kin among the beasts and thus find Bilbo by accident. Yes, Bilbo would be quite safe on a pile of dead wargs, as long as he made sure to climb off of it before it was put on fire, before the carcasses were destroyed by burning. He had no intention, after all, to get burnt with the dead beasts.
Bilbo opened his eyes just as Balin and Dain were walking by the barrels, neither one of them noticing Bilbo due to his invisibility. They both looked very anxious, even though Dain didn't have that horrible black axe with him any more.
"... and Thorin certainly won't be pleased," Bilbo heard Balin saying when he removed his hands from his ears.
"Yes, this is indeed very unfortunate," Dain agreed in a grave voice. "Once the hobbit is found, I will make personally certain that he gets what he truly deserves."
Hearing the threat, Bilbo forced himself up to his feet with the help of one of the water barrels. He had to get away, had to go somewhere safer. As soon as possible. If he stayed put, he would eventually be discovered, and he certainly didn't want Dain to give him what he "truly deserved".
Half an hour later, Bilbo was clambering over piles and piles of dead wargs, trying to find a good spot to rest. He was very much aware of the limp muscles of the lifeless animals, as he sank his feet into coarse fur and grasped it with his hands, struggling to move over the large forms. The thick, pungent smell of the predators filled his nose and mouth, leaving him gasping for breath, while all of his senses roared at him to run away, to hide before he would get eaten. His Baggins side was calling him a mad fool for climbing on top of the monstrous beasts instead of seeking for a more sensible refuge from somewhere safer, while the Took in him insisted that a pile of dead wargs was really an excellent place to hide (temporarily).
The world was spinning around him and Bilbo laid down against a warg in order not to collapse on his feet. He was panting and trying not to think of his surroundings.
Bilbo was scared, honestly scared, scared enough to hide among wargs. He had been scared before in his life, of course, and often at that, but usually when he was scared, he wasn't scared of his friends. Usually when he was scared, he wasn't running from people he cared for. Usually his friends weren't after him, after his blood. Now they were, though, and Bilbo simply couldn't grasp the fact.
Bilbo had seen Bifur and Gloin running around with furious looks on their blood-stained faces. Dwalin had looked positively murderous when he had unknowingly passed by invisible Bilbo, a mere foot away from him. Dwalin had been muttering something about "simply killing the unreliable bastard," but Bilbo hadn't been foolish enough to follow the warrior to listen to any more of his muttered threats. If Dwalin was talking about him, Bilbo didn't want to know about it. With a sick feeling in his stomach, he had simply run – or done his best to run. It was currently impossible for him to actually move his legs that quickly, too disoriented as he was.
Thorin, Balin, Bifur, Gloin and Dwalin – they, at least, were alive. Bilbo could only hope that his other friends were alive as well.
Although Thorin wasn't really his friend any more, was he. If Thorin was giving commands on his execution, the dwarf had to consider their friendship over. Thorin didn't want to be Bilbo's friend any more, which hurt, dragon sickness or not, as Bilbo still cared for the prince. He cared for Thorin deeply and his heart ached at the thought that Thorin would cast their gradually formed, carefully protected friendship aside like that. Just like that, without even talking with Bilbo first, without letting him explain.
And for what? What was the reason behind the loss of Bilbo's most precious friendship? A stone! A dratted stone! A pretty stone, but still just a stone.
A sudden flash of anger, hot and crushing, hit Bilbo, slamming against his shaking form and making his state of mind even more confused and unstable: If he got caught, he would get beheaded because of a stupid piece of rock, because Thorin had chosen the love for a dead stone over his friendship with Bilbo. That hurt more than Bilbo could even begin to describe.
That cursed Arkenstone. Oh, how Bilbo hated it! He hated it! Hated!
Bilbo felt hot tears running down his cheeks and wiped his face angrily.
The thick fur of wargs, the fur all around him, felt coarse and wet, but with his Ring on, Bilbo couldn't tell whether it was blood or mud that was soaking through his clothes – the magic ring could turn him invisible, but it also took away all the lovely colours, turning Bilbo's world temporarily grey and oh so very miserable, so very like he now felt.
