If This is Victory
Summary: Dwalin is sent back in time after an unfortunately long life. When he saves Prince Frerin's life, Dwalin has no idea where King Thrain disappears nor who will shelter him. When the Company arrives at Bag End, their welcome will be far warmer than they could have anticipated.
A happier Company, a wiser hobbit, and an extremely confused Dwalin who just wants everyone to survive this in one piece. Time Travelling!
KEYnote: ADHD and depression has brought you a new fic! Yes, all the others are ongoing but what's important for you to remember is King Thror was the last King of Erebor before the dragon and Thorin's grandfather, King Thrain is Thorin's father while the Thain of the Shire is Bilbo's maternal grandfather, the Old Took.
Dyslexia: I have it and as an example, it took me twenty years to understand there was a difference between these two words; Thain is a Shire title, Thrain is a dwarf name.
Content Warnings: There is no gore, there are no deaths or maimings in the Company. However, there are many themes of ageing and dealing with mental illness and disabilities. King Thrain doesn't have a ton of screen time but Bilbo essentially has the markers of a long-time hospice worker, which I portray in a positive light, just know how you're feeling.
oOo
Prologue
Dwalin was not at all pleased to see his friend shrivelled and aged, though Bilbo still managed a bright smile for his nephew as he said goodbye to his dear Sam.
"You're not going to make it across the sea, are you?" Dwalin asked bowing low and hiding the question behind a press of foreheads.
Bilbo laughed and lifted his shrivelled hand to pat Dwalin's bald head.
"I'm just a hobbit, and I'll follow my dear Frodo for as long as I'm able," Bilbo agreed with as much directness as he would allow himself.
Dwalin sighed, catching that hand in his and pressed a kiss to the back of his knuckles, "You were always more than a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and I would have served you just as gladly as I did the Durinsons."
Bilbo's eyes filled with tears, yet still he smiled. "I'll be seeing them soon, I think. It's been too long." His voice cracked, "Much too long."
Dwalin rubbed that delicate hand, the Ring and time had stolen much from his old friend, and though they were both of snow white hair Bilbo seemed to be spun from gasomer and dreams. Hardly a mortal hobbit, hardly real.
All Dwalin could think to say in this final parting was, "I hope to not be long behind you myself."
Dwalin hated that he had failed everyone he had ever held most dear, unable to save his king or his princes, or even his would be king consort. He hadn't even remained long enough in Moria to perish with his brother.
"You ought to show up in Mahal's Halls though, I know the elves treated you well enough but you would dine as a king at Durin's table."
Bilbo grinned, "And maybe I'll finally be allowed to learn dwarvish."
Dwalin smiled, "You speak pretty Khuzdul well enough to manage already, I think."
Bilbo cackled, as they both knew all he knew were, yes, a few sweet nothings Thorin had shared with him, and many, many colourful swears and battle cries.
"Hardly fluent," Bilbo said around a cough, laying back more heavily against his pillows as he closed his eyes. "You'll see, next time we meet, I'll be fluent and my handwriting will be better than Balin's. Perhaps one of your Durins will even teach me how to swing my letter opener properly."
Dwalin smiled, "May Mahal and his lady Yavanna make it so, my dear old friend."
Bilbo sighed, without opening his eyes, "A new adventure would be lovely. I would do it all again, Dwalin, I'd see those mountains again, for the first time, and this time, I'd call them home. I would spare my poor lad if I might, mine was never a burden he ought to have borne."
Dwalin swallowed around the tightness in his chest, only Bilbo could make him feel this way where others might spot him. "Aye, and I'll be there with you this time. Every step of the way."
Bilbo sighed again more happily, "Far over the Misty–"
"Mountains cold," Dwalin began to sing as Bilbo's hand slackened in his. He continued singing as his dear old friend sank into sleep. "In dungeons deep and caverns old. I must away ere break of day."
Dwalin stood in the back as he watched his friends sail away to Valinor and perhaps further from reach than that.
When it was finally Dwalin's turn to depart, much too long if anyone bothered to ask him, he met a Lady like no other, and though she was as large as a tree and fairer than any elf or starlight-gem, when she smiled she reminded him of Bilbo.
She laughed, "So you mean what you said to my child?"
"I always mean what I say," Dwalin answered, having not a clue as to what she was referring.
But he had told no lie, it's why he didn't bother to say much most times. His brother was the talker, Dwalin never saw the point in talking if you didn't have something worth saying.
She laughed, and it was bird-song and crystal, "My husband never believed me weak, did you know that?"
"I can believe it," he said warily, with a growing suspicion of just to whom he spoke.
"He will not remember you, any of you, but it will not matter. You will change the course of fate, Dwalin son of Fundin, so long as you stand by your word, all that you treasure will live as it might have."
Dwalin raised a bushy eyebrow, "Live? Aren't I dead?"
"Not quite," a masculine voice said from behind him.
Dwalin spun and for an instant, he saw his Maker, only for the world to come into focus with harrowing reality.
Dwalin knew immediately where he was, he did not need to see King Thror's severed head to be lifted raised as a trophy into the sky to know.
The first time this had happened, Dwalin had chased after Prince Thrain who had cried out in grief at his father's decapitation.
Dwalin saw Thorin reach for that damned oaken branch before he turned away from his friend, searching for the golden mane of the third prince on this field of sorrows.
Prince Frerin looked so much like Prince Fíli as he fought to get his legs to work and an orc raised a crude blade above him to snuff out that golden flame.
Dwalin would have none of it. Before that blade of despicable craftsmanship could fall, Dwalin had the abomination falling backwards in pieces.
Clipping one of his axes to his back, Dwalin dropped to a knee to push the other dead orc off Frerin's legs and tied a tourniquet to the injured leg.
"You're the king's guard," Frerin said between clenched teeth. "What are you doing here?"
Ungrateful brat.
"You're more important," Dwalin stated with no uncertainty.
"Thorin's more important! I'm just the spare–"
Dwalin slapped him, which is not something he would have done as a mere guard at this time, but he was three hundred and forty cursed years old now and no princeling was going to tell him how to do his job, "You are your siblings dearest brother, your sister-sons' favourite uncle, and you will not speak to me of such belittlement of a Durinson's worth." Dwalin put a shoulder under Frerin's arm, "Now get up, you little fool."
Frerin laughed, even with all of this. He laughed though it was coloured by pain.
And fate seemed to smile upon them, for just then Azog, bleeding profusely from the wound Thorin had dealt him, rode by on his white warg.
Dwalin brought his axe down on the beast's neck and Frerin, who had kept his sword drawn, stabbed Azog through the skull, finishing the job once and for all.
There was a scream from a lesser orc, perhaps Azog's son, but a much younger Balin put an end to him.
It was strange to see his older brother like this, to know that Dwalin had outlived him by nearly a century.
Balin got Frerin's other side and together they got their prince to safety.
Frerin was able to keep both his legs, though they never quite worked wholly right again. Walking was an effort for him when he barely had any sensation in them, meaning he spent the majority of his life in a chair.
But Thorin and Dís were grateful beyond words while Fíli and Kíli got the undivided attention of their favourite uncle while the rest of their family went to work.
King Thrain was again lost to them but in a life twice lived, Dwalin judged by the smiles that more often graced his shield brother's face, this to be the brighter life with an even brighter future.
oOo
From the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings:
In the morning Thrain stood before them. He had one eye blinded beyond cure and he was halt with leg wound; but he said: "Good! We have the victory. Khazad-dum is ours!"
But they (the dwarves) answered: "Durin's Heir you may be, but even with one eye you should see clearer. We fought this war for vengeance, and vengeance we have taken. But it is not sweet. If this is victory, then our hands are too small to hold it."
–J.R.R. Tolkien
Chapter 1 - The Baggins' Dwarf
Belladonna Took found the dwarf lord on her return from Rivendell.
He was curled up against a tree looking more lost than a fawn without his doe.
It took some coaxing and when nothing she could do could rouse the blood-soaked warrior, she grabbed him by the ear, twisted, and dragged him home.
Her intended at the time was a bit perturbed when she dropped the filthy dwarf on the brand-new floors of their freshly built smial.
Bungo Baggins huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, "A simple bouquet of flowers would have done the trick, love. I already knew that I was proposing to a Took."
Bella grinned, skipping around their new house guest to place a kiss on her beloved's cheek, "Bit late for second thoughts now, Master Bungo Baggins, now that you're to become a father."
Bungo's eyes went large and he forgot all about the dwarf on the floor and the fact when he asked the Old Took's favourite daughter to marry him, she had run away to visit with the elves. He placed his hands gently on her waist and asked, "You're… We're expecting?"
She kissed his nose, "Yes, we're expecting."
He picked her up and spun her round, crying for joy.
Nothing could dim this day, not the blood on the entryway and the one-eyed dwarf sulking in their bathtub.
Bungo was going to marry the lass of his dreams and soon they would be welcoming a faunt of their own into the world.
oOo
Bilbo Baggins was not your usual Shireling.
Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Nope, not usual at all, for one, Bilbo spoke five different languages. He spoke the Common Speech and the Green Speech as all hobbits do, as well as Sindarian as his mother did, and two secret languages, Khuzdul and Inglishmek.
The last was more of a language of the hands which proved especially helpful when his grandfather Thrain was having a particularly bad day and couldn't quite get the words across or listen very well.
This was perhaps the oddest thing about Bilbo, if you discounted his Tookish mother who had brought Thrain home in the first place, was his dwarven grandfather.
And Grandfather Thrain was not your typical dwarf, for one, he shaved his beard every day and cut his hair as short as a hobbit. Not that you would mistake him for a man or a hobbit but he was peculiar to look at. Other dwarves who passed through the Shire refused to make eye contact with him or look in his direction. Certainly, they never condoned speaking or approaching him.
When Bilbo asked why, Thrain would answer that he had been banished for his cowardness and weakness in abandoning his kin during battle as no dwarf is meant to do.
Bilbo did not understand this at all, for his dwarf taught him how to use a sword and how to hunt in the winter. His dwarf taught him how to stand tall when he was bullied and to face his fears when he was afraid.
He could not understand what his grandfather meant when he said he was a coward, even when he cried (and grandfather did cry a lot, big tears that rained down his face in rivers). For weeping was not cowardly, because Mama told him there was no weakness in tears, no cowardness in sadness or in grief.
But as Bilbo got older, he began to understand that while his grandfather was not a coward, he was very sick.
A sickness of the mind which was among the harder things in life to treat.
Grandfather Thrain had a hard time sleeping and he never ate enough. He sometimes threatened to feed himself to wolves rather than let Mama ask another dwarf, or Mahal forbid, ask an elf, for help.
But that was okay, that was a part of life, people got sick, they aged, and they died.
They also lived, and laughed, and loved.
And Grandfather Thrain loved Bilbo very much, he often told him so. Told him in many, many ways, in the stories he shared, in the songs that he sang, and in the skills he taught.
So what if Bilbo was a bit odd and a bit lonely outside of Bag End? Bilbo wouldn't have traded away his Grandfather Thrain even though everyone called Bilbo names. They called his grandfather names too, the Mad Dwarf with One Eye. But they were wrong, even if Grandfather did sometimes hide in the second pantry talking to himself about gold and dragons, he wasn't mad, not in the ugly and scary way they meant it.
Bilbo Baggins loved his family and everything they had taught him to be.
He loved them when Grandfather Thrain's hair turned snow white and his health began to wane beyond sight of recovery, when his Mama never quite lost her cough that grew worse with every winter after the Fell, and when his father did not rise from sleep when Mama went cold.
Bilbo loved them when they were ash buried beneath a sapling oak in the back garden, and he loved them still when all that was left for him were their memories for companionship in the too large hollow of Bag End.
oOo
AN: So there may be a few flashbacks but probably more antidotes because I think it will be more meaningful for the Company to learn about Bilbo's dwarf rather than the reader to see it. As you already know who everyone is and the Company, cough, Dwalin, is going quite unprepared for the hobbit burglar he meets this time around ;D
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ANII: Thoughts, collies, or requests for upcoming chapters, pretty please?