Chapter Text
An icy wind howled, his hair whipping around his face and his iron beads knocking together. Wrapped in his thick coat and tough dwarven armor, though, Thorin hardly felt it except for in his knees where he knelt to retrieve his sword. Adrenaline rushed through him, but he moved sluggishly, as though in a daze.
A shadow under the ice caught Thorin’s attention. A pale body drifting through the water, unmoving and eerie. His lifelong enemy who had taken his grandfather and his father, who had all but placed the crown upon Thorin’s head with his own hands. Azog the Defiler deserved nothing less in death than to simply fade away into the depths. He should not have the ceremonies a dwarven funeral would demand, that which the Pale Orc would revel in. Thorin would not honor him with a warrior’s death.
For a few steps, he followed the drifting corpse. Something unraveled in his chest as he finally watched those cold, cruel eyes fall closed for the final time. As he finally watched his nemesis, his tormentor, the slayer of his own blood, pass into whatever cursed afterlife awaited him.
And then the eyes opened again.
In a flash of blinding pain, the orc sprang from beneath the ice. Thorin was distantly aware that Azog’s makeshift sword, a blade pierced through the jagged stump of his left arm, had pierced his foot through the worn leather. He was more acutely aware of it tearing back out and upwards as the Defiler swung at him relentlessly, unaffected by his brush with death.
Thorin hardly had time to think, his usually quick battle instincts failing him. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back with the point of Azog’s sword pressing ever closer to his chest, held at bay only by his own blade held in both his hands pushing against the attack. He stared up at the orc, who only watched him with his sick grin. When he breathed in he could feel the pressure of the tip of that sword pressing against his armor.
There was only one way this would end. Only one way that he could truly see the Pale Orc die so that he wouldn’t continue to torment the line of Durin.
Thorin grit his teeth and a low groan escaped him on the exhale. His forearms trembled. Then he pulled his sword away and allowed Azog to press forward, the sword piercing through his chest swiftly. He didn’t give himself time to cry out in pain, instead driving his own blade into the chest of the Defiler and switching their positions so that he straddled the bastard’s thick chest.
The grin had fallen from Azog’s face, overtaken by complete shock, as though he’d never even considered that Thorin might finally end him as he had sworn to all those years ago.
Thorin drove his sword so deep he felt the scrape of it pushing through the ice beneath them reverberate through the length of it. Then he watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the light left those eyes, the shock permanently etched on those features. And it was finally done.
Thorin stumbled to his feet, drawing breath with great difficulty as he stumbled to the edge of the cliffs and looked over his kingdom for what he knew to be the last time. The great battlefield was littered with bodies, elves, men, dwarves, and orcs alike. An eagle cried overhead, and it was like Erebor was bidding him farewell.
As Thorin collapsed, he thought he heard the voice of a particular hobbit calling out his name.
“Khîê,” he murmured. “Bunnanunê…”
If only he’d had more time, he thought, he might have finally said something, given that lovely creature fonder memories of Thorin’s homeland than the ones Thorin had allowed him.
There were light footsteps against the stone, then, and suddenly the very hobbit was before him, falling to his knees on the ice without a care for himself, though there was blood in his hairline and his lovely coat was torn. His golden hair glowed in the winter sun and Thorin wheezed.
“Bilbo,” he managed gruffly. Bilbo winced at the bleeding wound in Thorin’s chest and pulled aside his shredded tunic to press his hand against it, his tail twitching with anxiety.
“Don’t move,” he said firmly, even as he flinched at the blood continuing to pour.
“I’m glad you are here,” Thorin said, even as he fought for the air to say it. Bilbo shushed him, but Thorin pressed on. He would not allow Bilbo to believe he had died hating him.
“I wish to part from you in friendship,” Thorin said.
“No,” Bilbo said swiftly. “You’re not going anywhere. The eagles are coming, you’ll be okay.”
“I would take back my words and my deeds at the gate,” Thorin told him. The world had gone fuzzy, but Bilbo was still in focus even as he fretted. How Thorin wished…
“Please,” he said, holding eye contact once Bilbo finally looked at his face. “Forgive me. I was too blind to see it… I’m so sorry that I have led you to such peril.” He grunted and wheezed, unable to draw breath. Tears welled in his eyes, from the pain and from what could have been, what he had lost for good.
“I am glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin,” Bilbo said, drawing closer. As though without Bilbo’s input, his tail flicked forward and draped over Thorin’s knee. Thorin’s hand twitched as he debated reaching up to hold him. He smiled softly.
“Go back to your books and your armchair, plant your trees and watch them grow,” he told him. He watched a tear fall over Bilbo’s cheek. “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, this world would be a merrier place.” He choked again, and finally he felt the life slip from him.
“No!” Bilbo exclaimed in a near whine. “No, please, Thorin!”
But he was already gone.
It was on a soft bed and in great pain that Thorin woke, heart pounding in his chest. His skin was damp with sweat, there was a throbbing in his foot and a pounding ache in his head and it hurt to breathe. It took him several moments to realize where he was, but in that time Balin and Óin were at his side. He didn’t hear anything they said.
Thorin pushed himself up and lost the contents of his stomach onto the floor at his side before collapsing back onto the mattress and slipping into merciful unconsciousness.
The next time he woke, he still hurt, but Bilbo sat at the foot of his bed, writing in a little notebook, and somehow that made everything hurt less. The hobbit looked quite out of place in the medical tent and Thorin was struck by how much he had changed since they had first met all those months ago. Bilbo had lost so much weight, Thorin knew he would be scandalized were he not preoccupied with recovering from the journey. He was such a strong creature. Thorin would never be worthy of so much as his friendship, yet he couldn’t help but covet more than even that.
“Bilbo,” he said, awed, though the name came out raspy and weak. It was enough for Bilbo to startle and turn to him, eyes going wide.
“Thorin!” He exclaimed, snapping his notebook shut and tucking it into one of his pockets. “I’ll go get Óin!”
Then he was gone and Thorin couldn’t help the guilt that bubbled up in his gut and threatened to overwhelm him entirely.
“Oh good, lad,” said Óin, coming into the tent with Tharkûn and Balin but, notably, no Bilbo. Thorin swallowed thickly. Bilbo would have every right to keep away from him after what Thorin did to him. What Thorin could have done to him.
“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t wake up, akrâgkharm,” Balin said softly, coming to his side while Óin began to look him over. Thorin was wearing only his trousers. His chest was wrapped tightly in bandages and he could feel the same on his foot. When he glanced down, the bandages on his chest were spotted with red. Something like pride ached within him. To bear the scars of battle was a great honor indeed, king or otherwise.
“How long have I slept?” Thorin asked.
“Nearly a week,” Balin told him. “All the better for it, though. We weren’t sure you would make it. Poor Bilbo was distraught when we got to you.”
“He has been through much more than I ever could have asked of him,” Thorin said darkly. Óin patted his shoulder gently.
“If Bilbo Baggins did not wish to be here, he wouldn’t be,” Tharkûn said firmly. Thorin just scowled at his hands.
There was a long scar down Thorin’s face from his hairline to his cheek, and a jagged wound in the center of his chest that would become a thick, ugly scar in the weeks to come. Thorin limped when Óin finally allowed him to stand from his sickbed and he was told that it was likely he would walk with some form of a limp for the rest of his days.
In all, nothing too bad.
Thorin allowed his dressings to be changed and tolerated assistance dressing before he left his tent with a walking stick in hands, newly updated on everything his new kingdom had undertaken. His nephews had suffered frightening injuries as well, but had come through after a few days' rest with hardly more than matching scars and night terrors Thorin knew would fade with time. His cousin Dáin had led negotiations with the Elvenking and Bard of Lake-town in his absence and had the good sense to bring Fíli into the meetings as well once he had healed enough.
Word had come that Thorin’s younger sister Dís would arrive within the month as well and Thorin felt something in his ease at the prospect. He set about his first true duty as king: rebuilding Erebor and fashioning it back into what it once was. Thousands of dwarrow were returning to the mountains from all corners of Middle-earth. His kin still living in Dunland and the Blue Mountains were certainly on their way, as well as those from the Iron Hills who had not come to fight at Thorin’s behest. What of the mountain Smaug had not destroyed would have fallen into disrepair in the near two-hundred years the mountains had been abandoned to the dragon’s wiles.
He would need to devise a plan to relight the forces, repair the mines, and create a foundation upon which they could rebuild their lives.
Yet, he could not keep his mind from a certain hobbit he knew lingered. Every now and then he would see a flash of golden hair or hear a bellow of laughter at just the right pitch and he would wonder when he would have to face the creature which had taken dominion of his mind. Coward he may be, but he didn’t know of any dwarf who wouldn’t cower at the prospect of looking their One in the eyes to be rejected.
He took to avoiding Bilbo entirely. He had nothing to say that would make up for his actions at the gate, let alone all the things he had said along their journey. If Thorin were any king deserving of the title, he would find Bilbo at the first opportunity and shear his beard at his hairy feet. He would offer up his sword, even, to let Bilbo do the cutting himself. He would beg in front of all his subjects that he may be allowed to prove his regret. All things he knew meant nothing to a fussy, well-to-do hobbit like the one he had so wronged.
But he couldn’t bear to see the fear– the hatred– he knew he would find in Bilbo’s eyes.