Comes Around Again (Gigolas & Bagginshield)

After the Battle

Bilbo wandered over to the edge of the falls, away from the commotion behind them. Fíli had appeared at the battle's edge, supported by Legolas, and Dís had run to Fíli's side as soon as Azog stopped breathing, pulling him to her. Kíli had run to him as well, but Tauriel had focused on Legolas when he cried out. Gimli had fallen, fainted dead away, and that white-overlay glow had finally faded, leaving Gimli his younger self once more. Legolas had been beside himself until Tauriel was able to convince him that Gimli still breathed, still lived. He swept Gimli up into his arms once more, and Bilbo had found himself smiling, thinking of the way Gimli would yell when he Díscovered that, once again, his husband had carried him from a fight.

It had been when Thorin staggered that Bilbo had turned away, walking to the edge of the ice flow to see the fields below.

There was so much to do.

Bilbo, having never been in a battle before, found himself quite unprepared for the aftermath. As a fauntling, listening to tales of the Battle of Baywater at his Granduncle's knee, he had never imagined the sheer amount of bloody work involved; nobody ever seemed to speak about that part. That part was never in stories.

When Bilbo was older, and the terrible winter snows melted leaving no lasting marker of his mother, he learned first hand the toll of life lost to violence. He saw the way the adults around him closed rank, how they shielded themselves in euphemism and platitude, how they did not let death touch them except for in their most private moments. (He assumed, anyway. It was only when he was alone, after all, that he could grieve for his parents without some busybody or well-wisher interrupting where they were not wanted, can't you see that? Leave me alone!.) He began to see the way the story talked around grief, and loss, and death, and he thought himself very cleverly when he began to read between the story-lines and see the darkness dwelling there.

The reality was so much worse. There was grief, there was pain, there was loss. There were also the wounded and the living, and they needed medicine, and healing, and food. The snow had returned, and shelter needed to be found and fires started. There were bits of orc and troll everywhere, and the dragon ruins had gained new battle-scars and even the old safe places were now treacherous.

Bilbo looked out over the battlefield, and saw an elf fall to his knees, keening as he Díscovered a fallen comrade. Lord Dain, the bloodied bandage around his head not slowing him down at all, pull a dwarf from beneath a pile of rubble. The Dwarf moved on his own, but even Bilbo could see that he could not stand. Lord Dain waved down a Ram Rider, and tougher they placed the wounded soldier on the back of the ram to ride back to the heating tents that had risen quickly after the last of the orcs had fled. Dain waited until the dwarf was gone before pulling free another dwarf, cradling the dead to his chest, and hauling him off to the West to join the others.

Bilbo turned his head, focusing on the sun shining off the rocky face of the lonely mountain. There were too many picking their way through the battlefield, finding too few. Bilbo would never understand war.

He felt a presence come up to him, and stop just behind his right shoulder. "Well, you've done it," he said, surprised to find his voice so raw. "You've won back your home."

"Aye," Thorin said, and stopped. Together, they watched the living tend to the fallen.

Bilbo used to crave silence; he would shut himself away in his home, or walk as far from Hobbiton as he dared, until there was not another living voice around. He found he could not stand the silence, now.

"The King Under the Mountain has returned at last," Bilbo continued. "That will make a good story, make no mistake, and at least a few tavern songs, I should think. Bofur probably already has three written, or I'll eat my waistcoat."