Days of Agony [Featured]

Nightfall

Though deep, Bilbo's sleep did not remain untroubled. Perhaps it was the very depth of it that caused him to descend into that dark dream.

He was back behind the fortified wall that the dwarves had improvised out of fallen rocks to keep thieves out of Erebor, with the rest of the Company, and with Thorin. Or against Thorin, if he thought well about it. It had been a while since the dwarf that they all knew was no longer really with them. He had closed himself off in his shroud of grief and delusion, and had turned away from all of them, thinking them traitors. All but Bilbo. And Bilbo was now the one announcing to Thorin that he had withheld the Arkenstone from him, despite all of his bone-chilling warnings, and that he had given it to Thranduil and Bard to barter for what they claimed to be theirs of the treasure.

In Thorin's eyes, realization dawned black and betrayed trust turned swiftly into anger. He called Bilbo something quite unsavoury. Then he roared to the others to throw him from the rampart. But there was no one there. They had all vanished. It was just him and Thorin under the low, billowing clouds, and the dwarf's grey-blue eyes sparkled with a terrible thirst for revenge.

He swooped upon the hobbit without warning and his hands grabbed a strong hold of the lapels of his coat, yanking him implacably towards the edge of Erebor's rampart and towards his doom. Bilbo tried planting his heels into the stone and his fingers clutched desperately at Thorin's iron wrists, but there was nothing that he could do to resist their pull. Half of his body was now hanging over the wall, and Thorin's hold on him was the only thing that kept him from falling. They had been in this situation once before when Thorin's firm grip had kept him from tumbling down the rocky slopes of the Misty Mountains.

"No, Thorin, no," Bilbo pleaded under his breath, looking deep into Thorin's hollowed eyes and hoping against what his quivering gut was telling him that he could still get through to the dwarf that had saved him from death more than once.

But this was not the same person, not anymore. A wicked grin twisted Thorin's mouth as he let go. The air was sucked out of the hobbit's small lungs and a great fear swelled in his heart as he plunged hopelessly down the side of the Mountain.

He woke up before he hit the ground, gasping for breath. He sat up abruptly in the armchair where he slept, batting his arms about like wings, and flinging his cover aside, as he still tried to hold on to something in his sleep.

His eyes, wide open in lingering terror, stared into what felt at first like a wall of black, and he wondered for a second if he was dead or alive. But soon he began to perceive a soft, golden light that soothed the dimness of wherever he was. Turning his head towards it, he was startled. The light came from a lantern residing on a night table on the opposite side of a large bed. And in the bed lay Thorin, looking more peaceful than Bilbo had ever seen him, eyes closed, still features drawn and livid even under the warm glow of the candle, only a faint echo of breath indicating that he was living. Bilbo's racing heart sank to a low hum. He sat back in the armchair that was not his, feeling suddenly like the whole mountain was weighing on his shoulders.

Being thrown to his death by Thorin had been only a dream, but the rest had not been. More than the fear that he had felt as the Dwarf King held his very life in his hands and had chosen to let go, he remembered now the tears in Thorin's eyes as he had told him that he was acting below his character, that the dwarf he had met in Bag End would never have doubted the loyalty of his kin and would never have gone back on his promises to the people of Lake Town. They were tears of a broken heart, of shattered trust and of hurt pride in equal measure. He had known then that his actions would bruise Thorin's feelings considerably, but only now did he perceive the full depth of the wound he had inflicted, the ties of last-standing confidence that Thorin had wrought in nothing less than mithril and that Bilbo had cut with his choice to take the Arkenstone and finally with his words. They were ties bound in darkness and delusion, but to Thorin they had been no less significant for it. And he had hurt no less when they had been severed.