General One-Shots

A Trip to the Shire

He walked down the dirt road alone, the sword at his belt the only thing there to protect him, though he minded it not. It was highly unlikely he would need to draw it in such a place. Thorin kept to the left of the road, careful to keep his head down and draw as little attention to himself as possible.
Any attempt of the sort was destined to fail no matter what he did. A dwarf in the Shire was bound to stick out like a sore thumb.
He did, too. Even if he had been of the right height and build, his clothes, dark against the bright dress of Hobbits, his sword, unusual in the area, and his beard were something of an oddity, and Thorin could almost hear the judgemental thoughts of the Hobbits.
Or, he could hear those thoughts coming out of their mouths, for their words and scowls were anything but subtle.
He minded not.
Or, at least, he minded not until he saw one particular Hobbit, with his head tilted to the side slightly in his curiosity, alone on the bench out the front of the hill that appeared to be his home, smoking a pipe. He frowned not, and spoke to none of this unusual occasion, preferring instead simply to stare, not in hatred but rather in curiosity.
Thorin turned his attention back to the road, but saw that the road ended not ten paces from where he stood.
Thorin turned over suddenly, opening his eyes. He took in the the unfamiliar room, dark ceiling, the unlit candle sitting in the stark wooden nightstand, the wooden armchair that creaked loud enough to wake the dead when an unsuspecting individual endeavoured to sit, the similarly stark table beside it, and the grate, empty of flame.
But this was not unusual for him. He knew all too well what it was to wake in an unfamiliar setting, far away from anywhere he had ever called home.
He stood, and walked over to the window. He pulled aside the faded cloth, expecting to see the first light of day, but instead he saw the dark void full of tiny drops of starlight and a shadowed land that seemed to stretch forever into the distance he didn't have the energy to travel.
Thorin stood there for a moment, just taking a moment to remember what he was there for.
But it was a matter of moments before he moved back to the bed, seeking the escape that others would call sleep.
He hesitated. The road had left him at the door of a stranger, uncertain of where to go or what to do next.
He pulled out his map, turning it this way and that to try to make sense of it, his failure inevitable.
"I'm sorry," said the Hobbit, standing, "are you lost?"
"What's it to you?" Thorin responded, defensive.
"I was only trying to help."
Thorin sighed, which the Hobbit took to signal defeat, an assumption that could not be considered entirely wrong. "Where are you trying to go?" He asked, trying to get a grip on the situation.
"Away from here. To Bree, I think. Yes. To Bree."
You've come up the wrong road then! You'll want to go back up this road the way you came, take a left, and then the second road again to your left, which should take you in the direction you wish to go. But be careful! If you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to!"
"Good advice," Thorin grumbled, taking his leave.
Thorin sat up suddenly.
Only the day before he'd heard rumours that his father had been sighted in Bree. Perhaps that was where he'd taken residence. Perhaps that was also why Thorin had been reliving the events of years ago.
~¤~
There Thorin stood again, in the early hours of the already darkening night. That same street, the dirt road that lead to nowhere, the bench behind the gate, yet not enough so to be considered antisocial, and the hill that was also a house.
On the green door that Thorin had never quite forgotten, a mark, a rune, had been scratched.
Thorin stood there a moment, remembering.
Where now there stood a dilapidated wooden bench that somehow appeared well-kempt, Thorin saw a Hobbit, smoking a pipe in a manner gentlemanly, looking out at him most curiously, a content smile playing across his lips.
In place of the empty street stretched out behind him, there stood instead a bustling road, filled with Hobbits going about their days with a smile, hardworking and happy.
And in place of the end of the road stood a path to darkness and danger and fire and certain death, foreign to the peace and tranquility Hobbits lived to their dying days in.
And how Thorin wished this was not the path on which he was set. But that it was. At least he should not doom one of these happy people, arguably the most content and kind of them all, to that same fate.
And when Gandalf asked Thorin what had taken him so long, he said that he had gotten lost twice.
For that he had.
One, on that day so long ago when he had meant to travel to Bree. Two, in his memories and in his thought.
And, in a way, he had been lost in a third way; he was just a boy, wandering aimlessly around Middle Earth in a vain search for the father whom he'd lost to madness. And though Gandalf had given him a purpose, a goal, a reason to keep moving, he was not as sure as he had been the day he'd accepted that task. That, he found, was the most terrifying maze of them all.
In his dreams he saw Erebor, restored to it's former glory. He saw himself, seated upon the long-abandoned throne, a crown sitting comfortably on his head.
But it was not himself. It was his father.
In his nightmares, more frequent and more real, he saw the lake, smouldering. He saw a dragon burning a path through a small crowd of Dwarves, he saw their faces, in too much pain and terror to even scream, and he saw them burned to the ground while he stood and watched, left to be the last to die.
Thorin did not know if it was his father he saw there, or if it was really himself. He didn't know which scared him more.
Thorin was in no way prepared to sacrifice another to this lost cause.
Besides, he looked more like a grocer than a burglar.