Work Text:
“There ‘as to be some other way!” Bombur insisted, as he stood in front of his King. A King he’d sworn to follow to this cursed mountain, on this cursed quest, for cursed gold. A King who’d proven his worth and stood by his people and deserved to be placed back on his throne. A King, who was trying to send his soon to be little sister into the maw of some fire breathing wyrm.
Standing behind Bombur’s girth was the rest of his small family, all ready to fight for their newest member’s continued health. Bifur, upon realizing that just because their regard for the wee Burglar had shifted didn’t mean her commissioned job description changed any, had snatched the lass up by the waist into his shield arm as he brandished his boar spear with the other. He’d been grumbling in Khudzul since, glaring at the King, Balin and anyone else who got too close. The hair on his head half raised as he growled low in his chest, hands turning to claws and stance becoming more primal as his eyes glowed in the shifting light. He was half transformed as he stood guard over their little Hobbit. But as fierce as Bifur appeared, it was made plain he was merely the second string, the guard dog, charged with fleeing with the lass should everything go awry, because standing in front of the snarling warrior was a glowering toymaker. Bofur hadn’t taken his mattock off his shoulder, he wasn’t brandishing it about as Bifur. He merely held it aloft in a tight grip as he stood firm in front of his cousin and intended. There was certainly a degree of menace that was coming off the lad as he stared down any who’d make eye contact, eyes glittering under the brim of his hat, measuring them all, but that wouldn’t have stilled a hand who would move against him. No, the real scary bit of business where the panda lad was concerned was his smile. Bofur always smiled. He smiled when he was eating, joking, laughing, breathing, shifting, he smiled through the pain, during chases, in happy times and bad his smile lit the way. It was the feature Bilbo loved best of all on her toymaker. But this was a savage caricature of that grin, sharply twisted and toothy, as he seemed to snarl pleasantly at his adversaries. There was a hint of madness in that look, one of desperate determination, that spoke of too much loss and the intent to take so much more than life and limb should someone try to snatch anything else from the dwarf. It sent a fission of fear down the backs of even the most stalwart dwarrow standing there.
As it was, none of the Company was eager to send their littlest member into that mountain. Fíli and Kíli looked like they were about a breath away from allying themselves with the miner family in defending their little friend. Nori had already subtly shifted his stance to intercept the first person that made a grab for her and Ori had to be restrained by Dori to keep the lad from beaming Dwalin in the head with his book. The Guard wasn’t happy about this either, but he’d stand by his friend and King, as would his brother and cousins, they were the line of Durin, like it or not at the moment, and they’d hold strong. Balin was trying to calm the situation down by talking to the Ur males but it only seemed to be making that sadistic grin on Bofur’s face twist into something serpentine. All eyes were on the Ur miners and the Durin cousins. All save Thorin’s.
The King was the only one with his eyes on the Hobbit herself, and thus, the only one who was seeing the fear being squashed back and a determination taking light. He was also the only one not surprised, though he was hardly pleased, when the lass cleared her throat, all politeness, and asked her new cousin, pleasant as you please, “Bifur, would you do me the kindness of letting me loose? I promise the only person who’s going to make me walk into that den is myself. Isn’t that right Thorin?” At this Bilbo turned a questioning look to the King. At his silent regard her frown deepened. He didn’t want to send any of his men in there, especially not the smallest one and a female to boot. But he couldn’t stop what was clearly on her mind, so he nodded his acceptance.
His nod did not ensure her release but she didn’t need it to shift and slip from the larger males hands. Bifur barely had time to curse, Bilbo barely a moment to breathe freely, before Bofur had her up in hand and walking quickly away from the rest, growling about privacy, and though it was highly inappropriate for affianced to be alone for any extended time, no one was quite willing to tell him that. When they’d gotten out of earshot Bilbo turned back and threw her arms around her mate as he buried his face in her neck and grasped her tightly, so tightly she thought he was trying to meld them together, or hide her inside himself. She felt him shaking and smiled softly, “Dear heart, we’ve come too far and been through too much to end it all here on the bloody grub’s back porch.”
Her joke fell flat as her intended framed her face with his beautifully callused hands and stared into her eyes, “It’s not worth it. Nothing’s worth tha’ lass and I won’ let ‘em toss ya into it alone. I can’. I won’! I… I can’t.” His voice broke as he saw that determined little line in the middle of her brow and those soft amber eyes glowing with love and her own brand o’ fiery ferocity. All of his smiles dried up and were gone as he imprinted every curve and angle of her face to his memory. High cheekbones, soft brow, chubby cheeks, pointed ears, tangled black curls, and a plump pink mouth that tasted like survival as he crushed it to him for possibly the last time. He wanted to stop her, he wanted to keep her hail and healthy by his side for their lives and then beyond, in the halls of his forefathers and Mahal himself, but he knew she wouldn’t let him. He could try and restrain her, as abhorrent as the thought was, he was the stronger after all, and she’d forgive him because she was like that, but she’d never forgive herself for not trying her hand when they needed it, and that fire he loved to stoke and play would die.
Softness replaced desperation as they drew apart and she smiled at him again, grasped his hand and led him back to their friends. He held on a moment longer when she released him to stand in front of Thorin, taking a deep breathe, “I’m ready.” The King stared at her a moment, remembering how badly he’d underestimated her this entire journey, and how glad he was to have this little hobbit’s willing heart and freely given loyalty over an army of dwarrow. He clasped her shoulder and gently tapped foreheads with the lass before leaning back again and nodding to her as Balin came forward to lead her into the mountain, and death’s maw.
She was scared out of her wits, which turned into an advantage, because as she couldn’t concentrate on anything further than controlling the shaking of her terrified body (which had her vibrating through the halls instead of springing through them under the quiver’s volitions), she also couldn’t think of the looks she’d received from her family. There wasn’t space in her mind to think about Fíli and Kíli chasing each other around the camp, Ori running away from Dori as the fox tried to settle the smaller one down for a grooming, Nori trying to teach her to lift from Dwalin (or his face when she managed it for the first time). There wasn’t any room to recall all of Balin’s history lessons, Glóin’s stories about his Gimli (and there were many), Óin chasing the lads around the camp with his ear horn, beating them with it for loosing his medical kit, Dwalin and Thorin laughing off to the side as they tossed the kit back into the medic’s bag. She definitely didn’t think about the first time she’d found a red panda in her lap, the first time Bifur’s wolf had come and laid down next to her to keep her warm during the night, about cooking with Bombur and exchanging recipes, about sleeping curled in the middle of their protective circle. There weren’t tears in her eyes as she fought her regret and fear, but they stained her heart with ever hummingbird beat.
Bilbo supposed, should she ever need recommend herself to someone in the future (assuming there was a future), she could add riddling with dragons to her ever-growing list of attributes. Of course it was rather like a mouse poking at a cat, merely dinner theatre before the main course arrived. And arrive it did, though it did not end in quite the way the magnificently horrifying fiend had intended. With a deep rumbling that shook the mountain and sent gold shimmering down in droves, the beast shot a plume of flame at her, causing her to shift in fright and loose her precarious footing on the mound of coin. She rolled to a stop right beside one of Smaug’s large, taloned paws. “What are you?” his voice rumbled curiously, scaled head tilting, as he made to pick up the tiny creature. Unfortunately for him the spindles were so tiny they sank right through his armored scales and into soft flesh. With a yelp worthy of such a magnificent specimen of death and horror (read a roar that near deafened the curled hedgepig) he dropped the ball and with a battle cry tried to squish it, but by then Bilbo was on the move. She raced to and fro through his legs, squealing when his tail came down in her path, jumping through openings sliding under gaps. She bit and clawed into the tiny crevices of the largest creature she’d ever had the misfortune to acquaint, who’d ever had the unbelievably painful misfortune of discovering her. Any piece of him she touched jerked away in pain, his continued roars were only silenced when he thought to flambé her but the sprays of fire would only hit floor and wall. The spry little hedgepig was a tiny target that excelled in dodging, ducking, and rolling away from higher predators. She’d run into chalices, burrow under treasure, tumble below flame, at one point she lay curled under his belly as he twisted this way and that, screaming, “WHAT ARE YOU!? WHERE DID YOU GO!? GET IT AWAY!!!” With one last blast of furnace like heat he was up and gone, running for the gates in fright, flying off to escape tiny spindled creatures of dizzying rhymes and sharp pains.
It wasn’t till much, much later, after a number of near death experiences that Bilbo could have happily lived without, that she finally got a chance to ask Gandalf about Smaug. The gamy old coot merely chuckled as he told her, “My dear Bilbo, of course I knew he’d have trouble with your shift. Why do you think it had to be you?”
“How could you have possibly known that giant lizard would run away from something so small?!” she asked, thoroughly scandalized. The batty bastard could have had the decency to tell her this. What if she hadn’t shifted at all, or in time? She could have been nothing more than toasted hobbit remains before thinking to attack a fire-breathing drake as a six-inch rodent!
At this his eyes twinkled in that wizened way of his, “In life there are a number of horrors and curiosities both. But of all the wonders of the world at your feet, it is the small comforts of home that a person will yearn for the most at the end of it all. Similarly, extraordinary pain can be dealt with, loss is something one eventually gets used to until it is but a dull ache, but more often than not, it is the little things that make life truly unbearable.”
And before she could process that he’d just called her so insufferably annoying she could try a dragon’s fortitude, he was gone.