Bilbo didn't ask why they placed the bodies in caskets and hollows in the stone. He didn't ask why their hair was braided differently, what the significance of the beads was, whether it mattered which weapon they were buried with. He didn't try to read the carved lettering over each body, though he knew it must say more than just their names.

He couldn't ask, could barely force words past his lips, despite his usual habit of babbling to cover his emotions. He felt too drained to even try.

He remained quiet, as the songs and drums echoed in the empty caves, which felt more and more like a tomb with every moment they spent inside the walls. He could almost feel the walls closing in, the air becoming stale as the outer world was closed off. Even the largest rooms, the throne and the entrance halls, felt like he could suffocate at any moment.

His Dwarrows had described this place with such wonder, even those that had never set foot in its' walls. Something almost beyond description. A place worth risking everything, absolutely everything, to recover for their people.

All Bilbo could see were dragon fires and the unnatural shine of gold beyond measure.

One of the Dwarrow had asked what he would do with his share. He had almost been sick at the idea of taking any of it with him, and had been unable to answer. He doubted he would be able to take anything with him but his pack. He would swear, sometimes, he could see something strange glimmering in the depths of gems and precious metals. It was likely his imagination.

Perhaps one day he could look back and be in awe at the city under the Mountain, the depths it reached and the heights to which it soared. One day he might look back on his adventure with something other than sorrow. Fondness, perhaps, or even nostalgic joy, when he was old and tired.

But it would not be this day, and it likely would not be the next.

"I suppose this is rather different than what you're used to," Balin offered quietly, settling next to him on the cold stone seat. Bilbo glanced at him, tried to smile. He didn't think it was successful, and it pulled at a scar along the side of his face, so he stopped.

"Dwarrows are from the stone, after all, and it is to stone that we eventually return. It is a great honor to be laid to rest in the Halls Under the Mountain," Balin said gently, at odds with the still-healing scars across his face and dark rings under his eyes. "Many of our kin had to be put to rest elsewhere, and not all of them will be able to be brought home." Bilbo shuddered at the thought.

"My parents were put to the earth, in the gardens," Bilbo managed to say, to distract himself from the idea, and his voice croaked, rough from disuse. "There were flowers laid with them. Dozens, from everyone that could come, and some that could not make it in time. Messages for when they awake in the next world, reminding them they would be missed, that- that they were loved."

He could picture the scene; the flowers, the clean white shrouds. The Took clan had all been in attendance, the solemness of the affair taming even their boisterous energy.

Bilbo remembered people watching him then, too, not approaching. Just letting him sit alone in his grief. The Old Took had sat with him for a time, no words spoken, and that had apparently been all his family thought he needed.

"Ah. Flowers again, instead of metal and gems," Balin remarked quietly, bringing Bilbo back to present. "In that, we are similar. The beads and gems they wear symbolize who they were, so that in Mahal's Halls they will be recognized by their kin. The braids show the deeds the accomplished, so that all who they meet will know what they fell for." Balin said all of this like it was so easy-

Bilbo knew he was being uncharitable, that no doubt Balin was mourning in his own way. Perhaps it was the nature to Dwarrows to accept death easier, when it so frequently came for them.

Or, perhaps, it was simply Bilbo's nature to dwell on things that he could not change.

A soft whisper in the back of his mind said he should have been able to help, to stop what had happened. He shoved it aside; he was a simple Hobbit, in the end, and he had little power amongst kings and wizards.

All he had was a magic ring and a quiet step. Even that had woken the dragon, and hadn't the entire point in bringing him been to avoid that?

"Are there such flowers nearby? Growing on the mountainside, perhaps?" Balin asked, and Bilbo turned towards him this time, trying to stay in the moment.

"Ah… perhaps?" Bilbo stuttered out, completely bewildered. Balin smiled at him, and Bilbo could now see the aching emptiness he felt in his wise old eyes. He let himself be pulled up and outside, away from the tomb. Outside, a breeze ruffled his hair, and he breathed.

Bilbo slipped back inside, later, feeling out of place and so, so tired. Few Dwarrows were left, and they all seemed content to let him approach the three bodies laid out.

He didn't really let himself think about what flowers were passing from his hands onto crossed hands and still bodies. It was fall, he had been lucky, truly, to have found what he could.

Chrysanthemums would have to do, though he would have happily drowned the Durins in blossoms if only he could find the right flowers, the right words to explain how he would miss them. What they had meant to an old Hobbit that had travelled across the world for a song and the promise of adventure.

Well, he'd gotten his adventure. He'd just forgotten that they often ended in death and glory instead of a safe return home.

It was ridiculous, Bilbo thought, as he carefully wove the flowers into collars and lapels (not their hair, it would be too presumptuous even for him). Ridiculous that of all the survivors, he was amongst them. Him, the untrained soft Hobbit, when there were three trained warriors laid out before him.

One of the new Dwarrow were watching him. Dain, he remembered, it was Dain. He would be crowned in the morning, Bilbo had been told, until Dis could be reached. She had an equal claim, after all, but the Mountain needed a King. Someone to rule and protect the vast treasures inside.

Not that anyone truly believed she would be willing to rule, when the throne and the Mountain had taken so much from her. She had disagreed vehemently with the quest to start, everyone said, and had never shown any interest in Erebor or the Throne Under the Mountain.

The whisperers amongst the Dwarrow wondered if she would even come home, or stay in the Blue Mountains with her grief.

"Master baggins," Dain said quietly, when Bilbo stepped back, stared dully at the small spots of color against the cold of the tomb. Bilbo glanced at him. He could see something of a resemblance, looking at the faces before him. It made this that much harder.

"Kind of ye," Dain rumbled, nodding carefully at the blossoms. He had some bandages around his head, ruining the elaborate hair style he sported. "Leaving em a reminder it wasn't just Dwarrow that witnessed the quest. Hobbit thing, I suppose?"

"They deserve better," Bilbo replied, ignoring the question, and he knew he wasn't just talking about the faded blooms that he had managed to find in the craigs of the mountainside. He didn't think it was a kindness, at any rate, to leave reminders of himself with them. They weren't hobbits, after all, and it might have seemed frivolous, these small blossoms laid to rest amongst such finery.

But the thought of sending them to the Halls without a message from Bilbo, thinking he might not have cared at all?

He couldn't stand it.

"Aye, but we don't always get what we deserve," Dain told him, with a stiff gesture that encompassed most of the room. Bilbo nodded, then bowed belatedly, as close to what he had seen the others do. He'd forgotten, for a moment, he was amongst Kings and Lords, battle-weary and exhausted as they all were.

Had Bilbo been less distracted, he might have remembered how nervous he had been meeting the Dwarrow the first time, speaking to Elven Lords in their golden halls. It would only be far later, out of the shadow of the Mountain, that he would realize how much he had truly changed. It would one day amuse him, how easy it had become.

Dain pulled him straight again, a soft smile on his face as he patted his shoulder. There was something dark and sad in his eyes when he spoke.

"None of that! You're good as kin, far as I'm concerned."

And Bilbo had nothing to say to that.

Dain had tried to talk him into walking to the feast together, but bilbo claimed he had something to finish first. Dain patted his shoulder again, gave him a too-knowing look, and walked away.

Bilbo wasted no time, gathering his already packed belongings and moving towards the gates. Gandalf refused to sleep in the Halls, or perhaps did not feel welcome, and stayed in the ruins of Dale with the men. He had told Bilbo to meet him whenever he wanted to begin the journey home.

Balin was waiting at the gates, gazing out towards Mirkwood. He didn't look up when Bilbo paused, rocking from one foot to the other.

"They'll sing tales of glory throughout the night," Balin told him. "If you stay, you might hear your own name a time or two." Bilbo shrugged, ignoring his own discomfort at the idea. He wasn't a hero, his name didn't belong in songs and tales.

He thought again of Hobbit funerals, where afterwards they gathered, friends and family alike, and remembered the good times, and the bad. Reminding each other why they would miss the dearly departed, what little jokes and habits would never again be completed.

He thought about it, and the pain he could still see lingering in the eyes of Balin, of Dain, of every Dwarrow he had known on their journey. For all the pain he felt, he had only barely known them. He felt like an intruder into others' sorrow and mourning, and at the thought of going to celebrate their life, he shuddered.

He thought, in the end, that the others understood, when they wished him well. So Bilbo put the Lonely Mountain behind him.

Many years later, Bilbo looked up at the Mountain, pack heavy on his shoulders and walking stick in his hand. The Mountainside was dotted with tiny spots of color and awash in shades of green.

He smiled.

Author Note: I'm going to be marking this story as complete. It may still get periodic updates, but for the moment, I don't know how much more I can add to this. I hope you all enjoyed the story