Ch. 20: Last of His Name

Bilbo winced to himself at the intrusive feeling of knobby stone pushing into his tender belly. He lay on his stomach, pressed flat against the boulder to conceal himself. Had he not been so concentrated on remaining unseen he would have whined loudly with exasperation at the sight before him: the orcs and their wargs had already closed the gap that Gandalf's eagles had made between them, and while the orcs were currently heading off in the wrong direction it would not be long until they realized their mistake and circled back. Internally Bilbo was grousing, how could they have evaded those monsters so thoroughly and still been found again? Wargs must have had keener noses than their blunted muzzles and ignorant snarling alluded to. Bilbo slid back down from atop the stone and adjusted his jacket; Thorin would not be pleased to hear this news.

It had been long days since their first run in with Azog and his thugs. Their escape had been hard won, nearly costing the great king his life in the process, a life he still held thanks to Bilbo. Since that night when the hobbit drew his sword and came rushing to the king's side like some kind of furry-footed knight errant the dwarf had warmed to Bilbo considerably, as Bilbo had in return. In the days following Eily's death it had become clear to Bilbo that Thorin's mission was the same as hers had been (at least in principal), and it seemed only right that Bilbo carry it out. If it became clear that Eily was right, that the Arkenstone would indeed have a detrimental effect on the soon to be King Under the Mountain then Bilbo (like Eily) would deal with it dutifully. He would conceal the Arkenstone and allow Gandalf to concoct an alternate plan accordingly, for while Bilbo knew it to be Gandalf's intention to reclaim the stone for Thorin he knew the wizard did not count it as the chiefest of the party's goals. Of course Bilbo could not have imagined why that single piece of rock was of such immense importance, at least not at that time.

Bilbo thought back for a moment on the eagles and their eerie, how Gandalf had called them in to aid in the party's escape just in the nick of time, and how he had saved Thorin from his wounds simply by touching him. Bilbo had always known Gandalf as a wizard, and while his magic had always seemed trifling, Bilbo was coming to realize that it was actually just subtle, not inconsequential. It seemed strange to Bilbo that a being such as Gandalf, who Bilbo now knew to have powers of vast variation and perhaps influence, would have such a dear interest in assisting Durin's folk in reclaiming their homeland. While it was a characteristically altruistic effort, it was beginning to dawn on Bilbo that perhaps it was more than that. But he pushed the thought away roughly, bristling at it. For if indeed Gandalf did have motivations behind his philanthropy down to the most seemingly casual act, then such acts no doubt included Bilbo himself; perhaps Bilbo had been chosen for this for more than just his casual acquaintance with the kindly old man, and perhaps by something much, much larger. Maybe he was meant to be here?

And that was a startling thought, much bigger than the usual musings that a quaint hobbit such as him would entertain. It was frightening for him to look inwards and find that already he was changed; he was not the Shire hobbit he had once been…

As he came again upon his party hiding amidst some thick brush and low hanging pine branches he noted to himself how the many cuts across Thorin's face had already healed completely. Bilbo could see the dwarf thinking carefully behind those gray eyes. Then Bilbo's gaze accidentally brushed across Fili whose gaze was blank and unwavering, staring straight and emotionless as though the blonde dwarf was asleep on his feet. Bilbo knew that Fili blamed him, and immediately brought his gaze back to Thorin, trying to push down the odd tumult of feelings (shame being chief among them) he had whenever he looked at Fili now that Eily was gone. He was not sure what it was about the two dwarves supposed relationship that made him pause, only that he could not help but believe Fili when he said that Eily had betrayed him, and that he would not hesitate to kill Bilbo now if given the reason.

"They're still out there, not two leagues away," Bilbo delivered calmly and clearly, and the dwarves shifted noisily and turned to Thorin.

"We can't break for the clearing, they'd run us down," Balin noted gravely, shaking his head.

"Nor can we sit here and wait for them ta' find us," Dwalin snapped, obviously saying so only to shut the idea down before anyone tried to suggest it.

Thorin's eyes were steely, and he considered the faces of his party before turning to Gandalf.

"Where can we go?" he asked solemnly, his deep voice a slow reverberation in Bilbo's head.

"There is a house," Gandalf began, just slow enough that Bilbo knew it was a suggestion he wouldn't like, "we would be safe there. But the owner…"

The wizard drifted off a bit at that.

"The owner what?" Bofur chirped.

"He'll either help us… or kill us."

The party seemed slightly disbelieving, how could one man overpower thirteen dwarves and a wizard? But when Gandalf's face remained stony and pale, they began to believe, and get nervous. It didn't seem they liked this idea any more than Bilbo. Eyes shifted from face to face, none wanting to be the first to admit to cowardice.

"What choice do we have?" Thorin asked.

Thorin had a strange way about him sometimes (not always, but sometimes), a way of making his commands seem more like instructions, which were married to the promise that if you followed them, you would be the closest thing to safe.

And for some reason when he spoke like that, even Bilbo wasn't afraid anymore.

Eily began to regain consciousness in foggy stages, but the first thing she regained was the sensation of pain. Her leg ached, not a dull ache but a long slow undulation of pain radiating up and over her and occasionally punctuated with sharp jolts of agony. The rest of her throbbed dully, bruises and cuts and bumps which felt like nothing compared to her leg. She could feel the dried blood from various wounds both minor and notable making her skirts stick to her, and she could taste dirt and blood and sweat on her lips as she licked them. She was parched, and must have been hungry though the pain made eating sound repulsive. She became aware that she was cold, yet she was pressed up against something warm. She was aware of the sensation of being carried in another's arms.

Fili?

She tried to focus her sleepy eyes upwards into their face. They were large and black-bearded. A man? A great giant man? Who? Where was she? She began to squirm, trying to pull herself out of his grasp, but he held tighter, making the aches in her body scream with new pain. His hands seemed huge, and his chest was so impossibly broad. As she squirmed pathetically (realizing then the magnitude of his strength) he spoke softly, even soothingly with a deep rumble which resembled something.

"Please be still little thing, I bound your leg, but you could still hurt it with your struggle."

His voice sounded like he hadn't spoken words in a long time.

She looked up again, and she had to crane her neck to see into his eyes; they were calm and said nothing of ill intent of any kind. Had he rescued her from that bear?

"My name is Eily," she said, not wanting to be referred to as a 'little thing,' "I was traveling East across the Misty Mountains, I had lost my mount when a bear began to stalk me, and I think… I think I fell?"

"Not a bear," he said, and in his chest there was a deep rumble, "Orcs. And yes, I saw you fall. Your leg is fractured, but you were lucky. I thought that blow to your head would have killed you."

"Orcs? No, there was a bear I am sure of it. If there were orcs we would not still be alive."

"Orcs do not trouble me," he said simply, though there was a hateful sliver in his voice.

This sudden angry shift in tone kept her quiet for a moment, until she could no longer bear not asking: "Who are you? Where are you taking me?"

"I am called Beorn. We travel now to my house. We are nearly there."

Eily crinkled her nose, that didn't seem right: "When I was descending the high pass I didn't see any homesteads for several hundred leagues of rough terrain."

"I have been carrying you for four days. And I am… faster than others you may know."

Eily couldn't help but be on edge. This man had something of the wild about him, and he spoke very cryptically of himself. She spent several long moments just taking stock of him and as she did his manor seemed no fowler, but neither did it grow any fairer.

"You're going to kill me aren't you?"

The man snorted, "If I had wanted you dead I could have let the orcs take you, or left you lying there in your own blood. I considered it as I am no friend to dwarves. But you are not a dwarf, and I hate orcs."

She noticed as he spoke that his canines were very pronounced for a man, "I am a dwarf. What else would I be?"

"So you don't know either?" he grunted, "I know only that you don't smell of dwarf, at least not very much."

Eily was getting angry with people thinking she wasn't a dwarf, "And just what is it that I do smell like?"

Beorn seemed to consider this for a moment, "You smell like stone and water, like the high pines, like winter and strong winds. You smell like the earth and the mountains."

Eily's stomach sank, and her heart felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed it with all their might. That couldn't be true, she was a dwarf. A dwarf!

"You don't know what you're talking about."

He looked down into her face for the first time with his large, astute brown eyes, "This I know about."

When she looked into those eyes she knew it. There was no sense in her wondering how exactly, she simply did.

"You're that bear."

There was nothing of lies about him: "Yes."

"Why were you chasing me?"

"I said before I wasn't chasing you. I was hunting down the orcs who were stalking you. Orcs don't travel in my part of the mountains. Not if they want to live. But since you arrived, my hills are crawling with them."

Eily frowned deeply at that. If orcs were patrolling the hills, then that meant that Fili and the others were in danger, and her journey would be that much more difficult.

Then again, what was she thinking? She looked down at her blood stained skirts, and examined her tightly bound leg. How could she possibly join up with Bilbo to steal the Arkenstone now?

She had spoiled everything.

Beorn carried her through the forest for long hours, through the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon. Eily's mood was understandably dark. But occasionally through the overhanging branches she caught glimpses of the smiling stars, beaming down at her from the heavens, and her attention wandered.

"Have you ever heard the story of Durin's crown?" Eily asked absentmindedly.

Beorn growled scathingly, "Whatever it is you are little thing, it must be akin to dwarves, since you want to speak of crowns even when your belly is empty and your body is broken and shivering."

Eily ignored his tone, "Durin's crown, his first crown, was of menel's making. After awakening on Mount Gundabad he traveled south until he came upon Kheled-zâram, the glass lake which feeds the Kibil-nâla. When he looked into those waters he saw his head wreathed in a crown of starlight, seven stars, an omen of his nobility and a signal that he had found his home, his mother mountain. Though our people love most the earth, we are in a way indebted to those stars."

Though he did not recognize the names of the places she spoke of the story seemed familiar, and a unique sort of pacification was put over him, the sort resulting from a commonality found in an uncommon thing between strangers.

"…I did not think dwarves had much use for anything other than gems and metals," Beorn snorted, though more gently this time.

"Oh certainly those are best loved, as all of them cast a warm light into the eye," Eily said fondly, "But we also hold dear the silver beams of the moon, and can give due diligence to the light of the stars, when appropriate. For you see we work the earth with our hammers and anvils, and we are crowned in glory and wealth of our own making, and these things we make we value highest, as our Father Mahal taught us by his example. But always above the corporeal crown is the crown of stars. Why else would my people, Durin's people, take them as the highest measure of our sigil?"

Beorn chuckled, "So that your kings may always be crowned?"

Eily grinned a little, leaning comfortably into the large man's arms, "Yes. Yes I believe so."

The company had darted from cover to cover for long hours into the night, working their way down the slope of the mountains and nearing the homestead Gandalf had spoken of. Thorin had decided to allow them to camp one last night before making the final push across the plain and Fili shrugged his pack off his shoulder, kicking a few fallen pine needles out of the way as he fell to his knees to unfasten his bedroll. His motions were listless and mechanical, but they did not stand out amongst the others, who were all sluggish from fatigue. Fili's body on the other hand was weighted in such a way that he did not feel his muscle's complaints.

It would be impossible to describe how it felt to him, to have lost someone who had so abruptly and devastatingly changed him, for them to be gone and for him to have never said goodbye, and for him to be unable to mourn in any proper way; he could not publically grieve, he could not speak his pain.

It was the worst loneliness, greater than any he had ever felt. Not because he was unfamiliar with loss or with grief; he was an heir to Durin, a noble dwarf of a lost kingdom and had been a fatherless dwarrowling… Of grief he knew, grief he had mastered. But the isolation...

He longed to cut his braids to show his bereavement, he ached to shave his face to punish himself and bear his shame outright. His One was dead, and he had not defended her nor even held her hand as she passed. Worse; he been accomplice to her traitorous denial of his king's authority (willingly or no), and stolen her out from under his uncle's courtship and his brother's loving affections. Even now he resented his relatives for their desire of her, which had in life made him keep secrets which he must now carry on in her death. He felt a profound wound break open whenever he looked at Bilbo, who represented so much of the constancy and devotion he had loved about her, and now so deeply hated, as it had been the deception which preordained her end. He felt it fester, this rage deep inside him for everyone who went on with their lives while he writhed under his own skin.

He even felt it for her; this resentment, this abhorrence of being yoked with lies that were not his own. He did not even understand their existence. Why did she conceal so much from him, and what was it? Did she not love him? Were they not One?

He seethed, and made an enemy out of her in his thoughts even as he grieved because it dulled his remorse.

But despite all that he crouched low in his bedroll, eyeing his ornamental blade, the one his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him had all used to groom their beards. He considered simply shearing his face clean and hacking off his braids. But to do so would reveal not only his own lies, but hers, and he could not shame her in death no matter the pain. So he laid down on the hard soil, and did not cringe when he looked on the halfling, did not turn away when he looked into his uncle's eyes, did not weep.

Every night he looked at his blade, and every night he sheathed it.

The next morning they rose early, while the light was still gray and the ground wet with dew. As they traveled the sun came up over the eastern horizon, hitting the tiny droplets and making the meadow look as though it had been showered in diamonds. But the dwarves took no heed of natural beauty this day; their eyes were affixed to the East, towards the unnaturally large homestead that lay before them.

Crossing the precipice of the earthen fence was like entering a bizarre dreamscape; populated by large, over-friendly bees and livestock who meandered at will in and out of a large wooden hall, the whole place stinking of honeysuckle and pollen. The furniture was enormous and strange, prettified with crudely rendered bears at just about every turn of the head: the whole endeavor would make any dwarf's beard bristle. What manor of strange man occupied such a dwelling?

But Gandalf seemed unbothered, placing his hat and staff gingerly onto the great table and helping himself to what smelled like milk with honey, and gestured to the array of cheeses sitting on the high shelves. The dwarves fanned out slowly, none were eager to make this place home, even for a night or so, even if it meant being free of those orcs and their wargs, who at every turn harassed and herded them. Finally Thorin sat beside Gandalf, pulling a tankard in front of him. Bilbo sighed, it was settled then, they would stay.

Over the past day or so of consciousness Eily had found herself growing rather attached to Beorn (despite his odd proclivity for turning himself into a bear); he had a full dwarflike beard, and seemed very patient of her chatter. After weeks alone in the mountains with naught but a pony for company she was glad of the conversation, however little he offered. He did not volunteer information about himself, and like a good dwarf she did not think to ask: if he wanted to go about turning himself into a bear it was certainly no business of hers. Overall he seemed a very palatable creature if given his space and privacy; something a dwarf finds easy to understand.

There was of course one small peccadillo; he deeply disliked her people and did not consider her among them, in fact he thought her a shape changer like himself though she insisted they shared nothing in common. In fact that whole recent conversation had put her out, which was why when he suddenly stopped walking and stooped low (difficult for him: he was freakishly tall), concealing them both in the thick grasses at the edge of the wood she immediately expected the worst.

"Orcs?" she whispered, thinking their enemy close by.

"No… I smell dwarves… coming from my home."

Eily's body tensed ever so slightly, and Beorn felt it.

"You are not surprised?"

Eily was not sure what exactly to say. She did not want the party to discover she had followed them, but could not exactly avoid it with Beorn carrying her in her injured state. She wanted to tell herself that her presence would cause the same amorous distractions as before, but in reality she did not want to reveal that she had disobeyed Thorin; lied to Gandalf, and Fili…

She had so betrayed him with her love and her lies, and she feared the look on his face, the devastation of it.

But what could she do?

"They are my… companions," she muttered, near unintelligible.

But Beorn's ears heard it like the clear ring of a bell, and equally he heard the hesitation, and the lie.

"You do not travel with them… yet you wish to protect them from my wrath," he seemed slightly confused, "Do you protect them because they are dwarves?"

"No, no. It's…complicated," she breathed, fingering the comforting sheath of her axe, "They do not know I followed them, but I swear I did it to help them! It was all for a good reason I swear it! I can't really explain but one among them, he knows, and he was helping me but we got separated and—"

Beorn began to arrange her into the high grass at the base of a pine, its branches hung low and intermingled, making a canopy of needles that nearly blocked out the sunlight and concealed her from view. She stared up into his earthy eyes with confusion.

"I will go and see to them," he grumbled, sounding none too happy about the prospect of playing host as he continued forward alone, "and return to guard you."

"But, you hate dwarves?" Eily asked after him, his great strides making a wide gap between them already.

"But you are no dwarf," he called back over his shoulder.

Something about the way he said it made it sound almost like a joke, so she smiled a little in gratitude and amusement.

But they both knew it wasn't a joke.

Kili jolted up off the mound of hay he had been reclining in with a start, his brown eyes wide and darting about him. His calloused fingers curled about his bow string instinctively as he approached the door to the hall, which he and his fellows had bolted shut. The strangeness of this place had not sat well with him and now it seemed the chickens (or rather one very large, potentially deadly chicken) had come home to roost as the knocking came again, heavy and resounding. His companions filed in around him, weapons not fully drawn, but hands steady and waiting and breath baited.

When the third knock reverberated through the hall Gandalf snorted and pushed his way through as though severely agitated, "Is this any way to greet your host?" he huffed as he attempted to push up the beam that served as the door bolt.

Of course the old man could not lift it alone, and the others had to swallow their suspicion to aide in the lifting.

As Nori and Gloin pulled apart the doors Kili was standing dead center of the hall, directly in front of the opening, and his eyes had to crane upwards to take it in.

A great, large, bear of a man stood in the doorway; with large keen brown eyes and swarthy skin (what skin wasn't peppered in thick dark hair anyway). He wore no boots, nor a cloak or tunic though the weather turned colder day by day. He wore only a pair of breeches, laced haphazardly as though the action was an inconvenience rather than out of practiced habit. His hands were enormous, feet wide and plainly filthy and thickly calloused. His hair was long and black, and his beard…

By Durin, his beard.

Long and dark and thick as to be the envy of any dwarf; and it made Kili swallow uncomfortably. He'd faced large creatures in battle and on the street, but a beard like that made him rather think twice about the large-folk for a moment.

The bear-man seemed put out by their presence in his hall, but he nodded to Gandalf and seemed to strain to be gracious, offering food and drink and fire for the night.

"I have ponies," he added sourly, "which you may take to the border of the forest, but no farther."

This seemed a very generous offer for one who was quick to outline his dislike for dwarves, and Kili thought it odd but knew better than to look gift horses in the mouth. He took this opportunity rather to prod at his brother, who drank slowly but deeply of the mead in his oversized wooden stein.

"How sit you with this bear-man Fili?" Kili asked, scrambling a bit to mount the oversized bench next to his brother.

Fili seemed uninterested, as though exhausted or in some other way diminished. Kili didn't blame him necessarily, but this was the first safe night they'd had in months, he wanted to shore up his own spirits by lightening his brother's.

He didn't notice Fili's gaze lock onto Bilbo for a moment, or how the hobbit's face drained of blood when the Bear-man uttered something to him, nor did he see the two wander outside together into the dark.

"Come on now," Kili prodded, elbowing at his brother and causing mead to run out of the overlarge tankard and into his blonde beard and pulling him back into the moment. Kili snickered a bit as Fili put down the tankard to dab at the mead on his face with the sleeve of his tunic (their armor had been discarded some time before near their respective "beds," which were just piles of hay).

Once Fili's face was dry Kili continued: "Don't be so glum Fili, play a game with me! Bear-man has a chess board; I'll even almost let you win... almost," and he grinned happily as his blonde brother sulked after him towards the enormous chess board.

It was an odd trick of life that Kili possessed a bizarre aptitude for games of all kinds, perhaps stemming from a sincere enjoyment of them. Bofur had often remarked that had Kili not been the second prince (and so destined for politics, and more likely and more prominently, battle), he would have made an excellent carpenter and toymaker were he patient enough to hone the aptitude. Of course such pursuits, (whether Kili wanted them or not) could only be dreamt of. Such things were unsuitable for princes of the blood, who must become expert in the working of metals and stones, but whose primary vocations were politicking and leading troops. Kili's life, he knew, would be defined by aiding his Uncle's, and later his brother's reign. Whether in court or on the battlefield he would serve diligently, he'd relinquished that much. Kili's life was really no different from his brother's in that way; both had a sense of duty (to their people and each other) that was more fundamental than their very bones.

It is impossible to say, (though Bilbo certainly would attempt it in later years) what exactly Kili's life would have been had he not been born the second prince of the blood…

But such musings always dead ended: quite simply he could and would never be anything else.

Nephew to Thorin Oakenshield: Uncrowned King under the Mountain

Son of Dis: Princess of the Blood: Mother to the First Heir: Sister to the Uncrowned King

Brother of Fili: First Prince of the Blood: First Heir to the Throne under the Mountain

Third Living Heir of Durin the Deathless

Second Prince of the Blood

First of His Name

Last of His Name

.:Author's Note: Okay then, SERIOUS READER BUSINESS this time:

Normally I hate this as much as any other reader, but I have no idea the age/maturity of my audience so I'm going to ask now: Does anyone object to having an M rated excerpt removed from the next chapter and made into its own separate posting/story? Because there's an M rated scene in the next chapter (which is necessary to the plot) but I don't want to force it on anyone.

Anyway as it stands I plan to do it that way so that the story keeps a T rating and I get to write what I want without smutting-up the place. Please state objections/suggestions politely (should they occur).

HUGE thanks to all my loyal readers! Nearly 100 followers! You're all so great!:.