Homeward Bound Part One: An Unexpected Journey

Chapter Forty

The tunnel was narrow and, as neither Bilba nor Kili was much inclined to go first with the other following behind, they ended up walking nearly shoulder to shoulder.

They got all of fifty or so feet in before the second guessing and self-doubt set in.

What had she been thinking after all, Bilba thought? She wasn't a warrior or a strategist. She was a hobbit for Valar's sake. She'd only been gone from the Shire once before and look how THAT had gone.

She felt cold, much colder than the air in the tunnel would warrant, and she was aware her eyes were wide open as if she was going to miss something important. She had one hand clasped around Thorin's ring at her throat, twisting and turning it anxiously.

Kili walked next to her in silence and guilt burned through her again. Fili and Thorin were going to kill her for dragging him into this. The youngest member of the Company, aside from her, though she was older than him maturity wise.

Was he even considered mature by dwarven standards? He had to be, right? Thorin wouldn't have taken a child on the quest.

He took you, her mind mutinously supplied, but she brushed it off. She was mature by the standards of any culture and, in her own, was close enough it was little more than a formality. Why, just a few months before she left she'd attended the wedding of Primula and Drogo and they were both younger than she was. Then of course there was Lily Bracegirdle. She was happily married and had two children already and was also a few years younger than Bilba. Hobbits her age, though technically still in their Tweens, were so close to the end of them that they were considered, and treated, as adults in most things. Which, now that she thought about it, meant her grandfather should have turned over her money to her years ago. Before she'd left she had simply accepted him holding onto it as a sign of him being overprotective. Now, however, looking at the few times he'd ever visited, and judging the harshness of the note he'd sent her in Rivendell, she was beginning to wonder if controlling her money hadn't been his way of controlling her, something he'd never been able to do with her mother. Quite, honestly, she was beginning to wonder about a lot of things, not the least of which was why she'd never wondered, or questioned, anything before.

Bilba frowned, she'd gone off on a tangent, why was she thinking about such things again? Oh, right, age. Kili was an adult by the standards of any other culture too, she conceded, and capable of making his own choices. Right?

"I broke one of your dishes and buried it in your yard when you were asleep," Kili said suddenly, breaking the silence.

Bilba twitched in surprise. After the total silence the sudden noise sounded unnaturally loud. She frowned, turning the words around in her mind and trying, unsuccessfully, to fit them into some sort of context. Finally, failing that, she simply asked, "What?"

Kili shrugged awkwardly, a rueful grin on his lips. "I was just thinking...if this all goes wrong and we...you know--"

"Die horribly?" Bilba said dryly.

He gave her a tight smile. "Yeah. Anyway, I just thought, might as well get it off my chest."

As he spoke, Bilba looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since they'd entered the tunnel. He had an almost white knuckle grip on his bow and his shoulders were rigid.

She'd put a lot of pressure on him. If he missed his shot they would all die and he'd probably watch, at least in her case.

"I think of you and Fili as the Pretty Twins."

He blinked, his turn to be confused. "What?"

Bilba nodded sagely. "When I saw you two, and then Thorin, it made me think you must have an unnaturally pretty bloodline. I tried to imagine what a family reunion would be like. Girls would probably plan holidays around when you were all expected to come to town."