Hummingbird Heartbeat

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Maranda refused to leave his side. All the way down Raven Hill, to Dain and Bard on the battlefield, to the medic tent, to Thranduil's tent, into Erebor itself to inspect the amount of gold Dale and Esgaroth would need. She never left him. She always had one arm on his elbow, refusing to leave him, a single pearl around her neck. And he didn't ask her to leave. She screamed her fury at Dain once, abusing him for not supporting his cousin from the start and almost ripped Alfred limb from limb when Bain told her he had almost forced his little sister into an Orc's way. Thorin didn't let her leave. If you asked for one you go the other, for almost a month. Everyone injured was moved into Erebor to be held and cared far. It took Maranda several days and lots of wine but she managed to heal most near fatal wounds.

The dead were honored and buried in a mighty stone tomb that the Dwarves of the Iron Hills had erected for just that purpose. Soon the Orc carcasses were burned, Thranduil had his stupid sparkling necklace and bracelets and the Dwarves started helping rebuild Dale. Bilbo helped where he could, gathering food and watching children. Fili and Kili were always found in the same task, with Tauriel not far off. Legolas stayed for a while, not very long at all really, but long enough before he left for the North, revolted by his fathers self centered nature (the king had wanted to leave the moment he had his jewels, and forget any bonds he made with Bard).

The Dragon Sickness did not come again for Thorin. He still valued precious things, as all Dwarves will, and he still found he loathed Thranduil, but he always had done. He worked hard, keeping one eye on Maranda who could lift twice as much as a team of Dwarves and worked twice as hard as any of them, building by day, healing by night. He never spoke of his dream in the month it took to begin the rebuilding of Dale. How he had dreamed Mahal and Yavana had greeted him on a white beach with a boat and a golden rope attached.

Mahal had told him he was a good king and had given him a strange pendant carved with glowing blue runes. Yavana had warned him about losing what you love most and told him someone was waiting for him. Someone who loved him more than life itself. He could only hope...only hope. He never told anyone how he had sat in the white boat and been pulled from the white shores into a golden mist and had opened his eyes to find his One sobbing into his chest. No, he would never ever tell anyone that. But he kept the pendant around his neck always, and he felt that that, maybe, was what staved off the Dragon Sickness.

Maranda had been through a lot in the past eight months. Fire and water and ice and earth. She had battled Trolls that plucked her, Orcs that amputated her, twice, Wargs that had bitten her, Eagles that her saved her. She had battled Elves and Dwarves and Men and Goblins and had fallen out of love, suffered from a relapse of her depression, a crippling bout of PTSD and emotional suffering the likes of which is hard to find in the real world. She had been in love and not even known it and had love forced on her and had died and come back with powerful magic. She had brought the dead back to life and she had killed hundreds, maybe thousands of Orcs.

And Maranda was still only eighteen. Her birthday wasn't until April, three months from where she was. She had had a tough life even before she had mistake Bilbo Baggins for her younger brother, and for her, the only way to deal with it all was to do what she had always done. Keep busy. So she built homes and healed people and sat up late nights with Thorin going over papers and bills and letters and treatises. And beyond even that. She had buried most of her feelings. Her fear was easy to banish. As was her angry and sorrow and trauma.

No, actually that came at night, on her little cot in the chamber where she and Fili and Kili and Thorin slept, it came. Visions of the three princes around her dying too far away for her to help, blood spilling across ice and snow and stone. The sight of the whole of the Company dead around her. Memories of Azog ripping her wings from her twice and twice again. Bolg almost tearing off Dwalin's arm. It came at night and woke her with screaming and she woke the Durin Sons and one or another would hug her close as she sobbed and the other two pretended to be asleep, fighting down their sorrow and empathy. They didn't talk about it when the sun was up.

Now perhaps it was by accident, or maybe she did it quiet on purpose, but Maranda had forgotten, or began to ignore again, what she had admitted to herself when Thorin was dead on the ice. She forgot she was in love with him. I know, I know, shut up. Her heart still fluttered and her heart sang with his voice. She still blushed when he smiled at her and bit her lip when he said something in his dry humorous way. She fought for self control when he was close by, but she just pretended that it was all just relief. Sweet, kind relief that he was alive and not among the dead in the stone hut.

Time passed in a crawl, and slowly the Men filtered out of Erebor and into Dale, the Elves sent regular shipments of food and seeds but returned to Mirkwood for the most park. Tauriel insisted on staying with Kili who eventually got a room together which drove Fili mad because, "I'm eldest, why does he have the interspecies relationship?" Thorin only rolled his eyes and glanced at Maranda who pointedly started talking to Bilbo about crops, which he was spearheading for the moment.

By the time April arrived Erebor was slowly becoming amazing, the gold once more tucked into chests and sorted neatly, locked away in the treasury deep beneath the city, now with mighty iron doors barring them from sight. It was one day when a flurry of storms and everyone was inside one building or another that Bilbo mentioned a book he had wished he brought about the growing of crops in different soil, and Maranda cursed so loudly several guards looked into the room in worry.

The majority of the Company, who still ate every meal together, were with her and Bilbo in the room and she looked like she had seen a ghost.

"What, another prophecy?" Bofur asked in worry and Maranda shook her head in a panic.

"Um, no not quite, but oh, fuckin' hell. Bilbo, Bag End!" she said and Bilbo sighed,

"I do miss it, but I'm sure it can wait another month or two, just until the wheat comes i-"

"No, no, no. You don't get it!" Maranda moaned, flopping onto the rugs that she had been occupying a moment before. "Lobelia! Sackville-Baggins! She's-all of the Shire really! Think Bilbo! What happens on Adventures?" Bilbo stared. He slowly shook his head. "PEOPLE DIE, BAGGINS!" she roared and everyone jumped. "Especially goody-good hobbits who don't know how to fend for themselves."

"I think I have proven that I can take care of myself," Bilbo said huffily and Maranda massaged her temples.

"Bilbo Baggins, I am going to smack you back to Rivendell. They. Are. Hobbits. They don't know how fantastic you are! They all think you're dead! They are auctioning off your house!" she roared and Bilbo turned pale. He started spluttering about how awful and imbecilic this all was and Maranda flopped back on the carpet.

"I need to go back to the Shire!" yelped Bilbo and jumped to his feet. A crack of lightning filled the sky and they all jumped in shock.

"Not today, and maybe not tomorrow but before the week is out we are going back to the Shire," Maranda said pointing at Bilbo. There was sudden silence and everyone realized what this meant. Honestly Bilbo was Iclose to leaving the Shire behind completely and staying in Erebor, but that feeling quickly left him. It did not however ease the Company.

"So...you'll...both... be leavin'," Bofur said in an unsteady voice. Maranda hugged herself.

"Not forever. The summer maybe, but I'll be back before next Durin's day, at the longest," she vowed. Thorin felt a gnawing feeling in the pit of his gut. "Being cooped up here is setting my teeth on edge. Besides, I'm not letting Bilbo cross the Misty Mountains without someone." Silence.

"And I-" Bilbo cut himself off by clearing his throat. "Well. I'm not leaving forever. I'll come visiting again. And you lot...well..." He chuckled. "Don't bother knocking." A general chuckle went around the room and Maranda beamed at him.

"I told you," she teased. "I told you you wouldn't go back the same." Bilbo smiled at her.

"That you did."