Ultimate Bagginshield Collection

192: One-shot

Author: Yueve

Mellow Gold

There is not much natural light deep in the halls of Erebor. But in a hidden corner of a rectangular room — which seemed unused before, the sun from the east shines through a narrow window, hammered into the rock. Although the sunbeam is only about a foot wide and just barely grazes the smooth top of a cherrywood table and then falls on the stone floor, its light warms the room well enough to satisfy all Bilbo's requirements.

In any case, he is the only one who made an effort to give this chilly room something cosy. Months after the battle and the following reconstruction, he had sneaked through the twisted corridors on a bitterly cold morning in January and found this place while freezing. Since then, the stone room with its few pieces of cherry-wood colored furniture and a modest selection of china painted in the color of a bleeding sunset has been his own little domain in Thorin's kingdom.

And like no other, Thorin is eager to approve of Bilbo's little conquest and to leave him to the peace and privacy of his little room whenever he feels like it. Sometimes Bilbo even catches Thorin sneaking around in the long corridor leading to his room, although sneaking is not a quality the dwarves are especially good at. But Thorin is considerate, which sometimes leads Bilbo to disbelief, but much more often pleases him.

Yet there is rarely a morning early enough to call it as such. Mostly it is in the early hours of the morning that he spends here. They wake up together and it is still the first thing Bilbo does as soon as he has opened his eyes, to move closer to Thorin, to seek the nearness and warmth that is by now as familiar to him as his old home. He reaches out to him, still dazed from sleep and awakening, and his fingertips finds the spot on Thorin's neck on their own. The little hollow below his throat that Bilbo loves to touch and that only lies an inch away above a long thin scar that he also loves. Because any scar on warm skin still means survival.

Today it is a rich morning, with a sun as fat and yellow as egg yolk in an cerulean sky. Bilbo often has to fight for tea and usually only gets it from Dori via a dozen detours. For him, the mug of steaming tea, with dried fruit added to its loose leaves, is something far more precious than all the jewels this mountain has to offer.

Fine dust gently swirls through the air and the sun reveals it. He is so distracted by this moment, which is so unimportant and yet so in harmony, that he notices the heavy footsteps behind him much too late. In astonishment, he turns around and tilts his head questioningly when he spots a piece of dark fabric just barely disappearing.

"What are you doing? Why don't you come back, say something?"

He doesn't sound accusing, just puzzled, as if he's been promised something and then immediately had it taken away.

"I didn't mean to disturb you."

Thorin has turned back and is standing at the threshold of Bilbo's room, as if waiting for permission to pass through it. The strange thing is, that's probably exactly what is happening. He sighs and shakes his head in amusement and perhaps a little annoyance, but finally smiles kindly and waves him in.

"This is your kingdom, Thorin. You can enter every room and every nook and cranny of your castle, however hidden..."

Bilbo pauses and purses his mouth into the thoughtful and hesitant smirk that Thorin so enjoys and sometimes knows how to tease him with in some ways.

„ — I mean mountain. You are allowed to enter any room under your mountain."

He lifts an eyebrow and gives him a questioning and reproving look at the same time.

"Maybe I just like watching you," replies the king and rightful owner of that mountain.

Bilbo smiles and takes a sip, somehow flattered, somehow suddenly embarrassed. Thorin steps behind him and he feels his fingers in his hair, a loving tug and caress, and he leans into that touch, quite drunk from the warming mood of this moment.