Ring Shenanigans Chapter 7
Spoiler: Thorin Oakenshield and Samwise Gamgee would be unexpected besties I think :)
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As fate seems to will it, Bard shoots Smaug down with that black arrow, and the elven reinforcements that arrive pick off a few dozen spare orcs that broke off when Bolg was incinerated at the gates of Erebor. Dwarf, hobbit, and man also contribute in whatever small ways they can, lacking an immortal army’s organization or supply.
As fate seems to will it, Smaug’s corpse falls into Long Lake and boils off an inch or so of the total depth. The lake which had cooled with the season to be just a bit too uncomfortable to swim in suddenly sees children, not fully aware of the gravity of recent events, dipping their toes in as their parents screech and pull them from the waters edge with stories of what happens to little children who disrespect the corpses of dragons. It’s done. Smaug the Golden is gone.
But then something stops fate in her tracks as Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, and King Under the Mountain, says, “I will not enter Erebor now.”
The whole party, who had been about to enter, pauses, and twelve heads turn to look at Thorin, who continues, “I won’t risk dragon sickness before the work is done.”
“But the work is done, lad,” Balin reassures him. “The elves will soon come to get their white gems, and then there will be naught left but rebuilding our home.”
“And I look forward to the task,” Thorin says, smiling as Balin smiles, “but there is one thing that I must first do.”
There is a general dwarven clamoring, demanding what could be so important as to draw Thorin away when they’ve just reclaimed Erebor— finally, their home!— what could be more important? How could he bear to leave his home, now that it is finally his again?
“Someone needs to go with Bilbo to destroy that cursed Ring,” Thorin says. “As his betrothed, I can’t let him go alone.”
Bilbo, who has never, in nearly one-hundred-and-twelve years of age, had anyone speak to him this way, much less publicly, flaps his mouth like a beached fish. What could he possibly say to that? Well, other than, “No. No, no, absolutely not. Thorin, I have to go to Mordor. One does not simply walk into Mordor.”
“I am well aware,” Thorin says, fully serious, as if he truly intends to follow Bilbo to Mordor and back. As if evil is no great burden to face, if they face it together. Which is ludicrous. Bilbo and Thorin have faced evil together, and it was only after twenty tries and the assistance of even more evil that they succeeded!
To dissuade him, Bilbo admits, “I still don’t know how long it will take to even get to Mount Doom.”
“I imagine at least several weeks,” Thorin says simply.
“Several weeks!” Gloin cries.
And the rest of the company is similarly flabbergasted. “We’ve finally retaken Erebor, Thorin,” Fili reasons, “surely we can take a moment to savor that before going off on another quest?” He looks near to tears.
“Especially one so dangerous,” Dori points out.
Further conversation is interrupted when a great eagle deposits the roughed-up figure of Gandalf the Gray onto the rocky outcropping near the entrance to the mines of Erebor before landing on the mountain above with a few other eagles. After doing a quick headcount and ignoring the party’s cries of inquiry as to what happened to him, Gandalf sighs, relieved, and says with authority, “The Ring must go to Mount Doom at once!”
“Just as I said,” Thorin replies. “And you can’t go alone,” he adds, to Bilbo.
After another moment of fish-mouthed fluttering, Bilbo finally says, “No. I won’t allow it.”
And, ignoring Gandalf’s hurried posture and the company’s bated breath, Thorin laughs, and sets his left hand, lighter by one vambrace, on Bilbo’s shoulder and says, “Master Baggins, you could not stop me.”
Damned, stubborn, foolish, lovely dwarves! How can Bilbo drag him to Mordor after everything? After he’s just gotten his home back? Just survived a fated death?
But Gandalf cares significantly more about the fate of the world than Bilbo’s angsty thoughts, and says, “One or both of you, I don’t care, but it is imperative we destroy that Ring now!”
“What’s happened, Gandalf?” Balin asks. In the face of a wizard so shaken, Balin is the only one present with enough wherewithal to ask what could possibly be so wrong, so urgent.
In a tone of clipped efficiency brought on by anxiety none of the company have ever seen on him (save, perhaps, Bilbo on his 111th birthday), Gandalf summarizes, “That ‘wizardly errand’ Bilbo kept insisting I was going to be dragged off on was the rise of a necromancer in Dol Goldur: Sauron attempting to regain strength by festering evil there.” The company stirs, unsettled. They would likely be a fair bit more than unsettled if Bilbo hadn’t been very open that Sauron was already up to some mischief or other by ragdolling him through time using a cursed piece of jewelry. “Making inferences from what Bilbo had said,” (Bilbo suddenly regrets that he didn’t say more, if Gandalf was going to be making inferences about how to face the Dark Lord with the information), “I called upon some allies as soon as Radagast asked for my aid investigating that fell place. We went in as a party: myself, Radagast, Galadriel, and Saruman. It was empty, but there were sure signs that it had been where the orcs were preparing for war. The anvils were still hot; they had just left. And then we encountered him: the Dark Lord, Sauron. We faced him only briefly, however, before his power seemed drawn elsewhere and he escaped.” Composure somewhat regained, Gandalf explains, “I believe that Sauron has some trick or other that he is waiting to release, and we cannot wait and give him time to play it. Bilbo— Thorin, if you must— I have gotten the eagles to agree to escort us to Mount Doom, but we must move quickly.”
Bilbo quickly jumps to stand with Gandalf and tells the company he’ll be right back.
Thorin also comes to stand with them, and assigns Balin as regent until his return, with orders to assist the people of Laketown with any material needs to rebuild Dale, but to wait until he’s back to return the white gems to the elves. “I want to see Thranduil’s haughty face bowing low to accept the return of his precious jewels.”
And then Gwaihir, one of the five eagles escorting them (with apparently quite a fuss about it all, finicky birds!) swoops down to allow Gandalf, Bilbo, and (despite Bilbo’s final attempt at protestation) Thorin onto his back, and they fly south.
The flight takes a whole day, and the eagles unilaterally deem it safer to rest just out of Mordor’s sight on a rocky mountain outcrop for the night and face the next day with light on their side. If it mattered, Bilbo would agree with them, but it doesn’t, so he is set listening to Gandalf gripe about the lost time and Thorin gripe about how they’re such a small party that the night would have been to their advantage for stealth reasons.
Bilbo thinks they are both missing the forest for the trees. With a flock of five great eagles carrying them, there should be no illusions about attempted stealth. And as far as time, Bilbo can reset it as many times as they need. They have infinite time. No, Bilbo has infinite time. He can keep doing this again and again as long as it takes to get everything just right. Time is not such a precious thing to him as the Ring. Even if he were just displeased with how a loop turned out, he could toss the Ring and have another shot.
It is very, very hard to remember that there is nothing that would displease him more than resetting this loop. The warm chainmail vambrace against his left arm is the only tangible reminder for the better part of the night, as the Ring scrapes the flesh of his brain raw with all of the lost potential of future loops— of better loops. Timelines where Bilbo knows more, does more. How many resets would it take before he forgot Bolg’s cruel smile slicing a cut of flesh from his cheek, charring it over the fire, and crunching it between his teeth?
He does not sleep. He stares at the rocks that separate him from the weakened Eye of Sauron, holds the Ring in his palm.
He tries to convince himself he will be glad to be rid of it.
In the morning, he is impatient and snappish. Gandalf has a nervous, shifting look in his eyes about the behavior. Bilbo knows better than he what kind of havoc this Ring can unleash. He is not so foolish to fall to it. Maybe another would be tempted, but not Bilbo. Bilbo can handle it. He has carried the Ring for over sixty years, he will not now give it up for the last half-day of its journey.
Besides, who would he give it to? Gandalf, who knew himself better than to even touch it when he approached Bilbo on his 111th birthday? Thorin, who knew himself better than to enter Erebor lest dragon sickness snatch his sanity? The eagles, who couldn’t drop it properly into the flames in the first place with their oversized talons and flammable feathers?
All of this is immaterial: Bilbo can’t give anyone the Ring. The Ring won’t allow it.
The stench of Sauron is strong, a stone’s throw from Mordor. It is the stench of evil, and Bilbo cannot explain why it smells so sweet.
“Bilbo?” Thorin prods.
He doesn’t say it, but it is clear from his expression, from Gandalf’s behind him, even from Gwaihir’s uncharacteristically invested posture, that Bilbo has been muttering to himself, like Gollum in his cave. Disgust curls up from Bilbo’s intestines and sluices over his skin with a sickly, cold sweat.
“Yes, yes, let’s go,” he says, trying to pretend he is not slipping.
There are orcs everywhere, of course. Sauron would not send all his forces with Azog and Bolg, because evil is careful and suspicious and usually insists on spreading itself far and wide to convince the world of its false inevitability. The eagles resolve to hold them off for a time, but are clear when they tell Gandalf that if any one of them sustains serious injury, they will retreat immediately. This will have to be fast.
Gandalf and Thorin and Bilbo are dropped as close to the summit of Mount Doom as is safe to do, and the Eye of Sauron dims as the Ring chooses this moment to make its last-ditch attempt to save itself.
Bilbo hits the ground with crippling vertigo, ending up on his knees and clutching the Ring through his pocket where it is safely secured. The metal burns him, right through the fabric, searing a hole in his flesh— the only reminder that it isn’t truly happening is that Bilbo remembers that the worst part of having a hole in your flesh is the bone-curling wrongness of there being something in your body that shouldn’t be inside it, the tendrils of cool early morning air that pry inwards and rend the flesh further apart. The air here is hot, swelteringly so, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bilbo can’t feel that wrongness, just the pain, and so he knows this is a vision long before he can hear Gandalf telling him so.
But this has taken entirely too long— how long, Bilbo can’t be sure, long enough for Thorin to go pale and draw his sword— and the eagles are not perfect beings, and so orcs are now leaking through their defenses.
“Bilbo!” Gandalf cries, terrifying in his loudness over the sound of approaching orcs, “There’s no time! You must destroy the Ring now! There won’t be another chance!”
A nod comes from Bilbo’s head, and he makes his way up to stand on his shaky legs. The Ring has become leaden, impossibly heavy, and Bilbo stumbles on the uneven weight of his pockets— distantly, he remembers that, before coming back in time, it was frequently this heavy. He half-expects to hear Frodo call out in alarm and ask after his health, and starts to shoo him outside before remembering that Frodo won’t be born for another thirty years. He misses that wild, adventurous young boy.
An orc’s death throes reach Bilbo’s ears, and he is suddenly, fiercely glad that Frodo will never have to feel such unyeilding rock under his feet, never feel a blade pierce his flesh, never feel the aching weight of evil trying to meld to your flesh and mind to keep itself alive.
“Bilbo!” Thorin is holding him up by one arm. “We have to go!” There’s no anger in Thorin’s voice, the volume lent by naked fear in the reflected battle in his eyes.
And Bilbo would love to. He wants to put this thing down and then sleep somewhere. Maybe if he throws the Ring, he can rest in the distant screams outside the goblin caves instead of the much nearer screams of the present?
No! No, that’s the Ring speaking, he knows that! But still, regardless of what Bilbo wants, his legs tremble with every feeble, minute step. There’s maybe a hundred yards to his goal and not a drop of strength with which to get there. Still, he’ll try. If for nothing else, for the fear in Thorin’s eyes, for the vambrace on his arm, for Gandalf’s steadfast back toward them as he casts some offensive spell that blasts a handful of orcs off a rocky ledge, for the dwarven company awaiting his return, for Frodo, unborn and helplessly beholden to Bilbo’s success or failure.
One foot in front of the other. Step after step. More often than not, he stumbles with his unevenly weighted pockets. Maybe it would be easier to hold the Ring in his hand, but whose to say Bilbo wouldn’t throw it in some foolish attempt to do it better next time? To get just a few minutes away from the eye he can feel, dim as it is now, burning into his skull. Thorin holds him upright, unwavering, sword ready to defend.
But one of the eagles swoops low over them, picking off an orc that had snuck around a longer route to ambush them, and both Bilbo and Thorin realize they need to get this done faster. Without a word, Thorin pitches Bilbo over his shoulder like a sack of grain and sprints through the entrance of Mount Doom, where they are met with forge-like heat and a pool of lava simmering and bubbling.
Thorin drops Bilbo at the lava’s edge. “Bilbo!” he cries, as if Bilbo might not hear him if he doesn’t shout. Truly, it’s very quiet inside of Mount Doom. Who knew such a quiet, warm place could birth such evil? Or maybe evil is always born in quiet, warm places. Still, Bilbo is acutely aware that he is as in control of his body as a dandelion seed is in control of where it lands. Time stretches infinitely around him, puddling and bubbling like the lava before him. “The Ring, Bilbo!”
Yes. Yes, they have a job here. Bilbo has a task. Shaky hands unfasten the button of his pocket and remove the Ring, hot to the touch and burning. Bilbo nearly drops it when it burns his skin. Of course, the burn isn’t real, but that hardly matters when he’s fumbling it between his hands. But he manages to keep it between his fingers—
and then time seems to slow to a stop.
Mount Doom is so quiet, and still.
“Cast it into the fire!” Thorin shouts, the only thing of movement or sound except for the faint shrieks of dying orcs and the beating of great wings far above in the sky.
But what if Bilbo can do better? He knows it’s the Ring talking, but what if the Ring is right? What if he could kill Smaug before he ever exited the mountain, save the people of Laketown a great deal of property damage— and if he could stop the orc army from ever marching he could save the dwarves owing the elves a favor— and if he—
“Bilbo,” Thorin says. He is not shouting. He is kneeling in front of Bilbo, holding Bilbo’s face between his armored palms. “This is your last loop,” he says, firm and so, very clearly afraid. “I gave my word. Don’t make an oathbreaker of me now.”
Oh.
Right.
That was what all of this was for. Thorin Oakenshield is a man of his word, and as much as Bilbo wanted to save him from death he wanted to prove that true.
Besides, it would be incredibly rude to Thorin and embarrassing for himself if the loop reset now and he had to face the company, who will remember at least part of this, having made Thorin go back on his word.
This litany of hobbit-ish reasons is what Bilbo repeats to himself— perhaps aloud, perhaps in his head, he has no idea, truly— as he dips the One Ring into the flames of Mount Doom.
As he can’t drop the Ring, that also, necessarily, dips the tips of his left hand’s first finger and thumb into those same flames, and the heat of it burns the imprint of a chainmail vambrace into the skin of his left arm. It is a small blessing that Bilbo is as present inside his body as a spring salmon in a river delta. Surely he will return, but there is nothing of him there now except echoes.
The mortal mind is a strange and wonderful machine, and so the next time Bilbo is conscious, he is held in eagle talons, and Mordor is a distant shadow, and there is no Eye watching them leave.
Did you count the four LOTR easter eggs in this chapter? I had fun putting them in there :))))
anyway!! nice soft lil epilogue up next— see you there!!
and, as always, Scream at me in the comments! Nothing brings me more joy :D
Jesus, how did you make me as anxious as Tolkien did during that part of the book? I'm glad it's through!