The Hobbit, but the Multiverse Does the Macarena (Workshop Cut): Chapter 4
Idiots Unable to Open a Door
Today, I am trying desperately hard to relax. It is difficult. Reminder you can fund my ability to take up kayaking, and get me sweet little treats to write with, using this fun button:
And now, time to see what our little collection of fantasy homos are doing!
It is now the last half-mile of the exceedingly long journey of Thorin and company, which seems to be getting longer by the day as new tasks are added to the to-do list.
At first it was just go home, but then there was the part with the dragon, and then it was kill dragon, go home, but then Gandalf pointed out the whole bit with the Arkenstone, so then it was get Arkenstone, kill dragon, go home, and then they needed someone smaller and quieter so then it was find burglar, get Arkenstone, kill dragon, go home, and they found the burglar— so one step done!— except no, now the burglar is missing, and the wizard, so the new plan is climb mountain, open door, kill dragon, get Arkenstone, find burglar and wizard, return freaks to wherever they came from, go home. The plan has become very convoluted, but the first step in it is to climb the mountain for the last half-mile to the door that will lead the company to the halls of Erebor.
They climb the strange, sideways staircase up the mountain. It takes the better part of three hours, since most of the company is working with such short legs. Even Erik, with his professed “bad back” manages it faster than Dwalin, who is the fastest among the dwarves (usually Kíli is faster, but he’s still limping in the back with Fíli and Tauriel’s support). Will makes it up first, with John fast behind, and they frown at the clearing in front of them while they wait for everyone else to catch up.
“There was supposed to be a door, wasn’t there?” John clarifies.
“I’m fairly certain they were fixed on a keyhole,” Will agrees, “which usually implies a door.”
“It’s a puzzle then?” John raises an eyebrow.
Will shrugs noncommittally, but he’s wondering about magic again—this universe seems to be mildly obsessed with magic, and it looks pretty similar to his own too. “We could be on the wrong mountain,” Will says, “There’s a lot of mountains, after all, it would absolutely be understandable if we managed to arrive at the wrong one.” Nobody catches the sarcasm. Elizabeth would have caught the sarcasm.
The dwarves spend an awful lot of fuss, once they get to the top, in replaying the same old prophecy (“Prophecy?” Will had echoed, “Now those I know.”) they had been wearing thin since they began this quest. “Last light of Durin’s Day” this and “where the thrush knocks” that.
All of the people from the various locations in the multiverse have no clue what any of this means, and both Erik and John assume it’s bullshit. Erik is convinced he could open this door just as easily in three weeks as now, and John thinks the prophecy is a clue to be considered and not an omen to be obeyed. William Turner Jr, however, knows curses and magic better than anyone— probably better than the dwarves or Tauriel, even— so he’s thinking hard.
The sun begins to set, the traitorous bastard, before they’ve made any headway. The dwarves, being dwarves, start to hit the mountain with their big (not actually that big, but they’re also four-foot-something, so there’s credit for trying) axes, as if they could chop down the mountain or something. Tauriel, being an elf, has decided that, since she doesn’t know anything about the situation, she can’t do anything for it, and it isn’t her problem anyway. Erik, being himself, is trying to find something metal to work with, but something is stopping his powers from reaching beyond the door. John, being Sherlock’s flatmate, is trying to overthink the whole thing, but, because he is himself, it isn’t getting him much of anywhere because the answer is very much not complicated. Will is still thinking hard.
And then that absolute fucking bastard the sun slips down behind the horizon of the valley bellow them, and there rises a collective curse in all sorts of native languages— Sindarin, common Westron, English, German. If you want the American-English equivalent: god fucking dammit.
But there is no more light from the sun on Durin’s Day, the last of autumn, the motherfucker of days for this poor company. After about two minutes of waiting, like something miraculous might happen if they just stare at the wall of rock, everybody turns and begins to trudge towards the staircase to descend three-ish hours down the mountain.
Except Will, who is well-acquainted with the magic and curses of the ocean, and who knows them to be slippery little fuckers who speak in every word except the one you need and act in the opposite of their intended outcome. Magic is a tricky bastard, and it is usually hiding something from you.
In this afternoon, Will has heard everything about a thrush knocking except for the actual thrush doing the actual knock, and he’s figuring that part might be important. So he waits while the dwarves sullenly lead the way back to the proverbial fire-escape of their ancestors, while the moon rises and casts snowy beams over the metamorphic rock of the Lonely Mountain, while a small bird— maybe a thrush, but it’s kind of dark so maybe a sparrow or something, Will doesn’t know— lands on a small rock and begins banging a seed of some kind against it.
Will goes “oooohhhh,” and he wants to shout at everyone to come back, because look, it’s that bird you were talking about before, but also he doesn’t want to scare the bird away. Who knows if that would disrupt the magical proceedings or whatever. So he discreetly picks up a pebble and chucks it at Tauriel’s head. She’s closest.
She whips around, fury and vengeance burning in her eyes, but does not immediately impale Will with an arrow (something he appreciates, as a man who knows what it’s like to have died, and to have lived that way for quite a while). But she sees what’s up and she gets everyone else’s attention. They creep back with stealth equivalent to, say, a horse in a hospital.
By then the moon is shining just right, and Will is pointing furiously to a little hole in the wall, mouthing frantic words that absolutely no one can make out.
“You know you can talk, right?” Ori says.
“It ain’t goin’ to make the moonlight run away,” Dwalin chortles, and the thrush flies off, much to Will’s disappointment.
“But I found the keyhole,” Will tells them, gesturing to the little hole in the rock. It definitely had not been there twenty minutes ago when that bastard the sun was still kicking around.
Thorin is immediately overjoyed, so much so that he forgets to voice the comment about how surprised he is that an elf lookalike from another dimension managed to be useful. He rips the key off his neck and sprints to the door. The rock swings to the side like it has hinges and reveals a dark, dank, dusty, mysteriously cobweb-free hallway reaching into an indeterminate dark.
“We’ve done it,” Thorin whispers, breathless and melodramatic, “we’ve returned home.”
“I mean, except for the bit about Smaug still living in there,” Glóin reminds everyone.
Oh right, the giant, fire-breathing dragon. Forgot about that guy.
the next chapter involves Smaug >:D be ready bc it is fun!
as always, scream at me in the comments! nothing brings me more joy (seriously)!