(sorry for posting a second post so soon)
I am so. so. sorry.
Above the battlefield on the slope of Ravenhill, just out of reach of arrows and spears and rocks, Gandalf sits and waits. Ponders as the Eagles and Beorn close in on the bloodied foot of Erebor. Faint notes of the Song weave through the thunder of the battle and reach his ears, a piece of the Ainulindale that paints the outcome of this event that he helped engineer. As he listens he sees the apparitions of things to come, of the first spear to stagger and spell Thorin's end, the arrows that fell his sister-sons, the shadow of Eagles sweeping over the field, the great form of Beorn bursting through the ranks of Orcs and Wargs, the mace that Gandalf doesn't stop in time from breaking his arm, the enemy fleeing west to their deaths in Mirkwood after the end of Azog and Bolg, Bilbo emerging from the terrible battle alive due to the magic of his strange ring, the crownings of Dain Ironfoot and of Bard, the makings of the final arrangements and good-byes, the journey West and home-
The Song cuts off.
This is the will of the Lords of the West, of Eru. This is what becomes of the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and destroy Smaug before the Necromancer could summon the dragon east to Mordor. But why grant Gandalf a glimpse of the Song if he's not to stop these events from transpiring in the next minutes and hours? Why make him aware of the fates of the people he advised and guided and protected all these long months?
Perhaps, he thinks, they want to remind me that not all endings are good endings but are better than what could've been. Or- And for a moment he feels lighter than his material form, lighter than air. -they are granting me a chance, a choice. This is a moment I can change, a new melody to add to the Music.
He has, after all, spent far more time with the Free Folk than the other Istari. Elves, Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits all have names for him, since he never stays in one place for long but comes and goes. But, as Saruman alluded again and again, he has grown very fond of a great many of them and of the good hearts he finds and nurtures and guides. In this case he did grow very fond of this Company he convinced Thorin to create and he had grown very fond of the inherent good in their hearts, despite their lust for the precious things and Thorin's weakness for gold and the Arkenstone. With the discovery of the nine empty tombs and Sauron's escape from Dol Guldor, Gandalf knows that Middle-Earth will have a great need for people like the ones that make up the Company - and three will be struck down on this battlefield in the next hour.
Good people will die and good people will survive to face a greater evil, but while Gandalf can he will give all of them a chance to live.
He leaps down from his perch, bright Glamdring swinging, and plows through an unsuspecting host of Orcs, drives them back with sword and staff. He forges a crooked path through blood and bodies to the splintered flank of the Company, and slams his staff on the ground; a pulse of light spreads in a great ring, deflecting that first spear and many arrows. Wounded as he already is, Thorin will not be stopped as he fights Azog and Gandalf makes sure nothing will. As he battles alongside the Company he hears and sees the Song stutter and change to fit the new melody. Before the Music goes silent he glimpses events in the far future bending and folding into the near future, because some arrangements can't be changed or replaced. He thinks nothing more of it, because a barbed arrow nearly shoots his hat off and he rather likes this hat, thank you very much.
Beorn crushes Bolg between his great claws paws and Thorin holds up Azog's head. Eagles sweep through the field, flinging Wargs against the side of the Lonely Mountain. The great Goblin army has broken and the survivors flee westward to be picked off by the spiders and the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood. The battle is won, and thanks to Gandalf's furious efforts more Elves, Dwarves, and Men survive to see a new, Smaug-less dawn. He doesn't have to deal with the inconvenience of a broken arm, either.
A very good day, Gandalf thinks as he slowly sits down on a rocky outcrop on the Southern spur and watches the Elves and Dain's army pick through the dead and dying. Saruman will have something to say about this. Chuckling at the thought, he reaches into his mostly clean robes and hums when he finds his pipe is still intact.
~~~ha ha ha fml ha ha ha~~
Saruman definitely had something to say about this.
Gandalf spots the dusty gray horse tethered near his tent, mouthing at its feed bag, and steels himself before stepping inside. There Saruman paces around a new fire and a rickety chair one of Bard's men found, looking disgruntled with the state of his muddied white robes, the state of Gandalf's tent, the state of the victorious camps, the state of the battlefield, the state of the air he's breathing. Gandalf reaches into his robes for his pipe and his satchel of Old Toby, and only freezes for a second when Saruman fixes a hawkish eye on him and asks, "What have you done?"
He makes a great show of walking slowly to the chair and sitting down. The chair creaks underneath but holds together. He sits back, staff resting against his shoulder, and gathers a pinch of Old Toby for his pipe. "Perhaps if you clarified-"
"You know what I mean. In two days' time, the wrong king will be crowned Under the Mountain. Don't think I didn't notice; I heard the Song, too, as did Radagast. So let me ask you again - what have you done?"
"If you must know," Gandalf says and then pauses while carefully packing in his pipe and coaxing it to light. "Songs have a habit of changing over time, unless their audiences are fond of tradition. That is what I did. I have yet to know if the new melody works with the overall composition of the Great Music, but so far it seems to be well recieved by the audience that matters most."
Saruman just barely manages to not roll his eyes. "Meddling into the affairs of Men - and Dwarves, in this case, and Elves, and your fellow Istari - I can try to understand, but the affairs of the lords of the West? Who do you think you are, Olorin, to have that right?"
"It was not a right but a desire to see good triumph."
"And they would have, due to your scheming-"
"But," and Gandalf may have let himself sound a bit fiercer, "I wanted to see good triumph and live it. Why shouldn't they, after all they've done?"
"You mean, after all that this Thorin Oakenshield has done," Saruman says. "If I'm not mistaken, he nearly murdered one of his own Company for trying to make him see reason through that gold sickness that plagues his line."
"And if I'm not mistaken," Gandalf replies mildly, "he overcame it and saw sense in time to lend a helping hand in the battle."
He puffs on his pipe for a good few seconds and blows out a rather decent smoke ring, which Saruman banishes with a flick of his hand.
"Just like you, except where he may have found sense it seems you have lost yours."
There won't be an end to this argument. Gandalf sighs a deep and weary sigh, and says, "Why are you here, Saruman?"
"I wanted to see and hear the truth from you. I wanted to know if you're willing to accept what you've done. It may very well be that the lives you saved are still fated to end, if not weeks ago then some time in the future. In the grand scheme of things, Thorin and his sister-sons are but a speck of dust, a tool that outlasted its usefulness and no longer matters in later events. You got everything you wanted now, and I fear that will come back to haunt you. But what's done is done and I'll leave you to deal with the consequences. Perhaps then you'll see sense the next time the Valar grants you a listen of the Music."
Gandalf had thought the same, of course he had, but he feels no regret. The Valar gave him a choice and he made it; the world merely shifted in response, not ended. What happens now, he thinks, won't be the result of the wrong choice because there is no right or wrong; the melody he first heard no longer exists and the one he created does, and that is the one he'll take care to follow and nurture.
"Let us see what comes of it," Gandalf muses under his breath, long after Saruman left and all but the guard are asleep. "It will be very amusing and, hopefully, very fruitful."
~~~ha ha ha fml ha ha ha~~
Bilbo returns to the Shire, Hobbiton, Underhill, Bagshot Row, Bag-End one fine summer day, astride a pony and with Gandalf and another pony laden down with chests and heavy sacks. He arrives to an auction of his home and his belongings, and to a crowd of stupefied Hobbits who thought him mad and dead after the infamous dash through the Shire over a year ago.
Years would pass before Bilbo could get back most of his belongings and furnishings that were auctioned off, like his mother's Eastfarthing pottery, but he never got back his silver spoons nor his reputation. Not that he minds. He and his Tookish side had a fine and wild adventure, after all, one that saw the deaths of a Goblin king and a great dragon and two terrible Orc leaders, a great battle at the foot of a mighty Dwarven kingdom, and the return of the King Under the Mountain. Now he's home, content with the knowledge that his friends are just as alive and well as he is, though perhaps rebuilding two kingdoms is far more difficult than chasing down the Hobbits that made off with his bed and wine and gardening tools.
Miraculously, the entire company survived the great battle of the five armies, a wizard, and perhaps a Hobbit, though much credit must be given to Beorn for the change in fortunes. Even Thorin, the target of many, survived though for the longest time no one was sure that he would. His wounds were many, if not terribly grievous, and he had disappeared from the public eye for so long that rumors spread like fire through the camps that he'd died and Fili, who was also bedridden and recovering, would become king. Bilbo would never admit to the panic that set in when he caught wind the rumors and took them as truth, but Gandalf met him just outside the healers' tents and drew him aside to quite firmly say that no one from the esteemed Company was going to die and he'd best stop paying attention to the harebrained speculations. All rumors were finally laid to rest when Thorin majestically limped out of the tent, greeted nearby Dwarves, Men, and Elves, and followed Balin and Gandalf to a long-awaited meeting with Bard, King Thranduil, and Dain.
By then, Bilbo had decided he had quite enough of the adventuring. He waited until after the coronation to announce his intention to return to the Shire.
"I miss my home," he said to the seated Dwarves in a private tent set up for them. "I've been gone a very long time, long enough I should think, and I'd like very much to go back. I hope you understand."
"Of course we do," Thorin replied, though no one looked it. "You helped us reclaim ours, so it's only fair that we help you return to yours."
That, Bilbo learns, is more than the provisions, the two chests of gold and silver they insisted on him taking, and the armed guard that followed him, Gandalf, and Beorn to Mirkwood. Two and a half weeks after he moves back into Bag-End, bought back a few dressers and his mother's glory box, saw Gandalf off, and purchased a beautiful red leatherbound journal at the market, he comes outside a little after elevensies to find a raven sitting on his mailbox, looking disgruntled about the small bundle tied to its leg.
"This is below me as a raven of Ravenhill and a descendent of Carc," she says haughtily before he opens his mouth.
Hamfast, who'd been adding mulch to his very dead, very sorry garden, squawks and drops his spade.
The raven, Rivak, allows Bilbo to remove the bundle. He fumbles rather badly with the leather thongs, unnerved by the beady eyes and the sharp black beak hovering dangerously close to his fingers, but he manages to get it off. Rivak fluffs her feathers but doesn't leave.
"Uh, thank you. Very much for this," he says. "Shouldn't you... be going?"
"Without a reward? After flying day and night from Ravenhill weeks ago?" She hops to the edge of his mailbox and hunkers down. "I was promised something good."
"Yes, well, uh, you're right. Of course. Um." An audience is happening now. His neighbors are staring and a few look horrified that he'd be talking with a great black bird so casually and in plain sight. "What do ravens like?"
"Shiny things. Very shiny things. And meat."
"Right, I'll, um, I'll go get that." He tucks the package in his pocket and hurries up the stairs back into Bag-End. After some digging through his pantries and larders and the chests he secreted away, he returns with a chunk of ham steak and a gold bracelet laden with pearls. He watches Rivak hork down the steak and yelps when she snatches the bracelet out of his hands.
She still doesn't leave.
"Is there a reason why you're not leaving?" he asks.
Rivak looks at him like he's a dunderhead. "I was told not to return without a response from you, Master Baggins."
Then he remembers the bundle. "Oh! Well, I'll need some time to read and write a response. Would you like to...." How does one treat a guest that's a talking raven, anyway? "... come inside?"
"No," Rivak says shortly and hunkers down on his mailbox.
Bilbo stares at the large bird, then at Hamfast, then at the Hobbits staring at his front porch from their gardens and the road. He sighs, shakes his head, and steps back inside. At his desk, he takes out the bundle and picks apart the twine. He discovers letters, many letters, written in many hands. Some are written in a heavy scrawl, some seem incapable of writing in a straight line, and some are done up in remarkable penmanship, the kind that Bilbo can't help envying.
There are twelve letters in all, one from each Dwarf save the one written jointly by Fili and Kili. Letters from Nori and Dori were written by Ori, and Oin wrote Bifur's. Dwalin's handwriting looks like a terrible imitation of Balin's marvelous penmanship.
TBC
Above the battlefield on the slope of Ravenhill, just out of reach of arrows and spears and rocks, Gandalf sits and waits. Ponders as the Eagles and Beorn close in on the bloodied foot of Erebor. Faint notes of the Song weave through the thunder of the battle and reach his ears, a piece of the Ainulindale that paints the outcome of this event that he helped engineer. As he listens he sees the apparitions of things to come, of the first spear to stagger and spell Thorin's end, the arrows that fell his sister-sons, the shadow of Eagles sweeping over the field, the great form of Beorn bursting through the ranks of Orcs and Wargs, the mace that Gandalf doesn't stop in time from breaking his arm, the enemy fleeing west to their deaths in Mirkwood after the end of Azog and Bolg, Bilbo emerging from the terrible battle alive due to the magic of his strange ring, the crownings of Dain Ironfoot and of Bard, the makings of the final arrangements and good-byes, the journey West and home-
The Song cuts off.
This is the will of the Lords of the West, of Eru. This is what becomes of the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and destroy Smaug before the Necromancer could summon the dragon east to Mordor. But why grant Gandalf a glimpse of the Song if he's not to stop these events from transpiring in the next minutes and hours? Why make him aware of the fates of the people he advised and guided and protected all these long months?
Perhaps, he thinks, they want to remind me that not all endings are good endings but are better than what could've been. Or- And for a moment he feels lighter than his material form, lighter than air. -they are granting me a chance, a choice. This is a moment I can change, a new melody to add to the Music.
He has, after all, spent far more time with the Free Folk than the other Istari. Elves, Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits all have names for him, since he never stays in one place for long but comes and goes. But, as Saruman alluded again and again, he has grown very fond of a great many of them and of the good hearts he finds and nurtures and guides. In this case he did grow very fond of this Company he convinced Thorin to create and he had grown very fond of the inherent good in their hearts, despite their lust for the precious things and Thorin's weakness for gold and the Arkenstone. With the discovery of the nine empty tombs and Sauron's escape from Dol Guldor, Gandalf knows that Middle-Earth will have a great need for people like the ones that make up the Company - and three will be struck down on this battlefield in the next hour.
Good people will die and good people will survive to face a greater evil, but while Gandalf can he will give all of them a chance to live.
He leaps down from his perch, bright Glamdring swinging, and plows through an unsuspecting host of Orcs, drives them back with sword and staff. He forges a crooked path through blood and bodies to the splintered flank of the Company, and slams his staff on the ground; a pulse of light spreads in a great ring, deflecting that first spear and many arrows. Wounded as he already is, Thorin will not be stopped as he fights Azog and Gandalf makes sure nothing will. As he battles alongside the Company he hears and sees the Song stutter and change to fit the new melody. Before the Music goes silent he glimpses events in the far future bending and folding into the near future, because some arrangements can't be changed or replaced. He thinks nothing more of it, because a barbed arrow nearly shoots his hat off and he rather likes this hat, thank you very much.
Beorn crushes Bolg between his great claws paws and Thorin holds up Azog's head. Eagles sweep through the field, flinging Wargs against the side of the Lonely Mountain. The great Goblin army has broken and the survivors flee westward to be picked off by the spiders and the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood. The battle is won, and thanks to Gandalf's furious efforts more Elves, Dwarves, and Men survive to see a new, Smaug-less dawn. He doesn't have to deal with the inconvenience of a broken arm, either.
A very good day, Gandalf thinks as he slowly sits down on a rocky outcrop on the Southern spur and watches the Elves and Dain's army pick through the dead and dying. Saruman will have something to say about this. Chuckling at the thought, he reaches into his mostly clean robes and hums when he finds his pipe is still intact.
~~~ha ha ha fml ha ha ha~~
Saruman definitely had something to say about this.
Gandalf spots the dusty gray horse tethered near his tent, mouthing at its feed bag, and steels himself before stepping inside. There Saruman paces around a new fire and a rickety chair one of Bard's men found, looking disgruntled with the state of his muddied white robes, the state of Gandalf's tent, the state of the victorious camps, the state of the battlefield, the state of the air he's breathing. Gandalf reaches into his robes for his pipe and his satchel of Old Toby, and only freezes for a second when Saruman fixes a hawkish eye on him and asks, "What have you done?"
He makes a great show of walking slowly to the chair and sitting down. The chair creaks underneath but holds together. He sits back, staff resting against his shoulder, and gathers a pinch of Old Toby for his pipe. "Perhaps if you clarified-"
"You know what I mean. In two days' time, the wrong king will be crowned Under the Mountain. Don't think I didn't notice; I heard the Song, too, as did Radagast. So let me ask you again - what have you done?"
"If you must know," Gandalf says and then pauses while carefully packing in his pipe and coaxing it to light. "Songs have a habit of changing over time, unless their audiences are fond of tradition. That is what I did. I have yet to know if the new melody works with the overall composition of the Great Music, but so far it seems to be well recieved by the audience that matters most."
Saruman just barely manages to not roll his eyes. "Meddling into the affairs of Men - and Dwarves, in this case, and Elves, and your fellow Istari - I can try to understand, but the affairs of the lords of the West? Who do you think you are, Olorin, to have that right?"
"It was not a right but a desire to see good triumph."
"And they would have, due to your scheming-"
"But," and Gandalf may have let himself sound a bit fiercer, "I wanted to see good triumph and live it. Why shouldn't they, after all they've done?"
"You mean, after all that this Thorin Oakenshield has done," Saruman says. "If I'm not mistaken, he nearly murdered one of his own Company for trying to make him see reason through that gold sickness that plagues his line."
"And if I'm not mistaken," Gandalf replies mildly, "he overcame it and saw sense in time to lend a helping hand in the battle."
He puffs on his pipe for a good few seconds and blows out a rather decent smoke ring, which Saruman banishes with a flick of his hand.
"Just like you, except where he may have found sense it seems you have lost yours."
There won't be an end to this argument. Gandalf sighs a deep and weary sigh, and says, "Why are you here, Saruman?"
"I wanted to see and hear the truth from you. I wanted to know if you're willing to accept what you've done. It may very well be that the lives you saved are still fated to end, if not weeks ago then some time in the future. In the grand scheme of things, Thorin and his sister-sons are but a speck of dust, a tool that outlasted its usefulness and no longer matters in later events. You got everything you wanted now, and I fear that will come back to haunt you. But what's done is done and I'll leave you to deal with the consequences. Perhaps then you'll see sense the next time the Valar grants you a listen of the Music."
Gandalf had thought the same, of course he had, but he feels no regret. The Valar gave him a choice and he made it; the world merely shifted in response, not ended. What happens now, he thinks, won't be the result of the wrong choice because there is no right or wrong; the melody he first heard no longer exists and the one he created does, and that is the one he'll take care to follow and nurture.
"Let us see what comes of it," Gandalf muses under his breath, long after Saruman left and all but the guard are asleep. "It will be very amusing and, hopefully, very fruitful."
~~~ha ha ha fml ha ha ha~~
Bilbo returns to the Shire, Hobbiton, Underhill, Bagshot Row, Bag-End one fine summer day, astride a pony and with Gandalf and another pony laden down with chests and heavy sacks. He arrives to an auction of his home and his belongings, and to a crowd of stupefied Hobbits who thought him mad and dead after the infamous dash through the Shire over a year ago.
Years would pass before Bilbo could get back most of his belongings and furnishings that were auctioned off, like his mother's Eastfarthing pottery, but he never got back his silver spoons nor his reputation. Not that he minds. He and his Tookish side had a fine and wild adventure, after all, one that saw the deaths of a Goblin king and a great dragon and two terrible Orc leaders, a great battle at the foot of a mighty Dwarven kingdom, and the return of the King Under the Mountain. Now he's home, content with the knowledge that his friends are just as alive and well as he is, though perhaps rebuilding two kingdoms is far more difficult than chasing down the Hobbits that made off with his bed and wine and gardening tools.
Miraculously, the entire company survived the great battle of the five armies, a wizard, and perhaps a Hobbit, though much credit must be given to Beorn for the change in fortunes. Even Thorin, the target of many, survived though for the longest time no one was sure that he would. His wounds were many, if not terribly grievous, and he had disappeared from the public eye for so long that rumors spread like fire through the camps that he'd died and Fili, who was also bedridden and recovering, would become king. Bilbo would never admit to the panic that set in when he caught wind the rumors and took them as truth, but Gandalf met him just outside the healers' tents and drew him aside to quite firmly say that no one from the esteemed Company was going to die and he'd best stop paying attention to the harebrained speculations. All rumors were finally laid to rest when Thorin majestically limped out of the tent, greeted nearby Dwarves, Men, and Elves, and followed Balin and Gandalf to a long-awaited meeting with Bard, King Thranduil, and Dain.
By then, Bilbo had decided he had quite enough of the adventuring. He waited until after the coronation to announce his intention to return to the Shire.
"I miss my home," he said to the seated Dwarves in a private tent set up for them. "I've been gone a very long time, long enough I should think, and I'd like very much to go back. I hope you understand."
"Of course we do," Thorin replied, though no one looked it. "You helped us reclaim ours, so it's only fair that we help you return to yours."
That, Bilbo learns, is more than the provisions, the two chests of gold and silver they insisted on him taking, and the armed guard that followed him, Gandalf, and Beorn to Mirkwood. Two and a half weeks after he moves back into Bag-End, bought back a few dressers and his mother's glory box, saw Gandalf off, and purchased a beautiful red leatherbound journal at the market, he comes outside a little after elevensies to find a raven sitting on his mailbox, looking disgruntled about the small bundle tied to its leg.
"This is below me as a raven of Ravenhill and a descendent of Carc," she says haughtily before he opens his mouth.
Hamfast, who'd been adding mulch to his very dead, very sorry garden, squawks and drops his spade.
The raven, Rivak, allows Bilbo to remove the bundle. He fumbles rather badly with the leather thongs, unnerved by the beady eyes and the sharp black beak hovering dangerously close to his fingers, but he manages to get it off. Rivak fluffs her feathers but doesn't leave.
"Uh, thank you. Very much for this," he says. "Shouldn't you... be going?"
"Without a reward? After flying day and night from Ravenhill weeks ago?" She hops to the edge of his mailbox and hunkers down. "I was promised something good."
"Yes, well, uh, you're right. Of course. Um." An audience is happening now. His neighbors are staring and a few look horrified that he'd be talking with a great black bird so casually and in plain sight. "What do ravens like?"
"Shiny things. Very shiny things. And meat."
"Right, I'll, um, I'll go get that." He tucks the package in his pocket and hurries up the stairs back into Bag-End. After some digging through his pantries and larders and the chests he secreted away, he returns with a chunk of ham steak and a gold bracelet laden with pearls. He watches Rivak hork down the steak and yelps when she snatches the bracelet out of his hands.
She still doesn't leave.
"Is there a reason why you're not leaving?" he asks.
Rivak looks at him like he's a dunderhead. "I was told not to return without a response from you, Master Baggins."
Then he remembers the bundle. "Oh! Well, I'll need some time to read and write a response. Would you like to...." How does one treat a guest that's a talking raven, anyway? "... come inside?"
"No," Rivak says shortly and hunkers down on his mailbox.
Bilbo stares at the large bird, then at Hamfast, then at the Hobbits staring at his front porch from their gardens and the road. He sighs, shakes his head, and steps back inside. At his desk, he takes out the bundle and picks apart the twine. He discovers letters, many letters, written in many hands. Some are written in a heavy scrawl, some seem incapable of writing in a straight line, and some are done up in remarkable penmanship, the kind that Bilbo can't help envying.
There are twelve letters in all, one from each Dwarf save the one written jointly by Fili and Kili. Letters from Nori and Dori were written by Ori, and Oin wrote Bifur's. Dwalin's handwriting looks like a terrible imitation of Balin's marvelous penmanship.
TBC