Chapter Text
Bilbo Baggins knew from the start this whole quest was doomed.
Well not exactly. He had hoped it was all a hilarious prank and the dwarves would scurry off to their caves sooner rather than later and leave the poor hobbit to his peace. Now standing between a cliff and a pack of wolves, he’d say this quest doomed him from the start.
Why did he agree to this? Oh right he didn’t. There was a wizard and a lot of intimidation involved.
For context, Bilbo was hungry and as all hungry hobbits do, he became cranky and tired. Inevitably, the hobbit split from the safety of the company to look for berries. What’s the worst that could happen after the Carrock, he’d thought. Really now, could it have been any more obvious that something would go wrong?
Clouds had engulfed the moon and so the hobbit could barely see anything more than the occasional flash of teeth and yellow eyes, but he could hear them, and what the hobbit heard did not do wonders to the berries he’d eaten after jumping in thorns and shrubs alike. He really wished this all was a bad nightmare and he’d wake up with an empty stomach but an intact body.
Bilbo swallows and slowly looks behind himself to the sound of water below. The rock beneath him wasn’t sturdy at all and he knew if he took another step, it would surely be to his death. He thinks of yelling for help, but that idea is snuffed out quicker than a dying candlelight. The wolves would rip him to pieces before he could get the first ‘Thorin’ out.
He was armed with nothing but a branch of strawberries, and his diminishing courage. What would be worse; being ripped to pieces or drowning?
But would he really drown? The distance was so far that Bilbo suspected he’d be dead as soon as he hit the water. That was even worse! The hobbit shudders and makes the mistake of moving a step forward.
A growl. A tiny step back.
What do wolves hate? Hunger? Bones? No that was Gollum. Bilbo really didn’t want to use his ring right now, not when the chances of him falling into a dark ditch and being unnoticed by searching dwarves was above zero.
Bilbo’s mind scrambles uselessly. They probably aren’t fond of hobbits (not enough to keep them alive). They certainly don’t hate the dark; they are the dark, slipping between shadows like they were born from them and what was the one thing that repelled dark. That would be light, but Bilbo was no wielder of fire and nor did he carry flint and steel. He wished more than anything to be back at BagEnd in front of the fireplace and in his warm armchair.
A place where he only needed to worry about fish prices and Farmer Maggot’s dogs.
Dogs. A memory, foolish beyond imagination, flickers like dying embers in a deadly blizzard. Farmer Maggot’s dogs; big brutes with teeth big enough to cut through bark who used to sit back at one thing only—Maggot’s silent tootle.
He remembers the old hobbit spewing some nonsense about it being special only to his dogs, but in the face of death Bilbo remembered one thing, and one thing only—
Another growl from the abyss. Closer. Enough to make the hair on the back of his dirt streaked neck stand straight. Bilbo’s heel nudges loose gravel, and he freezes as it skids down. The splash below sounds terribly and fatally far.
His breath shakes and his heart patters like a metronome. He tries very, very hard not to imagine himself following the gravel down into the wet abyss. Bilbo’s vision blurs for a panic inducing moment.
Focus, Bilbo Baggins. Focus.
Noise.
Not yelling—shrill noise. Unexpected. Sharp. A sound that didn’t belong.
Wolves aren’t dogs… but they aren’t far from them either. Both of them out not to be messed with and are always hungry— for blood. Bilbo was no silent footer, but he could scream well enough. Or so he hoped.
He squeaks and brandishes the sorry excuse of a weapon when a sharp clack of teeth echoes in midst the sweet lull of crickets and wind. Bilbo’s hands were slick, and this plan was horrendous.
And then—
He shrieks.
A full hobbit-sized scream: high, quivering, non-Baggins like and brandishes the branch like a sword. That reminded him of his elvish letter opener— he should’ve taken it with him.
Bilbo doesn’t see the wolves. He only hears their confused yelps and fur coated bodies bumping into each other in their haste to regain their bearings against this alarming anomaly.
He shrieks again, voice cracking like a dying kettle. How he missed his tea cups..
Focus, you foolish hobbit. You got yourself into this mess, and you’ll have to be able to get yourself out.
In that half-second of their confusion, Bilbo does the only sensible thing he’s capable of; He bolts for the trees, screaming the whole way and this time it was not entirely for strategy. The halfling hoped if he screamed loud enough, it would dampen sounds of any wolf running after him.
Twigs snap in front of his face— one cuts right through his cheek— and his chest burnt, but Bilbo didn’t even dare to think of stopping. Not until he was back with the dwarves and Gandalf. It was idiotic to think this hadn’t woken them up, and also idiotic to think this wouldn’t enrage Thorin. Bilbo had probably awakened every creature— foe or friend.
A moment of distraction leads to destruction. A branch hits him square in the face and Bilbo tumbles back like a young fauntling and blood sprays from his broken nose. There might’ve been a chance of him continuing if his head hadn’t fallen straight on top of a boulder thicker than a dwarf’s skull.
Consciousness escaped Bilbo Baggins grasp before the spots in front of him could even begin their taunting.