Returning Home: A Hobbit Fanfiction

Chapter 47 - The Slow Descent of Madness

~~ Celia ~~

Celia leaned against the rampart wall with a sigh, looking out at the distant lake. It had been three days since Smaug had been killed, and she could still see smoke rising in the distance. 

There had been no sign of survivors that they could see, but the town itself was too far for them to make anything out, and it would take any at least three days to reach the mountain. 

But here was noon on the third day, and there she was, straining her eyes for any sign of life. It was the same thing she'd been doing every day since the dragon had fallen, and every day, she was met with the same sight. 

Nothing.

"Any sign?" Kíli asked, coming up beside her and resting his arms on the ledge, a bandage wrapped around one fist. She wasn't surprised. He'd hardly left her alone in Erebor as soon as they'd discovered that Thorin was suffering from the gold sickness.

She shook her head regretfully. "Nothing. But it takes around three days to get here, and they probably would have tried to help any survivors escape the wreckage." 

Taking one last look out at the horizon, and letting her eyes trail over the wreckage of Dale near the base of the mountain, she turned away with a sigh. "Logically, I know there's a very good chance that they'll be fine. They were originally, and I don't think we've changed enough that things would go too terribly wrong down there. But mentally..."

"Mentally you're worried that they might have tripped over a brick and killed themselves," Kíli finished dryly. 

Celia kicked a rock in the path as they slowly made their way back into the mountain, wincing when the rock turned out to be heavier than she had expected. "Yeah. It's just - we were never really separated for long growing up, and if we were, it was only for a day or two at most. Now this is the second time that it's happened, and both times she's been in grave danger, and I can't do anything about it."

Kíli nodded in understanding, rubbing his still sore - but finally treated - shin as he followed her inside the mountain. Dwalin had had to threaten to sit on him before he was willing to admit that he'd been smacked in the shin by a piece of falling rubble as well, and had been forcibly examined and treated by Celia. 

Her own leg had developed a lovely-looking bruise around the small gash her own run-in with rubble had given her, and any contact with the tender area was still painful to the touch, but neither of them were limping anymore. 

Nori had called them the bruised battlers, and promptly made fun of them for getting matching injuries. At least, he had until Dori and Dwalin had hunted him down and held him down while Celia reset his nose. 

His language had been a bit more colorful after that.

"Has anyone else been acting strangely lately?" she asked quietly as they began the trek back to the guardroom where they'd set up camp.

Several of the dwarves had wanted to set up camp in the great hall with the gold floor - including Thorin - but the others had managed to dissuade them by reminding them of the great big hole in the wall thanks to Smaug. They'd spent three days in the guardroom, switching their time between shoring up the outer wall so that Erebor had at least some line of defense, and searching for the Arkenstone.

And in those three days, over a third of the Company had begun voluntarily wandering among the stacks of gold, letting it run through their fingers and murmuring to themselves with dazed looks in their eyes or counting it obsessively.

Kíli's unbandaged hand clenched into a fist. "I don't know. Maybe? Glóin's been locked up in the treasury ever since you cleared him for duty. Dwalin's with Thorin wherever he goes, and Nori's always had an eye for anything shiny, secret spymaster or not. Balin seems fine, and Bombur's still only ever been interested in his food. Bífur's as strange as he always is, and Dori's the same, but Ori... he's been sketching a lot lately. More than usual."