Chapter Text
"Oh, spirits. What have I done?" Bilba stared down at the horribly still form of the dwarf, and felt that trickle of fear in her chest turn into a torrent. The blood from his head wound was seeping sluggishly through his hair. What was she going to do? They were close enough to Erebor, she could take him back--and what would they say? What would she say?
"No, he's alright. He just fell on a stick of firewood, knocked himself out and tied himself up. And that's how I found him."
Brilliant. No one would ever see through that.
Bilba twisted the frayed end of the rope around her hands anxiously and moaned softly to herself. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. She thought she could punish him for his cruel words, for banishing her, for being an idiot. But now that she had him at her mercy, she realized exactly how phenomenally imbecilic the whole plan was.
He was the King Under the bloody Mountain! Someone would come looking for him. A whole army, likely. And then how would she ever be able to explain that she was innocent?
"No, you don't understand. It was all for his own good. Nevermind that he's bleeding and tied up, I swear, I was only trying to help."
Yeah. That would go over well.
Still, she couldn't just stand here and do nothing. He would remember who had bludgeoned him, if nothing else, and if she left him here for someone else to find-
A frightening thought struck her. What if he hadn't come alone, as she thought? Bilba spent the next several minutes peering out into the darkness before realizing that if Thorin hadn't been alone, then his companions would have stopped her tying him up, or hitting him in the first place. That was both a relief and slightly insulting.
"Thought you didn't need help to handle one little hobbit?" she asked snidely. The unconscious dwarf didn't answer. Rude.
It took the better part of an hour to heave the dwarf's limp body into her cart, then another to finish her meal and break camp. No one could know they'd been here. She had to find a place where she could hide, where she could keep a prisoner. A cave, maybe.
Bilba looked up into the hills that surrounded them. Everything was rocky out here. Not absolutely everything, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have come out here looking for herbs, but there were certainly no grassy fields. Her mind was running in frantic circles. She needed to focus, needed to concentrate.
"Come on," she muttered, hitching her pony to the cart. "We need to keep moving. Sorry, boy. I wish I could let you rest." The beast pulled the cart without complaint, though, and she wondered, not for the last time, if she'd gone completely mad.