In fact, it wasn’t until they were fighting the trolls that Bilbo even saw the creature leave the dwarf’s shoulder at all other than for sleeping. It had been quite content to remain there until, it seemed, the company was in danger. Only then did it take flight, pecking away at the trolls whenever they took it into their head to actually try to attack one of the other daemon’s. Curiously enough, it was Bilbo’s fox that the owl seemed to hover nearest to throughout the battle and it let out a great screech when the fox yelped as Bilbo was caught and his limbs were tugged in all directions.

After that, Bilbo found that he was spending more time watching Thorin’s daemon than was truly right. As rude as it was, however, Bilbo just found it so amusing to watch the owl express emotions that Thorin wouldn’t let slip. Rivendell was especially enlightening to all the moods the owl could express. The bird spent much of its time in the elven city with ruffled feathers despite the haughty look Thorin was toting. Other times it looked calmed and happy. There was only one time in Rivendell, however, that Bilbo happened to catch the bird truly mad. It was when he happened to overhear Gandalf’s conversation about madness running in the line of Durin that he turned to find the dwarven king staring out at the conversers while his owl flustered about with a glare in its eyes. Bilbo had wondered whether he should really be hearing the conversation at this point and his fox retreated between his legs, but Thorin just looked on and the bird didn’t even take notice of the little creature. But it wasn’t until the very end of Elrond’s speech that the true anger showed as the owl let out a screech and beat its wings as hard as it could. Thorin seemed completely unaffected, but Bilbo chose to pick up his fox and scurry away anyway. There was no knowing when the king would finally snap and Thorin already didn’t like him as it was.

After watching and knowing how the owl reacted to all of Thorin’s emotions, Bilbo knew exactly who the pale orc was and just what he intended to do the moment the daemon let out a screech when Thorin saw the orc. Yet there was nothing that he could do about it. His kind were scavengers and, even when they did hunt, they never went after something so large as wargs. But then the pale orc somehow sent Thorin flying in the same moment that his white warg caught the owl with its sharp claw and Bilbo was the only one in the right place to help and he just couldn’t stop himself.

With a scream of both anger and terror, Bilbo tackled the orc sent to behead the dwarven king to the crown. He almost lost when the orc got on top of him, but he was quick and got his sword in first and he kept stabbing until one of the wargs who writhed with each stab cried out and disappeared. Only then did Bilbo let himself fall back, scooping the injured bird into his arm as he went, to stand before Thorin and try to protect him. He wouldn’t last long, he knew, but he at least had to try.

Fortunately enough, however, the dwarves were quick to regain themselves and come to their rescue. Fili came with his lion and Kili with his wolf and Dwalin with his massive bear. Then the Eagles were soon swooping down on them and carrying them off. Thorin was the first to be taken with Bilbo’s little fox curled on his chest to make sure that he remained safe. Bilbo watched as one by one, the dwarves were swooped away by eagles until it was only him left and the giant bird was coming for him. Perhaps it was instinct that had him trying to get away, but he was unsuccessful and the bird dropped him onto that of another.

Despite knowing that the birds meant him no harm, Bilbo was glad to get away from them. Especially with the little injured burden in his arm. He arrived on the carrock just in time for Thorin to wake and force himself up despite his horrible injuries and it was only then that Bilbo realized just how horrible his actions had been. It was practically forbidden for anyone to touch a daemon that wasn’t their own, yet here he was still carrying the owl that clearly did not belong to him. Thorin had every right to execute him where he stood for this crime.

Thorin stood glaring at him and scolding him for even thinking of getting in the way during the battle and Bilbo cautiously held out the now healed bird in a peace offering. But the bird only made an annoyed sound before resettling itself on Bilbo’s shoulder as Thorin pulled him into a hug. In all honesty, it was probably the strangest thing that had ever happened to Bilbo. Yet, Bilbo’s little fox yipped happily as it flitted about their feet, rubbing against the fur of Thorin’s boots as much as Bilbo’s bare legs.

After that, Thorin’s owl seemed to take a liking to Bilbo, perching as much on his shoulder as it did on Thorin’s. Especially when they met Beorn who was a big bear of a man that Gandalf forced him to meet without any of the dwarves and he was quite squared of the whole thing. Bilbo is pretty sure that the owl never even left his side while they stayed in that house even after Beorn offered to aid them. The owl was getting so close to Bilbo that he wondered if the dwarves sharing their daemons like this meant something completely different than it did for the hobbits.

He hoped not. Even more so because his fox was spending just as much time under Thorin’s feet as the owl stayed with him. At first, it seemed that Thorin had found the little creature annoying, often tripping on it whenever it got close to him, but he finally just started tsking and picking the fox up to put on his own shoulder. Thorin’s shoulders were so broad and his posture so upright that Bilbo’s fox had no problem staying on top of them despite it not being its natural habitat. The first time Bilbo had seen this happen, though it took his fox sometime to realize it was quite safe and to get comfortable, he could have sworn Thorin’s owl puffed up in pride on his own shoulder, though it was a little harder to tell when he couldn’t quite see the owl in his peripherals.

They continued on and Bilbo found his and Thorin’s bedrolls were somehow being moved closer and closer. It was comforting, especially in the darkness of Mirkwood when it felt like there were so many dangerous creatures just waiting to attack them, but it certainly was disconcerting to find Thorin’s owl grooming Bilbo’s fox when they woke in the mornings. That was just simply not done in hobbit culture. Unless, of course, the two daemon’s belonged to a married couple. That was really what convinced Bilbo that it must mean something different to the dwarves and, even though it felt somewhat strange, he was happy to allow his fox to continue basking in the attention of the owl.

Then they were taken to Thranduil and Bilbo somehow managed to get them out where they hired a man named Bard who had an old thrush on his shoulder to smuggle them into Lake Town. They could see the mountain from the boat, but, as they stared at it, Bilbo could only watch the owl who sat on Thorin’s should, prancing back and forth like he had never seen it do before. It had always been absolutely stable on either of their shoulders and the antsiness of it worried Bilbo quite a lot.

And it just kept getting worse the closer they got to the mountain. With every passing day, the owl could keep less and less still until it often took off in flight. Something about the way it looked as it flew far above their heads sent his own fox skittering once more under his legs and far away from either Thorin or the bird above them. It got to the point that Bilbo just wanted to offer his own shoulder for the bird to settle on, but calling out to another’s daemon was just one step too far.

So Thorin’s owl flies above them until it’s exhausted itself enough to come back down and sleep on Thorin’s shoulder, only settling once when they thought they wouldn’t be able to open the secret entrance, and Bilbo worries for his fox’s safety. Even moreso when he is forced to leave the fox behind to face the dragon because it doesn’t turn invisible when he puts his precious magic ring on his finger and it almost got him caught more than once in Mirkwood. He hoped that when they finally got rid of the dragon Thorin would calm and his bird would return to normal.

He had been so terribly wrong.

The owl actually started attacking all the other daemon’s. Dwalin got the brunt of it because he was the closest to Thorin and tried his best to bring him back from whatever madness he was falling into, but it barely affected his massive bear. Bilbo’s fox, on the other hand, was forced to run scared more often than not because, even as Thorin got closer and closer to Bilbo in his madness, the bird kept attacking his fox. The worst of it happened when Thorin gave Bilbo the Mithril shirt only to accuse one of his own of stealing the Arkenstone, which Bilbo still had hidden in his jacket pocket, too afraid of what would happen if he gave it to the newly crowned king. The words had scared him so much that Bilbo’s fox had snapped at Thorin’s boots and that was when the owl lunged. It dug its claws into the fox and threw it against a wall and Bilbo cried out as the pain ripped through his very heart, but Thorin didn’t seem to notice.

That was when Bilbo made up his mind. He couldn’t leave, of course, his friends still needed him, but he could at least do this one thing to try to stop the war that Thorin’s madness would surely cause. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, getting over the parapet and down to the rocks that had once been a bridge below, but he managed carrying the very heavy burden of a stupid rock against his chest. The moment he was rid of it, he returned back to the mountain, though he stayed as far away from Thorin as he possibly could until the Arkenstone was revealed in the hands of Bard the very next day. Then he was forced to step forward and claim his guilt and try to explain himself.

Not even the dragon made Bilbo as afraid as Thorin did as he tried to throw him over the ramparts. He suddenly understood why his fox had feared Thorin’s owl so much. Bilbo could escape the dragon because he could fit into little nooks and crannies that Smaug just could not reach, but there were no places that he could hide from Thorin. Thorin could kill him when even a dragon could not.

Luckily, Gandalf stepped forward just in time to make Thorin release him, though the dwarf king swore that he would never have dealings with either of them ever again. Bofur pushed him back to the rope that he had climbed down the first time, but he lunged straight for his little fox. It was too late. The owl already had the little creature in its claws and was throwing it over the ramparts. Bilbo felt the moment the fox hit the ground as his whole heart almost felt like it exploded, but he scrambled down the rope before anyone could try to aid them. The little fox lay bloody and broken on one of the rocks below and the owl pranced around it making sounds that Bilbo might have interpreted as worried in any other situation.

“Get away!” Bilbo screamed, swatting at the bird as he picked up his daemon. It squawked at him, but flew back up to where Thorin stood staring with wide eyes down at them.

Bilbo scurried away from the mountain and Gandalf immediately took him to his side. He begged the wizard to heal his little Daemon, but the wizard only shook his head. A Daemon was a sign of a person’s soul and not even magic could heal a broken heart. So Bilbo took his coat off, now knowing that there would have been a battle whether he had interfered or not, and set the creature down in what looked like an out of the way, but relatively comfortable sport. It was cold and Bilbo shivered, but his Daemon wouldn’t last long and once it was gone he wouldn’t feel anything anyway. He just wanted it to be comfortable for the last little bit of its life.

The Battle of Five Armies began and the war cries rang in Bilbo’s ears even as he fought in Lake Town. He wasn’t much help to anyone, but he couldn’t just stand aside and do nothing. As much as they didn’t want him anymore, Bilbo still wanted to protect his friends. Besides, his daemon would be gone soon anyway, he was honestly surprised it hadn’t already disappeared out on the battlefield where he left it, and he really didn’t want to turn into one of those people who lost their daemons. He had only seen it once before in his mother after her daemon died trying to protect his father during the fell winter. She had been so miserable and Bilbo had vowed that he would never let that happen to him. Only now it was going to happen, so he wouldn’t be all that upset if his life should end here on this battlefield.

Perhaps that’s why he so quickly volunteered himself to go the Ravenhill when they found out another army was coming from there after they had seen Thorin, Fili, Kili, and Dwalin heading in that very direction with their daemons. There was no way it had anything to do with the love that Bilbo thought had grown inside him for the dwarf king. It couldn’t have been because his little fox was either already dead or close to it, so he shouldn’t be able to feel anything at all.

Bilbo raced to the top of Ravenhill and found everyone waiting on one side of the frozen water with all but Thorin’s owl. Thorin, of course, was shocked to see him, but Bilbo paid no mind to the obvious relief Thorin was showing as he warned them of the trap. Whatever he was seeing in the dwarf king wouldn’t matter when his daemon disappeared anyway.

Thorin whistled and the owl immediately came flying from the other structure, but a volley of arrows flew through the air and one of them caught his wing. Thorin cried out even as Bilbo rushed onto the frozen lake to reach the little creature. It may have hurt his fox, but it was still Thorin’s daemon and as long as he could still feel some emotion he would not let anything happen to it.

Orcs joined him on the ice and Bilbo scrambled away. Suddenly, Thorin and Dwalin and Fili and Kili and the lion and the wolf and the bear were all charging before him. They were probably fighting to defend Thorin’s daemon, Bilbo realized. He couldn’t do much to help them, he knew little about fighting and no one had ever though to take the time to teach him during the journey, but what he could do was to curl around the creature and use his whole body as a protection for it. The owl was only slightly injured and, as long as it didn’t get anymoreso, it would live through this day.

Bilbo watched as the battle was fought on just in front of him and one by one the dwarves were separated from each other along with their daemons, though curiously enough the lion stayed with Kili while the wolf stayed by Fili, until Thorin was fighting Azog by himself without even a daemon’s aid.

There was a moment where everything seemed to go silent as Azog slipped below the ice only for it all to be broken by a cry from Thorin as Azog came back from the dead once again. Bilbo stared helplessly from afar, unable to get to Thorin through the orcs that had somehow managed to surround the battle, as Azog tried to force the sword embedded in his hand straight into Thorin’s chest. Thorin had managed to get Orcrist up just in time to block the attack, but he strength was weakening and Azog was going to kill him.

Suddenly, Bilbo’s little fox scrambled out of Thorin’s jacket where the dwarf had put it to keep it safe from the battle and leapt at Azog’s face. The pale orc cried out in surprise and pulled back just enough that Thorin could get Orcrist free and thrust it through Azog’s thick armor. Somewhere down below there was a howl as the white warg fell and an elf turned with just enough force to behead it. Azog’s breathing stopped and Thorin stumbled away from him.

The Eagles arrived and the battle was won, but Bilbo could only watch as Thorin leaned down to once more pick the little fox up off the ground. He nervously brought it back to Bilbo and held it out just as Bilbo had done the first time he had ever picked up Thorin’s injured owl.

“I found it on the battlefield,” Thorin said. “My owl was standing guard over it until I was able to pick it up. I am truly sorry for my words and deeds at the gates. I would take them back if I could.”

The fox looked at Thorin curiously before using the bridge that his arms created to make its way back into the dwarf’s shirt. Thorin’s eyes widened as it cuddled once more against him. The owl, though still slightly injured forced its way onto Bilbo’s shoulders and settled for the first time in days. All would be forgiven in time and they would talk about just what exactly it meant that their daemon’s were so close, but for now neither could say a word because Bilbo pulled the great big dense dwarven king down for what had to be the best kiss in the whole world.

So I absolutely love @alkjira‘s plot bunnies and this was one of them: http://alkjira.tumblr.com/post/139065401989/im-pretty-sure-ive-said-this-before-but-fuck

Also I didn’t even realize it was the anniversary until last night at ten while I was writing this so Happy Unexpected Anniversary guys!