“Thorin!”
Pain suddenly forgotten, Gemma raced across the frozen river to where Thorin lay slumped against the ruins. She arrived at his side just as another figure descended the steps and found him as well. Gemma’s hand shot to her knife, but she dropped it as soon as she realized that it was Bilbo, awake once more after his head injury. The two of them knelt at Thorin’s side.
His eyes were slightly out of focus, and his breathing was laboured, but Gemma could not immediately see what was wrong. “What is it? What happened?”
His eyes flickered to her and lit up when his muddled brain recognized her. “Gemma? …You escaped?”
“Of course I did. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
Thorin ignored her question again, casting his eyes to the other present Company…show more content… Gemma had forgotten that she, too, was dying, in a way. It made things easier, though. She would live out her final moments as Thorin lived his, and when he was gone, she would kill herself. It was the only way to stop Sauron from using her body to destroy entire worlds, and it would prevent her from enduring a life without Thorin in this place. Middle Earth was so much better than her own universe in many ways, and so much worse in many others, but it seemed that there was one constant. Life was cruel in every universe, and Gemma had been a fool to believe otherwise.
Bilbo had wrapped a comforting arm around Gemma’s shoulder as he also mourned his dying friend. Gemma would have returned the embrace if her hands had not still been glued to Thorin’s side. There wasn’t a force on this earth, or any other, that could make her move them; she was intent on keeping him alive as long as she could, despite the futility of the action. Instead, she leant her head on Bilbo’s shoulder and cried silently, allowing him to rub her back and press a kiss to her temple. Gemma was glad that he was here. She couldn’t have done this on her