All Mary cares about is surviving from one home to another. First Laketown, then Erebor, then Isengard. She is always on her toes, wings spread and ready to flit away at the slightest hint of danger. That is until an arrogant mage with an awful lying habit shows her that there is so much more fulfillment in life if your face your fears head on, and a great deal more excitement too. "Did I ever tell you the story of how I-" "Lied like truth was obscene? Yes, Luke, I've heard it a thousand times." Rated M for graphic violence, obscenities, and possible sexual interaction. Mature audiences only.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of this content. Every word is the direct product of JRR Tolkein's novel The Hobbit.
Disclaimer: I do not own Grethe, Bard's deceased wife. She is mentioned because the fanfiction she comes from- Some Things You Can Change, Some You Cannot written by .trifles, is a favorite of mine and holds true to my interpretation of Tolkein's works. Her insertion is simply a nod of gratitude from one fan to another.
Please review with constructive criticism and/or your feelings on the story. I don't read or grant attention to rude or unkind comments. Thank you, and please enjoy!
"Mary! You came! You really came!" A bright-eyed and tangle-haired girl of eleven exclaimed through her gap-toothed little smile. The girl at the door- she being quite a bit older, taller, and more ragged(though with too little hair to be tangled)- smirked secretively.
"A girl tends to come when she's called, don't she? It wouldn't be proper if I didn't respond to such an ingenious summons!" Mary pulled a worn bit of burlap from the pocket of her frayed coat, unfolding it to show a series of small, neat charcoal markings. "Clever calligraphy if I ever saw it Miss Tilda."
"What's ingenious? Or calligraphy?" Tilda asked, stating ignorance in the unashamed way of a child. "Oh, I forget my manners, do come in! I just put on some tea. All by myself!" The girl said proudly, stepping back to let some of the room beyond show and a lovely warmth to escape into the dank cold of the lake. Mary hesitated, glancing about like Tilda had just disclosed something that ought to be kept secret.
"Your Da and sister won't want you letting me in, Miss Tilda. I just come to answer your summons is all." Mary muttered, looking down shamefully at her dirty bare feet and running a hand through the very short, harshly chopped brown mop upon her head. An iced wind fluttered Tilda's warm winter dress and invited itself unbidden into the holes of Mary's.
"Da don't mind, he always says I should play with whoever I like. And Sigrid's too busy frettin' and cleanin' to bother with watching me. I've got no one to talk to." The girl ran her eyes over every inch of Mary. "Any ways, you don't look much worse than Bain after he runs about with Regnet and them, and we still let him in the house."
Mary smiled at the Tilda's attempt at being kind. It had worked, somewhat.
"I suppose I could stay a while, just to mind you whilst the house is being tended." Mary said, nervously looking behind her once more before stepping through the open door.
Inside the house there was nothing that wasn't well-used and well-loved, from the stockings drying before the fire place to the clay spoons set upon the table. Everything was in a tidy sort of disarray, the kind one assumed when one had normal amounts of things confined to a smaller than normal space. In the far corner of the house stood a large, lovingly quilted bed stuffed with wood dust and topped with two pillows and an array of toys. In the kitchen area stood a girl maybe three summers older than Mary, but twice as beautiful even in her clearly stressed state. She looked incredibly similar to Tilda- with her curly dark blond hair, porcelain skin, rosy lips, and wide, ever-searching eyes-, but then again very different, for she seemed to be the very opposite of her sister in that she knew a tad too much of the ways of the world instead of very little.
Mary pitied her. Being the great-granddaughter of a man who failed in killing the murderous beast Smaug and the lone mother-figure for her siblings and house could not be an easy task. Sigrid paused in her fervent pacing and cleaning to land a wary gaze upon Mary. She clutched her duster as a warrior might clutch his broadsword.
"Tilda, who's this?" Sigrid knows perfectly well who I am. Everyone in Laketown does. Why is she here? Was what this girl was too polite to say. Mary thought glumly.
"This is Mary. She's the one who taught me my words and numbers. See?" Tilda snatched the cloth message from Mary's hand and showcased it to her elder sister. "It says-"
"I know what it says. Da taught me to read, remember? Just like he promised he would do for you on your twelfth year." Sigrid's tone held a measure of matronly disappointment. "Why would you go and learn before then? Da's a fine tutor."
"I never meant nothin' against Da. I couldn't wait any longer! It's been so boring being locked up in the house for winter. All I've had to do is play with my toys, but I've run out of games. I don't like to tidy like you do, and Da won't let me go out on the barge with him and Bain. Passing secret messages with a friend makes the house much more fun!"
"I'm terribly sorry, Ms. Sigrid. I won't intrude upon your house and family no more." Mary murmured politely, sensing she'd worn her welcome a bit thin, wringing her hands. "Goodbye Miss Tilda. Miss Sigrid."
"Wait Mary! Wait just a moment!" Tilda cried, grasping tightly to Mary's too large coat sleeve. "Please, Sigrid! Please don't make Mary leave! She just wants to play a bit! Just a bit. She won't steal or dirty the house, and she don't want any coin. We won't bother you none, I promise."
"I didn't mean any of that, now. Pa's just been gone a time and I'm worried. I ain't got nothin' against Mary, no sense in us judging people when others judge us good enough for two." Sigrid said, looking surprised and maybe even a little hurt at Tilda's implications.
"Oh. I thought you were gonna make 'er leave on account of her Da bein' the town drunk." Tilda said, almost as an apology. Sigrid and Mary both blushed bright red.
"Tilda! Wherever did you learn to speak so coarsely? We ain't never said the like near you!" Sigrid admonished. It was Tilda's turn to blush.
"I meant nothin' by it, truly. It's just what I heard the midwife say to the tanner's wife at market yesterday." Tilda squirmed under her sister's firm glare for several moments. She seemed to loose her guilt for a second and stared up at Mary. "What's a drunk?"
"Someone very silly, is all." Mary said with a nervous smile, trying to save Sigrid from more embarrassment. "And an ingenious person is a singularly smart little booger-buster." Mary poked a giggling Tilda in the belly. "And calligraphy's what I've been teachin' you on the dock: writtin'."
"You really think I'm good at it?" Hope danced in the girls eyes as she asked. Sigrid turned back to her work, seeing the danger of impoliteness gone for the moment.
"Aye, a mite better than the school boys even. But I won't be teachin' your sneaky little self any more. A Da's the best teacher in all things, I'll not be takin' you away from that." Tilda took in a rebuttal-ready breath, but Mary pushed on before the girl could get in so much as a but. "Now, what's all this I been hearing 'bout you bein' bored silly? It ain't right for a little knee-knibbler such as yourself to be complainin' of such things when you got so much fancy in you. I suppose I'll just have to teach you some of my extra secret games."
"Really?" Tilda asked with a gleam in her eye.
"Really really. Let's start with a few simple hand games first, shall we?" A mischievous light shone in Mary's eyes as she spoke. Tilda jerked out an excited nod, running over to the table and pulling out two wooden chairs. The small girl plopped down and crossed her legs beneath her, stuffed rabbit upon her lap, while Mary perched on the edge of her seat like a flighty pigeon.
"You ever heard of iced cream, Tilda?" Mary asked, wiping her nervously damp palms upon her apron. Tilda shook her head. "Well, they only have it in special types of places where it stays very cold. Would you like me to tell you the story of Torg the Hungry, the dwarf who invented it?"
"But what does iced cream have to do with our game?"
"You'll see. Now you want to hear the story or not?"
"I suppose its better than staring at Sigrid all day. As exciting as drying paint, she is." Tilda huffed, while Mary let out a small chuckle.
"I can hear you, Tilda! Do you want cold mash for supper?" Sigrid called from the upper level of the house, making Tilda's eyes widen and her back go ramrod straight.
"No!" Tilda cried.
"I thought so." Sighed Sigrid, Mary looking on in amusement.
"Can I tell you my story now, or shall I leave you to the drying paint?" Mary murmured to a smirking Tilda.
"Oy!" Came a muffled cry from above. The two antagonists giggled.
"Alright, Mary, go on about your weird story."
"Well I guess I have to, you asking so eagerly and all." Tilda flicked Mary's arm. "Alright! Alright. As I said, the dwarf's name was Torg. He was a large fellow who had a rather keen eye for sweets. He had a different one for each luncheon meal he took in the mines, often to the jealousy of the other dwarves who knew nothing about cooking sweets. Now, it so happened that one morning, after a night of staying up very late at the dice tent, Torg woke up much later than he intended to, with only a quarter hour until his shift in the mines. He hurried so fast that he had all his clothes on backward and inside out, and his huge, clanking boots on the wrong feet. Torg had forgotten to bake the night before, and had no desserts ready to take with him. With only a few moments left to make his meal, Torg fervently threw some thick cream and candied cherries into his knapsack. Now, that day Torg was to work in the very deep mines of Erebor where it was so cold, your nose would run and freeze in the same second, and your breath would puff out like smoke from a chimney. Now Torg, being rather miserable in his backward shoes and clothes and frozen from the cold, was rather looking forward to munching his sweet treat come midday. As the rest of the lads pulled lamb stew, or salted beef, or hog shank, or rabbit jerky from their sacks, Torg pulled a now solid pouch of sugared cherries and cream into his lap. He opened it to find a sweet, creamy, delicious bag of iced cream! The dwarf could not even bear to tell his friends of this magnificent miracle, preferring to stuff the whole treat in his mouth at once and gobble it in one bite. But, of course, as we well know from our sugared ice chips, if you eat cold things too quickly they chill your head and give you an awful ache. Poor Torg was forced to spit out his new love, and spent the rest of his day in the mines hungry but hopeful." Mary gave Tilda a satisfied smile. "So there you go. Iced cream is frozen cream with sugar or fruit in it. I hear it is delicious."
"It sounds like frozen oat mash but without the oats." Tilda said, looking cynical.
"Something of that ilk. Now, would you like to learn the Double Iced Cream Game?"
"Yes!"
"The chant goes like this: Double double iced iced, double double cream cream, double iced, double cream, double double iced cream! Now you try."
"That's easy!" Tilda repeated the game's chant without flaw.
"Very good! Now, hold your hands up like mine. There you go. Make a fist with your thumbs facin' you. Good." Mary proceeded to bump their fists together everytime they said double, clap their palms together when they said iced, and clap the backs of their hands upon saying cream. Tilda caught on quickly, urging Mary to take the game faster with each round.
"This is an extra special game!" Tilda laughed after a particularly fast round of Double Iced Cream, one so fast that her partner could barely keep pace.
"Thank you, Miss Tilda. You're a resplendent hand game player." The young girl's eyebrows knitted together.
"Mary, what's respl-" Tilda's inquiry was interrupted by heavy footsteps, the strong stench of fish and sweat, and a mountain of a man draped in furs. A boy roughly two summers Mary's junior scurried in behind him, rushing downstairs to the family's outhouse. "Da! Where have you been?"
Tilda ran to hug the man, Bard the Bargeman he was called, while Sigrid thundered down the stairs to join her.
"Father! I was worried!" Mary stared, wide-eyed at the exchange. She felt her welcome had, once again, worn thin. Bard's hard, scrutinizing brown eyes carved a charred path of fire through Mary's soul. She abruptly stood and pulled her sleeves down past her fingers.
` "Who is this, Sigrid?" The girls' father wore a guarded expression, answering no questions but asking a million. Something was awry, that much Mary could tell.
"This is Mary, Daughter of Borin the….urm…..retired healer." Sigrid fumbled to be polite, but Tilda cut straight to the point for her.
"Da, is a drunk really someone who is very silly? Mister Borin never looks silly at all." Mary's face turned the color of summer apples.
"I'm terribly sorry, Master Bargeman. I'll just be leaving-" Mary broke off her apology with a monstrous cough. The wretched smell of stagnant water, feces, and urine poured into the room like flood waters. At the landing of the stairs stood a dripping wet, tattoo-covered…...dwarf. "Oh my stars."
"Thought ye said there be only two girls in the house bard. Not three." The dwarf barked, more small and hairy men coming up the stairs behind him with the same putrid smell. Tilda and Sigrid appeared as disgruntled as Mary.
"I swear, I have not purposefully fooled you. My daughters do not usually invite guests into the house during winter, so I did not count on this Mary girl." Bard explained evenly, but the dwarf did not look convinced.
"She don't look a spy, but the less who know the better. Shall I be rid of her then?" He cracked his knuckles. "Won't be but a thing to break 'er neck. Painless and quick, they say." Mary's heart skipped two beats in fear, her shaking hands grabbing the closest item to defend herself. It just so happened to be an iron kettle filled with steaming tea.
"No, no, no, no, no! That is completely unnecessary Dwalin! For pity's sakes, she's just a girl! What harm could she truly do?" A man smaller and less hair-coated than the others stepped forward, trying to be a voice of reason. Mary was extremely startled by his lack of shoes in such a bitter part of autumn.
"Try to touch me and I'll show your head the harm this 'Just a Girl' can't do." Mary's words were brave, but her hands shook ever so slightly.
"Oi! Don't they teach you manners in this town?" Asked the dwarf with a fair measure of grumpiness as the dwarves erupted into bickering among themselves and the other two girls stepped up to Mary's defense.
"Enough!" A deep, no-nonsense voice rumbled through all others, causing the small cottage to fall completely silent. A man with burning blue eyes and an authoritative air stepped forward. "The girl said you are the daughter of a healer, yes? So you know the trade well?"
Mary's head spun with adrenaline and questions, but she somehow managed to form a coherent answer.
"Y-yes. I assisted my mother in many healings and learned to make healing draughts and poultices."
"My nephew, Kili, was badly hurt by an orc arrow and is beyond our healer's help. Might you know how to treat him?" A tremor ran through Mary's hands as she slowly set the pot down, sensing the passing of immediate danger.
"It depends. I would have to see his wound." The regal dwarf barked something in a rough tongue that Mary did not understand, but she heard the name of his nephew strung into his command. A taller dwarf with greasy, limp black hair and a strong cologne of dead flesh limped up the stairs. Mary had always had an eye for detecting ailments before truly seeing them, a weak strand of magic passed down to her from her thrice great grandmother, who was an elf. With this sense, she knew that Kili's wound was far worse than anything she could handle.
"Could you sit please, sir?" Mary asked the dwarf. He nodded, fighting off the delirium of pain that Mary knew he was in. She carefully unwrapped the soiled bandage upon his knee that was most likely doing more hard than good. Upon close inspection and gentle prodding, Mary discovered why the wound had become so very concerning so quickly. The arrow he had been pierced with had been ripped from his body in such a way that is left small fragments embedded in the muscle and bone of his leg, spreading the orc poison faster than would be normal.
"Well?" The one that threatened me prodded without a stitch of patience. Mary swallowed nervously.
"This is far more complex than any horse kick or rust poisoning my father tended, Master Dwarf. I don't pretend to know any special skills in healing aside from the usual, but the spread of the poison and how it blackens the tissue instead of inflamming it is very similar to the bite of autumn water spiders. If it really is similar, I can slow the spread with Gymweed and Rosefarce to give him more time, but unless this man receives elvish medicine he will last around three days. If he is as stubborn as I hear dwarves often are, maybe four." Mary turned to look into the eyes of the leader dwarf, seeing they had melted from flecks of sapphire into twin maelstroms. A blond dwarf stood by his side looking as though he yearned with all his heart to be next to Kili on the floor, but there was no room for him the Bargeman's small house.
"Where does one come by these herbs?" Asked the blond. Mary gave him an incredulous look.
"They are the only two herbs that flourish in winter, master dwarf. You need but to step outside and look in any of the neighboring houses' plant beds. It really is a complicated and skillful process, sir, and I am but the healer's daught-"
"Kind Bargeman, do you happen to have any such beds near your homestead?" The young dwarf interrupted, undeterred.
"Yes, Sigrid tends one just outside the front door. Feel welcome to its contents." Answered Bard.
"Please, sir, if you'd but hear me for just a moment-"
"My thanks for your hospitality, bargeman. Once we come back into our wealth, my Uncle shall see you rewarded kindly." He strode toward the door without hearing a word from Mary's pleading lips. She became quite fed up with being talked over and ignored.
"Sir dwarf! Listen to my piece, I beg you! Your kin's life may well depend upon it!" Mary's raised voice and biting warning gave pause to the short man's stride. "I may guess andspeculate upon this all you want me to, mister, but without either my father's medicine books or he himself there is no surety in the treatments I give. They may well be harming him more than helping."
"We haven't the time for this endless prattle, Thorin! Durin's Day grows closer with each passing breath. Find the girl's sire and get on with it, for Mahal's sake!" The dwarf who tried to off Mary without even asking her name spit to the dark haired one with an air of authority.
"Peace, Dwalin." Thorin held a hand to the hardened dwarf's shoulder. He then turned to the brigade of filthy, reeking dwarves upon Bard's stairs. "Bofur, Nori. Follow the girl to the Healer and bring him back sober. Stick to the shadows and back alleys, we don't need the Mayor on our tails quite yet. Ensure that the girl speaks not a word of us. Oin, tend Kili until they return." He turned to Bard. "And once they leave, Master Bargman, there's the matter of what you promised to us on the lake. Hopefully that agreement, despite the current trend, hasn't changed."
"I honor my word to the best of my abilities, Lord Dwarf, never let that be put into question." Bard turned to his children. "Tilda, grab your night things. Sigrid, Bain and I need to discuss some very boring things with these fine men. I need you to stay at your new friend's house for a day or so until we are done."
"But sir! You don't know me in the slightest!" Mary gasped, completely taken aback.
"You forget that your Mother tended my Grethe on her deathbed without asking for a single coin in return. If there is anyone I trust with my Tilda in this town, it is that kind woman's daughter." He turned to Tilda, who looked incredibly small and confused as she clutched Sigrid's skirt. He clutched her to his chest for a brief moment before qickly righting himself. "Run along now, and mind Mary as you would me."
"Yes, Da." Tilda scurried off to grab her favorite stuffed toy and nightdress as three dwarves approached Mary- one with a floppy hat that was so silly it couldn't even be stylish to dwarves, one with an ear pipe and great masses of gray hair, and the last with oddly shaped brown hair.
"I am Bofur son of Tofur, at your service." Said the first with a practiced bow.
"Oin son of Von, at your service." Drawled the second in a very dwarvish accent, nodding his head in courtesy.
"And I am Nori son of Mori, at your service." Chimed the third, bowing as well.
"Well I'm….um….Mary Gallel, at yours." She stood and gave a clumsy curtsy. "Terribly sorry. For Men, it is customary to greet with your name and a handshake."
"No need for worryin', Miss, it's just sayin' 'hello' no matter how you slice it." Bofur said with a grin. He turned to Nori. "We're to escort you home for the time bein', and Oin here is gonna do his best to help Kili while we fetch your father."
"I'm aware." Mary cleared her throat uncomfortably and put to words the nagging worry she'd had since she first saw Bard enter the house. "I don't know what trouble you folk are entangled in, but I'd very much like it if you kept it far away from the citizens of Laketown, most importantly the children. They don't deserve any more pain or suffering." The two dwarves seemed at a loss for words, but were saved from responding by the reappearance of Tilda.
"Does your house have charcoal and paper, Mary? I like to draw before I sleep." The girl's eyes had lost their cheerful sheen, replaced by a taint of worry. She fidgeted with her stuffed rabbit's ear.
"Of course, Miss Tilda. My Ma liked to draw too. If you're good and eat all your supper, I might even show you a few of her pictures." Mary said, crouching down and holding the girl's hands to still them. "Where's that smile, eh? We'll have great fun, you and I. Just you see."
"C'mon, lassies, the longer we dally the more Kili's wound worsens." Urged Nori, who had moved to stand by the door. How could I forget, Mary thought, when I hear a rasp in his breath and see the cloudy sheen of fever in his eyes?
Mary grabbed Tilda's hand, which has sweaty from clutching her rabbit and sticky from a sneaked piece of honeycomb(if her sugary breath was any indication), and hustled after the dwarves into the rush of freezing wind and sickly smell of putrid fish that was Laketown.
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