His mother always said a person could change the world with a smile. Fortune will call at the smiling door. Smiles breed smiles as frowns breed frowns, so sow your seeds with care. His mother had a million of them.
None can strike a smiling face.
Much as he'd wanted to, Bofur could never quite believe that last one. Still, it had seemed a nice enough sentiment, so he'd taken it right along with all the rest of his mother's proverbs as he'd grown up, until smiling and joking have become second nature. He knows it grates upon his companions' patience at times, especially when his optimism in the face of misfortune seems to draw even more trouble down upon their heads.
"Look back and smile on perils past."
"What was that?"
Bofur starts. He hadn't been aware he was speaking out loud. "Nothing, nothing," he assures the concerned bartender with a smile. "Just something my ma used to say." He raises his newly filled mug in thanks and turns to make his way back to his companions at their table. He skirts around the edge of the crowded room, careful to hold his drink high enough to avoid men's elbows. He deftly sidesteps one staggering drunk, only to run smack into another one at his other side.
"Apologies," Bofur splutters as the better part of two pints of ale runs off the flaps of his hat and through his braids and mustache. A smile confuses an approaching frown. He smiles warmly up at the man towering above him. "Ah, well, no harm done on this end. You alright, laddie?"
"Laddie?" the man demands. "Do I look like a 'laddie' to you, master halfwit?"
Bofur raises his hands in surrender and tries another smile. "No offense meant, sir," he says soothingly. "Just makin' sure all's well."
The man is unimpressed. If anything, Bofur's smile seems to make him angrier. "Are you as stupid as you are short?" He knocks Bofur's hat off. "Or is your bloody hat too tight? Does it look like all's well?" He gestures angrily to his sodden clothes.
One who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger. "Now, sir," Bofur reasons, "there's no cause to be sore over spilt ale." He smiles again. "I'll buy you a fresh one, and I'll near guarantee you'll have forgot all this by the bottom of it. What do you say?"
A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. He smiles encouragingly, his hands still held out to his sides nonthreateningly. The man nods to somebody behind Bofur, presumably the barkeep. Bofur lets out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding and reaches for a pocket, where his coin purse is nestled.
Suddenly, his scarf is grabbed from behind and jerked tight, pulling Bofur off his feet. "I say we take you out back and knock that stupid smile off your face," the man growls, towering above him with a feral grin on his face as his friend hauls on the scarf.
Bofur scrabbles frantically at the fabric drawn tight around his throat. He is unable to breathe or call out for his friends as the two men drag him out of the tavern through a back door. Dark spots are filling his vision when the tension on the scarf is suddenly released. Bofur rolls to his side, coughing and gasping for air. His fingers are too uncoordinated by his recent brush with unconsciousness to unwind the scarf from around his neck.
He manages to make it up to one knee, and he sees the two men conferring across the alleyway. Before he is fully recovered, the pair seem to come to an agreement, and they approach, the man whose drink he'd spilled in the lead. "Now, listen, fellas," Bofur chokes out. "I didn't mean no harm or offense. Just tryin' to be friendly is all."
A swift kick to the stomach knocks Bofur onto his back in the wet alley and silences him. "And what makes you think I'd want to be friends with one of your sort, dwarf?" the man spits down at Bofur.
Bofur is still struggling to catch his breath from the kick when he feels the scarf go taut once more. He lets out a strangled cry and claws at the fabric again. The man's friend hauls up on the scarf, dragging Bofur to his feet and up against the wall of the tavern. Still he pulls higher. Panicked, Bofur scrabbles for purchase against the rough bricks of the wall.
Bofur feels the tiniest amount of slack return to the scarf as it is tied off to something above his head. He is left dangling and gaping like a fish on the end of a line. He quickly figures out that if he stands on the very tips of his toes, he can sneak in a tiny breath past the constricting fabric. He grips the length of the scarf above his head with one hand, the other preoccupied with clawing at his throat, and tries desperately to rip the fabric down and free himself.
The men stand before him, laughing now. "Where's your smart-ass smile now, laddie?" the man who'd had the drink jeers.
The friend pipes up. "Come on, laddie," he coos at Bofur. "What's wrong? Why don't you smile for us?" He pinches Bofur's cheeks like he is some stubborn dwarfling and arranges his face into a grotesque mockery of a smile.
Bofur growls and twists his head away as best he can. He gives up clawing at his neck for a moment in favor of clawing at his attackers. His fingernails leave red streaks across the friend's face, but then the first man is punching Bofur hard. His head knocks back into the bricks behind him, and stars explode in his vision. Blow after blow rains down upon him, and it feels as though his chest will burst for want of air. Eventually, the stars give way to black spots once again as his legs grow weak.
Words register dimly in Bofur's mind as he comes back to awareness. "...tied him too high."
"Too late now. He won't last long like that. Let's get out of here before someone sees."
Bofur wants to cry out to their retreating backs, wants them to come back and cut him down. All he can manage is a hoarse moan, too quiet even to his own ears. Tears of despair prick in his eyes as the shadows swallow up his attackers.
He closes his eyes for a moment and takes as deep a breath as he is able in an attempt to calm himself. Though the rest of his weapons had been left up in his room over the bar, he can still feel the familiar weight of the knife in his left boot. Now, if he can just reach it, he can cut himself free.
The first time he tries to lift his left foot up so he can reach it, his right foot slips dangerously, and for a moment, Bofur can get no air at all. When he regains his footing, his throat burns. He tries again after a moment, more carefully this time, but try as he might, he can't quite reach his boot. He carefully lowers his foot again and lets the tears fall.
His head aches fiercely. His calves are so tired from fighting his stiff boots to stand on tiptoe that his legs quake. Bofur knows the man had been right: he won't last long like this. Another surge of panic sends him scratching at the scarf-turned-noose again, heedless of the blood now soaking the cloth. His movements become sluggish and uncoordinated as a terrible ringing begins in his ears. Bofur's legs give out, and despite his best efforts, he cannot regain his stance to take the tension off the scarf. His eyelids begin to flutter, and he knows he will die in this alley, hanged for a spilled drink and a mistimed smile.