Journey to Rivendell – A Dream
A/N: An excerpt from the Hobbit with OC's and anachronisms. It was a dream (honest) and this was the way it came out.
I woke up laughing, so I had to share my brain's peculiarities with the world.
We arrived at Rivendell exhausted. For being touted in the guide books as one of the world's great beauty spots, we honestly didn't care. We just needed a place to collapse and gather our wits again. We had not expected to walk the last twenty miles. Not at all. This leg of the journey was supposed to have been an elegant ride in two convertibles we hired at the Prancing Pony Inn.
I suppose I should introduce myself, and describe our party and our purpose. I am Bella, well that is what I will respond to, the full name is Belladonna Heathertoes Baggins. A kind warning, I will ignore you for weeks if you ever mentioned my first name in full, and I'd ignore you for years if ever learned my second name. Heathertoes, what was my mother thinking? As to what I was doing away from my home in the Hill in Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, well, that in itself is a tale for another telling. Suffice to say it was not my idea to pick up my life and throw in my lot with a band of treasure hunters. No, that idea was all Gandalf's. He is a wizard and a human. At least I think he is a human. We hobbits live long lives, and some humans match us, but most reach between sixty and eighty in their lifetimes. Gandalf however has been around in our legends for longer than that. Great grandfather Took used to have these fantastic parties and they said a wizard by the name of Gandalf would provide these amazing fire displays. That was over a hundred and fifty years ago.
For an entertainer, he is a gruff old thing, though he has a keen mischief in his eyes when the mood takes him. Which of late, seems to be whenever the dwarves grumble among themselves. It is as if he knows something else and is amused to watch them complain about things that honestly do not need to be discussed. Like how much it is raining and how wet it is. That aside, I was horribly disappointed in his magic. My head was full of fireworks, but I have yet to see any fire from him. He just sits there and waits for the dwarves to light the cook fires in the evening before taking a splinter from the fire and lighting his own pipe. That is his one redeeming feature aside from the truly fantastic stories he tells. He smokes this amazing pipe. Like nothing I have ever seen, a long curved handle with a finely engraved bowl. If he sees people watching he blows smoke rings. I want to take up smoking just to be able to blow smoke rings. I just have to work out how to get over the awful coughing fits and thus being the butt of jokes from the dwarves when I try with just a simple cigarette in a cheroot - which I consider more elegant for a woman than a pipe. Though I must state I can roll the best cigarette, it is the smoking part that eludes me.
Those dwarves. According to them, it was Gandalf's plan, but the more they talk, I think it was Thorin Oakenshield's plan. He is a prince. A proper prince with a title and all. I was gobsmacked when I discovered a prince was one of the raucous fellows who had emptied my larder with their feasting the night they arrived. Honestly, I'd just invited Gandalf so I could watch him blow smoke rings and stroke that silky beard of his when he told stories. However, Gandalf came with his wild group of friends. To have Gandalf around, I would put up with a lot, even his dwarvish treasure hunters. Oh, hang on there seems to be something going on.
Oh goodness. Those elves! They are as pretty as the tales tell and more racist than the dwarves, or is it the dwarves attitude to them that is causing the problem? Anyway, they are a little unhappy with each other. They do not mind hobbits or wizards though to Gandalf and I seem to be able to slip around Rivendell with no trouble. Given the fact that we arrived here as a ragged group, hardly more than beggars at their gates, the elves have been very kind. And right this moment they are showing more grace than the dwarves in the party. They have provided us with a private garden to dine in and have given us free food to eat. The dwarves mutter in their own tongue, but I know enough dwarvish now to spot the swear words and insults. They are bluntly descriptive with their insults. Gosh, but is dwarvish a good language to swear in. Almost as good as the black tongue, though I would be a pariah to the group if they ever heard that opinion. The elves ignore them and speak to each other in their own liquid language, but by the set of their eyes and twitch of their mouths, I think they are mocking the dwarves in their own eloquent way. I am glad Gandalf was with us now or Thorin would not have let the elves into the garden to deliver the food. Sometimes that dwarf cannot see past the chip on his shoulder. Kili, one of the younger dwarves, said it was because of some elvish betrayal that he lost his kingdom, so perhaps one cannot blame him.
So, I suppose now that I've eaten you want to know how we landed up aggravating the Elves at Rivendell and incidentally scored free board and lodging. That would take us back three days to when we arrived in a tour bus at the Prancing Pony Inn. It had been pissing with rain the whole day. Utterly miserable. We had been crammed in this bus with no smoking stickers on the windows for too many hours for the dwarves and their nicotine addiction to be content. I contented myself at staring out at the landscape as we drove through it. If grey mist was landscape. Dramatic. That's what our accented tour guide come bus driver had called it. Atmospheric. He was making up for the fact that we hadn't been able to see the famous battle fields and landmarks which were normally visible from the road. The dwarves had not even been able to go out to smoke it was raining that hard. A night at the Prancing Pony and a sunny morning the next day did much to lift their spirits. Also watching each other trying not to laugh at the proprietors face when he yelled at them for setting off the smoke alarms in the bedrooms cheered them up immensely.
It was Fili's idea to hire convertibles. There is this long stretch of road between the Pony and Rivendell and the last bit is – as my aching feet can attest – the best mountain road one can travel for miles. Therefore, we set out the next morning in these sleek grey cars. Fili drove one, and I ended up in the one Thorin drove, because Gandalf took shotgun. When we were among strangers, the dwarves bored everyone with talk of stock prices and investments. However, when we were a private group, they would tell stories of their exploits. They were old school treasure hunters, which in today's parlance would probably be thieves wanted for thefts of cultural items, but they did not care. They were after a greater treasure than the cultural wealth of other nations. They were after their own ancestral treasures, which no government could sue them for – or so they bravely claimed. They had promised me one fourteenth or my funeral arrangements, whichever came first. I was game, it was better than sitting at home with my great aunts telling me that it was about time I was married and settled down. Ugh. All the young bucks in Hobbiton ever wanted was my home I inherited from my parents. Not a sincere young swain among them. So I snuck off leaving the place locked. The dwarves had promised that this would not take longer than a few weeks. Now that I know them better, they lied. And they lied badly. A few weeks? It was already on the second week and we were only at Rivendell. The Lonely Mountain was at least two weeks drive away by car, and the way travel arrangements were handled by the party, we would get there in five if we were lucky.
So, on to the fate of those convertibles. I had chosen the right car. Not five minutes into the drive and Gandalf and Thorin were swapping stories, kind of a friendly one up game. Gandalf was not playing properly; I had heard better ones, though he seemed to wish to put Thorin in a good mood. It was only towards the end of the journey that I learned why Gandalf was letting Thorin win. We reached an outlook place over the valley and got out to take photographs of the setting sun.
"We're stopping at Rivendell." Gandalf said, sitting on the hood of the car blowing smoke rings in the last rays of red sunlight.
"Sure." Thorin grunted as he thumbed tobacco into his short pipe.
"My friend Elrond says he'll let us the lower house by the river for a good price."
Thorin almost burned his thumb when he dropped the match.
"What? We're not staying with no damned elves."
"Oh come now." Gandalf said mildly. "You wanted a good deal on accommodation, they might be elves but they are my friends and they owe me a favour. We'll be by the river and away from the main house; we probably won't see any elves except when we drive in and drive out."
Thorin took his time lighting his pipe and the rich pungent smell of tobacco smoke filled the air around us as he huffed on it. He glared thunderously at the darkening skies.
"You're sure of your friends? Elves are treacherous bastards."
"They are noble in their own manner." Gandalf said coolly. "Thorin, stop thinking with your pride and think with your pocket like you usually do. This will save us enough that we can afford a train through the Mirkwood instead of taking the pony paths."
Thorin scowled and puffed on his pipe, he mumbled something like 'I'll think about it,' and that was as far as they got on that topic.
A shocked shout came from behind us. We turned to look at the other dwarves, who had climbed up the small rise near the parking lot, running down the hill yelling.
"What has Fili done now?" Thorin sighed. I think the dwarves are all related in some way. Fili and Kili were the youngest, and cousins as far as I could tell. Dwarves of both sexes wore beards, and I think Fili was female, but was not going to risk upsetting him just because I was curious.
"I never parked the car with the brake off!" Fili protested to Thorin. "Someone stole it."
"Out here in the wilds?" Kili said incredulous. "Who's here to steal stuff?"
Thorin and Gandalf shared an uneasy glance and Thorin pushed away from our car. He walked over to the cliff edge and peered down at the cliffs into the deep river gorge below.
"No car there, which is where it would have rolled if you had left the break off Fili."
Fili shot a triumphant glare at his cousin and then his hands went straight for his glock at his side. The rest of the dwarves drew a variety of weapons. I must say, I was impressed. I never knew one could hide a shotgun under a coat like that, even with part of the barrel sawn off. Remind me never to cross Bofur. I had a tazer, thanks to a security conscious great aunt who worried about my safety in the large empty house, which was my home. She seemed to think a husband would be the answer to my security worries, and despairing of my lack of one, had provided me with a tazer.
The dwarves argued among themselves as to the fate of the car. Gandalf jogged up to the top of the hillock and stared around, his gaze going to a blind bend in the road quarter a mile back. Thorin followed and pointed ahead at a blind bend not more than a few hundred yards on. They loped down the hill and Thorin leaped in at the front seat of the remaining car. The dwarves piled into the car, though not all could fit.
"Get out!" Thorin snapped at them. "Balin, stay. Ori, Gloin, Bifur and Nori." He did a rapid selection and waved the rest away. He drove off with his selected posse and left us staring after them.
"My tobacco was in the cubby hole." Kili declared in devastated realization.
"Here." Bombur offered him a pinch him his pouch. "No 'baccy is not the worst. Your car had the picnic baskets in it."
There was a heartfelt groan from everyone.
"I'm a crack shot." Kili grinned. "I'll get us a rabbit for supper."
"These are hares around here, good luck hunting them, they're bloody fast." Bombur said.
Before Kili had done more than give the area a glance over for potential hare hunting, gunshots sounded ahead. I don't know who trained this crew, but surely, one runs away from gunshots? Oh no, the dwarves whipped their weapons out and sprinted towards the noise. Me and my tazer, well we brought up the rear. Which is why the bandits caught me first.
Turns out Gandalf had been right. Our second car had been stolen from us when Fili had left the keys in the ignition and the car in the lee of the hill. They had taken the car back the way we had come and hidden it a quarter mile down the road. The bandits were trolls I think. Or some kind of large orc? They were two big thugs, I can tell you that. Twelve feet tall and covered in muscle turned to flab with age. They were, however, spritely on their feet and none too acquainted with bathing or laundry facilities. They held me by my ankle and stared at me.
"We smelled you dwarves."
Troll. Their bad use of language and slow reasoning decided them. Orcs have their own issues, but they are intelligent and can use other tongues in ways so creative it would behoove one to take notes.
"I'm not a dwarf!" I squeaked. Upside down is not a place to mount a sensible defense.
"Don't lie. We has your car, with dwarf stink all over it."
"Yeah, you's all short. What's you if you's not a dwarf?"
"I'm a bur-" Declaring my clandestine job in this venture, I decided half way through my bold statement, would not be a good idea. "-ah-hobbit." I finished with a squeak as the troll tried shaking me as if that would get anything out of my pockets. They already had my phone, what more did they want?
"A Burahobbit? Never heard of them. Yer's a lying dwarf. A baby one with no fur on the chin."
I suppose at my tender age of forty I would be a young dwarf, dwarves live hundreds of years. As a hobbit, however, I was a woman of mature enough age to wish that the great aunts would shut up about the marriage thing, as even if I did get married, I certainly would not be having any children. The trolls knew their dwarves however.
"They's going to come for this car." They grinned at me. "And this baby dwarf. They's pack animals dwarfs. Tasty."
I saw how they moved the car without us having heard the engine start. One troll lifted the bonnet, the other the trunk and they carried it further down the road to their camp. I was slung like a sack of potatoes over one shoulder and bounced against a broad sweaty back.
I felt sick. I vaguely remembered reading some tabloid about the mountain cannibals years back; I thought the rangers had caught them. Clearly not. They tied me up to a tree, only after taking my phone they did not think to turn off the GPS. Stupid. The dwarves would be able to find me. They also did not search my boots; these concealed a knife and, thanks to a second cousin of mine, stink bombs filled with what smelled like the farts of well, trolls. I decided to leave the stink bombs, probably would not work on them. I set about wriggling my way free so I could grab the knife. Only the rope came loose without much effort. The trolls had discovered the food in the back of the car and were picking at it. I inched out of the ropes and slipped into the trees.
Then came a yell to end all yells. The trees shook and dropped leaves on me. I slunk though the shadows, and settled against a tree through the fork of which I could see the clearing. I gaped at the third troll who ambled down the mountain. This troll was at least twenty feet tall and carried the car stacked with tied up dwarves. I was amazed at the sheer strength of the creature. It was built like a bull, full of thick muscle, but even it dumped the car roughly as if it had only just managed to carry the load. That was everyone. They dragged the dwarves out, tied up and wriggling.
The large troll sat down on the far side of the large cook fire and proceeded to gingerly touch spots in its arm where I now saw it was covered in shot wounds. But even as I watched these seemed to heal. Magical beings, in the flesh, and they were Trolls. They were said to be genetically altered creatures from the last great war, and so far were proving all the half whispered myths and scandalous legends true. I felt sick. Trolls ate anything with flesh on it. As I believed legends quite readily by now, I could now believe that they also ate their own offspring when they couldn't get the flesh of other creatures. Utterly disgusting creatures. Only, the way the two smaller trolls left the pile of dwarves and inspected the arms of the largest member of their group with concern, a nagging doubt started in my mind. They had compassion, which denoted empathy, which caused me to question that last legend. Things could go two ways in this situation. Either they would kill us in revenge, or they would eat us because that was practical in the abandoned mountain reaches. The choice was why we would die.
For the first third of the night, the trolls ignored the dwarves, and helped the larger one with its wounds. They then inspected the weapons they had confiscated. Then they got out the cooking utensils and the large cauldron and took their time fetching water from the deep ravine below. In this time I worried and tried to work out how to sneak over to the dwarves without being seen. I climbed a tree and dropped my knife down to Kili, who immediately caught on and grinned at me. I shuffled down the tree and went to hunt down other knives so the dwarves could free themselves faster. I found a flint knife; honestly, it was there at the edge of the clearing. This hollow area must have been used by ancient peoples with hands bigger than mine. I also found a flick knife that had rusted shut, and a sickle. I took the sickle and dropped it down for Kili to pass along. However, cutting through ropes was not as easy as it looked with your hands tied behind your back. I tried to shuffle over to help them, but the trolls turned their attention to the dwarves just then.
It was then that the dwarves decided to mount their spoken defense. They set about yelling and arguing about who was the best to eat. Poor Bombur who was the largest of our group, got the worst of it, they all suggested him. His cries of 'how about suggesting no one, you imbeciles?' went unheeded. Their arguments were stupid and foolish, but it set the trolls off arguing the worst. They were not that hungry or a quick slit throat would have done it. No, the larger one wanted some artistic revenge. He had all sorts of awful ideas, and he paraded them out for the others, listing each dwarf by description and following that with the execution detail and the cooking instructions. I almost lost my lunch a few times and put my ears in to block the awful words out. I had noticed that Gandalf was not there. We could have done with some fire magic, if indeed he had magic. I was beginning to have my doubts where he was concerned.
The trolls lit their fire some time after midnight, so as better to argue their points to each other. The water was boiling and one of the younger ones was adding all the vegetables and meat we had brought with us to it. That soup pot got me anxious. I sneaked up to the dwarves and tried to help them cut themselves free. Only to discover what had been hampering them. The trolls had tied them with cable.
"I'll have to get some sort of hacksaw for this, not even wire cutters snips would get through this." I complained to Thorin who sat cussing under his breath.
"Well then go and earn your worth, Burglar." He spat at me.
I know my position in this expedition. Right at the bottom. The fourteenth share or splendid funeral. However, there is no need to treat me like dirt. I had tried to help. They had only themselves to thank for this mess, running towards the gunshots indeed. I sneaked back to the side of the clearing and hunted for anything I could use to cut cable. My search was thwarted several times as the trolls preparing the soup lumbered to and fro from the larder they had in a cave nearby. I tried to find the cave, but nearly fell off the cliff into the ravine below. The trolls could see in the dark, where I could not. Not a good revelation when one is lumbering past you and the dark is your only cover. I never did find a hacksaw.
They had taken Kili, whose smart mouth had singled him out. They had him by the ankle as they had carried me, only they swung him between them as they argued. Handing him around and inspecting him. He called them names and taunted them, even while looking as though he might throw up any moment. I had sneaked up behind Fili and had sat with his cable and tried to hack my way through the wires with friction and a knife blade. It worked dreadfully slowly. Fili fretted about his cousin and twitched just when I did not need him to. I broke through one cord and that had taken me a solid twenty minutes.
Dawn was coming and I was exhausted and terror for my friend's fate was not helping. Fili was still arguing, I was impressed, he knew trolls. The words he used were perfect for riling and insulting them. At one point, they even fought among one another. This had allowed Kili to crawl back to us and continue trying to saw through his bonds.
"And dawn take you…"
We all looked at Kili who stared back at us.
"It's not me who's been saying that rot." He snapped defensively. "I've just been trying not to puke."
The sun rose and flooded the clearing with light.
There was no sound, but the transformation was eerie. The trolls simply froze in their positions, as if turned to stone. Gandalf stepped out from the trees and tapped the nearest with his long staff.
"Cor, that's some magic!" Fili breathed.
"Hmm?" Gandalf glanced at us. "No. This is not my doing. They were built as night warriors, so dangerous that this light trigger had to be built in them to stop them. These descendents you see here are nothing on the old trolls. They would have had your flesh because you were warm. You were lucky with these ones. Old, stupid and leaderless."
Without the threat of trolls, I could go to work on the locks that held them. Why a fine lady of means like myself has a skill with lock picks, I will not now disclose. It is a useful skill however. I had just slipped out my tools to demonstrate my skill when Gandalf came up with a simpler solution. He simply found the keys and unlocked everyone. I tell you, what is the point of hiring me if you are not going to allow me some practice?
We reclaimed the things the trolls had taken from us and ate the soup the trolls had made during their argument. It was a little watery, but edible. In the daylight we could find our way down the path to the cave, it ran along the edge of the ravine and I had been right in not wanting to walk it at night. Sections of the path were missing.
The troll hoard was something to behold. They had weapons spanning three different centuries, money from the same, but all covered in dust, grime and old rotting bones. The sculls were mute witness to other unlucky travelers. I was looking for a knife to replace the one I had wrecked trying to cut cables. I found some with dull or notched blades. The trolls had used them to cut bone or something, the way they were worn. Among the discarded pots, I unearthed a scabbard enclosed blade that almost approached a foot in length, not quite a sword. It was then that Gandalf picked up a tall sword and unsheathed it. It glimmered slightly in his hand then the light faded, but the show had caught the eyes of the dwarves.
"A fire sword." Thorin breathed and picked up the blade beside the one Gandalf had selected. It had the same reaction when Thorin drew his.
Kili laughed.
"Seriously, a sword against guns?" He had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and two pistols in his belt.
Gandalf gave him a slow smile.
"Kili," Thorin said softly, his mind still engaged in wonder. "You have no idea what a fire sword is capable of."
"Killing folk, the same as guns." Balin said tiredly. "We need to get moving. We are going to have to walk out of here, as we cannot get those cars up the hill. Also no one wants to be around when those trolls wake up tonight."
"What? That's not permanent?" Bofur exclaimed in horror.
"No." Gandalf said. "It immobilizes them. Nothing we have here can destroy a troll. They will wake when the night falls, or when the clouds move in, which they seem to be doing."
"Why don't you say such things earlier?" Kili demanded. "That sort of stuff is important!"
I checked the sword in the scabbard I had found, I drew it just enough to see the edge of the blade. It was sharp. It also glowed faintly. I slammed it home in the scabbard before the fire brightened. If Thorin and Gandalf could have fire sword they would not mind me touting a fire dagger.
We walked. It was an urgent relentless pace we set. Those trolls could move faster than we could, and they would catch us if nightfall caught us before we found shelter. The fact that we had raided their hoard would ensure they would immediately kill us on finding us, however. So it was that we stumbled down over the bridge and into Rivendell as night fell.
In hindsight, it would have been better if Gandalf had not decided to take us to the back gate. But we had no choice. The back gate was the closest. We were exhausted and night was closing in. I picked the lock and placed a magnet over the simple alarm sensors. It fooled the alarm enough to get us in. I had not counted on the proximity sensors though. So our first ten minutes walk across the fields that were the Rivendell estate were to the sound of a throbbing alarm. Eventually an elf flying a small helicopter landed in the field near us and hopped out to stare at us. I know I stared back. Elves have these odd ears, all elegant and pointed. They also have a strange eldritch beauty about them that simply drew the eye and made you want to stare at them to work out what it was you found so enchanting.
"Mithrandir? Why didn't you call the house?" He asked in an accent I had never heard before. It made his voice sound live liquid velvet. I had never heard anything so beautiful.
Gandalf held up the pitiful remains of a broken phone.
"I was hoping you could retrieve the data." He pocketed it again as the elf glanced unhappily at the dwarves and slipped into his own tongue, speaking urgently. If I had thought his accent beautiful, this native tongue of his was glorious. Yet somehow, Gandalf waved off his words as if they were ordinary words.
"We'll walk down to the road and wait for you to send a truck. Thank you."
They sent a personnel truck, the lettering from the old army days still marked on the side. The fact that it said "Orthanc Penitentiary" did not help matters. I was so tired I simply clambered up, as did Balin. The rest of the dwarves, headed by Thorin, argued with Gandalf about the insult. As a result, we arrived at the main house two hours later with a truck load of seething tempers.
Elrond, the Lord of Rivendell, greeted us. He was a tall stately elf with dark hair and eyebrows which reacted spectacularly to his mood. I sat on the tailboard of the truck watching his eyebrows in response to Thorin's tongue lashing. Thorin technically outranked him, being a prince. Nevertheless, even a prince should know that blasting one's host is just asking to be thrown off his land. Elrond's eyebrows went from arched, to frowning, to downright craggy with fury. Gandalf slipped in then, and argued other things in the elves own tongue. The dwarves were not above adding insults of their own in their own language, making the mistake of thinking that if they did not understand the elves the elves would not understand them. When Elrond finally gave Gandalf a nod, and faced the dwarves with his eyebrows in a pitying sort of gesture, he spoke in fluent dwarvish. Which of course left me out of things.
We got to stay in a private garden with three adjoining bunk rooms, but not at the river house. No, Elrond it seemed wanted us close. He and Gandalf seemed to be friends, and that made me all the more curious. I loved Gandalf's tales, yet no time had he ever told me a tale about elves. He spoke to me of hobbits and the dangers just off the boarders of our lands. To the dwarves he spoke of treasure and their mountains and I think I am beginning to understand that Gandalf is not all he seems to be.
So we're at Rivendell, until Thorin recovers enough of a good temper to speak civilly to our host. We are going to have to hire cars here anyhow. Even though insurance should cover the recovery of the convertibles, we are awfully down on our luck. However, we have enough money now to buy a train passage through the Mirkwood. This they tell me is a good thing. The Mirkwood is not a good place to have to travel.
Ah well. I have had a bath. I have a comfortable bed. And there go Thorin and Gandalf off somewhere. I think I shall follow them, keep in practice as it were. Honestly, what is the point of hiring a burglar if all you give her for trying is grief? My uncle did warn me it was a job best done alone and on the quiet. If I had listened, I would be at home and would not have missed my afternoon tea. Some things are worth doing. I will be off then, to sneak along behind the stocky dwarf and the tall wizard.