For dwalinroxxx, as this isinspired by her art on Tumblr
"Washing Day"
By: Felicity Sapphire (e-mail: frozensapphire )
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Genre: General, Adventure,
Characters: Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Trying to see what Norse deities might be able to help me out with my little "I do not own The Hobbit" problem. I'm currently setting up plans for committing blot to Loki…
Summary: "What do you mean you bathe more than once per season?"
After only a short while of travelling with his heathen captors, Bilbo discovers that the tales of the fearsome, filthy and savage Northmen from his childhood might be much closer to great inaccuracy than the actual truth.
Notes:
Viking-AU. I decided to do this one-shot based on some gorgeous art I stumbled over where the company of Thorin Oakenshield is portrayed as Vikings. I'm quite the sap for cultural references and being from Scandinavian, and therefore Norse, descent the customs, war strategies and mythology of the Vikings has always been somewhat interesting to me. (Yes, I am sort of biased). I had a lot of fun writing this, so I do hope you will enjoy reading it!
The dwarves (here Vikings) purposefully speak with butchered grammar, as English isn't their first language.
Taken from dwalinroxxx's blog on Tumblr: "Thorin is a Viking chieftain. He and 12 of his blood brothers are on a mission to free their homeland from the invasion of Smaug the Dragon who is a powerful dark sorcerer blessed by Loki himself. Bilbo is a young monk whose monastery was attacked and ravaged by Thorin's gang and he ended up as a hostage. Not a slave for trading though – according to Oin's vision, Bilbo is The One chosen by Odin, the only person with the power to defeat Smaug and Thorin would rather kill him than let him go, so Bilbo actually has no other choice but to join these dirty heathens on their quest. Monastery life was boring as hell anyway."
LINK: dwalinroxxx. tumblr post/47214572368/ another-meme-prompt-vikings-au-thorin-is-a-viking
I won't be following the prompt down to the last detail, of course. The one-shot takes place nearly a week after Bilbo's capture.
NB! The version with the actual runes used should be up on my Tumblr account, FelicitySapphire, very soon. Also, I am not by any means fluent in Norse or runes, but I tried my best and did a bit of research. ALSO: some of the company will be using old Norse. There will be a word list at the bottom.
The month of June, one day to God's Day
In the third ruling year of þegn Fortinbras II
Some days since the feast of St. Whomever
An account by Bilbo Baggins, brother of the Tuckborough Priory
Day VI of my imprisonment.
In writing moment I wish I had more closely followed the lectures on the Saints' feasts Father Isengrim held, if only to better record these events to an accuracy of date. Thinking of the priory, and my tutor and beloved uncle, I look back at Tuckborough's fall regretting that I know not if he yet lives. After witnessing the abbot slayed so quickly and remorseless, before what incidentally would have been my own demise, I do not dare put my hopes to it.
I dare not hope for any great number of survivors. Yet I write this account with my faith in the luck I have had up until now – that it shall not fail me and, in due course, send me back home. Never should I have thought I should miss the dusty old tomes in the athenaeum, tending to the cloister garden, and the endless hours of study and meditation – though I admit that the last mentioned was appallingly dreary, may God forgive me.
Six days have passed since my capture by the Northmen.
I dread that every day on the water takes me even further away from home, and with the wind at our backs we are already weeks travel by foot away from the Shire lands. The vessel's dexterousness and agility does not cease to impress. I shall, given the opportunity, include a more detailed image of the design. Once the initial shock of the dragon head is over you get quite used to it. But it is also certainly decided that I shall never be quite used to the sickness of the waves.
I still find myself unknowing of the nature of my capture.
I have heard rumours of abduction, such as my own, resulting in labour, but also slavery for the pleasure of the flesh of a less sanitary kind. Upon inquiring Balin, who has been my best source of conversation and knowledge up to now, all he tells me is that the All Father – their golden calf – has bestowed upon me a blessing. It does not bring me much joy to know that a god of the heathens, one who does not exist, has supposedly spared my life.
On an improved note, I have discovered that most of the heathens do, in fact, speak English. I was only recently informed by Balin that most were of merchant families and therefore know amounts of English and French, although not to excellent extent. Latin is unheard of – as expected of these Godless men. I pray our Heavenly Father forgive them for their ignorance and repel their sin. And, perhaps, while He works on this, he could teach them some bloody manners as well, for never in my lifeへ
The wave hit unexpectedly, and Bilbo was not very far from taking the Lord's name in vain when his quill slid over the page, leaving a black smudge of ink in its wake.
"Ah—no—" was the only words of distress that had the time to leave his lips before a second wave hit, and his inkwell spilled onto his ragged robe and the oiled oak deck. He didn't even have the time to kneel and pick up his mess before another knocked into them and a new round of the seasickness came over him.
The only reason why he was not leaning over the railing heaving up his meagre luncheon was because there was little (if anything) left of it in him anyway.
When the boat finally settled it was a frustrated young monk who sat up amongst the rowing Northmen, throwing a nasty glare at their grinning faces as if they were all at fault of his predicament – which they, in all honesty, incidentally were.
"Can we please not do that?" he snapped at them, his reply being howls and chortles, and bouts of teasing jests.
"Oh, hljóðs bið ek, sveinar…! Our little churchman is bothered by these wee little sprays," the one named Bofur taunted, earning him a round of barking laughs from his companions.
"Unlucky you are, mister Boggins! We are out on a ship," Kíli, a lad barely out of his youth, quickly joined in.
His brother, Fíli, would of course not be outdone by his younger sibling. "Já, losing your stomach over this, you would never even a little harsh wind survive!"
The jests and laughs continued, though mainly in a tongue the young monk had no chance of understanding.
Bilbo let his eyes roll at the immatureness of the men. It was of the likes he had never witnessed on anyone but children brought up by the streets of the greater boroughs. He made his best attempt to ignore them, taking his seat at the back of the boat again, leaning against one of the many crates of reaped goods with his book and writing supplies in his lap.
The men still talked among themselves in their mother tongue, throwing in a bit of English here and there – mostly when they were imitating him. Whenever they did, though, Bilbo listened carefully.
Both Bofur and Kíli were heavily accented, and Fíli wasn't much better. To the extent of his knowledge the one with a nasty looking metal imbedded in his head was the only one who spoke the Norse tongue only, although Bilbo suspected he understood a fair deal of English.
"Bifur," he muttered to himself as his mind supplied the name, quickly opening his book again to write it down. Upon learning that all the Northmen could actually speak to him in a shared tongue Bilbo had decided on learning the names of their little company – although pronunciation was proving to be a challenge.
The first three days of his imprisonment was something of an absolute silence between a scarred young man and his savage abductors. He had been frightened close to fainting at every slight movement and spoken word, and the crew had only looked at the terrified monk with curiosity and sceptic glares in between handing him the necessary food and water. After all that Bilbo found he was actually making a gallant effort to not be left in the darkness of silence once again.
He did remember most of the names by now; the brothers Fíli and Kíli, cousins Bifur and Bofur… and there was one more related to them, too; there was Ori, the merchant scribe, and his two merchant brothers whose names escaped him; there was Oín, somehow related to Glóin, whom he assumed was something akin to a priest to the heathens. It was also Oín's sudden cry of anxiety that had halted the hammer, which was in progress of being brought down on his skull, ultimately saving his life that day one week ago. Balin's brother, Dwalin, had wielded the weapon.
"Is everything alright, lad?"
As if on cue, a now acquainted gentle voice broke him out of his musings that were about to delve into the still fresh terrors his consciousness had acquired. He turned to his right and found Balin's friendly face studying his expression curiously.
"I know the men can be quite a rude little bunch of maggots," he said, his white beard vibrant with the chuckle repressed in his throat, "but they mean it all in good cheer – even if they mostly fail to express this intention."
"Fail they do, indeed!" Bilbo huffed, sending a sideways glare to the rowing crew. Balin laughed once more, agreeing wholeheartedly while Bilbo flipped through his written pages, thinking to finish his previous paragraph but not quite finding the will to do so.
Bilbo looked back at Balin. The old warrior and master scribe had taken a seat on top of a small barrel of provision, looking down on the young monk with a reassuring smile that reached his glimmering eyes. The smile was much like the one he had given Bilbo just a few nights ago when he first spoke to him. Back then he had taken him away from the dark images his mind was delving in.
Memories of watching frozen from his hiding place as the abbot's blood pooled dark against the church stone; memories of shaking uncontrollably, being unable to think of escape; memories of being pulled out from behind the wall by big, unyielding hands, thrown against the stone floor and shouted at with accusations and words he didn't understand; memories of looking up at his bane, the so very cold death given by the hammerhead, unable to close his eyes as fear spread numbing cold down his spine, and forgetting how to pray…
At the point of that third night these images had fuelled his resolve to throw himself overboard, if only to see if they would let him drown in peace. Then Balin had come along and asked him subtle, and yet obtrusive, queries. But Bilbo couldn't bring himself to care how intruding they were, for, at last, someone was talking to him – in English nonetheless!
For the last three days Balin had spoken to him regularly, asking questions and answering some in return. Bilbo had become a slight bit more knowledgeable about what was going on around him, and had already written one whole page regarding the heathen religion, its many gods and its inclusion in the lives of the warrior people. The scribe had also been the one to give him a journal and quill, convincing the company that he knew next to nothing about stabbing anyone to death with simple writing utensils.
Never had Bilbo been more grateful for ink stains and old wells.
Of all the Northmen only Balin spoke entirely without accent. Bilbo suspected he had spent time abroad, in England, and possibly somewhere Germanic.
Just that morning Balin had also told him only mastered scribes, such as himself, and certain nobles knew to read and write using the Latin alphabet. Of the crew such knowledge was limited to Balin himself and their chieftain – and their chieftain was certainly not a scribe.
He was a noble – a Northman noble, and the first Bilbo had ever seen, or heard of, for all that mattered. But even if it was his own deduction he believed it to be a correct one. Looking up to the front of the ship, at the one scouting ahead of them as they moved with the waves, he believed that if there ever was a noble among the ruffians this man was definitely whom he would chose.
His fingers found the paragraphs he had written that morning. Alongside the words was a rough sketch of armour and wolf skin, helmet and sword, all beautifully detailed and worn by this man with his long dark mane and sharp nose – and eyes in a shade as blue as that of striking lightning.
ᛏᛟᚱᛁᚾ ᛖᛁᚲᚾᛊᚴᛃᛟᛚᛞᚱ ᛏᛟᚱᚨᛁᚾᛊᛟᚾ
Thorin Eikenskjǫldr Thráinson
He is the chieftain and the leader of the company. Each and every one of his men shows an immense amount of respect for him. I requested Balin to write the entirety of his name down. The Nordic symbols are quite beautiful, though I doubt I shall ever master the pronunciation.
"That is quite good work, master monk," Balin unexpectedly pointed out his drawing.
Bilbo halfway wanted to shut the journal and conceal the pages, but Balin's finger on his page weighed on his mind and prevented him from doing so. He swallowed and took the praise. "Thank you. Though I am still working on saying it right; his title, I mean."
"Ah, as I half expected. Teaching our tongue to the English folk I have found to be somewhat troublesome," Balin informed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Let us see if I can help. Try it."
At the encouraging smile, Bilbo gave a tight smile of his own. "I'm having trouble with the last part of it. Um, Aiken…Aeikenskjolderr…"
"Eikenskjǫldr, my lad," the scribe instructed, and Bilbo's eyes narrowed in concentration as he tried again. He was no closer to success at his third and fourth try, and eventually Balin proposed something else: "Why do we not go with a translation, shall we?"
Bilbo immediately agreed with a 'if you would, please'.
"In English I believe you would say 'Shield of Oak'," Balin explained, and Bilbo thought it over as he looked at his notes.
"Oakenshield, then: Thorin Oakenshield, Son of Thráin," he finally concluded. Balin hummed in agreement, remarking it as quite an accurate translation. "Why 'Oakenshield', though?" Bilbo wondered aloud. Balin hummed again.
"Hm, I say that is a story I shall save for the campfire, one of these nights. There is still quite some time until we make it to our village in Fjallin Blár, laddie."
Bilbo agreed to that, but he still had more questions to ask. "This letter…" he started, helping the warrior scribe find the one in question about by pointing his finger to the arrowhead like symbol ᛏ. "I notice you, um, have it engraved to all of your weapons – knifes, and axes, blades... I couldn't help but notice it is also the first letter of Thorin, and also is father's name. Is it very significant for you to bear the chief's initials on your equipment?"
Balin gave a surprised sound, but he did not sound dissatisfied. In fact he seemed very pleased with the monk. "That is quite the observation you've made – and I can see how you'd think that. Coincidentally, Thorin's grandfather's name was Thrór and it is quite the pattern."
"But that's not how it is…?" Bilbo inquired carefully.
"No, no it's not. This symbol is also the mark of Týr, the one-handed god of war – even braver than Thor," Balin explained. "We wear his symbol into battle to remind us of his bravery and sacrifice: he once gave his right arm for the safety of his fellow æsir and Ásgarðr, their home."
"Oh, um… would you be so kind to retell this story?" The stories of martyrs weren't at all unknown to a scholar of the bible, yet it particularly piqued his interest to hear of such similarities.
Luckily, Balin would not waste a chance to tell a story. They spent the rest of the day's travel telling more of these sagas. Bilbo was amazed that Balin held some knowledge to the Lord's religion, but aggravated that he personally believed it to be an eastern, less detailed retelling of the verses of the Germanic gods, adapted by the west. They held quite a debate on this, both presenting rather good arguments. Bilbo was fairly baffled over the warrior's rather academic approach – meaning he didn't lift his sword to his throat for voicing his disagreement – and felt that he had also given the older man some good theological questions to mull over.
None of them felt anywhere near finished with their argument when Thorin Oakenshield's deepvoice thundered over the company. The rowers responded and changed their pace, and though Bilbo did not understand a word of the exchange, they were obviously headed for shore.
He was rather joyous thinking of finding his feet on sturdy land, once more.
"Washing day?" Bilbo parroted, quite lost on his own words. His expression spoke of disbelief as he looked at the grinning Bofur who had handed him a rag, torn off of his own tunic, and a basin of lukewarm water. "Could you repeat what you just said…?"
"Já, that is clear! Ye may do different customs than us, so I see your misunderstanding, little churchman," Bofur said with great empathy as he proceeded to pull out a rag for his own basin of water. "This day is laugardagr – I may have translated badly – it means 'bathe day'. It is a day for keeping yourself and your belongings clean."
"Your belongings more often, though! Your blade grows rusty with bloodshed if you don't care for it," Fíli shot in as he walked towards them with his own little basin and rag – and, to Bilbo's horror, he was quite indecent. His mail and armour, circlet and bracers and sky blue cloak had all been abandoned, leaving him solely in his trousers as he took to seating himself on a rock right by them.
Bilbo could not, God help him, refrain from looking. He was feeling quite scandalized by this time. Never in his years spent in the priory had anyone had the indecency to appear in the nude before one another – and they certainly never got undressed in the wild!
It didn't help that as he looked away he discovered that most of the company were in the same state, if not entirely naked. They were sitting in small clusters around the camp, washing off grime and dirt from the trip.
Bilbo was gaping as the pieces slowly fell into place. "You are bathing…? In the middle of a journey…!"
Bofur, who was now also pulling off his helmet (which he never seemed to take off for long) and undoing his braided hair, grinned at his scandalized expression. "Of course we do! When we travel away are we often gone for half a season – if not longer… cannot let the mushrooms grow on ye, yeah?"
Fíli laughed at this, and then turned to shout for Kíli, who was kneeling by the packs. It was in the Norse tongue, so Bilbo only vaguely understood by the manner he spoke that he was making a request. Not seconds later Kíli (in the same undressed state as the rest) came to sit by them, putting down a few tools on the ground by his brother. He was helping Fíli wash his back with the cloth while Bilbo studied the wooden and metal utensils with wide blue eyes, hands unconsciously clutching his bowl.
"Razor... you have a razor."
"And combs and soap and ear-spoons, as well!" Kíli replied, a giggle hidden in his voice.
Bilbo also spotted some sturdy tweezers. "This is absurd."
Fíli gave an awry smile at this. "It is about feeling comfortable on your journey."
"I would understand if it was religiously important to you to keep this bathe day… but is it not terribly inconvenient?" Bilbo queried, gesturing around. "Bringing all this equipment and such—how is this in any way comfortable?"
Just as he said this he saw Bifur and his cousin – Bombur, he remembered – carrying a big stew cauldron they had been using to boil water in, pouring the steaming fluid into a decent sized wooden tub, big enough to fit two of him and probably a good fit for a bulky Northman.
He looked on quietly as they checked the temperature and filled some buckets of cool river water to distribute into the seething bath.
Bofur shrugged, and then answered his previous question with: "I see not any problem."
Fíli, who had also been watching, looked at him sheepishly. "Well… we do the best we can do. Sharing does not prove to be a problem. Though there is a bit of hierarchy in taking turns."
Bilbo murmured over this for a second. "So… the highest ranking to the lowest?"
The two brothers looked at each other then, and if something mischievous passed through their eyes Bilbo had not caught it. A moment later they made a motion of indifference and Kíli began: "Oh, in a way, yes."
"But not from the noblest to the least noble – we do it terms of honour," Fíli continued with a proud puff of his chest before a grinning Kíli sealed the deal.
"…from the latest battle!"
Bilbo had a hard time swallowing, and felt his own heartbeat to be loud enough for the whole camp to hear as he repeated for his own confirmation. "The latest... b-battle…"
Kíli was still grinning, and seemed even more enthusiastic to confirm. "Yes, of course!"
"But I wouldn't count our last little tussle much of a battle," Fíli remarked, and Kíli agreed.
"They certainly didn't put up much of a fight, your town."
"Not really any honour to find in men who won't fight back," Fíli said as if they were discussing the weather.
"So we chose to decide on a rank of most beheadings," Kíli supplied.
"—which is actually quite a merciful death."
"Very quick, no screams—just lots of blood."
"And a bit of a puzzle when finding a head to match the body for burials," Fíli smiled pleasantly before a hint of a smug smirk tugged on his lips. "…Unless Dwalin does it, of course."
His brother nodded, appearing to take this quite seriously. "Já, that leaves more of a mess… and you probably have to scrape the remains off the ground."
Fíli scrunched his nose. "It's nasty business… though still quite effective. Dwalin always hits hard enough."
—memories of looking up at his bane, the so very cold death given by the hammerhead, unable to close his eyes as fear spread numbing cold down his spine—
Despite haven eaten nothing since coming ashore, Bilbo felt like he could empty his stomach again.
Neither of the brothers seemed to take notice of the agony on his face, and Kíli went on. "In fact, he would have made the best of the company, had he gotten to finish you up."
Bilbo swallowed drily, not knowing how to respond to that.
"Now Thorin móðirbroðir —ah, mother's brother has that honour," Fíli explained, to Kíli's liking and growing eagerness.
"And he was being merciful. You should see him fighting warriors – for true honour!"
—memories of watching frozen from his hiding place as the abbot's blood pooled dark against the church stone—
Feeling quite faint, imagining the carnage, Bilbo put the bowl of now cool water down. "I-I would actually rather n-not…"
But Fíli and Kíli were far from done telling wartime tales. "That is true blood shed! He quite knows the art of finding the right flesh to cut; behind the knees, your sides–"
"—to truly make you squirm in agony before granting you peace, his sword right through your soft throat, so that you will choke on his steel as blood gurgles in your mouth—"
But Kíli was cut off by a dark voice coming from behind them.
"And you think that humorous?"
It was Thorin. Unlike how Bilbo had previously seen him dressed he was now wearing a simple blue tunic over his trousers, a flat cotton towel in hand. Armour, belt, wolf skin and helmet were all forgone. His hair was hanging loose down his shoulders, free of its containment, its silver streaks standing out in great contrast to the dark of his mane without the shining steel of the crown-like helmet to compete with. Nonetheless, his striking, commanding eyes still made him look every bit as regal as he did fully equipped with weapons and chainmail.
Fíli and Kíli had grown quiet, leaving Thorin to keep his speech. His features were grim as he spoke. "There is nothing honourable about dying in pain. This concerns any creature – be deer, bear, wolf or man. Do you intent to bring it death you ensure it is a swift one."
Both brothers, looking down in shame, then pleaded: "Fyrirgef oss, móðirbroðir."
Kíli then spoke carefully, unsure of how much had been heard by their chief: "It was a jest. We did not mean harm by it…"
"Of course you did not," Thorin condescended. "Yet you humour yourself with lies to one outside our ranks of sport forged from death."
At the brothers' continued silence and quiet humiliation, he turned to leave with one last frown at them.
"The world suffers enough from the pains of the heart, which may not fade with time. Let it not also suffer the pain of the flesh."
Stormy blue eyes lingered at the young monk before he walked on. A second later Bilbo realized that this had been the first event by which he had heard Thorin speak English. The chieftain had not spoken directly to him ever since his imprisonment and the use of speaking in a tongue he could understand had therefore been unnecessary. He did, as it appeared to Bilbo, conduct himself in a sceptic manner around him and held distaste for his presence in the company – yet it was, also, by Thorin's choice that he was there… and that he was still alive.
Bofur, who had been observing the exchange, said to the brothers: "Já—that tore on my skin. I was sure he would rip yours off, a moment there."
Fíli and Kíli seemed to have thought the same. They quickly apologized to Bilbo for making the morbid lies, and conducting themselves like the barbarians Bilbo had assumed they were from the very start.
"Your skin is just so thin!" Kíli moaned his excuse.
Bofur he found was agreeing: "Your reactions are most hilarious."
Bilbo cracked an insincere smile, but couldn't help but feel somewhat better it was all mostly for sports. After a drink of water, which Fíli granted him from his own water skin, he felt mostly rejuvenated – enough to ask another query of his. "That was most curious though—Thorin's reactions, I mean. I have heard accounts about your kind being quite apt in… um, suffering of the flesh – tortures, and the likes."
Fíli, hesitatingly, tried to clarify. "It is true that we have such forms of punishment – although mostly for treasons… captured tribe leaders whom we've waged war against, that sort of thing, but…"
At his silence, Bofur picked up. "Our chieftain has his reasons. We are all loyal to him and follow his order – to bid quicker deaths to those who are to die. That is all there is to it."
Bilbo kept his opinions concealed, but couldn't help but feel quite cross and think darkly of the statement. Those who are to die… he thought to himself, but would they, really, have to die? Who are you lot to carry death to all those innocent men in Tuckborough, whose blood now stains the grey stone?
Answers would not come to questions never asked, and soon conversation moved on.
Yet another apology came from the brothers, after just a short minute. They both seem to respect Thorin even more than the rest of the company – and through their somewhat likeness of feature and Fíli's reference to him as "mother's brother" Bilbo quickly puzzled together that he must be their uncle. It certainly would describe how careful and genuinely they spoke when he confronted them.
Bilbo sighed to himself. He thought of his own uncle Isengrim, and how it was following him around as a young lad, with adoration and loyalty, which eventually made him make the decision to join the priory when his father succumbed to illness.
Bilbo, of course, accepted the apology and asked them instead to tell him more about their equipment, to which they lit up like the sun on a clear summer's day. Before he knew it Bilbo was submerged with information regarding the use of every tool they carried, which ones they loved the most and which ones they had made themselves, which ones were gifts and which ones were looted. Bilbo found it all to be quite dreary after a while. At one point Fíli was explaining his bleaching soap, used for both washing and for lightening hair, while Bilbo's attention slowly slipped away. He was subconsciously watching the others of the company moving on with their preparation when his eyes caught Thorin on the other side of the camp as he sank into the bath. He quickly looked away, both in embarrassment and with the intention of giving privacy (even if there was really none to give when you are bathing right out in the open). Did these men truly have no shame?
Fíli was still explaining his soap when he turned his attention back to him. "—Kíli takes after mother's side of the family; he will not spend time applying it every day, and even if he did his hair will be for a while a very bright orange. Your hair would look gleaming if we worked on lightening it for a little while. You should try! I will help you apply it when it is your turn to bathe."
The suggestion caught Bilbo by surprise, but he tried to politely to decline. "Oh, that won't be necessary. I've already taken a bath this year's season," he said, and it was true. He had been cautious to carefully rub the rag over his ears and cheeks only, and in the nooks of his eyes and the corners of his mouth for his own guilty pleasure.
Yet the three look at him strangely for God knows what queer reason.
Kíli, of course, was the first to speak, and sounded quite outraged as he did. "This year's season…! But this is the second summer month!"
Bilbo raised both eyebrows at that, but had not a chance to ask question before Bofur commented. "The churchmen go by a different calendar; summer just started for them," he said.
Kíli seemed to be calmed by it as he responded with a: "Oh, you might be right."
Fíli, on the other hand, still seemed unconvinced. "That would still be more than a fortnight ago."
"Don't ye go complaining, sveinnr," Bofur then chided. "The two of ye skipped three laurdagr back when ye were wee two tens summers old; three of a season – in a row, as well! Until móðir of yours got a hold of you…"
"You promised not to mention that again, Bofur!" Kíli protested loudly, outraged by the telling of tattletales of unripe behaviour on his and his brother's part. Fíli was about to join in, as well, when Bilbo found his voice.
"Three…" The young monk swallowed drily, as if the word itself was dust and sand, "as in more than one….?"
Bofur nodded. "Yes, you have it right. These maggots were growing moss under their arms by the time Dís konungrdóttir got them into some hot water—"
"—in a season," Bilbo interrupted, to which he gained confirming gestures. He looked at them in nothing short of outrage. "What do you mean you bathe more than once per season?"
There were a few moments of wide-eyed silence after that, which the brothers broke, speaking in turns much like they had before.
"We bathe on laugardagr. That is a day of the week," Fíli clarified.
"—which is four days a month," Kíli supplied.
"—and twenty-four days a season."
Bilbo mouthed the number as if to taste the ghost of its existence. At this point they were all thinking not one of them was speaking quite coherently.
Bofur then took a deep breath, determined to solve the confusion. "Bilbo… I need to ask ye – when was the last day you bathed?"
And Bilbo, growing quite weary and irritated with the three, firmly replied: "For Christmastide, just after winter solstice. That's when most monks take their bath, if they decide to do so. It's the start of our local bathing season."
Fíli and Kíli both gaped in what could only be shock, and Bofur's eyebrows had risen far above his hairline. The younger brother was the first to find his tongue working and stuttered out, "W-why, mister Boggins? That is only once per year!"
By now Bilbo was quite fed up. "Of course it's only once every year! If you bathe too often the water will soften you up—open the pores of your skin and let all sorts of evils and—and devils build their hives in you! You are inviting Satan to come thrive in you, and use you for all kinds of evildoing!"
Bilbo still shuddered to think of the abbot preaching of the young peasant woman down in London whom had required quite a tolling exorcism, the reason for her infestation being her love for soaking in water and scrubbing her skin at least three times a week. Though he did have to admit it all sounded rather overstated, and he did have his doubts about the exact details of the incident – but the words he had spoken were quite drilled into him, told from his cradle, through his childhood, and until the time when he was the one telling them to the children.
Though, looking back, once he had uttered those words he quite likely lost all respect of the Northmen sitting around him.
Kíli was whispering disbelieving phrases in the Norse tongue, and Bofur's expression had become as if frozen on his face.
Fíli abruptly stood up and cried out loudly, his voice quivering ever so slightly as he did so.
"Balin…!"
Once he had the attention of the warrior, who was in deep conversation with Dwalin and Ori, he shouted in his mother tongue. Although not understanding a word, Bilbo did catch his own name in there, and a creeping sensation was telling him that something unpleasant was going to happen. Quite suddenly he noticed the entire camp had frozen; a number of eyes were fixed on him.
Balin's gentle ones were among them, but they too were looking in disbelief. He spoke: "Have you not bathed since December?"
The young monk was now feeling rather stubborn, and very defensive regarding the degrading looks he was receiving; so Bilbo glared back at the dubious faces around him and replied sharply. "I do not see the problem with this."
"And yet, there are several."
Thorin was suddenly speaking, having come to stand next to Balin. He appeared to have just gotten out of the bath, with drops of water dripping from his hair and the linen towel around his neck. He was barefooted, wearing only his trousers now – but, as seemed to be the rule with the Northman chieftain, his sharp structure and piercing eyes made up for any other aspect of appearance. But as the victim of that unwavering cool scowl, Bilbo felt very much at unease as Thorin roared at him.
"Know you not what you bring to my men? Illness, disease – parasites and odour… I will not stand for any of this, might you Odin's chosen one or not."
As he said this he had appeared quite positively murderous, and for a moment Bilbo found he truly feared for his life.
Then Thorin's glare left him as he turned to his nephews, shouting their names for attention.
"Fíli! Kíli!" They answered his call with a confirming shout, and Thorin, spearing the monk with his gaze once more, commanded: "Get him clean."
Before Bilbo knew what had come to pass he found himself quite unrecognizable from his self of that morning. The Northmen had been horribly effective.
Once Thorin had left he had not gotten more than one yelp of protest before he was stripped of everything he wore on his body but his cross, and that was only because he held it too tightly against his chest for them to peel it away from him. Sometime during that skirmish Fíli and Kíli had navigated him closer to the wooden tub, and he was all but heaved into the warm bathwater.
By this time it was clear that the brothers weren't the only ones who had taken it upon themselves to scrub him raw. Waiting by the bath were Bifur and Bombur, rags and soap in hand, and he had been washed up and down in ways he hadn't been since he was a babe. His skin had shown to be an entirely different shade of monastery pale underneath all the dirt, once the redness had faded. He had been doused with water somewhere between four and five times, and had he gotten any in his ears or eyes he wasn't given the time to complain about it before he was assaulted again with rags and foam.
He had quickly been rinsed off with another bucket of water and dried up with a linen towel, and soon found a moment to be embarrassed to the core when half of the company gathered around him. They were, quite without his permission, unexpectedly taming his hair and offering the use of their extra ear-spoons and combs.
His clothes never made it back. Bombur had thrown his cloak on the fire, having seen it a hazard for existing in the camp. His pants and shoes had probably suffered a similar fate. Luckily Ori's two brothers – Dori and Nori – had gone through their loot and put together a temporary set of clothes for him to wear. It was nothing grand, made solely of a simple reddish-brown long-sleeved tunic, trousers and thin-soled boots and a belt that the older Dori was working on fitting to him. "Hardly any wear for traveling, but at least it's not your mouldy old cloak, churchman," Nori had said. Somehow Bilbo found he was agreeing.
The Northmen had boiled a whole other cauldron of water for the rest of them. Not one had wanted to use the murky lukewarm fluid that was left they after they bathed him in.
At the very end of it Bilbo was granted a look at himself in a mirror borrowed of off the two merchants. Unrecognizable, indeed, he had thought as his eyes were let to wander and admire the differences they encountered. His hair was plenty lighter thanks to Fíli's bleaching soap, reminding of the shade it had once been when he was still a child running out on adventures and chasing butterflies through the farmer fields around Tuckborough from sunrise to sundown.
A few braids had been twinned into the strands as well. And he truly couldn't recognize himself.
Kíli had laughed and said he looked just like a young lad from their village up north, and Fíli was rather proud of his hand in the work.
Bilbo found he was admitting to himself that he liked his hair clean with strands not sticking together with all sorts of grime and oil, and he enjoyed the way it caught in the wind. He was reminded of sweet summer days spent licking honey off of wooden spoons and playing games with the children as they explored unknown parts of the forest trails.
While the company finished washing he laid out on his assigned bedroll a little ways away from the fire, twinning his silver coated cross between his fingers.
Despite his stubbornness and pledge to the priory he was unable to feel any remorse for having washed that day. Nor could he feel any for planning to wash the next week as well (although by his own hand this time around, thank you very much) – and he could not at all feel guilty for liking to feel clean. Not to say that he didn't feel conflicted. He had spent his entire life, and dedicated the past few years, to praising the Lord and thinking of keeping evil spirits away… but though his mind told him to be ashamed, his heart would not abide it.
Once the campfire was blazing later that night the Northmen started telling sagas and other tales in their tongue. Balin called out to him then. "I thought you might enjoy a story or two. Come eat with us, and I will translate some for you."
And Bilbo smiles, unable to feel guilty for not resisting this inclusion either.
Word List:
hljóðs bið ek, sveinar - listen (here) to me, lads
Já - Yes
Fjallin Blár - Mountains Blue
æsir & Ásgarðr - aesir and Aasgard
laugardagr - "bathe day", actually saturday
móðirbroðir - mother's brother
Fyrirgef oss - forgive us
sveinnr - lad/boy
konungrdóttir - King's daughter
For those of you who didn't know, here's a fun fact: The Vikings were among the cleanest and most hygenic people in the middle ages and bathed much more often than most French or English men did. Look it up, it's true!