DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Hobbit in any way, shape or form, and will not profit from this.
So, first things first: MERRY CHRISTMAS (or the appropriate holiday/festival for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas). In any case, this was a present for a friend on here and I thought I would share it with you guys too. This story is not of astounding quality, just so you know, it's more like a quick story I fixed together on a whim. In any case, I hope you enjoy it however good or bad the quality is. :)
It was a slow week, a week that saw few dwarves entering his store and even fewer choosing to buy just one item from the shelves. The toymaker did not mind however, at least not on the surface, and he busied himself with creating yet another intricate object for him to give to whomever it pleased.
The dwarf's hands moved in a constant dance, up and down with the grain as flake after flake of the pine smelling wood floated it ambling way down to the floor. The hard softness of the wood gave way to the changes forced upon it through the guided fineness and careful control of simple physical strength. It was the calming, healing strokes that the carver unconsciously sought out in his work, both soothing and familiar to his mind.
The knife the toymaker was working with felt like a natural extension of his arm. He had been doing this for so long that in a way the object was in fact a part of him, as was each item it produced at his will. Hands, feet, lips and eyes – he had carved them all in intricate detail sometimes barely scrapping the wood to get the effect he desired, the addition of a spark of life to the object he was now making something that he longed for.
Bofur longed alright. He longed for something else, something more physical, more alive. Companionship, a friendly word - anything to end the loneliness that was being set deep within his bones.
The toymaker's cousin would not be arriving for another week, Bifur having already offered his services to helping with the toy store. Bofur had agreed, could use the company in the town he had remained alone in whilst his cousin had taken it upon himself to travel, lending aid to a friend who would otherwise be trekking through potentially dangerous terrain alone.
The dolls that stared at him and the dragons with splayed wings that filled the spaces by their sides did a little to offer the lonely dwarf comfort. At the worst of it Bofur could merely close his eyes and pretend the toys were real, breathing and moving and making noise like any normal child did. The dream never lasted long however, chocked off by the true reality that was set in foundations made of the hardest of stones. Still the toymaker was not ready to let go of the dream quite yet.
"It's just you and me for a while longer, aye?" Bofur turned the half finished doll over in his hands. It smiled prettily up at him from an otherwise featureless and frozen face.
He didn't know what he was expecting in reply, but surely an answer was not too much to ask, surely it would not be too peculiar in his shop of fearsome dragons and wonderful whirling metal dogs. The dwarf liked to think that the store he sat in was a place of magic where many strange and awe inducing items could entrance children with a promise of pure joy.
"Two lonely folks is what we are," Bofur continued with a new breath of air and a renewal in the delicate process of shaping the wooden doll's eyes. "But we can just keep each other company."
The dwarf allowed the rasping of metal over wood to take over the conversation in the room, to drag his attention from that of a lonely toymaker to a creator of life. He did like to think that the toys he made were alive, that the children who brought them made the puppets and dolls and animals alive.
The moving knife slipped in the section of pine leaving an arching line in its wake. Another mirroring line was created underneath, meeting at each end with its sibling. A quick twist in the center gave the eye a pupil and a few more flicks of the toymaker's wrist had two slightly askew eyes resting side by side in the wood.
Bofur gave a small grin, turning over his near completed work in one hand. "You, my lady, are beautiful if I don't say so myself."
A loud cry from outside had the dwarf looking up, the flattery he had paid the doll forgotten along with the doll itself. Coming to a stand he abandoned the tool and toy in his hands and moved towards the door.
"By my beard…"
Bofur paid no mind to the wide open door hanging behind him, allowing the snow that had built up along its bottom to fall over the threshold. Indeed the toymaker's only thought was reaching the fallen child in the otherwise abandoned street. She was
"Here, let me see." Bofur reached out one hand to the tearful girl, slowly coaxing her to show him her grazed hands. "Where is your mother?"
He did not garner a reply, just a loud sniff and several more tears. The child did not jerk her arms from his gently prodding hands however, something that Bofur took hope in. The toymaker smiled down on the one he was tending to, flashing his teeth in a warm grin.
"Would you be so kind as to tell me your name, my young Lady?" he asked in his most charming voice. "I would be very much pleased if I could know who it is that requires my services."
There was another sniff – smaller this time – and a pause. "Líf."
Bofur's grin became even wider. "Well, my Lady Líf, my name is Bofur and I am at your most esteemed service. Now if you would be so kind as to grant a humble toymaker his wish and allow me to tend to you inside my store I would be a happy dwarf indeed."
He offered the girl an arm as he stood, making a show of being chivalrous as he walked her inside out of the cold and snow. It was with a great flourish that he set her upon a chair, causing a small giggle to escape from Líf despite the tears still staining her face.
"Now your hands, my Lady." Bofur took a seat opposite the one he was tending to, once again looking at the rough red splashed across otherwise smooth and young skin. "Ah, I see you have fought a valiant fight with the ground."
"I wasn't fighting. I fell," the child before him corrected.
The dwarf took a wet cloth and began to gently dab at the injuries, smiling once more as he managed to get more than one word out of Líf. "My mistake. I hope you can find it in your generous heart to forgive me, my Lady."
Líf nodded shyly, the little girl looking up at him with big, doe-like eyes, the brown orbs no longer filled with a wet sheen.
"There we go. It's all finished." Bofur pulled back his hands and stood, replacing the cloth and clean rags he had been using back to where they belonged. "Now, why don't you run off to your mother?"
The child before him clenched her newly bandaged hands and bit her lip, her eyes once again downcast. "I don't know where she is."
Bofur frowned. "Then do you know where your home is?"
Líf shook her head throttling any hopes Bofur had with it.
The toymaker had not counted on the child being lost and unable to find her way back to her mother or the place she lived. "Well, where were you going when you fell?"
Bofur received another unknowing shake of the head, this time coupled with the beginnings of a second teary outburst. Desperate to put a stop to the situation before it became a reality the dwarf grabbed the nearest item off one of the shelves lining his store.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked, presenting the toy to Líf.
She sniffed back a tear and took the object from Bofur's hands. "A dog."
Bofur grinned and shook his head, tapping the side of his nose. "Not just any dog," he said in a mysterious voice. "It's a sentry dog. It will watch over you like the sentries watch over this town, and it moves too."
Taking the toy back from the child, the toymaker set it on the floor and used his thumb and forefinger to wind a small handle on its back in a circle. Almost immediately the toy's legs started to move, walking along the ground so long as Bofur kept winding. Líf clapped in delight and the dwarf smiled, pleased he had staved off another bout of misery.
"Now, my Lady, as we have a sentry to watch our backs, why don't we set upon the perilous journey to find your mother?" Bofur swept his arms up in a long bow at the waist, offering one hand to Líf as he came out of it.
The pair, along with Líf's new sentry dog, made their way out of the toyshop. This time round Bofur ensured that the door was closed behind his back before tugging along the child beside him.
"So where do we begin our journey, my Lady?" the toymaker asked as they began their first few steps. "Where was the last place you saw your mother?"
"The marketplace." The words were small, but they did not tremble.
Bofur smiled, tightening his grip on Líf's hand just enough to ensure he would not lose her. "Then to the marketplace we must go."
It was not long until the toymaker and child reached the bustling square with merchants and storekeepers trying to sell to the crowds around them. Some were more successful than others, drawing in more customers with promises of spectacular goods and mind numbing prices. The snow that had fallen yesterday had been tracked and dirtied by the constant procession of boots over it, and as the cold nipped his nose Bofur was glad he had stopped to pull on a coat and his hat before leaving his shop.
Lifting the girl beside him up, the dwarf turned around to observe those moving past him. "Can you see your mother anywhere, my good Lady?"
It took a while, but finally the child spotted the one she was looking for.
"Amad!"
Bofur swiftly wove his way through those milling around him, moving in towards the out of sorts woman who was also furiously scanning the crowd.
"Excuse me mam, but would this be your daughter you are looking for?"
The look of joy and relief that flew across the woman's face left Bofur glowing inside, warm like the spring's sun.
"Where did you find her?" the female dwarf asked as she took her child into her own arms.
Bofur gave a small smile. "Outside my store. She had fallen over so I went to help and thought I could not possibly leave her to find you for herself."
"You have my thanks," the woman replied. "If there is anything I can do-"
"No reward is necessary, my good Lady," the toymaker said, as he swept his head off and gave a small bow. "I am satisfied with the delight of offering my services to one of such youth and beauty."
Líf giggled and blushed, the toy dog in her hands held close to her chest.
"I would suggest, however, that she not run off from her mother again." He smiled. "I would hate for her to get so lost that she is in need of my services once more."
With another bow and a pleasant farewell, Bofur left the mother and daughter to their own thoughts. He walked back towards his shop, a smile still splashed across his face. Moving inside his store he leaned back against the door and glanced at the doll he had been carving.
"It's good to see you have held everything together in my absence."
There was no reply, but the toymaker did not need one. He had found what he had wistfully longed for in the little girl's company and was, as such, satisfied.
TRANSLATION:
Amad - Mother
Sorry about the ending, I kind of lost where I was going with this and it was the best place I could end it.
So, could you please leave a review. It really would make my Christmas.