When morning came, Bilbo's thoughts felt thick and sluggish from lack of sleep. Neither he nor Fili had slept much at all after Kili's nightmare, though both had made some attempt at it, and Kili himself had woken after only an hour and sat silent and withdrawn for the rest of the night. Breakfast, then, was a quiet affair, verging on morose, and Bilbo was tempted to suggest they all return to bed immediately afterwards. He felt, though, that it was important that they should have some kind of routine, if only to give Kili some sense of stability. So instead, he set Fili to sweeping the floor and cast around for something to engage Kili, his hand landing first of all on a little book he had been reading the day before.
"Here, my lad," he said, presenting the book to Kili. "There are some pictures in here you might enjoy."
Kili peered doubtfully at the book and made no response. Bilbo took it back and turned the pages until he found a picture of mountains under the night sky.
"There, you see?" he said. "That is like Ered Luin."
Kili stared at the picture, running his fingertips over it, and then turned to the writing on the facing page, touching a number of the words. He frowned and looked up at Bilbo.
"It is different," he said. "Marks are different. Not in-mountain marks."
"Ah!" Bilbo said, and suddenly a spark of enthusiasm lit within him, for although it had long since become clear that Kili would never be able to read the dwarvish letters - even Balin had given up on trying to teach him, though not without a nudge from Bilbo - they had never tried to teach him the elvish ones that were used for writing Common. Bilbo quickly found himself a piece of parchment and a quill pen and ink and drew up a chair next to Kili.
"Now," he said, "these letters look different because they are in a different alphabet. Do you remember the word alphabet?"
Kili frowned in thought, and Fili paused in his sweeping, leaning on his broom and watching with interest. Finally, Kili shook his head.
"You have told me before?" he asked. "I not remember."
"Well, I have told you before, but it doesn't matter," Bilbo said. "Alphabet is the name for all the letters that we use to write a particular language. The mountain marks are the dwarvish alphabet, and the dwarves use them to write Khuzdul. These are - they are a different alphabet-" for he thought Kili would not take too kindly to being taught something created by the elves "- and they are used to write Common. Do you understand?"
Kili stared down at the page for a long moment, and then nodded. "Yes," he said. "Think I understand."
"Good," Bilbo said. "Now, here is the the letter h." He wrote this carefully on the parchment, making sure to make it large and clear. "It is the first letter in hobbit. And here is o." And he drew, letter by letter, the word hobbit, explaining to Kili as he went. When he had finished, he waited a moment for the ink to dry, and then gave the parchment to Kili. "Can you see how they are different from each other?" he asked.
Kili stared at the parchment for a long time, his face growing more and more troubled until Bilbo, dismayed, put a hand on his arm.
"You cannot see it?" he asked.
Kili ducked his head, and Bilbo quickly took the parchment from him and put a hand under his chin, lifting it up. "Now, now," he said. "There is no need to be upset. It is not in the least important! Why, I know many fine hobbits who cannot read or write and are quite happy and prosperous."
Kili kept his eyes down for a moment, but Bilbo ducked his own head until he was half-crouched on the floor so that he could look at him. "It is not important," he said, wishing that he had not brought the subject up. "Do you believe me?"
For a moment, it seemed that Kili would disagree, but at last he nodded, though he did not lift his eyes. "Read is not important," he said.
"Good," Bilbo said firmly, though he did not miss Fili's unhappy frown. "Anyway, the pictures are the most wonderful part of this book." And he took up the book and put it again in Kili's hands. "There are others," he said. "You can look for them when you tire of looking at this one." And he stood to go and wash the dishes, but he was arrested in his action by a question from Kili.
"What book is for?" he asked.
"Oh," Bilbo said, and sat down again with a bump. "Well - this book has stories in it. They are written down here so that we don't forget them and so that we can read them even when there is no-one here to tell them to us. But some books have records in them, or recipes, or even magic spells. But the books with stories are the most interesting, as a rule."
Kili looked down at the page of writing, pressing his fingertips onto the words as if he could somehow absorb the secret of reading them through his skin. "What stories are like?" he asked, with something of wistfulness in his voice.
Bilbo smiled and patted his arm. "I will read one to you tonight," he said. "They are stories about the men of old. Like the stories Thorin tells sometimes."
Kili seemed to think about this for a long moment, then finally shook his head with a frown.
"I did forgot," he said. "What is Thorin mean?"
Bilbo felt his mouth drop open, and there was a stunned silence, broken by a clatter behind him. Bilbo turned to see Fili, grim and pale, striding over to the chair, his broom lying discarded on the floor. He took Kili by the arm and tugged him to his feet, gently it was true, but nonetheless the little dwarf's face grew quickly troubled as he beheld his brother's expression, and he looked in bewilderment at Bilbo.
"Fili, have a care," Bilbo said, but Fili was already half-way to the door, towing his brother behind him. Bilbo leaped to his feet and followed them, catching up in the bedroom where they both slept. The walls were covered in Kili's pictures, and Fili positioned his brother in front of one of them and then pointed to it emphatically.
"Thorin," he said, sounding strained. "This is Thorin, our uncle. You have not forgotten him, my brother? Tell me you have not forgotten?"
Kili looked from the picture to Fili, his eyes wide with worry, and shook his head. "No, I not forgot," he said. "Forgot only name. Remember uncle. Remember Thorin, yes, Thorin is uncle." He stared anxiously at Fili, and Fili closed his eyes and rested his forehead for a moment against the wall.
"There now," Bilbo murmured, not sure which of them he should pat first. "It is all just a misunderstanding."
"It is not a misunderstanding," Fili muttered, but when Bilbo put an arm around Kili's shoulders and led him back to the living room, he followed without comment, and picked up his broom again, sweeping perhaps more viciously than was necessary. Bilbo watched him for a moment, then put the book back into Kili's hands, gave him a last pat (and decided that he should perhaps increase the frequency of pats for both brothers, at least for the next little while), and made his way to the kitchen to wash the dishes. As he passed Fili, he plucked at his sleeve and nodded his head towards the kitchen. Fili scowled at him, but he laid down the broom and followed.
Once there, Bilbo set the water to heat and found a plate of biscuits. He laid them on the table and sat down, patting the chair beside him. Fili sank into it, then rubbed a hand over his face. He looked tired and a little unwell.
"I did not mean to scare him," he said.
"I know you didn't," Bilbo said. "And I'm sure he knows that, too. It is just a difficult time."
"When will it not be a difficult time, Mr. Baggins?" Fili asked, turning to look at Bilbo, his eyes bright with sorrow.
Bilbo sighed. "These nightmares are-" He shook his head. "They are terrible, it is true, and I know that he frightened you last night with the Black Speech. But my dear Fili, you must remember that a year ago your brother was a prisoner of the orcs still. Perhaps things are difficult now, but they are so much better than they were."
"It is not only the nightmares," Fili said. "He forgot our uncle's name." He hunched over a little as he said it, as if trying to protect himself from something.
"Well, he did indeed," Bilbo admitted. "But it is a long time since he has seen him, and you do usually call him uncle, so perhaps it can be understood."
Fili did not speak for a long, quiet moment. Bilbo waited patiently, for he had had a great deal of experience with awkward silences in the last year, and had become quite the proficient at waiting for upset dwarves to speak. Finally, Fili lowered his head still further and spoke in a hoarse murmur.
"I dream sometimes," he said. "I dream that I wake up and he has forgotten me again. That he has forgotten everything but the orcs." He raised his eyes to Bilbo's, and his face looked drawn and haunted. "You do not think that is what is happening, do you, Mr. Baggins?"
"Oh!" Bilbo cried, and he reached forward and put his hand on Fili's arm, squeezing tightly. "No, of course I do not!"
"But he spoke the Black Speech last night," Fili insisted. "He has not spoken it for so long. And this morning, our uncle-"
"Now, master dwarf," Bilbo said firmly, "you are very tired, and you are not thinking correctly. We know your brother was changed, physically changed, by what happened to him. We know his mind was affected. If all that comes of twenty-five years with those beasts is some minor forgetfulness and an inability to read, I will think we have been fortunate indeed! He has not forgotten anything important, after all."
Fili stared at him, and Bilbo wondered if perhaps it had not been politic to suggest that Thorin's name was not important. But in fact, it was true: it was much more important that Kili should remember who his uncle was and that he loved him, and much less that he should remember what those people called him who were not his nephews. But Fili did not seem angry, only tired and upset, and not entirely convinced by Bilbo's arguments.
"I think he might be forgetting other things, too," he said quietly.
Bilbo's heart sank. "What sorts of things?" he asked.
Fili stared at the table a moment. "Yesterday, he asked me what he should call you," Fili said, and then raised his head and stared at Bilbo with something like fear in his eyes. "He learned your name only a few days ago, Mr. Baggins. If he has forgotten it already-"
"Ah," Bilbo said, and helped himself to a biscuit since Fili did not seem to care for them. "No, that is something else entirely. He has not forgotten it, he has simply not yet decided which name he prefers." He paused, frowning at Fili, for in his attempt to force Kili to make that choice he had not considered that the little dwarf might enlist his brother to make it for him. "And what did you tell him?"
"I said that he should call you whatever you wanted to be called," Fili said.
Bilbo's heart sank. "Oh dear," he said. It seemed that this experiment of his was doomed to failure.
Fili looked dismayed at this. "It was the wrong thing, then?" he said, and then ran his hands through his hair. "I do not understand why I always say the wrong thing."
"Now, don't be ridiculous, master dwarf!" Bilbo said. "You say the right thing nine times out of ten, if not more, and if it was not for you your brother would be nowhere near as well as he is now. And in this case, it is all my fault. I'm afraid I am making rather a mess of things." He took another biscuit, feeling quite disconsolate.
Fili put his head in his hands. "Why is this all still so difficult, Mr. Baggins?" he asked.
"But it is so much easier than it was!" Bilbo said, finding his need to reassure his friend overrode his own sense of self-pity. "Do you remember when first we found him? Could you have imagined then that he would come so much to himself?"
Fili shook his head slowly. "When first we found him, I was convinced he would regain his memories," he said. "I was sure it would be only a few minutes - and then hours - and then days. And I know I should not have hoped for it, not after everything, but I truly thought that taking him ho- taking, taking him to Ered Luin would bring back something more." He hung his head. "I wish I could stop hoping for it, but it seems I cannot."
"Nor should you," Bilbo said firmly. "After all, he did remember something in Ered Luin, did he not? He remembered where you both used to sit."
"It is not enough," Fili said, and then abruptly clamped his mouth closed, looking horrified. He glanced quickly into the living room, but if Kili had heard what he said, he gave no sign. Fili put a hand to his mouth, as if he thought he might be able to call the words back, and Bilbo felt his heart wrench a little in his chest.
"Oh, my dear Fili," he said gently. "I am sorry."
Fili was silent a long moment, then he shook his head. "I do not mean that he is not enough," he said, sounding strained. "I only mean- I only wish-"
"I know what you wish," Bilbo said. "I think we all wish the same. And perhaps we will still get it, or at least some of it."
"But perhaps we will not," Fili said, staring down at his hands.
"My poor lad," Bilbo said, putting an arm around Fili's shoulders. "What your brother needs more than anything is time. Time, and love. I know you can give him those things."
Fili seemed to have shrunk a little as he sat at the table, and now he pressed his fingers against the table top and seemed to be gathering himself. "And- and if it turns out that he does not need time?" he asked. "If it turns out that time is not enough? That nothing is enough for him to recall what he used to be?"
Bilbo sighed and tightened his arm around Fili. "Well, my friend," he said, "and what will you do then? What will you do if Kili stays forever just as he is now?"
Fili sat with his head hanging for a long time, long enough that Bilbo wondered if he had even heard the question. But finally, he looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and any grief on his face had been replaced by determination.
"I will be his brother," he said.
It was a rather cloudy day, and Bilbo decided not to take Kili outside,for he seemed relatively content to sit and page endlessly through the book Bilbo had given him, staring at the words as if he hoped that doing so might somehow make him able to read them. Bilbo tried twice more to teach him one or two letters, but Kili seemed quite incapable of reproducing the letters he traced, or of recognising the differences between them, producing instead only slightly shaky abstract swirls that were quite beautiful but had no meaning that Bilbo knew of. The hobbitlings, too, seemed to have decided to take their play elsewhere, and so it was a peaceful morning at Bag End until just after elevenses, when there came a little knock at the door.
Bilbo, who was expecting no visitors, went quickly to open it, and found little Esmeralda standing on the doorstep. She bobbed a shy curtsey and peered up at Bilbo, who had been joined by Fili.
"What's this?" Fili said with a broad smile. "A lone marauder? Have you lost all your comrades?"
Esmeralda chewed on a finger for a moment. "Can Mr. Kili come out and play?" she said finally.
Bilbo exchanged a surprised glance with Fili. "Surely you mean Mr. Fili?" he asked.
Esmeralda looked at Fili and shook her head. "Mr. Fili can come too, if he wants," she said.
At that, Fili's grin broadened even further, and he turned to look at his brother, who still sat in the corner of the living room facing the door. "You have been making friends without telling me, brother!" he called.
Kili looked rather bewildered, and Bilbo smiled kindly at Esmeralda.
"Now, my dear," he said, "I do not think Mr. Kili wants to play."
Esmeralda's face fell a little, and Fili quickly dropped into a crouch, taking her by the shoulders.
"I will play with you," he said solemnly, "though I know I am no substitute for my brother. But perhaps he will consent to sit near us and allow us to bathe in his reflected glory."
Bilbo hid a smile at this, and Esmeralda pouted a moment, then nodded, putting her hand in Fili's. Fili winked at Bilbo and allowed himself to be led outside, and Bilbo turned back to the living room.
"Well, my lad," he said to Kili. "You are popular, it seems! Would you like to go outside and watch your brother play?"
Kili looked rather doubtful, but Bilbo decided it would be good for him to see more of what it was to be a child, and he rather thought that Fili's games with Esmeralda might be a little more gentle than those he had played with the whole troupe of hobbitlings, so he took Kili by the arm and led him to their accustomed spot on the bench. Fili appeared to be engaged in pretending to be a pony, Esmeralda riding on his back and giggling with delight, apparently trying to use his moustache braids as reins, although luckily for the continuing existence of Fili's moustache, her little arms were not long enough to reach. It was only moments before she became aware of Kili's presence in the garden, though, and she quickly slipped from Fili's back and came tripping over, scrambling up onto the bench between Bilbo and Kili. Bilbo kept a narrow eye on her, ready to remove her at the first sign of serious unease from his friend, but Kili, apart from an initial glance of surprise, seemed relatively content to let her sit next to him, and she, once she had placed herself in close proximity, seemed to have the good sense not to try to get any closer. Instead, she sat mimicking Kili's posture and watching the scene before her as he did, though there was little to be seen there now but Fili sitting on the grass and regarding the two of them with an amused smile. Esmeralda threw little glances at Kili from time to time, but he did not look at her, seeming to be rather deep in thought.
Bilbo found himself engaged in predicting how long the little hobbitling would be able to be patient. Certainly, she was remarkably so for her age, and rather solemn with it, as least so far as hobbitlings go (which is not far at all, as they are quite the most cheerful of creatures). It must have been the Baggins blood in her, Bilbo decided, for it certainly was not her Took side that made her so. In the end, though, even the most Baggins of hobbitlings cannot stand to sit still and stare for so very long, and finally Esmeralda turned to Kili with a frown.
"Aren't you bored?" she asked.
Kili looked at her in some confusion. "I not know what is bored," he said. He looked over her head at Bilbo. "I am bored?"
"Bored is when-" Esmeralda started, then paused and looked a little frustrated. "Bored is bored!" she declared. "There is no other word for it! It is when things are boring."
The confusion grew more pronounced on Kili's face, and Bilbo chuckled a little. "Bored is when nothing interesting is happening, but you wish something was," he said.
"Yes," Esmeralda said with a nod. "That is it. So, aren't you bored, Mr. Kili?"
Kili thought about this for long enough that Esmeralda started to get restless again, but finally he shook his head. "No," he said, "I am not bored."
Esmeralda looked slightly outraged at this. "Why not?" she asked. "You are not doing anything!"
Bilbo exchanged a glance with Fili, who was smirking now, the strain of the morning and the night before still present in his hollow eyes and sallow skin, but greatly remedied by this odd scene that was unfolding before them.
"I am think," Kili said. "Is what I am do."
"But don't you get bored of thinking?" Esmeralda asked.
Kili stared at her for a long moment, and Esmeralda seemed suddenly to become quite uncomfortable. Bilbo, who had long been used to the intensity and frequency of Kili's stares, and what was more, could compare them to how he had felt when he had thought Kili would murder him in his sleep, had rather forgotten how they could make one feel, but now he wondered if he should shoo Esmeralda away for her own sake, rather than Kili's. But though she squirmed rather, she did not cry, nor did she slip from the bench and go back to Fili, and finally Kili spoke.
"Bored is when want interesting thing happen, yes?" he said. Esmeralda nodded, and Kili nodded back. "I not want interesting thing happen," he said. "Not want anything happen."
Esmeralda looked exceedingly bemused by this pronouncement, and Bilbo decided that perhaps it was time to step in.
"Mr. Kili has led a very interesting life," he said, "and now that he has seen so many interesting things, he would rather have a peaceful life than an interesting one. And that, my dear Esmeralda, is a laudable goal indeed. In fact, if you sit and think in silence for a while, as Mr. Kili does, you may find that many things you thought were boring turn out to be interesting after all."
Esmeralda looked rather sceptical at this, but she dutifully rearranged herself once more into a posture that mimicked Kili's, and even seemed to be trying to imitate his frown as she stared out at the world. Fili looked absolutely delighted now, and Bilbo could not surprise his smile of amusement, either, although he was not sure that either of the two thinkers realised quite what a picture they made, the fair little hobbit lass frowning next to the dark, sombre dwarf, who for once looked tall and broad-shouldered by comparison. Marvellous tableau though it was, though, it was soon broken, for Esmeralda apparently did not find the inner peace of meditation fast enough for her liking, and she made a frustrated noise and slipped off the bench.
"Well, I am bored," she announced, and then seemed to cast around for something to do. She espied a daisy, growing innocently in the grass at her feet, and her face brightened as she reached down to pluck it. "Look, Mr. Kili!" she said. "Here is a daisy!" She offered it to him, and he took it and stared at it.
"Thank you, Esmalda," he said gravely.
Esmeralda giggled. "Do you know how to make daisy chains?" she asked.
Kili glanced cautiously at Bilbo, then shook his head. "No," he said. "I not know."
"I will show you!" Esmeralda cried gleefully, and took Kili by the hand, pulling him from the bench. Bilbo jumped quickly to his feet, and a little further away Fili was scrambling up, too, but Kili did not seem distressed, though he did throw Bilbo another confused look.
"Esmeralda, you should ask people before you touch them," Bilbo said sharply, watching Kili carefully to see if his mood changed. Esmeralda looked suddenly chastened, and she let go of Kili's hand and flushed a little.
"But he doesn't know how to make daisy chains," she insisted.
"And maybe he does not want to make daisy chains," Bilbo said, though he took care to remove the sharp note from his voice before he did.
"But you do, don't you?" Esmeralda said to Kili, looking up at him with great, imploring eyes. Kili stared at her, then looked at Bilbo and at Fili. He seemed still bewildered, but not unhappy.
"I can make?" he asked.
"If you want to," Bilbo said firmly, but of course this seemed to have little effect on Kili, who simply allowed Esmeralda to take his hand again and pull him down to sit with her on the grass. Bilbo looked at Fili, who shrugged and sat down, too, but did not take his eyes from the pair of them. Bilbo went back to his bench, and listened as Esmeralda explained to Kili how to pierce the stem of the daisy and thread the next one through, and then tutted over his technique.
"Your hands are shaking," she said disapprovingly.
"Yes," Kili said. "Hands shake." He shrugged a little, and as Bilbo watched, Esmeralda took his hands in her tiny ones and carefully manipulated them to perform the actions she required. This garnered a surprised raise of the eyebrows from Fili, but Kili seemed to be concentrating deeply on the task at hand, and when Esmeralda crowed and held up the nascent chain with approval, he regarded it with a frown, and then nodded.
"Yes," he said. "I understand make."
"Well, then!" Esmeralda said. "There are daisies enough and to spare!"
And so it was that Bilbo found himself watching the reserved, unhappy dwarvish prince of a far-away kingdom painstakingly create a chain of flowers on his lawn, and indeed, it was such a surprisingly gratifying experience that Bilbo would have wished to be doing nothing else at that point in time.
Eventually, Esmeralda wandered away to find more daisies in a different part of the lawn, and soon she drafted Fili into her project as well, and when she came back to Kili, she found that he had made a chain so long that it would have wrapped several times around the Party Tree and still had daisies to spare. Esmeralda giggled when she saw this and patted Kili's arm.
"It is too long!" she said. "What will you do with it?"
Kili stared at the chain of flowers in his hand as if he had not considered this question before. "I not know," he said. "What it is for?"
"To wear, of course!" Esmeralda said. "Like jewellery. Look." She took a much shorter piece of chain that she had made and picked up Kili's hand, making to wrap it around his wrist. At this, Bilbo, who was still paying close attention, leaped to his feet, and Fili, who had ostensibly been concentrating on his own flower-smithing endeavours but it seemed now had also been watching his brother carefully, did the same. But both of them paused in their protest when Esmeralda did not put the flowers around Kili's wrist, but instead frowned down at it, touching the thick band of scars that encircled it.
"What's this?" she asked. "Have you painted on your arm?"
Kili looked down at his wrist. "It is scar," he said. "Come from hurt wrist."
Esmeralda nodded, and held up her own bandaged palm. "My papa says I won't have a scar," she said. "He says I wasn't hurt enough, but I think it's because you licked it."
Kili watched her for a moment. "No," he said. "You not have scar. It is good."
Esmeralda looked very solemn again now. "It still hurts, though," she said. "Especially when I press it."
"You not press," Kili said. "Hurt less."
Esmeralda seemed to consider this for a moment, then looked down again at Kili's wrist. "Did you fall over like I did?" she asked hesitantly.
Kili shook his head. "No," he said. "I not fall."
Esmeralda touched her fingers to the scars, tracing them around Kili's wrist, and then took up his other hand. She frowned to see a similar band there, and touched them, too.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked.
Kili regarded her for a moment, then looked down at his wrist, his free hand drifting towards his neck.
"Yes," he said. "Still hurts."
In the end, Esmeralda was persuaded to make Kili a crown rather than a necklace or bracelet, and then she twined daises in his hair until he began to look oddly elven, despite his beard. Kili sat patiently through these endeavours, but Bilbo sent Esmeralda off in search of her little friends shortly afterwards, for he knew that if he did not, she would remain at Kili's side all day in the way that children sometimes become greatly attached to adults who pay them some special attention. The afternoon, then, was rather quiet, for Kili seemed content to sit in his chair and page through the stack of books that Bilbo had now placed by his side, and Fili sat beside him with his pipe and pointed at things he found interesting, both in the pictures and the words, explaining them to Kili and sometimes reading snatches out. Bilbo ran some errands, then had Fili help him with the various evening meals (and both of them took the opportunity to quietly worry about how Kili seemed rather ill at ease, though neither could understand why), and after supper was eaten, he declared they should all have an early night, since they had slept so little the night before. But before he took himself to bed, he went and sat by Kili, digging in his pocket for a spray of the little herb he had gathered that afternoon.
"Now, my lad," he said, "do you know what this is?"
Kili stared at it. "Is flower," he said.
"Not exactly," Bilbo said with a smile. "The flower is the brightly coloured part, like this." He plucked a daisy from Kili's hair and showed it to him. "But the flower grows on a plant. This is a plant."
"Plant," Kili said, and nodded. "I understand."
"Good," Bilbo said. "Now, this particular plant is called valerian. Valerian, can you say that?"
It took Kili a moment, but on his third try, he had it right, and Bilbo nodded encouragingly. "I am telling you this because valerian has some special qualities," he said. "If you put it into tea, it will make it easier for you to sleep. Do you understand? It is like a medicine that puts you to sleep and helps you to sleep deeply."
Fili had come and settled by them by this time, and he looked from the sprig of valerian to his brother's face, suddenly intent. Kili, for his part, merely stared at Bilbo.
"I understand," he said, but he sounded troubled.
"Well," Bilbo said, "I have made you some valerian tea." And now he reached over and grasped the steaming cup he had left on the side, placing it on the little table by Kili's elbow. "If you would like, you can drink it and it will help you to have a restful night."
Kili's eyes went from Bilbo to the cup. He stared at it as if it might bite him. "I should drink?" he asked.
"Yes," Fili said, at the same time as Bilbo said "No." They stared at each other, and then Fili indicated that Bilbo should continue, and Bilbo turned back to Kili.
"You may drink, if you want," he said. "It is only if you want, Kili. Do you understand? The tea is there if you want it, but if you do not want, you do not have to drink."
Kili looked at him, and then at Fili. "You want I should drink?" he asked.
Fili shook his head quickly. "I have no opinion," he said, although of course this was not true at all. "You must do what you want to do."
Kili eyed him narrowly, but Fili kept his face carefully blank, and finally Bilbo got to his feet.
"Well," he said, "I will leave the tea there, and you can drink it, or not. Fili, come with me."
Fili looked like he might protest, but Bilbo frowned at him, and he followed meekly enough. Bilbo took him to the hallway and then on to the guest room, and they sat in there for at least a quarter of an hour, which Fili likened grumpily to hiding in a cupboard, although he conceded that it was hardly fair to try and force Kili to make a decision while they were both hovering over him.
Finally, they returned to the living room, and Bilbo very firmly and obviously did not look at the contents of the cup, though he had a strong desire to know whether Kili had drunk any or not, but simply took it and set it on the side to be dealt with later. Kili watched him as he bustled, still seeming anxious, and finally Bilbo decided he could not put the little dwarf to bed without trying to get to the bottom of this uneasiness, and so he sat in front of him and settled his hands on his knees.
"What is the matter, my lad?" he said. "Did you want to ask a question?"
Kili's eyes slid from Bilbo to Fili, who sat beside him, and then to the stack of books that still lay at his elbow. He shifted nervously in the armchair, dropping his eyes to the ground, and Bilbo remembered all of a sudden that he had promised he would read to Kili that night, and he had not done so. For a moment, he considered trying to persuade Kili to make the request out loud, but he decided that it was too late in the evening for that kind of thing, and so instead he merely exclaimed at his own foolishness.
"Oh!" he said. "I quite forgot that I was meant to tell you a story. Well, then; what kind of story would you like?"
Kili seemed quite unequipped to deal with this question - indeed, he was looking exhausted, his eyes half glazed over - and so Bilbo looked at Fili, who thought about it for a moment.
"One with hobbits," he decided finally. "And no orcs or elves."
Bilbo chuckled at this, and went to the bookshelf, choosing a well-thumbed volume and opening it to the story he loved the most.
"Hobbits it is," he said, and settled himself in his own chair on the other side of the fire. Fili sat on the floor at his brother's feet, leaning his head against Kili's knee, and Kili seemed to sink into the armchair, only his eyes reflecting the flickering firelight to tell Bilbo that he was still awake.
"Well, then," Bilbo said. "Many years ago, before the hobbits came to the Shire, they lived in a place called Dunland, which is far to the south-east of here..."
Bilbo was only halfway through the story when he looked up to find that Kili had fallen asleep. He smiled at Fili and carefully closed the book, though he placed a bookmark in it so that he could tell his friend the rest the next day. Fili looked up at his brother and smiled as well.
"I suppose he drank the tea, then," he said.
"I suppose so," said Bilbo, and decided not to worry about whether he had only done so because Fili so obviously wanted him to. He got to his feet. "We can let him sleep in here," he said. "It is not so different from being wedged in the corner of your bed."
Fili got to his feet, then, and stood in the middle of the room for a moment, regarding his sleeping brother, before turning to Bilbo.
"I will sleep here, too, if I may," he said.
"Of course," Bilbo smiled. "Let me find you something soft to sleep on."
By the time he came back from his rummagings with a feather bolster, though, Fili had collected blankets from the dwarves' room and wrapped himself in them, and was fast asleep on the floor, one hand flung out and grasping at his brother's bare foot. Bilbo stood and smiled at the picture they made, Kili with his head lolling and flowers in his hair, Fili sprawled across almost the entire living room floor, and hoped fervently that neither of them would wake until morning.
Before he went to bed himself, though, he stopped in the kitchen to rinse out the cup of valerian tea, and found to his surprise that it was still quite full. He stared at it for a moment and then tipped it away. Perhaps it was a good sign, he thought, for on his worst days he was a hopeful hobbit and on his best he was optimistic in the way that sometimes leads otherwise sensible creatures to untimely ends. Perhaps it was a good sign.
He certainly hoped so.