Chapter 11 - The Sketches
The company was a mess. The morning had started with the usual birdsong and the dawn colours had illuminated the hobbit hole as if it were a painting that moved every minute, changing from black to purple, purple to pink, pink to orange and – finally – orange to the usual light yellow hue of an early morning. Most of the company had realised that this may be their last sleep indoors and didn't want to wake from it. So when the first – and intended only – morning call was sounded, several men merely turned over and moved back into dreams while the others started preparing.
Tupyn scoffed as Bofur ran in front of her, his weapons piled on his arms as he attempted to catch up with the dwarves who had woken up when called. She smiled and moved towards the open door. Thorin and Gandalf were stood in the doorway, counting the men that left to tack their ponies.
"Good morning." Tupyn bowed her head and shifted her bag on her back. Thorin nodded and Gandalf repeated the phrase.
"How did you sleep?" The king asked.
She smiled thankfully. "Surprisingly well actually, thank you."
"Good, the first night is usually the hardest. It will get better from here," He promised. "You must tell me if you need anything else."
She nodded that she would and walked out of the door. Gandalf and Thorin stayed where they were and counted her as the fifth member to leave. "Something is wrong." Gandalf said.
Thorin frowned. "Regarding what?"
"Her," He pointed the tip of his pipe to Tupyn as she rounded the edge of the Hobbits garden to walk around the back to where they'd tied the ponies. "Something happened yesterday."
Thorin sighed and figured that the wizard should know. "Her mother died."
Gandalf breathed a little too deep on his pipe and spluttered a breath. "I know that, dear fellow, there's something else that she's not quite prepared to tell anyone yet." Thorin frowned with confusion and looked up to the Wizard, counting Ori and Dori as the sixth and seventh members of the party to leave.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you know why her mother was being chased?"
"No. Why? Do you?"
He hummed. "No, but I feel as though it may be one of the many things that Miss Logreig may be hiding about her past and heritage."
His frown deepened. "I know everything about her past and heritage."
He looked down to the king. "Not everything."
Thorin was about the ask what on earth he possibly couldn't know but was distracted by his youngest nephew all but hurtling out of the door and his heir's boisterous laugh following after him. The king's arm shot out to catch the brunet by the upper arm so he didn't tumble down the small hill on the front of Mr. Baggins' house.
Kíli looked up to him and the laughter of the blond suddenly stopped as the youngest was pulled to stand before his uncle. Fíli rushed to his brother's aid. "My apologies uncle, it was my fau-"
He was silenced with a stern look and both brothers just looked towards their shoes. They knew that if there was ever any time to get up to mischief, now was definitely not it. Of all things their uncle held dear, Erebor and the quest to reclaim it was possibly the closest to his heart and of all times to mess around, they shouldn't have done it when he was attempting to make sure that their quest got off to a half-decent start.
They stood there for a moment, stewing in their own embarrassment when suddenly; Thorin thumped them both in the centre of their chests with a hearty laugh. They took shocked steps backwards and looked up to their uncle. He ruffled both of their hair and they took synced relieved breaths as the king gestured for them to go on their way.
They smiled and shook their heads at how they couldn't believe they'd fallen for his trick and then made their way down the pathway and onto the track to make their way to the ponies.
"I hate it when he does that." Kíli said.
Fíli merely chuckled. "And no matter how many times he does it, he gets you every time."
The brunet scoffed. "You were the one grovelling for forgiveness."
"Oi!" He elbowed his brother. "I was protecting you, you ninny." He argued. "I was going to take the blame."
"I don't want you to take the blame." He said for the millionth time over his life time. He'd actually lost count how many times he'd told Fíli not to take the blame but deep down – and never showing it – he was grateful for it.
"But I will," The elder brother promised. "Until the end, I'll take the blame. Count it as one of my ways of protecting you."
Kíli scowled. "I don't need protecting."
"Leave off." He exclaimed. "Had it not been for me, you'd be dead by now."
"And had it not been me, you would also be dead." He paused. "If you hadn't been killed, you would have died of boredom." They both chuckled and the ponies came into view so they each moved to their animals. Tupyn had already prepared Foggy and was leaning against his shoulder with a small sketchpad, watching Frankie next to her as he ripped up the grass at his feet. Cooper was the other side, his head dipped slightly and his hind leg resting on the tip of its hoof to show he was asleep. Fíli whistled and the previously sleeping pony's head shot up. Tupyn's head also moved towards them and she smiled, slipping the pad away into her pocket.
She hadn't spoken to Kíli all morning but judging by the smug grin on his face, he knew why she hadn't. She'd enjoyed it the night before with his arm draped over her and his breath on her neck, she'd never have relaxed if he hadn't been there and she'd never have fallen asleep. She briefly recalled how she had needed to slowly unwrap herself from him that morning and how she'd been reluctant to do so.
She smirked and chewed the inside of her cheek in a failed attempt to stop it.
It took a few more minutes for the final members of the company to appear and for Thorin and Gandalf to come and sort out their own animals. They all mounted and Thorin gave the order to move out.
"No Hobbit then." Fíli muttered as Kíli and Tupyn and he pushed their ponies into a walk behind the members of the company who had already set off.
"Sometimes people just need to sleep on things." Tupyn put forward as Foggy snorted and flung his hair back to move his hair from his eyes. She patted his neck and looked to Kíli as he scoffed.
"I highly doubt he'd be that eager to travel with us. He'd have to chase us and – I don't mean to be rude – but he looks as if he hasn't left his home for a proper 'chase' in quite a few years."
Tupyn sighed. "I don't know." She shrugged. "You'd be surprised what people would do."
The Shire was yet to wake up so they moved almost silently out of Hobbiton and onto the open road.
As they started to make their way through the woodland, Foggy started to tug on the reins. She understood and released the reins, allowing them to go loose around his neck. To be quite honest, Foggy was a bizarre animal. He had odd ways of doing things (much like herself), over rough, uneven ground, he preferred a completely loose rein because he seemed to not like having the movement of his head to be restricted in case he stumbled. It was quite a fair reasoning but it meant that Tupyn just had to sit over land like the one they were travelling on at that moment.
Fíli frowned. "Your pony is really strange."
She scoffed. "Tell me about it."
Their conversation was cut short by Bofur shouting towards them. "What do ye think lads?" He asked.
"About what?" All three of them chorused. After being briefly surprised by them speaking at the same time, they allowed Bofur to explain.
"About Bilbo."
"What about him?" Tupyn asked.
The toymaker rolled his eyes. "Do ye recon he'll show?"
She nodded simply. "Yup." The brothers either side of her arched their brows as Bofur smiled and congratulated her on her faith and then asked her how much she bet. Fíli and Kíli seemed to take this as a challenge and bet to oppose her.
"There's no way he'll show." Kíli said.
And as if on cue, Bilbo's voice sounded behind them in a cry of desperation. "Wait!" They heard him panting as the company came to a stop and the Hobbit ran past them to reach the head.
"Is that-?" Fíli asked.
Tupyn gave a triumphant exclaim and put her hand out to either brother. "Pay up boys."
They groaned in unison and begrudgingly pulled out what they owed, placing the coins into her open palms.
"Get him a pony!" Thorin shouted, leading the company on their way.
Tupyn saw the brother shoot each other a knowing look as the Hobbit protested and was overtaken by the majority of the group. She pulled Foggy back to allow the spare animal to slip into her place so that when Fíli and Kíli gripped the Hobbit by the shoulders, they could easily force him onto its back.
Bilbo ended up next to Tupyn as the brothers pushed Frankie and Cooper into a faster walk so that they could catch up with the men in front.
Tupyn watched as Bilbo held the reins wrong and struggled to get his feet into the stirrups and quite simply gave the pony beneath him the complete wrong messages. She could feel the pony getting more and more agitated and after a minute, simply decided to intervene.
"Look," She said, shifting her ankle into Foggy's side to move him forward and closer to Bilbo so that she could grab his pony's nostril and pull his head round, the pair of them still gently plodding their way along. She slipped her feet out of the stirrups and spun in the saddle to face him. She slipped her spare hand over the star on the pony's brow and gave a gentle 'shush'. His eyes fluttered closed briefly and when they opened, his demeanour had changed.
A calm horse was much easier to learn to ride on than a frustrated one.
She glanced up the Bilbo and Foggy slowed as he felt a small shift backwards in her weight. She grabbed the reins to Bilbo's pony and pulled them tight to show him how to hold them. "Like this." She displayed and he copied when she handed them to him. "Good. Now try and get your feet in the stirrups."
He looked at her like she'd started speaking Khuzdul. She rolled her eyes and pointed to the metal on the end of the stirrup leather. "That. Try and put your foot in it."
Bilbo obeyed and smiled when he managed to do it.
"You have to move with the pony," She tipped. "Don't fight him. If he decided he doesn't want you on his back, then he'll buck you off so don't fight. He might stop at the verge and try and get some grass, you can pull him away from that because he'll keep doing it if he thinks he can get away from it…" She spent the next few minutes explaining the basic dos and don'ts of riding. The Hobbit listened intently and, when she was finished, he smiled. "You seem to know a lot about ponies."
She chuckled. "I have a fair amount of experience. It's in my blood too."
"Your blood?"
She hummed. "My mother was a tamer; she had a bond with animals and my father was an adept tracker."
"So you're a tamer and a tracker by blood?" The hobbit asked. She thought that the Hobbit would have been naïve of the world due to his want to stay indoors but it seemed that even then, stories and tales didn't fail to reach sheltered ears. She smiled and nodded.
"You've heard tell of us?"
"I've met men and women who have seen others like you do unbelievably things with animals and read the earth as easily as I could read a book."
Her smiled widened. "That sounds about right."
"From what I've just seen, I have no doubt about that."
Gandalf slipped into place beside Bilbo and Tupyn nodded to him before squeezing her knees and pushing Foggy into a quick canter to catch up with the Durin brothers.
They spent the rest of the day travelling. Tupyn had spent a lot of time travelling and even she was sometimes stupefied by world around them. She knew that there would likely be many points where she'd be completely sick of boundless fields or never ending rock faces but while she could, she decided she was going to enjoy the world around her.
Her and the brothers spent their time talking amongst each other and messing around. She didn't tell them about the letter. They didn't need to know was quite simply the reason why; they didn't need to feel sorry of tread on eggshells around her. She wasn't entirely sure she could deal with that.
"We should stop now." Thorin ordered later on in the day, as the day reached its end. "Night is drawing in."
They stopped beneath a shelter of overhanging trees and stuck as close to the trucks as possible to stop as much of the rain - that had started to fall - as possible.
Fíli and Kíli decided that then was the time to treat the company to the rabbit they'd caught a few days before. They had skinned them and cured them so they were by no means fresh but they would still be edible.
Before long, a lovely rabbit stew was bubbling away over the fire; rumbling the stomachs and wetting the mouths of the company around.
Tupyn took advantage of their distraction and decided that she was going to find the stream which she knew meandered it's was through the nearby land.
The company would likely not bother themselves with cleanliness but Tupyn had always maintained a routine that kept her vaguely clean. She wasn't about to accidentally run into someone on the road and smell like the rest of them.
She didn't tell anyone where she was going but she had a feeling that Gandalf knew that the stream was nearby and that she'd want to go.
It was no more than seven minutes away and she found that the stream flowed into a small pool that was about as deep as she was tall. The soft moonlight was penetrating the water and hitting the light rocks below, making the pool glow slightly as they reflected.
She bent and dipped the tips of her fingers into the water to test it. It was cool and she felt herself smile as she stood and started to strip down. She folded each garment and placed her wash bag atop them near the bank. She lowered herself into the water and relished in the chill against her skin. She pulled the tie from her hair and released her curls before submerging herself in the water.
When she broke the surface once more, she relaxed against the bank, closing her eyes gently and relaxing under the waters touch. When she found that she was imagining that Kíli was there with her, she opened her eyes to dismiss the thoughts before she could think about his touch or his breath or his lips.
She sighed and distracted herself with the familiar weight around her neck. Her fingers moved to cradle the multicoloured gem and observe it once more. It was an odd item; it could be so important and it held unknown power but it held more sentimental value to her than the value it bought by being desirable. She hid it beneath her clothes in fear that someone might recognised it and even though she knew that it could never leave her neck, she continued to check it was still there.
She spent a few minutes more observing it in the moonlight and then decided that she needed to do something. She knew that despite how refreshing the water was, she couldn't stay for long else her bones would catch a chill and she'd never get warm. So she pulled a bar of soap from her wash bag and quickly rubbed the lavender scent over her body.
She ran some of it through her hair and submerged herself once more. She brushed out any knots in her hair while under, helping to run the shampoo out. She moved to the side and took a sweeping look of the woodland around to check nobody was watching before she lifted herself out of the water and sitting on the grassy bank. She grabbed a small cloth to dry her skin and then started to dress.
She dressed completely and merely draped her coat over her shoulders, holding it at the front with her hand inside. While it was wet, she could do nothing with her hair except towel dry it and leave it in its dam mess around her shoulders. She didn't put her boots on either, if her feet were wet then they could make the inside lining of the leather damp and that would cause havoc later on down the line so she held them and made her way back to the company.
She arrived to find a bowl of stew waiting for her besides Kíli. A few eyes noticed her arrival at they lounged against the trunks of the trees that were around the small fire they'd been able to light. Kíli looked to her, a smile lingering on his lips from something that Fíli had said and it slowly slipped away to leave a slight gape as she moved over. She sat and his eyes were still on her as she dug into the stew. "Have you bathed?" He asked, suddenly wondering why on earth her hair was wet. She nodded and hummed her confirmation as she chewed on a piece of rabbit meat.
"Where?"
She swallowed her food. "There's a pool not ten minutes away." She gestured the general direction and took another mouthful.
They sat in silence for a moment before he shifted. "You must be freezing." He said, slipping his arm around her waist from behind so that it was hidden as he pulled her closer, sharing his heat with her. She didn't admit that she was cold; she simply moved into him and hoped that maybe the stew would help.
His hand started to gently stroke her hip and when she was done with the stew, she placed the bowl and spoon to the side before leaning her head against his shoulder and allowing herself to drift to sleep.
"What's that?" Tupyn asked, slowing Foggy from the canter she'd pushed him into to catch up with Ori. The scribe jumped and hid his small pad under his arm.
The group had started moving again that morning and Thorin had mentioned something about a ridge that they would come to where they would stop for the night.
Tupyn noticed Ori's bashfulness and smirked, pulling her own leather bound book from her jacket pocket. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours." She suggested. She glanced over to Dori who was the opposite side of Ori and smiled. He grumbled slightly and just looked ahead. She gave a single chuckle that seemed to say 'fine, if that's how you're going to be' and then looked back to Ori.
The young dwarf tentatively closed his book and handed it to her as she held her own out.
Inside hers, Ori found drawings; dozens of them. There were drawings of hands and drawings of people, a mother holding a child and analyses of clothes and various items of jewellery. But mostly there were animals; a pony grazing in a field, the silhouettes of hundreds of different birds with small notes on recognising them, dogs and cats and the occasional wolf, fox or badger. Rabbits and deer appeared frequently along with squirrels, hedgehogs and boars. Ori was not only in awe at the drawings but at the meticulous notes that were added on the side on how, and in what way, one could gain the trust of the animals. She may have been a tamer, but he understood from the notes that every animal was different; she couldn't just expect each animal to trust her, she had to act and show them that she could be trusted.
He smiled and observed a drawing of - what must have been - a huge stag grazing in streams of light that slipped past a canopy of leaves. He looked to find her flicking through his own book to find pages and pages of scrawled handwriting, marking every detail of moments that were now behind them; documenting and preserving each precious second on the page.
She smiled at how surprisingly neat his handwriting was and at how detailed his words were before she gently closed it and waited for him to do the same with hers. He did so. "They're very good." He complimented honestly.
She smiled. "And your writing is lovely."
"Thank you." He bowed his head and was about to continue when their leader spoke up from the front.
"Night is close, we should stop now." They had come to the ridge he had spoken of before and there was a mutter of approval over the company as they stopped the ponies and stared to dismount. The night had drawn in fast and they quickly organised the watches so that people could sort out their bedrolls and get to sleep.
Any further conversation with Ori was halted by Thorin's sudden voice. "Tupyn," His tone made the young woman jump and startle Foggy next to her. She calmed him quickly and turned to the king. "Come with me. We are to check the area." He stalked off without another word. She just stared for a moment and then glanced to Fíli as he spoke. "Sounds like you're in trouble."
She sighed and just thrust Foggy's reins into Fíli's hands so he could peg the pony down. She tried to think about what Thorin could want to talk to her about and followed despite the nervous clenches in her stomach.
The walk to catch up with him was much less like an area check and much more like a nervous girl chasing after a rather angry man.
After a moment, she decided to call out to him and he turned. His face was blank; completely and utterly emotionless. "I have questions." He said.
"Well don't think you're the only one." She said, quite frustrated with him leading her away to tell her to spill her secrets.
"Do they know?"
She frowned. "Who? Know what?"
"Fíli and Kíli . . . do they know about your mother."
"My mother again?!" She groaned, throwing her arms up in the air and completely disregarding the point of his nephews in the question.
"Yes, Tupyn!" Thorin took several intimidating steps towards her. "We are going to talk about her, whether you would appreciate the conversation or not." She rolled her eyes, ignoring the pain in her core that was threatening to turn to sadness and eventually turn her into an emotional wreck. "But first I must know whether or not my nephews know."
Tupyn didn't want to talk. She didn't want to talk to anyone about anything; she had an overwhelming need to be alone. "No!" She forced after a while. "They don't know." She'd started to pace and Thorin could see her trying to calm herself down. He strode forward and took her upper arms in his strong grip to stop her from fidgeting.
"Stop!" He ordered. "Look at me!" She did so and found that she was looking at him through bleary eyes, her nostrils flaring with raged breaths.
"Why?" She found herself asking desperately. "Why would she just give up?" It was the question she'd been scared to ask; the question she knew would show she cared. She didn't want to care about her mother, the woman had abandoned her at her time of need; cast her aside when she'd needed her arms more than anything else in the world.
Sympathy knitted Thorin's brow as he looked down to her. He looked almost guilty about the words he was going to say and for a brief moment, it made Tupyn not want to hear them. "I'm not entirely sure she did." Initially, he'd not wanted to say anything about the inkling her had that maybe Cedia wasn't dead, but watching her daughter crumble before his eyes was not something he was willing to stand by and watch.
She released a confused, ragged breath. "What? You don't believe she's dead?"
"No," He confessed. "I think that you are going to believe that she'd dead because you're scared that if – perchance – she really is dead, it might be the final step you take to breaking. I believe that your mother was a strong and surprisingly persuasive woman and I doubt that she would be unable to handle this situation."
Tupyn stuttered on her words. After the second attempt of speaking, she sighed and swallowed. "But the letter. She told me-"
"She's not going to want you to be optimistic just in case she was unable handle it." He cut off her argument.
Her confusion had turned into rage again and she moved away from him, pulling his grip from around her arms. "So she's protecting me?!" She shouted, outraged at the idea. "Protecting me by making me mourn?!"
"No, Tupyn! She's protecting you by preparing you for the worst!"
Tupyn stopped, her limbs shaking in anger. Her mother wasn't allowed to protect her! She'd given up her right to do that when she'd given up her right to be her parent. No matter how much she thought she'd forgiven her, she couldn't deal with the truth.
After a minute, she simply had one question. "Why?" she asked. "Why did she suddenly care?"
Thorin sighed. "Because despite what you seem to think, she always loved you."
She groaned. "But I don't want her love! I did once and she threw it away. Her own maternal love was swept away with a single goodbye!"
"So why are you getting so worked up about her death? If you don't care?"
Tupyn looked up to him and after a brief moment of just trying to keep contact with his intimidating gaze, she gave up and sighed. She perched herself on a nearby rock and held her head in her hands. "I don't know." She admitted. "Maybe because I'm a liar or I'm just denying everything." She looked up and found that he'd sat himself next to her. "I just don't know."
He smiled reassuringly. "And that's fine. You do not have to be sure of anything." They just sat for a while in silence. His presence was nice; calming, He was strong not only in his will and his posture, but in his entire air and she couldn't help but be comforted by it.
It was a while before Thorin spoke up again.
"I've seen your looks towards my youngest nephew."
Tupyn's eyes widened and she tensed. She hadn't planned for him to find out at all, let alone this soon. She looked up to his accusatory gaze and tried to form any kind of coherent sentence. She failed miserably as she tumbled over her words and simply pushed her forehead into her hands again.
Thorin didn't speak initially. He heaved a few breaths before finally deciding to say something. "Right, it's going to work like this." She looked up with guilty eyes as Thorin laid down the guidelines. "My nephews have already incorporated you into the group; I have no doubt about that, so I know that you shan't get in the way. Quite frankly, Kíli would be lucky to catch a dwarf half as good and decent as you." She felt heat rise in her cheeks. "However, if you do become a distraction, I'll have no option but to ban you from each other, at least for the course of the journey." She nodded quickly, eager to show her understanding.
"I have no intention of letting it get to a point where anything remotely similar to that would have to happen."
He smiled. "Good. I trust that you won't." He stood and looked down to her. "But if it does, and goes beyond that . . ." She wondered what could possibly worse than banning them being together and soon got her answer. " . . . I shan't hesitate to send you home and see to it that you don't see each other, even when this quest is over."
That was harsh, way harsher than she had expected but all she could do was nod and watch him as he walked back towards the camp. She hadn't known Kíli long but the idea of never seeing him again left her uneasy in the stomach. She couldn't be alone again, there was potential for her to find a home with these dwarves and she wasn't about
Sorry it's been a while but schools been a bitch. We had mocks and then we went through the mocks and then we had parents evening and then we had reports. The results were decent but I could do better so revision starts on Monday. I've also been nursing an annoyingly serious cold. Lets just say that I take after my dad who once fell off of a motorbike and broke his collarbone but just picked up his bike and walked the 5 mile journey home. So if I think that this is bad then I'm pretty much dying. (The joy just continues)
On a lighter note, the views on this are just a few hundred away from my Being human fic that's been up for almost a year so I can congratulate you on that. I've also been quite chuffed with the reviews so thank you to everyone who's reviewed. I seriously need as many as I can get, my productivity has slowed a little bit and reviews are what honestly help me continue. (I've got a half-term break coming up now so lot's of free time! But weather I actually work on this or the Musketeers fic I'm working on is another story (you also have competition from an original work I started a few weeks ago so if you want more chapters, I'm going to need your reviews.))
Thanks for reading, it's brilliant to know people actually want to read this.