Balin sent a glare over his shoulder as he was shoved again. They had all been scattered in their search for Bilbo, until Nori dashed through with word that he'd located the hobbit in Gandalf's tent; at that all nine relatively ambulatory members of Thorin's company had congregated outside of the tent. Balin, as second after Thorin, had quickly assumed leadership of the bunch, but that still didn't keep his lump of a brother from nearly stepping on him in his eagerness to see their friend again.
As Balin threw open the tent's fabric door, they were all shocked back a step at the wall of noise that smacked into them. The wizard had worked some sort of impressive craft to keep sounds from escaping to the outside, but inside it sounded as if he was torturing their poor hobbit friend. Balin and the dwarves charged forward to fill the tent's stuffy interior as Gandalf looked up to glare.
"Out! Out, all of you, I haven't the time to fool with nosey dwarves!" the wizard snapped even as he looked back to whatever he was doing to Bilbo's calf. Balin couldn't clearly see exactly what was being done as cloths were in the way, but it elicited weak cries from their friend in protest.
Balin ignored the order as did every dwarf behind him. Gandalf huffed to himself in annoyance. "Very well, if you insist upon staying then at least make yourselves more useful than statues. Someone calm him – he's taken a head wound and I cannot risk a sleeping tonic – and I shall need more fresh water in a moment along with more clean cloths."
Dwarves jolted into motion. Dwalin and Bifur stepped back to bracket the tent's door; they would only get in the way of the others, but they could appoint themselves as guardians of the tent. Ori, mindful of his bruised shoulder, moved to take the water bucket at Gandalf's feet- on his way to meet the others he'd passed where the men had set up barrels of water, drawn from the mountain's river for the healers to access quickly, and even without Dori's pointed look Ori knew that he could help.
Balin himself stole up to Bilbo's head where it tossed fretfully on the cot's thin pillow. The hobbit was laid on his belly, so that Gandalf could treat whatever wound he'd taken, and all Balin could see of him was the back of his head, where a bandage tied. Not paying one bit of mind to dirty, sweaty hair, Balin gently stroked lank curls out of Bilbo's face and had to smile fondly to himself. "You know, lad, 'tisn't the first time that I've had to comfort an ailing young one," he mused in a low voice as he made himself comfortable sitting on a clothes chest just to the side of the cot.
Bilbo's head turned towards the sound of his voice. Balin knew from the fever and glaze in the hobbit's eyes that the action came more from a deeply-seated desire for comfort than from any actual recognition. He simply continued with his caress, brushing along the side of Bilbo's face, and kept his voice low and gentle. "No, you would not believe what I've had to nurse my brother through…" Balin's words froze in his throat as Bilbo cried out anew at a particularly painful action of Gandalf's, and a tear leaked out of his eye to slide down his cheek in a wet trail only to turn into…
"By the maker!" Balin swore in horror as he stumbled to his feet and caught every single eye. Ori, startled, dropped the empty water bucket in his hands as he jumped and crashed into Nori. Still edgy from battle, hands went to hidden weapons until Gandalf's voice filtered through their tired minds as he called for them to stop. Dwalin and Bifur appeared as if they dearly wished to step away from their self-appointed posts to join the others, but duty to their friend held them fast at either side of the tent's interior entrance.
As unwilling as they were to press Gandalf about Bilbo's wounds while he was concentrating so completely on healing them, Balin could simply not allow this to pass without explanation. He pushed back the light sheet to discover where the little gem had slipped down to, only to discover a small pile of purple gems pressed between Bilbo's body and the cot. Balin forgot, in his shock, exactly what effect those gems had; he reached out to a dull little lilac gem which looked as if it had been soaked in undiluted etching acid, and then violently shuddered as his body roared with pain as if he had been dropped directly into one of the giant forges.
Only strong hands at his shoulders kept Balin on his feet, and Dori's fingers pried the gem loose to fall harmlessly to the dirt at their feet. "You'd best explain, wizard, before we have you removed and call for our own healers," Dori threatened with his flat, but very rational voice. Bombur's great bulk stirred angrily at the accusation and Glóin swelled as he flexed his arms in preparation for action.
Nori shifted closer to the shadows and took advantage of Gandalf's distraction to move around so that he could see exactly what the wizard was doing to their friend. "Poison," slipped out, only the breath of a whisper, but it was enough to startle Gandalf back into motion despite being caught wrong-footed by the dwarves.
"Yes, Master Nori, poison," he irritably replied to the easier question and tried to smack Nori's hand away as the dwarf snuck in to finger a sample of the black ooze from Bilbo's leg. "Goblins don't often coat their weapons with poison, as few have the patience to care, but the ones who do will use a mixture of every foul substance they can find."
Dori didn't watch Gandalf as the wizard spoke; instead, he watched his brother as Nori inspected the black which coated his fingertip. A simple taste had Nori looking back with wide eyes, and Dori felt his heart slam in his chest at the unguarded look of fear. "Glóin, they used yellow spores!" Nori shouted urgently, and Glóin ran out of the tent past a white-faced Bifur without a word. His steps were made uneven by broken toes on one foot, but they could all hear his boots heavily pounding in a flat out sprint.
"What are yellow spores?" Gandalf prompted as he exchanged the fouled cloth in his hand for fresh, and dipped it into herbed water before he turned back to cleaning the wound. Bilbo's whimpers drew Balin back to comfort him, despite the shocking sight of purple gems occasionally falling to the cot. Bombur looked terrified and sick where he stayed out of the way at the edge of the tent.
This time, Bofur spoke up, as he had far more cause than most to know the effects. "There's a moss which grows in the lowest tunnels and caverns," he shuffled up to join Balin and gently stroked a hand down Bilbo's spine between his shoulder blades. Their friend quieted a bit under their touch, and his restless movements ceased. "Normally the moss is right safe and sits there without bothering anybody, but if it's disturbed it sends out a cloud of yellow spores which are pure death." Bofur shuddered. "Breathe them in, and your lungs fill with blood; if they land on a wound, it gets into your blood and eats away at you from the inside. You only have a few hours to catch it quick, or else you're left hoping that a healer or family member will… that they'll be kind enough to…"
Gandalf's eyes fell closed in sadness as he did indeed understand what Bofur tried to say. An elf could send his own spirit on if suffering became too great, when the only relief to be found was when all life stopped, but dwarves and men were forced to rely on others for mercy. "I don't believe that we shall need such measures," he reassured, "for hobbits are remarkably resilient to most poisons from the natural world." The wizard hesitated for a moment before he went on to admit, "Though they do not have defense against poisons of a fouler sort."
Nori nodded, expression far too serious and knowing. "I may have something which can help with that," he offered before he darted out of the tent. Ori and Dori shared a look before the younger also pelted out of the tent, empty bucket in hand for fresh water.
Silence uneasily fell within the tent as they waited for their missing dwarves to return, and was only broken by Bilbo's whimpers and delirious mumblings as Gandalf worked to clean out as much of the bloody ooze from the puncture as possible. It had begun to go sour far too easily during the time that Bilbo lay on the battlefield, a secondary effect of the poison which few lived to experience. The foul concoctions usually killed man, dwarf, and elf outright within a few hours, their bodies simply unable to fight whatever goblins used in their mixture, but if one happened to linger through the poison, wound rot rapidly set in. Goblins thrived in filth, and their rarely-used poisons reflected this. Even their untainted weapons carried danger, as goblin blades were never cleaned and a cut from one always required treatment or else risk a life-threatening rot to fester in the wound.
To be helpful, Bombur mastered his body's response to the blood and ick and pushed around behind Gandalf to stand at his side and helped to hold Bilbo's squirming leg to the cot. One meaty hand wrapped nearly around the hobbit's thigh, so great had their hobbit lost his comfortable padding of flesh during their journey, while the other joined with Bofur's in gently patting Bilbo's back. This close, the sickly-sweet odor of a sour wound couldn't be missed, even when covered by the sharp nose-biting scent of the poison. "You are missing four of your number," Gandalf hesitantly broached, and watched as the dwarves looked among themselves for a moment.
"The lads ran out without mail or padding," Dwalin finally admitted when none seemed to prefer speaking. "They didn't lose anything valuable, but Óin's being kept busy stitching their hides back together where the idiots took hits. Thank the maker that their hides are as thick as their heads!" Several others grumbled an agreement to Dwalin's sentiment.
Worry pulled Gandalf's eyebrows together as no word came of the final dwarf. "And what of Thorin? The healer was most frantic that Bilbo speak to him in the healing tent," he questioned.
"Oh, he'll be fine," Bofur chimed in. "I was over there earlier, before all this, and heard the row he had with Thranduil's healers in the Kings' tent over the sleeping tonic they were forcing on him. Apparently he took a mace to the knee and it dented the bone a bit; he wanted to see Bilbo and apologize before the healers had their way." He leaned in towards the other dwarves with eyes twinkling. "Personally, I think those elves are afraid of him- won't try to heal his knee unless he's asleep and can't hit them!" Chuckles were shared around.
"Kings' tent?" Gandalf questioned.
Bofur nodded. "Aye, heard that they have Thranduil stuffed in there with Thorin, and Bard too since they didn't know where else to put him," he laughed.
"That's sure to end in tears!" someone hooted, but their merrymaking was interrupted as Ori quickly brought back the bucket of water and deposited it on the low table where Gandalf indicated, and then there was a bit of commotion when both Glóin and Nori tried to avoid running into each other at the doorway. They only ended up tripping over each other and slammed into Dori, who grunted as they jostled bruised ribs but stood as a firm buttress while they both regained their footing.
Since he was closer, Glóin limped to Gandalf first and handed the wizard a small pouch of chopped herbs. "Óin got this from one of the Iron Hills healers, but it's the same as what we use for the spores. He needs to breathe in the smoke as they burn," Glóin explained. As they didn't have a brazier in the tent, or much of anything really, Gandalf simply made do with his own pipe. It was packed with the herbs instead of pipeweed, but Balin and Bofur worked together to coerce a very woozy Bilbo into smoking it. Familiar with the herb mix, as most dwarves were, they knew that it wasn't harmful to those who weren't poisoned so that healers could help without being overcome by the smoke. Even though it had to be repeated often, only a small amount of the herbs were required each time, and so the two were finished in short order.
Nori edged closer to show Gandalf a miniscule vial filled with an oily brown fluid. "I need to pour this into the wound, and you'd better hold him down- he's not going to like it when I do," he warned. Dwarves and wizard scrambled to get firm holds on the hobbit where they could hopefully keep him from thrashing, yet not hurt their friend. Nori removed the vial's cork, hardened his heart, and grabbed the injured leg's ankle before he upended the fluid into the swollen, red puncture. Bilbo shrieked.
They all had a nightmare of a time trying to hold down the writhing, screaming hobbit, as it turned out that hobbits were rather more agile than expected. Gandalf's hand slipped on Bilbo's good leg, slippery with sweat, and he caught a flying foot to the stomach. Nori winced in sympathy; he could feel the density of bone under his grip, and it seemed that hobbit foot bones were considerably thicker than they appeared, like iron, compared to others'. A solid kick from their friend would likely feel like a hit from a smith's hammer.
Bilbo cried, twisted, squirmed, and fought, but his burst of energy faded quickly into fretful twitches and helpless tears. Nori stopped Gandalf's hands as he reached to wipe away the blood, black ooze, and streaks of brown oil which had seeped from the wound. "Don't touch that, it'll eat your skin like acid unless you've been poisoned," he warned, and took the cloth from Gandalf. Nori efficiently cleaned and then bound the inflamed puncture so that no more of the oil would seep out. He then carefully folded the soiled cloth so that none of the oil was exposed, and dropped it onto the accumulated pile at the end of the cot.
"Nori, how did you…" Gandalf started to ask, but was cut off by Dwalin's form pushing around him to go back to guarding the entrance.
Dwalin and Nori shared a look as he passed, and Nori sighed in resignation. "I know poisons because I'm Thorin's Shadow," he admitted as if it explained everything, and to those who understood dwarves, it did. Gandalf's eyebrows climbed in surprise- Nori was effectively Thorin's hidden guard (and his hidden assassin, when all else failed) who did his duties tucked away in the shadows while Dwalin guarded him in the light, in plain sight. It was usually a pair which only a King had, and Thorin was still a Prince as there could be no coronation outside of the mountain, but others had sensed the opportunity to kill the heir while he was relatively defenseless and exposed. Dwalin defended against the overt threats while Nori defended against those who would strike from hidden places with poisons, a knife in the back, or others paid to do the dirty work for them. Sometimes it was enough to stop the threats, but sometimes Nori was sent out to permanently stop someone, and there he truly earned his knowledge of poisons. Sleight of hand and a thief's quickness were assets when getting close enough to ensure that the deed was done.
Balin cleared his throat to break the atmosphere, and made an obvious change in topic. He pointed at the purple gems, their dull outsides seeming so very innocent, scattered around by Bilbo's thrashing. "Your explanation of this has been delayed long enough, Gandalf, and normally I'd not call a wizard to account for his doings, but this involves one who we've claimed as friend. We'll need a good reason for what you've done to him, or we'll be forced to call for Dáin's soldiers to escort you out of Erebor's lands."
An absolutely gobsmacked expression met Balin's words. "What I've?" Gandalf asked faintly in shock as his obviously exhausted mind struggled with the accusation. "Master Dwarf, I've done absolutely nothing to Bilbo other than help him when I thought that no other healer could, and use my own ways to hold back the poison's spread!" Gandalf chided sharply as he marshalled his mental faculties. He sighed and continued on with a much kinder tone. "Bilbo's tears are perfectly natural for a hobbit! It is an ability which they are very careful to keep hidden from outsiders, though I suppose that I am responsible for the ones which you see as I did cause pain while tending to him."
Balin used the sleeve of his tunic to safely brush aside some of the gems cried from their treatment of the poison so that he could stroke Bilbo's fever-warmed face. Their hobbit had finally fallen asleep after Nori's treatment, worn out from the lingering traces of his head wound, the poison's effects, and the pain he'd withstood for hours, not to mention his struggles against them. Even asleep, lines of discomfort pulled at the corners of his eyes and around his lips as his body fought against what traces remained. "Forgive me for my suspicions, Gandalf, for I've seen these gems before even if I never knew how they were made," he admitted.
Eyes turned towards the old dwarf in surprise, and even Gandalf's eyes widened in surprise. Balin chuckled. "Not all of you may remember, but our mother sat on Thrór's council as an advisor over the markets. One of the men from Dale gifted her with a brooch, likely in an attempt to curry favor, which was set with purple gems the likes of which not even we had seen. She could barely stand to look at the thing as the gems set her senses to shivering and crying out, and she disposed of it at the first opportunity." Balin motioned to the gems which were brushed aside near Bilbo's hand where it loosely curled up under the hobbit's chin. "They were of a very similar feel to these, though nowhere near as strong, and have identical coloring."
Gandalf sighed with resignation. "It is likely that those gems also came from hobbits, though I can certainly state that they were not given freely. Perhaps Bilbo won't mind if I share a little about hobbit history to help you better understand his reluctance to speak freely, even if I feel that your company may be trusted in this matter." He made himself comfortable on the ground as there were no seats within his tent and exhaustion pulled at even his endurance. The dwarves followed his example and, as best they could, arranged themselves so that they could see both the wizard and their friend on the cot.
"Quite a while back, long before the hobbits settled into their current home, hobbits did not hold their ability as secret. When great emotion moves them to tears, any emotion at all be it happiness, pain, love, or anguish, their tears crystallize into brilliantly colored gems. They freely gave their gems where they would- even to dwarves and elves, with whom they had the most contact, and then to men as they first encountered them far in the east. It wasn't until men learned of their ability that hobbits learned how to fear." Gandalf's voice turned dark and the dwarves couldn't help but shiver.
"Men who lived in darkness saw the gems and let greed rule their hearts: they captured traveling hobbits and experimented until they learned that torture, pain, could produce tears for them. The jewelry made from those tears commanded high prices as the gems used were unique among all others, though most who purchased them were unaware of their source. After that, bands of brigands raided the outlying villages until many stood empty and entire family lines were gone- tortured for their gems, and then slain when their ability broke under the harsh treatment and they could produce no more tears."
Ori sniffled and leaned heavily into Dori who appeared nearly apoplectic, even as he comforted his brother, while many others surreptitiously blinked away tears of their own. Dwarves had their own sad and violent histories, but they were built to endure hardship, built for battle. Hobbits, like their own Bilbo Baggins, were built for gentle things and peace, not pain and suffering and the thought of harming such a people horrified each one of them.
"Is this why he didn't want to tell us about it?" Bifur finally cleared his throat enough to ask. Not many understood his words, but Gandalf understood him perfectly.
"In a way, that is why he didn't wish to tell you about them," Gandalf agreed, face saddened as he looked towards Bilbo. "The hobbits eventually moved west, where they currently live, to escape the hunting and decided to turn away from the outside world. No longer would a hobbit travel among elves, dwarves, or men, far from the safety of their hidden villages. Knowledge of their ability was named as a secret, to be kept only by hobbits, and forbidden to others. Bilbo is… he is being pulled," Gandalf tried to explain. "As grandson to their Thain, the closest hobbits have to a ruler, Bilbo was taught a more thorough version of their history than most of his people learn from their families. He has taken the threat very much to heart and it's been pulling at him even as his friendship with you has pulled at him to tell you what his gems mean as he's given them to you."
Ori looked downright confused as his shy voice piped up. "But we're not men, why couldn't he have told us about them?"
"Because we're dwarves," Nori immediately answered, with a dark look of understanding on his face, "and everybody knows that dwarves horde precious gemstones."
"Now see here, his gems are nowhere near the same!" Glóin blustered angrily as his beard bristled with anger. Shouts of angry argument and rebuttal, mostly from Dwalin whose voice roared above the others, rose until Balin caught their attention.
"Nori and Glóin are both correct, but did any of us sit Bilbo down to explain this to him? No, instead we kept our secrets just as he kept his. The fault is just as much ours," the old dwarf rubbed his face tiredly and winced as he pressed over bruises. "When he wakes, I'll take responsibility and talk to the lad. With Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli all in the healing tents, I believe that I'm the one left who can break our secrecy."
Bombur shifted uncomfortably on the hard ground. "Mister Gandalf, can you tell us what the colors mean?" he asked, uncomfortable with the wizard's scrutiny. "We all have a blue gem which feels absolutely lovely to hold, and then we found some red ones which they said felt horrible, and now these purple ones… what do they all mean?"
Gandalf appeared alarmed at the mention of red gems. "Where did you find the red ones?"
The little bag was tugged from its safe place under Balin's belt and held up. "We found these near where he'd been standing on top of the gate that day," Balin explained. He abruptly lost possession of the bag when it was snatched from his hands faster than his eyes could follow the motion. Outraged shouts rang out from the company as Gandalf hid the gems inside of his flowing robes and Balin briefly entertained the foolish notion of reclaiming them by force. Instead, he raised his hand to quiet the raised voices and looked back down at their sleeping friend to assure himself that they hadn't awakened him with their volume. Bilbo slept on, oblivious.
"You truly should not have those, Master Dwarf, as a hobbit would never consider keeping them," Gandalf scolded Balin, who did not seem terribly impressed. "Anguish of the heart causes tears which form red gems, and those should be ground up into dust for the wind to carry away. The purple gems you see were created by pain of the body, and those should be thrown into the river at our first opportunity. Your blue gems, however, were meant to be kept as the treasures they are, for they were made from tears of happiness."
Every dwarf smiled as he sought the resonance from his own blue gem and what they now knew as the echo of Bilbo's happiness. It was that echo which made them stand out among regular gemstones and reached out even when the gems were cleverly hidden away. "And what of the way that they feel- have you an answer for that?" Glóin blustered in with his usual tact.
Appearing truly baffled, Gandalf took a few moments before he answered. "I do not know, but I can only speculate that your sense of the gems is unique to dwarves. As long as I've known them, hobbits have never made mention of such a phenomenon, and I've never experienced it myself as I've handled them."
Further discussion was interrupted by the rowdy entrance of a loudly complaining Óin. Everyone startled and jumped to their feet, which was well as the reason for Óin's displeasure came limping through the tent's door with the aid of Kíli's shoulder and would have tripped over seated dwarves.
Thorin, bruised and unable to bear weight on his right knee, shuffled determinedly into Gandalf's tent and stood in defiance of Óin's tutting. He leaned heavily on a bandaged Kíli's shoulders and swayed drunkenly, but stood upright and moved, for the most part, with more determination than true coordination.
Fíli scattered everyone further as he and a dwarf wearing the armor of Dáin's army entered with a small cot held between them. Amid questions, they settled the cot near Bilbo's and then the dwarf beat a hasty retreat to leave Fíli standing alone.
"Oh, enough shouting!" Kíli shouted above the questions, and Fíli snickered at his brother as Thorin flinched at the noise and nearly took them both to the ground. Kíli directed his uncle to the cot and unceremoniously dropped him to sit on it. Óin took the opportunity to pounce on his dazed patient and berate him loudly.
Gandalf was crowded back against his tent's fabric by the press of solid dwarf bodies and the noise level rose to a truly raucous din as everyone tried to have his question heard over everyone else's. "Silence!" he boomed, and sent dwarves scurrying. He finally had enough space to breathe in, and silence enough to hear Bilbo's shivers as the fever set in.
He took in a bracing breath. "I'll need a blanket for Bilbo," he started. Dwalin and Bifur, the closest to the tent's door, nodded and stepped out to procure the item. "And now I'd like to know why our esteemed Thorin Oakenshield has forsaken the Kings' tent to crowd ours." Gandalf's face may have been inquisitive, but his voice was a firm order to explain.
"'M not leaving," Thorin slurred from his cot as he cracked open glazed eyes to glare blurrily at Gandalf. He irritably twitched his knee away from Óin's grasp as the healer tried to rearrange one of the disheveled dressings on it but didn't bother to reopen eyes which had slipped closed again.
Fíli took pity on his uncle and spoke up from where he and Kíli were sitting slumped together on the ground by his cot. "He's got it in his head that he has to be here to say his farewell if Bilbo should die, or to apologize when Bilbo wakes," he tiredly explained with a lackadaisical wave of his hand. "I don't think he's really all that awake- that tonic Thranduil's healer gave him should've had him out for the rest of the night."
There was a round of head shaking and smothered laughter as Dwalin and Bifur returned with a thick blanket for Bilbo. As it was tucked around their hobbit, it caught Óin's attention and he turned his fussing to the other cot.
"Well now, what has he done to himself?" the dwarf demanded of Gandalf as he fussily checked the dressings on Bilbo's head and calf, and felt the heat radiating off the hobbit's skin. Bilbo didn't so much as twitch at the pair of hands touching his body.
Gandalf hid his amusement at Óin's fussing. "He was struck in the head by something, though it damaged the skin only, and was poisoned by a goblin blade. Nori and Glóin helped to treat the wound, and it's simply up to Bilbo and time to see how he fares," he explained. Óin harrumphed but couldn't find fault with what had already been done even as he twitched the blanket to lie just so on the cot without wrinkles.
"Now, I do not mind Thorin remaining here for the meantime, but I must urge the rest of you to find your own cots for the night and rest. The day has been long and we all must rest." Gandalf shooed the dwarves out of his tent. Only Óin and Balin remained inside, though Dwalin and Glóin took up flanking positions outside of the tent's entrance. They would leave, but they wouldn't go far from the ones who they protected.
Despite the battle being the day before, weariness still dragged at most of them, especially as most carried wounds, and the dwarves were glad enough to scatter to their own bedding. Fíli and Kíli made it as far as Kíli's cot, where they both curled up together in a pile of blankets and bandages.
Bombur, Bofur, and Bifur dragged themselves back to the tent that they shared and collapsed onto their own cots with heartfelt groans as bruises twinged and sore muscles complained. Bombur didn't even bother with a blanket and simply slept where he lay. Bofur and Bifur shared a laugh at his antics before they, too, were asleep.
Dori and Nori shepherded a yawning Ori back to their tent where they helped their youngest brother shed enough layers to sleep comfortably and then warmly wrapped him up in his blanket. Dori surprised his younger brother with a hug, and Nori stiffened for a moment before he returned the embrace.
"Thank you for saving him," Dori whispered so that he didn't disturb Ori's sleep.
Nori waved off the thanks, but couldn't wipe the sheepish smile off of his face. "He's my friend too, and if Thorin doesn't ruin this, I'll soon be Bilbo's Shadow as well," he told his brother. Dori simply gave his brother a look and gently shoved him towards his own cot rather than reply. If Nori didn't wish for any recognition for saving his friend's life, the hobbit who was friend to them all and one who Dori already counted as another baby brother, then Dori wouldn't force him into it. Instead, he'd do as he always did and look after his beloved middle brother, whether his brother appreciated it or not.