Chapter Thirty-Five: Bofur
T.A. 2907 Ered Luin
Bofur regards the young dwarf in front of him. Mithril ringed blue eyes stare back at him sullenly. Bofur has heard the stories, of course, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in any of the settlements around the Blue Mountains who hasn't. Young Prince Fili's Stone Sense manifested abruptly and spectacularly very soon after the disappearance of Prince Frerin, his uncle. Bofur feels for the lad, no one has developed a Stone Sense this strong in an age, not here anyway. It's more common where dwarves can live under the stone and know it as they grow. So many who live nearer to the sky don't come to know the stone well enough to hear it properly as they grow older, they never develop beyond the basics they are born with.
Bofur, coming from a long line of miners, has a stronger sense of the stone than most and his is nothing to his father's (Mahal rest him). Fili's, poor young Fili's, Stone Sense is already stronger than Bofur's and given a few months will likely be stronger than his father's as well. Bofur wishes he could have known Vili, gotten a read of his Stone Sense. There are no catacombs here, no deep place where a lad or lass as deeply connected as this can learn control and peace. There was, once, such a place. The stone sings of it sometimes in the night when Bofur finds it hard to sleep and once Fili learns to understand it doubtless the mountains will tell him of the same and more besides. Bofur hears the song, but he will never hear it as clearly or completely as Fili already does.
"We need to find a way to calm that anger, lad," Bofur says.
Fili is pacing, the stone beneath his feet is cracking and rippling, shifting with every footstep as though waiting for something to lash out at. If Fili loses control it will, it will strike at whatever it can. There have been no Stone Warriors in this area since the War of Wrath and no more than a handful elsewhere since, Bofur had assumed them to be little more than a fantastical legend.
"Why?" The youth demands.
"Because using the stone is like fighting, lad," Bofur replies. "If you do it in anger, you'll make mistakes and get yourself or someone else killed. So, tell me, what's got you all twisted up?"
"I don't want to be a miner," Fili grumbles. "It got my father killed. But with this it's all I'm good for." He clenches a fist and Bofur feels something deep in the stone crack.
"Rubbish," he grins, settling on the ground and pulling out a knife and block of wood. "Most miners barely have any Stone Sense at all. They take the job because there's nothing else for them in their own craft. Only the foremen and the managers, true delvers, have any Stone Sense. Most of the ones like me become architects and masons, builders and we need those in New Belegost. Your uncle will need them in Erebor if the dragon can ever be turned out. But you need to learn control before we can tell if the stone will tell you where to find jewels and gold or if it contains a statue or just blocks for a house."
"What do you do?" Fili flops next to him.
"I carve," he hands the young prince a half-finished bird, "or I play my whistle. I don't do it so much these days, don't have the need. Now, show me what Lady Dis has been able to teach you."
T.A. 2941 Erebor
"Do you feel that?" Bombur asks in his soft voice as they pass the ruins of Dale.
"Aye," Bofur breathes.
The land around the mountain is mostly dying, aside from those patches where the hobbits once built their homes and, according to Belladonna and Bluebell, is hostile towards the dwarves as they move over it. Bofur has been taking them at their word. He has no reason not to after all.
"She doesn't want us here," Fili's voice is just as soft, putting words to a thought that has obviously been plaguing him for longer than Bofur and Bombur have been aware of the song of the mountain.
Bombur hums an agreement and Bofur nods. Ahead of them Thorin throws them all a black look and leans in to mutter something to Dwalin. Thorin's mood has been dark since they woke and if Bofur didn't know for a fact that Thorin has almost as little Stone Sense as Frerin he would think that the mountain is affecting his king's thoughts. Certainly, his thoughts have turned bleaker and darker the more aware of the mountain he has become. Bombur is difficult to read at the best of times with his gentle voice and tendency towards silence, but he seems subdued as well and Fili is tense in a way that is familiar to Bofur after years of teaching the boy control.
"How could the stone warriors have missed this?" Bombur asks.
He has a point. Until Smaug nearly all of the most powerful users of the Stone Sense lived in Erebor's Catacombs. This far away, half a day's ride, the mountain's loathing is very clear. Inside the Catacombs deep within, it must have been stifling. It isn't a new development, certainly older than the dwarves being driven from Erebor, but underneath it there is something else, something sad and lonely.
"Maybe they did, maybe Thror just didn't listen," Fili replies, his voice tight. "I begin to wonder if retaking Erebor is a good idea."
Bofur is wondering it too. They're too close to the mountain to back out now, however, and Bofur believes he knows Thorin too well after all these months to think that he would allow it.
"Bofur! Fili!" Thorin summons them both forwards
They respond obediently, though not without some grumbling from Fili. The lad's tolerance for his uncle's moods seems to be waning the closer they get to the mountain. It isn't a surprise given his sensitivity to the stone, the song will always affect him more whether he realises it or not. Bofur did his best while training Fili but without experience of the lad's strength he knows there are gaps in what the younger has been taught.
"Lad," he says before Thorin can hear the mutters and Fili subsides. Bofur wouldn't say they were friends exactly before the quest, but he knows Fili better in some ways than any of the others here.
"Can you get any sense of the location of the entrance?" Thorin demands.
"No," Bofur answers for both of them. "But there are ways to hide these things, even from me and Fili." Thorin glares at him. "If we had years to study Erebor's song we could probably find clues," he offers, "but doing it the old-fashioned way would be easier."
"Pick up the pace!" Thorin calls and nudges his pony.
"Well, he's a delightful, warm forge today," Bofur mutters sarcastically. Fili huffs a soft laugh.
"You get used to it," he says and somehow that's worse. "He was like this for years after uncle disappeared." There is the unspoken admission that he was the same and Bofur well knows it.
Fili is open now, free and happy, in love and without the cares of a waiting throne for the first time in his life. It shows. On this quest the focus has been on getting from one place to the next, passing through towns and wilderness where no one knows them and it's easy to be nobody. The cares of being crown prince, of trying to take some of the weight on Thorin and Dis from them is gone out here. Fili gets to simply exist and if Bofur thought that Thorin would allow it he would tell his king to keep things that way for a few years once the mountain is reclaimed. Let Fili learn Erebor's song and work alongside Bofur to learn about her architecture and the best way to repair the damage done by Smaug. Erebor needs to heal and Fili will be best served to help with that. Bofur's concern is not for the prince, much as he likes the lad, his concern is for the living stone of the mountain that screams for them to leave and never come back.
That changes the instant that the hobbits' feet touch the slopes. The song doesn't change, as such, Erebor still wants them gone, but there is something else to it. Something deep and ancient that sends flashes of indigo fire over their skin and soars in longing. Interestingly, those same yearning notes affect Fili and Frerin too. Frerin jolts as though hearing the song for the first time, and it's very likely he is, staring at his wife as though he has never seen her before while ripples of light waver around him with the steady glow of a forge.
All eyes, however, turn to Fili and Bluebell.
Over the weeks since Rivendell the Company have become accustomed to the fact that Bluebell's Blessing and Fili's Stone Sense interact in some way. Bofur can't explain it and neither can Balin (for all his fancy books and learning). Bofur doesn't think the young couple even realise it half the time it happens. In the evenings when Bluebell huddles close to Fili for warmth, her eyes glowing so that she can see and his infuse with the same traces of indigo. Or when Fili touches the stone to check they are going in the right direction and the same swirls of mithril appear in hers. This is far more extreme. This isn't just the hint of each other in their eyes or the blaze of Bluebell or her mother hiding the Company from view. This is more like what happened in Rivendell. For a moment swirls of colour blaze together so brightly that they all notice and the song of the mountain soars enough for even the elf to hear. Longing, profound and heart breaking, fills him and from the expressions on the faces of the others they feel it too. The mountain is welcoming them and Bofur can't be sure if that is a good thing or a bad one.
Then Thorin steps forward and just like that the light and song fades and Bofur is struck with a feeling of intense loathing and pain.
It leaves all of them off balance and they make camp in stunned silence, broken only by Thorin's terse orders, the clattering of the cook stand and the clunk of fire wood. Even their meal is eaten in silence and, for the first time in weeks, Fili and Bluebell avoid touching one another.