Summary:
Parties and economics mix a bit too well, leading to exasperation and nervous breakdowns.
The Company of Thorin Oakenshield learns a lesson about splitting the party as a result of the aforementioned.
Notes:
The traditional folk dance the hobbits put on before the actual feast are the Romanian Calusari ( watch?v=7WRfc7gjYwY) and Romanian Dances from Bucovina ( watch?v=yysJv3H1pbE).
More importantly, the Dirge of Arnor that is played and sung in this chapter is known on the Internet as The Song of the North, by BrunuhVille. ( watch?v=RHAFr4C0Kts)
Translations
(Neo-)Khuzdul
1 sannadadith - perfect younger brother;
2 nadadel - brother of (all) brothers
Cardolan – 2: The Perils of Innovation
"-. .-"
"Thus did speak the Prince of Durin to the ones all gathered. And none did among his audience find word or thought to speak in answer, not the lowest of the lowborn small, nor yet the Wisest or Mightiest of the High. Thus did speak the Prince of Durin his damning words of revolution. For who indeed, if not the highest of the Lords of the Free Peoples, could dare hope to muster thought in opposition? For his voice was guileless, his speech was of but truth, and his mind held but ideas born of acumen-"
"-unstoppered ere the Singing of the Dawn. Really Ori?"
The scribe squeaked and almost choked on air as his writing pad all but lost all its contents. The second it took to miss several times in a row and only barely catch his upended stationery pad on the fifth try left him gasping in fright, heart hammering in his chest like a drum.
Behind him, his brother snickered.
"Nori!" Ori whined weakly, hugging his writing supplies to his chest and scrambling to his feet. "I told you to stop doing that!" He then froze at the sight of five mini hobbits gathered around his elder sibling, holding sticks and looking either at him or the sixth fauntling in that tableau, who gleefully mimed flying high above everyone else, held above Nori's head one-handed. "…How long have you been there?"
"That's some wheeze you've got going there, sannadadith1."
Ori flushed and was torn between the usual reaction to Nori calling him that, and scolding him for using their secret tongue in the presence of outsiders as Master Balin would have. "S-stop reading over my shoulder!" Ultimately he didn't have the nerve for more than what he knew would meet dismissal, as usual.
"But it's so much fun!" Nori spun around, making Paladin Took giggle as he 'flew' through the night. "'Specially when you don't even notice!" The older dwarf stopped and gasped at him dramatically. "Don't tell me I've finally perfectly imitated your inner voice!?"
This and every other time in the past 20 years. "That's not funny!" Ori whimpered. "'S'not!"
"Snot?" Nori echoed, then suddenly glared down at his strange retinue. "Where? I knew at least one of you hangers-on was a snot-nosed brat-!"
"That's not what I said!" Ori moaned piteously. "Oh Creator, why do I even bother? I didn't sign up to deal with just more of the same that I deal with at home, never mind that I've had to keep up with my sketching, make records of everything day and night and survive your feud with Dori and still somehow cope with magic houses and crazy hobbits, and I didn't even get enough time to process Master Balin's contract before there's suddenly a party and mayors and thains and kings everywhere and the Lords of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth are just one tent away and I'M NOT READY FOR THIS!"
"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Nori hastily deposited Paladin Took on his head and rushed to hug Ori before he collapsed, as he belatedly realized he was about to. "Easy, easy nadadel2, take deep and slow breaths, like this." Nori took a deep, exaggerated breath and let it go just as noisily. "Like that, there we go little brother, just like that." Then did the same again, and again a third time, and Ori somehow managed to do as he was told amidst soft sniffling, as he belatedly realized to his horror that he was too panicked to do more than fleetingly make note of and move on to the next set of breath exercises. "That's right, in and out, in and out." In an out, in and out, never mind that this was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him in public since that time with the noodles, but that was then and this was now and the Lords of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth were just one tent away so the mortification could go suck it-
Gasp. Wheeze.
Oh Stone, he was having a nervous meltdown. He was melting down like that scented jar candle when Dori tried to nail Nori with it and it ended up in the hearth when he dodged it and-
Gasp. Wheeze.
The house had smelled of the nice, fruity fragrance for weeks afterwards, something that never failed to bring a tear of anguished loss to their eldest sibling's eye and Mahal, he wanted to laugh and that was just terrible of him, he was a horrible brother-
Gasp. Wheeze.
The worst, ahahaha.
Eight random mental tangents and a minute of Fortinbras Took hiding from Lalia Clayhanger behind Nori later – the arranged marriage between the two being the Contentious Matter of Great Importance between the Thain and his son, which the latter had loudly and rudely put an end to right after the terrible harpy rushed to kiss him after the traditional folk dance the hobbits put on two hours prior, to 'teach them big folk what to do with their loud, stomping footfalls seeing as they really can't help themselves' – Ori was finally able to pull away from Nori and succumb to the seizure of mortification that inevitably followed such a shameful display.
His sibling, bless him, had different ideas.
"A fit of the breaths!" Nori balked, outraged. Paladin Took swayed dangerously on his shoulders but grabbed onto his hair for stability. "This is an outrage! Clearly you're not using the proper way to tell a story, little brother dear! Ah! No interruptions!" But he wasn't going to say anything! "Let big brother make it all better!"
Right.
Where was Dori in all this anyway? He would have been all over Ori and fussing enough for the three of them a long time ago.
Seemingly unconcerned by this yawning void in their family unit, Nori swept the mini-hobbit off his head and deposited him amidst the others who were already seated and giving him their full attention. Someone had trained them to recognize impending story time.
Nori, of course, took advantage of that as he did everything else he came across.
"Ahem!" His brother started. "It was a dark and stormy night-"
"Wrong story," piped up Puny Hobbit the Minuscule.
"Hush!" Nori mock glared.
The hobbits hushed and Ori long-sufferingly sat next to them.
Nori cleared his throat again. "It was a shady, spooky twilight; the dark was fast approaching – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by the fireworks that went up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums that hung in the sky all evening (for this story is one that has Gandalf in it, which I'll get to in a moment, perhaps, if you prove attentive and patient enough) – but this was no normal shady, spooky twilight. For t'was the night of a party, and all through the camp, not a creature was sleeping, not even a scamp. The tables were laid on the roadside with care, in hopes that great piles of food would soon would be there. The little and big folk, though, weren't there, instead they'd been chivvied to the large drinking shelter. Not yet was the feast ready for the stampede, see, so host and guest both had to sit and be merry."
It was times like this that Ori thought his elder brother had missed his calling. With how easily he improvised lyrics and rhymes, he would have made a great poet and song writer, and everything else Ori tried but kept failing to be, as he'd just shown.
"But all big folk, see, too much sun in their heads, it wasn't long 'fore all talked stuff and nonsense. All news and tiding and notions in piles, all grim and grave about dark things and hassles. The little merry people said 'enough with that, yeah? These ain't no party topics, why the very idea!' But then even best dances weren't 'nough to oust gloom, So the Grey Wizard made night sky go…!"
"BOOM!" The mini-hobbits crowed in unison, making Ori's brother grin down at them in fond satisfaction.
Oh Nori.
"'Tis amidst all this ruckus our story begins, a story 'bout boats and half of two princelings! See, 't'were one dwarrow who weren't much merry -
"-. because of all gathered there, he was right- .-"
"Hungry," Kili groaned as he slumped over the table feeling like a particularly bereaved, newly-turned-40 dwarf after a drinking binge on an empty stomach. "I'm hungryyy…" Kind of like that drinking binge when he finally attained the lofty age of majority in question and needed Fili to hold him back from falling face-first into that ditch next to… whichever pub he'd drunk himself stupid in because he never remembered which it had been afterwards. "So hungryyyyyy…"
"Oh stuff it," Fili scoffed as he sat back next to him and plonked a new ale mug next to Kili's empty one.
"But I'm just so hungryyyyyyyyy," Kili moaned as he toilsomely sniffed at his ale. It was the Green Dragon Emerald, he noted with relief. Not the hobbit-exclusive Bywater Black which was made of soporific mushrooms that only hobbits had a built-in immunity to. Something which Dori refused to heed, in his attempt to "teach hobbits a lesson about true dwarvish ale-bellies" and get himself some sort of elegant revenge for what had been done to Nori the week before. With how he refused to let that go, you wouldn't think he and Nori were on such ill terms. Then again, you wouldn't think Dori had any alcohol tolerance either, given the sight of him sprawled unconscious under than table over in yonder corner.
"It's not like the rest of us ate anything since lunch either." Fili said with an eyeroll. Kili didn't look at him to see it, but he was sure it had happened.
"Bombur did."
"Because he's been helping with the cooking."
"Well so did I!" Kili groused mulishly.
"Give it a rest," Fili sighed as his own stomach growled. He took a long chug of his Buckland's Best in an attempt to stave off starvation. And he had just told Kili to let it go, the nerve of it all!
"I can't," Kili growled.
"So do something else!" Fili snapped back, then looked around furtively to make sure no one was paying attention.
"What, like imitate Dori's magnificent feat of ignorance and act like dwarves are the only race with hearty bodies?" Honestly, you'd think it would be obvious that if dwarves were strong, enduring and beyond mannish diseases, then maybe other folk had their own knacks, like hobbits and their herbs and mushrooms. "Or maybe I should try a round of stress writing," he motioned with his mug towards the large, main table where Ori was frantically scribbling in his travel journal. Probably transcribing whatever the kings and lords were all afret over. Well, Isengar Took certainly was riled up if nothing else, and... huh. "Any idea why Thorin's looking like when Gimli came and told us about his new alloy recipe only for us to find out he'd accidentally rediscovered Durin's Spring Steel?"
Fili blinked a couple of times. "Huh. Whatever the Mayor and Master are talking to him and the Ranger chief about must be really something. That settles it," Fili nodded decisively. "I'll wait here while you go scout out the situation."
"What?" Kili balked. "Why should I be the one leaving my nice, comfy chair just after breaking it in!?"
"Because you're just so restless and unhappy with your current situation, lord grumpypants," Fili said blithely. "Why, I dare say a bit of a walkabout is just what the healer ordered." Fili then used his mug to supposedly muffle his ever so helpful commentary about how "it'll give me a moment's peace, finally" as if Kili wasn't well-versed in booze-speech by now.
The dwarf scoffed, grabbed his mug and rose to stretch his legs.
But of course it wasn't that easy. He had to dodge around a couple of hobbit couples, hop over two wrestling mini-hobbits, then go all the way round back to his table when a deluge of hobbits and even rangers suddenly came through the tent's entry flap after having spent the past half an hour dancing outside. His intended path ruined, he decided to go around the other side of the massive pavilion.
"No second breakfast!? What are they heathens?!" squawked Bilbo's odious relative by marriage as Kili sauntered by. Lobelia. Kili actually knew her name, and that accomplishment was one that only filled him with shame. "My word, I knew their lot was untoward, no offence, and maybe a bit crass, certainly crude, perhaps even a bit obscene, but I'd not thought them so primitive as to deny themselves basic needs!"
"And handkerchiefs, they hardly know the notion!" Bilbo commiserated. Bilbo – and why was their hobbit there with the relatives he so hated instead of at the central table with the bigwigs? Insofar as Bilbo seemed capable of hating anyone, which admittedly wasn't much to speak of as far as Kili could figure – he actually nodded in concert with her and her husband, Bilbo's cousin what's-his-name (Kili didn't know this one, praise Mahal!). Kili would have sworn Bilbo was genuinely agreeing if he didn't know about his stance on this particular pair. "I dare say I've managed to at least introduce them to some of the uses for the things, cousin-in-law, but almost none of them seem eager to consider them as anything besides a rag meant to run ones nose through! Honestly!"
So cruel, Bilbo! So cruel!
"Why, I wouldn't know why you're surprised, Bilbo, dressed in ragged leathers and furs and lugging around axes and swords as they are," the odious woman's husband added while Lobelia looked at Bilbo like he wasn't worth last week's table scraps. "A scruffier group of ruffians you aren't likely to find, mark my words."
Well good riddance to you too, you-
"Then again I suppose they would be your type…" the harpy sneered snootily. "Unkempt, boorish, homeless too apparently, wouldn't be surprised if they're the loutish type also, who like to take and steal what they can without paying good barter in exchange." She looked triumphant and almost cruel all of a sudden and oh, if only Kili were just a bit closer he- "No different from what you've decided to turn like, Bilbo, if I may say so. To hear that you've gone about, swindling everyone in the Shire into parting with their hard-earned goods for nothing, why just the thought of it! Cheating good hobbits out of their livelihood! And all to throw a party for men and now dwarves. Your poor parents, what would they say if they were still alive to see you now?"
Kili's mind ignited with a fury so sudden that for an instant he wanted to grab Lobelia Sackville-Baggins by her scrawny little-
"I know!" Bilbo agreed with a tragic slouch, and it was so wholehearted that Kili had to sit down on the nearest free chair, his sudden fit of hot, aberrant rage punctured and seeping out. "No matter what I said or did or how far away from home I got, I got treated to the exact same thing all week! Every one of the Shire folk with anything to offer to the party refused to barter with me properly! 'No need to pay, Master Baggins. You jus' be there to entertain and we won' be needn' nothin' else sure enough, Master Baggins. No worries about coin now, Master Baggins. You expect us to take your money after what happened last time Master Baggins? Why the very idea, and please have this seedcake, my niece made them and they're just divine, they'll serve well for first desert don't you think, here won't you have another, and you'll come to our anniversary next year, won't you?' It's as if the whole Shire is determined to plant me on this high, lofty pedestal you and yours have always wished had been built for you instead. It's unconscionable!"
Someone choked. No, not just the unfamiliar hobbit next to him, the other… No, wait, that was just him.
Kili hastily stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep from laughing and then stood and scurried off as fast as he could before he burst.
Oh, the looks on their faces!
His hasty departure finally brought him within hearing distance of the main table, so he took to slowly skulking and hovering in the background, doing his best to look as if he belonged there. Which, given substantial life experience in going where he wasn't supposed to, was easy.
"-keep telling him that ebony would be the perfect option!" Isengar blustered passionately to Arathorn, generously not wincing at the vise-like grip that Isumbras Took had on his hand. Thorin and Balin were there too, but seemed to be involved in a deep conversation with the Mayor and Master hobbits instead, one that seemed to be testing their… credulity?
Yep, their credulity. Rather badly too, at that. Poor uncle, what could possibly-
"And I continue and will continue to retort with the simple truth that there is and there never will be enough ebony," Cirdan said mildly, seated next to Isengar whom he glanced at with long-suffering fondness. By Mahal, was his beard capable of arresting the attention of any dwarrow! "Ebony trees barely grow quickly enough to provide a steady supply of nails, let alone the lumber you would need for full vessels."
Wait, elves made even their nails out of wood?
"And I will keep retorting right back with the simple fact that you'd only have to use enough for one!" Isengar insisted. "And a small one at that! Big enough for an elf is not the same as big enough for a hobbit! Why, if you'd only listen to-"
Kili tuned him out and focused on whatever talk his uncle and Balin were in. Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be more outlandish than a hobbit trying to teach Cirdan the Shipwright how to make ships. And it was also a good idea to find out just why Uncle Thorin was so incredulous-
"-so that's our problem, if you get my meaning," Robin Whitfoot said, gesticulating with his puffing pipe from across the table. "We need to come up with something afore this fall's harvest, or we won't have enough storage space even if we do finish rustling up all the new storeholes, and that's a fact."
"We've been building them as many and as quick as we can but there won't be enough until at least four years hence if harvests keep doing as well as they do, and there ain't no hobbit that'll countenance letting their fields fall fallow after the Fell Winter," Gorbadoc Brandybuck added. "And that's if we keep digging and digging new holes each year, not even touching on the shortage of pots and crockery! That's why we were hoping that with you here, we can just sign off on unloading most of these last years' surplus with your lot. That way we'll at least get a year's respite."
"We've already set up what arrangements we could with the Breefolk, and we've even gotten the rangers to loosen their belts a bit, a mighty feat and no mistake, but even with that and the extra parties, it ain't been enough to lighten things any."
Gorbadoc scoffed into his mug and took a long drink. "Oh, go ahead and say it like it is. We've still got stores from the last two years just sitting there. Hells, I've still got stores from four years ago. Buckland was the most bountiful area of the Shire that year, well, barring Hobbiton of course." Then the hobbit grinned wolfishly. "I can't begin to tell you what beautiful colors the Sackville-Baggins and Bracegirdle folk turned all through the following spring."
"Eyes on the now, old chum," the Mayor flicked the Master's shoulder with his pipe stem. "Still some persuasion left to do, seeing as dwarves are such a suspicious lot, no offense yer lordship."
"No indeed," Balin said faintly while Thorin just looked from one hobbit to another in blank-faced disbelief. "I… forgive me if it seems a mite… surprising."
It was at that point that Thorin couldn't take it anymore. "Do we look like fools to you?" Kili's uncle growled. "You all claim this whole gathering to have been a spur of the moment thing, and now you turn around and… and…" Offer to all but hand all that surplus away, if Kili was understanding right? Maybe to the caravan that may, possibly travel this way later this year if Erebor is retaken successfully, and wow, that secret sure didn't last long, did it? "You expect us to believe much on good faith!"
"What he's saying," Balin cut in hastily, "Is that what your preliminary deal seems rather, well, unbalanced."
"Well, as just goes to show what a lack of good Hobbit sense does to people, if you don't mind me saying," the Mayor sniffed. "And if you don't take it off our hands, then what? Are we s'posed to use perfectly fine grain and preserves to feed the pigs? That'd be a right pile of noodles and ninnyhammers, beggin' your pardon."
"Would it?" Arathorn threw in seemingly randomly. "You've had no qualms about feeding Athelas to your pigs for the past four hundred years."
"Well excuse me! That ain't been no fault of ours! How were we supposed to know it was magic?"
Thorin and Balin just stared at the hobbits. Kili didn't blame them, he felt kind of poleaxed himself.
"I know!" Gorbadoc groaned at their stares, slumping on the bench. "It's ridiculous! If Bilbo hadn't gone and basically shanghaied us into humoring him about that soil, we wouldn't be in these ridiculous straits!"
"Or you could set up a proper export system," Arathorn cut in remorselessly.
"Don't you get cheeky with me lad!" snapped the Master of Buckland. Snapped as if to a ridiculous dwarfling! "You're lucky old Isumbras is too busy rapaciously mooning over his vagrant of a brother to give that smart comment what it deserves! You try being knocked on the head with the sudden need to redesign your whole country's system of governance and see how you like it!"
Arathorn graciously didn't call him out on how badly those words could be taken by what was essentially a king dispossessed, but Kili tuned out that conversation before it was too late. Hobbits were experiencing times so bountiful that they were seeing their productivity multiply several times over every year, and their reaction was to look for the best opportunity to wholesale everything at the price most advantageous to the buyers? What?
Unable to withstand any more absurdities on an empty stomach, Kili decided to listen in on the other conversation again while he finished his mug of ale, lest he feel compelled to stage an intervention.
He caught the tail-ends of Isumbras Took's latest reply to his brother. "-really can't understand how you can still be so gun-go about this… this sub-mary-"
"Submarine, it's not that hard a word to spell out, thanking you kindly!"
"Sub-mary, over-mary, who cares what's it called! How can you still be so obsessed about it?!" The Thain snapped. "You've been going about it for decades, and what progress have you made? None whatsoever!"
"Excuse me!" Isengar balked, affronted.
"Excuse you!? Excuse you for running off and making us sick with worry and grief all these decades, and now to find out it was all for exactly nothing? No you're not excused, you-you-… you damned wastrel!"
"Nothing!? Wastrel!? How dare you?!"
"Well it's not like I'm wrong, is it?" Isumbras said snidely. "You have gotten exactly nowhere. That's what your whole lover's spat of the past half hour with the Master Elf has been about, hasn't it, begging your pardon Master Elf."
"The nerve! If only I had my notes and sketches at hand, you'd be eating your words six ways to Sunday and no mistake!"
"So you've been gone for decades and all you've got to show for it, after decades, are some alleged notes and sketches you can't even produce as proof?"
"Just because you don't have anything approaching a vision-"
"Vision, hah! Mighty clear yours is going to be if you ever do make this submarine. What are you going to do, squint until you magically develop the ability to see through wood?"
"Windows, brother, or has your mind left you enough that you don't even know what those are?"
"Windows, pah!" Isumbras scoffed and furiously emptied a mug of beer that Bilbo had just slipped into his hand after popping up from nowhere. "So you've been badgering elvish lords for decades and decades hoping the elves would drop their livelihoods so they'd build you a wooden box with windows just so you could look at water from underwater without getting wet! Of all the harebrained, pointless ideas-"
"It's called exploration, you narrow-minded simpleton!" Isengar Took roared, flailing angrily and drawing the startled attention of everyone within twenty yards. "No one's ever managed to study underwater sea life beyond what can be guessed from crabs and seashells and algae washed up on the beach! Unless you have a way for someone to breathe underwater, the submarine is the only way! Which you would realize if you just took one bloody second-"
Kili's stomach growled violently, and so the dwarf sunk his face in his hands and despaired.
He couldn't have dinner because Isengar Took was too busy pontificating about his desire to stare at fish.
Taking a deep breath, Kili, son of Dis, lifted his head and carefully inspected his surroundings, giving utter focus to every single detail that crossed his view as he slowly looked from side to side, then all around him as he walked away from the source of his aggravation. There was always a solution for every problem, Uncle always said, and the odds of it being within easy reach increased the more varied the assets available within appreciable distance. That was a truth he'd been taught as well as had to learn through experience as he grew up, especially in those mercifully few years of his early life before Thorin's Hall reached a level of living that could be deemed sufficient. All he needed to do was to have a clear view of his problem, his goal, and how to go from problem to solution in a time frame conductive to accomplishing said goal. Which in this case was to finally get everyone to the feast table so he could finally eat some of the sausages and steaks and bread and pies and-.
Kili wiped his mouth and mentally slapped himself. Problem, solution, goal. Goal, problem, solution.
Goal: feed.
Problem: He couldn't have dinner because Isengar Took was too busy pontificating about his desire to stare at fish.
Mmm, fish –no, stop that!
Solution: …
Kili was just about ready to despair – it had been almost a full minute since he realized his dreadful predicament! – but then he saw it.
Moments later, he was out of the drinking tent and already a fair part of the way across the wide open space where the dancing had been going on. Gandalf was just ahead of him, putting together some of the last, larger fireworks he had scrounged up out of nowhere over the past few days, but he wasn't Kili's goal.
The dwarf instead rushed over to the hobbit several yards away. "Excuse me." The hobbit didn't seem to hear him, busy as he was biting at the… strip of whatever it was. "Excuse me!"
"In a mo'," the hobbit bit out as he, well, bit the sheet loose. "Be righ' with ya."
Kili watched in fascination as the hobbit wrapped the broken ladle handle back together.
"Well, what's yer damage, master dwarf? Broken walkin' stick? Oilskin got torn maybe? Need a spoon taped together? Loose book binding?"
"What's this?" Kili asked hurriedly, picking up a second roll of whatever it was from the cart next to the handyhobbit. "Some kind of… sticky cloth?"
The hobbit – and this time he wasn't proud of not knowing his name – blinked. "Whatcha mean what's this? Don't ye be tellin' old Spencer Hornblower there's summat as bewilderin' in the world as dwarves not knowin' what duct tape is!"
"You got us, dwarves are just so backwater that I've never seen such a thing in my life" Kili said flatly, scratching at the roll to try and find the end of the strip of… whatever it was.. "What does it work on? What is it even? Is this cloth or animal skin? Actually never mind that, is it waterproof?"
"Bless me, ye're a sheltered little'un, ain't ya!" Old Spencer exclaimed, spitting out a loose chunk and snatching the roll and giving Kili his own, used one to vandalize. "To think, ye actually be needin' to ask such silly things! Why, it works on damn near everything o'course! And waterproof? How else is it 'posed to handle the rain? As if any hobbit would stand for the patch job on their rakes shafts coming apart at the first drizzle! The very idea! I barely be believin' them men wouldnae be knowin' 'bout the proper tools of life, but this be a right shock to this old hobbit and no mistake! Asking if good Horblower Duct Tape would ever be coming apart in the rain! Well I'm glad ye asked what it is, lad! Although to properly be understandin' what it is, ye need to know 'bout my Great Uncle Dustin and how he didn't feel logging was a proper way to make a fortune. He inherited the large plot of Shire Pine forest me family own up in North Farthing, he did, and so decided to see what else he could do to stack his fortunes. O'course, he first tried to mix logging with food-making – he's where the whole system came from to cultivate honey fungus on old trees slated for chopping, terribly clever man my great uncle was – but he wasn't right satisfied with that, and eventually it was the resin that tilled the marvelous pastures of 'is imagination. 'Course, he wasn't able to actually make anything of it until he married my Great Aunt, who was a Cotton lass through and through. She was the daughter of old Frederick Cotton who was third son of the Cotton patriarch at the time, who also had two daughters named-"
Kili tuned out the sudden genealogy lecture in favor of nodding periodically while testing the 'duct tape' on every available item and surface within reach. It proved to be shockingly handy for fixing… pretty much anything, even though the glue got useless if he pulled it off more than twice, but if he got it where he wanted the first time and made a proper wrap-up of things…
Kili quickly spread several inches' worth on the top of a nearby cart base and poured water all over it from a bucket located conveniently within reach.
It was as waterproof as the hobbit claimed, which was actually impressive considering that the tape was actually made of cotton cloth.
This... this would work, Kili decided. Now for the rest of what he wanted.
Whatever it was.
It came to him from just a little more wandering, and if it got him back to just the outside of the drinking tent again, well, more power to him. Two clear glass cups taped together at the mouth, the resulting tube put inside two other clear glass mugs, the sort that Hobbits made for beer despite how expensive glassblowing was. Although he supposed it was only the better-off hobbits that had them.
Kili beheld his taped-together monstrosity and decided to replace one of the outer mugs with a metal one. He even found one made of actual steel. It had the Durin mark on the bottom, which made it all the sweeter. Now, just one last thing and he would finally see his goal fulfilled, something which his growling stomach agreed with wholeheartedly. Wholestomachedly… wholleguttedly? No, that sounded like someone had just skewered him open with a rusted spork, and why hobbits felt the need to invent those things Kili still hadn't the foggiest and oh look, his mind was wandering again.
Kili took his invention with him, headed for the last of his necessities, made a detour to a ranger that had been avidly watching him from nearby, took the cattail stem he was chewing on, then had to re-do everything in order to get his final vision to work, but finally, finally he had what he needed.
Now to go back to the beast's den.
"-to step away from you self-righteous posturing and actually listen to what I'm saying but oh, Eru, what's the use?" Isengar Took bemoaned dramatically. "If there was any chance of you being in any way reasonable, it would have actually occurred to you from the start that us leaving the Shire was at least as much because of your constant badgering and condescending 'but thou must' attitude as it was because Gandalf couldn't keep his nose to himself."
"How dare you-!"
The square-bottomed pot was half as tall as a hobbit and was made of tin two inches thick. It made a very satisfying smash against the gravel as Kili dumped it on the ground right behind where Isengar Took and Cirdan the Shipwright were seated.
The drinking tent suddenly became extraordinarily chatter-free.
It was almost enough to make the young dwarf quail in his boots, especially when everyone there including the chief hobbits, Thorin, Balin, Bilbo and the Elf Lord himself leaned, craned or turned in their seats to see what had just caused that loud racket, but Kili was quite frankly too hungry to give a damn.
The dwarf dropped his "creation" in the water – the pot had been filled for dish washing, but was perfect for what he needed – then he took a wooden cone and proceeded to empty through the cattail stem the nearest container of liquid, which happened to be a mug of Took's Finest.
Mannish, dwarvish, elvish and hobbit eyes all watched as the thing slowly sunk the more the outside of the inner thing filled with beer. And kept watching as the thing sunk beneath the surface and kept sinking up to the point where the dwarf ceased pouring.
The object floated languidly half-way up from the bottom. Not a single drop made it within the inner object's confines, while barely half of the outer air pocket had been displaced by the ale.
"There," Kili said flatly, dumping the ale mug back on the table with more force than was perhaps necessary, but he really didn't have any mood left to suffer more of these food-delaying dramatics. "One submarine proof of concept, free of charge. And you don't use wood if you want things to sink, you use metal. Honestly!" Then, because the stares were getting to him, Kili crossed his arms and decided to end the situation as painlessly as possible. "Can we eat now?"
He'd whined. Mahal, he'd whined. How embarrassing!
And why was everyone still staring at him like that?
"Ladies and gentlemen," Bilbo Baggins slowly spoke in the wide-eyed, stunned silence, looking as if someone had clubbed him over the face with a nesting squirrel. "The greatest treasure in the line of Durin. He drops revolutionary concepts during regular conversation and still knows better than to be late for dinner."
Kili blushed to the tips of his ears – especially after he saw that even Uncle Thorin was gaping(!) at him – then the next thing he knew they were all at the feast table with him right between Isengar Took and CIrdan the Shipright.
Mahal's beard, what-?
"Lad," the bearded elvish lord told him as he and Isengar Took worked to pile his plate full of dish after dish, even as their eyes were intensely and immovably fixed on him. "Give us details."
"-. .-"
"And so the small folk did drink and joke and sing and talk with relish about how they would soon toss gravy and grease on clothes made of strings from baby moths, while they did crunch and munch and feast upon the sheep and fish and birds and lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast porridge, and fruit bats-"
"(Wrong story again-)"
"And unborn baby chickens and newborn hens and what had since been prime-life fowls served alongside little fattened baby cows," Nori growled like a demon looming over them all, leaving it obvious that he was going to switch to a story about little fattened baby hobbits if he was interrupted again, and whatever beastie liked to eat them most such as were-bats, and it turned the little devils into angels quite nicely.
Ori stared at his older brother.
Really, Nori?
And it wasn't like little ones could be expected to stay interested in a story about science. Ori could already see that the children were losing interest in the tale, as none of them really wanted to hear about duct tape they must have seen everywhere all their lives. Despite how incredibly clever it was if it managed to give a dwarf ideas for how to revolutionize ship building just to get away from a talk about fish gazing.
…
Wait.
Wait.
Kili wanted at all costs to not get involved in a talk about fish gazing and accidentally revolutionized ship building for his troubles. And invented submarines, that too. All because he was hungry but didn't want to get roped into that talk about hobbits and how… they… didn't…
"That's it!"
Cries of startlement greeted him, especially since he'd jumped to his feet apparently, but that wasn't important! "They're not crazy!"
"What?" Nori asked, eyes him strangely as the mini-hobbits huddled behind him. "Little brother, are you alright?"
"Am I alright? Of course I'm alright! I'm better than alright!" Ori cried feverishly as many random facts finally came together into a coherent whole in his mind! "They're not crazy!" Then he turned and shook Adalgrim Took by his lapels. "You're not crazy!"
The hobbit just stared at him, wide-eyed.
Ori released the hobbit and pumped both fists in the air. "You're not crazy!"
"Er… alright?" Adalgrim Took said slowly from as he backed off to stand right next to Nori.
"You're not all crazy!" Ori cried with all the fervor of a man who'd had his belief in the sense of the world shattered only to be shown that the world did make sense after all and oh, he was just about ready to start spinning around in relief even though everyone was watching but he couldn't be arsed to care right now! "After the past week I was sure you were all nuts, but you're not!"
"Alright then," the hobbit recovered pretty quickly and casually reached into Nori's breast pocket to pull out a stone-carved pipe with the initials I.T. carved into the side and Nori, how could you!? "Now that I've recovered the Thain's property – and I'm sure the good dwarf next to me would have returned it by eve's end as is proper for games like this, but I find myself in need of a fortifying smoke, you understand – maybe you can elaborate?"
"Everything was true!" Ori said breathlessly, rushing to dig through his stationery pouch. "Everything everyone said about hobbits was true! We weren't crazy to believe it and the hobbits weren't crazy for not living down to those expectations!" And Maker, his situational awareness had somehow gotten worse in the past few hours if he didn't notice Nori's storytelling draw in… pretty much everyone.
"Living down to- and just what expectations would those be?" Asked Drogo Baggins irately from where he was perched on the top of a lean-to next to Primula Brandybuck.
"That hobbits are private, suspicious people with too little interest in the outside and too high an opinion of yourselves!"
"Hey now-"
"But it's alright!" Ori waved his arms frantically, journal flapping erratically through the air as he hastened to reassure Adalgrim Took that he didn't mean any ill with his words. "It's not your fault we thought otherwise! There's a perfectly valid explanation! I can see it all now!"
"… And what's the explanation?"Adalgrim Took asked with the strange air of someone who was deliberately avoiding the real point of contention for some reason.
"It's all Bilbo Baggins' fault!"
Silence.
"No, really! It is!" Ori hurriedly leafed through his notes to check all the things Nori didn't mention in his story or that only Ori had recorded over the past week to confirm and – yes, he was right! "It all goes back to the Fell Winter!"
While Nori and the other dwarves in sight looked relatively interested, the silence coming from the hobbits and even the men around them carried the unmistakable nuance of duh.
"No, listen! Mister Baggins, you joined the bounders a year before the Fell Winter right?"
Silence.
"He's not here right now," Adalgrim supplied helpfully. "But that's about right."
"Right." Oh good, Ori had just make a complete fool of himself. How shocking. "Right, and then he wound up in the Old Forest, among other… things." Which was a polite way of avoiding the story of how Bilbo joined the bounders because his mother did. Or how the Brandywine Bridge froze completely and Belladonna Baggins and Bilbo were in Buckland when the worst of the wargs and goblins attacked. And how they then ended up driven into the old forest where Belladonna died and Bilbo somehow… became magic before coming home after the springmelts. Bungo Baggins then grew ill after the starvation and chill of the Fell Winter and never quite recovered, so he pushed through until Bilbo's Majority, then in Bilbo's own words went on his 'final journey.'
"Well?" Nori prodded slowly. "Go on?"
"Right, so, ahem," Ori cleared his throat, feeling his courage draining now that his initial exultation had passed, but he had a point to make dammit! Even though Dori had finally emerged from where he'd been laid out with soporific drink and Thorin and Balin were coming from around the corner and Maker, give him strength! "Right so… As years pass and Bilbo becomes magic, he starts entertaining at every party he can think of, as well as randomly when the mood strikes him. His dawn songs start covering Hobbiton regularly around this time."
Adalgrim looked surprised at his deduction but nodded.
"This doesn't really do much to the Shire as a whole, but what does have an impact is that immediately after this, Bilbo's failures at adventuring start." Snorts everywhere. "He still manages to secure shipments of magic dirt sacks during the first one though, which means that sacks of magic dirt start being delivered to the Shire by elves. This results in very palpable improvements to every field and orchard and meadow and herb patches and medicinal and flower garden and basically every crop ever. This, in turn, fills up ALL short-term and long-term storage places in the Shire within 2 years and only keeps going from there.
"The first major consequence of this is that hobbits start partying and feasting several times more often than usual because they may as well do something with the surplus. Also, because you begin to feel strain on pottery and crockery and start feeling increasingly hard-pressed to store the new batch of bounty every year. You start to party for even the smallest excuse because of this, I imagine, which Bilbo, naturally, would have encouraged as it only meant extra venues for playing his instruments, which only enhanced the gradual rise in general merriment among hobbits in a continuous cycle.
"However, this ultimately isn't enough to actually prevent all stores from filling up, forcing you to dig out, build or otherwise create new storage areas at home and elsewhere, which is a somewhat ongoing process still. And the surplus keeps mounting, meaning that at this point you can either feed perfectly good crops and such to the livestock-:
"Unconscionable and doubly absurd for medicinal herbs and mushrooms, what are you nuts?" Someone cut in.
"Or two, sell or export the surplus somehow."
No interruptions this time, thank Mahal, now don't look up Ori, don't look up. "Only hobbits don't have any system in place for this! The attempt to encourage ranger traffic didn't quite pan out even after Bilbo managed to inform everyone relevant about them and their real activities during the fall festival of five years ago. So you've been trying to come up with something else, or alternatively waiting for Bilbo to do that since he's the one to blame for this bizarre conundrum."
"Damn right," someone groused, to much hmm-ing and haw-ing.
"Don't you see!?" Ori blurted at his brother and Valar, he looked up and he couldn't stop talking oh Maker! "The mass donation wasn't just on a whim. Hobbits quite simply have too much right now. The Thain, Mayor and Master came over today so easily because they hoped the Dunedain might help them or give ideas how and to whom to offload some of their massive surplus without having to actually set up sustainable exports! That's why they're so fixed on us! Blue Mountain dwarves bound east this or next year will make for a perfect solution to ease this concern, even if we don't… do all we plan to do by next year, and that's why they're not asking for more than a few shipments of iron and tools in exchange! They're all they need or want right now to further expand their stores! Don't you see!? It explains everything! Bilbo unintentionally improved Shire productivity and lifestyle to the point where Hobbits have to change their whole approach to self-governance. They can't keep to themselves unless they can live with the idea of wasting all that good food on the pigs." And just because he couldn't help himself, Ori hugged the nearest hobbit within reach. "You're not all crazy!"
Fortinbras Took bore the treatment with stoic dignity and Maker, Ori had just embarrassed himself, his brothers and the entire dwarven race by going on a fevered rant in front of every one of the free peoples of Middle Earth ever.
"Well…" Arathorn mused as he presided over the strange, impromptu congregation, because why not drive the final nail into the coffin of Ori's self-respect? "I do believe now would be a good time to set off the fireworks, wouldn't you think Mithrandir?"
"-. .-"
The party lasted all through the night, past even the early moments of the next day's dawn when some of the hobbits actually started to load up empty sacks and pots to take back to whence they were brought. Seated on the half of a log that had been improvised into a bench at some point the previous evening, Balin watched as a tenth or so of the hobbits set off with their wagons, mules and hinnies whickering under the stars. The lingering flames and colors of Tarkun's fireworks played languidly over their coats as they vanished into the distance, the few afterimages that still lingered in the sky after so many hours at least.
It had been merry and fulfilling, Balin decided, this unlikely gathering. His cloud of shame-birthed depression found itself brutally evicted half-way through the first hour before the feast even started, chased off by the sheer bewilderment of what constituted "trade" for hobbits these days. Whether or not they retook Erebor, the dwarves of the Blue Mountains would be set for food for the next five years at the very least, quite likely longer considering the sorts of quantities they ended up discussing with the Mayor of Michel Delving and Master of Buckland. After the well-deserved skepticism was overcome at least, which wasn't until second desert when Dwalin damn near exploded at him and Thorin to "get on with it before all the food is gone." Which didn't fool anyone considering the hungry stare he had locked on the platter of hot, freshly baked cookies at the time.
It was a bit awkward to sit and talk and draft deals without the Thain's input for that first hour, but the Hobbit King (no matter what the hobbits called him) was too focused on his returned brother for the first half of it, and then too busy being gloatingly vindicated when Isengar Took started to cry his big hobbit heart out when the realization finally hit him, that his life's work had just been invalidated within the space of ten minutes by a random dwarf he hadn't even been introduced to.
Kili had been so horrified and miserable at the sight – once he was replete enough to process any feeling that could be termed in any way complex, at least – that he looked like a beaten puppy. He was so pitiful, in fact, that Thorin was moved enough by the sight to give him an official excuse to get himself out of sight. Which was to say, he ordered him and Fili to make themselves useful elsewhere before they ended up causing a diplomatic incident. Specifically by keeping an eye on Bilbo in case he decided to arrange or make any other "deals" for them behind their backs.
Balin would have had something to say about that, but in light of the last discussion he had with the hobbit, he decided to keep any thoughts he may have had to himself. Balin also strongly suspected that Kili was grateful to have a reason to bravely abscond from the presence of the elf lord as well, who'd calmly but quite persistently been coaxing him for details about his submarine concept all through the evening. And then about any thoughts he had on shipbuilding in general, for some unfathomable reason. The old dwarf doubted he'd have handled it with any better aplomb, being the center of attention of Cirdan the Shipwright for so long. And that beard, why, it was just about the sort of thing that…
Actually, better not follow that thought any further.
Sipping at his hot mug of fortifying tea, Balin looked around the improvised party grounds. Men and hobbits stood, sat, lunged or outright lay asleep or insensate all over the place, on benches, next to benches and under tables and chairs. There were even a couple of elves on the far side, leaning against the party willow and sleeping the way of their kind, with eyes open and focused on nothing in particular. Other people were still up and about, quiet as to accommodate the rest but still perfectly upbeat, some eating and drinking as if they hadn't been doing that since last eve. Well, except for Bofur who was singing just as boisterously as ever, which Gorbadoc Brandybuck seemed to appreciate if nothing else. Isengar Took was passed out on that odd loveseat he and the Thain had tearfully reunited in, but the Thain himself was quietly conversing with someone or other. The Mayor had gone off somewhere not long ago, escorting a group of hobbits that had started to become rather too surly for everyone else's sensibilities. Balin wondered how two of those could possibly be related to Bilbo Baggins, but in a way it was reassuring that hobbits had their bad castings like every other race out there.
And that was what was missing from the picture. Bilbo Baggins was nowhere to be seen.
As fortune had it, that was the same moment when Gandalf's last fireworks faded from the sky, and the first shades of dawn began to break in their wake.
And with them, that same low, strange, soothing note started to be heard from afar like it had that first night after they met their burglar, though with one difference: Balin could actually tell what direction it came from, and that it reached them from far, far away.
Far, far away from the east.
After a minute, the note 'Do' stopped, then the instrument – a low-adjusted fiddle this time – made itself heard again. The note 'Re' was as clear and strong as before, but this time it wasn't as if they were right next to the source.
Then, after another ten seconds came the third minute: Mi.
Then Fa.
So.
La.
Ti.
And Do again.
Then, when the music finally in earnest began, with strings slowly plucked by languid fingers somewhere far in the direction of the dawn, it wasn't hobbits that rose to their feet to pick up instruments and play in tune. It was the men.
The Dunedain rose one by one, all of them from wherever they were. They rose and stared into the early dawn as if not quite believing what they were hearing, then as one turned their backs on the music.
Except they didn't, Balin realized with some unknown emotion. They hadn't turned away from the music, but instead turned towards the West. The Glorious West where the Valar waited but where no man would ever sail, no matter how great the yearning. Though the elves sailed and would still sail to Valinor long after all men that lived today were gone, man would never see those shores, nor anything else of the Undying Lands even after they perished, for they moved beyond the world, or so their lore and myths all told.
Where did these thoughts come from, the dwarf wondered? Or were they truly like eddies, swirling about him for Bilbo to weave into his song?
The dwarf watched, shivering despite not feeling cold, and when the first proper note of the song began, it wasn't from afar but from right there, where Arathorn, son of Arador, brought to his lips a flute and sung a slow, meandering sound that felt like hopes meant to be snuffed and burned under the weight of some great, weighty doom.
It wasn't until the harp on the other side of the field started being plucked that Balin realized this was no new, spontaneous invention.
The song flew then, as if trying to outpace the dawn itself, and when it inevitably failed to escape the world, the Dunedain added their voices to it as the far off fiddle faded, replaced by one closer to home. More music joined in from everywhere – Balin couldn't look around quickly enough to register them all – and the pace rose and rose and sped up to the point where the men went far past the march to war and in full fanfare.
A ringing, piercing woodwind tune struck it right that moment, come from the horizon far ahead, and Balin knew, with supernal certainty, what he was witnessing.
It was an hymn.
A memory of times long past that echoed still.
An anthem.
What came after… he would never be able to later recount in words and do it justice, the drumbeats, trumpets and men's voices chanting, chanting, chanting like footsteps and heartbeats and hooves and the life-beat of the kingdoms of heroes old. For minutes and minutes and minutes it went on, rising, rising in speed and cadence, as if the flow meant to outpace the reach of the world, the dawn of the sun behind them that they wished but knew could never leave behind, no matter how much they yearned to sail to the gods beyond the reach of the compass. Never had Balin seen or heard the yearning so conveyed, of the people who were ever only allowed the faintest glimpse of Valinor, but never a hope for more.
It felt cruel to him, Balin thought as he listened and his body shivered under the low, heavy voices that chanted a passion as deep as any felt by any dwarf in the history of the world. Chant that carried as much as it was carried by the Dirge of Arnor, chant that beat and struck and stopped, again and over and over and again. Each time, sudden. Each time cut short. Not even the strong, heartfelt vocal solo that emerged in its wake didn't overcome the weight of the feeling in everything else, fading into that same, low, solemn, sorrowful note.
He barely remembered the lyrics, themselves coming late in the melody, and not because they were in Adunaic rather than Westron proper. But he did recall them, or enough of what could make it through without being lost in translation.
A raven flies into the moonlight
The cold storm snow
He knows the message has to arrive
The kingdom will burn to the ground
The witches and demons have come to deny
The beauty and peace of our homeland
We know the message has to arrive and
The King of the North will rise
The words seemed so simple, so basic for such a solemn dirge, but he couldn't deny they were appropriate.
And the voices all fell quiet after, leaving the music to run out as if expended, the full breadth of emotion having been felt and spent to the point where only weary sorrow was left for anyone anywhere in the world.
Balin sniffled and wiped at his eyes with the handkerchief that some hobbit or other had just given him. Maybe there was something to these things. He would inquire as to whether they could acquire some before leaving, especially if Bilbo Baggins intended to make a routine out of these performances. The prior songs had all been moving but… not sad. Not like this, so deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. For a moment there, the sadness in the lyrics threatened to feel almost vain, the voice feeling as if it essayed to drown the other music by the force of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the rest of the melody and woven into its own solemn pattern.
Balin wondered what it meant that he expected the song to end abruptly, in one single cord the moment the woman sung the last word. Instead, the melody drifted in the wake of the solo, as if meant to play the part of a bridge to some other tune.
Perhaps it was for the best that it finally fell silent. Whatever was meant to come after… Balin had a feeling none of the men had it in them to truly hope would be more uplifting than everything else that had ever happened to the noble men of the North.
A deep silence descended upon the gathering then, one not bereft of life – crickets and larks both plied their own sounds as the morning emerged – but it was no less solemn or meaningful for it. Balin, and probably everyone else in the Company, would never make the mistake of lumping any rangers with all the other, greedy, selfish, mistrustful and prideful men in their minds, that was for sure.
Later, when morning had fully broken and early mists lifted and dissipated, it was doubtlessly due to that last, mighty song that Thorin proved amenable to the offer made to them by the Dunedain Rangers. Especially considering they had elven companions going the same way.
"The Rangers have offered to escort us east for part of our journey," the King of Durin's folk told the Company as he spread their map out on the table cleared out for their use. "They assured me that they can help us make up for the delay we incurred with our detour here, taking us by paths they maintain along the edges of the South Downs. We should be able to arrive to Rivendell by the fourth of June." And for a wonder, Thorin managed to mention Rivendell and their errand there without grimacing.
How Balin wished he could spare him the pain of having none among their own kin who could divine the secrets of Thror's Map. As much as he valued the cherished customs of the dwarven people, Balin wondered if maybe Thror and Thrain shouldn't have made an exception when Smaug drove them out, instead of rebuffing Thorin when he asked how they escaped, let alone anything else. So much knowledge had been lost this way.
"See here…" Nori's low query snapped him back to the present. "I don't suppose you know whether or not the Ranger chief will be escorting us personally?"
"He has his own business in Rivendell so yes, he will."
"Count me out then."
That was the opposite of what Balin expected to hear, or what Thorin and everyone else felt on the matter.
"Explain," Thorin ordered flatly.
"He brings bad luck. Bilbo says so!" What followed was a choppy, meandering explanation about why and how Arathorn, Chieftain of the Dunedain Rangers of the North, was the unluckiest sod to ever walk this unlucky world, and how anyone who tangled with his business was guaranteed to run afoul of the most terrible mischief they could never think of.
By the end of it, Thorin looked like only kingly dignity was preventing him from speaking his mind on this latest development.
"This is outrageous!" Gloin spoke for them all instead. "First we get diverted and lose six days' travel, and now the Halfling expects us to court whatever misfortune follows that hapless man? And after he abandoned us?"
Abandoned what now?
"He left around midnight," Thorin told him when he noticed Balin's reaction. "He brought up the topic with me and the Ranger Chieftain, claiming he had some errands of his own to run and that this would help up make up for time lost. Given that coming here cost us six days, I considered it a reasonable enough notion." The king then glowered down at the map. "I did not imagine he might merely be setting us up for further difficulties."
"Well I don't think he is!" Bofur said bravely. "He's been a mighty fine host no matter what any of you say, and he's only done right by us, even if it's been in his strange, hobbity ways." Bombur and Bifur nodded in agreement, followed by Dori and Ori somewhat more hesitantly. Though in Ori's case it was probably because he was still embarrassed over last evening's… lapse.
Balin should have kept an eye on him better. It spoke badly of him as a Loremaster and teacher that he allowed himself to become so absorbed in his own social failures as to neglect the state of his apprentice like he had.
"Well, it don't matter none," Oin said with all the loudness of the deaf. "We're back to 13 again, which is already bad luck on its own. Who's to say how much worse things will go if we join our path with the man's, if he's really as unlucky as all that?"
"I am starting to wonder if there is any worth to the halfling's word, or the Wizard's word for that matter, since he set us up with him," Thorin growled, incensed over this apparent duplicity on Bilbo's part.
That every scrap of information warning the party against having anything to do with Arathorn also came from Bilbo Baggins seemed to escape everyone involved.
Another round of playing Melkor's advocate, it seemed. Oh Mahal, what did he do to deserve this?
It was at that moment, when Thorin was looking almost willing to change his mind and decide to track the hobbit down and hold him accountable for this latest development, that something even more urgent and relevant finally made itself noticed.
"Thorin," Dwalin said sharply, looking around at their company of… 11. "Did you ever get around to telling the boys to stop tailing the Burglar?"
There was a long, still silence.
What followed was an utterly chaotic cavalcade as the Company spread out to look for those two, then an utter frenzy as the men and even elves got involved in the sudden search for the two disappeared Durin princes. The whole mess escalated rapidly as Arathorn started barking orders to go search for the two disappeared dwarves, along with oaths that there was no foul play at work on their parts but they would lend all their aid to tracking them down. The number of Rangers, Bounders and even random, regular hobbits that set out on foot, by pony, on horseback or just promised to ask around and keep an eye out while traveling back home by cart… it was a complete and utter, massive mess of impromptu scouting. A total logistical nightmare.
Everything almost came to a head late in the afternoon, when a harried bounder came running down the Sarn Ford bridge, brandishing a rolled-up letter. It managed to derail the shouting match that a red-faced Thorin and a forcefully calm Arathorn were about to break into as a result of some chain of strong emotional displays and misunderstandings that even Balin hadn't managed to fully keep track of.
The dilemma of whether to go with the rangers or try to head northwest, towards the Old Forest in the hopes of picking up Bilbo's trail and give him a piece of dwarven mind, had been entirely forgotten during the whole fiasco.
"Letter!" the unknown bounder gasped as he came to a halt. "Letter for Thorin Oakenshield."
Thorin almost pulled the poor hobbit off his feet, so quickly he snatched and unfurled the sheet of… not parchment, it was far smoother, whiter and that's not important! Balin quickly moved to read over Thorin's shoulder before whatever was inside set his king the rest of the way into an apoplectic fit.
[..- -..]
To Uncle Thorin,
Hey uncle, this is Fili.
(And Kili!).
Yes, and Kili, the coward who refuses to own up to his mistakes again and needs me to explain his latest disaster, as usual.
(Oh, go suck air through a reed! I was physically exhausted and utterly soul-weary after the ordeals of the evening!)
Yes, how trying it must have been to be the center of attention for everyone at the party, and to have your plates and drinks personally refilled and replenished by the leaders of the world all through the night. You essentially gathered around you every single lord and king at the party and practically held court. What a dreadfully terrible fate to inflict on someone.
(I was interrogated, you arse, for hours, and on something I hadn't even given more than a few minutes' thought to before last night!)
Well if you weren't so willing to share all those dwarven secrets-
(Secrets? Secrets!? I had to basically redo someone else's life work within the space of ten minutes before I was even allowed to have dinner! And then they wouldn't let me go because they couldn't stop asking "details" about my "ideas" as if I had ever given any of it any thought before! I actually had to spell out the implications of a metal bowl floating as long as it's not tipped over. And don't even get me started on how no one ever thought to coat ship hulls in copper so ships wouldn't need to be scrubbed of barnacles every few months. And then one of the men actually called me crazy for suggesting it because 'oh, the nails will rust out' don't you know. Because it's not like elves use wooden nails just fine, and wouldn't you know it, copper nails are also a thing since yes, iron nails do rust, thank you, I am well aware. How was any of this a surprise to anyone!?)
How was it any surprise to you, you mean? You do realize that most men still think hobbits make sugar by milking birds, right? Why you still have such high hopes for their mental capacity I will never understand.
(Who cares about the men? The one responsible for most of my suffering is Lord Beardmaster himself! What next, am I going to find out there are people who still eat out of lead dishes? Maybe there are still folk who think tomatoes are poisonous, that would be a riot. Or oh! Tomorrow I'll run into that fool from Duillond again who needs someone to invent a whole new creation myth because he hates music. Won't that be fun?)
In the beginning there was nothing. Then God said, Let There Be Light! There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.
(Oh, very clever!)
Anyway, uncle, Kili's gesticulating helplessly aside, the long and short of it is that after you ordered us to keep track of Mister Baggins, we ended up falling asleep because Kili was having one of his episodes-
(I Was NOT!)
-and ended up making us both pass out in the back of a cart because he's a cheating cheater who cheats!
(Excuse you! That is so not my fault! I'm not the one who challenged me to a drinking contest because he thought the Very Important Mission uncle gave us was too boring!)
Yes, uncle, he's not the one who wanted a drinking contest, he just proved, once again, that it's pointless to issue him any sort of honorable challenge.
(That's a terrible, vicious lie! You're just embarrassed to admit you passed out in the back of a wagon after just one drink!)
A single drink of Buckland Black you replaced my Green Dragon Emerald with!
(Don't listen to him uncle, he can't prove anything!)
Only because you disposed of the evidence!
(You can't prove that either!)
Never mind him, uncle, there's no reasoning with him, he's a lost cause.
(Ignore him, uncle, he's just embarrassed that he lost so badly at his own game.)
See, uncle, lost cause. And if that's not enough, then allow me to report that he somehow managed to fall asleep in the same wagon and snore his way through half a day's ride without any soporifics to help him along.
(I needed to recover my strength after my taxing, torturous trial!)
Anyway, the point is that by the time we woke up, we were already half a day's ride up the northwest road. Fortunately, this actually works great because Bilbo went up this same road not much earlier according to the good hobbit driving this good wagon, so we can still go on with the mission you gave us! The good hobbit also offered to find a bounder for us so we could let you know where we are.
(I'm not sure why you had Bilbo go ahead without you, but since Dori got doused with the same thing Fili did, I suppose you had to wait for him to wake up before properly setting out?)
Anyway, we hope you catch up soon!
Love, Fili,
(And Kili.)
P.S.
I just want to make it clear that I would have won that drinking contest, and anything Kili has to say about it is a terrible, vicious lie!
(He's right, you know. I am a lying frog. Everything I say is a lie. I'm lying to you right now.)
Oh, very clever!
[..- -..]
As Dwalin put his face in his hands and moaned about useless Durins and the various ways in which he was going to kill them, Balin gaped at the letter over Thorin's shoulder, aghast.
"Well…" he eventually said faintly. "I suppose that settles that.