A/N This Chapter went on for quite a lot longer than expected, but I simply couldn't find a good place to stop – this is, incidentally, also the reason why this took so long to write. I'm sorry for the wait, but I promise that I won't drop Erinqua for three months again, if you were worried about that.
Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor;
but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo!
I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done.
And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.
For he that attempted this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'
- Excerpt from Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring, the tenth instalment of The History of Middle-Earth. A piece from the Ainulindalë, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.
Chapter 10: An interesting tale
The first sign that the party received that they were near Beorn's house was when they noticed great patches of flowers, all of the same kinds as if they had been planted there. The second sign was when an absolutely humongous bee zoomed past Solana's ear and started sucking on the plants. Solana had no doubt that, should that bee sting one of the dwarves, they would swell up to twice their own height.
"We are getting near," Gandalf announced suddenly, after watching the bees for a few seconds. "This is the edge of his bee-pastures."
Not even five minutes later, they came upon a belt of tall, ancient oaks; and past that laid a high thorn-hedge through which one couldn't see nor scramble. "You had better wait here," The old wizard said to the dwarves, "and when I call or whistle begin to come after me—you will see the way I go—but only in pairs, mind, about five minutes between each pair of you. Bombur is fattest and will do for two, he had better come alone and last. Come on, Miss Potter! There is a gate somewhere round this way." And with that he went off along the hedge, taking a suddenly nervous Solana with him.
Soon, the pair of Istari stumbled upon a wooden gate, high enough for horses to be unable to jump over and broad enough for two to pass through side-by-side, beyond which they could see gardens and a cluster of low wooden buildings, some thatched and made of unshaped logs: Solana could spot barns, stables, sheds, and a long low wooden house. Inside on the southward side of the great hedge were rows and rows of hives with bell-shaped tops made of straw. They were too far away to hear the bees right now, but once the two started walking down the path, they would more than likely hear them.
Gandalf pushed open the heavy creaking gate and, accompanied by Solana, went down a wide track towards the house. Some horses, very sleek and well-groomed, trotted up across the grass and looked at them intently with very intelligent faces; then off they galloped to the buildings. By now, they had slowly come closer to the bees, and the noise of the giant bees flying to and fro and crawling in and out filled all the air. Solana subtly put Gandalf in between her and the bees, so that should the bees decide to sting someone, they would sting the older wizard first.
From the amused glance Gandalf shot her, she wasn't as subtle as she thought she was.
"They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers," said Gandalf, commenting on the horses that had galloped off.
Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle there laid a large oaken trunk with many lopped branches beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and large, bare arms and legs with knotted muscles. He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was leaning on a large axe – Solana was sure other, straight girls, like Lavender and Parvati, would have found him extremely drool-worthy. The horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder.
"Here they are!" The man said to the horses. "They don't look dangerous. You can be off!" He laughed a great rolling laugh, put down his axe and came forward.
"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked gruffly, standing in front of them and towering tall above Gandalf and Solana. The witch could easily see what Gandalf meant when he described Beorn; he wasn't exactly the most friendly fellow.
"I am Gandalf the Grey, a Wizard." Greeted the wizard calmly.
"Never heard of you," growled Beorn, before turning to Solana. "And who are you?"
Solana was about to answer, but Gandalf interjected with, "That is Miss Potter, a witch of good skill and unimpeachable reputation. I am currently teaching her." With a glance at the old Wizard, Solana curtsied. "As I said, I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. "I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?"
"Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again," said Beorn with a nod. "Well, now I know who you are, or who you say you are. What do you want?"
"To tell you the truth, we have lost our means of transportation and nearly lost our way, and are rather in need of help, or at least advice. We have had a rather bad time with goblins in the mountains, you see."
"Goblins?" said the big man a bit less gruffly. "O ho, so you've been having trouble with them have you? What did you go near them for?"
"We did not mean to." Solana answered for Gandalf. "They surprised us at night in a pass we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West into these countries – it is a long tale."
"Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won't take all day," said Beorn, leading the way through a dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house.
Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. Though it was summer there was a wood-fire burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda propped on wooden posts made of single tree-trunks. It faced south and was still warm and filled with the light of the westering sun which slanted into it, and fell golden on the garden full of flowers that came right up to the steps. Solana thought it was beautiful, and said so; the only acknowledgement Beorn made was a grunt, presumably in thanks.
The three sat on wooden benches while Gandalf, with the help of Solana, began telling their tale. "I was coming over the mountains with a friend or two..." Gandalf said, before being interrupted by Beorn.
"Or two? I can only see one, and a frail one at that."
Solana frowned angrily, and said, "I'll have you know that I can kill you in hundreds of ways, all depending on how I twitch my hand and, should I wish to, which words I pronounce. I can stop your heartbeat, levitate a stone to crush your head and make your brain mush, I can make an iron spike out of nothing and shoot it through your chest, I can enter your mind, remove all of your memories, instincts, and skills, leaving you less than a vegetable, I can turn you into a praying mantis before introducing you to a female one – did you know the females eat the heads of anyone they mate with? – I can make your own bees sting you to death, I can make your eyeballs and genitals explode without killing you, I can spill out your organs without killing you, and then force-feed them to you before making them explode, I can –"
"Solana!" A rather pale Gandalf interrupted, glancing at an equally pale Beorn worriedly. "I think that's enough."
Solana shrugged, not at all bothered by the increasingly gruesome descriptions; she had dabbled in the Dark Arts in order to combat them more efficiently, and some of those spells were rather useful when you had a group of people you wanted to interrogate; make one of them die a death as gruesome as her last example, and they all talk immediately.
Gandalf, meanwhile, continued talking, only a bit less pale than before. "To tell you the truth, I did not like to bother you with a lot of us, until I found out if you were busy. I will give a call, if I may."
Beorn, back to his gruff personality, said, "Go on, call away!"
So Gandalf gave a long shrill whistle, and Thorin and Dori came round the house by the garden path and stood bowing low before them.
"One or three you meant, I see!" said Beorn. "But these aren't humans, they are dwarves!"
"Thorin Oakenshield, at your service!" Thorin said, surprisingly pleasantly.
"Dori at your service!" Followed his fellow dwarf.
"I don't need your service, thank you," said Beorn, "but I expect you need mine. I am not overly fond of dwarves; but if it is true you are Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, I believe, and that your companion is respectable, and that you are enemies of goblins and are not up to any mischief in my lands—what are you up to, by the way?"
"They are on their way to visit the land of their fathers, away east beyond Mirkwood," put in Gandalf, apparently recovered from Solana's earlier speech, "and it is entirely an accident that we are in your lands at all. We were crossing by the High Pass that should have brought us to the road that lies to the south of your country, when we were attacked by the evil goblins—as I was about to tell you."
"Go on telling, then!"
"There was a terrible storm; the stone-giants were out hurling rocks, and at the head of the pass we took refuge in a cave, the hobbit and I and several of our companions..."
"Do you call two several?"
"Well, no. As a matter of fact there were more than two." Solana had to stifle a giggle at how Gandalf had evaded the question.
"Where are they? Killed, eaten, gone home?" The dwarves looked rather insulted at this, as it was unthinkable to them that one of them would give up on their mission.
"Well, no. They don't seem all to have come when I whistled. Shy, I expect. You see, we are very much afraid that we are rather a lot for you to entertain."
"Go on, whistle again! I am in for a party, it seems, and one or two more won't make much difference," growled Beorn, making Solana stifle a giggle again.
Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he had stopped, for, if you remember, Gandalf had told them to come in pairs every five minutes.
"Hello!" said Beorn. "You came pretty quick – where were you hiding? Come on my jack-in-the-boxes!"
"Nori at your service, Ori at..." they began; but Beorn interrupted them.
"Thank you! When I want your help I will ask for it. Sit down, and let's get on with this tale, or it will be supper-time before it is ended."
"As soon as we were asleep," went on Gandalf, "a crack at the back of the cave opened; goblins came out and grabbed our troop of ponies –"
"Troop of ponies? What were you – a travelling circus? Or were you carrying lots of goods? Or do you always call six a troop?"
"O no! As a matter of fact there were more than six ponies, for there were more than six of us—and well, here are two more!" Just at that moment Balin and Dwalin appeared and bowed so low that their beards swept the stone floor. The big man was frowning at first, but they did their best to be frightfully polite, and kept on nodding and bending and bowing and waving their hoods before their knees (in proper dwarf-fashion), till he stopped frowning and burst into a chuckling laugh, along with Solana, who burst out in giggles; they looked extremely comical, as if they truly were a travelling circus. Beorn, it seemed, had the same thoughts.
"Troop was right," he said. "A fine comic one. Come in my merry men, and what are your names? I don't want your service just now, only your names; and then sit down and stop wagging!"
"Balin and Dwalin," they said, not daring to be offended, and sat flop on the floor looking rather surprised.
"Now go on again!" said Beorn to the wizard.
"Where was I? O yes – the ponies were grabbed, but before they could grab us, Solana apparently woke up and killed all of them in a flash –"
"Good!" growled Beorn. "Pesky goblins are always plaguing the Carrock; I have to chase 'em away, sometimes."
"—and slipped inside the crack before we knew what was happening. We followed her down into a small hall, where the ponies were, and we all arrived just in time to see Solana tumble down from exhaustion; the walls, floor, and ceiling were splattered with blood and goblin parts, and apart from some more breakable objects everything, including the horses, was taken back by us.
"Then, we went into the main hall – Solana was still sleeping, being carried by one of the horses – and it was crowded with goblins. The goblin King was there, with thirty or forty armed guards. We killed the armed guards – apparently a wizard and a dozen dwarves can do a lot of damage–"
"A dozen!" Beorn interrupted. "That's the first time I've heard eight called a dozen. Or have you still got some more jacks that haven't yet come out of their boxes?"
"Well, yes, there are two more here right now – Fili and Kili, I think." Announced Solana, as those two now appeared and stood smiling and bowing.
"That's enough!" said Beorn. "Sit down and be quiet! Now go on, Gandalf!"
So Gandalf went on with the tale, telling about the goblin King's 'epic' defeat, the fight in the dark, the discovery of the lower gate, and their horror when they found that Miss Potter had been dropped somewhere along the way. "We counted ourselves and found that there was no female. There were only fourteen of us left!"
"Fourteen! That's the first time I've heard one from ten leave fourteen. You mean nine, or else you haven't told me yet all the names of your party."
Solana sighed suddenly, this was getting ridiculous. "We are with fifteen; Gandalf, thirteen dwarves, and I. The last few dwarves should be coming soon." And indeed, Oin and Gloin came up the path just then, greeting Beorn jovially.
"Ah, yes! Well, let them all come! Hurry up, sit down, come on!" Beorn glanced around, before shrugging. "And three more isn't going to be a problem. If need be, you can still sleep with the bees. Now, go on, on with the tale!" Beorn did not show it more than he could help, but really he had begun to get very interested. You see, in the old days he had known the very part of the mountains that Gandalf was describing. He nodded and he growled, when he heard of the hobbit's reappearance and of their scramble down the stone-slide and of the wolf-ring in the woods.
When Gandalf came to their climbing into trees with the wolves all underneath, he got up and strode about and muttered: "I wish I had been there! I would have given them more than fireworks!"
"Well," said Gandalf very glad to see that his tale was making a good impression, "I did the best I could. There we were with the wolves going mad underneath us and the forest beginning to blaze in places, before Solana interjected; she fired off quite a few fireballs, killing all of the wolves. That was when the goblins came down from the hills and discovered us. That was when the Eagles came to our rescue, picking up our party of fifteen and –"
"Good heavens!" growled Beorn. "Don't pretend that Eagles can't count. They can. Twelve isn't fifteen and they know it."
"And so do I." Gandalf smiled. "There were Bifur and Bofur as well. I haven't ventured to introduce them before, but here they are."
As if on cue, in came Bifur and Bofur. "And me!" gasped Bombur in one of his less wise moments, puffing up behind. He was fat, and also angry at being left till last. He refused to wait five minutes, and followed immediately after the other two. Even people as wise as Bombur had impatience.
"Well, now there are fifteen of you; and since Eagles can count, I suppose that is all that there were up the trees. Now perhaps we can finish this story without any more interruptions." Suddenly, Solana saw how clever Gandalf had been – and, unconsciously, she had helped him along. The interruptions had really made Beorn more interested in the story, and the story had kept him from sending the dwarves off at once like suspicious beggars. He never invited people into his house, if he could help it. He had very few friends and they lived a good way away; and he never invited more than a couple of these to his house at a time. Now he had got fifteen strangers sitting in his porch!
By the time the wizard had finished his tale and had told of the eagles' rescue and of how they had all been brought to the Carrock, omitting Solana's transformative abilities, the sun had fallen behind the peaks of the Misty Mountains and the shadows were long in Beorn's beautiful garden.
"A very good tale!" Beorn said finally. "The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let's have something to eat!"
"Yes please!" The dwarves all said together, with the two Istari nodding along. "Thank you very much!"
Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire. It was bizarre to look at, and on Solana's Scale of Weird Fucked Up Things, ranging from 1.0 to 10.0, this definitely made an 9.0 (The only thing on the S'sSoWFUT that made a 10 thus far was Monty Python's Holy Grail).
Then the bleating of sheep was heard, and seconds later some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram came in. One bore a white cloth embroidered at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle-tables. These were very low, low enough for even a hobbit to sit at comfortably – though nobody knew why Beorn had them, as Beorn was pretty much the opposite of a hobbit. Beside them a pony pushed three low-seated benches with wide rush-bottoms and little short thick legs for Gandalf, Solana, and Thorin, while at the far end he put Beorn's big black chair of the same sort, in which he sat with his great legs stuck far out under the table.
These were all the chairs he had in his hall, though the rest of the dwarves were not forgotten. The other ponies came in rolling round drum-shaped sections of logs, smoothed and polished, and low enough even for Bilbo; so soon they were all seated at Beorn's table, and the hall had not seen such a gathering for many a year.
There they had a supper, or a dinner, such as they had not had since they left the Last Homely House in the West and said good-bye (or Novaer) to Elrond. The light of the torches, the two tall red beeswax candles on the table, and the fire flickered about them, setting quite the comfortable mood. While they ate, Beorn told tales of the wild lands on this side of the mountains, and especially of the dark and dangerous wood, that lay outstretched far to North and South a day's ride before them, barring their way to the East, the terrible forest of Mirkwood.
The dwarves listened and shook their beards, and Solana steadily grew more worried, for they knew that they must soon venture into that forest and that after the mountains it was the worst of the perils they had to pass before they came to the dragon's stronghold. When dinner was over the dwarves began to tell tales of their own, but Beorn seemed to be getting steadily more drowsy and paid little attention to them. The Dwarves spoke most of gold and silver and jewels and the making of things by smith-craft, and Beorn did not appear to care for such things: there were no things of gold or silver in his hall, and few things save the knives were made of metal at all. Solana amused herself with the tales, though, imagining the large halls of Erebor in her mind, filled with jovial dwarves and happy Dwarven children running around, scooting between the legs of their parents shyly when someone unfamiliar approaches.
They sat long at the table with their wooden drinking-bowls filled with mead, or, in Solana's case, homemade red wine. Eventually, the dark night came outside, and the fires in the middle of the hall were built with fresh logs, and the torches were put out, and still they sat in the light of the dancing flames with the pillars of the house standing tall behind them, and dark at the top like trees of the forest. Whether it was magic or not, it seemed to Solana that he heard a sound like wind in the branches stirring in the rafters, and the hoot of owls. Soon she began to nod with sleep and the voices seemed to grow far away, until she woke with a start.
The great door had creaked and slammed. Beorn was gone. The dwarves were sitting cross-legged on the floor round the fire, and they began to sing, accompanied by Solana's humming, for though she didn't know the words she recognized the song, and one of her favourite verses, the only one she could sing along with, went like this, sung in a rather low tone for any woman;
"The wind was on the withered heath,
"but in the forest stirred no leaf:
"there shadows lay by night and day,
"and dark things silent crept beneath.
"The wind came down from mountains cold,
"and like a tide it roared and rolled;
"the branches groaned, the forest moaned,
"and leaves were laid upon the mould.
"The wind went on from West to East;
"all movement in the forest ceased,
"but shrill and harsh across the marsh,
"its whistling voices were released.
"The grasses hissed, their tassels bent,
"the reeds were rattling—on it went,
"o'er shaken pool under heavens cool,
"where racing clouds were torn and rent.
"It passed the lonely Mountain bare,
"and swept above the dragon's lair:
"there black and dark lay boulders stark
"and flying smoke was in the air.
"It left the world and took its flight
"over the wide seas of the night.
"The moon set sail upon the gale,
"and stars were fanned to leaping light.
And, at last, when all the singing was over, Gandalf announced it was time for bed, for they had many miles to cover come tomorrow. And he warned them about what Beorn had said earlier that evening, not to stray outside, for there were many predators out there hoping on an easy Dwarven or human meal. Then, they all went to sleep, and before anyone knew it, morning came again.
Review Replies!
Chaosrin: You have some very good ideas, my friend. Unfortunately, there are several complications with the Beorn is Sirius idea; the first, and most obvious, is their respective alternate forms. Beorn is a bear, and Sirius a grim. I think that someone would notice the difference.
As for your idea about the prejudiced Menfolk, I might actually incorporate that, somehow. Like 'all males are superior, go away, little missy, men are talking'. Yes, that might actually work. Could you remind me in a review when we get near Laketown? Otherwise I might forget.
And Mt. Doom and the ring… well, you'll just have to see. I already have an idea for that.
Hamof: That's good to hear; if I write something that offends a lot of people without me knowing – like, having Solana form her hands into some shape that is offensive in another culture to do a piece of complicated magic or something – then I will want to immediately change it. And I also almost never review, let alone follow or favourite – though that might just be because I'm lazy – so I can't really blame you.
Diogo: Well, it is a rather slow-moving story, I admit, but the Hobbit is even more so. And seriously? Moving through five chapters within a minute? You shouldn't read books, or fanfiction, you should go watch a movie.
And to all of the other reviewers, a Thank You, just like every other time.