Things went on such for a number of days, and Bilbo grew used to the occasional odd look he would receive from the other dwarves when he would make time to speak with Kili, none odder than from Kili himself, who received his attentions with no little puzzlement. But none of the dwarves ever told Bilbo he could not speak with Kili, and none seemed any less happy to have him along, though they were no more happy either, especially Thorin. But as nothing ever seemed to make Thorin happy, Bilbo did not view it as any sort of personal affront.
Bilbo learned soon which lines could not be crossed, though he was largely exempt as he was not a dwarf and was considered a little peculiar besides. Speaking with Kili was acceptable if necessary but the sharing of a meal was generally not, though the necessities of life on the road made this latter rule somewhat flexible. Drawing Kili into conversation with the rest of the company was quite out of the question. Bilbo grew a little unhappy then, for he had thought perhaps he could show the other dwarves that Kili was really a pleasant young lad, and there was no need to treat him as if he had contracted some sort of horrible illness, but his one attempt to bring Kili into a discussion of dwarven summer festivals was met with stony silence on all parts. Kili for his part had shot a frantic glance at his uncle (no, not his uncle, his shemor, for which there was apparently no direct translation, but which Bilbo gathered meant something between warden and minder) and had stepped back quickly to rejoin the ponies.
"It is just," Bilbo had later lamented to Gandalf, "that they almost treat him as if he is not there."
"You cannot change their customs simply because you do not like them," Gandalf had chided him, and Bilbo had had to sadly agree that it seemed unlikely he could, not when Kili himself seemed so little bothered on his own behalf. So Bilbo contented himself with doing what little he could, though it certainly felt like little enough, and he had not even so much as a single seedcake left to share when no one was looking.
But then one day it rained from morning until night, and they were all quite wet and dispirited, and could not even find any dry patch of ground to sleep on. Then they noticed that Gandalf had quite disappeared without so much as a by-your-leave, and the best they could do was to huddle miserably under a patch of trees, cold rainwater dripping down their necks, shivering from the chill. It had rained so much that all the wood was utterly soaked through, and not even the best firemaker among them could light so much as an ember.
Then one of the ponies took fright at nothing and bolted. He got into the river before they could catch him; in a flash, Fili dove in to save the pony and all the supplies he carried. But the current was fierce, and dwarves, it seemed, did not float nearly as well as hobbits, and Fili was quickly swept away before any of the other dwarves could think what to do.
Kili dove into the water a heartbeat later and between the two of them they managed to save each other and the pony too, but all the bags it carried were washed away. Fili's face was red and scratched from where he had scraped it against a rock and Kili had a large dark bruise on his ribs from where the pony had kicked him in its fright. He came out of the river coughing and choking, for the kick had knocked him fully into the water and he had stayed under for so long that Bilbo was convinced he had drowned until he came up spluttering and coughing, hanging determinedly onto the pony's bridle and shaking his hair like a dog caught in a downpour.
They were all quite disheartened at the loss of their food and Gandalf's continued absence, for it would have been very marvelous to have a wizard at hand, at least to dry their soaking clothes if not to magically make supper appear, but Gandalf was gone as if the earth had swallowed him whole, and no amount of grumbling served to make him appear again. They grew crankier still when it began to rain again, and set about squabbling over the pettiest of complaints. But then in the distance they saw a light shining, a reddish comfortable-looking light, and after no small amount of arguing they decided that they should go see what it was, for it had to be better than sitting in wet clothes with no supper all night.
But then their night proved true the old adage that misfortune keeps calamity close to heel, for it was not so very much later that the dwarves were all caught by trolls and stuffed into bags to wait while the trolls decided how best to cook them. And poor Bilbo only just barely escaped with his skin intact and spent a very miserable few hours indeed in the bushes, sore and wet and wondering how he could ever save his poor friends from a most horrible fate.
Thank goodness Gandalf heard the colossal fuss the dwarves made when they were getting stuffed into the sacks, and he very craftily tricked the trolls into such a bother that they quite forgot to pay attention to the time, and all were turned to stone the moment the sun rose. Then there rose quite a commotion as Bilbo and Gandalf freed the dwarves from their sacks, and there was much excitement until they were all satisfied that every dwarf was well and accounted for, and none really the worse for wear but Fili and Kili, who were still bruised and battered from their misadventure with the pony.
Fortunately, Bilbo found a key that one of the trolls had dropped to the ground — quite conveniently before turning to stone, for otherwise there would have been no way to prise it from the troll's fingers — and they quickly discovered the door to which the key belonged, and that led to the cave where the trolls would spend their days hiding from the dangerous light of the sun. The cave was full of treasure and weapons and most importantly, food, and their spirits were all greatly improved at the prospect of a good meal at last.
They made camp in the shadow of the stone trolls, and Fili and Ori thought it very humorous to sit upon the trolls' great stone feet as if they were thrones of gold. The fire over which they were to have been roasted had burnt down to embers, but Gloín swiftly built it into a very cheery blaze, and they all set about changing out of their stiff damp clothing so it could dry in the warmth from the flames, and ate their dinner in nothing but their smallclothes, which was very comical indeed.
It fell to Kili to retrieve the ponies, of course, but he set about it willingly enough, and Bilbo was in such fine spirits that he volunteered to help, and in due time all the ponies had been brought to the camp, and were safely tied up so they could not run away again and cause any more trouble. The dwarves were very merry and they crowded around the fire singing dwarvish songs, though Bilbo could not make much sense of them at all. Poor Kili was not quite so merry, because he had started coughing as soon as he had emerged from the river the night before and had not managed to stop yet; certainly a night spent in wet clothes while stuffed into a smelly troll sack had not helped matters any. But of course Kili would not have joined in the singing in any case, and Bilbo thought it probably did him some good just to sit near the fire and get warm again, and indeed he did seem to be enjoying the singing, for he looked quite content.
But after the singing ended, as they were beginning to think how very tired they were and how pleasant it would be to sleep the rest of the afternoon and all the night away, Thorin took a soft leather switch from his bag and came round to where Kili was sitting on the other side of the fire. Thorin pointed with his chin away from their camp and into the forest, and after just the briefest of pauses Kili nodded silently. He rose stiffly to his feet, padding softly after Thorin without even putting on his boots, and both of them were still in their smallclothes, though it was not so funny now as it had been a few moments earlier.
Bilbo stared after them, very unpleasantly surprised at this turn of events, which had put quite a damper on his merriment. "Why," he cried indignantly, "Thorin is not going to punish Kili, is he?" But obviously that was what was going to happen, for Thorin had looked very determined while Kili had just looked resigned.
None of the dwarves would answer him, though they muttered to each other and cast dark superstitious looks towards the woods.
Bilbo was quite affronted on Kili's behalf. "But surely you don't believe any of this was his fault?" It seemed quite ridiculous to Bilbo, for certainly nothing Kili had done had brought the trolls down out of the mountains, and he had not even been part of the debate to investigate the red light the night before.
The dwarves muttered among themselves again, but it was not in Common speech so Bilbo could not understand, and finally Bofur said, "Well, he's khazd khuv," as if that were any sort of an answer at all.
Bilbo waited but a few minutes to walk over to Bofur and confront him, for he was really very upset and could not believe the dwarves would so willfully disregard all common sense by punishing one who had done nothing wrong but nearly drown trying to retrieve a frightened pony and then get captured by trolls. "Bofur," he said, quietly so the other dwarves would not hear, "do you truly believe Kili brings bad luck?"
Bofur cocked his head and looked at him curiously. "Do you truly believe the sky is blue?"
"But," Bilbo spluttered, for it was quite absurd, "a person cannot carry bad luck with him like a pouch of pipeweed!"
"He's khazd khuv," Bofur said again, quite infuriatingly. "And that's why we're so grateful for you to have come along, Mr. Baggins. Can you imagine a company of thirteen, and one of them khazd khuv? Why, we might as well have rolled all over in spices and offered ourselves up to Smaug for his supper."
Bilbo found this utterly ridiculous, but just at that point, Thorin and Kili returned from whence they had gone. Thorin looked no more nor less happy than he had before. He put the switch away in the bag without further comment and did not speak again that whole night. Kili sat slowly back down by the fire away from the rest of the dwarves, and though he moved a little carefully, he did not seem to be in so very much more discomfort than before, though he would not lie down and fell asleep hunched over with his head pillowed on his knees.
The next morning dawned very bright, and the dwarves were in high spirits as they dressed and armed themselves with the fine blades they had retrieved from the trolls' cave. But Kili's cough had gotten worse overnight, and at midday when they stopped to eat he would not take anything but a small cup of tea, which he sipped rather miserably between fits of coughing. Bilbo spent the afternoon looking backward at him worriedly, at one point twisting around so far that he nearly fell off his pony and had to be righted by Ori, who had taken to riding next to him so they could trade stories from the Shire and the Blue Mountains.
By the time they stopped for the evening, Kili was glassy-eyed and feverish and his lips were faintly blue, which alarmed Bilbo to no end, and the other dwarves as well. Bilbo was relieved to see that, though they gave Kili very little thought in the ordinary course of things, they would at least tend to him when he fell ill.
"Pneumonia," Oín barked, having placed his ear trumpet against Kili's chest and listened for a few moments. "It was the river water that did it." Then he rummaged in his pack and mixed up a tea that smelled strongly of garlic, and they forced Kili to drink two whole cups even though he looked rather green after the first. "Right as rain in a few days," Oín predicted, which was not Bilbo's experience with pneumonia at all, but it seemed dwarves were a very sturdy sort, and recovered very quickly from all sorts of ailments which would keep a hobbit abed for weeks.
Kili would eat no dinner at all, and his cough kept the entire Company awake the whole night through, but in the morning his eyes were a little clearer and he could swallow a small piece of stale bread without looking as though he were about to be violently ill. Oín declared him on the mend, though he made him drink garlic tea all that day and the next as well for good measure.
Bilbo felt quite sorry for him, because as soon as Kili's cough eased, Thorin put him back on second watch. But Kili appeared quite unperturbed, and seemed to rather enjoy his time alone with the ponies, who certainly paid him more attention and were altogether friendlier to him than the dwarves. Bilbo resolved quite firmly that he would not fall prey to the dwarves' silly superstitions, and so he made sure every day to spend at least a few minutes in conversation with the thirteenth dwarf.
A/N: If a couple of lines look familiar, it's because I lifted them from Tolkien. Consider it an homage,.
mments and concrit always welcomed!
