After only a few days, the food they had taken from the trolls ran out, and it took very little time before they became very hungry and dispirited, especially Bombur, who was quite as fond of regular meals as any hobbit, and took to groaning piteously of hunger. After the second straight day of no breakfast, no lunch, and hardly anything for dinner, the dwarves made camp early and sat themselves around the fire, too dejected even to sing. Even Gandalf's smoke rings were gloomy, dissipating into the air without any showing off at all, having not enough energy to make a single figure eight.
At some point, after a particularly wretched round of moaning from Bombur, Kili went to tend to the ponies, who, being content to sup on grass, were in far better spirits than the dwarves. Bilbo would ordinarily have joined Kili in caring for the ponies, for Kili seemed much more willing to speak with him out of the earshot of the other dwarves, but Bilbo was tired and cranky and wanted little more than to go to sleep as soon as possible. At least asleep, he could ignore the incessant complaints from his own stomach, not to mention the considerably noisier complaints from the stomachs of the dwarves.
But the sun had still not set and no one else had so much as unbuckled their bedrolls, so Bilbo sat discontented by the fire, ruing the day he had ever left Bag-End, where there was always food for supper and dinner and he never ran low on cakes or jam. He had begun to make a list of all the reasons why leaving the Shire had been quite the worst idea he had ever had — the trolls undoubtedly placing first, though the absence of regular meals and lack of proper washrooms were battling for second — when Kili came back from the ponies and without so much as a by-your-leave came round the fire and knelt down in front of Thorin, head bowed.
Conversation ceased immediately, and the mood grew tense and a little anxious, with the other dwarves muttering uneasily amongst themselves. Gandalf remained silent, but puffed a little harder on his pipe, and his expression, from what Bilbo could see of it under the floppy rim of his hat, was grim.
Kili said nothing, but knelt motionless on the ground, and in his hand he gripped the switch from Thorin's bag.
Bilbo swallowed around a lump that had suddenly formed in his throat and waited with a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, far more distressing than any pangs of hunger.
Thorin did not move, but regarded Kili silently, face shadowed. Then finally, he reached his hand to Kili's shoulder and said, very clearly and distinctly, so that all around the fire had no choice but to hear it, "No. I shall not."
Kili's head shot up. He looked very displeased, eyes wide and indignant, and the rest of the dwarves, to Bilbo's mind, looked surprised and none too pleased either.
Thorin's voice was quiet but firm. "You are not to blame for this, nidoy, any more than you would be at fault for our failure to find water in a desert."
Bilbo was terribly relieved at what seemed to be the very first sign of common sense among the dwarves, though it was entirely unexpected that such sense had come from Thorin of all people and not Kili himself. It had not occurred to him that Kili would seek to take the blame for every misfortune they encountered, and that thought was dismaying indeed.
Kili remained on his knees, frowning fiercely. "If we do not find food soon, we shall starve."
"That may be so," Thorin said. "But you have already been punished for the loss of our supplies, and I shall not punish you again for it. This is the same misfortune, not a new one."
Kili's mouth twisted in frustration. "But–"
Thorin cut him off, looking very displeased. "Do you challenge my authority to make such determinations, khufud?" His voice was very low and fierce, and he held himself very still indeed.
Kili blanched. "No, shemor."
"Good," Thorin said, that terrible stillness easing, though he still looked displeased.
"Send him off to hunt," Fili said, who alone among the dwarves had continued smoking his pipe throughout the last few minutes as if nothing whatsoever unusual was occurring. "We are far too large a company and make far too much noise. Most assuredly we are scaring off whatever little game there may be. If he goes alone, he may at least find some rabbits."
Thorin grunted. "He cannot go alone."
"He is not going to run off, Uncle."
Bilbo was more than a little affronted on Kili's behalf, as Thorin and Fili were talking about him as if he were not kneeling right there at Thorin's feet; Bilbo felt especially keenly about it because Kili did not look the slightest bit affronted on his own behalf, but Bilbo felt certainly someone ought to be.
"I did not say he would," Thorin said. "Nonetheless, the law is clear. He cannot go alone."
"I can go," Bilbo surprised himself by saying. His voice squeaked rather embarrassingly, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "I can go with him, if he needs to be accompanied."
This generated not a little amusement among the dwarves.
"Mr. Baggins," Thorin said, gruffly though not unkindly, "your offer is appreciated. However, you may not serve as shemor. Fíli shall accompany him."
This, at least, provoked a reaction from Kili, though it was hardly a favorable one from what Bilbo could discern. The young dwarf jolted and his face went pale beneath its coat of travel grime, but he did not say anything, though his eyes flickered uneasily to Fíli and back again.
Fili for his part seemed quite as displeased with this arrangement as did his brother — not his brother, Bilbo thought to himself with some irritation, wondering when he was going to be able to get such a simple notion to stick in his foolish head, that brotherhood to the dwarves was far from the simple concept hobbits considered it. But uncomfortable as he seemed, Fili simply nodded to his uncle; it would have been difficult for him to protest too much, Bilbo supposed, seeing as the idea of a hunt had been his own.
"There are still a few hours before the sun fully sets," Thorin said. "If you leave now, you will have the advantage of already being well away by dawn. We can meet you by mid-afternoon at the western fork of the path leading out of the valley."
Fili nodded again and rose to his feet, shouldering his pack. Kili rose too, to walk round the fire and take his own pack, slinging his bow and quiver across his back. If he was unhappy with the arrangement — and from his initial reaction, and the stiff set to his shoulders, he certainly was — he did not say anything about it, though Bilbo supposed that was to be expected. Kili's flash of almost-rebellion notwithstanding (if it could be called rebellion, to demand punishment), Bilbo imagined Kili could hardly even consider flouting any order from Thorin.
"Fili," Thorin said. His voice was low and very serious. In his hand he held the switch, and he reached out now, offering it silently to his nephew.
Fili stood in silence for a moment, then shook his head in three short, sharp bursts of negation. "I will not need it," he said.
Thorin growled. "And what shall you use instead, if you must? Your fists? Your knives? Take it and hope that it shall never leave your pack."
Fili remained rooted in place, and it seemed to Bilbo as if a shudder ran through him slowly from head to toe and back again. "I would not risk it," he said, and his voice was near to cracking. "Uncle, please."
Thorin looked quite fierce and mightily displeased. "One day, you shall be king," he said sternly. "The people will never trust you if you cannot first trust yourself."
Fili nodded then, grim and miserable, but took the switch, though he seemed loath to touch it; he stuffed it quite as far down in his bag as was possible, and packed everything firmly on top of it. If the time came that he needed it, it would take a good many minutes to dig it out.
"Good fortune in your hunt!" Bilbo cried out as Fili and Kili set off on their ponies, for it seemed quite obvious that such would be sorely needed in this dry, empty land. But the dwarves all groaned — fat Bombur even let out a little sob — and both Fili and Kili shot Bilbo dark unhappy looks, so disgruntled that Bilbo determined he had put his foot quite firmly in his mouth, and wished again he knew more of dwarves and their customs.
"Now you've sure and done it, lad," Bofur said, sitting down heavily next to Bilbo as the ponies trotted out of sight.
"But why?" Bilbo asked. "Surely we could all use some good luck about now. What is the harm in wishing for it? I have never been so hungry in all my life."
"Khazd khuv have nought but bad luck," Bofur said with a sigh. "The best you can do is hope no luck finds him at all."
This answer left Bilbo very dissatisfied and a little fearful, for he supposed now that if Kili and Fili returned without any food, he himself might be blamed for putting a curse on the hunt. He thought of how his friends at home would laugh at the notion that simple Bilbo Baggins should have the power to inflict a curse on anything or anyone with just a few words, but to the dwarves, Bilbo supposed, it was no laughing matter, and they were quite irritable already and very hungry, and he had no wish at all to have their anger directed at him.
Thorin sat still as the stone trolls in his place by the fire, with Dwalin equally still at his side. The rest of the dwarves had huddled together in family groups, listlessly grooming each other's hair, and only Gandalf and Balin sat unattended. Gandalf was still smoking his pipe, but his eyes held a very distant expression and his lips were moving, as if he were talking to himself or perhaps muttering a spell. Bilbo rather hoped it was a spell, for in their present circumstance they could certainly use whatever help magic might provide.
So Bilbo wandered over to Balin, whose fine grey beard looked rather limp and bedraggled. "Might I sit?" Bilbo asked, and Balin answered with a wordless nod of his head. "I hope," Bilbo began, "that the others will not think I have caused further misfortune with my words. It is only that in the Shire, wishing good luck before any chancy venture is customary. It would be rude to overlook it."
Balin puffed out a small cloud of smoke. "If the lads find food tomorrow, none will remember what you said today. And if they do not find food, I think we shall all be too hungry to worry about assigning blame." They had used up all the last of their supplies for their paltry supper, and there would be no breakfast nor lunch nor any more meals until they found food. "Do not concern yourself unduly, Mr. Baggins."
Bilbo was not overly reassured, but he did not say so, and Balin did not seem inclined to offer further comfort. "If I may," Bilbo said, "and it is not too impertinent a question–" But then he felt that he could not quite bring himself to ask it after all.
Balin puffed a few more times and then said, "About Kili offering himself for punishment? Or Fili being so reluctant to act as shemor?"
"Well," Bilbo said, "both, actually, though more the latter. For although I do not fully understand this business of khazd khuv, I begin to see how Kili views his place in the world." And quite a low place it was too. Bilbo had quite a few thoughts about that, but he kept them to himself.
"Aye," Balin said. His voice and face was sad. "'Tis a shame. He is a good lad, hard-working and loyal and clever. Had Dís but lived a little while longer, his life would have been very different. And Fili's too, of course." He puffed on his pipe a few times, lost in thought. "I tell you this as a member of our company," he said, "and because I believe I can trust in your discretion. It is no great secret, mind you, but not something I would tell to any stranger on the road."
Bilbo nodded. "I am grateful for your trust."
Balin settled back against his pack, his legs stretched out in front of him. "When do hobbits come of age?" he asked.
"When we have reached the age of 33," Bilbo said, assuming the question was not so unrelated to the topic at hand as it appeared. "About the age of 20, for a lifetime of Man."
Balin nodded. "A very sensible age. Dwarves come of age at 50."
"Why," Bilbo said, "that is exactly how old I am!"
Balin raised his eyebrows. "Indeed!" he said. "I should not tell the others, if I were you. They will tease you mightily!" But then he puffed again on his pipe. "A dwarf lad of 50 is still a stripling, not even yet full grown. Though he must take responsibility for his own decisions, he will still think and act like a child. It is a difficult thing for some, to have adulthood so suddenly thrust upon them."
"I can but imagine," Bilbo said, working out the math and realizing to his dismay that under dwarf custom, he would have come of age at the tender age of 20, when the hair on his feet had only just begun to grow and he'd yet been prone to playing tricks on all the neighbors.
"When Fili had just come of age," Balin said, "Thorin had to travel to a nearby village to broker a settlement between two quarreling families. The whole trip was to take three days, perhaps only two if the families could agree to reasonable terms. And so Thorin left Fili as shemor for Kili."
Bilbo swallowed, for he had begun to get a very unpleasant feeling in his stomach.
"Fili was just a child," Balin said, "no matter that he'd had his coming-of-age ceremony two months before."
"And something went wrong," Bilbo guessed.
"Aye," Balin said. "Something broke in the house. Just a trifle, really, but it was a keepsake from Dís. I never learned how it happened, but it didn't matter, for under the law, Kili bore the blame."
"Oh," Bilbo said quietly. "And Fili — "
"Fili was shemor," Balin said, "though that power should never have been given to one so young. Thorin was much older when that responsibility fell to him, and he was always scrupulous not to misuse it. But Fili was just a boy. He understood the rules of khazd khuv well enough, but did not yet truly understand what it meant to be shemor. It is far more than meting out punishment." He sighed. "It took Oín a full afternoon to stitch Kili up, and it was near a week before the poor lad could walk upright. Thorin has not asked Fili to be shemor since then, not, I think, for lack of opportunity, but because Fili fears to take that responsibility again."
"Fili seems a quite responsible young dwarf now," Bilbo said slowly. "I am quite sure he would not harm Kili."
"Aye," Balin said, nodding. "I think we are all quite sure of that, except for Fili himself."
That night Bilbo had a horrible dream in which he dug up all the flowers in the Old Took's garden and Bungo came after him with a switch brandished over his head like an axe and yelling in Khuzdul, which Bilbo understood quite well in the dream though of course he actually spoke not a word of that ancient Dwarf tongue. He woke up sweating and anxious and quite out of sorts, even though in reality when the flower incident had been discovered — for it must be said that young master Bilbo had indeed played a prank in the Old Took's garden — his parents had made him replace all the flowers and had then spent several days being very silently annoyed in Bilbo's general direction, which had been far worse than any other punishment they could have devised.
It took Bilbo quite some time to recover from his dreadful dream, and he was slow and distracted as he packed up his bedroll and sorted through his things. Bilbo was so hungry he did not see how he could possibly travel, and all the dwarves were in a similar sorry condition, and so it was fortunate indeed that they had their ponies, for otherwise they might not have been able to manage even a single mile. As it was, it took them quite a long time to tidy up the campsite and mount their ponies, and it was a very lethargic company indeed that rode slowly across the valley on that bright, sunny day.
It was no small relief, then, when early in the afternoon Ori suddenly shouted, "I see them! I see them!" and began waving frantically in the direction of a pair of dark smudges on the horizon. Bilbo thought for a moment that if it had been a pair of orcs, they would certainly have been in trouble, for he doubted that a single one of them had enough strength remaining to lift a sword. But momentarily the smudges resolved into the welcome shapes of two dwarves on ponies, and all the dwarves began waving then, a little hysterically, and Bilbo felt very definitely cheered when the distant dwarves began waving jauntily back.
Fili and Kili quickly crossed the valley to them, and they were riding so swiftly that Bilbo was certain they must have found some food, or they would not have been so spry and cheerful. And it proved marvelously true, for when Fili dismounted, he held a brace of neatly skinned rabbits in one hand and a pair of pheasant in the other, trussed and ready for roasting.
He handed the rabbits and birds to hovering Bofur. "Dwalin, Gloín. Kili will need your help dismounting. Oín, he will need your attention afterwards. He stepped in a rabbit hole." He said this rather merrily. "His ankle is twisted, but not, I think, broken."
The rest of the dwarves seemed to perk up at this somewhat distressing news, and Bofur even flashed a grin at Bilbo, which overall Bilbo found to be very disconcerting. But perhaps, he thought, it was simply because there was food in their immediate future, and not that they were taking pleasure in Kili's misfortune.
"You misunderstand them," Gandalf said, materializing at Bilbo's shoulder. He too looked cheerful, though in his case Bilbo was certain it was to do with the imminence of a proper lunch and nothing to do with Kili's injury. "They are quite convinced Kili can have no good luck without an attendant misfortune. In this case, a twisted ankle is a very minor price to pay for a solid meal."
"If it were me," Bilbo said sourly, "I would have stepped in the rabbit hole on purpose."
Gandalf raised an eyebrow at him, eyes twinkling. "And who is to say that Kili did not?"
A/N: So, things are perhaps a little more complex than you might have thought. Rather tangled relationship between Thorin and Kili and Fili, hmm?
Comments and concrit adored, truly.
P.S. I am giving up on chapter titles because I am terrible at them. If one of you dear readers has a brilliant suggestion, I will use it!
