The mood of the Company was much improved by their meal; though there was little enough meat to go around, it was still far more substantial than anything else they had eaten for the past few days, and dwarves are ultimately a merry sort of folk, and certainly hobbits are as well. But it was not so very many hours later that Bombur began worrying aloud about where their next meal should come from, and of course that concern spread through the company as quick as could be.

"We have no choice," Gandalf was overheard to say to Thorin. "For we are 14 altogether, and it would take Kili and Fili all day to hunt enough to keep us fed, and then we should make hardly any progress at all towards our goal."

"I do not trust the elves," Thorin grumbled, looking mightily displeased.

"You need not trust them," Gandalf said with a certain amount of exasperation. "But we are sorely in need of food and a safe place to rest, and they can provide both."

Thorin conceded the logic and they set forth for Rivendell wherein some hospitable elves resided, but Thorin was still quite out of sorts and would not partake in any singing or storytelling or even so much as smoke his pipe. Bilbo for his part was very excited and could barely sit still on his pony, for his mother had told him many stories of the elves, but he had met only a few in his life, and then only briefly; he had never even had one over for tea! He could hardly wait to meet them properly, imagining them to be altogether more exotic than dwarves, who now that Bilbo had come to know them, seemed not so very much different than hobbits after all, though they were certainly more boisterous and altogether too fond of their weapons, and hardly fond enough of baths.

It took another day of hard traveling to reach the valley of the elves, and they found naught to eat but some berries on their way, but oh, Bilbo could not have imagined a more wondrous and beautiful place than Rivendell, which made the arduous trip quite worth it. Even the dwarves seemed impressed, though they took great pains to hide it in noisy, showy bluster.

The elves knew all their names quite before any introductions had been made, which Bilbo found quite astounding but the dwarves found very suspicious; the company took to muttering to each other and casting dark glances in the elves' directions whenever they would come near. The elves themselves were unlike any creatures Bilbo had ever met, lively and cheery and full of song — songs all the time, for every occasion; songs full of good-natured teasing, songs which would start at the very drop of a hat, and to which in some mysterious manner the elves seemed to know all the words, even if each appeared to be made up on the spot as it went along.

Bilbo felt quite short and stubby and dirty next to the elves, who were as tall as Gandalf but much more slender, as graceful as if they were made of gossamer, and who looked always as clean and neat as if they had just stepped out of the bath. And oh, the baths themselves were utterly splendid and made Bilbo feel as if his bathrooms at Bag End — widely considered the best appointed in the whole of the Shire — were nothing more than the crudest of outhouses.

After spending a decadent amount of time bathing, from which he emerged smelling of the most lovely, fragrant flowers, Bilbo dressed in his cleanest clothing — which was not altogether very clean, but in which he at least felt presentable — and went to join the dwarves and their hosts for what he hoped would be a very substantial supper. And indeed the table was set for a proper feast, with overflowing plates filled with a most wondrous number of different foodstuffs — fruits and breads and honeys and meats of every possible shape and size and texture. It set Bilbo's mouth to drooling and it took all his will to wait until Thorin arrived before sitting down to eat, though the dwarves were not so courteous and had already commenced their meal with considerable vigor.

Bilbo sat down on a small bench off to the side, so as not to torment himself with the sight and smell of food while he waited. Gandalf also had remained standing, and was nearby, engaged in deep and apparently very serious conversation with their host, Lord Elrond, a very tall elf with a formidable mien, who was frowning quite severely.

"It is out of the question," Elrond said, looking most fiercely displeased.

"They will be here but for a short while," Gandalf said. "I ask only that you accept the situation, not that you condone it."

"You ask far worse, Mithrandir. You ask that I abet it. I will not."

Gandalf sighed heavily. Bilbo was momentarily relieved that it was not just dwarves and hobbits who tried his patience. "You cannot change the weather of the world with but a wish, my friend."

"It is better to wish than to idly stand by while the storm blows past you. Would you feel the same if the boy was in collar and shackles?"

Gandalf's scowl would have put any frown of Thorin's to shame. "Do not overstretch your comparison. He is no slave."

Elrond made a disgusted noise. "Is he not? He has had his mind poisoned from the moment of his birth."

"He is no slave," Gandalf insisted. "And if you persist in this course of action, you will make no one more uncomfortable that Kili himself."

It was only then that Bilbo noticed that there was but one table, with 14 dwarf and hobbit-sized chairs arrayed around it, and a larger one that would suit a wizard. And he found that he was quite unsure what to think about it, for he was certain that Gandalf was correct — poor Kili would be quite miserable at being forced to sit with the other dwarves, and might just pass up dinner altogether, and that was no solution at all. Bilbo looked frantically around, wondering if perhaps he could ask the elves for a second, smaller table; he was, after all, a bit smaller than the dwarves, and the elves were certainly gracious hosts, and perhaps he and Kili could have a nice meal to themselves, and no one need be uncomfortable at all.

Bilbo was on the verge of interrupting Gandalf and Elrond to suggest this plan, when Elrond muttered something that Bilbo was rather certain was a swear word, and then called out, "Lindir!"

Another tall elf — to be honest, Bilbo had yet to see a short elf — appeared from nowhere, and nodded deferentially.

Elrond spoke swiftly in the elf tongue, lips tight with disapproval, and after a moment the second elf nodded and glided swiftly away.

"An elegant solution," Gandalf murmured quietly.

Elrond frowned. "I do this only out of respect for you, and of desire to do no further harm to the boy. They may stay a few days to rest and recover, but then they must leave, Mithrandir."

Gandalf nodded graciously. "Understood." And then their conversation turned to other matters which sounded dark and mysterious, and Bilbo found he would rather not know of such things at all, so he hummed softly to himself and sat on the bench and swung his legs back and forth as if he were a child.

After a very long time, or so it seemed, Thorin appeared with Fili at his side and Kili accompanying them both, no longer even limping. Bilbo supposed with satisfaction that the elves had attended to his ankle. They were all clean, or at least as clean as Bilbo, which is to say their hair had been washed and groomed, and most of the dirt was gone from their skin. Kili had shaved, and he looked quite young with his hair long and loose and his chin as bare as any hobbit. Almost as soon as they entered the room, two new elves followed them in, tall and thin and dark, with identical faces wearing broad, identical smiles.

"Greetings, dwarves," they said, bowing slightly. "Mithrandir. Father."

Elrond nodded back at them. "Gandalf, you remember my sons."

"Indeed I do," Gandalf said graciously. "Elladan. Elrohir. You have not aged at all." Somehow, it did not quite sound like a compliment, though his expression was mild and pleasant.

"But you have, Grandfather," one of them said mischievously. "I swear your beard grows ever more grey each time we meet."

"And your nose grows as well!" the other added.

Then, "Dwarves!" the first cried. "We understand there is an archer among you."

"We are great archers," the other said.

"We have never met a dwarf archer," the first said. "And we have met many, many archers in our years."

Bilbo found it quite dizzying to turn his head back and forth between the two identical faces, and rather wished only one felt it necessary to speak.

"We would dine with the dwarf archer!"

"We have many tales to tell."

"And we would shoot with him as well!"

"Yes, we have never shot with a dwarf archer!"

"Come, come," one said — Bilbo had quite lost track at this point of whether this was the first or second — "who is it? Tell us, for we are very eager to meet him."

The dwarves were all silent, gaping, which Bilbo found very understandable. Finally, Thorin cleared his throat. "Kili," he said, prodding him forward gently. "Kili is our archer."

"Marvelous!" one of the twins said.

"Wonderful!" the other cried, and they descended on Kili rather like a swarm of bees, and before anyone could say another word, they had hustled him off and out of the room, chattering away in broken sentences the whole time. Poor Kili's head was turning back and forth between the two elves so quickly Bilbo that was certain he would develop a crick in his neck.

The room seemed much quieter after the twins were gone, enough so that Bilbo was able to hear Gandalf's murmured, "Well done," to Elrond, but the dwarves could not stay silent for long, and soon enough fell again to their feast, and it was a very merry dinner indeed.

Even years later, Bilbo believed his stay in Rivendell to be some of the most splendid days of his life. The elves were perfectly gracious hosts, and the Company's every need quickly attended to. They never lacked for sufficient food, even by a hobbit's high standards, and their every bruise was healed, every tear in their clothing expertly mended. Bilbo and Ori spent many long hours roaming the elves' expansive library, whispering to each other that they should be quite content to spend years and years within its paneled walls, and what time remained Bilbo spent wandering the lush, immaculately tended gardens.

He never lacked for company if he wanted it, for there were always elves about and they were always more than happy to speak with him and tell him wondrous tales, and of course the dwarves were ever-present, gradually losing their looks of pinched hunger as frequent, filling meals restored the strength to their sturdy frames. Fili and Dwalin in particular Bilbo saw quite a lot of, as they seemed to have taken on the roles of guardians, and were ever wandering the halls doing headcounts on the dwarves — to what end, Bilbo couldn't guess, unless it was simply that they were unaccustomed to inactivity and made up a task to keep themselves occupied.

Bilbo saw Kili almost not at all during these few peaceful days, and when he did, the dwarf was always surrounded by elves — Lord Elrond's sons, at first, who appeared quite genuinely taken with him and spent many long hours tutoring him at the archery range; but then other elves as well, all always quite merry, laughing and singing and plying Kili with food and drink and flowers; they had also outfitted him with what appeared to be new traveling clothes, made of soft elvish leather that fit him like a second skin. Kili, from what Bilbo could tell, seemed perplexed by the attention but not averse to it, and by the end of their visit he seemed to have grown quite comfortable in the elves' company, talking freely with them and letting them comb and fix his hair, though he would not consent to any braids nor beads at all, no matter how much they pleaded.

Altogether it was a much more cheerful company that left Rivendell than arrived there, though Thorin was still prone to grumbling about meddlesome elves and all the dwarves insulted the new stitching in their clothing, though from what Bilbo could see, the new seams were far sturdier than the old and the other repairs nearly invisible, so neatly were they sewn. But they were well-fed and well-rested and well-provisioned, and Bilbo found there was very little to complain about except that they could not have stayed longer in Rivendell's halls and gardens.

The dwarves seemed far more content than Bilbo to be on the road again, and they passed the time singing cheerfully bawdy songs and telling tales of old battles and glory, as if to remind themselves of their dwarfishness after days with the elves, and that first night they had quite a splendid smoke ring competition — from which Gandalf was excluded, and in which Bilbo acquitted himself very respectably — as they sat round the cheery fire.

The dwarves were up with the sun the next morning, and Bofur set to preparing breakfast in no particular hurry while Thorin and Gandalf huddled over the map, arguing companionably about the best road to take to avoid orcs and trolls and other unpleasant creatures. Kili had wandered some little distance away, and was standing with his bow out, scowling at a target he had tacked up to a tree. In his fine elvish leathers and with his hair neatly tended, he looked quite like the young prince he ought to have been, had things worked out differently at his birth.

"Why, Master Kili," Bilbo said as he approached. "Why are you frowning on such a fine day as this? The sun is shining and soon we shall have a lovely breakfast."

"Good morning, Mr. Baggins," Kili said politely. "The day is fine indeed. I am merely trying to remember how to shoot properly, for the elves filled my head with a lot of nonsense. One would think they had invented the bow, for all their boasting. They were quite insistent I correct my stance." He shifted his feet fractionally and asked, with not a little indignation, "Do you suppose I could aim better like this?"

"I'm afraid I could not tell you," Bilbo said, confounded, for Kili's feet seemed to have moved hardly at all as to deserve such disdain. "I have never shot an arrow in all my life. In fact, I have never been so near a bow as this."

Kili looked astounded by this. "Never? But neither had you ever held a sword, before we found you a blade in the trolls' cave. What then, is your weapon of choice?"

"I can be quite dangerous with a pair of kitchen shears," Bilbo said, but Kili did not seem to find that answer at all funny, and frowned a little harder.

"The Shire is not so remote as all that, Mr. Baggins. How shall you defend yourself if enemies descend upon you?"

Bilbo had never given much consideration one way or the other to such matters; the thought of any enemies in the Shire was both laughable and frightening at the same time.

"Well," Kili said, "you shall have to speak to Mr. Dwalin about training with your dagger. But I can teach you to use a bow, if you would like." He seemed suddenly shy then, as if he had been too forward, and indeed, his demeanor during this entire conversation had been very different from their previous interactions; Bilbo wondered if perhaps the time spent with the elves had had a greater effect on Kili than anyone had guessed.

"I think I should like that," Bilbo said. "I have quite excellent aim, at least with rocks."

"Then you have already mastered the hardest aspect of archery," Kili said kindly, "and I am sure you will be a quick study of the rest."

The next hour was very pleasant, as Kili proved to be a patient and kind instructor. By the end of it Bilbo was able to pull back a bowstring to Kili's satisfaction; Bilbo had scraped his cheek several times but only lightly, and he judged it a fair price to pay for what he had learned. Sometime during the lesson both Fili and Ori had wandered by and settled down a safe distance away to watch — as the lesson progressed they took to loudly offering advice as to Bilbo's stance and form and general grooming habits; Kili quietly advised him to ignore them. "It is good training," he said, "for in battle, you cannot be distracted by the catcalls of your foe, but must always maintain your focus."

Bilbo was genuinely curious. "Have you been in many battles, then?"

"No," Kili said. "It is very peaceful in Ered Luin, but for the occasional attack by bandits along the roads. And I do not think I would be very welcome in a company of warriors — no one would seek to take the risk that bad luck would befall them in the midst of battle, nor would I seek to bring ill fortune to any comrade."

Bilbo sighed rather heavily. "It pains me when you say such things, Master Kili."

"It is the way of things, Mr. Baggins," Kili said with a shrug. "I know you do not believe it. The elves took similar offense on my behalf. I assure you it bothers you far more than me."

"I do not understand it, that is all," Bilbo said, "how you can be content to accept such a thing. Surely you must know you did nothing wrong by being born."

"If I believed that, Mr. Baggins," Kili said slowly, "it would make my life quite tragic indeed."


A/N: Many thanks to acciojd for the title for the last chapter!

And heartfelt thanks to all who have taken the time to drop me a note. It's very much appreciated.