This chapter has finally been wrestled into submission, whew! Somewhere during all the battle, it tripled in size.
I do apologize for the delay, but work deadlines just refuse to up and disappear (alas) and we had to drop #1 son off for his freshman year at college. :: sniff :: So far the house is still standing, and #2 son and #3 son have not yet killed each other, so that is all good. I expect more regular updates will resume now that this very troublesome chapter is out of the way.
Fair warning: some of you are going to get very agitated. I do apologize. Bear with me a little longer.
It was several days of traveling to Mirkwood, and all in all Bilbo found their spirits were as high as could reasonably be expected, which was perhaps not so high as when they left Rivendell, but was certainly higher than when they had been captured by the goblins. It took but a day for them to fall back into their established patterns, so that to Kili again fell the burden of caring for the ponies and taking the second watch, and to Bombur fell responsibility for meals, and to Dwalin and Fili came the responsibility for keeping guard against wargs and goblins and other foul creatures (of which they thankfully saw none at all).
But though these habits reestablished themselves quickly, Bilbo also took note that new ones had formed: Ori had seemingly grown very fond of Kili's company, and he spent many hours spinning tales to him, with Bilbo frequently by their side, and Fili too when the mood took him, though he often could not restrain himself from interrupting Ori's storytelling with silly questions. And when the time for meals rolled around — far too infrequently, in Bilbo's opinion! — Bombur seemed to have forgotten that Kili was to get his meals last, and served him along with everyone else.
All these things Bilbo noted with a quiet sort of joy, and it made him happier still that Kili did not protest this new treatment. "Like as not," Gandalf said, "he does not think it is his place to protest." And though this was undoubtedly true, still it made Bilbo smile, especially because Thorin must have seen these behaviors too, and yet he made no move to stop any of it, and certainly it was most important what Kili and Thorin of all the dwarves could tolerate.
Too soon, though, they reached the edge of Mirkwood, and never had Bilbo seen a less inviting place, nor one he was less eager to enter. "Do we really have to go through?" groaned the hobbit.
"Yes you do!" said the wizard and there was really nothing for it, for though Mirkwood was assuredly dangerous, there were no safe paths to be found anywhere in this part of the world, and not even turning around again would gain them anything. The dwarves were no happier about entering the forest than Bilbo, and even less happy that the wizard was abandoning them to their fate. "Come come," Gandalf said to them all. "You knew there were to be dark and difficult parts to this quest. That is why I made sure to bring Mr. Baggins along to look after you!"
Well, Bilbo could not imagine what help he could be in a place such as Mirkwood, and would certainly rather not venture a single step within it, but his only other option appeared to be never to have left Bag-End in the first place, and he did not think even Gandalf could arrange for that.
"Very comforting you are to be sure," growled Thorin to Gandalf. He was in a very foul mood since all their attempts at convincing Gandalf to stay with them had failed. "If you won't come with us, you had better get off without any more talk!"
Gandalf just laughed at him, not altogether too meanly, and waved merrily as he turned his horse to the west and departed, calling a reminder to them to send back their ponies, and to take care, and to stay to the path in the forest, lest they lose their way and never be seen again. Well, the ponies they released as promised, though they were sad to do so, and not a little discomfited by the ponies' obvious great relief at heading away from the forest back to the safety of Beorn's house.
And then there was nothing for it but to shoulder their packs and enter the dark wood. All at once the mood of the Company grew very gloomy, as if all the good cheer they had accumulated over their few days of rest and easy travel had suddenly drained completely away. It did not help that Mirkwood was so very dark and foreboding, nor that Gandalf and the ponies had been so quick and happy to leave them behind, nor indeed that their packs were so very heavy — though to be fair, none was so bothered by this last concern as Bilbo.
They were very careful to follow the path as they had been warned by both Beorn and Gandalf, and not to let even so much as a foot stray off course, but as the path was not so very wide it meant that they could not walk more than two abreast. The forest itself seemed to forbid speech louder than a whisper. This meant that there was very little conversation, and what there was of it was hushed and fearful. For a friendly and cheerful hobbit the silence was hard to bear; though he sometimes liked to be alone with his thoughts as well as the next hobbit, his thoughts were not usually so dark and dreadful as the forest seemed to evoke.
Kili had been very subdued since they entered the forest, though on reflection Bilbo concluded that his somber mood preceded that day, going perhaps as far back as when Thorin had taken the bow. But having a new bow and well-stocked quiver did not seem to improve his mood altogether too much, though to Bilbo he seemed merely unusually thoughtful and not unhappy. In any event, he was in no great mood for conversation, but trudged quietly along at the back of the line. Ori, Bilbo's most frequent other conversationalist, was ever surrounded in front and rear by his overprotective brothers, and Bilbo was very loathe to intrude on that trio, for they spent their time walking either in absolute silence or speaking in intimate whispers.
Their meals, when they stopped to take them, were rushed and not very satisfying, though as their time in the forest dragged on, Bilbo found his appetite growing less and less — though not so diminished that he failed to notice their rations slowly dwindling. The dwarves took turns carrying the bows Beorn had gifted them, but it seemed to Bilbo that except for Kili they hardly knew what to do with them, except for Thorin and Dwalin, who were at least of middling accuracy. Most of their arrows were wasted on squirrels that proved inedible; the remaining stock they gathered together and placed in Kili's quiver where they would do the most good, though it seemed increasingly unlikely they would find anything edible for him to shoot.
The nights were worse than the days, for they feared to light a fire, and the darkness was complete but for the staring eyes that approached just to the border of the path. Though nothing ever ventured forth to attack them, the fear that something might made all their sleep restless, and they took watch only in twos, never alone, one dwarf always armed with a bow and Kili's arrows, the other clutching Orcrist tight in sweaty palms.
Even after the most careful rationing of supplies, they began to run out of food and water too, and still no end to the forest was in sight. Bilbo grew certain then that they had taken a wrong turn somewhere, though it was impossible that they should have, for there was but one path and they were always exceedingly careful not to get turned around. But there was no other explanation, he thought, for the wretched path to be so endless, and he could not imagine why Beorn and Gandalf had thought they could traverse the woods without starving to death.
And then their adventure grew more miserable still, though Bilbo would not have credited it before it happened, for they came to a river that they must cross, and oh, it was difficult to be so close to water and yet not able to drink a single mouthful or even rinse their faces. But Beorn and Gandalf had been very insistent that they could not touch so much as a drop of water that did not fall directly from the sky, and so the company steeled themselves and ventured across in a boat that was docked across the river and conveniently unattended (perhaps too conveniently unattended, but they were too desperate to question their luck in finding it). But then at the very end of this undertaking, Bombur fell in the river, and though they were able to get him out again, he soon fell so deeply asleep that they could not waken him.
And now they were in a fine fix, for they were weak and tired and dispirited and must also carry Bombur and his pack with them, which was none too easy, for even half-starved Bombur was still fatter than any reasonable creature ought to all took turns of course, but they were forced to move very slowly, and by the end of the first day carrying the slumbering dwarf, they had covered only half the distance they might have otherwise.
The mood of the company grew grimmer and grimmer, but Thorin seemed particularly grim, and Bilbo caught all the other dwarves giving him uneasy glances. "Do not fret so," Kili said in his ear, quite calmly. "It will be all right."
"It most certainly shall not!" Bilbo snapped, all of a sudden quite angry with Kili and Thorin and every foolish dwarf who had ever lived. "He is even now looking for something he might use as a switch!" And this was true, for Thorin had been picking up and discarding branches for the past hour, but only now had Bilbo come to reason why.
Kili shrugged. "He is only following our laws."
"Your laws," Bilbo said fiercely, "are silly and horrid. It is not your fault that hart came leaping out of nowhere, and it is not your fault Bombur is too fat and slow-footed to maintain his balance!"
"No," Kili said, with an unaccountable note of humor in his voice. "No one blames me for Bombur being fat and slow. We are not quite so irrational as that."
Bilbo threw up his arms, utterly exasperated. "I do not know how I am to sit idly by while he takes you off for a thrashing you do not deserve."
Kili walked along in silence for a little while, watching the ground in front of his feet, his brow furrowed in concentration. "You know Thorin is only as harsh as he must be," was what he finally said. "I have suffered far worse discomfort from cuts and bruises earned entirely innocently. And Thorin takes no pleasure in it. Sometimes I think it pains him more than me."
"It would not pain him or you at all," Bilbo said tartly, "if he did not do it."
Kili gave him a look that Bilbo supposed might be considered very gently reproachful. "That is an easy thing for a hobbit to say."
Well, Bilbo supposed this was true, but it did not make him feel any less indignant.
"Would you not endure a few hours discomfort, if it could reduce the company's anxiety and more?" Kili asked. "For even if you believe none of what we hold to be true, you must still acknowledge that any punishment Thorin deals to me will have the effect of reassuring the others, at least for a little while. Would you not take that on yourself, if you could?"
Now it was Bilbo's turn to be quiet and thoughtful, for Kili's words had a kind of calm logic to them that Bilbo could not easily argue against. "I might at that," he admitted at last. "But that would be different, for I would have the choice to accept it or not, and you will have no choice at all."
Kili frowned at this, and Bilbo did feel a little regretful, but that was soon washed away when they stopped for the evening and Thorin wordlessly motioned to Kili to come away with him. Kili cast a rather complicated glance at Bilbo as he slowly followed his shemor up and around a bend in the path, and Bilbo grit his teeth in frustration and stomped as far away as he safely could in the opposite direction.
"Dwarves," he muttered under his breath. "Curse the whole dratted lot of them!"
His ill-temper lasted all night, even though Thorin brought Kili back very quickly, and Kili was hardly walking stiffly at all. Oín fussed at him a bit but Kili simply shook his head, then volunteered for the first and second watch. "I do not suppose I shall rest very well tonight," he said, "so I might as well make use of it." Bilbo noted with some satisfaction that at least the other dwarves had the grace to look uncomfortable, especially Ori, who was frowning so fiercely Bilbo was afraid his forehead would get stuck in a permanent crease.
"I shall sit with you," Fili said easily, who alone among the dwarves seemed as unperturbed as Kili, but Bilbo supposed that made sense, as Fili must have spent his life standing by while Kili was punished for things that had happened to go wrong in his vicinity. This thought made Bilbo upset all over again, and he placed his bedroll on the ground in quite a huff, and went to sleep without another word to anyone else.
His mood in the morning was no better, for he woke just as angry as when he had gone to sleep. It did not help that their breakfast was so poor that he had hardly started eating before he was already finished, and they had to restrict themselves to a single mouthful of water each. And still Bombur slept on, with no sign of waking at all, no matter how they poked and prodded at him. And still the path in front of them seemed dark and endless! All in all, Bilbo was in perhaps the foulest mood of his life and was irritable and snappish when anyone dared speak to him, so the dwarves wisely left him alone for the whole of that day.
Another week passed in this dreary manner, and they had very nearly run entirely out of food, though they had shrunk their rations to just a few bites at a time. Bilbo would have thought they had walked themselves out of Middle Earth entirely, into a land where nothing lived nor breathed, but for the occasional eerie noise in the distance that sounded almost like laughter. What manner of creatures could laugh in such a place, they could not guess.
"Is there no end to this accursed forest?" Thorin finally said. "Somebody must climb a tree and see if he can get his head above the roof and have a look around."
Well, the trees were oaks and very tall, and none were eager to risk the climb, so of course it fell to Kili, like every other undesirable task. At least the dwarves were cheerful and encouraging as he hoisted himself up into the lowest branches, and from there he clambered so quickly from bough to bough that he was lost to sight among the leaves in almost no time at all.
"Why," Bilbo said to Balin, who was standing close beside him, "I should certainly never have guessed that he ever had any fear of heights!"
Balin raised an eyebrow, seemingly quite astonished. "Why would you think he did?"
"Oh," Bilbo said. "Well. It was just that Fili said so."
Balin nodded and twisted his mouth in a very wry manner. "Fili said so, did he?"
"When they were dwarflings," Bilbo clarified, lest Balin think Fili had lied outright, since it was clear Kili presently had no fear of heights whatsoever. "Fili told of how he challenged Kili to climb a great tall tree, and Kili did, but then he climbed so high that he grew frightened and they had to wait for Thorin to come rescue them."
"Fili has a great talent for misremembering his misadventures," Balin said dryly. "The first and last parts of the story are quite true. Fili did challenge Kili to climb a very tall tree, and they did have to wait for Thorin to come rescue them."
"Oh," Bilbo said, "but Kili did not grow frightened?"
Balin's mouth twisted again, this time in a sort of a smile. "Kili would have spent his days leaping from treetop to treetop if he could. It was Fili who grew frightened when he realized how far up they were. Kili could have climbed up and down the tree a hundred times in the hours they waited for Thorin, but Fili would not let Kili leave him, and so up in the tree they both stayed."
Bilbo smiled, for the image of two dwarflings stuck in a tree was quite a humorous one, especially as he knew they got down safely and had been in no great danger, but then he thought of the probable outcome of the adventure, and his smile fell quite away. "Kili was punished for that, I suppose," he said sadly.
"They were both punished, as I recall. Sent to bed with no supper, amidst much whining and weeping." Balin chuckled. "Kili handled it much better than Fili, for all that he was younger."
"I suppose he had much more practice at being punished," Bilbo said. This came out a little sour, but Bilbo still felt he had shown restraint, for the words that had instantly sprung to mind were far less polite.
Balin's answer was slow in coming and very careful. "I would not lie to you and say he did not. But you should not think Thorin was indiscriminate in his judgment, or that Fili was given leeway where Kili was not. In fact, if I recall, Fili's punishment in this case was harsher, for he been the one to suggest they climb the tree, and he knew Kili would not refuse him."
"Could he have, if he'd wanted?" Bilbo wondered.
Balin considered this thoughtfully. "I do not think Kili would ever have disobeyed Thorin directly. But Fili was the only other dwarfling he knew, and I think — well, I think that there was very little Fili might have asked, that Kili would not have ventured."
"That," Bilbo said, "sounds quite dangerous!" For he knew the trouble even sensible hobbit children got up to, and he could only imagine what two young dwarflings might do, if one felt compelled always to accept the challenges put forth by the other.
"Perhaps it might have been, had Thorin not been so careful to keep an eye on both of them. He took his responsibility as uncle and shemor very seriously."
Just at that moment, there rose a great clamor from the other dwarves, and but an instant later Kili slipped lithely down the tree trunk. Leaves were caught in his hair, he had an angry scratch along one cheek, and his expression was quite grave. "No," he said, in answer to some question from Thorin that Bilbo did not hear. "I did not see any way out. I could not see the edge of the forest at all. Only trees in every direction." He pulled a leaf out of his hair quite listlessly. "The forest goes on for ever and ever."
Needless to say, this news did not improve the dwarves' mood one whit, and they yelled and stamped their feet so furiously that the path beneath them seemed to tremble. Bilbo grew quite afraid then that Thorin would again punish Kili, but this fear, at least, was groundless; nothing new had happened but that they knew they must keep trodding along the same path they were already taking, and Thorin did not seem to feel this warranted any punishment, though it certainly made him even grimmer.
Bombur awoke the next day, without any memories of their journey at all, which was all at once scary and amusing. At least, Bilbo thought, they would no longer need to tote Bombur through the forest, and that was certainly an improvement. But they had now run completely out of food and water, and not a one of them thought it was at all funny when Bombur moaned piteously that they were all surely to starve to death.
What came next could hardly be called fortunate, but for the fact that they did not in fact end up dead from hunger and thirst. So in that sense, it was indeed good luck, but in every other sense it was very bad luck indeed. For they stumbled across some woodland elves who were not friendly, and then across some giant spiders who were less friendly still — Thorin was taken by the elves and the remainder of the dwarves by the spiders; only Bilbo remained free, and the dwarves would have ended up several delicious meals for the spiders, had Bilbo not found his courage to use his little blade and his magical ring to save them all.
Bilbo thought they deserved a little good fortune after all that, but it was not to be, for Mirkwood was never kind to strangers, and within another day they had all of them been captured by the elves, who were none too happy to see them again. But in truth, the dwarves were so very hungry and weak that they were quite glad to have been captured, for anything had to be better than wandering the forest endlessly until they dropped to their deaths one by one of hunger. Bilbo was quite as hungry and weak as the rest of them, but he still had the foresight to slip on his magic ring one more time, and so he alone was not taken, but secretly and carefully followed the line of blindfolded dwarves as they were led, stumbling, to the kingdom of the Silvan elves.
A/N: Still with me? I hope you are not too aggravated at Thorin. But as my marvelous beta SapphireMusings said, you can't expect dwarves to just get over their customs and traditions overnight. And some of you certainly suspected this was coming.
Shout out to my better half, who thinks this story is too sad but who agreed to start betaing for me anyway because no one is a better subject matter expert on The Hobbit than he is. (Huh, Beorn's a vegetarian, so he probably wouldn't have laden his table with sausages as he did in the last chapter, whoops; I should have wrangled hubby in a little earlier.)
Comments! Thank you for all the comments! This chapter would probably not have even existed in its present form if not for all your thoughtful words. I apologize if I am slow to respond - but I do respond eventually!
