Blackberry will freely admit that she has no idea what is going on. She had seen Fíli's terror upon finding his brother in almost total darkness, kneeling on a wet floor with a crown upon his head which holds a stone of more beauty than she has ever seen before. It is hypnotic, drawing her gaze to it in a way that scares her. Blackberry has never been one for shiny objects and jewels. This one makes her want in a way that no hobbit has any business in feeling. She snatches her gaze away, eyes falling to Kíli's face and she is distressed to note that his eyes are glowing with that same light, the same swirls of colour dance through what was once warm and dark. It scares her, but she knows that the fear it brings forth in her is nothing to that of Fíli, who shouts his brother's name in a tone she has never heard from him but that sings through her and makes her want to run to the younger dwarf's side.
There is a moment where she does not believe that Kíli has heard them, a moment where she thinks he is trapped in whatever the crown he wears is doing to him, then his eyes clear in the light of Fíli's torch, though his expression is still shocked, his mouth moving without sound until his brother demands to know why he put the crown on.
"I need something to write with," Kíli breathes, shock giving way to desperation and Fíli turns to look at her, his expression baffled and desperate.
She does the only thing she can think of, pressing the journal Kíli had given to her only the afternoon before into one of his hands and a pen into the other. The pen is hers, one of a number which had been in the bottom of her pack with replacement ink blocks. Blackberry is particular about her pen and ink, always has been, and she had packed extras before leaving the Shire which had never been removed from their pocket in her pack. Not even by Lady Dís when she was frantically preparing everything they might have needed for their emergency departure from Erebor. Kíli takes it with a grateful smile and Blackberry does the only other thing she can think to do, carefully preparing more ink for him in the bottom of a broken cup she had picked up for exactly this purpose while making their way here.
Kíli barely notices, but the shouting has brought Nori and Dwalin to them. The older couple stand and watch for a long moment, before Nori turns her strange amethyst eyes upon Fíli.
"Had a feeling he'd do something like this," she comments.
"We have to stop him," Fíli says, "take it off or…"
"Leave him be, lad," Dwalin's voice is gentle, far more so than Blackberry has ever heard from him. "This is how your uncle was when he was given a true vision. Let him get it down." He puts a hand on Fíli's shoulder, the younger dwarf is still kneeling next to his brother and Blackberry can almost feel the tension radiating off him.
"Can you help me find my way back to the shop?" Blackberry asks Nori. "We should get something warm on the stove for when Kíli's done. That water has to be freezing and he'll probably need something to eat and drink."
"Not a bad shout," Dwalin agrees with a nod to his wife. "Thorin was always hungry after, I've got no doubt Kíli will be as well."
"I'm not leaving him," Fíli says before the suggestion can be made.
"There's a surprise," Nori rolls her eyes. "Come on then, lass, let's get you back to the house. I should have a check up on the gates too while we're at it. Don't want to be taken by surprise."
Of all her companions on this strange quest, Nori is the one who makes Blackberry the most nervous. She understands Dwalin's job, he was Thorin's personal guard. She might not have a true frame of reference for kings and princes and all the rest, but she understands that important people sometimes need people with muscles and big sticks, or axes in this case, behind them in case the people that they rule over object to some decision or another. Her grandfather had a couple of bounders who would go around with him when he was ensuring that decisions made after petitions from various parties were carried out. He would rarely be able to make every complainant happy with his choices in rectifying their disagreements with one another and sometimes that led to fists being thrown. Her uncle does the same, although he is young enough and robust enough to take a few flailing fists of his own. Blackberry doesn't understand spymasters or what they do. In the Shire, to watch others in such a way is met with disdain, no matter how much they might enjoy the gossip, and curtain twitchers of that nature are often ostracised until there is something that any nosey neighbour wishes to know.
It is worse with Nori, in some ways, because the auburn haired dwarf seems to see and hear everything, and admits to it without a hint of shame. It is her job to hear and see it all, and she takes as much pride in her job as all dwarves seem to.
"Wait here," Nori orders as they near the abandoned shop they have been using as a base. "Something's off."
"What do you mean?" Blackberry demands, moving into one of the boarded up doorways as Nori begins to slip forward.
"I know you aren't one of us, lass," Nori hisses, "but you'll be better off doing as I tell you," amethyst eyes seem to glow for a moment. "Stay here, stay quiet, keep your head down. Let me do my job."
Blackberry nods, shrinking back as much as she can while Nori slips away. Their torch has long gone out and the only light around them now is the thin light reflected over a multitude of mirrors inside the mountain. It provides little more than enough to see where they are going, and the dimness does little to make the hobbit feel safe. Actually, after this experience Blackberry isn't entirely certain she will ever feel safe again. After what feels like an eternity, Nori returns, her expression pensive as she looks around her.
"What is it?" Blackberry asks when the dwarf gestures for her to follow.
"Looks like some of the legends might be true," Nori tells her. "We aren't alone here."
Blackberry doesn't need to ask what Nori means, the answer is obvious as soon as the dwarf opens the door to the shop. They had hidden the key in the same place that they had found it, just in case they had needed to split up, and Blackberry supposes it is that which has allowed whoever else is here to enter the place. Inside they find a basket filled with fresh food; bread, bottles of what can only be goat's milk when Blackberry sniffs it, early vegetables and berries and meat wrapped in old oil cloth. There are furs too, thick and warm.
"It almost seems like whoever it is wants to welcome us," Blackberry comments.
"I don't like it," Nori tells her. "Whoever it is has no reason to welcome us."
"Don't they?" She asks, sniffing the milk again before taking a sip.
"What are you doing?" Nori demands, reaching for the bottle. Blackberry steps back.
"Hobbits can eat and drink a lot of things that would kill other races," she says. "It's one of the reasons we can get away with eating as many meals as we do. If there's anything in it that shouldn't be there it might make me a little off, but it won't kill me, not like it would kill or hurt you." She sets the vegetables to one side. "If these have been tampered with, a wash will sort them out," then points to the meat. "I won't know about that until it's cooked, but I'd imagine all of it will be poisoned if some of it has been. If this person wants us dead they won't risk tampering with just one thing."
Which would be a waste of perfectly good food and annoy her exceedingly, but she can already tell that there is nothing at all wrong with the milk. Just because hobbits can ingest poisons doesn't mean that they are unaware they are doing so. There is always a faint tingle in her tongue when she eats something that might harm one of the other races. That tingle irritates her enough that she rarely uses the more common poisonous ingredients, something she inherited from her mother who was also so much more sensitive to the things which might harm others.
"Not if they were me," Nori tells her. "No one ever checks everything, if it were me I would poison just enough to lull them into false security."
"That's horrible," she exclaims.
"It's why I'm the best at my job," Nori shrugs. "If it isn't going to hurt you, by all means, eat it. If it isn't poisoned when you do, you can pass it on, but I'm not trusting it and I'm not trusting my husband and those boys to it either."
It makes a horrible amount of sense and Blackberry hates that she can see the reason in it.
"Why give us the furs then?" She asks. "Surely if they wanted us gone they wouldn't have given us something warm and comfortable to sleep on? Not to mention valuable this far north."
Nori turns a frustrated gaze upon Blackberry and the hobbit realises that the dwarf doesn't have an answer to that question.
"Well, either way Kíli is going to need something hot to eat and drink," Blackberry shakes her head. "And a rich meat stew would do all of us some good. If there's anything in any of it, it'll cook into the stew. I can test it once it's cooked, if that's acceptable to you."
"It's your stomach," Nori shrugs. "How sick will it make you?"
"Depends on what it is," Blackberry replies, retrieving a knife that Fíli had donated for food preparation. They really did leave Erebor with minimal equipment and supplies and it has been a relief to find cooking pots and jugs still in the buildings that they have been able to explore. "It's never more than an upset stomach, though."
Nori nods. "I'm not disagreeing that we could all use a good meal," she says, "but you need to be careful, you hear? We're not going to be able to stop and nurse you back if you decide to eat some deadly mushroom or something."
"I am aware," Blackberry sniffs. "The precariousness of our circumstances have been thoroughly drilled into me over the last few weeks." She shoves a jug across the table. "Can you get me some water while I chop this?" She asks her companion.
Nori gives her a long look, then nods.
"Keep that knife close and make sure you use it if anyone other than me, Dwalin or the lads come in here," Blackberry nods, her attention already on the vegetables that she is cutting for the stew. "I mean it. Soon as they get back I'll be off to hunt for somewhere else for us to hole up. I don't like that this place has already been found by someone."
"Sounds good to me," Blackberry agrees.
As much as she hopes that the person, or people, who left them the food and furs were not a danger to them, she can understand the need to be careful, all things considered. Instead of saying anything, she turns her attention back to her cooking, carefully cutting the provided food and sampling what she can of the raw ingredients. If she can catch something before it goes into the pot then it's entirely possible they'll all be able to have something safe to eat.
By the time the others return, she has completed their meal and heated the milk as well, it's about the only way she can stomach goat's milk under normal circumstances anyway, and she hands Fíli and Kíli both a cup full of it as Dwalin goes to find their blankets. Kíli looks utterly exhausted, the journal he had given her clutched tightly in his hands as though he's frightened to let it go. She wants to be angry with him about that, the fact that he has taken back something that he gave to her, but she finds that she can't be. They have been on the run for nearly a month but somehow whatever happened in the library has wiped more out of Kíli than weeks of hard walking on short rations possibly could. She can't pretend to understand what happened, or the strange way that his eyes shone with the same colours as the stone in the crown he wore, but Blackberry knows how to deal with people who are exhausted, she has seen it enough in her tenant farmers when they have to get the harvests in before bad weather destroys them. She has seen it in the bounders during a hard winter, and she saw it during the Fell Winter when she wasn't much more than an ignorant tween as her people battled against the ravages of a winter far harder than normal. She cannot understand, but she can do what her mother taught her to; she can make sure that they have a hot meal and dry clothes, Nori and Dwalin can worry about the rest. After all, there isn't any point in moving on and hiding again if the two that they are trying to protect fall ill.
A.N: So, I'm borrowing from another popular headcanon that pops up from time to time that the only reason Sam and Frodo made it through Mordor is that hobbits can eat and drink things that would kill any of the other races. It's something I haven't really played with before but I figured why not? Urgh, it's hot here in Cornwall (we don't like it much over about 16 C, purely because we are delicate and pale and turn shades rather reminiscent of boiled lobsters when in the sun for more than 20 minutes). I also may have neglected my writing in favour of painting the bathroom and listening to/watching EXU: Calamity and spending a lot of time asking the universe at large why Brennan Lee Milligan is such a fantastic bastard who managed to make me laugh and sob in the space of about 5 minutes. Even if you aren't a Critical Role fan, give it a try. That four part series is absolutely PEAK D&D