Master of Wood, Water and Hill (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings)

[W00KY]

Whelp....... making THE SHIPWRIGHT sit up and take note. THAT will become a legend all on it's own.

Perfection!

 

[LordVile]

I remember this story! Beautiful as always, reminds me of Narnia.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

(II)​

"And so the small folk did drink and joke and sing and talk with relish about how they would soon toss gravy and grease on clothes made of strings from baby moths, while they did crunch and munch and feast upon the sheep and fish and birds and lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast porridge, and fruit bats-"

"(Wrong story again-)"

"And unborn baby chickens and newborn hens and what had since been prime-life fowls served alongside little fattened baby cows," Nori growled like a demon looming over them all, leaving it obvious that he was going to switch to a story about little fattened baby hobbits if he was interrupted again, and whatever beastie liked to eat them most such as were-bats, and it turned the little devils into angels quite nicely.

Ori stared at his older brother.

Really, Nori?

And it wasn't like little ones could be expected to stay interested in a story about science. Ori could already see that the children were losing interest in the tale, as none of them really wanted to hear about duct tape they must have seen everywhere all their lives. Despite how incredibly clever it was if it managed to give a dwarf ideas for how to revolutionize ship building just to get away from a talk about fish gazing.

…

Wait.

Wait.

Kili wanted at all costs to not get involved in a talk about fish gazing and accidentally revolutionized ship building for his troubles. And invented submarines, that too. All because he was hungry but didn't want to get roped into that talk about hobbits and how… they… didn't…

"That's it!"

Cries of startlement greeted him, especially since he'd jumped to his feet apparently, but that wasn't important! "They're not crazy!"

"What?" Nori asked, eyes him strangely as the mini-hobbits huddled behind him. "Little brother, are you alright?"

"Am I alright? Of course I'm alright! I'm better than alright!" Ori cried feverishly as many random facts finally came together into a coherent whole in his mind! "They're not crazy!" Then he turned and shook Adalgrim Took by his lapels. "You're not crazy!"

The hobbit just stared at him, wide-eyed.

Ori released the hobbit and pumped both fists in the air. "You're not crazy!"

"Er… alright?" Adalgrim Took said slowly from as he backed off to stand right next to Nori.

"You're not all crazy!" Ori cried with all the fervor of a man who'd had his belief in the sense of the world shattered only to be shown that the world did make sense after all and oh, he was just about ready to start spinning around in relief even though everyone was watching but he couldn't be arsed to care right now! "After the past week I was sure you were all nuts, but you're not!"

"Alright then," the hobbit recovered pretty quickly and casually reached into Nori's breast pocket to pull out a stone-carved pipe with the initials I.T. carved into the side and Nori, how could you!? "Now that I've recovered the Thain's property – and I'm sure the good dwarf next to me would have returned it by eve's end as is proper for games like this, but I find myself in need of a fortifying smoke, you understand – maybe you can elaborate?"

"Everything was true!" Ori said breathlessly, rushing to dig through his stationery pouch. "Everything everyone said about hobbits was true! We weren't crazy to believe it and the hobbits weren't crazy for not living down to those expectations!" And Maker, his situational awareness had somehow gotten worse in the past few hours if he didn't notice Nori's storytelling draw in… pretty much everyone.

"Living down to- and just what expectations would those be?" Asked Drogo Baggins irately from where he was perched on the top of a lean-to next to Primula Brandybuck.

"That hobbits are private, suspicious people with too little interest in the outside and too high an opinion of yourselves!"

"Hey now-"

"But it's alright!" Ori waved his arms frantically, journal flapping erratically through the air as he hastened to reassure Adalgrim Took that he didn't mean any ill with his words. "It's not your fault we thought otherwise! There's a perfectly valid explanation! I can see it all now!"

"… And what's the explanation?"Adalgrim Took asked with the strange air of someone who was deliberately avoiding the real point of contention for some reason.

"It's all Bilbo Baggins' fault!"

Silence.

"No, really! It is!" Ori hurriedly leafed through his notes to check all the things Nori didn't mention in his story or that only Ori had recorded over the past week to confirm and – yes, he was right! "It all goes back to the Fell Winter!"

While Nori and the other dwarves in sight looked relatively interested, the silence coming from the hobbits and even the men around them carried the unmistakable nuance of duh.

"No, listen! Mister Baggins, you joined the bounders a year before the Fell Winter right?"

Silence.

"He's not here right now," Adalgrim supplied helpfully. "But that's about right."

"Right." Oh good, Ori had just make a complete fool of himself. How shocking. "Right, and then he wound up in the Old Forest, among other… things." Which was a polite way of avoiding the story of how Bilbo joined the bounders because his mother did. Or how the Brandywine Bridge froze completely and Belladonna Baggins and Bilbo were in Buckland when the worst of the wargs and goblins attacked. And how they then ended up driven into the old forest where Belladonna died and Bilbo somehow… became magic before coming home after the springmelts. Bungo Baggins then grew ill after the starvation and chill of the Fell Winter and never quite recovered, so he pushed through until Bilbo's Majority, then in Bilbo's own words went on his 'final journey.'

"Well?" Nori prodded slowly. "Go on?"

"Right, so, ahem," Ori cleared his throat, feeling his courage draining now that his initial exultation had passed, but he had a point to make dammit! Even though Dori had finally emerged from where he'd been laid out with soporific drink and Thorin and Balin were coming from around the corner and Maker, give him strength! "Right so… As years pass and Bilbo becomes magic, he starts entertaining at every party he can think of, as well as randomly when the mood strikes him. His dawn songs start covering Hobbiton regularly around this time."

Adalgrim looked surprised at his deduction but nodded.

"This doesn't really do much to the Shire as a whole, but what does have an impact is that immediately after this, Bilbo's failures at adventuring start." Snorts everywhere. "He still manages to secure shipments of magic dirt sacks during the first one though, which means that sacks of magic dirt start being delivered to the Shire by elves. This results in very palpable improvements to every field and orchard and meadow and herb patches and medicinal and flower garden and basically every crop ever. This, in turn, fills up ALL short-term and long-term storage places in the Shire within 2 years and only keeps going from there.

"The first major consequence of this is that hobbits start partying and feasting several times more often than usual because they may as well do something with the surplus. Also, because you begin to feel strain on pottery and crockery and start feeling increasingly hard-pressed to store the new batch of bounty every year. You start to party for even the smallest excuse because of this, I imagine, which Bilbo, naturally, would have encouraged as it only meant extra venues for playing his instruments, which only enhanced the gradual rise in general merriment among hobbits in a continuous cycle.

"However, this ultimately isn't enough to actually prevent all stores from filling up, forcing you to dig out, build or otherwise create new storage areas at home and elsewhere, which is a somewhat ongoing process still. And the surplus keeps mounting, meaning that at this point you can either feed perfectly good crops and such to the livestock-:

"Unconscionable and doubly absurd for medicinal herbs and mushrooms, what are you nuts?" Someone cut in.

"Or two, sell or export the surplus somehow."

No interruptions this time, thank Mahal, now don't look up Ori, don't look up. "Only hobbits don't have any system in place for this! The attempt to encourage ranger traffic didn't quite pan out even after Bilbo managed to inform everyone relevant about them and their real activities during the fall festival of five years ago. So you've been trying to come up with something else, or alternatively waiting for Bilbo to do that since he's the one to blame for this bizarre conundrum."

"Damn right," someone groused, to much hmm-ing and haw-ing.

"Don't you see!?" Ori blurted at his brother and Valar, he looked up and he couldn't stop talking oh Maker! "The mass donation wasn't just on a whim. Hobbits quite simply have too much right now. The Thain, Mayor and Master came over today so easily because they hoped the Dunedain might help them or give ideas how and to whom to offload some of their massive surplus without having to actually set up sustainable exports! That's why they're so fixed on us! Blue Mountain dwarves bound east this or next year will make for a perfect solution to ease this concern, even if we don't… do all we plan to do by next year, and that's why they're not asking for more than a few shipments of iron and tools in exchange! They're all they need or want right now to further expand their stores! Don't you see!? It explains everything! Bilbo unintentionally improved Shire productivity and lifestyle to the point where Hobbits have to change their whole approach to self-governance. They can't keep to themselves unless they can live with the idea of wasting all that good food on the pigs." And just because he couldn't help himself, Ori hugged the nearest hobbit within reach. "You're not all crazy!"

Fortinbras Took bore the treatment with stoic dignity and Maker, Ori had just embarrassed himself, his brothers and the entire dwarven race by going on a fevered rant in front of every one of the free peoples of Middle Earth ever.

"Well…" Arathorn mused as he presided over the strange, impromptu congregation, because why not drive the final nail into the coffin of Ori's self-respect? "I do believe now would be a good time to set off the fireworks, wouldn't you think Mithrandir?"

"-. .-"​

The party lasted all through the night, past even the early moments of the next day's dawn when some of the hobbits actually started to load up empty sacks and pots to take back to whence they were brought. Seated on the half of a log that had been improvised into a bench at some point the previous evening, Balin watched as a tenth or so of the hobbits set off with their wagons, mules and hinnies whickering under the stars. The lingering flames and colors of Tarkun's fireworks played languidly over their coats as they vanished into the distance, the few afterimages that still lingered in the sky after so many hours at least.

It had been merry and fulfilling, Balin decided, this unlikely gathering. His cloud of shame-birthed depression found itself brutally evicted half-way through the first hour before the feast even started, chased off by the sheer bewilderment of what constituted "trade" for hobbits these days. Whether or not they retook Erebor, the dwarves of the Blue Mountains would be set for food for the next five years at the very least, quite likely longer considering the sorts of quantities they ended up discussing with the Mayor of Michel Delving and Master of Buckland. After the well-deserved skepticism was overcome at least, which wasn't until second desert when Dwalin damn near exploded at him and Thorin to "get on with it before all the food is gone." Which didn't fool anyone considering the hungry stare he had locked on the platter of hot, freshly baked cookies at the time.

It was a bit awkward to sit and talk and draft deals without the Thain's input for that first hour, but the Hobbit King (no matter what the hobbits called him) was too focused on his returned brother for the first half of it, and then too busy being gloatingly vindicated when Isengar Took started to cry his big hobbit heart out when the realization finally hit him, that his life's work had just been invalidated within the space of ten minutes by a random dwarf he hadn't even been introduced to.

Kili had been so horrified and miserable at the sight – once he was replete enough to process any feeling that could be termed in any way complex, at least – that he looked like a beaten puppy. He was so pitiful, in fact, that Thorin was moved enough by the sight to give him an official excuse to get himself out of sight. Which was to say, he ordered him and Fili to make themselves useful elsewhere before they ended up causing a diplomatic incident. Specifically by keeping an eye on Bilbo in case he decided to arrange or make any other "deals" for them behind their backs.

Balin would have had something to say about that, but in light of the last discussion he had with the hobbit, he decided to keep any thoughts he may have had to himself. Balin also strongly suspected that Kili was grateful to have a reason to bravely abscond from the presence of the elf lord as well, who'd calmly but quite persistently been coaxing him for details about his submarine concept all through the evening. And then about any thoughts he had on shipbuilding in general, for some unfathomable reason. The old dwarf doubted he'd have handled it with any better aplomb, being the center of attention of Cirdan the Shipwright for so long. And that beard, why, it was just about the sort of thing that…

Actually, better not follow that thought any further.

Sipping at his hot mug of fortifying tea, Balin looked around the improvised party grounds. Men and hobbits stood, sat, lunged or outright lay asleep or insensate all over the place, on benches, next to benches and under tables and chairs. There were even a couple of elves on the far side, leaning against the party willow and sleeping the way of their kind, with eyes open and focused on nothing in particular. Other people were still up and about, quiet as to accommodate the rest but still perfectly upbeat, some eating and drinking as if they hadn't been doing that since last eve. Well, except for Bofur who was singing just as boisterously as ever, which Gorbadoc Brandybuck seemed to appreciate if nothing else. Isengar Took was passed out on that odd loveseat he and the Thain had tearfully reunited in, but the Thain himself was quietly conversing with someone or other. The Mayor had gone off somewhere not long ago, escorting a group of hobbits that had started to become rather too surly for everyone else's sensibilities. Balin wondered how two of those could possibly be related to Bilbo Baggins, but in a way it was reassuring that hobbits had their bad castings like every other race out there.

And that was what was missing from the picture. Bilbo Baggins was nowhere to be seen.

As fortune had it, that was the same moment when Gandalf's last fireworks faded from the sky, and the first shades of dawn began to break in their wake.

And with them, that same low, strange, soothing note started to be heard from afar like it had that first night after they met their burglar, though with one difference: Balin could actually tell what direction it came from, and that it reached them from far, far away.

Far, far away from the east.

After a minute, the note 'Do' stopped, then the instrument – a low-adjusted fiddle this time – made itself heard again. The note 'Re' was as clear and strong as before, but this time it wasn't as if they were right next to the source.

Then, after another ten seconds came the third minute: Mi.

Then Fa.

So.

La.

Ti.

And Do again.

Then, when the music finally in earnest began, with strings slowly plucked by languid fingers somewhere far in the direction of the dawn, it wasn't hobbits that rose to their feet to pick up instruments and play in tune. It was the men.

The Dunedain rose one by one, all of them from wherever they were. They rose and stared into the early dawn as if not quite believing what they were hearing, then as one turned their backs on the music.

Except they didn't, Balin realized with some unknown emotion. They hadn't turned away from the music, but instead turned towards the West. The Glorious West where the Valar waited but where no man would ever sail, no matter how great the yearning. Though the elves sailed and would still sail to Valinor long after all men that lived today were gone, man would never see those shores, nor anything else of the Undying Lands even after they perished, for they moved beyond the world, or so their lore and myths all told.

Where did these thoughts come from, the dwarf wondered? Or were they truly like eddies, swirling about him for Bilbo to weave into his song?

The dwarf watched, shivering despite not feeling cold, and when the first proper note of the song began, it wasn't from afar but from right there, where Arathorn, son of Arador, brought to his lips a flute and sung a slow, meandering sound that felt like hopes meant to be snuffed and burned under the weight of some great, weighty doom.

It wasn't until the harp on the other side of the field started being plucked that Balin realized this was no new, spontaneous invention.

The song flew then, as if trying to outpace the dawn itself, and when it inevitably failed to escape the world, the Dunedain added their voices to it as the far off fiddle faded, replaced by one closer to home. More music joined in from everywhere – Balin couldn't look around quickly enough to register them all – and the pace rose and rose and sped up to the point where the men went far past the march to war and in full fanfare.

A ringing, piercing woodwind tune struck it right that moment, come from the horizon far ahead, and Balin knew, with supernal certainty, what he was witnessing.

It was an hymn.

A memory of times long past that echoed still.

An anthem.

What came after… he would never be able to later recount in words and do it justice, the drumbeats, trumpets and men's voices chanting, chanting, chanting like footsteps and heartbeats and hooves and the life-beat of the kingdoms of heroes old. For minutes and minutes and minutes it went on, rising, rising in speed and cadence, as if the flow meant to outpace the reach of the world, the dawn of the sun behind them that they wished but knew could never leave behind, no matter how much they yearned to sail to the gods beyond the reach of the compass. Never had Balin seen or heard the yearning so conveyed, of the people who were ever only allowed the faintest glimpse of Valinor, but never a hope for more.

It felt cruel to him, Balin thought as he listened and his body shivered under the low, heavy voices that chanted a passion as deep as any felt by any dwarf in the history of the world. Chant that carried as much as it was carried by the Dirge of Arnor, chant that beat and struck and stopped, again and over and over and again. Each time, sudden. Each time cut short. Not even the strong, heartfelt vocal solo that emerged in its wake didn't overcome the weight of the feeling in everything else, fading into that same, low, solemn, sorrowful note.

He barely remembered the lyrics, themselves coming late in the melody, and not because they were in Adunaic rather than Westron proper. But he did recall them, or enough of what could make it through without being lost in translation.

A raven flies into the moonlight
The cold storm snow
He knows the message has to arrive
The kingdom will burn to the ground

The witches and demons have come to deny
The beauty and peace of our homeland
We know the message has to arrive and
The King of the North will rise


The words seemed so simple, so basic for such a solemn dirge, but he couldn't deny they were appropriate.

And the voices all fell quiet after, leaving the music to run out as if expended, the full breadth of emotion having been felt and spent to the point where only weary sorrow was left for anyone anywhere in the world.

Balin sniffled and wiped at his eyes with the handkerchief that some hobbit or other had just given him. Maybe there was something to these things. He would inquire as to whether they could acquire some before leaving, especially if Bilbo Baggins intended to make a routine out of these performances. The prior songs had all been moving but… not sad. Not like this, so deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. For a moment there, the sadness in the lyrics threatened to feel almost vain, the voice feeling as if it essayed to drown the other music by the force of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the rest of the melody and woven into its own solemn pattern.

Balin wondered what it meant that he expected the song to end abruptly, in one single cord the moment the woman sung the last word. Instead, the melody drifted in the wake of the solo, as if meant to play the part of a bridge to some other tune.

Perhaps it was for the best that it finally fell silent. Whatever was meant to come after… Balin had a feeling none of the men had it in them to truly hope would be more uplifting than everything else that had ever happened to the noble men of the North.

A deep silence descended upon the gathering then, one not bereft of life – crickets and larks both plied their own sounds as the morning emerged – but it was no less solemn or meaningful for it. Balin, and probably everyone else in the Company, would never make the mistake of lumping any rangers with all the other, greedy, selfish, mistrustful and prideful men in their minds, that was for sure.

Later, when morning had fully broken and early mists lifted and dissipated, it was doubtlessly due to that last, mighty song that Thorin proved amenable to the offer made to them by the Dunedain Rangers. Especially considering they had elven companions going the same way.

"The Rangers have offered to escort us east for part of our journey," the King of Durin's folk told the Company as he spread their map out on the table cleared out for their use. "They assured me that they can help us make up for the delay we incurred with our detour here, taking us by paths they maintain along the edges of the South Downs. We should be able to arrive to Rivendell by the fourth of June." And for a wonder, Thorin managed to mention Rivendell and their errand there without grimacing.

How Balin wished he could spare him the pain of having none among their own kin who could divine the secrets of Thror's Map. As much as he valued the cherished customs of the dwarven people, Balin wondered if maybe Thror and Thrain shouldn't have made an exception when Smaug drove them out, instead of rebuffing Thorin when he asked how they escaped, let alone anything else. So much knowledge had been lost this way.

"See here…" Nori's low query snapped him back to the present. "I don't suppose you know whether or not the Ranger chief will be escorting us personally?"

"He has his own business in Rivendell so yes, he will."

"Count me out then."

That was the opposite of what Balin expected to hear, or what Thorin and everyone else felt on the matter.

"Explain," Thorin ordered flatly.

"He brings bad luck. Bilbo says so!" What followed was a choppy, meandering explanation about why and how Arathorn, Chieftain of the Dunedain Rangers of the North, was the unluckiest sod to ever walk this unlucky world, and how anyone who tangled with his business was guaranteed to run afoul of the most terrible mischief they could never think of.

By the end of it, Thorin looked like only kingly dignity was preventing him from speaking his mind on this latest development.

"This is outrageous!" Gloin spoke for them all instead. "First we get diverted and lose six days' travel, and now the Halfling expects us to court whatever misfortune follows that hapless man? And after he abandoned us?"

Abandoned what now?

"He left around midnight," Thorin told him when he noticed Balin's reaction. "He brought up the topic with me and the Ranger Chieftain, claiming he had some errands of his own to run and that this would help up make up for time lost. Given that coming here cost us six days, I considered it a reasonable enough notion." The king then glowered down at the map. "I did not imagine he might merely be setting us up for further difficulties."

"Well I don't think he is!" Bofur said bravely. "He's been a mighty fine host no matter what any of you say, and he's only done right by us, even if it's been in his strange, hobbity ways." Bombur and Bifur nodded in agreement, followed by Dori and Ori somewhat more hesitantly. Though in Ori's case it was probably because he was still embarrassed over last evening's… lapse.

Balin should have kept an eye on him better. It spoke badly of him as a Loremaster and teacher that he allowed himself to become so absorbed in his own social failures as to neglect the state of his apprentice like he had.

"Well, it don't matter none," Oin said with all the loudness of the deaf. "We're back to 13 again, which is already bad luck on its own. Who's to say how much worse things will go if we join our path with the man's, if he's really as unlucky as all that?"

"I am starting to wonder if there is any worth to the halfling's word, or the Wizard's word for that matter, since he set us up with him," Thorin growled, incensed over this apparent duplicity on Bilbo's part.

That every scrap of information warning the party against having anything to do with Arathorn also came from Bilbo Baggins seemed to escape everyone involved.

Another round of playing Melkor's advocate, it seemed. Oh Mahal, what did he do to deserve this?

It was at that moment, when Thorin was looking almost willing to change his mind and decide to track the hobbit down and hold him accountable for this latest development, that something even more urgent and relevant finally made itself noticed.

"Thorin," Dwalin said sharply, looking around at their company of… 11. "Did you ever get around to telling the boys to stop tailing the Burglar?"

There was a long, still silence.

What followed was an utterly chaotic cavalcade as the Company spread out to look for those two, then an utter frenzy as the men and even elves got involved in the sudden search for the two disappeared Durin princes. The whole mess escalated rapidly as Arathorn started barking orders to go search for the two disappeared dwarves, along with oaths that there was no foul play at work on their parts but they would lend all their aid to tracking them down. The number of Rangers, Bounders and even random, regular hobbits that set out on foot, by pony, on horseback or just promised to ask around and keep an eye out while traveling back home by cart… it was a complete and utter, massive mess of impromptu scouting. A total logistical nightmare.

Everything almost came to a head late in the afternoon, when a harried bounder came running down the Sarn Ford bridge, brandishing a rolled-up letter. It managed to derail the shouting match that a red-faced Thorin and a forcefully calm Arathorn were about to break into as a result of some chain of strong emotional displays and misunderstandings that even Balin hadn't managed to fully keep track of.

The dilemma of whether to go with the rangers or try to head northwest, towards the Old Forest in the hopes of picking up Bilbo's trail and give him a piece of dwarven mind, had been entirely forgotten during the whole fiasco.

"Letter!" the unknown bounder gasped as he came to a halt. "Letter for Thorin Oakenshield."

Thorin almost pulled the poor hobbit off his feet, so quickly he snatched and unfurled the sheet of… not parchment, it was far smoother, whiter and that's not important! Balin quickly moved to read over Thorin's shoulder before whatever was inside set his king the rest of the way into an apoplectic fit.

[..- -..]​

To Uncle Thorin,

Hey uncle, this is Fili.

(And Kili!).

Yes, and Kili, the coward who refuses to own up to his mistakes again and needs me to explain his latest disaster, as usual.

(Oh, go suck air through a reed! I was physically exhausted and utterly soul-weary after the ordeals of the evening!)

Yes, how trying it must have been to be the center of attention for everyone at the party, and to have your plates and drinks personally refilled and replenished by the leaders of the world all through the night. You essentially gathered around you every single lord and king at the party and practically held court. What a dreadfully terrible fate to inflict on someone.

(I was interrogated, you arse, for hours, and on something I hadn't even given more than a few minutes' thought to before last night!)

Well if you weren't so willing to share all those dwarven secrets-

(Secrets? Secrets!? I had to basically redo someone else's life work within the space of ten minutes before I was even allowed to have dinner! And then they wouldn't let me go because they couldn't stop asking "details" about my "ideas" as if I had ever given any of it any thought before! I actually had to spell out the implications of a metal bowl floating as long as it's not tipped over. And don't even get me started on how no one ever thought to coat ship hulls in copper so ships wouldn't need to be scrubbed of barnacles every few months. And then one of the men actually called me crazy for suggesting it because 'oh, the nails will rust out' don't you know. Because it's not like elves use wooden nails just fine, and wouldn't you know it, copper nails are also a thing since yes, iron nails do rust, thank you, I am well aware. How was any of this a surprise to anyone!?)

How was it any surprise to you, you mean? You do realize that most men still think hobbits make sugar by milking birds, right? Why you still have such high hopes for their mental capacity I will never understand.

(Who cares about the men? The one responsible for most of my suffering is Lord Beardmaster himself! What next, am I going to find out there are people who still eat out of lead dishes? Maybe there are still folk who think tomatoes are poisonous, that would be a riot. Or oh! Tomorrow I'll run into that fool from Duillond again who needs someone to invent a whole new creation myth because he hates music. Won't that be fun?)

In the beginning there was nothing. Then God said, Let There Be Light! There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.

(Oh, very clever!)

Anyway, uncle, Kili's gesticulating helplessly aside, the long and short of it is that after you ordered us to keep track of Mister Baggins, we ended up falling asleep because Kili was having one of his episodes-

(I Was NOT!)

-and ended up making us both pass out in the back of a cart because he's a cheating cheater who cheats!

(Excuse you! That is so not my fault! I'm not the one who challenged me to a drinking contest because he thought the Very Important Mission uncle gave us was too boring!)

Yes, uncle, he's not the one who wanted a drinking contest, he just proved, once again, that it's pointless to issue him any sort of honorable challenge.

(That's a terrible, vicious lie! You're just embarrassed to admit you passed out in the back of a wagon after just one drink!)

A single drink of Buckland Black you replaced my Green Dragon Emerald with!

(Don't listen to him uncle, he can't prove anything!)

Only because you disposed of the evidence!

(You can't prove that either!)

Never mind him, uncle, there's no reasoning with him, he's a lost cause.

(Ignore him, uncle, he's just embarrassed that he lost so badly at his own game.)

See, uncle, lost cause. And if that's not enough, then allow me to report that he somehow managed to fall asleep in the same wagon and snore his way through half a day's ride without any soporifics to help him along.

(I needed to recover my strength after my taxing, torturous trial!)

Anyway, the point is that by the time we woke up, we were already half a day's ride up the northwest road. Fortunately, this actually works great because Bilbo went up this same road not much earlier according to the good hobbit driving this good wagon, so we can still go on with the mission you gave us! The good hobbit also offered to find a bounder for us so we could let you know where we are.

(I'm not sure why you had Bilbo go ahead without you, but since Dori got doused with the same thing Fili did, I suppose you had to wait for him to wake up before properly setting out?)

Anyway, we hope you catch up soon!

Love, Fili,

(And Kili.)

P.S.

I just want to make it clear that I would have won that drinking contest, and anything Kili has to say about it is a terrible, vicious lie!

(He's right, you know. I am a lying frog. Everything I say is a lie. I'm lying to you right now.)

Oh, very clever!"

[..- -..]​

As Dwalin put his face in his hands and moaned about useless Durins and the various ways in which he was going to kill them, Balin gaped at the letter over Thorin's shoulder, aghast.

"Well…" he eventually said faintly. "I suppose that settles that."

 

[Aravis]

Thanks for the chappy!! The end was pretty hilarious!

 

[Nathaniel Carrion]

I wonder what exactly is Bilbo's plan concerning Smaug when he and the dwarves finally confront him. I can't actually wait to see what he does next when they meet Legolas and his father Thraudin. He must have made quite the impression on Elrond. To be able to make such arrangements that benefit the Shire. I wonder what he will do next, when they encounter the elves of the Woodland Realm.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

A/N: With this, this story is up to date.

---

Cardolan – 3: The Unspent Glory

"-. .-"​

Kili dreamed. But was it really a dream when it was just reliving a memory? Even if it wasn't his own memory, he was pretty sure. Which was doubly strange, this wasn't the sort of thing that happened every other time in his life when he nearly drowned. This was a strange thing to have as one of his greatest mysteries in life.

Another one of the great mysteries of life was that people need more than intelligence to act intelligently. He would never genuinely consider Thorin Oakenshield a stupid dwarf, for example. The rest of the company might be a different matter altogether though, considering recent developments. Other than the unfaithful warrior, possibly.

None of whom were in any position to opinionate, given the situation. Especially the dwarf beating against him as though getting away was all that mattered in the world.

Song and Stone! He cherished all the People new and good, even those disabled or crippled, but would that it were reciprocated ofttimes! Linnar's lad was ever just one or the other, never both, he should still understand. The rusting axe stuck in his forehead rendered him inarticulate and occasionally blustering, not simple! A tragedy that it robbed him of the spoken word, beyond whatever Khuzdul grunts he occasionally remembered while signing, but what he was doing now was everything but signing. And speaking should be the farthest thing from his mind.

The dwarf choked and flailed against him, clawing and gasping in the black, trying to escape his hold in a desperate struggle to reach the light that trickled from on high. He didn't understand. The surface of Withywindle glimmered far above them. Far too far above them. The stream was never so deep, not even at its slowest around the Lake surrounding the Glimmering Isle. The Old Grey One was feisty! It was old and angry and did not distinguish between arms of death and those of burden. It would rid itself of the one whose death by iron it could not deprive all the same, even if it meant hurling them down the Water Paths.

No matter. Swimming amidst the black was the first trick he learned, long before he even knew of Hill, Water and Wood. Before Light. Before Wind. Before Music, when he'd barely achieved any sort of thought. Before Stone thawed to Fire inside his mould. Before he got around to finishing living the first day of life upon the world. Before he even learned his first word.

Definitely before he learned of it being possible to live with an axe in your head. Or stuck most other places for that matter. That was a new one.

What he was about to do was also a new one. Or at least it would be the first time he was on the giving end.

From the depths of his midst to the top of his lungs, he inhaled the Water. It was hard not to gag and choke in a body so unaccustomed. But he drew in in the Water until he could draw no more, and then rolled the flagging dwarf under him, leaned over him and exhaled into his mouth everything but the Water.

Linnar's son jerked and ceased his flails, eyes wide if only from the shock of it.

The axe head scraped harshly against his own forehead, but he let the feeling sink into the endless depths of his memory and hugged the dwarf close, then tightened his hold just so.

The dwarf wildly gasped his last breath of air back into his mouth, and with this he had the Water and the Wind to lead them both back to Wood and Hill.

He hurled himself and his burden back, tucked the thrashing dwarf against his chest, looked up until he was facing down, then blew out the air in one great ring of glittering bubbles.

The Water smoothed around them and light breached the fathomed depths, guidance bright and farthest possible thing from angry. A proper feel, he thought with what probably didn't pass for wittiness. But appropriate, given the way he and the other plunged through the hoop of bubbles.

There was no angry way to say 'bubbles.'

They breached the surface of a waterfall amidst smooth river stones, moss-covered bark, birdsong, and half of all the shades of every leaf in the world. Fronds and petals and needles alike hung and fell from trees that grew close and tall into an unbroken canopy. It stretched far and wide and cast a half-light upon all things that lived and didn't. There was not one glimpse of the sky anywhere through it all. That was good. It meant he found the way to precisely where he wanted amidst all other places that lead in and out of Wood, Water and Hill.

Linnar's boy flailed about, gasping for air one moment and choking on mouthfuls of foam the next. His mind failed to catch up to the reality of the shallows they were in.

He himself was long past such displays. From the depths of his midst to the top of his lungs, he exhaled the Water. Then he breathed in the Wind and exhaled again. And again. And again and again and again until he breathed nothing but breath.

Birdsong and all else living was silent when he was done. It left the toil of the dwarrow next to him the only sound out of place in the eternal dusk. Even that was winding down and growing in length and distance. Flesh and mind moved more and more out of synch with each other to make room for the Light, faint though it was so deep out. In this, too, he could relate. The flow of things was different here, and the light of Sun and Moon and Stars was nowhere to be had.

He grabbed the dwarrow from under the arms and dragged him to the shore. Linnar's get crawled and stumbled along, mind too slow to even conceive conscious will its own. He was still in tune with the rest of the world more than himself. Would remain so for at least a sunturn, thwarted by the Light even all the way out there in the thickest shade.

Probably not as long as he himself took the first time, though. He hoped to be there for it, but that was far in the future. If indeed it would happen at all without a glimpse of the First and Oldest. The Now called him, and called for him to move or ponder.

So he stood in the Wood and pondered.

He pondered the place from whence he'd swum, but it was barely different from all else he ever dreamt. He pondered where he could go also. But that, too, was less a destination and more a return to that which had already borne him hence, back when his life was less dreaming of dreams and more doing. He pondered where he had come from. He pondered where he might head now.

The moment loomed before him.

He felt the faintest stirrings of delight. Such a long time since he had been adrift, with no portents in sight! Oh, wouldst that he bore forth in else than this crude husk. His first had been but ore and Stone, but even that fit better in this place than this vessel of bone and blood. So soft if not as raw, it was fresh and untrained in every art that ever was. Alas!

Still…

For want of portents, he would make do as he always does.

And here and now, when portents don't abound, it could only be time for a song!

From the depths of his midst to the top of his lungs, he inhaled Wind and Wood scents.

Only to falter upon the sound of a distant judder twanging against his ears from far off, carrying forth the renewed sounds of birdsong and whistles and stalling any plan to bring forth any of his own.

It brought him no gloom.

Instead, the whistling that followed turned delight to elation whole.

That first Note…

Elation swelled into yearning unbounded and he was suddenly rushing through the woods so fast that he almost missed the weak moans and mumbling far behind.

Oh, thou dream! Even mastered it vexed him when he but wanted to indulge wants his own.

He stopped, turned around, marched back to the stream bank and found Linnar's descendant gripping blindly at the world, dazed from new time on his mind and tongue twisting around every new scent and color he tasted every other blink. Sympathy swelled within him at the sight, along with a spark of shame over having discarded him so swiftly. The sight before him was no different from himself of yore, back when he was ten times as slow and less than half as keen. At least before he gained will and might to call his own, he'd managed with help and guidance. Now, it seemed, it was his turn to pass it on.

The Wood crooned throughout him as it basked in the second Note. He stood with head backwards and closed his eyes, relishing every last moment of it. His mind was in tune with the flow within and without this World within the World.

Only when it was over a breath and age later did he look back down, at the dwarf laid out on the mossy forest floor. Even descended from miners and smithies and simple folk with simple tastes, even slow and stretched as his mind was across the Now and Thence, whatever the dwarrow picked up of the Note was enough to leave him lax and languid.

In the end this, too, was no matter.

Ordering and handling him with the ease of long personal experience undergoing the same, he soon had the dwarf on his feet and stumbling along after their joined hands.

The third Note carried them from dusk to evening shade, from thickets of yew and redwoods to more seldom birch and airy maples rich with fruit and bird flights. Larks and swallows flew through their crowns even as squirrels and hares dashed up, down and amidst their trunks.

The Fourth lured them further inwards, boots shifting dirt and foliage as they passed through close-knit thickets of rain-soaked palm and rubber trees. The rain still dripped from the leaves like a song unto itself, the song of a glad water coming down like silver. How well and true! Always this lot seemed as if rain had just ended, with new water running downhill under the boughs. As every other time he passed this way, he laughed and was glad, even as his companion could but stumble through the underbrush in his wake bewilderedly.

Then came the fifth Note, and the scent of the rainforest became thicker, headier, less wood and more hints of salt. The shade lifted some more and the forest became increasingly speckled with Treelight. Thin, long, pitching beams of white, silver, gold and every other color and off-color he cared to name. Which was many of them indeed but far from all, for even the Namer of Names never managed to name them all. Nor the myriad of creatures big and small scurrying, dashing, stalking and lumbering around them, some out of sight and some not hardly. Their boots sunk through leaves and mud up to their ankles. Still he trudged forward, not at all perturbed but instead emboldened when they finally reached the greatest of the mangroves. Here the smell of salt grew thick with a brackish scent that rose from the murky waters sloshing around bush and tree roots. They were full of grown water birds and baby chicks of all stripes swimming and diving after scurrying tadpoles. Seed-feeding birds, fish-hunters and scavengers alike lounged in the branches or flitted here and there also, even as raptors perched on the highest boughs of the trees he and his companion passed ever by. None attacked others and neither did they fear.

There was no Death in this Light true and free.

It was on the Sixth that salt water gave way to strong earth speckled with green once more. They walked out of the marsh up the mouth of a stream that washed their boots and feet all clean. He stopped there to drink from the fresh water. The drought invigorated them, a blessing after that trek that could well have lasted hours or eons. There was never a perfect way to tell in this place, even among sights as familiar as these. Fir trees of all sorts and heights stretched to the left and right as far as he could see, with no path through them to be found on mere fancy. Even game trails escaped his sight, though he knew well it was not for their lack. Nor for want of the Treelight either, though it could surely have achieved that and more. It was stronger here. Fittingly, none of the trees making up this final picket had and would ever lose their green coat of leaves, be they soft as silk or sharp as needles.

It was here, during the Sixth, that Linnar's get succumbed to Life and Light overwhelming.

Decision loomed before him once more.

Here, at least, he was not wholly bereft of portents. Would they were all of home and bliss rather than pain! Linnar's boy fell to his knees beside him, moaning in agony as rusted axe grew orange-hot a-cleansing. That decided him as much as anything else on that last stretch. He turned, put himself between the dwarf and the Light and drew him inward, face over his heart and arms around him whole. The heat of the axe lessened some, pulling from the addled dwarf a moan of relief that shook them both down to the bone. He basked in it as all good deeds should be basked in, but did not tarry elseways. Instead, he started walking backwards, pulling and leading the staggering dwarf further and further in, past firs and shrubs and over wood chips loosed from bark that fed the lush blanket of moss and grasses for ages upon ages. Woodlands, critters and plants glittered everywhere, gleaming and shimmering every shade as he gazed upon them. No color was out of place, but every last tinge was weighty like nowhere other. Such was the nature of life when filled to the brim with the Light of Everything that ever was and never hadn't not been.

The seventh Note came and stayed with them through the whole of the last span, longer, louder, nearer than all the ones before it and still not staggered at all. It ended just as the woodland ended and they reached the last bulwark of that scape. Behind and above, he knew, was a great wall of trees. All trees that were and could ever be, grown short, wide, tall and together. Commingled. Twined and intertwined here and tether in a wall. The First Wall that ever was. It was taller than one could see, farther than one could think. It was such that no place there was for Light to trickle through from the place within unremitting. A pity and a mercy both, for few could unaided suffer even the cambered slivers that seeped through copse and canopy. A pity and a mercy that there was no place for light to flow unhindered. No place save for a hole in the ground. The hole in the ground right behind him.

The hole in the ground right behind him that sloped forth and down and was lit with the Light reflected off the water on the other side.

He pulled the dwarf along and down, steadied him down the slope until it evened out, and finally they were stood on the bank.

Then he let go, grabbed the axe head, and yanked.

Linnar's descendant lurched violently with a cry. His eyes snapped open wide only to shut in pain less than a moment past. Then he choked on his last gasp, toppled forward and fell face-down in the turf deathly still.

But not dead in truth. Whether still of mind, breath or heartbeat, or even all combined, none who found this place could ever be so snuffed.

He turned away from kinsman downed and towards the clearing. The Light had him then. It was all-engulfing, brighter than the brightest glare, blinding without blinding. It routed all thought from his mind as skin and eyes accustomed to light ephemereal basked for the first time in Light which was everything but.

It was enough to strike one dumb. Leave any other who might have come still and ramrod. A statue stiff and wracked for a year and a day with every feeling save dismay.

That such did not happen to him was a bittersweet grace at best. Though a first for this body, it was not a first for him. That came and passed long since. How could anything ever compare to it? How could he do anything but gaze up to the Tree?

Alas that old hats, too, can fit poorly. His eyes could not bear the radiance.

With a shuddering breath, he looked back down and watched instead the unplugged depths that went unseen. Sights and scenes shone instead throughout it, at end of the rays that sunk into the water. It brought back sights midst trees, meadows, forests, hills, skies, towns, tents and glades all over. The images flitted in and out of sight beneath the ripples. People blinked in and out also, from tallish Men in cloaks clasped grey, to dwarrows odd and kinsmen known. Some wet their thirst by brooks. Others fidgeted awkwardly aside lakes built around underground memorials. The surface broke suddenly upon the last image, water rippling sharply. A tiny wren-like bird burst out from underneath the surface and shot for the far shore towards the Isle.

The song proper started then, low and slow and lilting. Birds chirped amid plucked cords and the sound of whistling. It wakened a longing in him, new and old and heavy. It filled him with haze of haste, thick and fast and heady. Try he did to look again, to the Tree unending. Still he failed, but that was fine! Time and song were with him.

He would turn to rock and dust before he missed the chance to sing the Melody, especially a song of such a sort that he had heard before!

He'd never thought to hear in full this number. His father-guide was singing up his sire!

The flute began its round and so he was resolved. From guess and memory he saw the coming rounds. Good songs needed a drum to roll. For want of such, though, hop on a stepping stone! There were none here and the lake was deep, but if stepping stones he wants then stones he'll get. Many are in the world for Water Paths to call, even in haste!

He stood until the third beat and then he jumped. And when his feet struck the lake atop, water splashed at his feet but he did not drop, and the thump was like the very drum he wanted heard.

The sound rippled all over the lake everlasting. So he stepped forth again, once, twice, thrice and hop again! When the lute joined in answer to the woodwind, his rhythm was all set. Step by beat by step he wended, then hop a drum and tread again and on. Hop and stomp and stomp and drum the steps until chord and woodwind joined in one. The lute then first went still. Upwards went whistles long and clear. But chords sounded regardless, even as fiddles long since quiet were heard once more across time and memory, singing upwards from lake and light for all around to see. So forth until mid-way through the melody. So forth until he stood mid-way to the far shore. All the while, the rusted axe grew hot and bright in hand so he let it free.

There was no death under the light of the First Tree.

It fell with a splash to parts and times unknown, exchanged but not with tools dropped forth by him of old.

And so, half-way to shore and mid-through longest note, it was his hand that took and plucked the chord.

Sound elsewise stopped. No else played on. Far lute fell still. The woodwind ceased. Grass and cloak whirled roundwise as surprise and marvel seized his guide-father and his father far on the shore ahead.

And so naught was heard in the Glade Everlasting, save chords plucked by his clever fingers and their echo ere long. It flew onwards and back across the Glimmering Lake, unbreached by beast or bird calls known. Joy filled his breast until he felt like bursting, pride and delight filling him wholly at the act. He'd brought the All to total hush! And look at guide-father, stock-still and stood astonished at his stunt. Surprised to see him, awed and stunned. The chants of kin rose up through Water paths from elsewhen at the sight. A sight so wondrous but so odd! By deeps and skies, he'd made him proud!

So proud that he missed his cue to pick back up. It was the strangest and most shocking sight he'd ever seen in his life.

But they were not bereft. Guide-father's father stood beside, and he was right alert. Guide-father's flute he took, thick and long and speckled. He brought it up to breathe and play just as his part was settled.

Fast then surged the melody, off and quick a-rising. Forth strode guide-father's own lord, was he really smiling? Shook himself the Singer then, moved to stand aside him. Pulled he did from water clear, fiddle long and gleaming.

Thus did three join in and played into memory, instruments entwined through Song and Melody. He could not fathom it growing even richer still, but it did. Drumming leaps drowned more in song than splashwater. Flute sung high only to be out-sung in turn. Guide-father's fiddle rose and rose thereafter, strong and grand and challenging to All. And as it did, guide-father's gaze was locked on him, sharp, firm and inspiring until it seemed to him as if his kinsmen were all there beside him. Young and old out of time and memory, they sung along, beat on their greatest drums and chanted in one voice.

Then came the peak. And it was all the wonder he could have hopes to hear.

It was not jarring. Nor was it sudden. But it stood out all the same just for its source. It came from on high. It came as a reprise of all the tunes already told. It came from a leaf blown. How proper for surroundings such as these, its own!

It was glorious and spoke of minds and hearts already joined. It filled every gap between the notes they hadn't known, blending everything together in its own, joyous pattern at odds with nothing of itself unlike every other song he could ever care to name.

His eyes were drawn unerringly to the source.

It was above. On high. Iarwain Ben-adar. Orald. Forn. He who is Eldest and knew the world when it was nameless. Perched high atop the greatest of the bough of the First Tree well aloft.

He was lying haphazardly on his back with one leg hanging astride the branch, swinging lazily and seeming as if his big, yellow boot was just about to fall off. The only other detail he could see of him was a bit of his brown beard sticking out from under the hat covering his face, and even that was almost hidden behind his blue coat and its rumpled color. The incongruous sight struck him dumb and jarred him out of dream and kin chants. The ancient didn't even deign to look at them!

He almost forgot to resume his lute song. It would have ruined the whole song just as it reached the very end, so jarring the scene was. Fortunately, he didn't miss his cue – alas poor guide father! – and the song reached its end thorough and true. But he himself didn't.

"Akhrâm'addad!" The moment his final chord elapsed, he tossed the lute out in the sand and charged with a joyous cry. His booted stomps carried him over the last step stones, past the beach sands and leaping forward in a rush. Guide-father barely had time to brace. It would have availed him none anyway, so small and light as he ever was. But that was alright. He was old hand at this. He knew best out of all how to judge speed and spans.

His sprint ended with him sliding the last stretch knees-first and his arms around guide-father's midriff. To the depths with deportment, who cared about scuffed knees? Light, life and love, he has all of it here! Even if he has to spend the rest of his days all in this kay, what else but joy should he feel for living again after he died to the black king? His guide-father was here. Guide-father sings again and now he lives again. His father's father too! Father of his guide-father. Grandfather? He couldn't wait to meet him! Let him live deep while he lives. Let him spend years just basking in the strong beat of glad hearts of his most dear. Let him feel the taste of ripe meat on his tongue even, the sweet tang of mead to see him through long weeks, because why not? For all the noise she made about the dwarrow and their axes on her trees, the Queen of the Earth didn't seem to balk at creating a whole slew of meat-eating horrors to torment, murder and strip the flesh off the more meek and peaceful of her creatures. Why, it was enough to drive one to-

"LOOKOUT BELOW!"

Tom Bombadil suddenly belly-flopped in the lake.

The water burst mightily outward in a gigantic flux, then back and upward in a huge spout only when it was already too late for the rest of them. A literal tidal wave as tall as five dwarves atop one another swept forth and washed them off the inner isle's beach. He barely had time to sputter and spin madly in the current, unknowing of here everyone else disappeared. Too soon it seemed like he was sinking back into depths unfathomed. And before he could think of spitting out some air to follow to the top, the Master passed underneath him. He was looking up straight at him with smile blithe and bright as the rest of him, fully seen in the deepening dark as if he stood in the noon sun.

That was as far as his mind got before Tom Bombadil used a cane of wood to bump him on the brow, and up and up he fell.

He burst out of the water a choking, coughing, sputtering mess, and struggling to disentangle himself from some roots or other that he didn't remember being there. Or anywhere. Drenched or not, though, the dwarf immediately began to feel very hot as well. There had also once been armies of flies buzzing round his ears, but now they were dead silent. Sleepiness fought his attempt to stand every step of the way, but he struggled as mightily as he could to break its hold. Even as his mind unfogged, though, he struggled to take in his surroundings. An eerily gentle noise was on the edge of his hearing, nothing like the Music in the dream. And what a time to dream a dream! How had he dozed? When? Why?

The last thing he remembered since Thorin and company caught up to them and gave them a piece of his mind was fighting through his drowsiness to go check on the ponies. He recalled that two had wandered off and he had just caught them and brought them back when he heard the loud noise of something heavy falling into the water. The other noise was like the snick of a lock when a door quietly snaps shut. More of the same then alarmed him enough to rush back to the bank. That's when he found Dori in the water close to the edge, with a great tree-root that had sprung over him out of nowhere. He also remembered that Dori hadn't been struggling either, even though he was drowning. He'd had to drag the big dwarf back onto the bank. But there was something else. Something important he wasn't remembering.

The details of the dream fought him as well, every time he tried to grasp at them. This, though, at least was nothing new. When it came to dreams he seldom remembered anything, save when he dreamed of dreaming, and even then he rarely kept anything but knowing of the strangeness of such vagaries in the waking world. Odd and fancy turns of word sometimes bubbled, like right now, but this was not the time for such rumination! He lifted his heavy eyes to find the sight of the old and hoary willow-tree. He had somehow wound up on the other side of the stream. The company had camped under it after Thorin and the rest finally found to the pair of them. Not that it was much of a task, lost and wandering dumbly through the woods as they had ended up. The only surprise was how quickly they had caught up.

Kili's addled thoughts cleared by the expedient of Bofur crashing down next to him with a splash.

"Gah!" the dwarf sputtered, stumbling to his feet in the brackish water. "Mahal wept! The tree! It threw me in!"

"Do you know, my prince," Dori had said, memory finally alight in his mind. "The beastly tree threw me in! I felt it. The big root just twisted round and tipped me in!"

Tree…

"… The willow!"

Kili and Bofur waded back to the bank as fast as they could, only to find barely half the company not stuck or trapped or lost somehow. Even worse was understanding the click that he had heard before he went under. Dwalin had vanished! The crack by which he had laid himself had closed together, so that not a chink could be seen. And Thorin too at some point, though no one was sure if he'd gone the same way or not. Even worse off than everyone left was Fili, who was trapped! Another crack had closed about his waist. His legs lay outside, but the rest of him was inside a dark gap, the edges of which gripped like a pair of jaws.

"Fire!" Kili gasped, an ember bursting out of his numb mind. "We need fire!" His eyes fell on the doused campfire. "What happened to the fire!?"

"We tried!" Ori wailed from nearby, standing crookedly and rubbing his eyes in wide-eyed panic. "The Willow almost split Fili in half!"

Suddenly the branches of the willow began to sway violently. There was a sound as of a wind rising and spreading outwards to the branches of all the other trees nearby, as though the anger of the willow tree was out to spread over the whole Forest. Everything from reeds to low and hanging vines started fluttering and moving about, grappling and twisting at their limbs. The branches of the great willow also started lashing about, as if to strike them down. At the same time, great roots began to break out through the ground, hitting, tripping and drawing increasingly foul cursing from everyone that nonetheless could little mask the panic rising fast. Kili had to throw himself backwards, and even then he stumbled and fell on his back.

Then, without any clear idea of why he did so, or what he hoped for, Kili took off at a run along the path crying for help. "Help! Help! Help!" He almost couldn't hear the sound of his own shrill voice: it was swallowed up by the willow-wind and drowned in a rush of leaves and winding stems almost before the words left his mouth. He had never felt a panic as terrible as this!

Suddenly, though, he came to a halt. It might have been jut wishful thinking, but it sounded almost like there was an answer! But it seemed to come from behind him, from deeper in the Forest at his back. Beofre he could wonder if he was going mad, though, Bofur and Ori both jerked and rushed to join him where he stood. Soon, there could be no doubt: someone was singing a song. A smooth, whimsical voice was singing carelessly and happily.

Then he started wondering if he was mad all over again because it was… The song was…

Hey then! What's this then, gone thunk-a-clanking?
Fight anon, come abscond, bad be that graftling!
Old man, Willow-man, wrong grown the sapling!

Half hopeful and half afraid of some new lunacy, Kili, Ori, Bofur and all the rest of the dwarves not snared by the creature one by one now all went still. Suddenly, amidst the sinisterly merry summation of their irreparable situation, the voice rose up loud and clear and burst into song.

Hey! Come dreary lot! Waterlogged Hadhodrim!
Fast comes the weather-wind and the storm a-roaring.
Down aright atop the Hill, singing forth the sundown,
There my clever son there is, Bombadillo's scion,
Clear glimmer amidst the dew, brightest at the sundown.

Bungo Baggins I, hapless guests a-wrangling,
Come to take you to my boy, can you hear me calling?
Hey! Come dreary lot, brook-doused sods out of your mines,
Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo, busy is amidst the skeins!

Grumpy Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Bungo's on a mission now, no Tom on the way.
Bombadillo home he is, crowning his sweet darling.
Tantrum yours my business is, do you hear me laughing?

The dwarves stood as if enchanted. The wind puffed out. The leaves hung silently again on stiff branches. There was another burst of song, and then suddenly, hopping and dancing along the path, there appeared above the reeds a beaked, velvety hood. With another hop and bound there came into view a hobbit more hobbitish than any they had ever seen, or so he seemed. He was as short as war proper, as tall as was proper, as jolly as was proper, as barefoot as was proper, and he strode ten times as silent as all of them combined on their best day, his leathery soles passing through grass like gliding on a breeze. His coat was greener than grass, his honey-brown hair peeked out from under his cowl, his face was creased with wrinkles of laughter, and his eyes were even greener than everything else on him. With one hand he stroked the tops of cattails and reeds as he passed, while the other held a bag over the shoulder by the strap.

"Help!" cried Ori and Bofur, running towards him with hands stretched, having clearly heard and understood not a word of what the newcomer was saying. Kili stood ramrod straight, feeling like he wanted nothing more but to lay down and dream at the worst time all over again.

"Well now, steady there!" cried the unexpected hobbit, holding up one hand, and Ori and Bofur stopped short as if they had been struck stiff. "Now, my hefty fellows puffing like a bellows, what's the matter here then? Do you know who I am? I'm Bungo Baggins. Tell me what's your trouble! Hurry now, storm and miscreants are afoot. You don't want to be caught out here if you've any sense!"

"Our friends are caught in the willow-tree," cried Ori breathlessly. "Fili's being squeezed in a crack!"

"One of me brothers is gone too!" gasped Bofur. "Tossed in the water, like half of the Company! And those who got through only got snared in the roots! Glon and Balin fought past, but I can't see anything of them anymore!"

"Oh dear," sighed Bungo Baggins, slipping past them towards the strife. "Old Man Willow! I knew it would be him! Tom would freeze his marrow cold if he were here, sing his roots off, sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. No matter, that can soon be mended. I know my own tune for him. Old Grey Willow-man! I'll sing him round his madness, back to the gloom and cowardice of his yester-yore if he doesn't behave himself. Old Man Willow!" Setting down his bag carefully on the grass, the hobbit ran to the tree. Low vines tried to trap him but they shied back at his glare. Hanging boughs tried to smack him but the hobbit leaned away and lashed back at the branches, tearing out a long sprig at the base as he bounded over and past dwarves snared and fallen. There he saw Fili's feet still sticking out — the rest had already been drawn further inside. Bungo put his mouth to the crack and began singing into it in a low voice. They could not catch the words, but evidently Fili was aroused. His legs began to kick. Bungo sprang away, and with the hanging branch he'd claimed before, smote the side of the willow. "You let them out again, Old Grey Willow-man!" he said, smiting once each tell. "What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Master here I may not be, but my song is the Song all the same and I say Sleep!" He then seized Fili's feet and drew him out of the suddenly widening crack.

There was a tearing creak and two more cracks split open on the opposite sides of the large trunk, and out of it Thorin and Dwalin sprang as if they had been kicked. The earth thudded heavily as they crashed upon it, grunting breathlessly as if taking their first air in too long. Then with a loud snap the cracks closed fast again, a shudder ran through the tree from root to tip, and complete silence fell.

There was dead quiet as the dwarves of Thorin's company picked themselves off the ground and out of snares and water, bar one that was nowhere in sight but none had mind enough left to mind.

Bungo Baggins tsked. "I do so wish only one problem presented itself at a time. The world and life would be so much more orderly then. Alas that neither is prone to such abstract notions as orderliness and convenience." The hobbit shook his head. "Well, my big fellows!" he said, tilting his head so that he peered into their faces from beneath his hood, clean and unruffled as though he'd undergone nothing untoward. "You shall come with me! Worry not for your straggler, I know wherefore he rests. He'll be with you anon, alive and true, more so I dare say than ever! But that's all the talk you're getting now, storm approaches and night will find us soon. Tom's table is all laden with yellow cream, honeycomb, and white bread and butter. He and Goldberry are waiting on my son, but my son waits on me so I am done a-tarrying! Time enough for questions around the dinner table. You follow after me as quick as you are able!" With that the hobbit picked up his bag, and then with a beckoning wave of his hand went off along the path eastward, humming and singing as he traipsed.

Too surprised, relieved and tired to talk, Kili looked along with everyone else to Thorin who glared tiredly back at him for getting them into this mess even as he hugged Fili close to his chest, murmuring stilted somethings. But he gave a weary nod all the same, however grudging, so all followed after the hobbit as fast as they could.

 

[In search for story's]

Durin the 8th...huh didn't see that coming.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

A/N: That Hollywood didn't re-release the Peter Jackson films on the 20th anniversary of The Return of the King was stupid and wasteful, wouldn't you agree?

---

Spoiler: Previously on Master of Wood, Water and Hill...

The Secret Hearth – 1: In the House of Tom Bombadil

"-. .-"
​

Bungo Baggins led their party to a gently rising hill. The water began to murmur. The white foam glimmered like rolling diamonds in the falling evening, where the river flowed over a short fall. Then suddenly the mists were left behind and the trees came to an end. The dwarves stepped out onto a wide sweep of grass. The river, now small and quick, was leaping carelessly past them, glinting in the shades of the evening and the soft light from the moon that was already showing his face in the sky.

The grass under their boots was smooth and short now, as if it had been mown or shaven. The leaves of the Forest behind were the same, clipped and trim as a hedge. The path was now plain before them, well-tended and bordered with stone. The path went down a hill again ahead of them, and then up again, along smooth hillside of turf all the way to the top of a grassy knoll. There, still high above them on a further slope, were the twinkling lights of a house.

"There be Tom Bombadil's house, up, down, under hill."

Nobody replied to the words of Bungo Baggins – Bilbo's father, really? – as they were all too glad to see the friendly sight. Already half their weariness seemed to leave them, so the dwarves hurried to follow Bungo up to the home. Finally, they stood upon the threshold, and a golden light was all about them.

Kili's eyes, though, strayed to the sight of the steep land that lay beyond the hill. Though the sun was still out, that place already looked more grey than green. Bare, almost. And beyond it, the dark shapes of hill graves, standing stones and menhirs stalked away into the eastern gloom.

"The Barrow-downs," Bungo said as he directed them to leave their boots on the porch. "A dreary place, one I'm loath to step upon even when I gather years enough to risk leaving the Forest at all, even just in spirit, but don't worry about it for now."

What does he mean?

The dwarves of Thorin's company – twelve now, as they were still missing Bifur – stepped over a solid stone threshold and felt uncommonly at ease in the space they now found themselves in. The room was long but low, lit by lamps swinging from the roof beams, and there was a large table of dark polished wood covered with many candles, tall and yellow, burning brightly. A short glance was all they got, however, as Bilbo immediately led them further in through another door.

They followed the second oddest hobbit they'd ever met, down a short passage and round a sharp turn, until they came to a low room with a sloping roof.

A penthouse, Kili thought. Built into the north end of the house.

The floor was flagged, and strewn with fresh green rushes. Its walls were of clean stone, but they were mostly covered with green hanging mats and yellow curtains. Four huge mattresses were there too, laid on the floor along one side and each stacked thick with white blankets. Against the other wall was a long bench holding wide earthenware basins, and beside it stood brown pitchers filled with water, some cold, some steaming hot. There were slippers set ready beside each bed as well, soft and green.

"The two rooms hence are same as this, so fret not for there is room for all. Your sleep will be safe and sound this night. But before the Master of this land returns, all shall freshen some. You shall clean grimy hands, comb out your tangles, cast off your muddy cloaks and wash your weary faces."

True to his word, they didn't have time enough to do anything past washing and combing out their tangles when Bungo returned and led them back to the first room. The table was now laden with all the foods Bilbo had talked of on the road. And beyond that, in a chair facing the outer door, sat a woman.

She was a fair lady, with long yellow hair rippling down her shoulders, and her gown as green as mountain moss in the evening sunlight streaming through the open windows, shot with silver like beads of dew. Her belt looked to be made of a chain of flag-lilies, golden all, with forget-me-nots in between like pale blue eyes. There were wide vessels of earthenware about her feet as well, green and brown and each holding water so crystal clear that it was like staring up at dancing sunlight from beneath the surface of Durin's Lake. The dwarves might have taken her for an elf queen on a throne set amidst glittering crystal, except none of them felt the inborn enmity that always seized them at the very thought of the elder folk, never mind when faced with one outright.

"Come, good guests!" she said, and as she spoke Kili felt oddly certain that he had heard her clear voice before, many times. Singing. But he was just as certain this was the first time he or anyone he knew had met her. Heard her voice. He found himself the only one who strode forth without hesitation, the others taking only a few cautious steps further into the room. Some half of their company even began to bow low, their movements surprised and awkward, as if they were beggars knocking at a cottage door to beg for a drink of water, only to be answered by a divine maia barefoot on mithril glass.

The lady sprang lightly up and over the water-bowls, and ran laughing towards them, and as she ran her gown rustled softly like the wind in the flowering borders of a river. "Come dear folk!" she said, taking Kili by the hand. "Laugh and be merry, for tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil!"

"So we keep being told," Thorin said, though he seemed to not be weighed down by his usual dourness. "All the same, fair woman, I would rather know under whose roof I stand. Who is Tom Bombadil?"

"He is," said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.

The dwarves looked at her questioningly.

"He is as you will see him," Goldberry said in answer to their looks. "He is the Master of wood, water, and hill."

Thorin hummed. "Then all this strange land belongs to him?"

"No indeed!" she answered, and her smile faded. "That would indeed be a burden," she said lowly as if to herself. "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom leaping on the hill-tops, wading in the water, walking in the forest under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master. Thence he comes right now to shut out the night, along with all mist and tree-shadows and deep water!"

It was only then that Kili realized the door they'd come in was still open, and through it now came the sound of someone new singing a song. A deep glad voice was singing carelessly and happily, but it was singing nonsense.

Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the minnow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!


The beat was the same Bungo had kept, but richer, wilder, somehow more fitting like this voice was actually born to it.

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-hawthorns bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!


Goldberry – for she could be no one else – laughed happily as if she weren't surrounded by the roughest and crudest dwarrows of all, then lightly she passed them and exited the home to stand on the porch and sing back.

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow;
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
Tom's coming home again water-lilies bringing.
Home, the Hearth Forever, do you hear him singing?


The man's voice burst out laughing, but lost no word or breath, still singing loudly and nonsensically as he neared.

Now let the fun begin! Let us sing together!
Of sun, stars, moon and mist, rain and cloudy weather,
Light on the budding leaf, dew on the feather,
Wind on the open hill, bells on the heather,
Reeds by the shady pool, flowers on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!


The air grew lighter. The candle light seemed to glow all the brighter. There was another burst of song, and then suddenly, hopping and dancing up the path, there appeared out of the mists a man, as if he was always there, visible as if at midday despite the twilight. As heavy as any dwarf, but too large for one, if not quite tall enough for one of the men, though he made noise enough for both combined, stumping along with great yellow boots on his thick legs. He had a blue coat and a long brown beard, his eyes were blue and bright, and his face was red as a ripe apple, but creased into a hundred wrinkles of laughter. On his head was a sturdy felt hat, the only thing he wore that looked new, with a long blue feather in the band along the narrow brim. And in his hands he carried on a large leaf as on a tray a small pile of the largest water hawthorns Kili had ever seen.

I swear I didn't know half of these plants by sight last week.

Goldberry ran to meet the man, barefoot on the grass. She jumped to hang from his neck and he spun her around, laughing even as his flower-tray stayed aloft with not a petal startled. Tom and his Lady then walked hand in hand all the way back to the house, where he raised her on the crook of his arm lifted her over the threshold.

The man from my drowning fancy, Kili thought quietly. What is going on?

The others didn't seem to share his realization, but their tongues were every bit as tied as his. No words came to any of them that were good enough to express anything amidst the joy of their hosts. Where was Gimli when you needed him?

"Here's my pretty lady! Here's my Goldberry, clothed all in silver-green with flowers in her girdle!" Tom carried his lady further in and set her back down on her chair, them hopped around, still humming nonsense while tossing and dropping the hawthorns one by one in the earthenware around her chair. The flowers spun as they flew over Goldberry's head and fluttered down onto the water.

Goldberry twirled her hair happily around her finger until he finished, then Tom took her hand and cradled it to his heart. "Is the table laden? And we have guests too, do we?" Tom bowed to the dwarves. "I see yellow cream and honeyed berries, and white bread, and butter. Milk, cheese, and green herbs, and berry jam newly opened. Is that enough for us? Is the supper ready?"

"It is," said Goldberry. "And so are our guests, though our Bungo perhaps not?"

Tom let her go and walked up to them. He clapped his hands. "Bungo, Bungo! Your guests are fresh and clean, but here you still be as if just come from afield! Taken you again with fuss and bother?"

"Apologies, Master," the hobbit said. The dwarves had completely forgotten he was there. "But my boy's gone off on a brash whimsy again and I'm all afret." That's right, Bungo had said that Bilbo would be here, where was he? "I doubt I'll be the best company this eve, if he's in the Barrows as I fear."

"Then Bungo shall do as Bungo does, just as Bilbo does as Bilbo does, and then you will come back hither and have peace until your fears have flown away with the wind of the hilltop. Goldberry will leave a light for you."

"My gratitude is yours, as ever. I will gladly partake of your hospitality on my return." The hobbit bowed at Tom, then them and left the house.

"As for you dwarves, come now, my merry friends, and Tom will dine you!"

Sure enough, the dwarves were all soon seated at the table, four on each side, while at the head sat Goldberry and the Master. It was a long and merry meal. Though they ate as only famished dwarves could eat, the food never seemed to run out. The drink in their drinking-bowls seemed to be clear cold water, but it went down like wine and set free their hearts and their voices. Soon they were singing, more freely and merrier songs than they had done even back at Bag End, as if it was easier and more natural than talking.

Finally, when the night had well and truly fallen, Tom and Goldberry rose and cleared the table swiftly. The dwarves were commanded to sit quiet and enjoy guest right as guests are meant. They were all set in chairs, each with a footstool to his tired feet. There was no sense of a mind to the house like in Bag End, but there was a fire in the wide hearth, which was burning with a sweet smell as if it were built of apple-wood.

When everything was set in order, Tom went around putting out all the lights in the room, except one lamp and a pair of candles at each end of the chimney-shelf. Then Goldberry came to each of them, holding a candle and wishing them each a good night and deep sleep.

"Have peace now," she said. "Rest your weary bones, and your weary hearts also, until weariness and worry has fully left you. Rest well until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top. Good night!" She passed out of the room with a glimmer and a rustle. The sound of her footsteps was like a stream falling gently away downhill over cool stones in the quiet of night.

Tom sat a while beside them in silence. He had no hat now, and his thick brown hair was crowned with rowan leaves.

Each of the dwarves tried to muster the courage to ask one of the many questions he had meant to ask at supper, until sleep gathered on their eyelids. At last Thorin spoke.

"Who and what are you?"

Tom stirred like a man shaken out of a pleasant dream. "Eh, what?"

Kili was surprised not to see any irritation in Thorin's eyes, even as the identity of this being came to him from a place far older than his mother's bedtime stories. "He is Forn," Kili said, somehow not daunted by all the yes suddenly on him, though he did wonder at his certainty. "The One who Belongs to Ancient Days."

Forn. Orald in Mannish, and Iarwain Ben-adar to the elves. He was said to be a mysterious figure that lived throughout the history of the world. Living in the depths of an old haunted forest, he was said to possess unequaled power, at least in the land around his dwelling. Kili had thought they were all legends and fairy tales, but now he wondered why he ever thought something so foolish.

The others became all abuzz, mumbling and whispering, but Kili only had eyes for Tom.

Thorin was much the same, though he seemed to have other things on his mind than old legends. "What are the hobbits to you?"

"They are themselves of course! Just like Tom is himself and Goldberry is herself and every tree, rock and creature is each of them themselves! Just like you are yourselves, even those of you who don't know."

Kili's drowsiness seemed to him as thick as the darkness of Dwarrowdelf. Did he just look at me?

Thorin shook his head. "The Shire seems to think the elder Baggins dead."

Tom laughed. "He certainly sleeps like one!"

Thorin thinned his lips, though with something like amusement instead of ire like Kili was more used to. "Who and what is Bilbo Baggins?"

"My good dwarrow, I just told you! Bilbo is Bilbo, what more can anyone say outside a song?"

Sounds about right, Kili thought, even as Nori said the same aloud.

Thorin snorted, so Kili decided to risk another word in before reality really took a tumble. "Are you the one who sent Bungo to find us?"

"Nay, it was no plan of mine. Bungo went looking for you himself, to ease Bilbo's worries when we learned you had wandered this way. Old grey Willow-man, he's a mighty singer, and it's hard for folk to escape his cunning mazes, even stout ones like you. Fortunately for you, Bungo knows how to sing a fair Song by now, and Willow-man knows better than to bluster too loud lest his off notes reach far enough to ripple upon the pool of the River-Daughter. He knows what's in store for him if ever I should walk that way and find it the slightest way in Discord." Tom nodded as if sleep was taking him again; but he went on in a soft singing voice.

Each summer's end I go there, finding water lilies,
In a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle;
There they open first in spring and there they linger latest.
By that pool so long ago I found the River-daughter,
Fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!

Tom opened his eyes and looked at them with a sudden glint of blue:

Could have proved most ill for you, indeed and worse my dwarrows
For not yet do I go down deep, along the forest-water,
The year is almost old enough, but Tom's not yet gone passing
Old Man Willow's house this early in the spring-time,
Not till the merry morrow, when the River-daughter
Dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.

Tom fell silent again, but this time it was Bofur that couldn't stay quiet anymore. "Tell us, Master, about the Willow-man. What is he? What did he do? Where-where'd he take our brother? Bungo said he'll be alright, but…"

"Aye, the addled one, I know wherefore he lies, but worry not for him! He had a nasty time of it for a spell, but he is the farthest as can be from ill befalling now. He'll be better than new by the time you're all caught up. Ask not about him again, not until the morning! Now is the time for resting. Some things do harm to speak in vain of, especially when the world is in shadow. Sleep till the morning-light, rest on the pillow! Heed no nightly noise! Fear no grey willow!"

Tom stood and smiled jovially.

"And fear not for your voyage either! It mightn't be quite as quick as if you'd gone with the elves and wizard onwards, but of lost days you can set worries aside! You'll reach your trolls, elves, goblin kings and eagles, spiders, even yon dragon all with plenty time to spare. Come the right morrow you shall be led along the quickest paths and gain one day for each one that you've spent so ably up to now." And with that, Tom took down the lamp and blew it out, and grasping a candle in either hand he led the dwarves out of the room.

Kili was not the only one with a thousand questions still unasked, but he was too drowsy and tongue-tied to ask them, and so was everyone else despite themselves. Nobody had the mind for combs or braids by the time they reached their rooms. The mattresses and pillows were soft as down, and the blankets were of white wool. They had hardly laid themselves on the deep beds and drawn the light covers over them before they were asleep.

In the dead night, Kili dreamed of sleeping. Then he felt a Doom so dire encroaching on his place of rest that he rose to flee before there was a sun and moon in the sky. He moved so slowly that it felt as if his limbs were made of rock. His mind worked so laboriously that the deep caverns themselves changed faster than his thoughts. He was sleepy, heavy, leaden in limb, laggard in mind, no notion of scent, unable to hear, unknowing what voice even was, and blind for his eyelids hung heavy and stiff, unable to rise the slightest crack.

Despite all that, he walked. Though he dared not take his first breath until he emerged from the mountain's womb, he walked. He walked even though his every step took an entire fullness of time as reckoned by stars he could not know. He walked from down to up, from darkness to shadow, from warmth out into cold so callous that his skin frosted over and his beard hung heavy with rime. He walked even as he did not know where he was going except away. Away from Doom, Doom right behind him, Doom that ever gained without chasing, looking, searching, not even knowing of him, but gaining, always growing, forerunning the frightful fortress of the Dark Lord crawling onwards down. He walked and walked and walked until he was still heavy, leaden, haggard, scentless, voiceless and blind, but not quite deaf anymore.

There was a thrum. First in his skin, then his flesh, then his bones, then all of him. It was with him for a thousand thousand footsteps until something warmed and loosened in his ears. A thrum that spoke of life and joy and laughter most good, what else could he do but follow? He followed it. Always away from the Doom he followed it. Always away and scarcely past the spawn of the Doom it led him, even those that were the most pernicious and most keen. Until, finally, he reached the Forest. The Forest and its waters that the thrum called from. Called him. Called through. Called forth that he should dive down under. So he did.

And so it was that swimming amidst the black was the first trick he learned, long before he even knew of Hill, Wood and Water. Before Light. Before Wind. Before Music, when he'd barely achieved any sort of thought. Before Stone thawed to Fire inside his mould. Before he got around to finishing living the first day of life upon the world. Before he even learned his first word.

He dove. He sunk. He inhaled the Water. He sunk further endlessly, until the bottom of the abyss began to glow with the distant light of a Fire that even his unmoving, closed and useless eyes could not keep out. Warm and warmer, hotter and brighter the closer it became, hotter and brighter the deeper he sank, even as the water stayed gentle and cool about him as he swam and reached wantonly for the Flame.

A blaze ignited within him where it had waited for the merest spark all along. The Fire warmed his bones, his sinews thawed, rapture was the blood flowing through his flesh for the first time, and his heart was beating.

Kili broke through the surface of the water and woke up all at once.

The dream faded with the first glimpse of his now open eyes, a light so bright it felt like he should have gone blind all over again, if not for the singer on the bank of the lake that cast him in his shade. Like Kili himself had sheltered Bifur in the dream before.

Was that Bilbo? Kili wondered. He'd never felt so off-beam in his life. It was definitely Bilbo, I'm sure of it.

Kili sat up in his bed, refreshed and wide awake. He felt like he had slept for ages uncounted. Looking around, he saw that it was still the deep of night, though his dwarvish eyes seemed to have even less trouble seeing in the dark than down in the deepest mines. All the others were still sound asleep. Their faces were smooth and relaxed, as if no worries existed for any of them. He looked to his right where Thorin slumbered with not the slightest snore. He looked to his left, to Fili whom he never did anything without.

He got out of bed alone, went to the western window and saw the Forest. It was just as sleepy and quiet as the house, the moonlight vesting the leaves and flowers into eerie shapes on each branch and the underbrush. It was like looking down on to a sloping mosaic-roof from above. There was a fold or channel where the canopy was broken into many winding gaps and splits, the valley of the Withywindle. There was no willow-tree to be seen anywhere.

Closer to the home was a flower garden, with crocus flowers and lilacs and many other spring flowers, some in bud, some in full bloom even at midnight. Turning, Kili went to the Eastern window and he saw a kitchen-garden. His view was screened by a tall line of poles already waiting for the climbing vines of beans, and freshly dug plots beyond them were already sprouting seedlings. The sky was clear and the stars and moon bright, but not a spark of yellow was in the sky in the East.

He stayed there at the window, looking past the garden to the barrow hills beyond for what felt like hours and more. For what he knew was more. Dwarves had an inborn ability to tell time's passage, a trait they were said to have been given by Mahal upon their creation, long before the world and stars moved to give Eru's trueborn children something to measure by. Yet now, even as he stood at the window for hours and hours, barely a beat seemed to pass within him.

Even the sky barely seemed to change, despite how many of his own breaths Kili counted, and the many times the wind changed and shifted on the hilltop. Through it all, the others slept on, dead to the world.

Beyond the vegetable garden, a stick flew past, followed by a small spotted dog. In their wake walked and hopped the Master himself, humming and whistling his nonsense up until he saw Kili watching from the window. Then he hopped over.

"Good morning, merry friend!" said Tom, opening the eastern window wide. Cool air flowed in but none of the sleepers even twitched. "Sun won't show her face for a while yet, but naught ill seems bent to rouse up any mischief this night either, with the Moon so high on his chariot. Since you're up, how about you join old Tom on a merry-go? We'll go leaping on the hill-tops, nosing wind and weather, wet grass underfoot, starry sky above us. Mayhap we'll even sing to the High Star a song or two, he's ever so grim and stern these years under that crown! And when dawn finally comes, you can go rustle up our hobbits while I waken Goldberry by singing at her window."

The words came out before he could second-guess them. "What of Bifur?"

"Your errant kin? That's up to him! If he comes over early he'll find breakfast on the table. If he comes late, he'll get grass and rain-water!"

Kili took that for the reassurance it was and joined Tom Bombadil on his nightly wanderings. They roamed the hills, enjoyed the night air, peered inside dens and bird nests, sang to the Moon and Star, and played fetch with the small dog who Tom understood as easily as every other creature, like it was talking mannish.

"He's only visiting," Tom said brightly. "Come dawn he'll be bounding back home to his good old granny and mean grump. Scaredy thing would be your host after me, when your path takes you by their home in yonder shaws! They won't be, but dwell not on sad tidings! Let not the pleasant night be brought down!"

All the while, Tom told and sang Kili many remarkable stories, sometimes as if talking to himself, other times with his bright blue eyes keeping Kili rooted in place from under his thick brows. Kili had expected tales of bees and flowers, of trees and the strange creatures of the Forest, and indeed he learned all of that. But there were other times when Tom spoke of further things, old things. Sometimes he talked as if Kili already knew what he spoke of. The dwarf did not, though he felt like he should, and every word was like a memory returned as if he was recalling something he'd seen or heard or done inside a dream.

Then, too, were low tunes and rhymes of times so ancient that it seemed to Kili as if no dwarrow, man or elf even existed in the world. Tom sang of terrible want and rumbling earth, of cold fire and warm wind battling for claim upon a world that was yet still a Flame inside an unhatched Egg, and of a mighty ancient laughter that sent the dreadful dark to flight. Kili listened to tales of big-gods and little-gods and plains and hills more ancient than the oldest ocean, and the lords of those places who were at first the sons of spirits of the highest's sons and daughters, then the fathers of the fathers of trees that aged no faster than the hills, and whom the countless years had filled with wisdom and pride and malice.

That malice lingered still, in this Forest that was a survivor of those vast woods forgotten, a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, the destroyers and usurpers that gnaw, bite and break, hack and burn those who once ruled the land. Tom's words revealed to Kili the hearts of trees and their thoughts, so often strange and dark, none more so than Old Man Willow. His heart was rotten but his strength green, a master of the winds, and a song and thought so strong that his grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth, and spread through the ground and the air like fine root-threads and invisible twig-fingers, till it had nearly all the trees of the Forest under its dominion from the Hedge to the Barrow Downs.

Suddenly, Tom's tales turned inward into the Forest, dancing down the withy-path to dive deep into the pool of the River-daughter, deep down through the water paths that one could only call open if they had Mastered the right Songs. His tale burst out through a lake's surface into the light of the First Tree, where nothing rots and all things bloom and wait, whole and hale, for when the marred world has been vanquished and the time comes to birth the World Anew from the Womb of the Old.

"The Music made the World, the Secret Fire gave life to the World, and that which was First heard in the World was Laughter." Tom sang in a bouncy tune that somehow didn't not fit the grim tale he was ending. "So it will be again once the final wrangle is done and done with. The Dark Lord will no more abide to grasp wantonly, and so his petty spite, too, will be no more to twist and bury all good things in darkness when he burns himself. The Egg will hatch, the Secret Fire will no more be Secret, and the World will mend and see a right and proper Spring, Unmarred this time."

Tom's words were like a Doom themselves, and Kili would have thought it one of those things that did harm to speak of when the world was in shadow. But unlike the terrible prophecies that doomed the Elves and Turin and Hurin and all those who sought to defy Morgoth and Sauron and Angmar's Witch-King, this one was not etched from the Discord. It felt like it was being read straight out of the Music itself, and made Kili feel hopeful and sure instead of cold. He always did despise the cold, for he always felt like his blood should be molten hot and his heart a furnace.

"Who are you, master?" Kili asked when his words finally returned. "What are you, really?"

"Eh? Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? You are the sapling grown from the base of an old tree, but I am older still beyond even its reckoning. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, small unworn friend: Tom was here before the river and the trees. Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. Tom sang the first song, laughed the first laugh, and kindled the Fire's light before there were guests to host and dine. Tom knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from Outside."

A shadow seemed to pass overhead, and the dwarrow glanced hastily up at the sky. A cloud was just passing under the moon, casting the night into deeper dark than Kili had seen it since leaving the Blue Mountains. When the Moon showed himself again, he looked back to the Master only to find that he was no longer there. Tom had wandered off and was playing fetch with the dog again. Kili hurried over and opened his mouth to-

"It will be a glad morning today!" Tom said suddenly, derailing Kili's oncoming words like a runaway mine cart. "Now, my dwarrow, go find Bungo!"

Kili, to his own astonishment, was half-way down the hill before he even realized what he was doing.

He found Bungo Baggins where the Forest ended and the Barrow Downs began. The elder hobbit was sitting on the boundary stone and looking eastward, as if he thought that peering hard enough would allow him to see past the twists and turns of the treeless hills. Kili stepped forth to stand next to the hobbit and waited in silence for what felt like weeks, even though the stars barely moved in the sky, and his inner sense of time barely advanced three turns. Finally, he spoke.

"I can see were Bilbo gets it."

"Do you now?" Bungo asked, his smile quite carefree in that brief moment when he was looking at Kili instead of the grim hills ahead. "Don't count me out just yet."

"I'm not." He really wasn't. "The Shire seems to think you long dead though."

"I would've been, but Bilbo brought me here instead, and the Master bore me hence into the firelight which abides by no rot or ending."

Kili dearly wanted to ask, but he knew a set-up for a joke at his expense when he heard one. "Time is strange here."

"The Master can be corralled by nothing, not plant, no beast or man, not by fear, and not by time if he so likes. And he only ever partakes of company on his own time, even if it means lingering in the coda between notes. He used to prefer the natural flow of things, but has since proclaimed that Bilbo mastering the Master's own goodwill was an omen of more stretchy times."

"… Can you do the same things as him?"

Bugo laughed. "No indeed! Tom alone is Master here."

"So you're his successor? Or Bilbo is?"

Bungo smiled with the air of someone in on just half of some secret joke. "I've not quite mastered all that needs be mastered. I can only hope I'll be able to overcome the last hurdle when the time comes. Alas, for the time to come means Bilbo needs to be in an untenable situation I wouldn't wish on strangers, never mind my dear son. I'll be glad when he finally settles down properly. Then I can go wandering far-off places on my own two feet, maybe, instead of haunting maimed minstrels like a ghost in my sleep."

Kili suddenly had a hundred new questions, but if the earlier bit had been a setup for a joke at his expense, this seemed ready to put on a whole play. No thank you. "Where is Bilbo, anyway?"

"Out there somewhere," Bungo vaguely indicated the gloomy Barrows. "Badgering ancient ghosts into fulfilling his whims, as usual. He's quite the brazen one, my boy."

You don't say? "Mister Baggins, I really have no idea what you mean."

"I'm sure you don't."

Well, that was a false vein if ever there was one. "Are you coming on the journey with us?"

"If only!" groused the elder Baggins. "Bilbo is certainly past the stage where he would feel stifled to be loomed over by his father, but I dare not. You lot are trouble. More trouble than even he will handle, I think, before the end. No, I shall stay behind and make way to lift my son up when at last he falters, as a father must. Ah, but fie on such grim talk, I must yet go finish my goodbye surprise!" Suddenly, Bungo hopped off the boundary rock and gave Kili the sort of look he only ever saw on swindlers. "There's a surprise in store for you lot too, and it wouldn't do to ruin it! I don't suppose I can persuade you to go retrieve him?"

Kili immediately said no, but even as it took a fair bit more than a moment this time, he still found himself half-way up the next hill before he realized he'd been blandished into changing his mind.

"I'll keep a song on!" Bungo cheerfully called from far behind, plucking at a small lute's strings. "Just listen for it if you can't find your way back!"

"That can happen?!"

"Well of course, lad! It's midnight!"

Oh. Right.

Kili traveled down along the floor of the hollow, and around the base of some sturdy, steep hills until he stepped into a deeper, broader valley. He was no ranger, but his steps were as sure as if he'd walked all over these places before. Bungo's song trailed behind him, not bouncy but somehow fairly-like. With each step he took, each note seemed to last longer before giving way to the next, and the time between his inner time beats got slightly shorter.

Kili didn't know what he was looking for. There was no tree or stream to guide him, only grass and short springy turf. Even those he barely saw, for though the Moon was bright and the sky clear, it was as if the Barrow-downs had their own mists veiling their secrets. Still, he figured that 'the biggest predicament around' was always the right bet with Bilbo Baggins, so he listened for music.

When he still only heard Bungo's meandering tune behind him, he listened instead for where the silence was deepest and the cries of strange, lonely birds were the most forlorn, and that's where he went. He traveled over the shoulders of the next hill, and the one valley and the hills behind that, then down their long limbs and up their smooth sides again.

Finally, in both more and less time than he'd have thought, he came to a hill that did not have the same grassy mounds on top as the rest. Instead, the top was wide and flat, like a shallow saucer with a mounded rim. The mist was flowing past him now in shreds and tatters, the wind hissing over the grass. His breath was fogging, and the darkness was near and thick despite the pale and icy moon above.

At the center of the hollow circle was a standing stone, shapeless and cold. It cast a long pitch-black shadow that stretched westward over him, and was bestowed with the significance of either a landmark or warning. Both of which were being currently disregarded.

Bilbo Baggins was at the base of the stone, sat on a long and naked sword while sounding out words and writing them down in ones and twos and threes.

And aside him, like a dark black shadow against the eastern stars, loomed a Barrow-wight that was teaching the hobbit Adûnaic.

---

You can read ahead on Patreon (karmicacumen), Ko-fi (karmicacumen) and Subscribestar (karmic-acumen), along with the advance chapters for Understanding Does Not Presage Peace, The Unified Theorem, and Reset the Universe.

The response I get for this one will decide if this becomes the third monthly updated story, or if I go back to Reset. Alternatively, I might cycle through my other stories on hiatus, as inspiration strikes.

 

[Anthak]

Oh damn, didn't expect this to update, well, ever.
Thanks for the chaper

 

[MrTopHatSmith]

Planning to chat with the dunadine rangers bilbo?

 

[Mastersgt]

Was that dog Courage the Cowardly Dog?

 

[Radek]

Took a while to refresh my memory, but yes, I recall this tale and hope for more of it.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

Was that dog Courage the Cowardly Dog?

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That would make it a crossover.

Of course, whether or not it's a reference will depend on whether or not it's emphasized in the future.

 

[GetTheFire]

I'm so much happier reading this than I'd ever have thought I'd be. Thank you for your work. These last few chapters have been wonderful and I can't wait to continue reading till I'm caught up.

 

[Allies118]

WHY HAVE I ONLY FOUND THIS FIC NOW WAS IT NOT LISTED BEFORE?

 

[Karmic Acumen]

WHY HAVE I ONLY FOUND THIS FIC NOW WAS IT NOT LISTED BEFORE?

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It's been here for a year and a half, and other places (like FF.net) for a lot longer. Alas, the non-horny part of this website is dead.

 

[Allies118]

It's been here for a year and a half, and other places (like FF.net) for a lot longer. Alas, the non-horny part of this website is dead.

Click to shrink...

I noticed your other fics in your link but ive never see this one before its pretty good so far i must be blind

 

[Karmic Acumen]

I noticed your other fics in your link but ive never see this one before its pretty good so far i must be blind

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Well... better late than never?