Chapter 18: The Free Peoples (II)
"I don't suppose you'll say where you're taking me now?" Nori asked later, after having left the fearsome fivesome tied to the pantry door by their own suspenders and under guard by the valorous Knight of Flowers Adelard Took, and his squire Paladin the Damselsome.
"I am hardly taking you anywhere. Where you go is entirely your own decision." Thus answered, the hobbit abruptly veered off the path leading away from the Great Smials, jumped over the fence onto the pasture of someone or other and all but ran up the hill.
As he hastened to follow, Nori almost brought up how the hobbit came to personally tell him he'd be leaving soon, but he stopped himself when he realized that Bilbo Baggins really hadn't phrased it like he was supposed to come along, no matter what it could and did sound like. He switched tracks then. "I guess this is an attitude you instill in your children too, then?" Which was another way of asking: Is that why you let the little ones stay up so late into the night and roughhouse unsupervised?
Or apparently unsupervised, which didn't necessarily mean much given recent events, Nori supposed.
"No matter the race, children are infamous for being prone towards the things they are least allowed." The hobbit didn't seem to leave any trail in the high grass, somehow.
"That doesn't exactly explain why those little ones were up at this hour," Nori huffed after him, keeping pace easily.
"You mean besides it being pre-adventure day? It's a phase. Children don't do well with what they're told, so we wean them off bad habits through experience instead, mainly by having them do chores at specific hours regardless of how tired they are. Farming requires a very specific routine you know, and you're soon cured of the want to stay up late once you've been forced to get up with the dawn for a week or two straight. As for safety, there's always a tween or adult keeping an eye on things. Some of us are night owls you know, and with how large families are, it's not hard to have someone always on the lookout, and the Tooks are the line for whom that's something especially true. Incidentally, it's those very people who generally instill the appreciation of proper bedtimes in faunts. They're the ones who end up cranky and tired enough to ignore the doe-eyed or alternatively grating whining of the children while they herd them through their chores and whatnot later on."
Nori snorted. Incidentally his rump. "And the noise they make doesn't ruin sleep for everyone else?" The mini-hobbits had been loud enough to shake the rafters.
Bilbo snorted and jumped forward, sliding down the slope on his back all the way to the base of the hill. Nori decided to tromp down in a more reasonable manner, but to his surprise the hobbit then continued the conversation as if it hadn't been put on hold at all. "Aunt Dilwen snores louder than that – ask my Uncle if you don't believe me – and parents inevitably learn not to let most noises bother them after a while. Fear, panic and crying sound differently enough that we can react differently if it comes down to it, but as I said, the older tweens or other members of a family always make sure one of them is up and about, so it usually doesn't come down to it. Most hurts in the end are caused by bullies, and that's a recurring problem we haven't found a perfect solution for."
You and everyone else on Arda, but that wasn't the point. "Sounds a tad bothersome and unbelievable if you ask me."
"If we can sleep through thunderstorms, we can suffer merriment from our own."
Nice sentiment, but did thunder even carry that well underground?
"So where are we going in such a hurry?" Norri puffed as Bilbo led him into a thicket.
"Dragoncreek," the hobbit answered as he sprung up the forested slope.
Dragoncreek, it turned out, was a clean, clear, merry, but ultimately very shallow little forest creek indeed. Also, Bilbo Baggins turned out not to be heading to the creek itself, instead veering north the moment it came into view and sprinting upstream. Nori was panting by the time they reached what turned out to be a small pond, having had to put all the speed he could to cope with varied unexpected obstacles and keep the hobbit in sight, then rush through and over some gnarly moss-covered roots and even hop over a fallen oak before the water lily pond came into view.
It was just moments after Bilbo Baggins slid to a halt on the grassy soil that the pond's surface was disturbed, the water splashing up and out due to the sudden emergence of a bird that was quick, tiny and oh so familiar.
"Haha!" Bilbo Baggins crowed victoriously. "I got here first!"
The bird alighted on his nose and puffed its chest so much that Nori half-feared it would burst. Then it engaged Bilbo Baggins in a conversation that was a lot less one-sided than it should have been.
Nori could only stand awkwardly and stare at the odd spectacle.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry for ignoring you!" The hobbit eventually turned to Nori and gestured between him and the bird that flew to perch on his index finger. "Nori, son of Bori, be known to Záyn."
Za-een? What kind of name was that? Nori squinted at the small bird. For that matter… "I don't recognize this type of bird. I know hummingbirds and even they're not this small, and they're not bright scarlet either."
Bilbo Baggins looked wistful and ponderous for a moment, like some weighty mood had come over him suddenly. "He's a kirinki." Then he blinked and the illusion was gone. "You wouldn't have seen his type anywhere else."
"If you say so…" Nori frowned and the bird seemed to puff its feathers even more, indignant at having its uniqueness contested so.
"Now don't you start!" the hobbit scolded… Záyn. "He's my guest, I'll have you know! And he's certainly spent more time with me the past day than you have in the last month so I'll thank you to behave!"
The bird chirped something at him, or it must have but it didn't sound like any bird speech he'd ever heard.
"Ignore him," the hobbit said dryly as he set off into the night again. "He's just being vain."
"Right," Nori said dubiously as he matched the hobbit's step while eyeing the tiny, fluffy ball of pique.
The bird chirped, offended, then jumped to Bilbo's shoulder and turned its head snootily away.
"See what I have to work with?" Bilbo complained.
"I'm not sure what I'm seeing," Nori admitted, having by now decided that it was pointless to treat this particular hobbit like a normal, sane person. "Though I've definitely seen less biddable pets."
The outraged squawk that engendered did not have its place coming out of something so small and dainty.
"Well I never!" Bilbo balked, affronted. "Záyn, a mere pet!"
The dwarf blinked, wide-eyed. "Well what is he then?"
"He's my most faithful traveling companion I'll have you know!" The bird puffed its chest proudly, it did that a lot, Nori was starting to realize. "Well…" Bilbo faltered and huffed.
The bird suddenly deflated and hid its head under a wing.
Okay, Nori's hunch was telling him this was way too interesting to leave unasked, even if this was just another one of Bilbo Baggins' 'performances.' "Dare I ask?"
"Oh, you're probably better off not asking." But as was so very often the case with these things, Bilbo Baggins proceeded to explain why Nori was better off not knowing about his woes by telling him all about his woes. "The truth is that Zayn was supposed to be my faithful traveling companion, but that never ended up happening! Instead, he's my traveling companion only on those few, preposterously rare days when he is not too busy averting the otherwise certain demise of the singular bane to almost every one of my adventures to date!"
"Er…"
"I had the first time all planned out! Go off on an adventure, have everyone think I've gone mad – I'm the Baggins of Bag End you know, going off on an adventure was a terribly unrespectable thing to do, never mind that I ensured all my rents and businesses were seen to! – and then come back months later with great gifts and even greater ways to farm. I'd have been the darling of all Four Farthings, mark my words! The Shire had only just finished recovering from the Fell Winter you know. Even the most private of hobbits would have been open to anything that could help avoid the starvation that happened then." Fell Winter? That was over twenty years ago! "The walking holiday through the Shire went without a hitch, and I even spent a fair bit of time in the forest house of my foster father. Almost no one else ever visits him, can you imagine? It's unconscionable! Then I just had to set off for where I knew lived some people I thought might have ideas for improving the quality of the earth round these parts, tall order as it might have been considering how lush the Shire already was. It was the perfect plan, but no! Not a day after I left the forest, I get co-opted by the most infuriatingly unlucky individual alive! And he didn't even have the courtesy of doing it in person! I instead had to hear about it second-hand!" Bilbo rounded on the dwarf then, scandalized. "I just wanted a sack of dirt! Was that so much to ask!?"
Nori reared back, wide-eyed, and he heard about what now?
But Bilbo Baggins whirled back around and continued to stomp along in that bizarrely noiseless way of his, the bird on his shoulder falling with a yap and flitting over to perch on Nori's head where it was safe. "Instead, I leave my foster Father's home and don't even get a day's peace before Záyn comes upon a man wandering the forest delirious with some pestilence or other. I figured alright, I'm nearby and I do know some healing, surely I couldn't just ignore such a plight. Ha! Before I know it I'm racing all the way to the foot of the Misty Mountains desperately trying to locate Imladris! Because apparently the Dark Plague was not bad enough the first time around!"
The Dark Plague!?
That's…
Oh. He was making this up, wasn't he?
"On my second trip I decided to try my luck in the opposite direction. So after going on my walking holiday and visiting with my foster father, I went south and planned to eventually turn west until I reached the Blue Mountains. I had some steel minutiae I needed crafted so I figured I'd go to the experts in such things, and who better than the dwarves?" That, at least, made perfect sense for once, and wasn't completely implausible like the previous story. "Instead, I barely make it out of my father's woods when Záyn flutters over to inform me that a band of miscreants were setting up an ambush for an intrepid long-legged trio. And who else would be accompanying the twin brothers who came to help me with my long-delayed soil project? Why, the same hapless man of two years before of course! Being the bleeding heart that I am, I just couldn't let that stand! Long story short, the band of ugly miscreants got their ambush but Záyn managed to convince the man's horse to rear back at the right time. Amazing what you can accomplish with a well-timed beak to the eye, I must say. A masterstroke is what it was in my all too humble opinion. Unfortunately, that meant that the arrow that would have taken the man in his eye wound up going through his left lung instead."
Nori stood corrected. This wasn't all that much more plausible than the previous story, and the clearly deliberate lack of specifics was a dead giveaway on top of all else.
"In the aftermath, the twins proved to be even better at healing than they were at gardening, but that only meant that the man got to repeat his earlier feat of wandering deliriously through the wilderness. The only differences were that I wasn't the only one leading him around this time, and one of the twins took it upon himself to ride to their father's house instead of me having to do it again." Who were these people? "Not that it made much of a difference to me otherwise. I still ended up scrapping my itinerary and traveling for days and days in the opposite direction from where I was supposed to be going!"
Nori reconsidered. Bilbo Baggins wasn't making this up. It was too detailed despite the suspicious lack of names and the like. That could only mean he must have made it up at some prior point and put time into refining the story for times like this.
"Third time around I decide to go to my foster Father's for a while again but then take a more circuitous route around the Shire before actually starting on my destination in the Blue Mountains, just in case something came up again. It really seemed like nothing would go wrong, but just as I decided to finally head off and passed Sarn Ford, I learned the reason why I hadn't heard or seen anything of that ill-starred man. It was also at that point I decided to leave Záyn on permanent watch over him, seeing as he clearly needed a minder. Apparently, his two-year-old son was on death's door due to a terrible fever and his wife wasn't much better, so he'd left to get help from his uncle many-times removed who was a healer of no small skill. I wound up spending a week tending and singing to the boy and his mother while waiting for him to return with help. Then I had to travel with them – the lad had a strong and insistent toddler grip – to the uncle's home and stayed there for months on end helping, learning, and teaching the residents how to build a proper smial when all was said and done. Because apparently they wanted me to have as many reasons as possible to return and spend time playing my instruments there." Bilbo sighed heavily, and the bird flew to chirp next to his ear, drawing a small, exasperated smile from the hobbit. "I know, I don't really begrudge any of them, don't you worry." Seeming reassured, the bird flew back to perch on Nori's head again.
As Bilbo visibly forced the gloom to leave his mood, Nori wondered if maybe it wasn't too soon to dismiss everything as tall tales.
Then Bilbo opened his mouth again and Nori swung right back into skepticism.
"Fourth time around I was meaning to maybe, finally reach the Blue Mountains, but I didn't even make it out the door of my foster Father's home before Záyn showed up to tell me that hopeless man was in a right pickle again, because of course he was. Somehow he'd once again managed to end up wandering alone through the wilderness, despite the people he had with him that were there to prevent exactly that. The bigger and uglier friends of the prior years' raskals – and their mangy mutts – scattered them to the four winds, apparently. If I didn't know about Men being born without destiny I'd almost believe Fate had a personal grudge against him for not dying back during the first time we met! I swear, that man has to be the unluckiest sod that ever walked Middle Earth. Only Túrin Turambar suffered worse, and it took a personal curse by Morgoth to make that happen!"
Nori, son of Bori, was hard-pressed not to gape at the sheer audacity of what he was hearing. What was it that Ori said, about when things like this happened? Something about disbelief breaking its suspenders?
"So instead of going to Ered Luin as I was supposed to, I end up spending two miserable weeks skulking alongside the man through the Weather Hills and beyond, dodging miscreants. All the while we were sending warning after warning and plea after plea for help to practically everyone he knew between the Brandwywine and Loudwater. The whole jumble ended with a truly uncivilized free-for-all south of the Trollshaws, incidentally hundreds of leagues precisely opposite from where I'd originally meant to go, naturally." The hobbit's put-upon sigh was among the most expressive Nori had ever witnessed, he'd give him that much. "Well, I have to say at that point I was quite done with all that nonsense, thank you very much! The moment I was no longer needed, I chose a direction at random and made myself scarce! Things happened and I wound up a bit further south than I ever intended before I finally decided to try one last time to reach Ered Luin – which I did manage, finally, if only after weeks on horseback – but not before I came upon and spent a while teaching some folk how to tend wounds, herbal lore, agriculture and the glories of basic hygiene. Oh and letters, can't forget those." Bilbo turned to Nori then, exasperated. "None of them could even read before I got there, can you imagine?"
As Bilbo turned ahead again, Nori stared at him blankly, wondering why the hobbit was so surprised. Literacy wasn't close to universally widespread among civilized men, let alone whatever wild folk he'd met, assuming this wasn't all just tall tales like he thought. Actually, last Nori heard, literacy wasn't universal among hobbits either. Hell, there were plenty of dwarves who never picked up their letters and numbers, especially among the miners.
"Well I learned my lesson!" Bilbo proclaimed loftily. "Before I even left Bag End the fifth time, I corresponded with the man's many times removed uncle to see if he'd house him and his family during the time I intended to travel. He agreed, meaning that at long, wonderful last, I could go on my holiday without interruptions! It was glorious!" The hobbit sighed in bliss. "Well, the way there was glorious. I traveled precisely as far as I wanted and visited some really interested places, even got to connect with the folk my mother helped on her own adventure so long ago! I deliberately steered clear of the haunted wood though, at least on the way there. I'd had too many derailed adventures to invite trouble on my own, no thank you!" Haunted wood? Did he mean the Old Forest? It was supposed to be inhabited by evil spirits, if there was any stock to be placed in Breelanders' tales. That suggested he didn't travel far at all, though, didn't it? "There were some close brushes with ruffians and some truly unpleasant and ugly brutes – and their surly mutts, it's always surly mutts with those types – but Záyn was with me for once and provided all the scouting and distraction I needed. Long story short, I visited new places, met interesting people, and eventually reached the final point in my journey successfully. Taras Fána, the grandest mannish settlement I've ever seen." Tarasfana? Was the hobbit deliberately trying to make him disbelieve everything he was saying? There was no mannish settlement called Tarasfana that Nori had ever heard of. Especially not one that would serve as an endpoint in a pre-planned journey, or it would at least have been on a map. He may not be as learned as Ori but he knew that much at least. "Spent some of the most interesting days of my life there, the people low and high were quite appreciative of far off news and proper music. They were even more than willing to share their own! If only that had held out on the way back." This time the sigh was entirely despondent.
"And what happened on the way back?" Because the hobbit was obviously waiting for it.
"Oh, some man who fancied himself worthier than the rest for being highborn was thinking to enrich himself off a forest that didn't belong to him, is what. He was spreading rumors about the real owner being a thief, child snatcher and cannibal. The very idea! Ghân-buri-Ghân was a perfectly pleasant individual, thank you very much, with an exquisitely traditional taste in clothing and an even more exquisite taste in food, and I have the Shire's newest and meatiest species of mushrooms to prove it!"
Nori blinked owlishly at the aggravation that was pouring out from the little creature alongside him.
"By the time I helped sort out that little misunderstanding – the public outcry was quite large for something that ultimately resulted from a small idea of an even smaller mind – It was clear that events were still conspiring to toss aggravating situations my way. Being completely out of patience with mannish ridiculousness, however, I decided – rashly in hindsight – on a detour through the haunted forest I'd avoided before. I figured that if I tried to avoid it again, I'd inevitably get dragged into it for some reason or other regardless of whether I wanted it or not. And at least that way it would just be animals and birds I'd have to watch out for, or so I thought. In the end it wasn't nearly so simple, but things eventually turned out alright. I only had to put my foot down once – I am perfectly fine with my current height, thank you, have a lovely day – before I emerged from what turned out to be a most lovely forest, if a bit close together in places. One of these days I might even figure out how to gentle the huorns east of Buckland, assuming I don't die somewhere or other before I figure out how."
Mahal wept! The stories were getting confusing and beyond unbelievable, and what did huorns have to do with anything? They didn't exist. How could that escape a self-proclaimed adventurer? Whatever caused the legends of angry, living trees were actually acts of elves. Everyone knew that!
"Well…" Nori cleared his throat, desperately looking for something to say. "Sounds like a right mess."
"Oh it was!" Bilbo agreed wholeheartedly. "Why, it was a miracle that I finally got to go on an adventure at all! If something had still managed to derail all my travel plans, I would have given the whole idea of pre-planned routes up as a bad job. I instead would have stayed at home until word of some impending disaster or other pulled me out the door. Then, at least, there would be no routes aforethought and itineraries going to waste." Bilbo then gave him a long, pensive look. "Of course, I suppose now I'm suffering for it, since the world seems to be taking its revenge, no offense."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well I would think it quite obvious," Bilbo said with raised eyebrows. "Rather than get word of some crisis or other, I got a Matter of Great Importance shoved right through my front door, didn't I?"
Nori had nothing to say to that.
It was around half an hour later, right about the time when Nori figured dawn was about to break, that they emerged from the forest on top of what seemed to be the biggest of Hobbiton's hills, Bag End notwithstanding. Or was it Under the Hill? The wind picked up but the night wasn't chilly despite that, and the Shire stretched out before them. What surprised Nori was not that they'd made such good time, but the fact that many of the hobbit-holes already had light coming out through their windows.
He asked about that while turning back to Bilbo Baggins, only to stiffen and only barely hold back a yelp at the sight of a second hobbit standing next to his host.
"Thank you, cousin," Bilbo told his kinsman while accepting the fiddle he was being handed. "And to answer your question Master Nori, hobbits wake with the dawn so as to have enough time for first breakfast before going out to tend to the animals and other early chores."
The dwarf barely registered the answer, focused as he was on controlling his heartbeat and looking around to see if any more hobbits would be coming out of… wherever they were coming out of.
The answer to that, as it happened, was yes. They emerged from all over as Bilbo Baggins whistled a long, lingering note. They emerged from the tall grass, behind trees and, in one case, through a grass-concealed hole in the top of the hill just a dozen feet away from them. Were they standing on top of a home? All throughout, Bilbo Baggins whistled a second tune, then a third, then another until he sounded a full set of seven.
Then he tucked the fiddle beneath his chin and, rather than strum the string with his bow from the get go, instead began a slow, meandering song by plucking at the cords.
Three minutes later the dwarf imagined that the breeze might carry him off, so light the world felt around him, and the blend of plucked cords and soft arias carried with him like it would be burned in his mind for the rest of his life, even as the echoes of musical notes felt comfortably cool on his skin and in the air of his lungs, almost rapturous somehow.
Soon after, despite how absurd it sounded even in the privacy of his mind, the notion struck Nori that everything that had happened that night – the trip he was invited on, the meeting, the children's game, even the trip back to Hobbiton and Bag End – had all been steps building up to this. To Nori being given to experience what he'd missed the night before. What had left the company and his brothers in particular more at ease and actually content, in better humor than they'd been in years.
The next short while was quick and almost rushed in comparison, the hobbits exchanging quick words and updates and plans, and Nori found himself being handed over – handed over like some stray dwarfling – into Adalgrim Took's keeping because Bilbo Baggins wouldn't be traveling with the rest of the dwarves and Hobbiton hobbits and wait just a damned minute!
"Yes, Master Nori?"
Apparently, he'd blurted that last part out loud.
On demanding an explanation, he was summarily informed by Adalgrim Took that Bilbo Baggins had decided to go ahead and detour west through Michel Delving, then southwest through Sackville to make sure everyone that needed to come knew the what, where and how, before reuniting with the rest of the party goers in Starfield. "I'll help guide you lot to where you need to go in the meanwhile." The hobbit said cheerfully. And it had to be Adalgrim Took explaining all of that to him because Bilbo Baggins had already left. "If nothing else, it'll let me learn about the dwarf that managed to charm my little Paladin!"
"Wait… wait just a mo!" Nori hollered, his realization that he was talking to Paladin Took's father being left to hang off the edge of his mind in his charge after Bilbo.
"Well now!" Adalgrim Took griped in his wake. "Never in all my years-!"
"Stop already!" Nori shouted, finally causing Bilbo to turn back and face him with a look that was actually surprised enough as to maybe be genuine. Maybe. A little bit.
"Yes, master Nori?" The hobbit said pleasantly enough. "What is it?"
It was only then that the dwarf realized he had no idea why he'd called for him to stop.
"Because I'm sure Adalgrim knows everything needed to assist with whatever you-"
"Why?"
"Eh?" Bilbo blinked, shifting his weight and peering up at him. "Why what?"
And maybe he did know why he'd called for him to stop. "Why all this?" Nori gestured at… everything. "The wake-up, the lecture, the trip… You showed me… You brought me to speak with your Ki- your Thain even! I didn't even sign any contracts!" The dwarf gestured more aggressively with each word, unknown misgivings making themselves obvious at last despite his inability to speak them properly. "Why did you bring me with you for this? Why show me all this?"
"Why not?"
"Just answer my question! Why all this?" But Bilbo Baggins just peered up at him with in oddly expectant way, as if he didn't think any of those questions made any sense and Nori should go ahead and figure out what he really wanted to know. The hobbit just stood there, waiting until… "Why me?"
"Why not you?"
"Don't give me that!" Nori snapped, his patience fully spent after everything. "Not after everything that happened yesterday." The dwarf scowled, trying to impress on the small creature why he should stop being deliberately obtuse. Trying and failing, until Nori just... just sagged with a defeated sigh. "I suppose I shouldn't have thought to demand a straight answer. Not when I'm the one out of us lot that gave you the biggest insult."
And against all rhyme and reason, Bilbo Baggins snorted, then burst into the freest, loudest, most helpless belly laugh Nori had only ever seen in Glon's precocious son that one time. Then he just kept laughing and laughing, reminding Nori of the bout of hysterics he himself had suffered mere hours before.
"Ahahaha!" Finally, Bilbo Baggins managed to right himself, wipe his tears and exhaust himself enough to speak to him. The little creature grinned up at the dwarf, still overcome by some hilarity only he could understand. "Oh Master Nori. That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard from you and yours since you came! I knew you were the most prejudiced against me and hobbits in general, even if you don't have the bluntness and status-inspired arrogance to show it openly, unlike some dwarrow, but really!" Excuse me!? "You didn't feel entirely comfortable anywhere in my home. I thought that the way you enjoyed yourself back there with the faunts meant you were finally loosening up, but I see that is not the case. The one who provided the greatest insult indeed! Ha!" Without further word, the hobbit turned away and walked off.
And Nori, bewildered and not a little peeved, let him.
It was just as he was about to respond to Adalgrim's Took calls to be off that Bilbo Baggins addressed him one last time, though he did not turn around again. "You overthink things, Master Nori, entirely too much!" The hobbit raised a hand in farewell as he disappeared down the path. "And for your information, the one in your company that inflicted upon me the greatest insult was Balin."
Say what!?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Karmic_Acumen
Karmic_Acumen Tarasfana = Quenya for White City: taras (city, fort, fortress, tower) + Fána (white).
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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