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Chapter Text

“A typical mastery begins with a master, and an appret-Aprenl-apprentice, and a contract. In a narrow field with few masters however, one must forge their own way. The mastery I seek has few masters, and fewer to walk the path. Luckily, Spoons walks beside me, and while he seeks a different mastery to mine, our paths are mirrored to each other. I find myself enk-encere-encouraged therefore that I am able to take a record for any who walk this path in the coming days.”

—Excerpt from “The Thief's Key”, Volume One, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

The Shire had always been an odd place to Nori. He avoided it when he could, skirting its edges, or only going so far in as Bree. This was his fourth time passing the odd place and he could already tell that he’d wandered too far in. It felt so much bigger than its small notation on maps, placed there as if an afterthought. “This is a peaceful place, but boring, small, trading and insular peoples abound,” is what the maps all seemed to say. 

Nori called hogshit. He’d been wavering through this Mahal cursed valley for long enough that his side was bleeding. Again. He was out of bandages, he’d lost one of his boots to a rabbit hole and abandoned the other after, and he still could barely see through the snow flurries drifting in the air. 

This was not a small valley, and it was cursed. He knew it, felt it in his bones. He was losing his sanity to the rhythmic song pounding up through his feet and trembling out of his fingertips as he clutched his infected stab wound. 

Nori’s stone sense had always been good. Strong, detailed and precise, he’d worked for years to develop it that way to reach deep and far, and exact enough to feel locks and hidden things. He’d put a lot of time into building his stone sense to work off of the quiet tap of his fingers, as was ideal for a thief. 

He had never once been able to use his stone sense through his feet like a proper dwarf would, gaining awareness through footsteps and stomps. 

Cursed place. 

A door, circular and green, rose in his peripheral set into a hill, green and lush. Nori turned and staggered towards it through the biting wind and ever increasing snow. The gate he pushed through squealed on its hinges, shaking in the storm’s grasp. 

It clicked behind him, and the only reason Nori didn’t panic at the sound was because the height of it was beyond easy to jump. At least it would be when his feet were no longer frozen. 

When he figured out where he had lost his boots too, and gotten them back, as well, Nori thought dimly, and he stared in bewilderment at his rag clad feet. The twists and turns of the place left him doubtful that he’d retrace his steps at all. He… truly didn't know when those had left his feet, now, even if he remembered how. 

The song echoing through every step was louder along the garden past the gate and Nori felt a flash of pity for his neighbors in Ered Luin. Bombur’s stone sense may not have been the strongest, but Bofur and Bifur both had enough to make a priest of Mahal jealous. 

Most dwarrow listened with their feet, with kicks and stamps, the dwarrow with high levels of innate skill were able to sense details with a fist thump, as Bofur and Bifur could. Nori could not do either, with his feet or his fists, relying entirely on palm taps and his fingers. 

Bifur had taught him how to do so, gentle little finger taps to hear the details of the stone in the times between his headaches. Even injured in his head from the Great Battle, Bifur was clever and insightful. His inability to talk with his twisting tongue and tangled languages hadn’t lessened that, only meant that Nori learned his signs as well. 

Nori had liked Bifur as a pebble.

If theirs were anywhere near as overwhelmingly loud as this then Nori could spare every last bit of pity he could spare from past the melody drowning out his scattered thoughts. 

The Shire had always been an odd place, filled with odd people, and it had always called to Nori. Never this loudly though, and he rather regretted the shortcut through Bree. 

That round door loomed before him, easily clicking open at the moment he drew near, and there wasn’t a single creak of cold-shrunken wood, or frost dried hinges as he slipped through. The door, painted a soft blue on the other side of its verdant green, snicked shut again behind him. 

Nori leaned on the frame and breathed deeply. His side ached enough that he felt the pain of it thrumming behind his eyes, and still the song rattled up his toes and rang louder than the heartbeat in his ears, beckoning him further still. He stumbled down the hall, twisting down corridors at the melody’s behest even as he leaned on the wall for increasing support. 

The song calmed as he ducked into a room set beyond an alcove. There was no door, only a curtain across either end of the inset, but there was a dresser and a bed, and there were no windows. Nori tumbled onto the bed and slept. Hobbits were odd, but he could not imagine them a threat. 

Besides, he was tired and the song had quieted as lifted his feet from the floor. 

He slept deeply for a time before he woke, half aware in the way he would on the road when disturbed. He stiffened, just slightly, a tensing of his muscles to move if there was truly a threat. He’d woken for a thrush that was too close before, after all. 

He turned to find a hobbit staring at him from mere inches away. 

Nori jerked back, startled. The hobbit was strange, most were, but this one seemed almost like a far eastern Rhún dwarrow. Nori had only seen them once, from a distance, and the deep brown of its skin was deeper than even the darker of the menkind that Nori had met, his chestnut skin was topped by a wild crown of a deeper brackish brown, one that lightened to a rich gold where it curled around his ears. 

To contrast the hobbit’s darker countenance though, its blue eyes were piercingly bright. They were a mixture of the blue of the turquoise beads Nori had pinched from a Southern Harad trader once, and the deep azure of the coveted Erebor jewelry secreted away in their flight. 

He was pretty, in a way that Nori could not help but stare at as his breath caught. The hobbit smiled at him, a slow thing with too many sharp teeth and Nori’s frank admiration gave way to true alarm. 

One of the hobbit’s ears twitched downwards and it lunged forward with a motion too fast for Nori’s addled mind. A cloth wet with something that smelled sharp and stung his nose was pressed to his face. 

Nori’s last thought as he fell to sleep’s grasp once more was the thought that the predator’s teeth suited the hobbit well, surprisingly so for a supposedly peaceful, insular folk. 

Nori woke up with a start. His mind was clearer of the pain that had been so present before, but a muzzy feeling remained, a telltale of a drugged slumber. He was alone though, so he took a moment to assess. He wasn’t in his leathers anymore, nor did his side ache so badly of infection. 

Nori jerked himself up and tugged and pulled at the long cotton shift he was wearing until it was bunched under his arms. There were indeed fresh bandages wrapped around his wound, with the distinctive lumping of poulticed packing underneath them. The blade that had caused the injury had been rusted, and without supplies as he had been, infection had fast set in. 

He’d resigned himself to dying where his brothers would never have known, without honors or a prayer to bear him to Mahal. 

Now though, the red was gone, and the inflamed heat was much lessened. If Nori pressed he could feel the faint tug of fresh, neat stitchwork. The pain was there, but dull in the face of the chill of the poultice. 

Nori dropped his shirt hem and shuffled until it covered the short cotton leggings that he did not recall in the least. Someone had not only removed his leathers to dress his wound, but sponge bathed him too while he slept. It was disquieting. Still Nori swung his feet to the floor and repressed a shudder at the smug tones of a song he could only barely hear as it pressed like a cat up through his toes once more. 

“The Shire likes you,” came from the doorway in a soft, cultured voice, and Nori looked up sharply, his loose hair swinging. The pretty hobbit from earlier stood there, hip propped on the edge of the alcove into the room, half hid by a curtain. 

Nori strained and could still not hear his breath. He wondered idly if the hobbit were a lad, or a lass. The shorn hair tickling the bottoms of his ears followed no convention Nori knew of, but he’d never walked amongst the Shriefolk as he had other races. 

“I don’t know what that means,” Nori rasped back, honestly. His throat was raw and dry, and the hobbit made an amused sound at him, akin to a purr. 

“There’s a pitcher of water and a cup on the table for you. It has yard lettuce in it, and will aid your pain,” they said, and Nori reached cautiously for the wood pitcher indicated, “I’m Bilbo, of the Baggins Clan, head once I reach majority.” 

That in fact clarified nearly none of the questions Nori had, save that of name. He doubted that Hobbits counted Clans in the same way as dwarrow, as a mark of common kin, by choice more than blood.

Still, Nori offered as close as a smile as he could back, “Well met. I am Nori, son of Vori.” 

Bilbo hummed and ducked past the curtain to walk towards Nori. He walks oddly, a sort of dance step, and as Nori presses his toes to the floor he realizes that the hobbit is matching his steps to the rhythm of the song in the ground. Bilbo stops with a bare handspan between them, with his nose an inch from Nori’s. 

“Would you like to know?” He asks, and there’s an undertone to the question that makes something deep in Nori shake with something just to the left of fear. Even so, the song still pressing through the gentle pressure of his toes on the floor is smug and wild and encouraging. 

It’s intoxicating. 

Nori doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to, but he nods anyway, his brown eyes holding the hobbit’s strangely feylike blue stare. 

Bilbo grins again, wide and exactly as full of teeth as the last time, but edged at the corners with shy nervousness. Then he twists to wander back through the curtain in the same dancing gait. Nori scrambled to follow him, stepping gingerly around the sour notes and the hums of the Song. 

They took a twisting path, and Nori compared the length of the hall with his dim, pain edged, memory of a hill set door. They weren’t moving up or down, and yet they had quite a distance indeed. Still, they passed a great many rooms, all set into alcoves that seemed grown out of the walls themselves with ornately painted and carved wooden frames. Some had curtains, many were simply alcoves that he could peer into the room beyond easily, and three were fitted with locks. 

They were big brass things, those locks, and his first glance told him they’d be easy to pick. His second glance had him hesitant, as the song moaned warningly up to his knees. Even if he could, he thought this might not be a place to consider all the same. 

Bilbo slowed when they had reached what was unmistakably a kitchen, even as alien to the stone constructions of utilitarian use of the dwarrow. Nori liked it better, it was homey. Small shafts of light filtered in through twisting glass constructions set in the walls and the ceiling, sending sunbeams to twist through the myriads of hanging plants. 

The warm browns of the wooden furniture were fitting to the soft greens of the cushions set about on chairs and benches, and one stray tasseled thing on the counter beside a book. 

It was that bedraggled cushion that Bilbo hopped up to perch on, a faded green thing, the pattern lost to the wear of steady use and the tassels tangled and ragged. Bilbo simply hummed slightly and ran his fingers through the hanging plants, baskets of growing things and dried sprigs alike. 

To a teapot on his lap he’d add a leaf of this, a flower plucked from that, and a few dried berries from another thing entirely. Then he hopped back down again to hang it by the fire to steep. It was a casual thing, but done with such skill and knowledge that Nori longed to bring Dori here to watch for himself.

His fussy older brother loved showmanship of skill dearly, but had little flair of his own, slipping into quiet proofs, complicated braids and support, for himself. This was something his brother could learn that would be ever so interesting to him, but he knew both that Dori would never leave Ered Luin, not without Ori nor without an assurance of his beloved tea shop’s care. 

He would also not leave his pride. Dori might deign to learn from a halfling, but only if the halfling went to him. 

“The Shire is aware, as all of Arda is, but it is more awake than most places,” Bilbo said as he peered at the tea, “Hobbits help to keep the Song, but that means we listen to it as well. All of it. The Shire led you here, and It hasn’t stopped cooing since. It likes you.” 

Nori wasn’t sure how to react to that. The statement didn’t seem wrong, necessarily, the Great Song of Arda was a well known myth, and Dwarrow still revered Mahal’s place in it. And the hum beneath his bare toes was still smug, like a cat that had dragged home a kill. 

He accepted a cup of tea, steaming from a crude clay mug delicately painted in whorls of vines, as he mulled it over. It was magnificent tea. He still missed Dori’s tea though, the hearty stuff sometimes thickened with goat’s butter. 

“Right,” he said as he set the empty cup down gently, “Right. I’m not sure that actually makes sense, but I suppose it has little bearing. Thank you for bandaging my wound, I think I should head home now.”

“No, you shouldn’t. Nor will you.” The hobbit answered with a flash of teeth as he bit into a cookie from a jar on the counter. It was a wooden monstrosity shaped like some mashed semblance of either a bullfrog or a troll. Nori glared at the jar instead of the pretty hobbit. 

Then he turned on his heel and strode for the door, following the sour notes of displeasure now, as he found his way to the blue painted wooden circle. Even now the song was urging him back, whining like a petulant child through the sound of faint, out of tune, trumpets. 

Nori wrenched the door open and immediately slammed it shut again.

He stared at the slush melting on his feet and shivered hard. He couldn’t see past the blank white of the storm, but the biting wind and ice crystals that had cut at his cheeks for even that moment told plenty. He was trapped. 

Nori stepped back out of the melting snow and shuddered. 

“I told you. The Shire has been singing about winter storms for weeks. It had been so guilty when we missed her warnings about the Fell Winter that It’s been deafening this year. We’ll be snowed in for weeks, and it’ll still be months until the big roads are thawed.” 

Nori turned to look at the hobbit who had trailed after him clutching a lopsided mug of tea, and resplendent in a patchwork housecoat that looked as if it had been pieced together from three others before it. 

He remembered that winter, the Fell one. It had been Nori’s first trip southward and he’d missed most of the effects as a result. He’d come back on roads that had lost ground to snowmelt, past trees bent under the weight of ice, long since gone, and through villages filled with hollow faces and hungry eyes. 

Ered Luin had been little better, and he’d been greeted by Dori, who had been so terrified that Nori had starved or frozen to death that he’d started sobbing the moment Nori had let himself in the window. Dori had clutched Nori tight, crushed against his chest like a pebble, in an embrace he’d not had since his Amad were still alive. 

Ori had been scared as well, thin and gaunt in a way that Dori and Nori had always taken great care to prevent before, in the way that Dori and Nori had grown up being. Dori more so for being the oldest and distributing the food, but Nori had always made a habit of sneaking food onto his brother’s plates, and had been in and out of holding cells besides. 

Ori’s first question on his return that spring had been to ask after whether Nori was alright, rather than asking after what Nori had brought him, as had been his  habit prior. His voice had rasped so badly through a lingering cold cough that Nori hadn’t been able to answer through his outright fear over missing the fact that he could have lost his brothers to something he cold never have defended them from. 

He would never have known either, not as far away as he’d been. He’d have come back to a pair of pauper’s graves. 

Nori never wanted to leave them to worry like that, and had tried to make it back for winters since. He could not make it through for this one. He knew that very well, and he stared hard at the hobbit in mute, terrified, frustration, even as he bit his tongue to hold back frustrated tears. 

“I’m Winter court,” Bilbo said, and Nori wondered if he was supposed to know what that meant, “I read the signs before the Spring court and Summer court, I and my kin. All the Smials and families stocked more than a surplus. We have enough to last comfortably into the growing season. Travel is limited, is all. There’s food aplenty. What we didn’t need we sent out. The Men heeded the signs, stocked up. Most of the extra food went to the mountains.” 

Nori released a trembling breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. There was still a good chance that the nobs would hoard the food, but without a true scarcity then there would be more available. Nori could only feel relieved that his brothers would eat, even if it were scraps from the nobles’ pickings. 

Nori nodded. The hobbit wandered back down the corridor and Nori followed him without a second thought. All the way back to the kitchen to fix a plate of food, cheeses and fruits, dried and fresh alike, a treat that Nori had never been able to afford and only occasionally stolen. 

Then the hobbit had taken up a loaf of bread and savagely torn off two hunks, instead of cutting it. Nori’s eyes wandered to the knife block where the hobbit had pulled from to cut the fruit. The rivets on the bread knife’s handle were dull, but unmistakable. The hobbit tore another hunk off and began buttering them. 

“There’s a bread knife?” He asked with as much hesitation as he’d ever had. Surely there was a reason that Bilbo wasn’t using it, but Nori was a thief not a smith, he wouldn’t know by the handle. 

“It’s dull.” The hobbit breathed out, a sad, lonesome sound, though Nori couldn’t understand why, “My parents would have taught me the trick to sharpening the ridges when I came of age, but they died in the Fell winter. I never learned, and now it’s dull.” 

“I could teach you?” Nori offered, “Any dwarrow can sharpen a knife, e’en one with serration. Doesn’t take a smith, that.” 

Bilbo appraised him, and nodded, pulling the knife from its block to toss him, handle first. It was sheathed in a thin leather wrap and Nori unwrapped it to reveal a bread knife that was not only dull but chipped and slightly twisted. 

“Ah,” Nori muttered, “Or perhaps it does.” 

“I threw it. It got stuck in a wall beam and I didn’t have the strength to pull it out for another two winters.” Bilbo hunched his shoulders inward, “I was mad. I got it out last spring when I wasn’t mad at Mam and Da for dying anymore.” 

Nori hummed and set down the knife gently on the counter to offer the common dwarrow condolences, “I grieve with you. May Mahal’s stones weep for your loss, and your foundation hold steady all the same.” 

Bilbo looked at him, those gem blue eyes only barely holding back tears, “Thank you. I- thank you. My relatives have barely offered that much, and never so pretty.” 

Nori idly wondered just how old Bilbo was. Still he nibbled on a buttered hunk of bread, ate cheese better than he’d ever tasted, and savored the cut peach and handful of berries interspersed with dried grapes. 

Then the hobbit wandered off again and Nori followed for a lack of anything else to do. They went down another twisting hall through a door at the back of the room, and came to a parlor, or perhaps more appropriately a den. It was cozy, overlarge for two people, but so stuffed full with armchairs, blankets, cushions, and bookshelves overflowing with both books and trinkets that it was homey regardless of the size. 

A fireplace crackled merrily, big with wood stacked by it, and warming the whole of the room easily. Ceramic tubes lifted from the top of the fireplace and led off in every direction along the ceiling and through the tops of the archways that dotted the edges of the room. Bilbo beelined for a nest of cushions and blankets by the fire and wriggled his way in before he picked up a book. 

He was in the perfect spot for one of those odd glass filled tunnels to beam a thin winter sunlight where he sat. Nori shifted on his feet in the doorway and the little hobbit looked up, “Make yourself at home, it’ll be a long winter.” 

“Do you even know what you offer your home to?” Nori asked with an air of desperation. 

Bilbo looked up and appraised him, “Dwarrow. Thief, if the tools in your leathers are any indication. Why?” 

Nori made a strangled sound of assent, ”How would you know thieve’s tools?” 

“They look like my mother’s,” Bilbo said, “Though I only ever learned to pick locks from her.” 

Nori wasn’t sure how to process the fact that this odd, well to do, obviously wealthy, hobbit’s mother had apparently been a thief. He wasn’t sure how to process anything at the moment. He picked a chair near the fire and curled up. 

It was comfortable enough, and he watched the hobbit read for a while, before he was fidgeting slightly, and cold besides. His leathers and furs were much warmer than the cotton shifts he wore now, and he wasn’t sure where the hobbit had put his clothes, even if it was now obvious that they had been dug through. 

“You can read, you know. And use the blankets. I don’t think you’d mistreat the books, and the blankets are plentiful and warm.” 

Nori shrunk in on himself and grabbed a blanket from the basket beside the chair to tuck around himself. He refused to look at the hobbit. 

Nori had been born shortly before Erebor fell, a babe while they fled, his Amad cradling him close as she’d pulled Dori along as a pebble.   He’d grown up in the refugee caravans, playing rough with other pebbles, no toys or food to be found. When he’d been of an age to learn to read, Amad had been selling her nights to feed them, she’d had no coin for books, and less time. 

Then Amad had been carrying Ori and had no time for anything at all, and Dori had begun selling whatever he could make, fix, or take to get by, and none of them had any time at all. A sickness swept the camp, and Amad died, Dori had needed to cut Ori out of her, too small, and too quiet a cry. 

Nori had learned to steal properly then, not the subtle nicking and snitching that he’d learned from his desperate older brother, but properly planned out thefts. They’d needed a goat, feed for the goat, and coin for so much more. By the time that Dori was teaching an eager little Ori his letters, Nori had quite forgotten the few cirth runes he’d learned so long ago. 

Nori had to come to the realization that his brother and his Amad had forgotten to teach him, forgotten that he still couldn’t read. Ori loved it so much, and would bring his primers to show Nori, and Nori would steal him more words, and never could he read a one, only recognize the patterns if they were common. 

The street sign where Dori had eked out a tea shop they could live above in Ered Luin, the mannish runes for the Blue Mountains, merely to point it out on a map, and his brothers’ names. He couldn’t so much as recognize his own, but he knew Dori’s and Ori’s by heart. 

By the time he was an adult, a thief by trade and craft, he was the only dwarrow his age that couldn’t. Even kinless orphans were taught to read by friends or neighbors long before they were ever on their own. 

Bilbo watched him for a long moment, then sighed deeply and wiggled his way out of his blanket pile to leave the room. Nori felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes and he buried his face in the blanket to hide them. He breathed as deeply as he could, ignoring the traitorous hitching of his breaths. This had happened before, far too many a time. 

Someone, either by figuring it out, or by Nori’s own admittance, would find out. They’d call him a simpleton, a burden, stupid, useless. They’d assume he wouldn’t read because he was broken, never because of something so simple as never being taught. They’d leave. 

There would be a new slew of rumors in the Blue Mountains, about a lulkhâ kakhifi, an idiot, and Nori would make another throwaway name. No one abided a useless thief, they barely stood the ones that could read the values they were after. 

Bilbo came back eventually. He carried a basket of things, a slate board of all things was on top, and Nori couldn’t imagine why. It was too thin, too polished to be used for crafting, and leather wrapped at the edges besides. Then the hobbit was a whirlwind around the room as he dragged cushions and blankets, rearranging his nest to his liking, before he nestled back in with a soft, fussy sort of sigh. 

It was reminiscent of Dori, if Dori had ever been able to afford this sort of luxury as blankets even so soft as these. Bilbo looked up then and raised an eyebrow at Nori. 

“Well? Are you coming? I’ve taught a fair few of my cousins to read, and you do seem quite a bit cleverer than they,” Nori gaped at the smug hobbit, and buried his face in the blanket for a moment before he began to scramble up. The hobbit waved a hand dismissively behind Nori, “Do grab those stand lanterns, shall you? You won’t learn in a day, and the light will be ever so helpful.” 

Nori grabbed all three lamps, and arranged them behind the little nest before he sat at the edge of the cushions, despite the fact that he didn't know how to light them. Bilbo looked at him blank faced for a long moment before he reached out and tugged Nori closer gently. 

“We’ll start with the letters. They are different scripts for different languages, but Westron is common and plentiful so we shall start with that. I have a paltry three primers on dwarvish, so we can get through letters and nought else on that,” Bilbo handed the slate board to Nori along with an odd wooden tube with chalk affixed to its end, “So I think that I shall teach you Westron first, then either an elvish tongue or mine own. Thataway you are well able to teach yourself the particulars of your own tongue.” 

Nori blinked down at the chalk pen and slate. Bilbo pulled a matching one from his box followed by several small, well worn, hardbound books. Bilbo flipped the first one open to show Nori the inked and embossed tracings of a mannish alphabet. 

He set Nori to copying the letters on his slate, saying them as he went, erasing and doing it over again. All through the hobbit lectured softly, and quietly, on how the letters worked together. He used metaphor, example, stories, even rudimentary comparisons both to gardening, smithing, and thievery to describe the interactions between letters. 

Nori would have to remember Bilbo’s description of the “th” sound or the “sh” sound being alloys seeing as they made new sounds altogether, or his description of the silent letters having had their sounds pickpocketed by the letters previous such as in the word “climb.” Ori would appreciate the examples. 

For hours Nori sat curled by Bilbo, clothed in borrowed cotton shifts, as he scratched out letters, then simple words to practice how those letters meshed. The light waned and Bilbo rose to light the odd lamps, and slipped out in the process. Nori kept focusing on his letters. He was lulkhâ kakhifi, he had to absorb as much as he could before Bilbo gave up on him. 

The hobbit tapped on his shoulder eventually, peering at the shaky words chalked on Nori’s slate. Nori froze, his hand clutching the chalk shaking slightly as Bilbo hummed, “Huh. You learn fast. That’s really impressive, especially since I accidentally left the primer out of your reach. Put it down though, dinner.” 

Nori gently set the slate down and twisted to look the pretty hobbit in the face. His expression was honest, purely impressed and open. Nori followed the hobbit back to the cozy kitchen, and ate a very nice meal of fish stew with a sort of flatbread for dipping with him. 

Bilbo wasn’t very conversational. If it was about learning he would talk, or if Nori asked him a question, but the hobbit still seemed continually startled by the concept of friendly talk. For the next several days it continued as such, with three larger meals enforced by the hobbit, several smaller ones offered, companionable silence, and the knowledge and skill that had been denied Nori for so long given without hesitation. 

It was splendid, and by the time that Nori had been approved to begin reading the books that were simply everywhere in the smial, which is what hobbits apparently called their burrows, Nori had felt the most accomplished he ever had in his life. Even if he was still reading out loud, haltingly with many mistakes. He’d improve, he had all winter to practice. 

It was surprisingly nice to curl next to the hobbit. Nori told himself it was for warmth, and he knew he was lying to himself. He was as starved for friendly touch as the hobbit was. Dori hadn’t been anything other than outwardly disapproving for years upon years, Ori was the only person Nori got to hug, got any affection from. 

He knew Dori loved him, that was never a question, but he didn’t feel the need to comfort Nori as if they were still but pebbles, and hadn’t since long before they were settled enough for Dori to disapprove of his Craft. 

Bilbo though, Bilbo he suspected was merely lonely, and had been for far too long. Nori had rung a confession out of him with the return of his washed leathers, alongside a nice cotton and wool wardrobe, that the borrowed clothes were from Bilbo’s deceased father. His mother was seemingly not in the picture either, and the hobbit was far too small and quiet for the sheer size of his burrow. 

Nori hadn’t questioned further after getting lost in exploration one late morning and slipping past a curtain to what was clearly an abandoned children’s room. A nursery or a playroom, he wasn’t sure, but the signs of it being only halfway packed away again, and the sections of neatly folded children's clothes bore a tale too painful for as of yet. 

Still. Whenever Nori leaned on the hobbit, or pressed up against him to read, or even threw a blanket over their legs to share, he would stiffen straight up the spine, nervous and trembling. Then Bilbo would gasp out a soft shuddering sigh and melt into Nori. 

It was heartbreaking, just how lonely and touch starved the hobbit was, especially considering the previously mentioned relatives in abundance, who seemed to leave the hobbit alone to wither from neglect. 

The hobbit’s relatives loved him, Nori had no doubts about that, several of them visiting between snows to take tea with Bilbo and press chattering conversation at Nori in the lulls when Bilbo’s tongue stilled and he spoke up so Bilbo didn’t have too. 

Nori had always done that for Dori and Ori anyhow, offering a child’s chatter up to distract Dori’s customers into paying without haggling too far down as a pebble, and using a facade of aggression to protect Ori from his own social anxieties when he was grown. 

It was beyond easy, even instinctual to do so for the fussy, quiet, sweet hobbit that his friend retreated behind the facade of when company arrived. Bilbo had lowered his mannerly mask not two weeks into the visit, and while he still had days where he didn’t talk, days where Nori painstakingly taught him the Iglishmék he used to communicate with Bifur, he had still wormed his way into Nori’s nearly nonexistent circle of trusted people. 

When Bilbo had felt comfortable enough to begin teaching Nori another language, practicing the principles to reapply them so he might yet learn Khuzdul, his mask had fully come down. They began exchanging skills and words alike as easy as breathing, a dance of knowledge-gifts that was as equal as it was dizzying, Nori hadn’t been so at ease for as long as he could remember. 

Even as a pebble he had been guarded, cautious e’en around his brothers. Now with this snarky, little, fey creature he found that he had no use for the boundaries of propriety, dwarfism society, nor his own innate paranoia. 

Bilbo, barely of age for his own people, trapped in a society where folk died peacefully so close to always that no one knew how to grieve, or support, when his family hadn’t. Bilbo, who was so loved that he was drowning, was so misunderstood and starved for support that he withdrew simply because no one knew how to help. Bilbo, who had taken him in without protest and provided more care and understanding than Nori had received from his own kin from his childhood, without any expectation of return.

Bilbo, who he was swiftly growing to love. Nori had no idea how to court a hobbit, much less did Bilbo know how dwarrow courted. Still, Nori refused to lose his friend, the first person he had ever trusted deeply enough to call such even to himself, to a misunderstanding. So, the dance of gifts cycled and cycled. 

He taught Bilbo to pick locks, Bilbo taught him to brew poisons and medicines alike. Bilbo taught him to read, Nori taught him Iglishmék. Bilbo taught him the Hobbitish language, Æthel, Nori ignored every tradition, and taught Bilbo, far more of a natural linguist than Nori, Khuzdul. 

They practiced pickpocketing together, sewing more pockets onto clothes to play with, poorly at first, then practiced enough to hide the pockets. On colder days, when the lamps burned low they embroidered on anything they could, practicing Bilbo’s da’s old hobby, and the skill that Dori had picked up on the road from Erebor. 

They spoke of traditions, and stories, and superstitions, and old significance, and different cultures, freely and without reserve. Nori adored this fey creature, with the too bright blue eyes, who danced as he walked, and carried every word as if its importance would weigh his tongue down, who trusted him with the secrets that hobbits held more dear than their own existence, who guarded Nori’s own with an easy grace, locking them behind his sharp teeth and his fierce hunger for new curiosities unshared by his kinsfolk. 

Three months passed and the snows melted, gradually, then all at once through the Shire, though the Big Roads remained impassable and the howls passed the Old Forest and deep snows kept the hobbits corralled within the bounds of the Shire with the Song’s steady thrum as reassurance. 

Nori wore his leather jerkin over brightly dyed hobbit wools, embroidered with Bilbo’s flowers woven through the geometric and patterns of the Dwarrow. He had long since adjusted his braids, Hobbits didn't braid typically, but the high peaks that Nori had long worn had never been a practical sort for everyday wear, intended to carry that distinctive difference between Nori of the house of Ri, and Nori the thief. 

Bilbo had listened carefully to the significance of his braids, the characterization inherent in them to identify a Dwarrow, to others and by their deeds and their kin-line. Then he’d pulled his neighbor over, a Daisy Gamgee ne-Bell, who had been his mother’s friend once, and more importantly had three daughters and therefore could braid. 

They had taken three days, sketching, and braiding, and rebraiding, before they had settled on a practical style that held easily, and still read the same as before. Whilst the braids could be read, they were distinctly non-dwarrow, hobbitish in their length and practicality, and Nori adored them. He could wear his Peaks with his brothers, but for the remainder of that winter he wore Bilbo’s braids. 

Nori discovered as spring approached that he had long since lost his boots, and the search for them had amused Bilbo so much that the Song echoed mirth up through his toes. Nori discovered that he did not truly wish to leave, he was happy, despite missing his brothers dearly. 

Still the roads thawed slowly, but surely, and Nori found himself packing slowly to return to Ered Luin. Bilbo watched him, a soft smile at the edge of his quiet sorrow, and Nori determined that he’d come back, at least to visit. 

Nori had things to do before he left. He had developed a great love of reading, and an equally great stack of books to pare down before he left, to reserve or to borrow. Bilbo had been horribly transparent as he offered for Nori to borrow some of his tomes if he promised to bring them back. 

He also stole over to Bilbo’s cousin’s house, and eased through a window for the spoons taken after the death of his friend’s family. Inheritance, phah, Bilbo still mourned the spoons given as a courting gift to his father and the cousins had no right to hold them back simply for circumvention of a will. 

If a few spoons were missing from the set, well, Bilbo was surprisingly bad at numbers and Nori truly did wish to make a dwarfish courting gift for him, even if he never worked up the courage to give it to him. 

Then, Nori left, walking away from the shire, his booted feet leaving the wheedling tones of the Song, of which he still had little explanation for, as he returned to his brothers. The three and a half months had changed him far more than he had ever expected. 

He had a blank journal though, hand bound by Bilbo with handsome green leather, and the ability to fill it, to record his wandering, and his thoughts. He had books carried for himself, rather than Ori, teas for Dori as well as for his own use. He had the memory of happiness deeper than he’d known that he could carry, and as he joined a caravan he pulled one of his tomes out. 

This wasn’t one of the storybooks, the histories written as an epic tale that hobbits used to keep records, the ones he enjoyed best and had brought. Nori turned the book over curiously. It was missing the leafing at the spine that hobbits did for identification, a method vastly different then the scroll crests for Dwarrow collections. 

The leather of the tome was old, flaking at the corners and worn in the way that meant it would soon need to be rebound, and the layers of book cloth holding the pages together to the spine spoke to its age, and its previous rebinding. 

Nori opened it to find a note, Daisy Gamgee’s cramped script scrawling across the crumbly, petal pressed paper that hobbits made and used for notes meant not to last. It read:

Nori, I know you are not of the Æthel, not truly, but I should be the first to inform you of the fact that it matters little after a point. The Song, that first great melody, chose you, first for itself, then for Bilbo, whose lonesome has grown greater by the season, though none of us had known how to assist. I then chose you as well, for the Song lose you, as does Bilbo, and my Heart-Sister’s son may not have wished for a maternal figure after the loss of his first, but he remains family all the same. My Heart-Sister asked me to watch after he child, and I have, and I will, and so I watch after mine as well. You are good for Bilbo, and I wish to keep you, to do good for Bilbo, and to do good for yourself also. 

So I find I must inform you that Hobbits, as a rule, are but an aspect of the Æthel, of the Voidfolk from beyond the second singing, and that Æthel runs strong in Bilbo, in many of us, but Bella was fey and her son far moreso. Æthel are hobbits, and hobbits are Æthel, but others can be Æthel, should they so choose. You chose, perhaps not on purpose, and I chose for you with full intention. I am not sorry, Sunůz, you are mine now, though I shan’t replace you with a shambling changing to keep you at home as may have been done in ages past, I will demand you visit home with some frequency. 

To that end, because you and Bilbo talked of much I am certain, I am also certain that it would not have occurred to Bilbo to explain the whys of our culture and ourselves, and of what we are. His parents and younger sisters died, and he retreated into the Song nearly entirely in his grief. It likely did not so much as occur to him that there may be differences between you beyond how you may have grown. I will then inform you that the state of being Æthel can be contagious, after a fashion, in certain circumstances. Marriage is one of these, and new-blood lines may be less valued with no new Great Wandering in sight, but they are remembered, and respected still. 

The Took New-Blood line came from a maiar taken to wed, who lived and died as one of use, and the Bell line from an elf of long ages yore. Gamgee’s came from elves as well, though from what I understand a different kind of them from Bell. The Baggins come from elves and men both, I had a great-grandfather that was a captured orc turned to the Song, we have many goblin lines, skin hanger lines, and dwarrow ones, though the blood of the last few wear thin indeed. I tell you this so you might consider what is contained in this book with the grave intention I know you capable of, as well as the intentionality learned from speaking of your brothers. 

Each line carries a book such as this. It is a history, a guide, an advisor, and above all, very much valued, secret information. You are claimed as my surůz, and so I gift you the Gamgee Grimoire until such a time as you do not need it. Learn of the Song now, of the Vala in their earliest days, of the Void, the Æthel, of courting and families and how possessive of love may be. Learn of yourself as you are as Stonekin, and how you relate to us Arda-bound Voidkin. Learn, surůz, and then return when you have decided upon what you have earned, for there is far more than is contained in these pages.

Daisy, Mōþōr

Nori hummed and folded the note carefully into his pocket. He had time before the caravan arrived even near to Ered Luin. He turned the page to begin reading. He had much to learn, and there had been a lot that Daisy had mentioned that referenced something unknown, or outright did not seem possible. For one, he had not known orcs to be capable of breeding, much less marriage. 

Besides which, Æthel was a language, he’d thought. Perhaps he could make it one visit without disappointing Dori with new rumors of a familiar thief. This might just be distracting enough to keep him busy enough to avoid his Craft. Between puzzling this tome out through the Old Æthel runes instead of the Tengwar of Westron, an alphabet he was only partially fluent in, and with learning the Khuzdul runes to match what he could speak and stealing Ori’s old primers to do so, he had plenty to occupy the time he usually got restless in. 

For now though, he settled back and began to slowly read the first pages of the Gamgee grimoire swaying with the movement of the cart. 

Bofur thought he was going half mad. Somehow he was the only one. Bombur looked at him as he were seeing things, and Bifur simply did not care. Dori and Ori were as same as they ever were, too glad of having their brother back and behaving to notice what Bofur had. 

Nori was different though, he was. Bofur saw it, he did, but somehow he was the only one who saw it, or cared. He knew Nori, he did. He’d grown up with him, sort of, they’d been neighbors since the Erebor refugees had come to Ered Luin and taken over, turning it from a slowly dying miner’s colony to settlement, if equally poor off in a different manner entirely. 

He and Nori had been the same age, not pebbles anymore, but certainly not adults either, and while they certainly didn’t do everything together, they had done enough. Bofur had gone honest as an adult though, and Nori hadn’t, not that it had affected their friendship in the least, it just meant that there was a line in Nori’s trust that grew thicker as time marched on. 

He knew Nori. Nori was different, and he was the only one that saw it but he couldn’t be the only one that knew Nori. Nori had changed, in the manner of old mountain tales passed down through the generations of Broadbeams that had long resided in the Blue Mountains, passed from the time of the first fathers, and nearly forgotten. 

He had changed in the manner of those who had been taken by the Fae. Other clans scoffed at the tale, saying that the fae were elves, and dismissing it entirely. The Broadbeams had held the tale anyways, watching for the signs of changing pebbles, for those taken by the first teachers, for those whose stone sense was too strong, but weren’t called to Mahal. They watched for those who wandered too far, dancing out into the bad rock, and sometimes returning and sometimes not. 

It hadn’t happened for generations. Babes had always had iron over doors and tangled into child’s braids, and the mountain watched. Nori wasn’t a Broadbeam though, his kin were from Erebor, Longbeards and Firebeards, and Durinfolk all. 

Nori was still Nori, but he was odd, different, and Bofur wished he were more articulate, more educated to be able to put it into better words than old superstitions. The only words Bofur had was to say that Nori was fey, odd, and to say once that he thought that Nori had been taken off over winter. 

Bifur had hummed at that, but Bombur, wonderful, sweet Bombur, had glared at him fiercer than Bofur had ever seen from his little brother. Bombur’s wife, who was cradling their first child close, closer now, had drawn herself up beside Bombur. 

Kisto, great friends with Dori, and technically employed by him besides, had reamed him out for twenty minutes. She knew the old tales, a Broadbeam through and through, but she knew Dori more. She still had pinched coppers until she had bought an extra iron link chain for little Kistur though, and had used it to hold his teething ring whenever she held him in his sling on her shifts. 

Nori was different though, and Bofur saw it. His gait had always been quiet, careful, subtle in a way that no Dwarrow naturally was, but the rhythm to it was new, often matching the rare melody from the groaning of the dying Mountains they mined. His eyes, always sharp, seeing everything as if the world could be categorized and drunk in by Nori’s gaze entirely, had gained a new edge, of something new and undetermined. 

He lingered now, on signs that had always been there, a strange delight in his eyes, ordering new things when they went drinking instead of only getting what Bofur had, and sometimes Bofur would catch him tracing letters with his fingers as if he were relearning how to be a functional dwarrow. He did trace over iron, with only slight hesitation, more contemplative than pained. 

His always dancing fingers, tap-tap-tapping since he’d learned to stone-sense like a jeweler from Bifur, now tapped in odd patterns, sometimes still, and turned into the pitter-pat like rain, less purpose and paranoia in Nori’s fingers without each tap to provide layouts of the space he occupied. 

It was still Nori, still sharp-eyed, observant, ever-watchful Nori, who was never up to good for long, but something was off. Besides, the fae never took adults, for all that Nori counted being only a decade into true adulthood, only babes. Every Broadbeam knew that your babe was safe once they could speak. 

Still, Nori was his friend, fey or not. Nori had never cared if he were too loud, or too crude, or if he sometimes struggled with his words or favored the Iglishmék of his beloved uncle for its simplicity. So, when Nori followed him to the workshop in the center of the complex, the hidden one in the house set aside for Bombur and his family that he didn’t use, he quietly took down the iron shaving bundles from the venting sills, and tucked them away with his iron tools. 

He could use his lead ones this time for his whittling, not like it mattered, he was making children’s toys to sell at the night market where the Guild’s couldn’t tax him. Nori knew, and Bifur grunted from his own corner, where he was very carefully smelting tin for little metal joints for the toys. 

Nori perched on the edge of the table, watching him whittle, a common enough occurrence, though usually after one of his friend’s yelling fights with his brother. Dori got weepy after those, and Nori usually hid. Bofur had worked very hard to provide this as a safe space for Nori after those fights once, if the shavings had to stay down to maintain that then they would. 

There hadn’t been a fight though, not since last visit. Bofur wasn’t sure if it was because Dori and Ori were extra clingy after another hard winter where Nori had been absent, and thus unwilling to fight, or if Nori were trying not to push this time, but either way Bofur wasn’t surprised by Nori’s need to hide. Dori had been radiating tension and stress for a week now. 

Eventually Nori rocked forwards onto the balls of his feet. Typically this is where his fidgeting got the better of him, and he’d carve with Bofur or play with the wood shavings. 

Instead Bofur blinked at the small pile and delicate, finely wrought, silver spoons. The stylized symbol on the handle resembled a Westron B, but the Tengwar wasn’t quite right. A house symbol perhaps, but not one that Bofur knew. 

He glanced from the spoons to Nori. His friend grinned from beneath his distinctive peaks. It was a vaguely sheepish grin, and Bofur poked a spoon. The pile tinked merrily, and Bifur looked up. 

“Why.” 

“Why what?” Nori answered, false innocence in his tone, and mischief dancing in his finger-taps. 

Bofur sighed, deep enough for Bifur to heave himself from their oven-turned-illegal-forge and wander over, “Why have you brought me spoons? Where did you even get those?” 

“They’re mine,” Bifur poked at the spoons, faint alarm growing on his face as Nori tugged a paper from his vest, “I wondered if you could show me the basics of how to turn them into something else.” 

Bifur grumbled softly, and signed rapidly to no one in particular. Apparently the spoons were a mithril and silver alloy, a mix that weakened the mithril; that alloy had once been used by the elves for jewelry. Bofur eyed the spoons with new interest. These could feed them for months, the whole complex, Ur’s and Ri’s alike. 

“Huh. Ingots, I’m guessing? To fence?” Bifur chuckled faintly behind him and threw a hunk of beeswax at Nori. They kept it to make molds for their hardware, but the beeswax went slowly for the amount they’d bought, and Nori stared at it in confusion. Then he glared slightly at Bofur, and Bofur wondered what he’d done. 

Bifur clicked his fingers, and Nori signed rapidly at him over Bofur’s head, leaning on his heels to see. Bofur stared at the spoons in bewilderment. Even if he weren’t making ingots to sell, Nori wasn’t exactly good at making things that were pretty. Functional yes, but not pretty, certainly not jewelry. 

Bofur gave up, Nori would share if he wanted to, “Right, well, Bifur’ll have to show you that. I can mine, and carve, but that’s it really. Bifur knows more about metallurgy.” 

Nori nodded and took himself, the beeswax, and the spoons over by Bifur. One of Bofur’s knives was missing. He glanced back to see Nori using it the carve the shape he wanted from the wax with Bifur’s help. Nori had also, possibly, gotten far better at pickpocketing over the winter. 

By the time Bombur came to tell them that the shop was closing, and there was leftover stew and tea for dinner, Bofur was no closer to figuring out what Nori was doing with an incomplete set of marvelously expensive spoons if he wasn’t selling them. 

A few weeks later Nori was triumphant in showing Bofur his spoils, perched once more on the table in the workshop. Bofur stared down at the results. They were functional, vaguely pretty, but in a crude way, less like they'd been forged or cast and more as if the metal had somehow grown and twisted into odd patterns. 

In the center was an odd box, latticed and the top opened like a tiny cork, as if anything could be contained in a box the size of a walnut shell riddled with holes. It was shaped like a pinecone, with rather more expertise than Bofur had expected, but perhaps that explained the pile of wooden pinecones of various sizes in the wood scrap pile. 

It had the odd vine like warping along its cast metal, but it was smooth. Surrounding it were seven braid clasps of different sizes and shapes, with two mirroring each other. The two smallest, the mirrored ones, had an etching that was unfamiliar. They were plain but for the significance of the metal itself, almost unremarkable without the gems and etchings and patterns a proper jewel smith would give them. 

Still they were pretty, and they looked solid enough indeed. The walnut sized pinecone box still perplexed him from its place of honor though and Bofur just hummed in what hopefully sounded like the encouragement he intended it too. 

Nori was definitely not a jeweler. Nor was he a smith, even if the skill was properly learned. Dori had floated the idea that Nori was trying to pick a new craft, a respectable one. If this was the case, then he might choose another. 

Nori reached down and separated the three larger clasps away into a separate pile from the matching set and the box. He pointed at the three clasps, “These are for Dori. He’s started to get his first silver hairs, and he’s miserable about it. Terribly vain, too. Said the only other affordable option is wood, that would match his beard whether it's auburn, silver or both, since his copper ones apparently won’t.” 

Bofur had known that actually. Dori had a whole streak of silvered hairs, just enough to look vaguely like a skunk, instead of the dignified scattering of silver like Bifur’s great badger’s mane. He’d apparently not quite noticed yet until a customer had noticed and he'd cried in the shop kitchen, miserable and overstressed and vain. 

Bombur had been supportive, the lovable lump. Kisto had called him a wimp, and then laughed until she’d cried, both then and later. 

Nori was perhaps a very good brother despite Dori’s overbearing nature. 

Bofur nodded, then he took a second look at the other pile. Matching beads, and a box made by hand. 

Then Bofur whipped his head up to stare Nori down, “Do your brothers know you’re courting someone?” 

Nori wavered in his perch and sat down hard, legs crossed as he deflated. He picked up the clasps and the box, almost reverently, “No. They won’t either. Dori said he doesn’t want to know anything about the stupid things I do away from Ered Luin, or about who I do them with. And I-“ 

Nori swallowed hard, tucking his chin into his chest. Bofur gently patted his knee, sacrificing one of the precious bits of wrap paper and drawstring bags to wrap the clasps for Dori, “You don’t want your One, or your husband to get rejected by your brothers, especially if Dori won’t approve of them already.” 

“Mm. Dori hates a lot of things. About me. And. About what I do. He loves me, and Ori, but he hates my Craft, and my need to wander, and I love him, I do, but I’m- I’m not the pebble he raised anymore, and I think sometimes he still looks at me and sees the pebble he wishes I had been, not even the one I was, or who I am now.” 

Bofur lets out a gusty breath. Oof. That wasn’t inaccurate, actually. He thinks for a moment on that before he responds, “Alright. If Dori doesn’t want to know then he doesn't have too. Are they here in Ered Luin? May I meet them?” 

Nori flashes the ghost of a smirk at him, “No, they aren’t. And you’re not invited to the wedding either.” 

Bofur feigns deepest offence, pulling a giggle from Nori as they gently shove at each other. He hadn’t expected that if they weren’t here actually, he’d rather suspected that Nori will elope, to avoid Dori’s wrath even if they were. Bofur sobers then, resting his head on the table by Nori’s knees. 

“Fine then, I would like to meet them eventually though, maybe when Kistur is older, or letters maybe. Promise me you’ll tell Dori eventually though?” 

Nori hums, and pats at Bofur’s hat, “Promise. The second he notices the marriage braid and clasp, and asks about it I’ll tell him. I’m curious how long though. Want to take bets?” 

Bofur laughs at that, and declares it a good night for drinks. A celebration he says, and has to drag a drunk Nori home. His fey friend has even more of a dance step when he’s drunk, and he twists this way and that as Bofur guides him, barefooted for some reason with his boots slung over his arm, laces tied together. 

He tucks Nori in, something he’s done before, and that Nori’s done for him, to the accompaniment of Ori’s quiet giggles from across the room. Nori looks at him, with those sharp, sharp eyes, that new edge might be love, Bofur thinks giddily, and Nori pulls him down briefly with a strength usually gone with someone this drunk. 

Nori, curls his lips into a grin by Bofur’s ear, and whispers barely louder than a breath, “Promise me, promise that if you meet him, or I bring him here, that you’ll leave the iron behind. Sometimes it stings a bit, and it’ll hurt him more than it does me.” 

Bofur pulls back sharply and regards Nori and his sharp eyes. The edge might be love, he is no longer giddy about it. Nori giggles wickedly, with just enough mischief that he could feasibly play it off as teasing about the Broadbeam superstitions if Bofur is really bothered. 

Bofur chews his lip for a long moment, his eyes holding the gaze of Nori’s sharp, sharp stare. He nods slowly, “I promise,” he whispers, and a slow, satisfied, trusting smile spreads across Nori’s face. His teeth are sharp too, just a little too much so. Bofur blinks and his teeth are normal, Nori’s eyes sleepy, and heavy rather than sharp, and his smile equally so. 

His fingers are still. 

“I promise,” Bofur whispers again, and then he leaves to go to sleep. He’s going to have a headache as well come morn. He quietly replaces the iron in the sachets with sawdust and burnt tin scrapings. He does it to the tea shop door sachets too, and carefully drips a putty of wood dust and wax over the heads of the iron nail heads in the furniture. 

It takes weeks. He still can’t do anything about Kistur’s iron chains, and he leaves the ones around the nursery alone anyways, just in case. No one notices but him, Bifur, and Nori. Nori watches him sometimes, quiet and sharp. 

After those times Nori brings him stories, anecdotes with no names or places, about his One. Bofur starts calling him Spoons, and Nori never drops the name. Bofur watches the Ri family settle into an uneasy peace, with Nori’s ultimatum not to so much as mention what he does for his Craft, or outside Ered Luin at all, and with Nori’s willingness to comply, purely in deference to winning his bet. 

Nori is different now, more fey. He’s still Nori though, and when he leaves as the leaves start to turn, he tells Bofur that he will be gone for longer than Dori wants, and Bofur nods solemnly. The nearest Dwarrow settlements are weeks to months off anyways, and he has a courtship to finish. 

Nori leaves, with a small package kept close, and a dance in his step that Bofur still can’t find a rhythm too. Nori is different, and Nori leaves, but he’ll always come back. He’s one the feytook that wanders into the bad rock is all. Bofur will watch for him when he’s home, and trust that he’ll come scampering back from the shale and the crumbling ledges. 

A year passed, and Bofur did not worry, and so, neither did anyone bit Dori. Feytook spread amongst the Broadbeams of Ered Luin, and Bofur just hummed. Dori raged against the title, but he never took the plain mithril alloy braid clasps out, not once. 

Nori eventually came back, and he had gifts. All was well. His teeth sharper, his peaks fuller, and a new braid with a silver clasp crowned the center peak. No one noticed, not once. Nori grinned at him, all mischief and sharpness, and Bofur thought he was going half mad. 

But still, Nori was home, and when Nori began to grow restless, too sharp and jittery at the new babe’s iron, then Bofur watched him leave, scampering back into the bad rock, the world beyond, anywhere and everywhere. He’d be back, the feytook came in kinds. 

Nori wasn’t the kind that longed and longed until it consumed him and he never returned, nor was Dori knowledgeable enough to bind him with salts and promises to keep him there. 

Which meant that Nori was the kind of feytook that left and returned as he pleased. He wouldn’t come back one day, but Bofur would watch for him. The old legends told the signs, and how to stave them off. When Nori was home Bofur watched, and Nori always returned. 

Nori was his friend, his almost brother, his kin cousin. Bofur could watch, it was no hardship to drag his friend off to go drinking when his edges were sharp, to rebind him to society with food and companionship, nor to encourage his Craft when Dori wasn’t listening to anchor him to Mahal. It certainly wasn’t hard to defend Nori when Dori smothered him and Ori. 

Now he knew that the fey could take those grown, if they wished to go. They’d taken Nori already, but Bofur made sure they couldn’t keep him. It was enough. 

Chapter Text

“The courtships and marriages of the Æthel can be considered savage by some, though my husband, Grolk, wishes me to note that to his kind it seems normal. Indeed, to those of Angband we seem normal indeed, and I have begun to push my kin to seek out their New-Blood courtships with those of the Twisted Elves as much as our Stone-kin cousins or our Star-folk niblings. Still, our ways are our own, and we need not change them. Courtships are simple, hearts want who they want, and each chooses how they may court. Gifts, time, even some great acts of service. One ought not be blatant though, or the marriage might seem too public. My own husband courted me with gifts of his enemies, skulls of fallen elves, weapons from battles he won, and corpses of his fellows for my garden. I do not regret taking him for marriage, my garden grows strong and healthy after so many sacrifices to it and the Song. Marriage, of course, is simpler. When one feels that the courtship has indeed run its course, then one takes their spouse by force off to be wed and share vows. When the kidnapped had joined their spouses house then they return. Our own house, of the Gamgee made in combination between Grolk of the Yrcha and Megli of the House of the Bear, is the source of much envy for the skulls my husband brings home to me we have dedicated to the great Song. They line our borders and bless our line, surely we will thrive.” 

- Excerpt from the Early Gamgee Grimoire, as recorded by Grolk and Megli Gamgee, before the Second Wandering. Translated and maintained as Volume the First, for generations after. 

Bilbo listened as the Song shifted again, well into the summer after Nori had left to see his brothers. He didn’t begrudge him that, what he wouldn’t have given to see his parents and his little siblings again. But they’d been called home to the Voidlands by the Song when the cold and sickness and grief had grown too great for them during that Fell Winter. 

Now though he sat by his door, certainly more Æther than hobbit as he hadn’t bothered to shift away his Song teeth, and the flicker of his ears was certainly more active than was appropriate for public. The Gamgees were the only ones close enough to care though, and Daisy certainly didn’t, she was his guardian after Ma had passed and she had never minded him choosing to be Song raised. 

He made quite a scandal in Hobbiton, much less inclined to conform to the standards of their Mannish neighbors for the sake of respectability, and far much more so to listen to the Song and the Old ways. He maintained the shrines of his home and family though, and was able to pass if necessary, so no one minded over much.

The mischief in the Song was twisting about his feet and tugging him towards the herbs in his kitchen window though, the ones he’d gathered from half asleep instinct a mere week ago, drying in bundles as they swung in the breeze. Valerian, lavender, basil, henbane, and poppy flowers twisted shut with twine beckoned him as the Song near giggled through the grass of his garden. 

Bilbo ignored it, watching instead as Nori wandered up the walk, a lone dwarrow tucking a battered tome into the Gamgee post box before he turned to Bag End. There was a scrap of embroidered fabric tied around  one of his braids, loosely wrapped around it in a series of crosses, displaying in Nori’s clumsy stitch work the boxy pattern he’d told Bilbo was a courting border for letters between Dwarrow, with the pear flowers and larkspur of his two lines, the fabric itself the deep pine green of his house, of Bilbo. 

It must have been expensive, that scrap of ribbon, and the thread to stitch it with. It was also a hobbit tradition twisted to a dwarrow interpretation, something that Bilbo hadn’t thought to tell Nori of, since he hadn’t been sure yet that Nori liked him as more than as a trusted friend. He’d hoped, but he certainly hadn’t been sure, and he hadn’t been going to push. 

Daisy, apparently willing to let him raise himself but unwilling to hold herself back from meddling, had tricked Nori into a line adoption a mere week after meeting him that winter. She had lent him a grimoire. She must’ve, not a simple historical as Nori had been devouring before his departure as Bilbo had thought. 

Meddlesome old matriarch that she was. She hadn’t been able to trick Bilbo into accepting her as his Godmother, only a guardian, so now she guaranteed herself a seat as his mother in law. 

Nori leaned on the gate a moment, and Bilbo wondered if he’d see him in his little alcove, his fingers flicking through half formed signs. Then Nori swung the gate open and stepped through, the thick braids swaying where they ended midway past his shoulders. He tugged gently at the ribbon end, and directed a satisfied grin towards the direction Bilbo sat, “I can’t quite see you, marlel, but I know that you are there. I have gifts, if you want them?” 

Bilbo hummed tunelessly, and did not move. Marlel. Khuzdul. Love. Nori had called him—had brought him—had—well. Bilbo slipped out from the bench behind the window vines and tugged thoughtlessly on his longer hair. It curled to just past his chin now, longer when it was wet and weighed down, and he watched Nori’s eyes catch on it, darkening slightly as he stared. 

Dwarrow, Nori had told him, valued their hair and beards. Hobbits could not grow beards, not without recent enough New-Blood to allow for such, so Bilbo could not provide a beard for Nori to braid, not really. Bilbo had enjoyed combing Nori’s hair though, learning his peaks and new braids, and practicing different kinds under Nori’s guidance while he’d learned. 

Nori’s hair was thicker, courser than his, and straight for all that it held a wave when released from his braids. It was also long, perhaps a handspan longer than his braids when loose. Nori took great care and pride in it, wearing beads for his brothers, and maintaining it well. 

Bilbo was not a dwarrow. He could not provide that ideal that Nori clearly enjoyed. He had no beard, his hair was short, fine, too soft to hold braids nearly as well as a Dwarrow’s, and curly enough to be wild if he grew it too long. He had no beard, but his hair could grow. It would never be a dwarrows, because Bilbo wasn’t, but it could be longer. So he had, he hadn’t trimmed as he’d used too once a month to maintain control, not since that conversation with Nori midway through their second month when Nori had been wholly scandalized by Bilbo’s trim at the time. 

Still, Nori approached him slowly and reached out to brush the end of Bilbo’s hair almost reverently. Bilbo leaned into the touch without fully meaning to, he’d missed the nights curled by the fire with Nori far more than he’d thought he would. Nori made a soft sound and gently tugged a curl to its full length, a handspan longer than it seemed to fall naturally. 

“Marlel,” he breathed, “Bilbo. You did not have to, but you truly look stunning now that you have. The gifts I brought seem that much poorer in turn now.” 

Bilbo blinked at Nori and shook his head, pulling the curl back to spring back up by his chin. He lifted his lips in a half snarl, and his hands to sign rapidly with the gift Nori had taught to him over winter, “No, gifts can be different. Thought not quality. I want to see, show me?” 

Nori chuckled and snarled back playfully, baring his flat dwarvish teeth. He didn’t have the sharp doubled canines of the Æthel, more like a man’s teeth, and the attempt at playful threat in return made Bilbo laugh without fully meaning to. Nori wasn’t a child, but he snarled like one, with a sound from the throat rather than the chest and teeth made more a threat than the jaw. 

He tugged his ribbon wrapped braid first, “This, I suppose. Daisy sent a book, and I don’t think I did it right but I tried. I also brought a couple smaller things, and one of my brother's tea blends for you to try. It has mushrooms in it.” 

Bilbo tugged at the ribbon sharply, earning a soft yelp from Nori as he bent his head to allow Bilbo to gather the braid close. Courtship ribbons were one of the only public signs allowed. Usually a hobbit would wrap it around their wrist, or their neck. If a hobbit wore a ribbon it was an indicator that they were courting, to fend off any other interested parties. The color was usually whatever was on hand, and mattered far less than it once had during the last Great Wandering. 

It had mattered to Nori though, who had spoken of his family’s poverty, of Ered Luin’s poverty as a whole, of the lack of quality fabrics, or dyes, or threads, with clothes being worn until they wore through, and rarely deviating from shades of grays, browns, yellows, or blues, with some rare greens that looked washed out being available but not common. 

Bilbo ran careful fingers down the ribbon, firmly ignoring the bemusement on Nori’s face, and the stoop in his back so that Bilbo had the reach to examine properly. Nori’s boots added a hands width to his height, which had already been a handspan over Bilbo’s without them. Bilbo tugged the braid again sharply, snapping the sign for sit in Nori’s face. Nori laughed and lowered himself to sit, cross legged, right in Bilbo’s garden at his feet. 

Bilbo turned the braid over in his hands, examining the ribbon up and down its length. If Bilbo unwrapped it and measured it from the crown of Nori’s head then it would stretch nearly to his feet, perhaps dangling around his ankles. The quality of the embroidery got better down its length, but more in the way of someone gaining confidence in their work than in the way of someone else taking over. 

The quality of it was an odd dichotomy. The fabric itself was sturdy, dye splotchy, likely done by Nori rather than a dye smith, but the wool was thick, doubled over, and sewn to tuck the embroidery threads on the inside. The ribbon would never be able to trail or twist in the breeze like a traditional courting ribbon, but it was probably more than sturdy enough to use for a ribbon dance at Midsummers. 

The thread though was an unexpected luxury, and Bilbo suspected it had been stolen, lifted by Nori in an attempt to tie his Mahal gifted Craft into the ribbon. It bothered Bilbo far less than it ought. Silk thread was expensive and difficult to come by even for hobbits, who had wealth enough to welcome traders, and plenty Tooks to go out and wander and gather wares. 

Silk thread that was woven and twisted with silver must be nearly priceless, and still that was what the pattern and flowers alike was stitched in, what must have been several spools for the whole length of wide, doubled, long ribbon. The ribbon itself had trails of glimmering length well past where it was clasped at the end of the braid, and Bilbo rubbed the end of the ribbon in his fingers. 

“It’s perfect,” he signed, “You are not Hobbit, flimsy trailing things to be discarded if we wed would never suit you. This will last longer than that, and it looks striking in your braid. I like the claim.” 

Nori grinned up at him and Bilbo promptly plopped down to sit in front of him. Knees touching, and snagging a marigold to snack on, offering a few petals to Nori. Nori looked bewildered but he accepted them, and followed suit with Bilbo to eat them. Nori’s nose scrunched with distaste and Bilbo snorted inelegantly at him. 

“I also brought beads. And a something for the Fauntheart, I know traditionally it's not needed, but, I don’t know, it seemed nice. The beads are supposed to go in a marriage braid, and it’s horribly forward to make them early in a courtship, much less tell you, but. I wanted to have them. Besides, I never saw a forge here to make them with.” 

Bilbo grinned sappily at him. Nori was flushed as red as the marigold Bilbo was snacking on, which clashed horridly with the fiery orange of his hair. His freckles stood in stark relief to his still spreading blush that had now overtaken his ears. Bilbo resolved to embarrass him more often. 

Now he knew why the Song had been encouraging him to the sleeping herbs and the poppy. If he could borrow a cart or a pony he could be wed very soon indeed. 

Bilbo had the sudden thought that perhaps Dwarrow courted for much longer than hobbits did. His own parents had the longest courtship in living memory, and that was because he had built a smial for her. That was a public gifting, with many craftsmiths and builders, and thus families, in the know. It had been a courtship of a mere year and half still. 

Most hobbits knew each other from childhood. Courtship was to test compatibility far more than to get to know each other. Bilbo shrugged. Oh well. Nori had liked him well enough to do these things for him, and enough to, even if tricked into it, accept the adoption into the Æthel enough that the Song welcomed him as kin over guest. 

Bilbo hopped up and wandered into the smial. Nori trailed after him easily enough, leaving his boots by the door. Bilbo plucked one of the bundles from the window on his way to the oven where his teakettles sat. Eventually he’d make sure that Nori knew herbcraft, it was valuable. For now the curiosity in the Dwarrow’s eyes was equal to the incomprehension. 

Bilbo dropped the bundle into a kettle and poured milk from the morning’s pitcher after it. He’d made milk tea a couple times for Nori over the winter. Nori adored it, far more than Bilbo did. It meant that when Bilbo started a second kettle, with marigolds and dried strawberries for himself, Nori still suspected nothing. 

 Nori liked to wander. In the past he’d never gone too far from Ered Luin, trying to return at least once a year, with only one deviation as the Fell winter had prevented his return from his one trip too far south. Nori had told Bilbo about these, of his exploits robbing greedy men, and wandering for wandering’s sake, tracing each of his seven trips since he’d started leaving Ered Luin as an adult. 

Nori had gone south, and west. He’d seen the coast in two directions, he had gone northward once, before returning for winter. Nori had not yet turned East, and Bilbo could feel his feet leading him that way, towards the Voidwilds, the first home before the Great Wanderings and had since a child. 

Nori had come from Erebor, even if he had never known it. Bilbo was quite sure that he would not mind going further East than even there. The Voidlands were far off though, and many wanderings away. For now, perhaps they would go as far as past Gondor and see what lay past the maps his father had made from Ma’s travels. 

Nori blinked at him sleepily, midway into his tea. He hummed, and mumbled, slurring and nearly incoherent, “Oh. I guess I'm joining your house, not you mine.” 

Then Bilbo caught his cup as he slumped forward with a snore. He glanced up through his window. Daisy waved at him genially as she passed. One his Took cousins was following her, friendlier to Bilbo than his Baggins kin, and two ponies trailed after Isen’s grip on their bridles. 

Bilbo hated most ponies. He knew how to ride, his mother had taken him on a few trips where the distance required such as a child, but all the same. These were sturdy hobbit ponies, Tookish ones made for riding, with thick hair around their hooves, and braided manes and tails, and with saddles already prepared with baskets and hitches for luggage. 

Shire ponies stood somewhere between the height of Mannish ponies and horses, bred for Shirefolk and jealously guarded away from the Big folk. They were capable of pulling great weights for a great distance, of stepping lightly over marsh ground and smial roofs, and of going at a great enough speed for the Tooks that rode them out from the Shire to be overlooked at detail, passing for mannish younglings, or dwarrow, or to create new rumours of small elves roaming the lands. 

They were also distinctive for their great loyalty. To hobbits in general, yes, of course, but even moreso to the Æthel and the Children of the Void, however they looked. Once ridden by an Æthel they would be ridden by no other, and would defend their riders to the last. Ma’s Shire pony, Elbie, had withered away after her death, partly from her wounds as she had battered two of the wolves to death with her hooves, partly from grief, same as Da. 

These ponies led by Isen had the dye-paints on their white noses and feathering of unbidden and unclaimed steeds, the soft blues streaked with vibrant pinks of ponies meant to be ridden out, to wander rather than to farm. Isen hitched them to his gate and started up to the window of the kitchen, leaning on the pie board, likely standing on the bench to reach. 

Her cousin grinned at her, Songteeth sharp and eyes bright, “Heyo, cuz. Auntie Rosa sent you a gift, for some reason. Several actually, an’ I’m awfully jealous of one of them.” 

Rosalind Took was a far-seer, a formidable one. 

If she said one needed something, or sent a gift then it was indeed needed. Invariably she was always right. Bilbo nodded at his cousin, whose smile waned slightly. None of his family had ever appreciated his silent days when his voice caught thick in his throat and his words tangled on his tongue, bitter and choking. 

His Baggins kin disapproved quietly, expecting more strength from their kin than to surrender to the effects of sorrow and a winter-grief frozen tongue. His Took kin though, who lost people occasionally, though never anyone that they had not known the loss of beforehand, had grieved with him. 

Then they had drawn back after the month’s vigil, and expected him to get back up and go on, as they had ever done. Bilbo hadn’t and they’d circled in confusion and alarm until it was too late to swoop back in, and still they did not know how to help. 

His silent days, his grief, confused them. They withdrew, left him to mourn, and observed and left him be. His silent days reminded them that he was broken and they disliked them, and never stayed. 

Nori had, and that, more than anything else, had allowed Bilbo to foster his love for Nori so strongly. Nori had bared the grief and scars of his own life to Bilbo, and Bilbo had shown his, and as easily as Bilbo had supported Nori’s, had Nori supported his own. No one had ever allowed for his grief this long after, nor grieved with him. 

It was unseemly. If the Song called one home then you allowed them to go, grieved for the loss they left, and kept living until you were called. Hobbits chose to live only slightly longer than the span of Mannish lifetimes, so as to answer the call of the Song sooner, but Aunt Rosa, who had never yet been called, was well into her three hundreds, still as fair as her stolen father was until he had passed after his wife. 

It varied certainly, but grief was intended to be equal to the joy of a life well lived, not overshadowed. Bilbo had grown under a shadow of grief, and even now allowed it to be a claim to his thoughts. It made his cousin kin uncomfortable. 

Wordlessly he accepted the package through the window from Isen and watched his cousin scurry off. Nori snored behind him. One of the ponies whickered, and Bilbo drew back from the window rapidly blinking back tears. For a long moment he sat at the table, next to Nori, with his head in his hands and he stared at the wood grain of the table blankly. 

The click of his door startled him slightly, but not enough to move. Daisy’s quiet steps moved up behind him and she brushed gently through his curls with her fingers, “Oh, honey.” 

Bilbo let out a shuddering breath, and pretended that it didn’t get caught in a sob. Daisy clucked her tongue softly and moved away. She poked at Nori’s abandoned cup, peered in the kettle, and bustled around the kitchen, gathering breads, spices, and dried foodstuffs into a travel bag with the easy practice that Ma had used to use. Daisy had used to do this for Ma frequently, Bilbo recalled.  

She left the bag by the kitchen door and swept off down the hall. Bilbo pulled the package from Aunt Rosa closer. A letter sat on top, perfunctionary and full of congratulations, and little else. The true value lay underneath. Bound carefully, in new leather with thick paper, were four mastery books. Masteries were few and far between in the Shire. Craft Masteries could be pursued, but often simply passed down skill sufficed. 

True Masteries required skill beyond the Shire to be brought back. Masteries of Craft required release from the teacher for the student to leave, having learned all they could within the Shire, and for the student to return and teach something new. It was respected, but rare, for the Craft arts of the Shire had sufficed for a very long time. 

The Seven Callings were a different story entirely, and a mastery in those was both rare, and highly respected. Rosamund, who had the only mastery in far-seeing in the Shire bounds, often directed the few of those given. She had given the last Mastery Book to Ma, and Ma had earned her mastery easily. 

Ma had begun a second Mastery, but had paused on it for her children to grow. She had never finished it. Her portrait had only the Master’s marks of a Wanderer. 

Her Thief’s Mastery book hung below her portrait, half filled. Bilbo had read it too many times and wished that she had finished it. 

Two matching sets of lock picks were tied to two of the books, in the charcoal of a Thieves’ Mastery. The other two were the deep purple of a wanderer’s Mastery. Under that were the bracers of a third, and the last things in the bag were practical more than predictive. 

Aunt Rosa had great faith in them truly. A Thief’s Mastery was registered in the Shire, Master Thieves followed distinct codes and rules, and did not step over their lines. They were also very skilled, and it was a mischief not only valued but encouraged by the Song. Faunts stole shamelessly, cookies, and shinies, and mathoms, and anything that struck their fancy. 

Master Thieves were a defense. Were the Shire ever under attack then Master Thieves could be formally trained from the Bounder’s ranks, but they also knew the lay of the land, and the peoples beyond the Shire. Bounder trained thieves were never as accomplished. Master Thieves were intended to look at the shadows of the World to make decisions. 

Master Wanderers did the opposite, they wandered to learn, to see, to know. They looked at the wonders of the world and marveled, and brought beauty home in their hearts. They were meant to know the world, to see the brightness and choose from that. 

The two were designed to fit together, be it by way of one person carrying both as a balance, or by two Masters balancing each other. They were the only Masteries whose entirety had to be sought and learned outside the Shire. They were varied skills with a wide range. 

Almost all the Seven Callings had a balance, only Far-Seeing standing alone. There was a reason that Far-Seers were rare, the training was nonexistent and it depended entirely upon talent and connection to the Song. One was a Master when they learned control, merely that. 

A Singer’s Mastery countered a Dancer’s, a Thief to a Wanderer, a Contractor to a Namekeeper, and Far-Seers stood alone. It was a Shire Truth, but there sat a few Masters in each, and records from those before in all but Thief and Wanderer which had to be learned not taught. 

Aunt Rosa had much faith in them, in Nori and Bilbo. They each had a Thief’s book, and a Wanderer’s, and the bracers marked them as learning either to Sing or Dance in the manner of the Great Melody. Those were less rare, but those that knew them could lay spells and enchantments down. 

Bilbo wondered what she had seen that told her that they needed all three, to be Elder Masters, holding the sacred amount of three. Rosa was the only living Æthel who did now, Far-seeing, Dance, and Song. 

Bilbo sighed softly and repacked the books and bracers, pulling the soft cording from the bag instead. It was a deep green, matching Nori’s courting ribbon. Aunt Rosa truly saw far too much sometimes. 

He could figure that out later. For now Daisy was carefully tipping the last of Nori’s tea gently down his throat, and that meant he would only have a few more hours before he woke. If he wanted a husband today then he needed to take him now. 

Bilbo rose, wiped his face, and crossed to bind Nori’s arms in the way of a claimed husband. If this was a short wedding journey, as most were these days, to Crickhollow, Bree, the Old Forest, or even theTrollshaws as was popular, then the bruises would be visible when they returned. 

This wouldn’t be short though, and Bilbo would get to hoard the memory to himself after they faded. Nori snored softly still as Bilbo bound his arms tightly in the crisscrossing patterns that were traditional, and did not stir. The fabric bound hemp rope would not burn, but bruise, even spectacularly on Nori’s pale arms. 

Bilbo smiled viciously. Nori had read the Grimoire Daisy leant him. He knew what to expect, and had returned. He would be fine. 

Besides, he’d been adopt-claimed by the Gamgee’s, a line famous not only for stolen Yrcha husbands, but stolen goblin children, and for a violent protectiveness over those they claimed. He’d survive. Perhaps on a later wander he might put the instinct for adoption his Gamgee line had to good use and help find a child to take as theirs. 

Nori was swaying when he woke up, his mind fuzzy and thoughts thick and slow. He tried to stretch, and failed. His arms were bound from wrist to elbow, and slightly past in front of him. 

Muzzily, he thought about the fact that Ered Luin guards never bothered with more than mere shackles. 

He swayed particularly hard, tipping to his left and nearly falling if something had not caught him at the elbow and gently pulled him back upright. Nori hummed lowly, and peeled his eyes open, painfully past the gritty stick of too deep sleep. 

He was on a pony, a large one, with another tethered and walking beside. He squinted briefly down at the blue and pink face of the mount he was on. It blurred a bit and Nori looked at the trees instead. The pony snorted softly and slowed to a halt. Nori blinked dumbly down at it and his eyes caught on the crisscrossing green binding his arms. 

Oh. 

Nori tipped himself to the side enough to look behind him, his gaze catching on Bilbo’s face and Bilbo grinned at him, sharp and triumphant. Nori smiled back, and flexed his elbows, testing the ties. They were solid, and Bilbo laughed into his ear. 

Nori shook his head to clear it and watched as a new braid fell from behind his ear to hang in front of him. The silvered clasp with whorls of impurities that tucked the braid ends in was familiar. Bilbo tucked his chin on Nori’s shoulder and a second braid, with a smaller clasp binding its golden-brown end, fell by Nori’s. 

Bilbo urged the pony forward again and Nori laughed, helplessly. He hadn’t quite believed the Grimoire’s claim that hobbits habitually just kidnapped their spouses for marriage, he’d thought it a metaphor. Yet, here he was. Kidnapped, with a bead in his braids, and his courtship ribbon tucked into his marriage braid to loop under his bound arms. 

Bilbo tugged at the tail of the rope and the whole binding loosened at once. Nori rolled it carefully into a loop, and looked at the twining bruises up his arms in frank admiration. He rather wished he could trace them in inkings like the warriors with their scar tales.

He might do that anyways. There were plenty of plants that left stains he could trace it with until they found an ink artist. Nori leaned back then, “So, you found the beads then. You peek at anything else?” 

“Yes,” Bilbo said shamelessly, “The Fauntheart is gorgeous, I’ve already picked my seeds for it, pear for Baggins, but I put ivy in for Took. Your journal comes along nicely, and your spelling is improving slowly. Why am I Spoons?” 

Nori cackled, “I didn’t pick that actually. I don’t know how to forge or smith at all, I can do some woodwork, but I wanted something better for you. I didn’t tell them anything, I trust Bofur and Bifur, but Dori was, well, a lot stricter this time, I guess, so I didn’t want to cause problems. Bofur guessed though, and since I wasn’t telling he called you Spoons.” 

“Why Spoons?” Bilbo clarified. 

“Because when I stole your teaspoons back from your Aunt so they could go back with your mother’s china I kept three of them. I used those to make the beads and fauntheart.” 

Bilbo hummed, “You’re taking the rest of them when you visit Ered Luin next. We can get more spoons somewhere else before we get back. I want beads for any children, and some backups for any other things made for significance.” 

Nori shrugged. Traditionally a hobbit couple that could not conceive together, such as Nori and Bilbo would certainly count amongst, had other methods of procuring children. Adoption was popular, if less common now with many hobbits conforming to Mannish customs and finding such things unnecessary. 

The other method, should Nori not wish to follow the long held method of stealing children to adopt, was a Songchild. This method wasn’t guaranteed in the least. A Fauntheart, traditionally just seeds wrapped in fabric, was placed at the center of a clay shaped babe, and wrapped entirely in a blanket. 

If the parents carried the child, and the Song blessed them, then the clay form would simply wake a newborn. It was Æthel tradition to simply carry a Fauntheart, to create one during the wedding journey, and keep it should it ever wake. 

Apparently they were called Songchildren, or Voidcalled. Nori wasn’t sure it would work at all, but it was better than proving Broadbeam superstition and stealing a kid. Besides, Dwarves had originally been hewn from stone and woken from Mahal’s song, which was recorded similarly by hobbits as well. It was a similar concept. 

Nori hummed and leaned back, “Where are we going for our wedding journey then? I suppose we won’t be back for winter.” 

“No. Daisy will watch the Smial. East, past the map. You said Orocarni come sometimes, liked their wares. They are past the Ironhills, yes?” Bilbo shifted behind him, “Aunt Rosa sent Mastery books. We should go far. Three journeys, for wandering with new things all, and many skills to learn, and that could be fun.” 

“That’s past Erebor,” Nori said quietly, “I’ve never gone that way. Sounds good though, how far eastward this time?” 

Bilbo wiggled slightly, “Um. Eventually I want to retrace and map the Great Wanderings. There’s old legends that some stayed behind after the Great Betrayal, and I want to see if any ancient kin still live. The Song likes the East though, and Shire Springs are fading. I think a path for a new Wandering might be handy. The Betrayer’s poison is heavy here still.” 

Nori hummed his assent. The histories that hobbits kept were recorded wildly differently to Mannish ones, or Dwarrow. He wasn’t sure how Elves kept their records, but he’d guess similar to the other races, full of facts, names, dates, locations, and accuracy. 

Hobbits, when they wrote them instead of passing them down orally at least, used false names, representations, metaphors, an entirely different time system if they bothered at all, and referenced events from before the world’s first song. They followed single events as if they were of great significance or people under false names as if they were sacred, and if one knew proper history they then had to puzzle out events and people from the false names given. 

The Great Betrayer was Morgoth Caulant, if Nori had figured that out correctly. He had faded eventually from Hobbit annals, but he had been succeeded by the Poison Smith, who was Sauron. The Gamgee grimoire had his name in there, Grolk had reclaimed his loyalty from Þauron, which was easily translated. 

The Poison Smith was regarded as worse than the Betrayer by hobbit history for whatever reason, and Nori did not know why. 

Shire Springs were another matter entirely, and they weren’t recorded in any books at all. The only reason Nori knew of them at all was because Daisy had used one in her trick to adopt him. Bilbo had explained after he’d finished laughing, a mere month into that winter stay, but only after Nori’s distress had become obvious. 

Bilbo was not particularly good at reading faces. Nori had spent several days after that attempting to teach Bilbo both how to read emotion from one’s expression, and how to transliterate that when one was bearded. 

He was largely unsuccessful, though Bilbo could now read Nori like a book. 

Shire Springs were also called Void Wells. They were places where the Song was louder and it wore through the weaving of the world. Most commonly it wove into springs, producing water that was not water, that was silvered and thick, and tasted like something wholly indefinable. 

There were seven Springs in the Shire, closely guarded and valued. One for each district, and they were small. When Daisy had decided that Nori, and through him Bilbo, would be kin to her she had visited a spring and taken some of the waters. Nori had drunk it, after she had blessed it at her family’s shrine and run it through a chalice at their alter, one that had been cared for, repaired, and kept since the Gamgee line had begun. 

Having now read the Grimoire Nori had a sneaking feeling that the chalice he had drunk from, the one he had felt amusement at the time for, and foolish for indulging her, was actually formed from what it resembled. 

He had no desire to ever know what or who the skull was from though. For it to have been valued enough to survive from the late First Age, or early Second as near as he could figure, then it had to have been one of Grolk’s courting gifts. 

The adoption had been a trick though, plain and simple. Some things, Daisy had maintained and Bilbo had agreed, were only for kinsfolk and Æthel to know. There was a shortcut to marriage, she’d said, if he were willing, and Nori had agreed without thinking. A mere week after that, when she and Bilbo had relearned his braids, and reordered them, she had pulled the agreement from him and offered him what amounted to liquid Song to drink. 

He had felt ill for a week. 

That had apparently been a normal reaction. All hobbits were Æthel, but all Æthel were certainly not hobbits. The adoption rites agreed to him following a house of the Æthel, to learn their ways, to listen to the Song, whether or not he heeded it, and it had been sealed by the Shire Spring. 

On its own that was fine, Daisy had taken care for it to resemble a line adoption, something that was not foreign to Dwarrow, even common post Erebor between Masters and Apprentices should it be needed. He was Æthel in word, under the Aegis of the Gamgee family. 

All three of them had underestimated the regard of the Song itself, which had led an insensate Nori to Bilbo, which had raised a near feral hobbit child after his family’s deaths, and which had blessed the Gamgee line so thoroughly that they had survived, name, knowledge, and kin, for whole Ages of the world. 

The Song had leapt at the chance to call Nori Its own, and even now there was shifting under his skin and his teeth itched, after spending half a day in Its bounds after five months away. The Song had sunk Its fangs into Nori, and would not let go. He did not want it too, either. 

The Great Wanderings referred to any displacement of the Æthel. There were four recorded, the first when the world had begun to be sung into existence and many fled the shrinking Void Wilds as the Ainu tamed them into a great tapestry to host their work. Some left to reenter the void when the world had settled, many stayed to explore and to watch, curious, and as hidden as hobbits ever were. 

Of course that was before they were hobbits, simply Æthel, poorly adjusted to that new place and curious. The Second was the event referred to as the Split. It had heralded something that had sent even the Valar fleeing, though records were unclear on what, or why, only that the Æthel had fled also. This was the first mention of the Betrayer however, which toyed the time to just prior to Morgoth’s first imprisonment by legend-history. 

The third Wandering, which had occurred late in what was now called the First Age, occurred as a result of Bereliand sinking. The Æthel, largely of a hobbit nature now, fled from the Wars of the Elves, the Dwarrow, the early Mannish, and chiefly from the Great Betrayer and his ilk. That Wandering had been gradual, for the hobbits had been recorded as multitudes of small colonies and groups scattered across the land. 

The Fourth had been the most recent, at the end of the Second age, when the hobbits fled the wrath and wars of Sauron, and formed the Shire. There were more records of that Wandering than any of the others, and largely because whole lines had been lost, and records with them. For a people whose histories were told by mouth, not by scholar or rune, such a diminishing of people had been catastrophic. 

Even the scattered peoples of Erebor, and the slowly diminishing Dwarrow as a whole knew their histories existed, recorded and preserved for when they might be reclaimed, etched both on stone and ink. 

By all accounts of the now written records, the Æthel were much diminished from what they once were, in might from how they were when they first left the void, in allies for they had lost the ones they’d claimed in the Second Wandering as well as their trust in such things, and in number as the records written after the Fourth Wandering referenced dozens of lost lines, and three peoples that gradually became one. The Gamgee Grimoire had hundreds of lost lines, and seven peoples. 

Nori could not begrudge Bilbo for wanting to retrace his long lost heritage in the least. Smaug stood between Nori and his, but Nori barely wished to return to Erebor, the histories and security for his brothers was the only good thing about that particular wish. 

If Bilbo’s feet led him East as surely as Nori’s had led him to Bilbo, then Nori had no reason to distrust the Song. There were songs amongst the Dwarrow, ones where the first verse said that the time for Elves was ending, that the Ainu were calling them. They were a source of laughter, jeers, triumph, most of Ered Luin disdained Elves as a whole for Mirkwood’s actions, despite any past alliances. 

Dwarrow rarely ever sang the second verse, the one that said the the time of the Dwarrow also drew to a close, for Mahal called them to his halls to sleep until the breaking of the world. Nori did not hate the second verse, as most Dwarrow did. It was sad, felt untrue and honest all at once, and it made the welcome of the Song all the more relieving for Nori. 

Dwarrow were stubborn, unyielding, and proud. It was a fact of the world. Nori had never been a particularly good Dwarf though. Stubborn yes, but he had learned to compromise early, for Dori’s sake, and for Ori’s. Nori yielded often, too, not merely to compromise, but also simply because he did dangerous things that contradicted many fundamentals of the Dwarrow. 

Pride was perhaps Nori’s strongest Dwarrow trait, but his was not the bold pride in his race, nor the bull headed pride in his House, nor the arrogant pride in his Craft and Maker. Nori had a different pride, one that ran along Æthel ways long before he’d met them. 

Nori had a Craft that he excelled in, but was reviled and dismissed. It was not a true Craft. His Maker certainly had flaws, and Nori was a thief child that grew on a refugee’s road. He honored Yavannah, Mahal’s wife almost more, much to Dori’s dismay. His race rejected him often, at least those he knew, and he did not like all of their ways or histories. His House he was proud of, but as it consisted of him and his brothers only, that had morphed his pride the most. 

Nori’s pride was Loyalty incarnate. His family, his brothers, the Ur’s, who had welcomed them, his husband, and his newly adoptee line, those held his loyalty. He was endlessly proud, and protective of them. His pride was in defending them, and loving them. It was in him bringing the fruits of his craft home to his brothers, hiding coin and gifts, and helping pad the finances. 

It was in him sacrificing his food to Ori first, then to Dori, with one hand without them noticing for the other was distracting them. It was in him respecting Dori’s wishes for a peaceful home, and taking on what would be dishonorable for a Dwarrow by using false names and misleading braids, and lies and misdirection to keep the guard ignorant, and them safe from rumors alone. 

It was in him sharing his Craft with his husband, and learning the Song, and keeping the secrets of the Æthel, and not believing in much that he was told of his husband’s people, but trusting anyways, even as he was tricked into trusting more of them. 

His pride was in his love and his loyalty to that love, despite his lack of trust in some. Dwarrow were loyal to their Maker, then Race, then the Royals, then Kin and House. Nori was loyal to his family, the rest could hang. 

Even the distinction between family and kin was a heady thing that no dwarrow he had ever tried to explain it too had ever understood, but one that Nori had learned and known for as long as he could remember. Family was those that you claimed, loved, and protected, and returned the favor despite any trust or lack of. Kin was simply who you were related to. 

Dori, Ori, and the Urs were family, Bilbo and Daisy now, baby Hamfast when he was born and Gaffer too. The distant relations that had also fled Erebor but only rarely cared enough to check on their cousin’s disgraced line, Gloin and Balin, and Vili, and those associated who truly did not care, those were kin. 

Nori leaned back into Bilbo and let his mind drift back into sleep, unbound and wed by Æthel custom, though he would start the vow exchange later. He was tired, still somewhat drugged and woozy from it now that he knew where he was, and he trusted Bilbo to know where he was going. 

Besides, while he might have a wedding braid, clasped and done properly, he still might be able to convince Bilbo into an approximation of a proper Dwarrow wedding as well, if backwards and odd, for Dori’s sake when his older brother asked. 

They’d have no guests, no great ceremony, no relatives to join houses, but they could ask Mahal and the Mother to bless their union, and weave each other’s hair, which was what a wedding boiled down to without politics and legalities and ceremony, all of which would be exhausting for Nori and Bilbo alike. 

Nori hummed, a tuneless echo of the Song he could barely hear this far from the Shire, and drifted off to sleep again. 

The travel itself was more pleasant than Bilbo had anticipated. Unlike his one trip with Ma before she had decided to make him siblings, long before the Fell Winter, this was companionable, and he was old enough not to be overwhelmed at leaving the Shire behind. 

Nori was also much more practiced on the road, in ways that Bilbo hadn’t anticipated to prepare for. Of course there were ways that Nori didn’t prepare for, or more likely didn’t care so much about. Namely, laundry and bathing. 

Nori had soap, he could wash himself, his clothes, and his bedding. He chose not to unless they neared a town. Thrice now Bilbo had stolen his things to wander to the creek with the soap. Twice Bilbo had tricked Nori into bathing in order to get his hands on his clothes. 

Bilbo missed his bed also, and his difficulty getting comfortable at night with sticks and stones under his Ma’s old bedroll had been irritating Nori for all three of their weeks on the road. 

Nori had compromised on the laundry issue by telling Bilbo to pick a day and time, and then Nori stuck to it, the both of them taking the sunset hour every third day to bathe and wash clothing together. Bilbo would comb and braid Nori’s hair, and Nori would return the favor while their bedding and clothes dried by the fire. 

Bilbo compromised on the sleep issue by spending night hours while Nori snored weaving prayer knots from the grasses to hang on their trail, and piecing some of the fabric scraps he’d brought into smaller parts to sew together. A quilting project was enough to spend several hours exhausting his mind and hands enough to sleep. Naps on his pony, whom Nori had named Kidizdaig, made up the rest of Bilbo’s lack of rest. 

Nori’s own pony, a temperamental thing that had a streak of mischief a mile wide, had been named Durhul, and while Nori did ride her, she was more frequently carrying the bags and bedrolls. Kidzi was much more even-tempered, but equally mischievous. Already Bilbo and Nori had raised on their steeds, letting the ponies push their speed while Bilbo giggled, and Nori laughed wildly, his braids streaming behind him. 

He was a wild thing, Nori. He was like an Æthel of old, going where he liked, and stealing what he could, and always wishing to go further. Nori was like the tree cats in the Old Forest past Crickhollow, massive, lithe beasts they were, blending with the branches they prowled with just the barest flicker of their tufted tails a warning before they pounced. 

Still, Nori could be as dangerous and hidden as those cats, but just as surely as those cats could shriek like a dying faunt to ward off a threat, so did Nori pull an aura of mistrust and crudities around himself like a cloak to hide his insecurities and fears. The first time Nori had gotten defensive at Daisy, who had not been his host over Winter and thus been subjected to his sharp tongue when she’d pushed too far, was memorable for all the wrong and right reasons. 

Daisy was a Gamgee foremost, having loved Gaffer since she’d been a faunt, but she’d been a Bell before that, with a stolen goblin child grandmother. She was vicious in her own right, and she enjoyed a good fight whichever form it came in. When Nori had lost his temper at her and sworn, quite impressively across three languages, in her face she had snarled back, Songteeth bared, and cursed him creatively. 

Nori had flinched hard then been silent for a too long moment, used to the Dwarrow reaction of fists, or the mannish one of knives. Men could spar verbally, but by and large, from what Bilbo understood, Dwarrow did not prefer to fight verbally when a knock down drag out fight could suffice in order to cool tempers. 

Then Nori had rallied and begun a new slew of cursing, shockingly creative as he barely even repeated words. Daisy had joyously retaliated, and for a single stormy afternoon that winter the two of them screamed themselves hoarse at each other, grins wide and feral, while Bilbo took notes. 

It had also been eye opening as at the end of it, when they all sat by the fire with tea and stew, Daisy had asked a great many questions about the functioning of his family, of Ered Luin, the guard, and dwarrow as a whole. Bilbo had noticed the flinch, but Daisy had read more into it. 

Bilbo had hated that conversation, and the wan look that had haunted Nori for the duration, and for several days after. He had come to several realizations and a strong, singular determination. 

Realization one, Nori was not a typical dwarrow, spiritually or, more pressingly, physically. Dwarrow sometimes came to trade in the markets, or with the Tooks. Nori was far more slender, all wiry muscle and clever fingers and dancing movements, always ready to move away in a moment’s notice. 

It left him smaller than other Dwarrow, who were far bulkier and less gaunt, in comparison, and taller. Dwarrow were as a rule taller than hobbits, except for Nori, who was of average hobbit height, taller than Bilbo who ran on the shorter side. 

Realization two, Nori was a thief. It was honorable to hobbits, who used an honor code for such things and had an odd relationship with the concept of ownership in general, but not so for dwarrow. Nori ran afoul of the guard at Ered Luin often, and of angry menfolk, and while he rarely got caught, that didn’t mean never. 

Realization three, Nori’s brothers didn’t approve of his Craft, or profession. That meant that on the rare occasion that he did get caught that he had less than no support. It meant that while they were not the direct cause of Nori’s flinches and wariness and fear, that they certainly did not help or protect him. 

This lead to the single greatest determination that Bilbo had ever made, one that had grown and cemented itself the further he fell in love with Nori, and one that he had sworn as one of his wedding vows, murmuring it in Æthel into Nori’s braids under the stars one night, while his husband, half asleep and near delirious played with Bilbo’s short curls. 

Bilbo was smaller than his husband, not by much, but he would never be a physically threatening presence to provide a sense of security. That did not mean that he could not protect his husband. 

Most of their wedding vows were standard, tailored to them in their words, of course, but not abnormal in their content, and equal and returned with glad reciprocity. 

On the third night from the Shire, Nori had looked at him and said the first vow, holding Bilbo’s hand, “I swear to bring you with me on my wanderings whenever you wish to go, wherever you wish to go, for all I have is yours and I wish to share that easily.” 

Bilbo had squeezed his hands back, and replied with his own vow, for a proper marriage was equal and the oaths differed in order to allow for the differences in the people marrying to shine, “I swear to follow you wherever you would bring me, and to support your in all your travels, whether I am by your side or resting within the Song’s embrace. All I have is yours, and when your feet take you from my side, I will wait and welcome you back.” 

Nori had breathed out a sigh at that, any early wedding vow was a gamble for balance, and they’d both known that Bilbo could not always accompany him, not when Nori felt unsafe so frequently in his brothers’ mountain home. He’d offered anyways, and Bilbo adored him for it. 

Some days after that, during their first official washing session, Bilbo began the second vow, starting this time, as Nori washed his hair as if Bilbo were a precious, delicate thing, “I swear to value you for all my days,” He’d whispered, barely louder than the creek’s rush, “To value you for your opinions, your thoughts, your disagreements and grievances, and value your love all the more. I swear to value you for the sake of yourself and nothing more or less.” 

Nori’s fingers froze in his hair, then Nori rested his forehead on the crown of Bilbo’s head, his lips by his twitching ear, “I swear to value you for all my days, to respect your differences as you respect mine, and support you in all you do. I swear to value your silence as much as your words, and hear you always, however you choose to communicate. I swear to value your love as the treasure it is, and value you for the person you are always.” 

Then they finished washing. Vows were exchanged when the time felt right, and never written down. The sanctity of tying their souls together was never to be cheapened by recording them as if it were a contract and not a series of soul deep declarations. Traditionally there were five vows, three of equal exchange, reciprocated and tailored to support each other, and one for each of them to express a devotion unique to them. 

Vows were not written, but the gist of them could be told if one wished. Ma’s single vow had been to always return to Da, to let him be her anchor home and her home. Da’s had been to support her wild heart and wandering ways, and to never resent her for having a heart that led away from him so often. 

Nori had been up earlier than him one morning, a week later, and Bilbo had stirred to see him playing with the bare length of meticulously quilted distraction that Bilbo had been working on. He’d looked up, and smiled just so with the early morning sun turning his loose, tangled, red hair aglow as if it were on fire, and Bilbo’s breath had caught, just a little. 

“I swear to you,” he said, with a heavy gaze, “that I will support your every endeavor, and bring no strife to your house, for it is mine also. I will not allow any children we may acquire to grow up resentful, hungry, or desperate, and I vow to provide peace and not turmoil in all my intentions.” 

Bilbo had held his gaze and remembered Nori’s quiet admittance of a scarcity of food, of learning to steal originally in order to eat, of feeding his brothers, and bearing his elder’s disappointment for continuing to provide still. He remembered Nori’s fear of the guard, and flinches when anyone taller moved too fast whenever they visited a Mannish village for supplies. 

This was Nori’s single vow and Bilbo would respect it. 

That day Bilbo had sat next to Nori with their Wanderer’s journals open, and they’d drawn maps from the Shire to where they were, right at the mid corner of the pages so there was plenty room to draw further. They didn’t travel that day, just sat in quiet companionship as Bilbo pressed against Nori feeling his wiry strength, and the ever present shadow of his ribs. 

They went two weeks before their last reciprocal vow. This one too, Nori had initiated, on one of Bilbo’s silent days, signing as he spoke, “I swear that no matter who else comes into our lives together, my brothers, your people, the Song or Mahal, that no one else will have my first council, and that my first loyalty will always be to you, to our house and family, and that I shall never knowingly betray your trust or safety,nor that of our family.” 

Bilbo had thought that cleverly worded at the time, for the Song held one to most verbal contracts strictly, wed vows or otherwise, and words of the type as ‘knowingly’ became terribly important when those rare occasions arose. No one wished to be bound to a strict vow against their own nature should circumstances change. 

Bilbo held his gaze firmly, lifted his hands, and spoke along in the bare whisper he could manage, an effort that Nori was well worth, “I swear to hold our family in the highest esteem, you and any children in my highest council. I will never willingly betray our honor or our safety, and will welcome our kin as kith, regarding your brothers as closely as they should allow. I swear to forfend the Song and Um’al’hye as it should prove a necessity should occasion prove need in favor of our family above all else.” 

Nori gave him a beautiful smile and signed his gratitude. Before he’d returned his older brother had told him not to bring certain topics home for discussion if he should expect a welcome. Nori adored, loved his brothers, and did not wish to lose them. One of the banned topics though was Nori’s thiever, and any conspirators especially. Dori simply did not wish to know. 

It had banned Nori from telling his brothers of Bilbo entirely. That had weighed on him heavily, Bilbo knew. 

Kith and kin were very Æthel terms though, and by putting it thusly Bilbo had cut off Nori's support of formal Dwarrow categorization. Kin were any relatives. Bilbo had much kin, Baggins and Took both, Nori had less but still some. Kith was anyone that supported you, and loved you enough to be called family when you were not of the same house, line, or even kin. 

Isen was kin, he cared for Bilbo, but not enough to learn and grow around Bilbo’s hurts. Daisy was kith, she clung to her fierce love finger deep and savage in her regard. Nori’s distant cousin Vili, who had checked a few times after they had settled in Ered Luin, but not before, was kin. Nori’s Ur’s, Bombur and Bofur and Bifur, who had taken the Ri’s in and sheltered them both easily and without hesitation, were kith. 

All of that led to now, when they had left another Mannish village behind, and one of the men had flown into a rage seeing them, having a low opinion of dwarrow, for Nori was an honorable thief, perhaps the only one amongst his race, but certainly there were plenty dishonorable thieves still amongst the dwarrow. 

They had needed to steal their supplies then, meanly choosing that onerous man’s household for such at Bilbo’s request, as no one in the town would trade after the man’s tirade. 

Bilbo and Nori had left the village behind, and Bilbo had mulled for the day’s ride over the small flinches Nori disguised as flowing gestures, and the fearful cringes as that man had raved in Nori’s face. Bilbo stepped in then, dragging the matronly woolworker he’d been haggling with, passing as a Dwarrow dam, perhaps poorly at the time in the hostile mannish company. 

Tempers had been settled, but Bilbo had hovered by Nori’s side for the rest of that day, while Nori was quieter, slow to speak, and so wretchedly cautious. Nori had carefully kept between the menfolk of the village and the irate, worried Bilbo, with an ease that spoke of practice, and worry in the tremble of his fingers. 

They’d left unmolested by the suspicious guard, with apologies for the men’s tempers from some of the women, but Nori had been shaky still under his facade of scorn and bravado. 

So, Bilbo braided his husband’s hair, and braided it again, weaving his courting ribbon through the middle braid and using it to tie all three main braids together into a knot at the base of Nori’s skull. Then he’d unbraided it and combed until Nori was nearly asleep, but not quite, and rebraided it again, gentle and calm, covering his own quivering rage with comfort for Nori. 

To the sound of his husband’s contented breaths and the low tones of the Song, hidden under the louder melody of the Ainur’s works so far from the Shire he offered his single vow. 

“I swear to you,” he said, “that in any way, every way, that I can, that I will protect you. That I will not allow anyone to strike you without my protest and my defense, nor to reject you without cause for any reason or prejudice. I swear that I will offer comfort and love unfettered to the hurts you’ve gathered already, and to those yet to come. I will defend your character, your honor, and your physical self, and I shall be a shield to your front and the hidden knife to your back to those that might betray you. I swear to you that I shall never allow you to be abused as you have been, by yourself or by any other.” 

Bilbo tied off Nori’s last braid then, and slipped around to his swaying husband’s front. Nori was crying softly, and Bilbo cried with him, for the loss of security and safety that Nori had experienced before he’d ever known them, for the fact that he did not, could not, know what they felt like to truly understand what Bilbo had sworn. 

They were two broken people, shattered in ways that their jagged edges fit each other, until trust and love and loyalty entwined into something broken, but so, so worth it. 

They were married. Neither of them needed to hide their broken pieces from each other. 

It didn’t make them go away, just softened the edges. 

That was all they could do, soften each other's edges until they no longer cut, and fill the empty spaces with the other’s love. It was enough. 

It was enough. 

Chapter Text

“Erebor is not so impressive as I may have thought it given Teabones’ descriptions and the grief of the older generations. Spoons and I are passing it now, and dear Inkheart, it is just a mountain. There is a forest on one edge, a lake on the other, and plains surrounding the rest. A Lonely Mountain it may be, it does stand alone, but it is half the height of the Blue Mountains, and a third of the Misty Mountains. I have heard that it was once a volcano, and perhaps that was its claim besides its halls within once, but I still find myself disillusioned. It is just a mountain, not even large enough to draw attention save by its lone nature. I find it unworthy of the risk of a dragon, stability can be found elsewhere easily.” 

- Excerpt from “The Thief's Key”, Volume One, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

“Bilbo! That isn’t funny,” Nori laughed out helplessly, urging Durhul on to chase his cackling husband who had stolen his journal. Bilbo half turned on Kidzi, journal tucked under his arm, to throw a makeshift conker at Nori, hitting his nose dead on. 

They’d gone through a grove of sweet gum trees earlier, and Bilbo in his current goal of teaching Nori herblore had scrambled up the trees for the spiky green seed pods. Nori, long suffering in the face of his husband leaping from his pony to scramble up a tree like a squirrel, had made camp. 

Bilbo came back with the seed pods, and had shown Nori how to use them to make several things, the hobbit apparently determined to carry an apothecary's worth of medicines as they could make them. Evidently Sweetgum was good for the sicknesses that could kill small children and elders in Mannish villages, but only felled adults for a week before recovery. 

Those sicknesses were common to men, easily passed around. In truth hobbits and dwarves were susceptible to it too, in different ways than menfolk, and it had taken an embarrassingly long conversation for Nori and Bilbo to settle their terms enough to know what they were talking about. 

Hobbits, affected by the illness mainly by way of fevers and aches, called it the week’s waste. It was strictly quarantined in the event that it began to pass around the Shire, and while it wasn’t as reviled as some of the other illnesses, hobbits liked it the least. 

Dwarrow called it lung fever, and it was either a week to two weeks of a nasty cough and weakness of musculature, with seasoned warriors being confined to their beds coughing until their lungs creaked. It was a miserable experience, and children were affected the most. It passed quickly though, with no permanent damage should they pass the height of the illness. 

Men called it the grip fever, the winter’s influence, and often simply the flu. 

Still, Bilbo had brought down three things from the sweetgum trees and shown Nori how to process them. The green seed pods that Bilbo had gathered got mashed and crushed into a chunky facsimile of a paste, and Nori had carefully crumbled up the bark strips to be dropped into the jar with the vibrant slurry. 

When they had one of Bilbo’s bartered clay jars two thirds of the way full of green and brown chunks, then Bilbo had dug out the bottle of moonshine from the Shire. Nori watched glumly as nearly half of the bottle he had been rationing to add the occasional man’s drink at taverns, such strong spirits lowered their inhibitions remarkably fast after all, was poured into the jar. 

It was good to have the medicine though, Nori reasoned, and they had more moonshine. There were sweet gums near Ered Luin too, which meant that if this worked then he’d be able to keep medicine for Ori around. 

While most dwarrow with lung fever recovered well, Ori had gotten lung fever as a child at a time when food was low, and healers too expensive. His lung fever had faded but Ori, left weak by the ordeal, had immediately succumbed to lung wither, and even still his breath rattled when it was too cold, and he tired fast, despite his recovered strength. 

Nori then dug the tallow from the bottom of the cooking supplies satchel, which size he’d laughed at when he’d first seen, but he had to admit he enjoyed access to Bilbo’s spices and oils, and the extra rations storage. Durhul carried it well, too, Nori himself couldn’t lift the satchel easily at all. 

He’d spent a somewhat pungent evening after that boiling tallow down in a sauce pan as Bilbo crushed in the green bud leaves from the sweet gums in and extolled the virtue of the leaves to prevent infection on burns. He put other things too, dried marigold heads, sprigs of chamomile, fresh crushed garlic, and the goop from the tiedoff frond of something Nori still couldn’t identify. 

Bilbo had called it desert lily, and slit the frond like a long fish to scrape its juice into the pot. All the while Nori gently stirred it, letting the pot stink of plants and garlic as the tallow simmered down. 

Nori had enjoyed learning what Bilbo had taught him, even if he weren’t sure he could identify the plants on his own if he’d needed to. They broke camp in the morning, with a jar of plant matter infusing in alcohol buried in one satchel, and two smaller jars of burn salve in each of their keeping. 

He had been satisfied with the pause yesterday, right up until they’d continued east and Bilbo revealed both his proficiency in a hobbitish game called conkers, and his newfound ammunition. Conkers, which had a child’s iteration and a more vicious adult’s version, was usually played with horsenuts. 

Given both the accuracy and strength Bilbo had displayed with the hollow, browned, old sweetgum pods Nori was simply glad that he was not playing this game with the hard nuts it usually was. 

Another spiky ball pegged Nori in the side of his head, and caught from a braid, dangling cheerfully, and Nori swore viciously. Bilbo cackled, and Nori tugged it from his braid to fling at his laughing husband. He missed his goal of Bilbo’s face, but it bounced off his shoulder, and Nori counted it as a win. 

“Fiend!” He howled mockingly at his retreating hobbit’s back, “Wretch! Bring my journal back alongside your face so I can hit it with one of your thrice accursed Yavannah born tree urchins!” 

Durhul lunged into a gallop, chasing her sister merrily, as they streaked through the woods, Nori leaning forward over her neck, half raised in his seat. The woods gave way to open plains, small plots of farmland separated by sloppy mannish fences of stone and sticks dotting the sides of their path. Bilbo twisted in his seat on Kidzi’s riding blanket and lifted, and Nori shrieked in startled laughter as another pod smacked him in the cheek. 

His husband, who couldn’t hit a target from four feet away with a dart or a throwing knife, could peg him with a thrown nut from two fields away with both of them on pony back. 

Nori reached into his pouch and snagged a wooden dip pen, it was a cheap thing he’d whittled himself and the tip had already broken. He threw it like a dart, knowing he’d miss where he’d truly aimed, he certainly wasn’t as good as Bilbo at this. He still hit though, the pen smacking weakly into Bilbo’s low back and falling to the side. 

Bilbo’s head tipped back in delighted laughter, his curls whipping in the wind and his marriage braid, bound in twine to keep the clasp in place, shining in the sun. Nori chased him, on his heels, beside him with Durhul and Kidzi neck and neck, and falling behind again, pulling ahead the next. 

The quiet rhythm of the Song echoed in the wind, barely there but pulling them still eastward, the sun slowly moving to set behind them as they slowed to a canter, trading handfuls of jerkied fruit and smoked meats. They had routed around the Misty Mountains a month ago, unsure at the ponies’ abilities to balance on the mountain trails. 

This meant that they’d gone north through the gap of the Ettenmoors, and were skirting the edge of Mirkwood now, foraying into the trees occasionally, sometimes drifting closer to the Grey Mountains instead, Bilbo staring in awe at the white capped heights. 

Nori enjoyed this. He’d had companionship before, folk to travel with, be they a caravan for a time, or a fellow thief from whom to guard his back. Never had he traveled with someone he could trust so thoroughly to not only be able to let his guard down, but to play as if he were a pebble. 

Even as a pebble he hadn’t been so carefree, the road from Erebor to the southern colonies of Ered Luin had been fraught and full of dangers, and the Ri’s hadn’t exactly been well off for that journey in the least. Nori had played, but he certainly hadn’t trusted many even as a pebble. 

Teaching Bilbo the ins and outs of a successful heist was a benefit too, and fun. Had he tried planning a potential caper with one of the fellow thieves he’d traveled with previously they wouldn’t have treated it as a game. They also would have suggested murder long before as a potential problem solution. 

Honorable dwarrow did not typically become thieves, murderers did, and those with more violence than sense. 

Bilbo, when presented with a potential pitfall of an interrupted guard, had hummed and suggested drug dipped feather darts. Nori had needed to pause and consider that. It really was a tidy solution. Nori had been expecting the tried and true whack ‘em in the head method that most thieves employed. 

At least he’d already known that Bilbo’s first thought wouldn’t have been to stab, or tie off loose ends in any other similar ways. He suspected that Bilbo could kill if he needed to, Nori thought any hobbit might be able to if they were so inclined. 

Nori certainly could kill if he had too, and had twice, self defense both times. Neither he or Bilbo was of a nature to plan to kill, or inclined to do so easily, he thought. Nori did suspect that Bilbo might be able to kill slightly easier than him, his Æthel nature lending him a more feral edge than came naturally to Nori. 

But then, of course, that might just be Nori assigning him that attribute after being bitten by Bilbo too many times. He had been trying to teach Bilbo to fight, to defend himself decently if it were needed. It might not be since Bilbo was teaching him proper Æthel sneaking. If they never got caught they’d never need to fight. 

Not that Nori thought that Bilbo could ever stay caught if someone tried. The purpose of a hobbits’ secondary canine, the one they called a Songtooth, had been revealed quite by accident when one of their playfights had gotten too heated. 

Nori, in what had been intended to be playful, had bitten Bilbo back when his husband had gently bit his arm trying to grapple Nori, and failing. It was a usual tactic from his smaller husband, to bite Nori and knock him off guard for a better grapple, and Bilbo had never left more than bruises. 

In Nori’s playful return bite he hadn’t taken into account that Bilbo’s mildly feral distraction techniques stemmed from him having a whole different race’s instincts. Bilbo had instinctively taken his play bite as a challenge, alike to what he’d later explained that faunts often did playing. Only that Bilbo wasn’t a faunt with his baby teeth, and Nori wasn’t a hobbit with the proper instincts or resistance. 

Thus Bilbo impulsively bit down, deep and hard into Nori’s arm. Nori shrieked and dropped him, and shoved hard, no longer playfully biting Bilbo’s arm, and Bilbo growled slightly, pupils blown, still clamped on. 

A moment later Bilbo’s eyes cleared and he let go of his jaw lock on Nori’s arm, and Nori stared at his bleeding arm. Then Nori had collapsed hard, and Bilbo let out an alarmed squeak. 

Apparently hobbits were venomous, a natural defense for a last resort. Their venom was almost never deadly, save for much smaller animals, but it was almost always debilitating in one way or another. The natural resistance to toxins that hobbits had in order to eat any mushrooms, or survive such plants that would kill any other creature, meant that hobbits bit each other often as faunts, with no effect at all. 

So when Nori crumpled to the ground with a racing heart and no control over his limbs at all, his breath coming in panicked rasps, Bilbo had also panicked. 

It had taken several hours to wear off fully, and if Bilbo bit anyone else like that he could get away from anything. Especially since Nori had decided to test how many bites before Bilbo ran out of venom sometime later. They test this with a jar with cotton over the mouth of the jar, which collected the venom after Bilbo bit it also. 

The answer was seven big bites, which filled three and a half jars, but later experimentation proved that it didn’t take long for Bilbo to have full venom glands again, and that with practice he could control how much venom he bit with. Bilbo, at a gleeful Nori’s behest, did in fact practice until he could hold back his venom enough to merely stun a rabbit, or overpower it  

They ate quite a lot of meat during those weeks when they tarried in the forest edge for practice. Bilbo mentioned offhand at one point, when Nori had felt stiff and somewhat ill, after a few of the meals that that used to be a well used method of helping a non-Æthel born spouse’s systems to be more toxin resistant on the last Wandering. 

Nori quietly resolved to keep an eye on the food and teas for a time, Bilbo also experimented, and more frequently forgot to tell Nori that he was doing so. The last time Bilbo had gotten curious it had been him testing whether their marriage had leant him the dwarvish fire resistance that Nori had. It hadn’t. 

Nori was glad they had made burn cream. 

And still they rode to the east, clearing the edge of Mirkwood, veering closer to the Withered Heath as they went. In the distance rose a lone peak, the barest hint of height across the low hills and plains to their south. 

“Erebor,” Nori breathed, and they veered closer with no more words spoken. A trail of smoke rose from the far side, and Nori shivered without ever intending to. He didn’t remember the dragon, hadn’t been born. 

Dori did though, and Nori had grown up shaking his brother from wretched nightmares. He had grown up in the shadow of Erebor’s fall, and in the aftermath of the dragon, and every accomplishment, every success, every victory had always echoed with Erebor’s old, overcast shadow of always being the ever present better than this. 

Nori looked away. The Withered Heath, the Gray Mountains spurring around that cursed valley of old myths and burnt ground, rose higher than the lonely mountain, and they yielded more fruit as Nori had plucked blackened and half buried treasures from the ground several times. 

They rode past the mountain, pausing just long enough for each to sketch it in their Mastery books. Nori took great care to include the smoke, and repeated the sketch in his travel book, still he was working on the one Bilbo had given when he’d first left to visit his brothers. 

Nori was silent as they rode away, and Bilbo, equally quiet, followed his lead as he veered north again to avoid the Iron Hills in the distance. This was already farther than he’d ever gone. Already winter rose in coming as the wind began to bite. 

Once they were past the Iron Hills they veered south again, towards Rhún but aiming past it. The wind still bit, but the further south and east they rode the less chill accompanied it. The further they rode the louder the hints of Song became, tangling with the stone-hymn that thrummed through Nori’s feet from the approaching mountains to the East, ones on no western maps. 

The Orocarnil. 

Nori laughed breathlessly. There were still many days away, massive in the distance, but they were there. Bilbo beamed at him happily from Kidzi’s back, and Nori grinned back. Then he pulled an acorn from his pocket and beaned it at Bilbo’s face. 

Direct hit. The acorn smacks Bilbo between the eyes and bounced right off. Bilbo gapes, narrows his eyes, and Nori lets out a tiny cheer before urging Durhul to gallop off, Bilbo chases after, already pulling various tree pieces from his own pockets. 

This is fun, Nori decides. He gets to indulge his Craft every so often in villages hostile to dwarrow, and share his Craft with his husband. Even knowing that he’s likely not going to see his brothers for a year or more yet, given how many months it had taken to get here and neither his nor Bilbo’s curiosity or wanderlust is slaked yet, even knowing that there is uncertainty in every future moment to come, Nori is content. 

Bilbo dances in place, gleeful and ecstatic when they reach the Orocarnil. There are two Songs here, it’s like that everywhere, but in the Shire the First Song is louder than the Second Melody, and it’s the other way around everywhere else. 

Here the two are equally present, twining around each other, discordant and in chorus, like a polyphonic harmony. It’s beautiful and very overwhelming, and Bilbo has to briefly tuck himself in a corner where it’s dark to breathe deeply and press his hands over his ears, even though he knows it doesn’t help. 

Nori sits with him, and breathes deeply too. Nori is also overwhelmed, but less so than Bilbo. When the Song is less cacophonic they both get up and follow the beckon towards where they assume the door is, Nori in the lead. 

A dwarrow, with tightly bound coils of rope-like hair braided into loops almost to their waist greets them, and she leers at them through teeth with sharp iron points. Her skin is a shade darker than Bilbo’s own, and she has made it darker with inked patterns covering her face and exposed arms. 

She looks wild, and the colorful silks and painted armor make her all the more startlingly pretty, even her dark eyes are outlined in vibrant blue paint to match her armor. 

“Name, business, and association.” She barks in Khuzdûl, and then she bares her metal plated teeth again in a snarl. Bilbo snarls back from behind Nori and she barks a laugh out, “Ha! I like the little thing, if your business is just as amusing I may offer shelter to see his sneer again.” 

Nori stiffens, “Ah. In which case I ought to inform you that my husband knows Khuzdûl, and that he can be meaner than his sneer if pushed.” 

She barks another laugh, then sobers, “Ah. You’re serious. Well, we Orocorni aren’t as stiff as Durinfolk about sharing our tongue, Navi was one of ours, and the association between Azaghal and Maedhros is remembered well enough to let that go, if that is your fear. I’ll be polite to the-, to your husband.” 

“Nori Ri-Baggins, my husband Bilbo Baggins, head of our house,” Nori introduces, and Bilbo pops up onto his toes to bare his teeth again as the dwarrow startles, “I admit our association may depend on what you mean by it, but our business is to explore. New place, and all that.” 

She stares them down for a long minute, and Bilbo occupies his time by looking at her inkings with fascination. The only inkings hobbits do is for master’s marks, and that went out of fashion centuries ago. Hers are full of motifs of hammers and chisels and images like the oliphaunt from Ma’s travel books. 

“Right,” she finally says, “Association is who you owe loyalty to. I guess your husband, not one of the silly western lords, since you said his house, and he ain’t no dwarrow. Usually we ask that since so many western idiots come calling with stupid reasons, and we like to know who to send them back to.” 

Bilbo watches Nori stiffen defensively, and watches the gate guard, she isn’t showing hostility, Bilbo nudges Nori gently, and speaks up in his terribly accented Khuzdûl, “I would think our purpose is not so unreasonable. My people travel when we are wed, and this seemed a lovely destination. We shan’t stay forever. Might we ask what you are called in turn?” 

Bilbo is as careful in not asking for her name as Nori is in offering their own names without clarification or completeness. Names are sacred, and no one ever quite tested whether the old skill of name-control had ever truly faded as a skill of the Æthel. This was perhaps not the time to test that. 

She eyes them cautiously, “Huh. Alright then, odd but not unreasonable. Guess we won’t send you back in pieces after all. I’m Bukdra, of the Carver’s guild, Múmamil tribe. I’m visiting my home here for a month before I leave again with my wife and her sisters. S’pose I can sponsor you for that long as a trial period.” 

Bilbo doesn’t quite know what that means in entirety, but she reaches back and holds the smaller gate open for him and Nori, and their ponies, so he follows Nori through. Nori hums softly, “Sponsors mean if we get caught doing a crime that she stands as advocate. It earns us more trust and freedom than staying in an inn would, especially since it means she’s opened her home to us.” 

“Oh.” Bilbo mulls that over for a second, “Why?” 

“It’s interesting,” Bukdra chirps, “Besides, one of you is pretty, in a skinny twig on fire way, and the other is also pretty, in a skinny, creepy l’il weird way. I wanna know what you are, other’n needing to be fed and fattened.” 

Nori went violently red at that description, and Bilbo grinned, poking at his burning cheek gently as he replies, “Thanks, you’re pretty too! I like your teeth, you look like you could bite someone’s throat out.” 

Bukdra beams, teeth on full display from her too wide smile, “I thank you! I can, actually, I bit someone’s jugular last voyage, just an orc what got too far east, mind, but still!” 

Bilbo trills with excitement, and Nori looks faintly green. They follow her still deeper into the mountain, and as they emerge from the winding hall, Bilbo gasps in tandem with Nori. 

The inner hall contains what has to be a massive marketplace. Bustling stalls wind this way and that, creating a veritable maze. Balconies and walkways jut out with stairs between the levels of market stalls perched on almost lace like layers of bustling market. There are two layers above them, and peering through one of the canal holes in the floor as they pass, Bilbo sees three more below them. 

Colorful banners and hammocks of cloth stretch between layers, and connect stalls, and sway in the breeze of bustling dwarrow. There stand posts that both stand and swing and attach to every surface lining the paths, some jutting from the very walls, and each contains glass bulbs crawling with softly glowing things, some containing grubs, others fungus, others moths, and still others contain little handfuls of shining, glowing gems. 

The smell of foods drift to them, and Bilbo’s stomach rumbles, unforgiving in its newfound state of craving sustenance better than travel fare. Bukdra laughs warmly, “Come along, then. We have dúmbargamazarbân, you’ll like that.” 

Nori scrunches his face beside Bilbo, mouthing each syllable and evidently coming up short. Bilbo just trips along after her, dragging Kidzi’s lead as he goes. The loops of Bukdra’s hair ropes sway behind her, and Bilbo takes a better look since he’s behind her now. 

Each of the little twists is a fingerswidth, neatly bound into itself with gold bands and wire interspersing them as decoration. Occasionally the wire wrapping’s have gems and beads strung on, bright colors brilliant against her black hair and the gold wire. The twists themselves are gathered and looped from below her waist and over again twice before they hang loose, held aloft in their loops by a red silk scarf that holds the loops, and wraps her head as a whole. 

Bilbo hums, “Nori,” he whispers, “Can your hair do that?” 

“No. Maybe? I don’t think so. I’ve seen it from Orocarni traders as Ered Luin before, and they’ve all got curlier hair than you. I think the curls hold it together. Maybe the length? I think it’d take decades though.” 

Bukdra chuckles lowly, “Lad’s right. You might pull it off, Bilbo-thing, but not so your mate. His hair is too tame. Us Orocarni got them coils which are a pain to care for, most’a my length is tied in though, I tie in the groom hair from my mate’s Mûmakíl, she turns her parts into weavings. It marks me, and I like the coils.” 

Bilbo shrugs, not wholly sure what a mûmakíl is. He lets out a soft sigh, “Sad. You’d look super pretty with the wires, like fire. Maybe we could do dozens of teensy tiny braids? Wrap them and put all the tiny braids into your normal ones, you know?” 

Nori snorts, well used to Bilbo’s adoration of his hair by now, “Love, if you had your way then my hair would be dripping in as many treasures as you could tie in. I still remember when we stopped with a caravan briefly and you hadn’t told me about the feathers you’d braided in.” 

“Those feathers looked gorgeous in your hair, and I had spent weeks gathering them. I wish they hadn’t mocked you about them.” Bilbo sniffs haughtily and grins slyly between Nori’s disgruntled face and Bukdra’s smug amusement. 

“Have you still got the feathers?” Bukdra asks, her Khuzdul pronunciation of the word stiff, and Bilbo caught the intrigued gleam in her eye, “Feathers are from birds, yes? How do they go into braids?” 

Nori’s disgruntlement shifts to outright horror, and a large amount of mischief. Bilbo lets his grin grow, even as he wonders how this dwarrow does not know what a feather is, or is at least uncertain. 

“I kept them!” He chirps, “We can do them again.” 

Nori groans behind him, and Bilbo ignores him to dig through one of Kidzi’s bags. He pulls a roll of bark leather out triumphantly, and Bukdra draws closer peering at it close enough that Bilbo can see the designs in her gold face paint. She blinks and pulls gently at the blue pinion of one of the rolled up feathers, tugging one of the bright blue herons local to the Eastmarshes near Crickhollow. 

“It matches your eye paint,” Nori tells her blithely, “Keep it.” 

Bilbo hums considerately. The blue feathers didn’t look as nice in Nori’s hair as he’d hoped, and Bilbo himself had discovered that he liked indigo bunting feathers, or blue thrushes best if he were to wear feathers, usually for spring festivals. 

He carefully unrolls the feathers and starts plucking out the other heron feathers, and several choice Barred Flycatcher ones in blue, and after a moment’s pause, he gathers several gold hawk and cardinal feathers too. He carefully pours the handful into Bukdra’s grasp, and goes back to the roll for his own favored feathers, bundled in the back of the roll since he’d been wearing them for so many years. 

He hands the roll off to Nori who looks down at it, incredulous, as he carefully rerolls and ties it off muttering, “Mahal, Bilbo, how many feathers do you have?” 

Bilbo faces Bukdra, pointedly ignoring his husband. He sticks most of his feathers through a loop on the leather wrapped around his wrist and holds one aloft, sectioning off a chunk of his hair, “I’m sure that if you wished to you could simply slide the pinions under one of your gold bands, or put a hole to string it on the wires, but if you wanted to know how my people wear feathers for our spring festivals, this is how.” 

Bilbo then skillfully begins to twist his curls tightly into half braids that grasp onto the feathers in short layers, the shorter finch feathers on top, with their lighter colors and barring displayed, and the longer, richer bunting feathers below. He starts on the side, letting some hair twist in and fall away, and certain pieces weave all the way from his crown to the nape, where he pulls a single, long, half stripped gold hawk feather and twist the end, tucking it under to secure the weave at the back of his head. 

Then Bilbo just as swiftly mirrors the style on the other side, pulling the hawk feather out to twist both ends together into a loose four strand braid. He holds the gold barred feather in his lips for a moment as he loosened and tugs just one side until it curls around, then he finishes the twist of the braid, using the feather to secure the twisted bun of the braid. 

Nori gasped behind him, and Bilbo tossed a smug look at him. He’d worn this style for years, even if this was the first time since he was a very young faunt that he had needed to secure it with a full braid twist. He knew it looked good, it was a very passable illusion of deep blue bird’s wings sweeping down the back of his head. He slowly turned, letting both dwarrow get the full effect of the court festival trappings he had to wear as the head of his house. 

Bukdra whistled appreciatively and met Nori’s eyes, “I think, friend, that you are lucky you got him first. Were I not married I would certainly try to court this treasure away. Beautiful.” 

Bilbo squeaked, and felt his face warm, Nori laughed lowly, his eyes still on Bilbo, “Oh, I am definitely lucky, though moreso since he chose me, and stole my love and trust away before I knew better,” he tucked the roll back into Kidzi’s bag and smiled sappily at Bilbo, “Ghívashavêl, you are as stunning as when I first saw you, but I find I ought inform you that you currently shine like a gem from the Mother’s own Wilds.” 

Bukdra coos, “Aww. You two are sweet. Anyways, moving on from the oddity of a Dwarrow revering the Maker’s wife, I’m hungry. We’re gonna get some dúmbargamazarbân, then I’m gonna take you to my dwelling, and we can come back to explore after you've dropped your bags and your ponies, I have a paddock.” 

She saunters off again, carefully sliding feathers under her hair bands as she does. It’s obvious that she’s attempting a pattern, but the shifting of her loops is messing it up. They follow her again, easily, Nori with laughter in his eyes, and Bilbo giggling at the feathers that were twisting this way and that with each step she took. 

She insists on paying for the food, “This is dúmbargamazarbân, I don’t know if you have it out west, no, stop, I’m paying, I’ll pull it from the feathers' value,” handing each of them a slightly greasy birchbark tray with a corn husk wrap on the food inside. 

Dúmbargamazarbân turned out to be a warm, gooey mass of goat's cheese, small peppers, and deeply browned meat that was minced and tender. The whole thing had been rolled in bread crumbs and cooked in oil. Bilbo took a small, hesitant bite, and moaned in delight as his bite pulled cheese strings away, and the flavors were strong. 

Nori laughed at him, took his own bite, and moaned also. Bilbo snickered, and took a bigger bite, sawing gently at the cheese before it pulled with his teeth. Bukdra, eating her own, simply watched them with dancing eyes, her laughter evident on her face more than audible. 

Bilbo hummed in contentment, the melding songs below his feet swelling, as he pinched off a piece to feed Kidzi, who lips it up happily. Durhul bunts Nori and tries to bite his shoulder in an attempt to eat his food, and Bukdra laughs loudly. 

As promised Bukdra hosted them for two months. She is an ivory carver by trade, and only lives in the Orocarnil mountain only for three months of the year, traveling with her wife and her tribe the rest. Nori compares it to the nomadic ways of the western dwarrow caravans, and she scrunches her nose in distaste hard enough to smear her paint. 

She remains happy enough to share her culture, and Nori has a poorly rendered sketch in his wanderer’s journal of the outrage on her face as she expounds the difference between a western caravan and a Mûmamil tribe, amidst the laughter of the other traders from her tribe who live in her compound with her during trade season. 

“Your caravans,” she concludes that day, “are a disgrace. They may have community in them, but they are not communities. They are wagon trains of desperation, of trading to eat not from joy, of sharing craftsmanship borne of reluctance, and of accounting for a poverty born of greed.” 

Nori and Bilbo, having briefly traveled through the Ettenmoors gap with one, do not argue. The caravans are self centered and reclusive, untrusting, and scornful of the other races with whom they trade. 

Nori sees also the abundance and wealth of the Orocarni comparatively. Bukdra and her fellow traders would be considered amongst the lower echelon, the poorer end of these dwarrow, but the community, the values here, are such that they do not want even for the short time they are here. 

Even Bilbo and Nori come away with much gained by trade. The Orocarni value material as highly as skill, and knowledge higher than even that. Even now, millenia and Ages later the names of Felakgund, of Mörifinwë, of Narvi and Celebrimbor, of Azaghál and Maedhros, and of a few other scattered peoples are far more remembered and honored and revered than of Durin himself. 

Deeds and craft mattered to the Orocarni, and community and support in the face of such splits in their histories. The betrayals of Rhún folk, and the offered loyalties of many of the Easterling tribes to the machinations of Melkor affected much even now. 

It meant that the very non-traditional, open minded, very intriguing Nori and Bilbo had much to offer. The Orocarni used money, but similarly to hobbits, it was a secondary system to barter, of crafts and materials most of all. For a mere few feathers they could get enough food to last the whole combined Ur-Ri household a few weeks in Ered Luin. 

Bilbo’s feathers bought a plethora, eastern herbs for Bilbo’s gardens, and books to go with them, silks and clothes in the Eastern style, which Bilbo had come to adore, and inks in colors for both the journals and for Bilbo’s face. Bukdra had taken to painting designs onto Bilbo only a week in, and Bilbo learned the patterns easily. 

Nori, for his part, discovered that he could trade the wood beads and shells he made, the ones he did have some skill in in order to replace any that broke in the course of his craft, as they often did. The skill born of not being able to afford proper material for beads when the Ri’s had first settled in Ered Luin had turned out to be very useful here. 

He learned to pick out the Orocarni designs that called a blessing from their revered, to drip inks into the grooves, and to sand the excess away. The resulting beads and clasps, as he’d long since figured out hackler’s hinge with slivers of wood and hidden lips in the hinge grooves, were beyond popular to the Orocarni, and he got many requests for plain painted ones for children also. 

With those trades, Nori found presents for his brothers and the Ur’s. Books, inks, and fancy glass dip pans for Ori, who was set to start his scribe’s apprenticeship in the next few years. He found some teas and eastern dried herbs for Dori, as well as new types of kettles and brewing, and traded for those twice over for Bilbo. 

Bifur was to get a small collection of woods in various rarities, cast offs for carving, and larger pieces as Nori could find them, in purples and reds and deepest of browns, and many other colors. Bofur had a similar collection, but received new tools also, ones more suited for the larger scale carpentry he enjoyed instead of the small works Bifur loved. 

Nori had plans to bring other things home from the Shire directly, larger pieces of wood amongst them. 

For Bombur he had found spices and recipes, and he had set aside oils and a few pots. These he did not get for Bilbo also, who had been learning himself and getting a wider range than Nori had for Bombur. Bombur cooked for Dori’s teahouse first, and his family second. Experimentation was welcome to the portly dwarrow, but Bilbo took more joy in it. 

For Kisto Nori got fabrics, bright cheerful lengths of silk and flax, that was soft and plentiful, knowing that the dam planned on more children, and rarely worked her hobby anymore for the expense of fabric. 

Bukdra, ever cheerful, had bullied Nori into getting things for himself also, and had purchased the kohl Bilbo kept putting on Nori. In petty, playful revenge Nori had decided that if Bukdra wanted him to get something for himself, then he could commission her. 

Nori had planned out the beads, as well as a few other easily crafted jewelry pieces to be worn by Bilbo or the children Bilbo was insistently planning on, which meant that Bilbo would not have spoons, or at least by no means a full set. 

Nori spent sometime planning and sketching several things with Bukdra, some for him, others intended for the commission he was sneakily planning, and midway in Bukdra pulled her cousin into the sketch and design sessions. Bukdra’s cousin, Yelsdra, traded in pigments, and commissions of painted things. 

Her help ended up being invaluable. Already Bilbo’s house had been a new one, he headed it long before Nori’s arrival into his life, since Took and Baggins were both major lines of Æthel folk. Nori marrying in made it a New-Blood line though, which cemented that independence that Bilbo’s parents had forged. It meant that his house could not be reclaimed or absorbed back into one of its parent lines. 

It meant that Nori now had the right to design a new symbol for their house, suchlike the flowery initial for Baggins, designed around an Æthel ‘B’. The Took symbol was more interesting, and stamped on the backs of their Mastery book covers, an Æthel ‘T’ formed of feathers and footprints. 

Yelsdra was unimpressed with hobbitish line symbols, and less impressed with the Ri symbol of a braided triptych, hailing back to before they were a disgraced house, from when they were a cousin line to the house of Durin. 

In the end Bukdra drew a triptych of the prayer knot weaves that Bilbo burned periodically in lieu of his shrine at home, and she placed the symbols for Baggins and Took in two of the panels. In the third she simply drew an Æthel ‘R’ and surrounded it with tiny facsimiles of feathers. She called it a line convergence, and said it was not for their house as a whole. 

Nori agreed, but kept the sketch, copying it into his wanderer’s book, but not the book from Bilbo. For another time they sat at an impasse, unsure where to start on a house symbol, Yelsdra especially refused to base it upon a letter. Nori worked on the design for his Inking, determined to follow through on his half drugged idea from over a year now, when he’d woken with his bruises from capture. 

Bukdra and Yelsdra proved the difference between western and eastern dwarrow most ardently then, as they both thought that Bilbo’s capture of his husband was sweet. 

Drugs, and binding, and all, they thought it adorable, and they cooed over his wish to remember it, just as much as they did Bilbo’s cleverness for keeping a dwarrow hostage simply to wed. Nori had been an awful mixture of humiliated and proud, and had resolved to accept it. Already he knew that if he told any of his family from the west that he’d be judged, and judged harshly. Dori already found him wanting too often. 

After the first session of inkings there was a breakthrough though, as Bukdra supported him through the curtain to the traders’ compound, half his arm wrapped until the swelling receded, to find Bilbo on the floor with his dwindling collection of tradable feathers spread and separated. 

He was sketching quick thumbnails of the birds each feather came from to show a rapt Ownsi, who was the youngest trader from Bukdra’s tribe, and was asking questions about everything that feathers had anything to do with for weeks. He was taking rapid notes, his own twist-locks falling in a puddle around him, and he played with the current focus. 

“Those are from a magpie,” Bilbo was saying, “they are notorious thieves, and related to crows and ravens, and most similar to a jackdaw. They can imitate sounds, and sometimes voices, but usually sounds. They mate for life, and are usually seen as good luck in the Shire.” 

Ownsi nodded and tapped the next pile, those of a cardinal. Nori had moved off though, wandering over to Yelsdra’s corner with her canvas in progress, and she eyed him warily. Nori stole a piece of sketch paper and an inking brush instead, and drew a passable magpie in flight. Along the top edge of the wedge tail, very small, he wrote Thief in Æthel runes, but Khuzdul translation. Along the bottom he wrote Wanderer in the opposite, the Æthel word in Khuzdul cirth. 

He slid it over to Yelsdra, who blinked at it. She nodded slowly and redrew it on  a palm sized stretched canvas, with confident brush strokes and steady lines, and impeccably recreated runes. She had done the same with the Line Triptych, it was the official way to present a symbol for commission or recreation, for the Orocarni, and Nori felt satisfied, even as his arm throbbed in time with his breath. 

The next day he’d commissioned Bukdra, who was both satisfied and frustrated with him, for a set of ivory spoons carved with both house and line symbols. She asked for three favors in payment, and cashed one of them in immediately, as she took pleasure in using either Nori or Bilbo to fluster the other. 

For three hours the next day he had sat patient and still, arm held by the inker, and head captive to Bukdra, who had determine a way to do the twists in Nori’s straight hair, though she had also decided that he’d need to comb them out after a few days for his hair’s health. 

By the end of that day he had his inkings fully done, extending from his wrist to end at his throat, past where the bindings had ended in truth, but Nori adored the extensions anyways. Tracing the long faded bruises were lines, crisscrossing in stark black against his pale skin, and they were formed of vines with tiny flowers, belladonna, nightshade, and freesia, silence, truth, and trust. 

A braid of woven chains tangled with the vines, and traced the same paths. At the back of Nori’s neck, where his braids that Bilbo designed could easily be swept aside to reveal it, but his Ered Luin ones could not, sat the intersection point where the knot had sat, too loose to have bruised him at the time. 

There Nori had nestled several symbols, which had startled the inking artist at first, but had made Bukdra and Yelsdra grin when they’d drawn it with him. Mahal’s hammer sat outmost, as if held by the head by the chins as the vines twined up the handle. At the base of the head sat Erebor, upside down as if a reflection in a lake, representative of the origin he’d never known but grown under the shadow of. 

Inside the head of the hammer, sat three stones, stacked with the largest at the bottom and the smallest slightly tilted at the top. The Mother. Durinfolk disliked Lady Yavannah for her own dislike of them, for her love of her trees over her husband’s children. 

Broadbeams respected her, for the root plants and fungus that grew in the Blue Mountains that they could eat, for the forests she tended that provided wood for tools, and fuel in the vicious winters, and for her own love of their Maker. They did not revere her, but they respected her and Bifur had taught Nori that when he was small. 

“Stack of three,” he had signed, when Nori had run with his eye blackened from a fight, when after he’d run from the fight into the bad rock and Bifur had needed to fetch him from the unstable mine support he’d frozen on hours later. “Stack of three, pray to the Mother. Mahal hears us, but does not interfere. He is ever busy, and forges are loud. Many prayers make more noise.” 

Hobbits like Yavannah well enough also. They called her the Sister, Y’vonn’y’ha, the Grower of Green things, and she often had shrines in the Shire, small compared to the ones kept for the Song, but present and maintained. Daisy had added a stack of three to their shrine for Nori. 

The Mother heard when Nori called, and she at least watched her husband’s children when he could not be bothered, whether or not she liked them. For that alone Nori would honor and respect her, something the Orocarni found strange, with their odd irreverence to even Mahal. They prayed to the long dead instead, to ancestors and dead hero’s, and asked for their guidance from the Halls. 

To either side of the stack of three was his symbols, house to the right, line to the left. On Bukdra’s suggestion they had taken a magpie feather, with its blue-sheened black that ended in a white wedge tip, to the inking artist, who had carefully turned it over and added three to the top and two on either side of the hammer’s handle, reminiscent of rays of light. 

Nori was very happy with his inking, and the hint of cobalted ink in the five feathers had finished it perfectly. It had taken multiple sessions to finish, and on the last Bukdra’s had finished practicing on his hair, and instead twisted the lot of it into dozens upon dozens of twist-locks, each secured with little gold and copper bands, some wrapped in wire, and still others twisted with thin ribbons of variegated colors, shifting from reds to golds to oranges to yellows. 

Nori had completed the first of Bukdra’s favors that day, allowing her to dress him in light silks, vibrantly red on the sleeveless tunic which laced in the back to leave the top of the back nearly bare and open as the lacing chains met in front to secure to a hanging gem. It was simple citrine, common and cheap, but it was secured like the center of the tunic’s focus, gleaming and polished from its copper setting. 

His pants were silk also, flowing and gleaming in a burnished orange, almost copper but just a shade or too brighter, and golden-red embroidery traced the idea of flame up them. Bukdra had brought out an anklet then, of delicate copper chains that stretched to rings that slipped over his toes, and Nori had flushed at the reminder of how much hobbits valued their feet. 

Bilbo had grown his hair for him, maintaining its length a handswidth past his shoulders now, for him. He could do this for Bilbo. 

Bukdra took his boots and did not give them back. The inking artist was watching delightedly, and conspiratorially, as Bukdra bullied Nori into the vision she had decided for him to resemble.

Kohl was lined by his eyes, and designs painted in the gold paints Bukdra typically wore, and she gathered loose braids from some of his twists, leaving the rest loose. A copper chain was draped around his head, secured in the twist braids, to sit on his forehead, another citrine falling between his eyes. 

Then she had walked with him back to the compound, her in her boots, Nori barefoot and feeling ridiculous. 

It had all been worth it for the awed gasp that Bilbo had given, and the reverent attention. Nori kept the finery, and had obligingly stood how Bilbo and Yelsdra wanted him for a sketch and a painting. 

It was more than worth the following day when Bukdra revealed her scheming ways to the fullest, and dressed Bilbo up just as well as Nori. 

Bilbo had already discovered a love of silks, and Nori a love of seeing Bilbo in silks, but the ones Bukdra had gotten made for Bilbo had been something else entirely. 

Bukdra had apparently heard a side comment from Bilbo once, asked a few questions, and run with it, playing off of a Æthel concept that Nori didn’t even fully understand. Bilbo was Winter Court, something he had said when they’d first met. 

Daisy had clarified, slightly, that one’s court was what they were drawn to, the season they thrived in, and the court was a declaration of sorts to the Song. It was their affinity in the Song, the way their talents leaned, and with what things the Song might be more inclined to help with if asked. 

Gamgees were nearly always either Spring or Summer Court, Tooks were often Fall or Spring, Baggins were Winter, which had for a time dictated which family name Bilbo used. 

Nori was Autumn Court, he was harvest and fire and the coming of longer nights. Bilbo and Daisy had both agreed, and Bilbo had felt vindicated and confirmed as Nori’s eyes had turned slightly golden in the sun during their journey east. 

So, Nori really couldn’t fault Bukdra for trying really hard to take an Æthel concept and dress them in the eastern interpretation. He certainly wouldn’t complain after seeing how she had taken that for Bilbo. 

She had very carefully taken the blues and silvers of winter and balanced them masterfully with the warm tones of Bilbo’s own coloring. his feathers were back in place, wings of blue framing the back of his head, but Bukdra had draped silvery chains in careful loops over and under them and around his head, little topazes dangling from every drape, and crowning him in a tinkling display of silver and blue resplendence. 

Somehow she had convinced Bilbo to pierce his sensitive ears too, little silver hoops hugging the lower shell of his twitching, pointed ears, and several of the hoops had little hanging gems of blue as well. 

His tunic was sleeveless too, but instead of an open back, it cinched at the neck and draped a diaphanous silvered lace to spiral down around and his torso over the deep blue of the tunic, and the lace was stitched down at the bottom, in such a way that every movement set it to fluttering, the frost fractals woven into the lace stark against the darker silk. 

His leggings, tight and clinging, were in a charcoal black, and stitched with minuscule quartz crystals, like stars, with sweeping embroidery in silvery. Over those legging swished a silken skirt, open in the front from a diagonal slit to show his leggings as he moved, but the swirling purples and silvery-blues of the skirt called to mind the snowy winds against the winter dark sky that Nori had watched with Bilbo for so many nights when they’d met. 

He wore the anklet chains as well, in silver, and they reached higher, wrapping up his legs in sweeping patterns to cinch at his knees, mirroring the crossing of Nori’s new inkings. 

Bilbo’s face and arms had been skillfully painted as well, silvery patterns directly mirroring Nori’s across his cheeks and up to cradle the gems from the chain from his hair. His kohl was done also, calling the blue of his husband’s eyes into brilliant relief, and fractal patterns traced down his arms in silver paint to his fingertips. 

Blue and gold they were, and Nori didn’t regret this favor to Bukdra in the least, not even with the obnoxious cooing and the stiffness of posing for Yelsdra. Two paintings were added to their crates to ferry back to the Shire, and Nori was sure that the painting couldn’t hold a candle to Bilbo still. 

Bukdra and the other traders from her tribe couldn’t stay forever though, and before long they began to pack up, and Bilbo and Nori traded for a cart to load their spoils, with some bittersweet reluctance to do so. They had been gone for nearing a year and a half now, and while Nori and Bilbo would be willing to stay in the east for longer, they were also willing to return and come back on another trip. 

Instead, when the tribe shut their compound until the next trade season they invited Nori and Bilbo to their village for a time. 

“Our village is a day’s ride, three day’s walk,” Bukdra said, “it is not far, and there is more in the east to see. You should come, and I will take you further when I and my wife take our mûmakíl out for our next gathering trip. Then you can return to your homelands, when we know that you will miss more than the market gathering in Hollowhive.” 

There was no reason to say no, and so Nori and Bilbo rode out with the tribe they’d stayed with. 

There were many Mûmamil tribes, some dwarrow, some mannish, a few elvish, and many mixed tribes. Mûmamil meant desert riders, and it referred to a tribe who lived on the backs of their mûmakíl, which Bilbo was delighted to learn was oliphaunts. 

Bukdra’s tribe was primarily dwarrow, but her wife was a tall, willowy, elf, who upon seeing Bukdra had leapt from the reclined mûmakíl to kneel and kiss her. The elf had come away smeared in Bukdra’s paint and Yelsdra sighed deeply at the action, exasperation obvious. 

The mûmakíl itself was well taken care of with shorter tusks than Bilbo had expected. The basket secured to its back was draped in brightly patterned fabrics and cushions and bags, with an equally cheerful canopy on stilts. Hammocks strung between the stilts, and Nori heard Bilbo gulp nervously. 

There were close to thirty mûmakíl milling around total, with the squat buildings beneath them bustling with people going in and out as they seemed to be making ready to leave. 

“Some will stay, decent the village,” Bukdra told them blithely, “So if you come with us then your ponies and cart will be cared for. We’ll be going on a raiding trip. The Avari in the forest, those from the Lotus’ path, have been ignoring our trade agreements, so we’ll go get our trade voice, and whatever we can carry, and we’ll go a bit further than that to the Hunter’s River, to get shells and sea silks.” 

Bukdra’s wife nods, and adds in broken Khuzdul, “My tribe. I left for my Star Love. They do this often.”

“Ha! Often, means we forgot to visit for too long, is all. Been twelve years this time, I reckon.” 

Nori considers that. He imagines missing twelve years without seeing his family. Then he shudders. Bilbo seems unphased, but he grips Nori’s hand tighter anyways. 

“We can go,” Bilbo agrees, “But when you come back to the village we will have to head back to the Shire.” 

Bukdra brightens, “Oh, excellent. It shouldn’t take more than a few months, honest.” 

Nori nods, and calculates that in. They had planned for an upper limit of three years with Daisy. That should put them back between two and a half or three years. It is doable. He may need a new travel journal though, there is only a third left in the one Bilbo made, though the Mastery books have plenty of paper left. Those don't require so much detail as Nori puts into his travel journal though. 

Bilbo squeezes his hand again. He’d already agreed to scribe his travel journal for Ori, so the script was different. He is quite sure that he wouldn’t mind adding pages either. 

Soon they’ll return to the Shire, then Nori further on to see his brothers. For now, they turn their ponies to the care of Bukdra’s tribesfolk, and go to climb a mûmakíl. Bukdra’s wife helps them into the basket easily with a friendly, “Greetings to you, friends of Bukdra. I am happy to travel with you. I am Ruuthii.” 

Nori might like dwarvish elves much better than western ones. She’s wilder. Ruuthii had clearly kept their mûmakíl ready to go as well, because no sooner than they’d st down, as Bukdra swings herself in from the silk ropes trailing from the saddle basket. 

The mûmakíl rises immediately, and begins to walk with swaying, trundling steps. Bilbo lets out a delighted, trilling laugh, and Nori grips the side of the basket desperately. 

‘Inkheart’, he writes shakily into his travel journal, ‘riding an Oliphaunt is certainly an experience like no other. I imagine this is what an ocean ship might feel like, all swaying and rocking, though I have to admit that the view is splendid.’ 

Nori sets his pen down and looks out at the retreating mountains of the Orocarnil, and turns to see a distant forest, rivers that look like winding shimmers, and plain, dusty desert between, stretching far past what he’d ever been high enough to view before. 

To wander is to look for beauty that you haven’t seen, his Mastery Book said. It was filled with sketches, and maps, and descriptions. Nori could not think of a description of this view of vast irrelevance as they trundled on. It was simply beautiful. Nothing more, just-

It truly is beautiful. 

Chapter Text

“The way back to home was eased, partly by good company, and partly by a longing for home. Spoons and I will set out again shortly, perhaps we shall visit the Northern Halls, or the Ironhill, but a shorter trip next, I would think. However as we come back from a longer trip I have learned that even the strongest of wanderlust will come down from the high of fulfillment into an equally strong homesickness. Spoons and I made friends, enemies, and saw many new things that made it all worth it. Not the desert sun though, the burns from mere presence of the sun was not worth the darkness of the freckles or resultant tan after the burn faded. Nor was it worth Spoons’ laughter as I slowly turned more red than a poppy. But, this ends the first volume as we return to familiar paths, and I find myself glad to wrap this up. Dear Inkheart, may this quench any of your own desire to wander for a time.” 

—Excerpt from “The Thief's Key”, Volume One, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

Nori hummed cheerfully as he left the Shire border far behind him, the cart of his gifts and supplies pulled by a sulky Durhul. The pony that Bilbo’s cousins had gifted him was not happy about leaving her sister behind, and had bitten Nori multiple times over the week of travel. 

Nori was lucky that he was in his leathers again, instead of hobbit cottons and wools, or the eastern silks. Durhul’s bites still left nasty bruises. 

Nori waved at the half drunk guards as he and Durhul shambled into Ered Luin, mocking and lazy. He’d already been through the gate once, checked on his family’s compound, and robbed the guards of their coin purses. He’d compensated them of course, a couple bottles of dwarvish ale with Gamgee moonshine slipped, which meant that the guards couldn’t tell a suspected, and occasionally caught, thief from Nori, the teamaker’s brother. 

Nori wore his hair differently every time he stole in Ered Luin, often mocking a guard who was particularly susceptible to bribes. It didn’t make his face less recognizable though, even if he hadn’t been caught since he were barely older than a pebble. 

So, Nori, the teamaker’s brother, who occasionally left to trade with men, who wore his hair and beard in a memorable star shape, and doted on his little brother, that Nori had to stay separate from the thief of Ered Luin who rubbed charcoal in his hair and mocked the guard. 

Durhul wove through the streets of Ered Luin and Nori carefully tucked his marriage braid up into one of his peaks, tucking it into the shaping armature wires. The three houses of his compound came into view, and Nori directed Durhul to the gate to the small courtyard at the center. 

When the Ur’s had invited the Ri’s to live with them, it had been to their family home, the one they’d held for generations, one house for each branch. The problem with that had been that the slow influx of refugees had begun with the royal line of Durin, and their lords, vassals, and the richer refugees. 

Then those of Erebor who had fled, escaped a dragon with the clothes off their backs and little else, who had not had enough influence or riches to buy a swift and safe passage to Ered Luin. The nobles and such took over, slowly, then all at once, controlling the economy and trade. 

The colonies of the Blue Mountains, primarily Broadbeams, with some Stonefoot lines, were miners, there were smiths, and carpenters, and other such roles, but by and large the Blue Mountains were mining colonies. They weren’t intended to support a large influx of refugees, nor were they able to. 

It meant that on the tail end of the nobles taking over, and the start of the commoners arriving, that there were too many dwarrow packed in wherever they fit, too little food, threadbare clothes and blankets, and a winter setting in. 

There had been many deaths those first few years, during the winters especially. Starvation set in first, followed by cold, then sicknesses brought by the refugees caught and spread rapidly. Whole compounds shut down as families native to Ered Luin protected their children the only way they could. 

It didn’t work. The refugee camps recovered better from the illnesses, exposed to them from the road as they had been. The Ered Luin natives did not, and whole families took ill and died. It took years of quarantining, careful exposure, new trade agreements, and reworking of the laws for the dwarrow combining and mingling in the colonies. 

By the time that the Ri’s arrived, at the tail end of the refugee trains because of Ori’s birth and Ámad’s death, it had settled into a very unstable equilibrium. If Dori had not looked so terribly lost with Ori in his arms, and if Nori had not made fast friends with the first pebble his age he’d met, then they would have gone to the refugee camps. 

Instead the Ur’s who had survived the illnesses took them in. Bifur, who was a carver and made maker’s marks and print plates at the time around his loomcraft, was the main voice of advocacy, and had immediately begun parenting the adult, frazzled Dori, and doting on Nori and Ori just as much. 

Bifur’s sister, Minfur, lived in the next house, alone after her husband and children had wasted away. She worked as a guard, and had thrown herself into parenting both her nephews, and the Ri’s that Bifur had nigh adopted. 

The third house was occupied by Lofur, Bifur and Minfur’s older brother, as well as his wife and children. Lofur’s wife, Ilme, was a sweet dam who doted on Bofur and Bombur, and had taught Dori her trade. She was an apothecary, and a good one until the Erebor nobles had arrived. Then her herbs had suddenly become far too expensive to import. 

Lofur, head of the Ur house, was a miner. He was strong, and protective, and protected his house from the nobles as best he could. It meant that their compound remained theirs, and that decades after his death that it still could not be claimed by the reworked property assignation laws. 

It also meant that the nobles that had capitulated to him, that were so sick of a mere miner’s ability to talk circles around them, were clever in their petty revenge. Six years after Ered Luin had settled, King Thráin got the idea to retake Moria. Guards were conscripted, Lofur and Bofur were asked to come, under promise of reward for their houses, and they set off. 

Minfur died in the front lines, her guard pin brought back alone. Lofur fell, in such a way that Bifur, axe in his head and insensate, barely was able to recognize his fallen kin. Bifur came back alone from Azanulbizar, head of his house and grievously inured. 

He was among the lucky. Whole houses had been decimated, the king had fallen, and it was Bifur, and a grieving Ilme alone in the compound to raise four children and a near adult. 

Thus the compound had dwindled from three houses enclosing a courtyard for the pebbles to play in, each house facing different streets, that was full of life and people, and joy, to three houses full of grief and with one broken family to fill it. 

The compound remained protected within the law though, and so Nori had grown alongside Bofur, just the next house over, and Bombur had grown with Dori, and with Kisto’s addition to the family, they had repurposed Minfur’s old house into Dori’s teahouse, with an apartment on top for the Ri’s. 

Bombur cooked, Dori blended teas and watched the finances, Kisto bussed the tables and kept the whole venture together. Nori, and Ori when he was old enough, helped out, and Bofur learned to mine as his father had when he wasn’t helping Bombur in the kitchen. 

Bifur simply drifted often, watching and raising them all, but unable to help with the day to day as his head would spike with pains and he could not get his words out correctly. All was khuzdul, he could not speak any other tongues, but even his khuzdul was frequently mangled and his words scrambled. 

The teahouse did well though, and the sound of bustling activity was obvious from across the courtyard as Nori locked the gate back up and began unhitching Durhul. She tried to bite his arm again and Nori smacked her lightly on her nose. 

“Stop,” he hissed, “I’m trying to be quiet right now.” 

The sound of clicking fingers came from the house Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur stayed in, and Nori shuffled around. Bifur was watching him amused. He’d forgotten briefly that the teahouse being busy, and Ori having lessons, and Bofur being in the mines, meant that Bifur had nothing more to do than to observe. 

Nori grinned sheepishly and held his finger to his lips with a soft, “Shh.” 

Bifur grinned broadly back and carefully stepped fully out, heading straight for Durhul. Nori was unsurprised, Bifur had always loved animals, sheltering little mice and leaving the congealed oats out for the rats when he did the dishes. Nori let the grizzled old dwarrow that he loved like an uncle approach Durhul. 

Durhul, for once not behaving like the wretch she was, whuffled and begged for treats off of Bifur, who looked heartbroken for not having anything to offer her. The freshly dyed patch on her face pressed into Bifur’s chest as she subtly sniffed at his pockets. 

Nori quietly passed a pouch of small carrots to Bifur, and Durhul flicked her ears forward eagerly. The vibrant blues and pinks on her face bore Bifur’s patient attention as she fed her the wild roots and Nori snorted at the sight. 

Nori unhitched her, and carefully swung the cart to rest on a stone that usually held the gate hitch for deliveries for Dori’s teahouse. He pulled the first package of gifts from the cart and started up the steps to the rooms over the apartment, carefully pressing the balls of his feet just so, avoiding any creaky steps or loud boot falls. 

The copied travel book he tucked on Ori’s little bed, Bofur had expanded it once, but half the mattress was made of pillows and rags. His own satchel he dropped carelessly on the other bed, neatly made and slightly dusty, and dug a few things out. 

Six little dip bottles of ink powder waiting for the alcohol to activate them he neatly lined up on Ori’s little swing desk built onto his bed, rich tones of red, green, blue, orange, pink, and a dusky pink-red. Next to those he set three ink blocks, with scrawled instructions on their use. 

Nori had learned that he liked the eastern ink blocks far more than the gritty charcoal based inks of the west. It was smoother, richer, and it didn’t smear after it was dry. 

He pulled out his last gift for Ori specifically, one that he and Bilbo both had a matching set too. Ruuthii’s tribe were glassworkers, and dye mixers, but the glass had been the relevant one that Bukdra hadn’t brought to trade. A box with little felted insets was set on the desk on top of a stack of thick vellum. In it were twelve glass pens, spiraling and delicate, with three basic tips, and all the others a range of size and shape. 

Nori returned to the courtyard then to fetch the bag of small gifts for Dori. Bifur had sat down in the courtyard, petting and scratching Durhul’s ears and face and neck, the pony also on the ground as she laid her head in Bifur’s lap. Bifur looked blissful, cooing nonsense at her in broken Khuzdul. He kept calling her a spunky apple, which was almost certainly a scrambled word and not what he meant. 

Still, Nori could see the epithet sticking. She certainly was spunky, apple was the odd word out.

He went back up the stairs, beelining for the kitchen, he daren’t go into Dori’s room proper, he’d never hear the end of it. Little snack cakes and cookies from Bilbo he hid all over the room, a package tucked in the pantry, another between stacks of mismatched plates, and so on and so forth. 

Dori’s massive cabinet of teas and herbs was padlocked. This was new. Nori poked the padlock amused. Then he picked it easily and threw the doors open. He slipped his hobbitish tea blends in the front along one side, and his eastern ones along the other. Then he wedged a pack of chocolates-dipped dried fruits along the top. 

His oldest brother had a very poorly hidden sweet tooth. Bilbo’s experiment, the one that Bukdra and Ruuthii had ruthlessly encouraged, was a perfect gift for his brother to hoard away. The kettles he placed on the counter, towards the back, and then he backed out to toss the empty bag on his bed with the other one. 

Dust poofed up as it landed and Nori stared in alarm. He would definitely need to wash his sheets before he slept. 

Outside in the courtyard Bifur had progressed to laying down with Durhul’s head in his lap. The stoneground could not be comfortable. Nori let him lay there, eyes shut, as he kept scratching Durhul, though. It let him set up the joint gift from Bilbo and Daisy. 

The chicken run was set up, and the coop swiftly clicked together. He was certain that Bofur and Bifur would expand and rebuild it, but the simple design from the hobbits sufficed for now. He carefully threw the block of straw inside and shut the door. The run was easy to set up, a woven wire half tunnel that collapsed and clipped to the house, with a door on the other end. 

He clipped the run the the coop, and ran the door rope through the run line to pull the coop house door up, hooking the knot in the rope into its catch. Then he lifted the door and carefully walked along the courtyard wall, unfolding the wire run as he did. It ended just before the door to the Ur’s house, and he carefully drove the pins into the stone to hold it there. 

Bifur had lifted his head to watch him curiously and he tracked Nori’s movements as he wandered back to Durhul’s cart. Then Bifur scrambled up and out from under Durhul’s head as Nori began to tug out the travel case with several very disgruntled chickens. 

“For you, mostly, but also for eggs,” he explained, though Bifur didn’t especially seem to care one way or another in favor of staring at the birds in question. There were eight total, not many by hobbit standards, not when most households kept between twenty and thirty, and farms kept somewhere in the eighties, but certainly more than any but the nobles could afford to keep for a simple whim. 

The import costs of live birds alone was ridiculous. He had the paperwork to bring such things in of course, but he didn’t think anyone had actually expected him to do it. He’d mostly gotten it as a joke with Ori, who had briefly wanted a goat or boar to ride. 

Nori carefully lifted the latched roof of the coop house, and tipped the carry cage so that the chickens were falling and squawking downwards. In one movement he unlatched the bolt and let the case door fall open, gently shaking it as he did. The chickens all tumbled down into their coop and Nori shut the roof again, latching it back shut. 

Bifur laughed softly, poking his fingers through the wires and watching the chickens. Durhul snorted behind him, abandoned and lazy. Nori moved back to the cart and grabbed the last few gift satchels, each of these with said gifts neatly wrapped, courtesy of Bilbo and Daisy, and labeled. 

He tapped his fingers gently on Bifur’s shoulder, “Hey, these are for you and the rest. If you want to take them up. I’m going to go make tea and eat something before Bofur or Ori get back, if you wanted to join me.” 

“Tea locked now,” Bifur signed, standing to take the satchels, with the careful gentility he assigned to all his movements. 

“Yeah,” Nori said, fully aware that his face was scrunching with confusion and uncaring, “I’m sure there’s a story behind that. I’m also sure that a lock that simple is no real obstacle.” 

Bifur laughed and loped off to his house. Nori slipped off to the stairs with his own tea from the Shire and satchel to put down. He didn’t have much in that satchel, clothes for the night and soaps, the rest was in Durhul’s cart, but it could certainly come in for the evening. 

Nori set his kettle, his new favorite, a sturdy contraption with a mesh inset for the leaves, to the fire with the water inside. He scoops off a small handful of his leaves and dumps them in and busies himself by pulling ingredients from the pantry. It isn’t as sparse as it had been when he was a pebble, but it was also not as well stocked and maintained as Bilbo’s. 

Still, there was plenty enough for this, and Nori pulled a large cast iron down. Skillet meals weren’t common for dwarrow, who usually used them for meat, but hobbits used their pans for nearly everything, and Bilbo had taught Nori many of them on the road. 

Of course hobbits used ceramics, steels, and coppers for their dishes, and even now Nori could feel a bit of an ache when he grasped the pan. He set it down near the fire, enough to warm but not to heat and shook out his hand with a hissed curse. His tenuous connection to the Song had much less of an effect with iron, though, as opposed to Bilbo who always broke out with a nasty swelling rash. 

He at least could mix in glass bowls, and did, scooping the nut-grain flours in and aerating it with a fork, swift circular motions that Bilbo had drilled into him. Sugar and a drizzle of honey, a splash of Dori’s beloved goat’s milk, two eggs, and a split of butter got added, and a handful of the dried blueberries Dori used for occasional muffins, and he poured it into the pan. A few careful scrapings of butter followed, around the edges to prevent sticking. 

Then Nori grimaced and braced to lift the pan again. Bifur got there first, sliding it into the oven, and adding a scoop of coal. Bifur frowned at him, the expression that Nori knew too well, warning him away from stupid, foolish, useless ventures. 

Before Azanulbizar it had been accompanied by a refrain that Dori had picked up in Bifur’s stead. “Don’t be an idiot, help is there when you ask for it.” 

Dori mostly said that to Ori these days. Bifur just looked at Nori and he could hear it still. 

Nori grinned sheepishly and moved to grab the kettle, its cork wood handle safe to grab, “Thanks, Bifur. That’ll be ready in a bit.” 

He poured the tea into two old mugs and pushed one towards Bifur, settling at the table, cross legged and comfortable in his chair. 

“Akhâf,” Bifur barked, and Nori glanced down. His boots were on, which Bilbo hated but Dori preferred. He looked up in confusion. Bifur stomped his foot for emphasis and Nori cringed. 

He’d quite forgotten that it was polite amongst western dwarrow to have one's feet on the floor, resting against the stone to connect to Mahal. In the east furniture wasn’t common, resting against the floor directly was more polite than cutting oneself off, and if furniture was available then it was polite to sit all the way on it, to respect the craftsmanship of the piece. 

Nori slid his boots to the floor sheepishly. 

Bifur nodded approvingly and sipped his tea. Then his eyebrows shot up and he looked at his cup. He set it down and signed, “Not Dori tea. Where from?” 

“My blend, kind of. It has juniper berries, roses, and dried cherries.” 

Bifur hummed and took a deeper sip. He nodded, “Good. Excellent job. Keep blend?” 

Nori blushed. It was the first blend he’d mixed with Bilbo, he liked it, but it was made of his favorites. It was nice for someone else to like it. They sat for a bit, signing back and forth about light topics, Ori had an apprenticeship lined up now, and was taking lessons with the master who’d take him on until then. Dori’s tea shop was doing well, and Bombur and Kisto had a second pebble now. 

Soon the smell of the food was wafting through the kitchen and Bifur sniffed the air. Nori grinned and got up, Bifur close behind him, hovering over his shoulder. Nori pulled on the oven mitts while Bifur set out the iron trivet, and Nori set the pan down on it. 

Then Nori was grabbing things from the pantry, a small dish of goat’s milk with a large handful of dried blueberries and mountain currants plopped in to soak. He should have done this earlier, but he’d been enjoying tea with Bifur. He pulled a decent chunk off of the goat cheese log, tucking it back into the cold storage after. 

Nori plopped the cheese into a bowl, drizzled several spoons of honey over, then added the milky berries and quickly mixed them, whipping it quickly into a runny sort of sauce. It was better with fresh berries, with Bilbo going out to his garden for whatever struck his fancy. This was good too. 

Bifur watched fascinated as Nori poured the sweet sauce over the cake in the pan, as it almost immediately melted in, the berries sitting on top, sopping and somewhat squished, going gooey with the residual heat. 

Nori cut two pieces, each slice carefully put on a plate, and Bifur grabbed two forks, one iron and one carved oak. He also grabbed Nori’s kettle and topped both cups off. 

Bifur stared down at his plate, then at the pan. He took a bite, moaned, and gestured at both items,” What. What?” 

“It’s called, oh don’t laugh, it’s called an oven baby.” Nori chucked a berry at Bifur as he started laughing anyways, “Stop! I didn’t name it! Anyways, I like it.” 

Bifur got up to cut another sliver, then draped a clean wash rag over it. He tilted his head at Nori, “Ori back soon. Bofur after. Need anything before people?” 

Nori hummed. Bifur knew him fairly well. He was tired after traveling, not sleeping for a night to set up his reentry, and preparing to see everyone again. Nori loved his family, he did, but of his family only Bifur, Bofur, and Bilbo had ever understood his tendency to get exhausted by them, and people in general. 

“My sheets are really dusty. I don’t reckon Dori has any spares, but I’ll at least need to shake them out. I need to get the chicken feed from the cart, and Durhul’s feed too.” 

Bifur brightened at the animal’s mention then grinned wickedly, “Durhul?” He signed. 

“Yes, Durhul. Because she is a grumpy old troll who bites.” Nori rolled his eyes, 

“Her sister is Kidzi, eh, Kidizdaig, she’s much nicer.” 

Bifur snorts, and doesn’t bother to hide it. Nori dumps his dishes in the washbasin for later, and goes to strip his sheets. Bifur follows him after dumping his own dishes, and Nori takes his sheets to the courtyard. It’s not the best place to shake the dust off, but there’s not really a good place for that, actually. 

Bifur ducks around to the storage house and drags the washbasin out, pulling it to the spigot. He looks at Nori expectantly, fingers tapping on the scrub board. Nori groans, clutching his sheets, then he sneezes, hard. Again, and again he sneezes. 

Looking down at his sheets after his fifth rapid sneeze wryly, he notes the grey color that has sunk fiber deep. He really is going to have to wash them, a dust beat like they’re one of Bukdra’s rug-mats for meals and conversation. 

There is not the sun, a fire, or so much as a breeze to let them dry quickly enough before bed, and Nori stares miserably at his sheets. He hadn’t thought that Dori’s distaste for his travels would have gone so far as to keep Nori’s own bed, his first home unwelcoming and cold in his absence. 

He could not imagine Bilbo doing that, and even Daisy kept a room for him in her and Gaffer’s smial, even knowing that he might never use it. 

Bifur watches as Nori dumps his sheets and blankets into the cold wash water. Nori tugs off his leather jerkin and rolls up his cotton sleeves to start scrubbing, the wash water almost immediately several shades darker. 

He glances up to see Bifur’s wide eyes and hands frozen mid sign. He makes an inarticulate sound of shock, and Nori freezes mid scrub. 

Bifur taps his arms after a moment, and Nori glances down. His inkings. He’d gotten used to them, oops. 

Nori shrugs and goes back to scrubbing his sheets, uselessly hoping that maybe the sooner he finished the sooner he could hang them, and maybe they’d be more damp than wet by the night bell. 

Bifur stares another moment then lets it be, ducking back into the storage house. He comes back after a few minutes interspersed with the sounds of him digging through things, and sets a small drawstring bag by Nori. Nori grabs it with dripping fingers, and peers inside. 

Fresh sheets. A laugh bubbles up and he looks fondly at Bifur. Bifur signs at him, hesitantly, “Sheets were Bombur’s. Before marriage needed bigger bed. Keep them.” 

Then Bifur wandered over to the cart and started poking at the things let behind, a box filled with coin pouches, locked of course, though Bifur’s snort told him that he knew perfectly well what was in there, clothes, medicines, books were all else, aside from Nori’s travel pack, which was twisted shut with a ribbon. 

By the time that Nori was hanging his sheets to dry, and grabbing the fresh sheets to remake his bed, Bifur had climbed the cart to poke at the storage top, at the thin rolls of fabric and stacks of wood pieces, large and small. He was perched on top of the cart rolling a piece of purple eastern wood in his hands, with the satisfaction of a cat on his face. 

Nori left him there to his wood and the company of the animals, Bifur was happy and content, and Nori wanted him to remain so as long as he could before the pain from the axe head reared up again. Every stolen moment of painless joy for Bifur was precious. 

Nori buttoned the sheets onto his bed corners, and settled on top of his bed, legs crossed, with his travel satchel, unpacking it for the duration of his stay. His kohls, bead, and comb went on the shelf by his bed. The alcove he’d previously used to store his small trinkets and treasures was stacked with several books, his two mastery journals and a few to read. 

Hobbit histories remained his favorites and Daisy had several that Bilbo hadn’t. 

The trinkets that had been there he left on the floor by his bed for now, and he tugged the lidded crate of his old clothes out, lifting the lid to add the ones he’d left with and the new ones he wore also. The bin was fuller than it ever had been, even including the clothes he’d left behind to pass down to Ori. 

He’d have to see if they’d fit his younger brother now. He’d been a head shorter than Nori when he’d left. 

He tugged one of Daisy’s books down, a tale of one her goblin relatives, named Greenclaw for the story, though the genealogy she’d given him to learn said his real name was Gobta. He got perhaps a chapter in before voices came from the kitchen. 

He drifted out to the hall to see who it was, hoping for Ori. 

It was Ori, his littlest brother shot up to a whole head taller than him, a half hand shorter than Dori, as well as two others, around Ori’s age. His brother had friends, and Nori leaned on the doorway to watch fondly. 

“Oh! Oh, look! Dori must’ve left us food, it’s still warm, Ori, what is it?” The shorter brunet asked, cheerful as his words tangled on their way out, slurred with excitement. 

Ori shrugged, peering under the towel with the brunet, as the blond grabbed plates and forks, at ease in the kitchen, “I don’t know. There’s plates in the sink though, so someone’s tried it already. It might be one of Bombur’s experiments, I guess.” 

“Anyways, it. Looks good. The only thing I’ve ever seen cooked in a cast iron is meat and sometimes Ámad makes eggs.” The blond says, matter of factly, and then cuts three slices with the ease of long practice of getting there first. Nori and Dori both had that instinct from blocking Ori from the knives when he was small. 

The brunet suddenly perked up, elbowing Ori and pointing at the tea cabinet, “Hey, hey, your brother left the teas unlocked. You think he’s still got the poppyweed? We should check, I think we should check.” 

The blond groaned exaggeratedly, “Kee, no. We’re going to get in trouble again.” 

“Fee, don’t be boring. Ori, Ori, should we check? You should check, the poppyweed was fun, and I bet there’s some of the stinkweed that Dori and Balin took away too.” Kee, the brunet, stared beseechingly at blond Fee, undoubtedly his brother. 

Ori sighed, giggled, and shook his auburn braids back from his face. He scrambled over to the tea cabinet to throw the door open, Kee at his shoulder bouncing slightly, and Fee a step behind pretending at responsibility, though Nori could see his fingers twitching. 

Then Fee leans in over Ori’s other shoulder, suddenly interested, “Those are new. Those are expensive, actually. One of those Ámad gets from Bree for three silvers. Those three I’ve seen sometimes from Eastern traders, but not even Balin asks for price, I think they’re a couple golds.” 

Ori rocks back on his heels, and Kee points at a lower shelf, “Uh, disregarding expensive teas for a tea shop, there’s the poppyweed, and the stinkweed behind it. And pipeweed, but we haven’t got a pipe.” 

Ori reaches forward, slowly, with one hand on the doors to shut it at a moment’s notice. Kee is vibrating and Fee is as well, from nerves on the blond’s part. 

“I’d leave that there, Ori.” Nori says, dryly, “Although, at least now I don’t need to ask Dori why in Mahal’s ballsack the tea cabinet needed a padlock. For the love of Mahal’s thrice-blessed hammer strike, what stupidity.” 

Three shrill screams ring out as the pebbles turn and scramble away from the cabinet. Fee’s plate drops and shatters and the sound from the teashop below abruptly goes silent. Steps start to come up the stairs, and pause as they meet the fleeing Kee midway down. 

Nori stays where he was, leaning on the doorway. Fee stares at his plate, frozen with occasional darting looks at Nori. He is edging carefully towards the door. 

Ori blinks, stares, and lights up, leaping for Nori. He tackles him in a hug, without taking into account the new height discrepancy. 

Nori hits the ground, hard, with his brother practically wrapped around him. Ori giggles maniacally, and then abruptly starts sobbing, clutching Nori and practically chanting his name. Nori sighs, and pats Ori gently on his back, taking shallow breaths. 

He looks up a moment after to see Dori standing over him, with more silver in his hair than red now, still wearing the simple clasps Nori had made. Dori is crying slightly, and Kee is behind him, looking shaky still, and attached to Fee’s side. 

“Sorry,” he croaks through Ori’s grasp on his ribs, “I didn’t mean to scare Ori and his friends.” 

Dori sighs, smiles, dashes away fresh tears, and says, “It’ll be fine. I’m sure they were getting into mischief anyways. You’re alive, that’s what- that’s what matters.” 

Nori blinks, “What- of course I’m alive! Why wouldn’t I be-? I sent letters to Bofur with my estimated timeline, and when I was on my way back with the caravans, did he not tell you?” 

Ori sobs harder and Nori wheezes, flailing at his brother’s shoulders, gently and then hard. Dori sniffles, “Ori, let him breathe. Bofur said you’d be back, but he didn’t say when, no. He wasn’t worried. I was.” 

Ori releases him then, or at least his ribs, and sits up, pulling Nori with him like a favored toy as he keeps hold of Nori’s arm, “Where were you? Why were you gone so long?” 

Nori eyes him, “I went east. I wanted to see the Orocarni. It took some time to get there, and I spent a good while there, then I came back. I- did Bofur not tell you anything? You didn’t want me to tell you anything that had to do even tangentially with my Craft, but I’ve tried to keep Bofur aware for things like this.” 

“He tried,” says Kisto from the door, her voice dry, “And he tells the rest of us some, but only Bifur knows it all. Dori barely talks to Bofur anymore though, after the first fight over the first winter you were gone. I’ll send him up, shall I? I’ll shut the shop for the day, too. Family emergency.” 

“Oh, hey, Kisto?” Nori calls, and she pauses on the steps down, “There’s gifts for you and the rest at your place. I gave them to Bifur.” 

She nods, lips thin above her tightly groomed beard, and went back downstairs. Thundering footsteps sounded shortly after, and Bombur and Bofur are in the kitchen then. 

It is a very full kitchen, Nori notes, with Fee and Kee sitting on the counter, boots dangling, watching rapt over fresh plates of the oven baby, him and Ori tangled on the floor opposite them with Dori hovering over them, and the new addition of the Ur brothers at the top of the stairs. 

Bofur let out a shout of joy, charged around the table and plucks Nori from Ori’s grasp to spin him around. Nori shrieks without fully meaning to and yanked and smacks at Bofur’s hat and shoulders to be put down. 

Bofur set him on his feet only for Bombur to engulf him in a hug as well, lifting him off his feet and pressing his wet face into the back of Nori’s shoulder. Nori patted at what he could reach solemnly, Bombur’s head and shoulders, and soon enough he was on his feet again, stumbling slightly at his release. 

Nori grinned as Bofur laughed loudly, clutching his shoulders, only a few fingers taller than Nori, the two shortest in their families, now that Ori had surpassed him. He crowed, “You’re back! I knew you were coming, but I didn’t think the caravan had beat you by that much, how are you this slow, the caravan with your letter was months ago!” 

“Not my fault you assumed! We- I traveled with that caravan for a week and a half, and I almost didn’t send that letter. The only reason I did is because they were heading to Ered Luin, not the Ironhills.” 

Dori snarled behind him and stepped towards Bofur angrily. Nori twisted, shoved Bofur back a few steps with his shoulder, and twisted at Dori’s outstretched hand gently until Dori was off balance, stumbling into the table, shocked. 

“Hey! I just got back, quit fighting.” 

Bombur snorted, now in possession of a plate of oven baby, “When did you get stronger than Dori, anyhow? You’re still a pebble-sized imp. Also, what is this, it’s amazing.” 

Nori grumbled for a moment, yanking the towel back over the pan, with a bitten back hiss as he brushed the iron of the trivet, “I’m not stronger than Dori, I’m a, as you put it, pebble-sized imp. I fight smart, so redirection. It’s an oven baby that I made for me and Bifur, quit eating it.” 

“Uh huh, sure,” Bofur said, sliding the last piece, an absolutely massive bit that could’ve been split, onto a plate, “what’d’ya mean redirection?” 

Nori whipped the towel at Bofur, hard, and he yelped as it connected to his arm with a snap. “I mean that if Dori is stronger, that I redirect the force behind his swings so he goes off balance and I don’t get hit. My friend taught it to me, and I taught him how to knife fight.” 

Bombur had a whole different concern, “Oven baby?” He asked uncertainly. 

All three pebbles, and Bofur after a moment, burst out laughing. Nori shoved Bofur, who playfully fell into Bombur, who stole a bite off of Bofur’s plate, “Oh, shut up. I didn’t name it. It’s not that good, anyways. Most of the time I make it I have fresh fruits and butter, not to mention the proper pan.” 

Bofur looks down at his plate, “This can be better?” 

“Yeah. It’s just a breakfast food honestly, an easy one. Where I learned it it was usually prepped the night before, and then just poured and baked in the morning. It's pebble food, when the parents are tired.” Nori shrugged and stole a pinch from Bofur’s plate as well. Bofur squawked in offense, then lost his whole plate to Dori, who walked away with it. 

Dori took a bite and hummed contemplatively, “Well, pebble food or not, if you can get the recipe to Bombur this would sell decently downstairs. What’s the most expensive part?” 

Bombur and Dori both focused hard on Nori, who shrugged, “I’m- not sure. Different things are expensive in different places, I gave up tracking that a while ago. I just haggle whatever the cost is. What in particular is expensive right now?” 

“Nori, really?” Dori already looked aggravated, “Just tell me what’s in it, and I’ll figure that out.” 

“Uh,” Nori racked his brain for a second, way too used to making this on instinct with Bilbo, whose favorite morning food was this or eggs, “Flour, berries, milk, eggs, sugar, honey, usually butter, but I skipped that, and then the glaze sauce I made with goat cheese, honey, berries and milk. All the berries were dried.” 

“Huh,” Bombur mused, “I would not have thought cheese.” 

Dori grumbled, “Eggs. Eggs are the most expensive part. We’re already barely affording what we need for the teashop, much less any extra.” 

“Oh,” Nori shifted, “Uh. Might’ve, um, might’ve fixed that for you.” 

“What.” 

Bombur glanced warily at Dori, then Nori, and nervously sucked on his fork, “Um, Nori, no offence, but eggs do go bad eventually. Even if you brought us a lot of eggs, they’d still spoil.” 

The courtyard door jiggled and Bifur entered, poorly concealing one of the chickens, the fat gold one from Daisy’s last brood. He unerringly found Nori’s face, held up the fat bird, and demanded, “Name? Name?” 

It was one of the words in khuzdul and Westron that he knew well, had practiced, for introductions. Nori stood there, mildly defeated as everyone other than him and Bifur descends into chaos and yelling. 

“That one’s name is Waddle. Do you want me to come introduce you to the rest of the chickens or are you going to keep bringing them to the kitchen?” 

Bifur wavers, then tucks the chicken back under his arm, and signs, “You come.” 

Nori gladly escaped the kitchen to follow Bifur down to the courtyard. Everyone following after him did rather defeat that notion. It would calm down soon enough, at which point he could start planning. He certainly wasn’t going to stay idle while he was here. 

Bilbo had his own plans for his thieve’s mastery while Nori was away, he certainly couldn’t disappoint in return. 

Especially when Bilbo had plans to rob the elves. Apparently his mother had friends in Rivendell, and Bilbo wanted their books. Nori had to measure up to that now, the wretch. Elves. Books. 

He loved Bilbo, he did, but Nori had limited options compared to Bilbo, who even had a free ride to Rivendell from his mother’s old contacts with the rangers. It was a shame that they were both competitive. At least Nori had access to nobles to play with. 

Bilbo wasn’t robbing anyone special, the Rivendell lord wasn’t royal. 

“It’s fiction, Ori,” Fili said, “Balin and Dori both said so. Nori got it for you since he was just out east, and he’s not allowed to tell you about it.” 

“I know,” Ori replied, miserably, “I just- it’s really cool, and it seems like Nori, and- I don’t know, I thought maybe he found a way around Dori.” 

Kili shrugged and tugged the book back over, “Yeah, but Balin said that a bunch of parts aren’t accurate. I mean, a dwarrow and an elf? Married and living on an oliphaunt? Please, it’s not actually how it works. Besides, the Orocarni are proper dwarrow, they come and trade. I’ve seen them, they don’t wear weird colors, and they aren’t savages that ignore Mahal, and there aren’t that many.” 

“Uncle Thorin and Uncle Dain both have censuses, the Orocarni are pretty cooperative, partly because they fought against the alliance in the War of Wrath. It’s common knowledge, Ori,” Fili adds, “The book is cool though. It’s a good fiction. Nori steals stuff sometimes, right?” 

Ori nods, and traces the inscription again. For the recipience of Inkheart it reads. He imagined for a long wistful moment that he was Inkheart, that Dori was the oft mentioned Teabones, that Nori was Key the Thiefheart, and that it did not read Volume I before that. It was a fiction, the first in a series, a fantastical imagining, a book that made Nori think of him, nothing more. 

“Yeah, Nori’s a thief. Or he was, as a pebble. It’s why he and Dori fight so much, Dori says he’s a bad influence on me,” Ori grins weakly, “You’re probably right. Anyhow, Key loves Spoons an awful lot in this, calls him beloved. I think they’re married and that whoever the author is wrote it for their kid. I bet that’s who Inkheart is.” 

Kili and Fili are silent for a long moment, then Fili grabs it and flips through for his favorite bits, marked with his light brown ribbon tags. The three of them had been at this for hours now, and the poor book had scrap notes tucked in, and dozens of each of their ribbons. 

Fili, the romantic prat, has been marking all of the parts where Key gushes about Spoons. Ori thinks it’s weird. Kili said that Fili just wanted some dwarrowdam to love him like that, and that Ori and Fili would both be lucky if it happened. 

Then the three had wrestled for a while before they went back to the book. 

“I think you’re right,” Fili says, “That’s so sweet! Maybe it’s like a collection of bedtime stories?” 

“Oh! Like Ádad used to do, where the stories built up bit by bit, and on our name days he’d kill the dragon.” Kili laughs delighted, and Ori grins. 

“I just hope he brings Volume II next time, this is the first time that the books aren’t random. It’s like he used to bring me whatever he picked up.” 

Balin hums from across the room, where he had given up on supervising lessons in favor of the Book. He’d told them they could practice their critical thinking and using outside resources to fact check on it. 

He looks up and tells Ori dryly, “Well, whether he brings you books or not, tell him that next time he goes traveling, that he can bring ink back for me as well. Just one of those black ink sticks could cover your apprenticeship costs for a year, they are very well made.” 

Ori opens his mouth and Balin holds up one of his hands with a wizened sigh, “No, Ori, I will not take one of your brother's gifts. Your apprenticeship does not start for another many several years, I am quite sure that Nori will not vanish for over a decade. There is time to negotiate.” 

Ori nods, stiff and quiet, and fidgets with the edge of a page. Fili lets out a triumphant noise. 

“Here!,” then he tugs the book away fully from Ori and bends over it to read, “Spoons and I have been tarrying in the upper levels of the market for some time as Spoons chooses silks. I cannot begrudge him this, for my beloved has discovered a deep love and comfort from the softness of it. 

“Still, whilst he chooses fabrics, I find myself tarrying at the inks and paints. Bukdra, as ever, wishes above most else to paint our faces, and Spoons and I agreed to purchase some kohls, but I have discovered far more colors than anticipated. I have chosen several for each Spoons and I, as our colors are different enough to require different colors. 

“The inks call me though, and I am reminded again of Inkheart. I wonder if he has grown enough to fit the clothes saved for him, or if he is still shorter than I. I will perhaps choose some inks for him though, he loves them much in all forms, books and drawing and doing both himself. I do wish that I weren’t missing so much of his youth to my wandering feet, but alas.” 

Fili turns and jabs at the pages, his eyes manic, “Inkheart is a kid! Probably Key and Spoons’ kid, but at least a kid they know and love. That is awesome.” 

Balin chuckles, “Excellent deduction, my prince. What else might you devise from that passage?” 

“Uh.” 

Fili has run out of steam and the other two lean in, reading it over again. Ori feels his heart sink as he realizes, “Key is probably a dam. They have a kid, and they mentioned that Spoons is a he. Also, Key is choosing the colors, and everyone knows that dams wear the makeup, or choose it for their husbands for formal events.” 

Nori can’t be Key Ori realizes, because too many things don’t line up. Nori would have told them if he were going to get married, would’ve told them about a kid. Nori, always nervous about pushing Dori too far to the point of writing Bofur instead of anyone else, wouldn’t have revered Yavannah with an odd Orocarni husband, or something similar, or be writing even vaguely about the stupid Broadbeam superstitions about feyfolk from before Mahal. 

It was still a cool book though, and he hoped Nori would bring the next one soon. Ori carefully turned so that they could start the next section, the one about between the hollow mountain and the oliphaunt village. 

It was quieter for a while, little notes were tucked in by all of them, ribbon strips, and quiet whispers ruled the room to the backdrop of Balin reading and taking notes on his own dusty book. 

This peace was briefly interrupted by Dwalin storming in, still half in his guard's captain uniform, and throwing himself down in the chair beside Balin, but the peace held, quiet whispers and scratching of pens through the larger dwarf’s clear fuming anger as he sat, ignored, to steam. 

“Nori’s a thief,” Kili whispered finally to Ori, who jerked upright, glanced at Dwalin, and scowled at him, “Shut up, I’m not going to get him in trouble, Dori said he wasn’t even that good. I just want to know if your brother could teach us to pick locks, like Key did to the caravan with the other thieves, the ones that tried to stab Spoons in the last chapter.” 

“First of all,” Ori hissed back, “Nori’s not a thief, don’t be mean. Dori just gets mad at him for stupid stuff. Nori’s a trader, I think. Dori calls him that because he had to do it sometimes on the road from Erebor so we could eat. Nori likes to wander, and it gives Dori anxiety.” 

Ori knew Nori claimed his Craft was as a thief, but he did agree with Dori that it was a bit ridiculous. Mahal didn’t call dwarrow to dishonorable crafts. Nori liked to rile Dori up, but Ori really was fairly certain that Nori had a trader’s craft, though he wasn’t certain which one. 

Fili leveled him with a curious look, “Could he though? Teach us to pick locks? Ooh, or to pickpocket, that could be fun.” 

Ori considers, “I mean. Yeah, probably.” 

Kili cheers loudly, and Balin clears his throat. He looks up and levels them with a nasty look of disapproval, “Regardless of mister Nori’s capabilities, I am quite sure that these are not useful or respectable skills for princes or scribes, and that mister Nori perhaps could, but that he would not.” 

“Would not what?” Dwalin asks, his grumpiness waning in favor of curiosity. 

“Teach us to pick locks,” they chorus, and Dwalin’s mood plummets worse than before. 

“Buggering, Mahal lost, mahumb thieves,” he hisses, “Can’t escape the lot of them.” 

They all stare, Balin with such disapproval that hulking, war torn, terrifying Dwalin shrinks sheepishly. “Pardon my language,” he mutters, and Ori snorts inelegantly. 

He’s heard worse when Bofur stubs his toe. 

“What happened?” Fili finally asks, and Kili leans forward with wide eyes. Balin, likely thoroughly sick of the book and talk of eastern thieves, waves his hand to give Dwalin permission. 

“There’s a new thief, or an old one, I don’t feck-er, fudging know,” he says, leaning forward with the posture of a tale-teller, “They’ve started leaving a calling card. We had a couple jobs with it, but this last one, ough, they did us a number, and that stupid calling card just mocked us.” 

Balin leans back, they all lean forward, and Dwalin weaves his tale. Unlike the Book, they at least knew it was all true. 

“It started last week,” he begins, and they all get sucked in. 

“I’m captain, as you know, which mostly means I tell people where to go and what to do, and make sure each sector does their jobs. Sometimes though, it means that when there’s an investigation that goes across sectors, or that no one can figure out, that I get called on the case.

“This one was a mess because it had two sectors arguing over territory before it even got properly started. Anyhow, there’s a small street, mainly business ends of residential compounds, but that one strip of businesses is between sectors, half the compounds are sector seventeens, but the other half are nineteen’s, and the businesses are neutral as a result. 

“There's a robbery in the wee hours of the morn though, and this ceramics maker comes in and discovers he’s missing a whole piece of clay. He’s in a dither about it, apparently it’s experimental clay made of paper that doesn’t need a kiln. I come in to the two sector’s guards arguin’ jurisdiction, and I ain’t seeing much in way of issues. It’s clay, who cares. 

“This ain’t gonna help anyone to say, though, so I don’t. Instead I start poking around. Most thieves leave signs, see, scuffs on the window, scratch marks where they picked the lock, stuff like that. I ain’t seeing anything though, so I keep poking. 

“All’o the guards are watching me, and the poor craftsman’s near in tears. Finally I find something, and it ain’t what I was thinkin’ at all. Dangling, right over where the guy had left his clay, was a mask made of some weird crumbling stuff, painted like a fox. 

“I pull it down, and it near cracks in half, an’ there’s a note stuck to the other side. It tells the guy that he was on the right track, but he ain’t added glue yet. I don’ know what that means, but the guy, he goes right over to this other shelf, and pulls out this bottle. 

“It’s his glue, and the danged thing is empty. This thief stole experimental clay and glue. Already it’s the weirdest thing I ever had to deal with. Guys hysterical, I’m confused, and guy pulls another note from the glue, it got some sort of recipe on it, and now guys stopped cryin’. 

“Now, he ain’t upset anymore, but it’s still a robbery, so he lets me poke around. Only thing out of the ordinary is this damn feather, right where the glue had been. So I leave. No harm, no foul, I suppose, but it’s awful weird. I head back to the station, thinking all's well, and I figure I can maybe eat somethin’ since I sure ain’t gettin’ back to sleep no more. 

“That ain’t happening though, because I got another case of weird robbery, and no one c’n find anything. I head out there, guys missing glass beads. Just reds, oranges, and yellows, mostly, but not many of any, he just got some fool system and noticed missing beads. 

“Mind, he only looked since his prized bead was gone, one’a a line of animal faces he’d been makin’ for no reason other’n he could, but the fox is gone. Anyhow, he’s in a snit, and all we find is a feather, same as the last. 

“We get another seven or so like this, I been running around all week after what’s shapin’ up to be a bird or something. Anyhow, I finally had a day, yesterday, where nothing was happening. Craftsman’s quarters all across Ered Luin are on edge and gossipy, but ain’t nothing happen yesterday. Bloody, bleedin’, wonderful it was.

”This mornin’ though, that changed and changed hard. To be honest, the penultimate crime this wretched thief did would probably be funny, and more vindicating than irritating if it hadn’t been for the feather, or the week leadin’ up. 

“Everyone know of Lady Khursida?” 

He pauses the tale and Ori snickers at the sour look on Balin’s face, and the pained groans from Kili and Fili. Lady Khursida was a nobledam from Erebor. She had been a severe woman on Thror’s council before the dragon, then on Thrain’s until Azanulbazar, then Thorin had done his level best to kick her off. She was an “honored elder” now, a fancy title for an adviser that Thorin planned to ignore. 

She was a bitter shrew, who hated everything, hoarded her treasures smuggled from Erebor like a miser, and lorded them over everyone anyways. Her highest prize was a pair of emerald teardrop earrings from Thrain, they had survived the flight in pristine condition, by dint of being in her ears at the time. 

There was a gold chain necklace, which had been left brittle by the heat of the flames and been repaired multiple times, several jeweled bangles, and many more smaller pieces from her jewelry box that she’d grabbed on her way out. Those emeralds were her prize and joy though, and she was never seen without them. 

She was also quite rude to anyone she considered below her, which was nearly everyone. She’d come to the teashop once, told Dori to his face that his tea was adequate enough for a bastard child from the road, and that he might be considered good enough for this miner’s pit, but that he’d have never risen in Erebor. 

Dori had nodded, but he’d been awful quiet for the rest of the day. Everyone knew not to take Lady Khursida seriously, but she really was fantastically good at cutting deeply with her words. 

“Good,” Dwalin said, his lips curling into a conspiratorial grin. It was never good for anyone to know Lady Khursida, so the incongruity of that had even Balin leaning in now. 

“She came into the guard station this morning, not the one for her sector, mind, or the one for the royals, which she insists is better. She came into mine, the head station, screaming. 

“She came in screaming and sobbing, and she wasn’t wearing those damned earrings.” 

The entire room howls with laughter. Dwalin leans back, his grumpy fury slightly abated by the amusement and his tale-telling. 

“It took hours to calm her down. I still have a headache from her wails, but eventually we got her calmed. Evidently someone stole her earrings. I, and several of my guards, whether they were backup for me or her, I’m still not sure, followed her to her house. 

“She’s complaining the whole time of course, her house was better in Erebor, this never would have happened there, how cold have allowed this, oh this is just so terrible, and just when I’m starting to consider punching a dam we get there. 

“Now Marta, she stays with the Lady, brave sacrifice that girl, proud of her, and the rest of us go in. No signs of break in, no entry, exit, nothin’, there’s even bars on the window she’d installed, and they’re solid, I got no clue how anyone got there. 

“Anyhow, I’m startin’ to reckon that she dropped ‘em somewhere and never noticed, but there’s this box on her side table. I open it, it’s for the earrings, got an impression cushion an’ everything, as if Thror would’a given her shoddy workmanship. 

“There’s a feather sittin’ in that box, pretty as you please. And I know I gotta go back out there an’ tell her that we know who did it, but not actually an’ that we can’t catch him.” 

Dwalin grins, and leans back, holding up a handful of thirteen pristine, blue-black feathers, each tipped with white, “It was almost worth the headache and utter nightmare that this week just to see the look on her face.” 

Balin is nearly in tears from laughter. Ori has never seen him this amused. Kili is staring at the ceiling with utter awe, and Ori knows that his friend has a new hero, one that has surpassed, or nearly so, his uncle. 

Fili, gives a little grimace sort of grin, “While it’s kinda cool to hear Lady Khursida get what she’s been spreading for so long, that also means that one of Erebor’s treasures is out of reach. Politically, that’s bad for morale, the dragon didn’t let us escape with much at all.” 

Dwalin and Balin both sober, Dwalin taking point, “Yeah, an’ that’s why it’s a mess. But it is still funny. Unfortunately I don’t reckon I’m ever going to be able to catch the thief. He’s good, and his confidence in leaving a calling card would usually be an easy way to trip him up, arrogance you know.” 

Dwalin settles back for a moment, then sighs heavily, "Except, I think he really is that good. I don’t think we’ll get them back, but I’m hoping it’s a one off, that it was a clever revenge on that wretched woman, and they can be a political point that way, for takin’ her down a peg, instead of for taking one of Erebor’s last treasures, then coming back for more.” 

Ori considers that while Fili nods seriously. It was clever, and somewhat convoluted. Carefully he flips through the book, pulling up the caravan robbery, the careful traps of drugging the food, and going through the trap door of the wagon, by removing the hinge pins instead of picking the lock, and Key leaving his callsign of the keys to the wagon in plain sight of the door. 

In the book the wicked thieves had needed to break into their own wagon in order to find their treasure replaced by their own keys with no evidence of anything. Ori tapped the part about the hinge pins. 

Kili leans in. He giggles. 

A week later Ori passes Lady Khursida on the street. She wears no earrings at all. He bites his tongue so as not to laugh. Several other people are doing the same. Rumour has it that she’d been robbed by a bird, a magpie. 

Ori thinks he’d like to thank the magpie one day. Just a little bit. For shutting Lady Khursida up anyways. 

Chapter Text

“The problem with reading stories is that there comes a point when the content of said stories drives an intrigue into figuring out whether they’re true. Conflicting accounts of the Orocarni have driven us East time and time again, curiosity about the braggart accounts from Ironhills about the skill of their guards, even chasing after old records of lost treasure. Still, for the first time chasing ghost stories, Spoons and I have gone far past intended, both in intentions and distance. Though, for all the fuss, and the time away from, home, I can’t complain about the result. My advice, dear Inkheart, is not to chase spectres at the coast.” 

- Excerpt from  “The Thief's Key”, Volume Five, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

Bilbo cackles at Nori, shoving him into the sea again. They’re chasing a ghost story, stolen from Rivendell years ago by Bilbo. Mostly, for something to do. 

It’s been years since their last long journey, they’d done many shorter ones, wintering together in the Shire some, or separate with Nori in Ered Luin as well. They’d gone to Ironhills, to forests to wander, to old ruins, and new ruins. They’d wandered from mannish village to village, they’d visited Gondor, and Rohan, and gone south and north. 

It had been years of them focusing on Masteries rather than the journey, focusing more on the goal than the wander as they had for their marriage journey. Both of them had itchy feet. 

When they’d first floated the idea of another long trip their first thought had been to go east, to see Bukdra and Ruuthii, and the others if they could, and to push farther still. 

Ori was an apprentice now, and busy, and Nori had left a note with Bifur telling him it might be a few years. Bilbo, while Nori had settled his affairs with his brothers, had read through the Rivendell books that he’d been hoarding. 

Bilbo’s elvish, Sindarin at least, had come along well. Quenya was much slower with fewer resources, but he’d gotten there. One of the books was tracking sightings of a singing phantom along the beach, and Bilbo had been intrigued. 

It wasn’t difficult to plan their path to trace east along the coastlines first. 

It had been fun so far, they played in the sea, gathered shells, both to keep and to offer for trade in the east. Occasional strains of music reached them, but they always coincided with graceful boats in the distance, sailing west. In the months of coastal wandering, they’d seen three. 

Nori rose from the waves, braids dripping and threw a clump of seaweed at Bilbo’s face. It was slimy, and it tangled around his ears. Bilbo shrieked in affront, clawing it off his face and throwing it back at Nori, chasing him towards shore. 

There was a cave system some ways up the shore, and a village just before it. They’d made plans to explore the caves, after resupplying earlier, probably they’d have to do it tomorrow, after a night in the village inn, Bilbo at least wanted a decently warm bath to get the salt out of his hair, and Nori’s. 

Durhul snorted at the dull thwap of Nori’s braids, snapping playfully at his foot, and Bilbo swung onto Kidzi without any such trouble. For as much complaining about Durhul’s temperament as Nori did, Bilbo thought they were a perfect match. Kidzi was pulling the cart this time though, and Bilbo sat awkwardly perched on top of the harness instead of her riding blanket. 

The village over the hill was a large one, closer to a town than a village, well fed off of the sea and from trade from the elves who traveled to the haven up the shore. It was called Phantom’s Silence, and the market may be shutting down for the night, but Bilbo could already see many fascinating things for sale. 

Pearls for one, he’d never seen so many shapes and colors of the little things, only the uniform whites and pinks strung into necklaces that sat in heirloom boxes and mathom halls in the Shire. 

The inn was along a back corner, several of them were along various streets, but there were only three that displayed the eight-point star to welcome and accommodate all peoples. Two of those three looked horrible, unwelcoming and dingy, so the third it was, along the corner of a back street. 

It was called the Keep, and Bilbo wandered in while Nori remained by the ponies and the cart, mostly because Bilbo had taken the opportunity while Nori wrested his braid back from Durhul’s gentle bite. 

The inside of the inn wasn’t clean per se, but it was welcoming and warm, even in its oddities and strangeness. It was clearly designed for any peoples that came through, with chairs of various sizes scattered around the ground floor with tables scattered in. 

A torn net hung along one wall, another strung along the ceiling, hooked along beams so as not to fall. Hanging glass lanterns made of colored, fogged glass were strung along the ceiling net, casting colored lights dancing gently around the room.

Other trinkets were hung from both nets, and Bilbo stared shamelessly at them, constructions of fishbone and pearls twisted into trees, and strings of shining fish scales strung in trails, and ink carved shells. The counter was manned by a mannish woman, and a burly dwarrow with shells strung in his beard, who looked gruffly at Bilbo. 

“You’se had a pack o’ them Took traders by just some years ago, why is you here?” He grumbled, and Bilbo blinked. 

The woman swatted him gently with the rope she was braiding, “Oh, hush, Mescil, them Tooks come in packs, he alone, or ain’t one o’ them’s half-elves. You wantin’ a room, flick-ear?” 

Bilbo, without fully meaning too, batted an ear, “Uh. My husband and I were hoping for a room? We were also hoping that you might point us in the direction of a public stable, so we might settle our ponies for the night.” 

Mescil the dwarf scoffed, “Public ain’t worth a half load o’ dung. You’ll leave ‘em here, we got’s stalls. You’se got a cart? Need two stalls or three?” 

“Two, our ponies will share, tend to sleep together even on the road, they’re from the same brood spring, so they don’t separate well if the other is available. One stall for the ponies, and one for the cart. My husband, Nori, is out there with them.” 

Mescil grunted and hopped down, stomping past Bilbo to head out the door. He flicks a hand at him dismissively as he passes, waving Bilbo towards the woman, who is winding up her rope to set it aside, and pulling a large logbook towards herself. 

“Names?” She asks, her tattered quill raised. 

“Bilbo Ri-Baggins, and Nori Ri-Baggins,” Bilbo says, and he stands there, quietly cataloging the shells hanging from the wall net to his side. Eventually Nori comes up behind him, and the woman is still scratching away in the book with her quill. 

“What,” Nori whispered over his shoulder, “is happening?” 

Bilbo shrugs. The woman looks up eventually, “Sorry, I had to search through records for a bit, sometimes you flick-ears leave instructions, notes, or have past damages. I don’t have any past Ri-Baggins, I have several Tooks, including one outstanding bill, and a Belladonna Baggins on record though?” 

“That’s my Ma,” Bilbo says easily, “My husband and I smushed our names after we wed. I can probably pay my cousin’s outstanding bill as well.” 

Nori elbowed him in the side, and Bilbo elbowed him back. The woman looked up, “Alright. It’s not a big bill, they broke a plate, is all. How many nights?” 

“One, if we need more we'll discuss it, but one for now.” Nori said, and dug out the coin purse. The woman slides a leaf of paper over to them, and Nori signs, then Bilbo does as Nori counts out the coppers for the night. 

Bilbo feels more than hears the Song swell. Nori shifts behind him, he’s familiar with It, been listening for the eight years since they met, but Bilbo is practically made of Song, and Bilbo feels the Song swell in his bones and blood and fëa and the Void binding them together. 

Bilbo shivers. 

It is an alien feeling, and he scrunches his bare toes into the wood floor, straining to hear the jangling notes beneath the Valar’s chorus, louder in this place despite being long ago abandoned and dead noted comparatively. 

“Is it possible to purchase a milk goat at the market?” Bilbo asked distractedly, “Or dried greens?” 

The woman stared at him for a long moment, “Herbs, yes at the apothecary. T’ go with a goat though, ye’ll want to go for the dried sea’s weeds. The spot kelp does best, an’ I’d suggest an iron fish too.” 

Nori shifted, and glanced between Bilbo and the woman, “No iron, thank you. Uh, what are we talking about again?” 

“No matter,” the woman says, eyeing Bilbo oddly, “I’m Mert, by the by. You’se be in the room wit’ the sand coin on the door.” 

She jerks a finger towards the corridor to the left and Nori hefts the overnight bag to head that way. Bilbo lingers and eyes her. She grins at him, picks up her rope, and pushes a single package across the counter. 

“As I said,” she says, “instructions, notes, or past bills. A package from Baggins, with a note from a Took, and instructions that you fit, despite the vagueries I didn’t understand. Neither did mother, an’ she was who took th’ package.” 

“Instructions?” Bilbo asks, eyeing the package from his Ma with apprehension. 

Mert clears her throat, pulls a yellowed paper from the book, and reads, “This comes from Aunt Rosa Took, who insists that the next Baggins after my visit will need this. Her Far sight is powerful indeed, but I imagine that it will either be me, or one of my get, as other Baggins don’t have wandering feet as such. Auntie insisted though.” 

She shoves the package towards Bilbo again, and he notes the date written in Aunt Rosa’s elegant loops on it incredulously. It is from nearly a decade before he was born, maybe a year after she had even been married. 

He takes it and follows Nori to their room.  Nori is pulling out night clothes and glances up at him as he enters. He’s already tugged the ties and clasps from his braids and they are slowly loosening from their tight weaves, frizzy at the ends. 

Bilbo tosses the dusty package on their bed and crosses over to where Nori is sprawled by their bag. He tugs his husband into a kiss, and pulls the bag towards him, out of Nori’s grasp. 

Nori laughs, “Fine, then, be that way. I’ll go get the water from the fire to add to the bath, shall I?” 

Bilbo flaps his hand at him in acceptance, and Nori gets up to walk away, still chuckling. Bilbo digs in the bag, all the way to the bottom, shoving things aside and pulling nearly everything out. 

There. 

At the very bottom, nearly tucked into a corner by packing and repacking off and on for years, but still carried with them always, is a bundle swaddled in a faded cotton blanket, grey and patterned with fern fronds. 

It shifts slightly. 

Bilbo pulls it out very carefully, and tugs a corner of the swaddle loose. Nori snorts behind him, wry and amused. 

“I thought you weren’t supposed to unwrap it,” he comments, and Bilbo bites the inside of his cheek. His husband, immersed in hobbit culture, Æthel myths, and the Song for near a decade still has these persistent doubts, things he accepts but doesn’t believe. 

Bilbo tugs the other corner loose and carefully unwraps the outer blanket. The one inside, a softer, equally faded, green flannel is also tugged loose. Big, baby round, blue eyes blink up at him sleepily. 

The babe yawns, revealing toothless gums and scrunching its face up. A shock of smushed curls frames its face in red, just a shade darker than Nori. Bilbo tugs the blanket to unwrap further, revealing a tiny silvery box, the size of a walnut and shape of a pinecone, clutched in one fist, and Bilbo pries it away. 

The babe could easily choke on that. The babe is a girl, Bilbo notes distractedly, and naked. He reswaddles her, somewhat clumsily as she decides to squirm now. 

Nori makes an odd squeaking sound, and Bilbo looks at him. He is frozen by the fireplace, holding a bucket, and half hunched as if he’d paused while lifting it. He is staring with a mix of exhilaration, awe, and outright terror. 

Bilbo cradles the babe in one arm and gets up, leaving the contents of the bag strewn everywhere. The package on the bed seems very important now. He tugs the twine off and tears the paper open, gentle and slow, so as not to puff the child with dust. 

There’s no note, but several cloth diapers and a few infant gowns, two belted and three with button ties, and a feeder bowl is very much welcome. Nori squeaks again, and Bilbo blinks at him. 

“We might need to get a carry sash at the market tomorrow, or the fabric to make one. If the Song decided she was to be born on a long wander, then we are likely intended to carry her with us.” 

“Her,” Nori says in vague response, raspy toned, “Oh. Her. Ok, yes, goat. I get it now.” 

Bilbo nods firmly, and holds the babe up, carefully, and faces her towards Nori. This is the first Songchild Bilbo’s ever seen. Both of his sisters were born children, then they’d died during the winter, and Bilbo had certainly never seen any of his cousins as babes. 

She is bigger than his sisters were when they were born, from what Bilbo remembers. He turns her again, and she coos softly, staring with her blue eyes, Æthel eyes, for all that her coloring takes after Nori’s. 

She can hold her head up with only the slightest wobble, and she burbles softly at the slow rotation, curling her legs up and dropping them again. Bilbo holds her towards Nori, who sets the bucket down. 

Nori takes the child, caution writ in every line of his body. He holds her as if she might break into pieces if he squeezes her too tight, and breathes shallowly. 

Bilbo is fairly sure that if he were allowed to hold his little sisters after they’d been just born, smaller and wormier than this one, back when Bilbo himself were a clumsy and careless child, that babies are sturdier than people think. 

Bilbo picks a softer baby gown, one with little flannel legs sewn in and soft button ties so that it can grow with her somewhat, and a diaper, then goes and fetches a pot from his cooking satchel, ones he usually uses to collect trimmings when he and Nori cook. 

He’ll not be cooking with it again, tallow or otherwise. It’s better to let the babe wear a diaper, but a waste pot even this early means that she’ll know what to do when she can walk. 

Nori brings her over when prompted and Bilbo dresses her in the diaper and gown, in quick, long ago, nearly forgotten movements. She burbles again, waving her arms happily, her big baby ears floppy and soft. 

Nori crouches beside him and strokes her face, gentle and awed, “Hobbits name girl children for plants,” he comments softly, and taps her tiny nose. 

“Dwarrow name their children for their House and the child’s nature,” Bilbo says back, knowing that Nori’s secret name meant fox. 

“She is so small,” Nori says, “I’m tempted to name her Gunigzân.” 

Bilbo snorts. Little fire fits her hair, and her size, but she isn’t old enough to show much personality, “I think her dwarvish secret name can be a gift for when she’s older. I feel like something eastern, since we’re going there, or coastal since that’s where she was born.” 

“Coriander? The spice you add to things.” 

“Mm. Maybe. She might get called Cilantro by a rude cousin though.” 

Nori blinks, “Why?” 

Bilbo buries his face in the baby’s curls and snickers. His husband had learned much, can identify many of Bilbo's herbs and teas, build medicines and poisons alike in the wild, even if Bilbo is faster and better at it, and still it does not come naturally to Nori. 

“Love, coriander and cilantro are the same plant. Cilantro is the leaf, coriander is the seed.” Nori blushes faintly and Bilbo grins at him wryly, “I do like it though. If we spell it with a ‘K’ we could call her Kori for short, which I do like a lot.” 

Nori hums and reaches over to pet the red curls beginning to bounce up in wild wisps from the baby’s head, “Kori. Kori Ri-Baggins. Our little flying fox.” 

Bilbo grinned. Nori was far too sentimental for his own good. He called Bilbo his magpie, and given his own love of foxes, the recall of the large eastern bat was not surprising. 

“Khufshu,” he said, “Kori Khufshu Ri-Baggins, Koriander Khufshu.” 

It meant bat, in Khuzdul, and Nori leaned over to press his lips gently to Bilbo’s still braided curls, with his loose flyaways from their play in the sea earlier. Bilbo leaned in and tangled the fingers of his hand not holding Kori with Nori’s half loose braids. 

The Song was quieter, buried beneath the strains of the dead Melody, but it was anticipatory, waiting to swell again, pulling, pulling. They’d wander the market tomorrow, get the goat, honey, and dried greens to feed Kori with, then they’d go. 

The Song wanted them to do something. 

It possibly wanted any Æthel that came here to do something, if the Tooks were coming with such frequency without bringing much trade back. The town knew them, hobbits against dwarrow, which was certainly more than most mannish towns, but not well enough for anything else. 

There was something here that made the Song call. Either It wasn’t satisfied with Tooks, or the Tooks weren’t finding what the Song wanted them to do. 

That was for later though. Tomorrow was for them to go to the market, then the caves. These were natural tunnels, not mined, they were safe for a babe. Nori and Bilbo had plans, they’d see what the Song wanted after that. 

Nori loved his new daughter dearly. He could not tell his brothers about her. He- 

He didn’t trust them, he realized. He’d been realizing it for a long time, it was a resolution years in the coming, but it had hurt to know it as easily and clearly as breathing when he’d seen Kori. 

Dori was an amazing big brother. He’d raised Nori on the road, then Bifur had alongside Dori, and Dori had focused on Ori. Dori had always focused on Ori. Nori had some, too, but Nori had looked away from Ori some, had looked at Dori and at seen him, and at Bofur too, who was practically his brother as well. 

Dori had only ever looked at Ori, and had glanced away, not seen. Dori saw what Nori presented, and the few times he had looked deeper he’d decided he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. 

Dori didn’t want to really see Nori, see the world, he barely saw that Ori was indeed growing up, slowly but surely. Nori could tell Dori about the world, about Bilbo and the Æthel, about everything that was wrong in what they were taught and what Nori had seen until he was blue in the face. 

It didn’t matter. Dori wouldn’t hear. 

Bifur would, without judgement, so would Bofur. Bombur wouldn’t though, and neither would Kisto. Ori, so taken with books and Balin and the western narratives and facts, wouldn’t either. 

If Nori told Dori that he had a child, formed of stone and dirt and song, who had woken on her own like the first dwarrow, that was half something else entirely, he didn’t know what the reaction would be. 

Dori had once lectured him extensively for betraying Mahal with his inking, with his honor of Mahal’s wife, and of putting their Maker’s hammer with profane symbols. 

Dori would see the Song as so much greater a betrayal, already did for as much he could, with his utter disdain of the Broadbeam myths, the ones that didn’t even pretend not to refer to their hobbit neighbors, passed down from a time when trade was more open between the two. 

Nori had given up trying to tell Dori and Ori, and even the Ur’s, about Bilbo, when Dori had listened to an explanation of the public persona of the Shire, and called the cursed half elven creatures. 

Bofur had seen the startlement and pain in Nori’s face. He’d guessed, having long since known of Nori’s marriage. He’d started covering for Nori when he left, changing the subject if Nori was home, and had eventually stopped asking. 

He couldn’t tell the Ur’s of Kori either. They’d want to meet her, and neither were subtle. 

Nori patted Kori’s back gently where she was wrapped securely to his chest by a long silk, following Bilbo through the market. He’d already pinched a string of black pearls, and purchased another longer one of many different colors. 

Bilbo was a whirlwind as he gathered what he’d decided was needed, and Nori let him pull ahead. He drew back to gossip with a friendly looking girl, who was running a booth selling little wreaths of ribbons and shells, similar to the prayer grasses Bilbo wove. 

In places like these, open to outsiders and friendly, gossip was the best way to answer questions and get local news or curiosities answered. Bilbo was either horrendously blunt, or resorted to hobbitish public manners, which served better in places that were more reserved. 

This was a sailors town, they had rougher manners. Politeness would make them shut their mouths. It did when Nori was in the underbellies of Ered Luin, or the Ironhills well enough. 

So, he lingered by the girl’s stall, and played his fingers between the wreaths, then held some of the loose ribbons up against Kori’s head as if considering the color. 

Kori burbled happily and waved her tiny hands at the ribbons, and the stall girl cooed adoringly at her. Nori crowed internally, hook, line, and sinker, and he had her interest. 

“She’s beautiful,” the girl offered, leaning forward, “Oh, her ears! Are all dwarrow children like that? Your ears are round.” 

Nori laughed before he could fully help it, “No, she takes after her other parent in that aspect.” 

He lifted the end of one of Kori’s floppy ears to reveal its size and the ridges inside both, and as soon as he dropped it her ear flopped right back down. According to Bilbo, a faunt’s ears started gaining muscle control when they were children, but they didn’t start to stand until they were in their late childhood to tween years. 

Nori recalled seeing faunts running around the Shire with one ear perked and the other floppy often enough to believe him, and was very excited to see Kori with her adolescent ears, though he wasn’t eager to see her grow up. 

They made idle small talk for a bit, half chatting about Kori, and half about anything else. Nori told her about the purpose of the green ribbon in his central braid, and she melted a bit at the slightly sanitized story. 

In turn she told him of the use of her own ribbons, in tying ribbons around wood rings to make floating wreaths, which were then kept as a pretty thing, or used for a common game, where children tossed their wreaths into a tide pool. 

Whosever’s wreath survived longest, by not tangling another to the sand with loose ribbons or drifting away to the edge in the receding tide won. Nori watched as she tied a teething wreath, the third kind she sold, for Kori. 

She did it slowly enough that he could retie or replicate it, and Nori paid her for it gladly. The teething wreath was a gorgeous thing, vibrant greens and blues, and a single soft pink ribbon, all wrapped and knotted in little knobs and ridges so tightly that no wood could be seen, the tails braided into a loop. 

He held it, it was truly very lightweight, while she set the loop over Kori’s head, a necklace as long as she was, “She’s a bit young for it yet, but you’ll leave before she is.” 

Nori nodded, and on a whim paid for another, of blues and golds primarily. Ethri chattered cheerfully while she tied this one, and Nori waited for a pause to ask the question he’d been building up to. 

“Why is this town called Phantom’s Silence? It’s not on the maps like that, not that it’s on any, but it’s a very unique town name.”  

Ethri looked up and laughed, “Oh, it's after an old myth, and tradition. It’s a lot older than me, and the tradition only repeats every forty years, so I’ve not seen it, not to know if it’s true.” 

Nori hummed encouragingly, and she brightened, passing him the other necklace to loop over his own neck. She gestured him closer, and grinned conspiratorially. 

“Legend has it,” she began, with the tone of someone who loved the tale they were about to tell very much, “That there used to be a ghost that haunted the beach. It sang so sadly that my ancestors who built this village long ago, back when it was more of a city than a village, always went to bed grieving and did not know why.” 

Nori had a sudden realization of why this village was not on any maps despite clearly seeing much trade. They were just down the coast front the elvish haven, had actually gone around to avoid them a week past. 

All the maps had cities labeled as ruins of Lindon, this was the remnant of one of those old strongholds. Nori controlled his face carefully as he listened to her continue. 

“Eventually they got sick of grieving for nothing and they went to hunt the phantom of the shore. Legend goes that they caught him and chained him with sea-blessed chains where they thought he could not be heard. Still the phantom sang, and even the children wept.” 

Ethri fidgeted with a ribbon almost sheepishly and looked at Nori, “Um. This part of the legend isn’t so nice, but she’s tiny so it’s probably fine.” 

Nori snorted and covered Kori’s ears playfully, “Most legends aren’t all nice. Where I come from there’s a pervasive legend about children thieves that live in the woods. I heard an eastern one about wolves that would eat you alive if you sang too loud. Legends exist as warnings.” 

Ethri grinned, and giggled nervously, “Heh. True. The story goes that they went back and sewed the phantom’s mouth shut so he couldn’t sing. Every forty years the elders went back and checked if the phantom was still around or he’d fled to the dark lands.” 

“I suppose that’s the tradition that you’re not old enough for then?” Nori asked. 

“Sort of,” Ethri said, mischief in her eyes, “The whole tradition is that they bring a bottle of wine, warm broth, and honeyed-water. If the phantom is still around then they use it as a gift and take the stitching out. If he accepts then they give him them, and he drinks. Then they demand a song.” 

“A song?” Nori barked out a laugh, “Why? If it’s supposed to be such a grief then why would they do that?” 

Ethri outright cackled, “I don’t know! Isn’t it hilarious? The phantom is supposed to sing really beautifully though, so that’s probably why. Anyhow, I guess it’s mostly superstition. The legend goes that the phantom’s song brings us luck and prosperity, so if the elders come back without the offerings, then we’re blessed.” 

“You think that every forty years they go and drink in the caves.” Nori accused, and Ethri outright cackled. 

“I do! I really do! It doesn’t matter though, that’s why we’re called so. We were once the great city of Phantom’s Silence, much dwindled since then.” Ethri snickers meanly, “I’ve gone out to the limits of where the city used to stretch, you know. If the legend’s true then prosperity is certainly not the gift.” 

Nori watches her for a minute, before he gently says, “You prosper more than you think you do. Much of the world is less than it was, in so many ways. The only places I have seen prospering more are my husband's home, and in the far east.” 

Ethri shrugs, “Yeah, I guess.” 

Nori nods, and goes to find Bilbo after saying his goodbyes. Given the reason for their lingering on the coast for the start of their journey, Bilbo will like this diminished town’s legend. 

The sea caves were deeper and more labyrinthine than either of them had expected. They were beautiful too, mosaics lining them, each so lovely and unique that Nori and Bilbo did not lose their way. The mosaics switched at random between age, some bearing empty spots where the glass and shells had long since fallen and algae dimmed the colors. 

They swiftly lost track of the days in there. Both had earned their masteries the year previous, but Bilbo had picked up Nori’s habit of a travel log, even if his were more accurate and factual an account. 

They spent hours at a time with open palettes of ink flats and wet brush pens, simply painting the mosaics, and mapping the sea caves. 

There were other treasures there, and Bilbo with his love of early history, and Nori with his love of connecting the Æthel story-records to history, delighted over each one half buried in the sands. 

Swords inscribed with truly ancient, half rusted Tengwar were stuck into the walls, old helms stuck onto stone cairns crusted over with salt, even a carven pearl swan head that Bilbo had recognized from so far off history and Nori had not. 

That one was deep in the caves, and so salt covered, and dirty besides, that it was barely recognizable. It was also half embedded into a wall, along with many blackened beams of long petrified wood. 

Nori had found the petrified wood far more interesting than the swan head, and he had broken off two pieces of the blackened pearlescent stone carefully. He had spent some time twisting each into a pendant held by wire, copper for Bilbo, as ever, and his favored tungsten for himself. 

Through all of this Kori grew. Not fast like a faunt, nor slow as a dwarrow pebble, but somewhere in between. 

She began to recognize them, to giggle and clap when they sang to her and danced. She flapped her hands when happy, and learned the signs Bilbo taught to her, demanding to be fed or held with imperious little hand signs. 

They’d fashioned a little saddle for her too, a blanket with a woven seat with belts, and would lead her around on the nanny goat purchased to feed her with. After some time of that, when she was able to balance, at least within the harness if not without it, then she’d ride between them. 

They’d left the cart locked up and secure, in one of the front caves, bringing only the essentials. They still carried heavy packs, and relatively full saddlebags, but Kori was not heavy to carry on top of those. 

She was a happy baby, and loved to be held most of all, only deigning to be set down if she was riding Ammë, as Bilbo named the goat. Her hair thickened as she grew, wild curls framing her face, and Bilbo thought that excepting her Æthel traits, her ears and eyes, that she looked like Nori most of all. 

Nori insisted that she had Bilbo’s nose though, and certainly her baby feet were thick soled with a fine downy covering of fur. She had the foot pads of a hobbit nestled into the small feet of a Dwarrow, and Nori’s first discovery of this had been brilliant. 

He’d sat holding her foot trying desperately to decide if she’d need boots or not. Nori still wore boots when not in the Shire, even doing so now in the caves. 

Bilbo did not, and often popped up onto the balls of his feet the dance silent circles around Nori on inhospitable ground when he was stumbling in his boots. 

Kori had simply revealed the fact that her feet were ticklish, giggling up a storm at Nori’s prodding. 

Time was increasingly difficult to track in the caves, and they went deeper and deeper by what passed as a day. The deeper they went the more the Song pulsed beneath their feet, and the more the air and walls stank of despair. 

Kori stayed happy and cheerful, but Bilbo and Nori grew grim. The mosaics were all aged now, scenes indistinguishable from the algae and grime coating them. Finally all of their explored paths ended at one dank corridor, which led into the darkness, with no clever glass or shells for their torchlight to reflect off of. 

Kori burbled happily, reaching for the beads in Bilbo’s hair, who was holding her at the time, and her successful acquisition of the shinies resulted in a happy shriek. 

As if in answer a low moan and the clink of chains echoed back. 

Nori lifted the lantern, and flipped up the mirror shield to aim its light. 

The sight that answered them was wretched. Bilbo was reminded of the oldest stories of High King Fingon rescuing Maedhros the Fell from his captivity of three decades, from where he had hung from a mountain peak. 

If this creature were the Phantom then it was always forty years between food, drink, light, and even longer than that since friendly interaction. 

How many forties, Bilbo thought, clutching Kori close, had this poor creature endured this. He passed Kori to Nori, who took her and held her close, and the lantern steady. Then Bilbo crept forward for a better look. 

They were starved, clearly, even the lowest ribs prominent on his bare torso, and his stomach bloated with lack. A matted curtain of gray laced black hair hung about him, limp and long, and greasy in the extreme. 

He huddled in the corner, hiding behind his bony knees, a slip of a starved creature that was engulfed and outweighed by his own hair. Chains stretched from the walls to his wrists, and ankles, and one from the ceiling to his neck, each allowed some movement. 

Enough to shift, to lay down, for three steps from the wall in a little semicircle, enough to pretend at freedom by moving his limbs, and little more. Enough for him to lift his arms over his head, and huddle, and hide into himself all the more. 

Bilbo slung his pack off and dropped it by the wall. He pulled his lock picks out and crept closer still, trying not to scare the poor thing. The Song purred beneath his feet and it steeled Bilbo’s decision to fix this. 

He heard Nori’s pack thump down beside his and the light flickered wildly as Nori adjusted the best place to set it down. Kori babbled in the background, and for the first time Bilbo tuned her out. 

The creature lifted his head from his knees and glared weakly at Bilbo, chunks of hair falling from his face. Long elvish ears were revealed, lowered in fear, and the left one missing a sizable chunk as if it had been hacked out. 

Silvery-gray eyes watched him, glimmering with fear, and Bilbo had the horrible thought that the phantom would be crying if there were even just a drop of hydration in him. He huffed through his nose, huddling into a tighter ball of bony defense, the closest to a threat he could muster. 

The creature’s lips were sewn shut. 

Thick black cord, cruel in its thickness and the tightness of the stitches both, laced in tight x’s and scars led up his cheeks, as if he’d fought, long ago, and his cheeks had been torn in the struggle. The left cheek traced up in a facsimile of a grin, laced shut also, a cruel mercy. 

The right jerked to the side, then down, and it was laced partway, then it had healed the rest of the way in a partial gape, leaving a thick build up of scar tissue to trace a trail nearly parallel to his ear. 

The phantom wore pants, a mercy Bilbo decided, since they were clean of a particular filth, despite the rest of the stink coating the phantom’s allotted area. The pants were nothing more than discolored, thick, cotton rags, but the tracings of the decay said that they usually would end about the knee. 

They were salt stiffened to his huddled position though, and shredded at the ends, and ended mid calf instead. It revealed far too many scars in combination with the lack of shirt. Lines from cuts and burns traced a map across his arms and legs. 

A low whine greeted him as Bilbo got within reach and he dearly hoped that the phantom would not kick him. Ever so carefully Bilbo reached out and gently took hold of the phantom’s ankle, sliding his grasp down to the shackle. 

The whine continued, interspersed by puffs of desperate breath through the phantom’s nose, and Bilbo ignored it with great effort. His wish to comfort the poor creature could wait until he was not trapped against a wall. 

The shackle fell away, mechanisms rusted and crumbling under Bilbo’s lockpick, and the hinges screeched as he pried it open and off. As soon as Bilbo let go the phantom yanked his foot back, tucking his scarred ankle practically underneath him as he trembled. 

Bilbo reached for the other ankle, and the whining huff that resulted sounded far too much like a sob. He was quick with this one too, and took a moment after to murmur reassurance in soft gentle tones at him, patting gently at his feet and legs to emphasize the lack of shackle. 

He switched between the languages he knew, Westron, to Æthel, to Khuzdul, to Sindarin, to his sparse Numenorean, to Quenya, the last of which earned a swift glance of fearful gray, and slight relaxation. 

Bilbo stayed in Quenya, the dialect he practiced most often with Lord Elrond on his few visits to Rivendell, with more þ sounds than sa-si as the rest of the valley had employed. 

It worked, and Bilbo kept up his gentle reassurance as he reached for the phantom’s left hand. He was allowed to grasp it this time and he offered a gentle squeeze before he tried to grab the shackle instead. 

The phantom did not let go, and Bilbo picked the lock at an odd angle as he held their hand steady, and gentle. He kept holding it after awkwardly prying the shackle off, and looked at the other hand. 

Three of the fingers were blackened and twisted, badly curled, and Bilbo reached for it gently, setting the lock picks down. The other two fingers were also damaged, and curled, but not so badly. 

The creature dropped his hand in favor of weakly trying to push Bilbo away from his hurt hand. Another huffing whine heralded its failure, and Bilbo grasped the injured hand, firm at the wrist, and carefully undid the shackle around the other bony hand trying to push him off. 

After the shackle was off he gently pulled the hand towards him and uncurled the fingers. Its palm was blackened and twisted also, scar tissue twisted beneath the black, and Bilbo gently pried a section of the char up. 

The stink of infection and decay rose, and Bilbo flicked his ears down in distress. The hand was missing a whole section of ligament under that patch, and Bilbo’s best guess was that his hand was healing, then sloughing off, and repeating the cycle over again. 

It was horrific, and one of the curled fingers flicked in his grasp, losing a chunk of char in the process, to reveal that the finger was damaged to the bone, with even the bone looking half burnt away, the skin and muscle over it scant and warped. 

Half the hand needed to be debrided and cleaned of any lingering infection, and even then Bilbo wasn’t sure any function would be salvageable. 

“Nori,” he called softly over his shoulder, “Would you bring me the burn paste, some bandages, and, mm, maybe some fresh water in a bowl and a rag?” 

He heard rummaging behind him, and the distinctive bleat of Ammë standing guard over Kori. Then Nori knelt beside him with the requested items, clearly his husband had already pulled their emergency medical kit to the forefront of their supplies. 

Nori hissed as he saw the hand, and turned faintly green, moaning a soft, “Ew, oh, ouch, mm, nope.” 

He left the supplies by Bilbo and took up the lockpick to ease over to the side of the phantom, gentle and calm as the phantom eyed him warily. Bilbo dipped the rag in the water, and offered in Quenya an explanation. 

“That’s my husband, Nori, he’s going to get the shackle off your neck. I am going to clean and dress your hand, then we can take a look at any other injuries.” 

Bilbo specifically meant the phantom’s mouth, but the jerking motions it was doing to keep his face away from Nori said that the phantom was not ready to hear that. Nori got the shackle off, and retreated back to the packs for a moment. 

Bilbo focused on wetting the phantom’s hand and carefully peeling off the dead chunks of skin, and on gently cleaning the whole of the hand as he did. The whole hand looked as it had melted around something, perhaps the size of a pheasant’s egg. 

By the time he was done he had revealed that the last three digits were most likely irreparable, twisted and warped, and barely able to move even under Bilbo’s gentle direction and stretching. 

The index finger and thumb were slightly better, with the thumb bearing the least damage. Still they were curled into twisted claws, and nearly died of muscle, if less so than the others. Bilbo could coax some movement from them though, uncurling them halfway, which was promising. 

The phantom stared dully at his hand as Bilbo began massaging burn paste in, and the little whine sobs came at regular intervals, his breath short and strained. He was so distressed by the revealed state of his hand that it didn’t notice as Nori resettled at his side with a comb and some hair oil. 

When Bilbo had massaged the paste in up to his wrist he grabbed the bandages, and then, he pulled the thick wire he typically used to wrap his hair back from his pocket. Nori glanced at him, scoffed, and tossed a pair of snips over. 

Carefully Bilbo cut a length of wire and used it to splint a finger as straight as he could pull it, doing so for each. The remaining wire he wrapped between each and used to connect to the thumb, the resulting net flattening the hand as much as he was able given supplies. 

It wasn’t much, but he could carefully adjust the wires straighter and straighter as it healed. It was an old Shire technique used for twisted backs and stiff joints. 

With that done he wrapped the bandages around the hand up the wrist, and several inches past where it needed to be. The phantom stared, awed and pulled its hand closer to inspect. It poked the bandaging with the other hand over the wires and peered at Bilbo, curiosity warring with the fear. 

“It’s a type of splinting,” Bilbo said, “To retrain your hand how to move. I don’t know how well it’ll work, usually my people do constructions of leather and bone for twisted spines, or little metal splint rings for elderly joints.” 

The phantom blinked at him and returned to poking at the bandaging. He didn’t pick at it though, so Bilbo let him be. Instead he took the bowl over to another corner to dump, and refilled it from the waterskin. He tipped in some moonshine, and grabbed a fresh rag, and Nori’s brass carving knife. It had a small hooked tip for detail work and would do well for this. 

The phantom looked up as he came back over, immediately quaking back and covering his face with his arms, ducking under his hair, shivering hard. Nori cooed, softly, having now gently untangled a few inches of the chunk he was working on. 

Bilbo set the items down, and headed back to the packs. He grabbed a blanket, a thick cozy one they used for Kori to roll around on, and he lifted Kori herself from Ammë’s guard. Ammë bleated lowly in protest, but did not follow. 

Bilbo walked back over and carefully offered the blanket, helping the phantom shift and tuck it around his legs as he slowly curled his legs down, uncurling in order to accept and curl towards the warmth of the blanket. 

As soon as the blanket was settled on the phantom, Bilbo set Kori down in their lap. The phantom froze, then carefully, gently, petted and patted at Kori, humming tunelessly, as the babe settled to sleep in the bony cradle of their knees, as easily as she did in Bilbo or Nori’s laps. 

Only after she was asleep and the phantom relaxed did Bilbo prick up the wet rag and knife again. This time the phantom allowed it, turning their face to him with awed eyes, still stroking Kori’s hair like she was precious. 

Of course, she was precious, but the reverence afforded her was certainly playing in Bilbo’s favor. He dabbed the rag around their mouth, cleaning the stitches, and washing old blood and fresh blood alike away. 

As Bilbo began to cut each string of the cord Nori rose and returned with a cup of water, then slid into the next room, the smell of smoke wafting in belied his purpose. 

They’d been careful about fire thus far, thinking about the ventilation in the caves, but warm broths, teas, and even a soft soup mush all require a source of heat. 

By the point that Bilbo was steadily pulling threads from the phantom’s whimpering lips Nori had already begun ferrying in cups and bowls, including some extra wooden constructions that he suspected had been dug with Durhul’s pack, and hadn’t been used in years. 

They were all having soup mush, tea, and broth for dinner then. 

The last thread was pulled, and the phantom parted his lips, took a ragged breath in, and sobbed. It was entirely soundless, as opposed to the whimpers from before and Bilbo broke. He stood and pulled his head to his shoulder, cradled the matted hair to his head as he rocked back and forth, holding the broken thing as he cried. 

If the town’s legend still held true to the accuracy of the rest thus far, then this broken, shattered elf had only had his mouth unstitched when they demanded he sing, then they shut it again. 

If he was terrified to make noise then Bilbo certainly couldn’t blame him. 

Eventually the phantom calmed, still leaning on Bilbo as he cradled Kori, but still, looking hollowed out and terrified. Eventually they would need to ask the phantom’s name, or name him themselves. 

Bilbo did not think he would survive on his own, not silent, hurt, starved, and fearful. He’d come with them. 

He’d have too. 

He leaned on Bilbo, though, steadily shuddering, but breathing deeply and evenly, and so Bilbo felt the flinch that shook the phantom’s frame when Nori offered the mug of broth. He needed the nourishment though, so Bilbo did not let him cower from the food. 

Instead he laced one hand into the phantom’s matted hair and held his head steady to his shoulder, and took the mug from Nori with the other. He held the mug to the phantom’s pinched mouth, undemanding and only slightly tilted. 

Sitting nearby Nori picked up his own mug and drained it. He then picked at his bowl of mush slowly, mixing Kori’s bowl of goat’s milk, seaweed, and honey. 

The phantom, watching Nori hawkishly, carefully lifted his hand to the mug and tilted it in Bilbo’s hold, taking a slow sip. He took another after that, drinking at his own pace, a novelty Bilbo was sure. 

Several minutes later the mug was empty, and Bilbo handed it to Nori, accepting the mush in exchange. This time Bilbo held the bowl steady, and let the phantom spoon it into his mouth, with slow shaky movements. 

He was leaning against Bilbo steadily more than held there, and Bilbo slowly stroked his hair. Hobbits put little stock into hair, but dwarrow did, and though the records differed some, so did elves. 

Bilbo did not think he was overstepping though, as with every careful stroke the phantom grew less stiff. He did want to find a stream, some soap, and a large jar of hair oils though, and unmat the hair as much as possible. His hand felt grimy from mere touch. 

It took a long time for the phantom to finish his mush, and Bilbo sat next to him after, eating his own and watching Nori feed Kori, now awake and a happy presence once more. 

Soon after Nori passed over a large mug, practically a tankard, of tea. Ginger, and lemon and peppermint, and several spoons of honey mixed in. A strong brew, potent and good for the throat and stomach, and the phantom sipped at it slowly, relaxed and lazily leaning on Bilbo. 

Bilbo bore his weight easily and played with Kori who was gumming at her ribbon wreath. Nori, having repacked already, had returned to his task of trying to detangle the mats from bottom up. Bilbo was quite sure they’d have to cut most of the mass off, but the calm task was easy enough for now. 

Nori looked up eventually, and looked at Bilbo. Bilbo nodded back, and nori rose to redistribute the saddlebags on Kidzi, who took kinder to changes in routine and anyone riding with Bilbo than Durhul did with anyone with Nori. 

Bilbo himself eased away from the phantom, and carefully rested his gaunt frame against the wall instead, his eyes half lidded and glazed. He lifted Kori away, and brought her over to Nori, who wrapped her to his chest easily, stowing the blanket away again. 

Ammë was hitched by her lead to Durhul, and Bilbo fussed with Kidzi’s saddle blanket. She was too short for the gangly elf she’d need to carry, but she’d have to do, at least until they got back to the cart. Bilbo was fairly sure that even had he the muscle strength for it, that the phantom would not be able to walk without some relearning. 

He had been chained for far, far too long. 

“Come, along, Tirmo,” Bilbo said softly, shaking his shoulder gently and dubbing him a temporary name all at once, “Up we go, there we are. Hey, shh, it’s ok, we’re going to get you on Kidzi, that’s all, shh.” 

The phantom, Tirmo, stared at him with those gray eyes that saw far too much, and made it carefully to his knees. Bilbo coaxed him to his feet, and held on as he swayed and wobbled as if there was a wind blowing him to and fro. 

They made it three unsteady steps, then Tirmo slipped sideways, his legs splayed out behind him, and Bilbo caught him around the chest. Tirmo was sobbing again, pressing his face into Bilbo’s sternum painfully hard. Nori stepped over and helped Bilbo support and carefully lift Tirmo onto Kidzi. 

Nori held him upright as he swayed and Bilbo swung up in front of Tirmo. Kidzi stepped in place for a second, and Nori let Tirmo tip forward to curl around Bilbo for support, the elf’s long legs hooking themselves on Kidzi’s rump. 

It didn’t look particularly stable as Bilbo twisted to look, and he could easily see Tirmo slipping off to the side, and the loose grasp to Bilbo’s tunic would certainly not save him. 

Bilbo leaned over and pulled out a very long length of silk scarf, something he had held onto mostly for sentimental reasons. The original purpose had been to tie it between two trees for Nori to practice his balance and soft stepping on.

They’d kept it to dance with, twisting it between them and trees, letting its red length flicker between them without a maypole to anchor it in the springs they spent together. 

Now Bilbo and Nori worked to get her to twist it into a cradling sort of harness, one that, were Tirmo able, that he could easily walk in or step out of, but that could also hook onto Kidzi’s bag harness, and Bilbo could hold also. 

Tirmo whined and shifted in place, but did not move beyond that. Nori tugged at the scarf, and Bilbo was easily able to tip his grasp to counterbalance the subsequent swaying. Nori nodded firmly and swung up onto Durhul. 

Nori led the way back to the cart at the mouth of the cave, at a canter, which went much faster without marveling at old treasures and painting the mosaics, and without stopping to play with Kori. 

It was still a long ride, and they stopped only once to let Kori eat and change her diaper. Through the ride Tirmo clung to Bilbo, and whined occasionally as Kidzi jolted. Bilbo talked the whole time, switching between Quenya, both to reassure Tirmo and to practice with Nori, and Æthel, simply to talk and because Tirmo ought to learn. 

He and Nori spoke Æthel frequently, and it was to be one of Kori’s first tongues. He wanted Tirmo to know it. In the times when conversation fell flat then Tirmo would turn his head and watch the sign language lessons that Nori pretended were only for Kori. 

By the time they’d reached the cart, and carefully resettled Tirmo there, holding a sleepy Kori in his nest of arranged bedrolls and blankets, Bilbo and Nori were both tired. They left the two there in the cart to sleep and stepped out to the shore path to talk. 

It was night, and the shift of the moon indicated that they’d wandered the caves for nearly a month before they’d found Tirmo and left as swiftly as possible. Nori pulled out a carved pipe and the weed for it, and they passed it back and forth. 

“He’s really broken,” Nori said quietly, “I don’t know how much we can really help. Are we going to take him to Rivendell, or the Havens? That’s what I can think of.”  

“No, we can’t. I don’t think he’d heal there either. I think they’d just make him sail, which-“ Bilbo paused, unsure how to begin the depth of issues there. 

When the new melody had been sung, and the first Æthel left the void to explore, they’d met some of the Valar, maiar too. Many of the Vala had ignored them, shoved them back in the void, or had not been trusted enough to see them. 

A few of the Vala had seen the Æthel and had been curious and welcoming instead. They’d taught them, explored beside those Vala, and still the hobbits revered those Vala highly, as related kin to the Æthel as a whole. 

Estë had not been one of those. Elves regarded her as a wise healer, but hobbits had long memories. They remembered trying to teach her their methods, and of learning their own after Melkor’s first betrayal and trying again. They remembered her abject refusal, her arrogance in her own skill. 

Hobbits knew healing, and of the physical Estë certainly was talented, able to mold and remould flesh easily to wipe away scars and ills easily. Of the mind she had some skill also, though her primary method was rest, and time, which was not always the best. 

For ailments of the mind hobbits believed that each mind required different things. Talk helped some, or activity, but rest alone atrophied the mind, and the mind did not stretch as one might a healed injury to regain function. 

For injuries of the feä hobbits believed Estë to be entirely useless. Perhaps she had gained some skill and knowledge in the ages past, but her early efforts, following the first betrayal, and her chosen ignorance of those that followed did not suggest such. 

Injuries to the feä were grievous, even the smallest injuries could reshape it forever. Hobbits regarded feä healing to be akin to pottery repair, the kind done with gold lacquers and sparkling micas, a repair done that made a whole new piece, instead of leaving it brittle and delicate but looking the same. 

Tirmo was damaged, in body distinctly yes, but also in mind, and Bilbo had taken a moment to hum with the Song earlier, just long enough to glimpse his feä. 

Tirmo’s feä was ravaged, withered and shattered, and if he sailed to Estë and she had not improved from the time of Melkor, then he might simply shatter apart. 

Many early orcs had been like this, shattered apart in feä, and their minds ravaged. Those that healed themselves, without loyalty to the Great Betrayer, often married into the Æthel, rejected by the other races of the time. 

Those that did not heal themselves, but held no loyalties either, were often adopted into the great clans of old. Bilbo suspected that the old manner of adoption would suit best for this, the one that poured the potential to heal into the cracks in a broken feä and allowed the Æthel to grow that potential into reality. 

Bilbo sighed around a puff of the pipe and passed it back, “We’ll take him east with us. We were already planning on a long trip, to go as far as trying to friend the first Springs. I think that if the Song wanted us to find him this badly, that we’ll find that too. The first Springs beside old Cuivenien, that is.” 

“Do you think we’ll really be able to help him heal better than his own people?” 

“I think,” Bilbo said quietly, “that if his people had wanted to help him then they would. The book that I found their version of the myth in said he was an elf, a mourner. It was a well-loved, well-read book. It led us here.” 

Nori passes the pipe back and Bilbo holds it gently, “If they’d wanted to help then it could’ve been done. Those mosaics are old. The stupid village’s old traditions and myths date back to Lindon’s height. They had ample opportunity to investigate.” 

“We weren’t really looking and we found him,” Nori agrees, horrified, “We probably can’t be worse.” 

Bilbo nods solemnly. The pipe burns down in the resultant silence as they pass it between them. It doesn’t get refilled. 

That next night they rob the village in the dark, stealing herbs, bandages, pillows, and hair oils and soaps. They go directly east then, carrying Tirmo with them and a newfound wariness of the elves that crossed their path. 

Bilbo sews clothes for Tirmo, swamping him in wools, and silks, and quilted coats, and treats his injuries, teaching him to walk again as he wobbles like a newborn deer. 

Nori drops Kori onto his lap and feeds him, teaching him to sign, adjusting the signs to account for his useless hand, and singing to him often. He pulls the tall elf into dances, twisting around Tirmo as Tirmos sits and laughs, letting his hands be grasped and swung as Nori teaches him Æthel footwork that he cannot perform yet. 

They both dote on him as much as Kori, delighting in each quiet laugh and hesitant smile, waking him gently from nightmares and holding him as he cries. They call Kori his little sister, and each time they do Tirmo holds her with more care and love and confidence. 

Nori learns Quenya for his sake, and Tirmo listens to their Æthel conversations with more comprehension each day. He doesn’t speak, nor sing, nor even hum, and they don’t ask him too. 

They detangle his hair slowly but surely over the course of some very patient weeks, only cutting a few chunks off that weren’t salvageable, and they twist the length of it into braided tails and buns, and Tirmo touches it with awe each time they do, delighting in the ever changing styles. 

Tirmo is not healed, not really, still sitting, only managing a few steps at a time, silent and watchful, but slowly his cracks begin to fill with gold. 

Chapter Text

“I have found many great things traveling with Nori, and fewer in number but equally great things the few times I set out on my own. Books are always a wonder, and Nori calls me a dragon with a paper hoard. As if he does not keep many of his own, or have equal claim of adding to my hoard. None of the great things found compare so highly to our children, even if only Kori truly fits the term. However you look at it though, even disregarding that we teach him words, walking, and that we care for him entirely, Tirmo is remarkably childlike, in his needs by least of it. He can count as such, and we won’t abandon him even after his need has passed. We bear him east for healing even now though, and I worry that he is becoming attached to us in truth, the way we joked about keeping him. Ah well, worst things have happened than beloved children.” 

- Excerpt from the Personal Travel Log of Bilbo Ri-Baggins, seventh edition.

Nori smiled softly at Tirmo. They’d tucked him into the cart after getting him out from the cave, wrapped him in blankets, and ridden far away as fast as they could. The ridiculous creature was fearful, and shaky, but he held so much admiration for Kori that even as he’d woken, watching them silently, that he did not protest. 

He trusted Bilbo, not fully, but almost as much, with an almost childlike awe. Every affectionate gesture, every careful adjustment of his braces, and offering of food was met with a near reverence. 

Nori did not have as much trust as Bilbo, but Tirmo still afforded him much, sitting calmly by the creek with him as Nori worked as much work into detangling his hair as he could, getting perhaps an inch or two nightly, and wrapping every gained length of damaged, detangled hair in silk before sleep. 

Tirmo himself, for as much silence governed him, was expressive enough now that he had the opportunity, that it didn’t matter. He never so much as hinted at a refusal, nor shook his head with a no, and even though it was the first sign Nori actively taught him, he did not use it. 

Still he smiled wide enough to stretch the scars from his lips, and laughed silently with so much joy that his whole face brightened when a butterfly passed near him. Still, he quaked beneath his hair and shook, and curled into himself when uncomfortable. 

He learned the signs Nori taught him, practicing the adjustments for his injured hand, and never using them again outside of Nori’s lessons except with Kori. He stilled with awe and shock when faced with affection, and froze if they moved too fast. 

He listened intently when Nori sang, and nearly vibrated with glee when Bilbo did. He listened when they spoke, perking his ears and tracking them with his eyes, and he pressed his lips together, shaking and short of breath as he heaved through his nose when he was alone in the cart too long. 

He didn’t need words. Nori and Bilbo could read him easily. 

Nights were the hard part. Healthy elves slept with their eyes open, according to Bilbo, glazed with dreams. Tirmo wasn’t healthy, and he slept with his eyes barely slotted, his atrophied limbs twitching and jerking in his restless sleep. 

This was the only time he ever made noise beyond a quiet whine when Bilbo helped him move his limbs and adjusted his splints. 

In his sleep Tirmo hummed, and whined, and groaned, and would wail and scream himself awake if Nori and Bilbo could not catch him in time with gentle words and old lullabies. He still never spoke, not even a sleepy mumble, but nights were long now, and never quiet. 

Even so, in the weeks after they left the coast behind them, there was much adjustment. Tirmo trusted them, to a point, but he was hurt, and balancing the journey with caring for him and Kori both was difficult. They passed the bounds of the Shire four weeks and a half after they’d stolen Tirmo, and Bilbo broke. 

Nori did not blame him. They had too few supplies, but if they all entered Nori knew that none of them would want to leave. They hadn’t stopped for more than a night since the coast, and they were tired. 

So they stopped and Nori spread a blanket under the shelter of the Willowdown trees, lifting Tirmo down from the cart gently as Bilbo laid out the few toys and some pillows on the blanket. Kori joined Tirmo, and Tirmo looked around in confusion. 

It was early morning, they only did this at night before bed, sometimes earlier for laundry. 

Tirmo yanked at the fringe on the edge of a pillow, his lips pressed together tightly as he watched. Nori knelt in front of him and leaned down to catch his now downcast eyes. 

“Tirmo,” Nori said, in the tone gentler than he’d ever even spoken to Ori, the one reserved for Tirmo and Kori, “Would you use your wreath, please? I have something to tell you, and I don’t want you chewing on your lips.” 

Tirmo whined and grasped at the ribbon wrapped wreath, the blue and gold one from that awful town. It had become a stress tool for the elf, and frequently he would hold it in his teeth, just to prove that his mouth was still free, not stitched shut as it had been. 

He ignored the wreath this time, chewing on the ribbon that held it instead, fretful and nervous, as his eyes sought Bilbo, who was his favored comfort person. 

Bilbo was adjusting Kidzi’s riding blanket, and pulling as much from her bags to be stored on the cart as he could. It took a mere moment of watching these actions from Bilbo for Tirmo to burst into tears, marked only by hitched breath and the choked sobs. 

It was awful when Tirmo cried. Nori stood by that, and he’d only done it twice since his breakdown when they’d rescued him. It was noiseless, aside from breath, and panicked, and Tirmo only calmed when he cried himself out. 

He was so shattered, and Nori hurt for him. 

Nori shushed him, and murmured quiet reassurances in his broken Quenya, and stroked his hair, still matted near the top, and let him cry. He heard Bilbo ride off behind him, off to Bag End, and Tirmo’s fresh sobs shook through him. 

“Tirmo, honey,” Nori pleaded, “He’ll be back, I promise he will. He’s getting some of his sisters’ clothes from storage for Kori, and he’s going to post some letters. The only other thing he’s getting is food, and better wire for your hand. He’ll be back before nightfall, I promise.” 

Tirmo whined at him plaintively, the first voluntary sound he’d made since they’d unstitched his lips, and Nori sighed, getting up and stepping away, ignoring the grasp Tirmo had on his trousers and the second whine as Nori went to the cart. 

He grabbed the jar of hair oil he’d nabbed for Tirmo, and the comb, then he grabbed the small chest of shared beads, clips, and braid coils that he and Bilbo had collected over the years, and a few other bits and bobs. 

Then he swiftly made his way back to the still softly crying Tirmo, who now held Kori close, protectively even as she squirmed. Nori sat behind, and slightly to the side of him, on a little stool they’d long carried for such things as this. 

It would have still been a stretch to reach the top of Tirmo’s head, if Tirmo did not habitually hunch and curl into himself, holding himself small. As it was he could reach, and he did, carefully unraveling the silk wrapped braid of reclaimed hair. 

Tirmo’s breath still hitched, but his shoulders relaxed, and he held still as Nori began to carefully run the comb through the ends of his long hair, working his way up. 

Kori squirmed off of Tirmo’s lap eventually, inching her way to her own wreath steadily in little twisting motions as she waved her little arms and legs in the air. Tirmo shifted now, stretching his legs out into a diamond shape to trap her into a smaller area. 

Nori hummed approvingly, and began to softly sing an old hymn to Mahal, watching as all remaining tension drained out of Tirmo. Nori kept singing lowly, as he worked the hair oil into the last few inches of mat, teasing at the tangled strands with the comb, and working the separated knots to the end of his hair, just as slowly.

He paused midway through as the sun hit the day’s zenith to get food, porridge for them all, with Kori’s much heavier on goat’s milk than Nori’s or Tirmo’s. 

Then, dishes stacked carelessly on the grass beside the blanket, Nori teased the last of the mats out, and began simply running the comb from the crown of Tirmo’s head to the end of his hair to remove any natural tangles. 

It was extraordinarily long, and Nori separated a longer piece to toss over Tirmo’s shoulder. Tirmo held it, awed and began finger combing it into a loose braid, messy and uneven. 

Nori was just impressed that he was able to braid with one hand at all. 

He pulled a wire twist from the chest first, and gathered the top layer of Tirmo’s hair into a five strand braid, twisting the end into the wire and pinching it shut, before he wrapped it up the braid, curling it around into a knot. 

Tirmo tapped it lightly, gasping as he ran fingertips over the wire. Nori pulled out several bags of wooden bead sets, the decorative ones that Bilbo wore and Nori carved. He handed them all to Tirmo, and let him choose. 

Nori packed the rest away after Tirmo chose, and held the string of the pouch in his mouth and he combed off another section of hair, beginning a much smaller five strand braid, stringing two beads at the end with a leather strip to tie the braid shut. He repeated it six more times, braiding all of the remaining hair. 

They clacked at the ends, and the two chunks he’d had to cut short a week previous were pulled to the center to click together above the rest. That had been the other crying episode from Tirmo, when the two sections of mat had been carefully snipped out. 

He’d vomited also, a few times. To be fair though, Nori had wanted to vomit. He’d cut the mats out because they’d gummed and melted around the remains of a mouse. Twice. He’d laid the snipped hair aside, and a tiny skull, yellowed with age had poked out. 

Nori put that incident from his memory and pulled a rolled ribbon from the chest, a soft brown one to match the painted horses on the beads Tirmo had chosen. He wrapped one end of the ribbon around his hand, and wove the other end through and around the base of the braids. 

When they had all been gathered into a neat line and he had two ends of the ribbon on each side of Tirmo’s head, then he lifted them and wrapped them around, and around, and around the first bun again, tying off the ends and tucking the ties under the wire. 

Tirmo turned his head, gently at first, then with quicker motions, delight in his eyes as the braids clicked and clacked together. The ribbon had gathered them so the ends fell, roughly even, just above his waist, and Tirmo straightened his spine, sitting straight, in order to shake them harder. 

Nori watched, him, steady and calm as Tirmo’s mouth parted on a silent giggle, the scars twisting and pulling, and still not detracting from the joy in his face. It was this that Bilbo rode back into, and Bilbo’s own warm laugh filled the clearing, startling Tirmo slightly, though his grin only widened to show a flash of teeth. 

Bilbo dismounted, and went to greet him and Kori, passing a book to Nori as he passed. 

This had been the thing that had truly broken Bilbo’s resolve, Nori realized. Not his love for Kori and wish to spoil her, nor the short supplies, nor homesickness in the face of Tirmo’s pain. 

It had been insecurity and uncertainty in their earlier decision. They’d have to discuss this after Tirmo and Kori were asleep. 

The book title read ‘Musings on Healing of the Feä and Mind’, and the author said Elrond Peredhil when Nori flipped to the claim page. 

Elrond Peredhil, well known and beloved as the greatest healer of any race, who lived in Rivendell. The one elf that Bilbo respected most, of the several he mentioned from his visits, whether or not he went to steal from him. 

There was a marker in the passage about healing being best done in a calm and safe environment. Nori set the book aside in favor of going to help Bilbo make supper, and get the bedrolls set up for the night. 

Bilbo had dozens of little rituals with Tirmo. Habits and repetitions, all meant to help steady his fear. He had similar ones with Kori, that was how one raised children, with a steady presence, love and care, and attention. 

Tirmo wasn’t a child, but the support he required mirrored one’s, and Bilbo saw no reason not to provide the same support to him as he did to Kori. 

The worst of their rituals were the ones to help him heal. Tirmo bore them with good grace, but they were small painful parts of the day that Bilbo wished he did not have to endure. 

Even now, two weeks after they’d left the Shire behind them, Tirmo sat grimacing as Bilbo unwrapped his hand. Bilbo had finally finished the studded leather strips he wanted to add into the splint structure, which had taken longer than expected due to a struggle with the studs entirely. 

Nori had helped him eventually, but it was not a pretty structure. It didn’t need to be, but while it had been years of Tirmo’s burnt hand festering slightly, it had been nearly seven weeks straight of constant attentive care and healing. 

The wounds had closed over with new skin, though his fingers remained twisted and mostly curled, and the musculature would never fully heal in spots. The splints stayed, but they were being worked into a new leather structure to mimic the muscles that had long since withered and died. 

Bilbo pulled off the last of the bandaging and Tirmo tipped his head back to look at the treetops, avoiding the sight of his hand. Bilbo began to untwist the splint structure now, and Tirmo looked down again, confused at the change in routine. 

Usually Bilbo tightened the splinting, incrementally, and slathered his hand in burn paste, often massaging his hand to encourage blood flow and movement from the remaining muscle. 

Now Bilbo unwrapped the wire splinting, a mixture of the thick repurposing of his hair wire and the sturdier twisted splinting wire from the Shire. He pulled it away and Tirmo stared. 

There was distress in his face and Bilbo hummed softly, an old children’s song, cheerful  and happy. Bilbo held his wrist gently, palm up and looked it over. 

Scars covered nearly the whole hand, pitted and crinkled, ridges sweeping out from his palm in a parody of the sun’s shape. Those twisted up his fingers and around to the back of his hand, following the lines of old infection, one long purged but that had still ravaged and rotted his hand. 

It was closed though, pink and shiny, and withered. Bilbo held his own hand up in the same position and gently opened and closed his hand, “Would you try to move your fingers, like this?” 

Tirmo huffed softly, but little twitches showed his fingers able to uncurl and recurl by about a centimeter. He hunched, looking disconsolate, and Bilbo gently attempted to uncurl his fingers manually, checking how much movement was possible at all. 

There wasn’t much more than that, and Bilbo sighed. He grabbed the leather splint with its studded joint rings and tightening turn knobs. He’d shamelessly borrowed the design of the knobs from a lute or harp and Tirmo turned worried, and fascinated, eyes on it. 

Bilbo had dyed the leather with woad, leaving it a soft deep blue color, matching the ribbon wreath constantly around Tirmo’s neck. He slipped the wrist cuff around Tirmo’s thin wrist and tightened all three buckles firmly, letting the loose strapping hang loose. 

Tirmo poked at the gather knob on the back of his wrist, currently turned to its loosest hold so that Bilbo could get each strap onto his fingers easier. Bilbo reached for a jar of salve then, not the burn cream he’d been using for weeks with the red ribbon to mark it, but a soothing salve for muscles marked with blue. 

Tirmo shifted in place, pulling his knees up into a loose huddle, his stolen linen pants sliding up his ankles at the motion. He didn’t take his hand back from Bilbo, but his other one flicked its fingers nervously. This was the closest Tirmo ever got to a true no, half formed signs for wait. 

Bilbo let Tirmo sniff the salve, the scents of ginger, arnica, and willow bark strong and sharp as Tirmo scrunched his nose. Then he started spreading a thin layer on Tirmo’s hand. Tirmo twitched his fingers in a half flex in response. 

Bilbo had used this particular salve for decades, a strong recipe from his Mam, passed down for generations. He didn’t blame Tirmo for his startled flexing reaction. The salve once spread burned for a moment, immediately faded to feel chilled and frost bitten, then both at once before the willow bark took effect and the area dulled into a buzzing numbness. 

Bilbo blew gently at Tirmo’s hand and watched him startle like a cat at the sensation. He stared at Bilbo with wide eyes, and huffed out a wheezing laugh, letting more slight, barely there sounds through as he grew more comfortable. 

Then Bilbo began tugging the straps up and slipping the splint rings down his fingers into the places around each joint. The leather fingercaps were lipped into place and Bilbo ran the attached strips down the rings of each splint. 

Tirmo glanced away to look at a passing cabbage moth and Bilbo clicked his tongue, “Hey, Tirmo, pay attention please. I want you to be able to put it on and take it off if you have to, and to know what it looks like if it breaks.” 

Tirmo scrunched his face into a sour expression but he obediently watched Bilbo again. Bilbo smiled again at him and took the end of the leather finger straps and showed him the little brass grommets and how they hooked onto the spokes of the gather knob. 

A soft whine was the answer as abruptly each finger was held stiff and slightly stretched between the leather and the splint rings. Bilbo began turning and tuning each knob on the knuckle caps, linking them together with the attached hooks and, turning the knobs between the stud settings, allowing this finger loose and that finger stiffer. 

Tirmo watched the whole time fascinated, and this time when he flexed his hand he had slightly more movement and his fingers did not shake or stutter. He poked at the prosthetic splint over and over and Bilbo gave the gather knob a single half turn and locked it in place, flipping it over to keep the brace tight and steady. 

Nori snorted off to the side where he had been feeding Kori, now graduated to berry mush, “Look at that, buddy, you’ve got a leather and brass exoskeleton now. Gonna be signing properly in no time.” 

Tirmo grinned and lifted his hand, waving it at Nori in response, the brass rings and blue leather on his fingertips the only hint of the various knobs and wires on the back of his hand, along with the three visible stripes of brass studded blue on his curled fingers. 

Nori waved back, his own rings glinting. Kori, not to be left out, waved both of her little pudgy hands, not at Tirmo but at the spoon in the mush. 

Bilbo laughed, and Tirmo giggled soundlessly. Tirmo poked at the bandages then, and Bilbo shook his head, “Congratulations, Tirmo, you don’t need the bandages now. You have your brace contraption, and we’re going to keep playing with that, tightening it and such.” 

Tirmo looked shocked. He looked again at his hand and ran his fingers down the straps and the studs anchoring the brass wires and the knobs. Then he abruptly curled into a shaking ball, his good hand snapping out no’s over and over.

”No what, honey?” Bilbo asked gently, “Use your hands, you have plenty of words with them, what’s wrong?” 

Tirmo looked up with watery eyes, and signed, “Don’t want to go. Not fixed, don’t leave me.” 

Bilbo reared back, alarmed. He sputtered for words and couldn’t find them, looking at Nori for help. Nori looked resigned, and he shuffled over, setting Kori on Bilbo’s lap. 

“Tirmo, buddy, were you awake and listening a few nights ago when Bilbo and I discussed the elven cities?” 

Tirmo nodded and the beads, still his beloved wooden beads with the horses, clacked behind him. Bilbo pressed his lips together and lifted Kori as he rose to grab the bundle of books he and Nori had been reading and discussing. 

“These are some books we’ve been reading and referring to in order to help you,” Bilbo said quietly, “They are about elves, since I know hobbitish healing, and Nori knows some dwarrow, but neither of us were particularly knowledgeable about elves.” 

Nori tapped the stack lightly, “They all say that one of the best things is rest in a safe, comfortable place, stability. Bilbo and I travel, we are going east now, but it’s probably going to be a few years before we’re ready to settle at home in the Shire again.” 

Tirmo shook his head, and Bilbo gently tugged one of his braids, “Hush, we aren’t done, love. We planned this trip, and we won’t be going home for a time yet. However, Kori was a surprise, as were you. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to abandon you any more than we would her.” 

“Baby,” Tirmo signs, his face deadpan and his sign slow and clear, “Baby.” 

Nori roared with laughter and Bilbo snorted. Tirmo looked both startled and pleased, and he untensed as he watched them laugh bemusedly. 

“She is a baby, yes,” Nori choked out, “That was somewhat the point. We can't abandon her, and we won’t you. That- oh, Mahal, Tirmo, bless you. You are family too, though, we decided to keep you the night we found you.” 

Bilbo grinned, the sharp fey thing that Nori called his mischief look. He held up Kori and signed, “Baby, my baby,” then he set her down and pointed at Tirmo, gently shaking his foot for emphasis, and signed it again. 

Tirmo gaped at him. 

Nori descended into cackling laughter, holding himself up with one arm, his other wrapped around his middle. 

“My babies,” Bilbo reiterated out loud, “My Kori baby, such a little happy thing, and my Tirmo baby, thousands of years old but such a good big brother anyways.” 

Tirmo giggled, a proper one with a hint of sound with the huffs of air, his ears burning red at the tips as they turned down in embarrassment. 

“Really though,” Nori said, mirth still thick in his voice, “Just because we won’t be heading home yet, doesn’t mean we can’t pause along the way and rest. We’re passing a bigger village soon, one that we’ve been to before, with a decent trade hub. You’ll come with us, because we’re getting some things for you.” 

Bilbo lightly squeezed his foot, “We were thinking to pause in Rivendell, I’d like to work with you on walking where the land is flatter, and we can maybe barter for a larger cart and horse. Not a long pause though, a few weeks maybe, then we’ll keep going.” 

Tirmo nodded, and reached for Kori. Then he lifted his good hand, “Stay in cart for village?” 

“No, we’ll probably put you on Kidzi. You need to practice offering the opinions you undoubtedly have, so you’ll be helping choose the colors and fabrics for the clothes I’m making you.” 

Tirmo pulled another sour expression and ignored them in favor of playing peekaboo with Kori. 

Elessa was one of very few trade hubs that catered to most races that wasn’t run by the elven. It had been founded during Gondor’s height by some long lost remnant of the Numenorean peoples. 

Nowadays it was more of a market of travelers than a village, and the Dúnedain made the majority of the traders, amongst other men, some elves, and frequent representatives of dwarrow caravans. It meant that there was much to offer though, and much to see. 

Tirmo was looking around, hair pulled up, and listening intently as Bilbo expounded the things he wanted to make Tirmo. Nori had been dealing with Bilbo and his love of proper wardrobes for years now, so he had the luxury of watching Tirmo’s overwhelmed reactions. 

Bilbo was determined to make several pairs of pants, at least three tunics, five undershirts, and he’d looked directly in Tirmo’s brilliantly flushed, embarrassed face, and told him he needed at least seven pairs of underdrawers. 

Nori, better at large pieces and embroidery, wanted to make him a cloak, warm, thick and heavy, since Tirmo consistently piled himself under quilts. It was difficult to mess up a cloak as badly as he had sleeves and trousers in the past. 

Tirmo, sitting sideways on Kidzi and only swaying occasionally, was gripping Nori’s hand for balance, and holding Kori’s sling with his other arm, and looking around. His feet were tucked onto the cart pulls, and he looked small atop Kidzi, perched between her blanketed and bagged rump and the cart pulls, despite their similar size. 

They earned many stares as they passed, but Bilbo and Nori had put aside enough coin for this, both by method of pickpocketing, and selling of other goods in towns previous. 

Of course they also had the large store of coin from Phantom’s Silence, both every coin they’d been able to rob from them as well as what could be sold from the goods they’d taken. 

They kept those coins set aside, dedicated for Tirmo. The jar holding them was set next to their spending jar in the front of the cart. They were pretty sure that Tirmo hadn’t picked up on the difference yet, but if he had he wasn’t pointing it out. 

They were swiftly learning his preferences though, even if Nori had needed to phrase it like a challenge for him to do so. Tirmo seemed to like challenges, games as well. Nori had promised that if he and Bilbo were satisfied with his participation then he could choose extra things just for him. 

It was blatant manipulation. They got him anything he looked longingly at anyways, even if it was just Bilbo quietly circling back to sneak it into the back of the cart. 

Tirmo favored cotton over wool, and didn’t like linens at all. The few times Bilbo offered flax cloth he’d scrunched his face horribly. He loved bright colors, and veered towards reds, greens, and blues the most. He lingered on the embroidered cloths, and silver jewelry, but inevitably pointed to duller, cheaper options. 

Bilbo ended up buying brighter fabrics sneakily, stacking them together with the duller grays and blacks with the intention for him and Nori to embroider the darker ones. Bright spools of thread and ribbon joined them, as well as bits of silver jewelry that Nori picked, proper dwarvish craft.

As the day wore on Tirmo was losing energy, blinking slowly, and letting more of the wrap hold Kori than him. Nori caught Bilbo’s eye and the hobbit nodded, they’d sleep in the large inn up ahead, one they’d stayed at before, Dúnadain run and often a waystop for rangers and travelers alike.

They adjusted their path, and Nori kept one hand on the knife hilt under his coat as they veered down a line of stalls manned by dwarrow on one side and rangers on the other. He hadn’t been able to figure out whether the caravan of dwarrow in Elessa was an artisan group or one of the hall-less clans. 

One was far more dangerous than the other. 

Tirmo’s presence also made him slightly nervous, given the Dúnadain people’s steady love and respect for the other half of their heritage. An injured, clearly traumatized elf who wasn’t able to speak to defend his situation could end very poorly. 

He was about to suggest that Tirmo go back into the cart until they were at the inn when Tirmo gasped raggedly, and tugged on Nori’s hand. He pulled his own hand away and pointed at a stall to their left, nearly bouncing in place. 

The stall in question was dwarrow run and was displaying very finely wrought jewelry. The quality of it was truly very good. The subjects though were odd and varied, and frequently mixed metals and techniques in the same piece. 

They were beautiful, but Nori could not see any dwarrow wearing iron earrings shaped like minuscule frying pans with little citrine and silver eggs. 

Nori blinked at the cheerful dwarrow working the stall, wearing the braids of an artisan, and helped Tirmo detangle from Kidzi. Bilbo ducked under his other side, supporting both Tirmo and Kori as they half carried him, and half let him limp forward. 

The cheerful artisan’s smile was waning, the ends of his mustache drooping terribly as his eyes caught on Tirmo. Nori ignored him. Instead he took more of Tirmo’s still-far-too-light weight and let Bilbo slip back to the cart to refill the pouch of Tirmo spending. 

“You see something you like, buddy?” Nori asked, sweeping his gaze across the table of odd jewelry shaped like food and instruments and bugs. 

Tirmo reached out with his splinted hand and scooped a pair of earrings into the cup of his scarred palm delicately. Kori burbled from her sling and Nori reached to unhook the earrings from their display stand, firmly ignoring the artisan’s grunt of disapproval. 

The artisan must’ve hailed from Erebor, Nori realized belatedly, and he was thus unsure about selling to an elf, even tangentially. 

Tirmo tipped the earrings into Nori’s hand and signed, ”Please?” at him. 

Bilbo, without looking to see what Tirmo had chosen, immediately began to haggle with the surly artisan. Tirmo fairly glowed with joy, and he shook Nori’s hand in his, leaning over to look again. 

Nori obliged, opening his hand between them so they could both look. They were really well made, with delicately hinged hoops that linked to a series of small chains, all wrought in silver, thin and tinkling together on Nori’s palm.  

Each earring had perhaps five shorter chains that ended in either a jewel or a carved music note from bismuth. The longest chains though held matching pendants, clearly the centerpieces of the jewelry. 

A pair of metal harps sat in Nori’s palm, silver framed with brassy gold strings, and tiny embeds of bismuth up the side, like notes on the scrolling design of notation staffs. Each little harp was the size of a butterfly’s wing, and Tirmo tapped them again, gleeful. 

Bilbo, finished negotiating, pressed into the little huddle and peered at the earrings. He hummed, then laughed out, “Oh, Tirmo! Those are gorgeous, but while I can somewhat see the shadow of where they used to be, I do think you’ll have to repierce your ears to wear them.” 

A look of faint horror sweeps across Tirmo’s face and his fingers leave the harps in favor of his earlobes. He looks miserable for a second, and Nori laughs warmly, “I’ll help, buddy. I pierced my own, and Bilbo’s, so I won’t mess yours up.” 

“That’s what he wants you to think,” Bilbo says in a stage whisper, “Mine are uneven.” 

Bilbo deliberately holds his ears at different angles so the earrings are indeed uneven. Nori rolls his eyes, and tips the earrings into the little bag from the seller. Tirmo is giggling in little huffing sounds, sounding oddly like a hedgehog. 

Nori deposits the earrings in the cart, and grabs out the clumsy crutch that Tirmo had been using to practice walking with Bilbo. The crutch helped him, but Tirmo nearly depended on both it and the support of whoever was nearer to hobble even short distances still. 

He would slip the handle under his arm, and wrap his good hand up the rest of the length, using it as if it were a pillar to wrap himself around, stepping it forward and shuffling to catch up. It was inefficient and slow, and unbalanced as well, as Nori or Bilbo were always at his side to prevent him from swaying too hard and falling. 

Still, any locomotion was good, and it let him use his legs, even poorly, and rebuild the muscle that had withered away in the cave when he’d had little to no movement that he was capable of. 

So Nori helped him situate the crutch, and lifted Kori from her sling across the elf’s chest in the same movement, laughing at the disgruntled pout that took over Tirmo’s face at the loss. Bilbo slipped cheerfully under Tirmo’s other side and let him lead away from the artisan’s stall. 

They still moved towards the inn, but Tirmo’s success at not only asking for something, but receiving it, had leant an energy to his lurching shuffle and he looked with new interest around. 

There was a wool trader on the opposite street and Tirmo doggedly made his way over, and Nori followed, holding Kidzi’s and Durhul’s leads loosely. Tirmo reached, hesitated with a wary, fear filled look at the Dúnedain trader, then stroked a vibrant length of crimson melton. 

The wool in question was one of Nori’s favorites to work with, but not Bilbo’s. It was tightly woven, thick, and held heat easily. Its weatherproof qualities endeared it to Bilbo most, but the cold loving hobbit only wore melton in rain cloaks, as opposed to Nori who had several overcoats, cloaks, and blankets of it. 

“Is this what you want for your cloak, Tirmo?” Nori asked, and he approached the trader with the coin pouch at Tirmo’s firm nod. He eyed Tirmo, then asked for what was likely a length too many. He could make gloves, or a riding blanket with the excess. 

The trader cut the length of wool, and folded it swiftly, neat and thick, tying it with twine, glancing at Tirmo the whole time. The more glances she tossed his way the more Tirmo hunched into himself, curled fingers twitching and gripping at the old ridged scars on his palm. 

When Nori reached to exchange the coin for the wool she held onto it a moment, watching Tirmo. Then she pulled it back, ducked down under her rough wooden sale front counter, and came up with a rattling box, setting it down quietly. 

She swept the coins from Nori’s hand into her lockbox, and dug through her other box for a moment. She lifted an old, heavy, very tarnished pewter cloak clasp from the box, two disk broaches with the traveler’s star in the center surrounded by wrought holly leaves, each connected to the other by a linking chain that hooked to the loop of the disk pins. 

She set the broach on the wool bundle, smacked Nori’s hand as he reached, and grabbed a piece of paper and a charcoal stick. She scribbled a note in Tengwar, the language structure of Numenorean Westron, that Nori squinted at uncertainly. 

“That way, few stalls,” she said thickly through a northern accent, “For the lining. Her fabrics are soft, eastern, best flannels here, and makes from rabbit and flowers. She will sell only to those with recommendation, if you are not of ours, here for you.” 

Nori took it, and the wool bundle with the clasp, and she bows slightly, saying something in the old lost tongue of Arnor, and Tirmo jerks, looking up. 

The trader smiles, “Tis good to have the proper care shown to kinsmen, unlike the other naugrim, who forget old friendships.” 

She smirks then, at the artisan who had poorly hidden his scorn of Tirmo, and spits on the ground. 

Tirmo stares, wide eyed, and flinches back. Bilbo retreats with him, laughing softly, and he points Tirmo towards the stall with the Dúnedain woman who was combing a large rabbit in her lap, and collecting the fur calmly. 

Nori, for his part, is torn between defense of his kinsfolk, pride in the defense of his kith, and amusement at the sheer spite from the odd Dúnedain woman. 

He settles on a barking laugh, and a bow of thanks, before he catches up easily to Bilbo and Tirmo. They make their way to the stall in question and Nori hands the note to the suspicious trader there. She reads it swiftly, and smirks lightly, opening a book of pinned fabric swatches. 

“I keep the rolls away, locked. You pick and I send a runner for the roll from my husband’s stall. He is hunter, and tanner, and has a larger stall with rooms for the stink. I keep my rabbits away from that.” 

Then she goes back to her rabbit, letting Nori take the book and flip through it as Tirmo stroked the samples and considered the colors with utmost seriousness. Tirmo settled on a deep charcoal color, and the samples were indeed very soft, thin, and flowy, and Nori happily paid for the same length as the melton wool. 

The trader eyes him severely from under her brown fringe, and sighs deeply, “Aiya, fine. Rarely do folk purchase that much, you know. Gilress sent you to annoy me, I’m sure. I’ll walk you to my husband’s tannery, he won’t cut that much easily.” 

She puts the rabbit into a pouch and slings it over her shoulder as she walks further down the lane at a fast clip, her boots stirring up dust from her stomping steps. The tannery in question is a well known one, and one that Nori and Bilbo have both bought leathers from before. 

A few elves mill around the shop, and many Dúnedain besides, since the tanner hunts, but also sells much of what others bring him. Nori ties the ponies’  leads to a post and follows Bilbo and Tirmo in. Tirmo fidgets, badly, and clings to his crutch. 

The trader disappears into the back, muttering curses and grumbling as she goes. The tanner, a jolly fellow called Aragrim, watches her go fondly. He looks up at them and laughs boisterously. 

“Ai, if Rainha could sit with her rabbits and weave their fur until she had a castle full of their spoils she would. She does so love selling it, to those who use it well, but you’d never know it from her vinegar mouth.” 

Bilbo cackles at that, and helps Tirmo into a stool at the seller's counter to wait. Tirmo himself leans to the side and cards his fingers through a hanging fur. Nori watches him, and has a thought. 

He slips back out to the cart and grabs an old hobbit history, one about the first age, and the bundle of wool. He comes back in and sets the wool on the counter by Tirmo, who immediately lays his splinted hand on it and the clasp on top possessively. 

Nori flips through the book, pausing at illustrations, looking for a specific figure. He finds it eventually, an illustration in reds and grays, and he turns it towards Bilbo slightly. 

The book in question is tales of old heroes, and it being hobbitish, there are no names and the tales are warped. Still, the tale of the Mountain Lord is a good one, even if it was so shifted by the hobbit telling that Nori had carried the book for a few years now without quite identifying all of the characters. 

He was fairly sure that the Mountain Lord was a dwarrow of old, and he was leaning towards Azaghal, but the specific tale in this collection was unique and didn’t help. 

The old painting in the book, though, depicted the Lord in a cloak of red, with a thick ruff of gray at the neck and hem, and the Lord’s red hair was painted loose as it fell over the cloak. It was a large cloak that turned the painted figure bear-like and regal. 

Bilbo snorted and nodded, and Nori turned the book towards Aragrim, turned so that Tirmo could not see it. He wanted to see if Tirmo could recognize the intent without the painting he might recognize. 

Tirmo was old, he probably knew a great many people long lost. He’d been imprisoned since the early second age after all, as near as they could reckon considering the age of fallen Lindon and the caves. 

“Do you think you could help us find a fur like that one?” Nori asked lightly, and Aragrim grinned, an odd mirth in his face. 

“Certainly I can.” 

Nori shut the book and set it aside, out of Tirmo’s curious grasp, not that Tirmo could read it yet, he’d learned Æthel to listen and comprehend, but they hadn’t taught him the different runes just yet. 

Aragrim brought out several mottled gray pelts, and layered them on the counter, and they passed the wool over them, comparing the colors. Tirmo watched with intrigue and glee. 

A few had too much brown in them and Aragrim hung them back up. Rainha appeared from the back, slammed a bundle of fabric down, and stalked right out again, and then they had both to compare. 

Tirmo cautiously took over then, eyeing them all nervously, as he felt each pelt, rejecting the woolen ones in favor of wolf, then wavering between the wolf pelts and a coyote. 

“I have one more,” Aragrim said, with something resembling glee in his face. He disappeared into the back and came back with an absolutely massive pelt, a darkly dappled gray, and one that was very thick indeed. 

Tirmo buried his hands in it and grinned brightly, looking satisfied. 

“It’s from a warg,” Aragrim confides, “An experiment mostly, and no one wants it after they find out what it’s from. I had to condition it for days and days to get the fur to soften, but once I had it has never gone course.” 

Nori snickers, and counts out the coin for the fabric and pelt both. He’ll get Tirmo’s measure and start the cloak that night, but the careful clutch of the fur is telling, as is the offer of a corner of the pelt for Kori to pat at. 

Rivendell was beautiful, peaceful, and private. It was certainly comfortable, and as Bilbo and Nori rode in after the scout Bilbo had recognized, Bilbo could already tell that something was going to go wrong. 

He’d been to Rivendell thrice, and each time the Song had faded, both under the Ainu’s melody, but more so under the thrum of the valley’s warding. Never had the low toned hymn of Rivendell’s music felt so unsettled though, that Bilbo had been here for. 

It was as if there was an intruding song that it was trying to push out, and Bilbo was getting increasingly nervous about whether this would be a place of healing and rest for Tirmo or not. 

Tirmo was curled in the cart, around Kori as they both slept, unconcerned with their latest stop now that he was more than certain that they would not leave him behind. 

Tirmo had asked that several times, his signs frantic and snappish, and had buzzed with anxiety for weeks after Nori and Bilbo had decided on Rivendell over Lothlorien. Rivendell at least had a better reputation of leaving individuals alone when they wished to rest without distraction. 

He hadn’t settled until they’d started plying him with the clothes they made as they finished them, the styles matching the blended dwarrow-hobbit-eastern mix that Nori and Bilbo wore. He relaxed with the little gifts they’d stockpiled in Elessa, piercing his ears to wear the harps constantly, but also a line of silver rings up the ear that was missing a piece. 

Tirmo looked more settled in a dwarrow style jerkin with embroidered flowers over flowing cotton tunics in the eastern cuts that cinched at his wrists, and shorter loose trousers that buttoned shut just below his knees, with jewelry in his ears and beads and wires in his braids. 

He poked at the embroidery often, tracing the flowers and the patterns, a different geometric brocade than the ones that Bilbo and Nori wore, one that matched the one Nori stitched onto Kori’s little dress hems and shorts. 

Neither of them had thought about boots in Elessa though, and Tirmo wore some of the ware fur pelt stitched into a hobbit style moccasin, ones that were near identical to the ones Bilbo wore into the snow, with a thicker leather sole sewn to the bottom and swirling designs beaded on. 

He fully settled and no longer worried about them abandoning him so clearly when Nori finished his cloak, four weeks after leaving Elessa. It was a massive thing, paneled into an overlapping circle or layered charcoal and red, and instead of sewing them together flat, or quilting them as a hobbit might have, Nori had embroidered them together. 

Sweeping designs of carefully reversed colors swept the cloak, a thin, deep black stitching over the red, and a soft cream over the lining, all in designs of the same brocades and flowers as his clothes, with little magpies, bats, and foxes stitched into hidden corners, alongside the starlings that Nori had decided on as a representation for Tirmo. 

Along the open edge of the cloak and up over the hood was a careful trim of the geometric design, stitched in a firmer line with beads dotting the flowers and brocade. The warg pelt was swirled under the trim, a six inch strip along the inside edge of the lining and hem, secured by the embroidered trim. 

The hood, which was big enough to cover Tirmo’s braids and cast a shadow, but not big enough to obscure his sight or blow off, had a series of small buttons and loops, so as to be shut and tucked inside the cloak comfortably. This was where Tirmo most frequently left it, only untucking the hood when he was anxious or bothered by the light. 

This allowed the massive fur ruff, sewn both inside and outside the cloak, after a  fashion of course, Nori had sewn the hood beneath the inner edge of it for such purposes, to be visible both ways, and Tirmo enjoyed pulling the cloak close so that the ruff was fluffed about his face. 

Tirmo rarely took the cloak off, and Kori often crawled under the edge of it to sleep. It was almost a shield for him, and Bilbo was beyond glad that he’d found a sense of security in the cloak Nori had made for him.

Of course, now it meant that he looked like a lump of red fabric and fur more than an elf where he was curled in the cart, with his hood pulled up and his face tucked in his cloaked arms. 

He wouldn’t be able to sleep for too much longer, anyways, so Bilbo really didn’t see the harm in letting him for as long as possible now. 

The cart was covered, a wooden roof with a shelf, and canvas walls to keep the elements off of anything stored there, but the front and back were tied open, mostly to let Tirmo see out when he wanted, and let his feet dangle in the grass occasionally. 

Bilbo’s scout friend, a cheerful elf who frequently ran with the rangers alongside his brother, kept looking in the cart, and snickering. He snickered at Nori too, as he rode beside him, and Bilbo was steadily ignoring him. Elladan would speak his mind eventually. 

“You know,” Elladan said finally, five minutes later, “When you visited last you’d mentioned a husband. Ada said we’d probably never meet him, Belladonna’s husband was never keen on traveling, but no, no, here he is, hey?” 

Nori groaned, “Oh, please. Please, Bilbo, tell me you said more than just the word husband.” 

“Excuse me! That's better than you.” Bilbo snapped, tossing an acorn at them both, “Have you even told your brothers you’re married yet?” 

Elladan cackled delightedly, “What? Oh, Elrohir’s going to die laughing. What is wrong with both of you?” 

“Oh, shut it. You didn’t mention until the second time I came to Rivendell exactly who your Ada was, you have no room to talk,” Bilbo shot at Elladan, who just laughed harder, pulling ahead on his horse out of acorn tossing range. 

“Who is his parent?” Nori asked lowly, and Bilbo snorted, a sound of mingled bitterness and wry amusement.

“My friend, for one. I befriended the twins separately from their father, and the little tricksters thought it was funny that I didn’t know.”

“Ah.” 

The sprawling village land and orchards came into view as the trees thinned, with the Great Homely House at the center, and Nori figured it out with a spluttering laugh, “Wait, your friend the Lord of the Valley, who was friends with your Mam first?” 

“That’d be the one.” Bilbo chirped sardonically. 

Elladan cackled in tandem with Nori, both of them bent near double over their mounts heads. Several of the outer Rivendell elves glanced at them, and dismissed them. Bilbo contented himself with throwing acorns at their heads. 

“Oh, the suite you usually use is occupied right now,” Elladan recalled suddenly, “Do you still want a room near the library? We have one, on the opposite side.”

“No, We’ll need one on the grond level, if you please, though a view of the garden would still be nice,” Bilbo replied, and Elladan turned to look at him.

“Huh. Fine, I guess. Are you hurt? That’s the same level as the healing halls,which is why most people ask for those rooms.” 

Nori sighed, “We’re fine, we just have two people with us who are practicing walking. Stairs aren’t helpful for that.” 

Elladan looks at him blankly, “Uh. Where? Who?” 

Bilbo jerked his thumb at the cart, “Our kids. No, don’t look, they’re sleeping.” 

“Uh.” Elladan had slowed to ride between Nori and Bilbo, looking remarkably alarmed and caught off guard, “Uh. Oh. That’s- how?” 

“How do you normally get kids?” Nori teased him, and Elladan threw him a look of alarm that was comical 

“Um. I don’t think I’d ever actually believed the stories of dwarrow women having beards,” Elladan ventured, “Congratulations?” 

Nori roared with laughter and Bilbo outright cackled. 

Bilbo took pity on the poor elf, “Nori is my husband, not my wife, though I’m told that dams do have beards, and nice ones if you value your own good health.” 

Nori’s laughter began anew at that and Elladan cast a look at the cloak covered lump in the cart before a pleading one at Bilbo, “How?” 

“Oh, please. Our daughter came the normal way, we crafted her ourselves and waited for her to wake,” he watched with growing hilarity as Elladan’s confusion mounted, “Our son, of course, is a different story. It’s not uncommon though, for hobbits to procure children this way.” 

“What way?” Elladan demanded, desperately bewildered. 

“What other way is there?” Bilbo asked, as Nori went into paroxysms of laughter, “You do know how your father got his parents, yes?” 

Elladan’s face went through several rapid emotions, before settling on skeptical amusement, “You killed a whole city then kidnapped a kid?” 

“Of course not,” Nori said, “We just robbed them blind.” 

“Uh,” Elladan abruptly went pale, then paler at Bilbo’s considering hum, “Uh, what?” 

“Well. Technically we robbed the whole town blind, and I started multiple fires. No one should have died, no one was around for the immediate path of the fire, but what I couldn’t steal will have to go to rebuilding, probably.” 

Nori blinked, “Oh. That explains why I got more than you. I did drop poisons down their well, it would disperse enough to make them ill not die, but I mostly focused on either looting or breaking what I could that night. What did you burn?” 

Elladan made a small sound of utter shock, and Bilbo grinned meanly, “The library, the shipyard, and their main hall. All empty for the night, but I do hope it spread.” 

“Oh,” Elladan managed, “Ada’s method exactly then. Destroy a city and kidnap a kid. That- yes, that’s how Ada got adopted. Um. Why?” 

Bilbo sniffed haughtily, earning an amused look from the guard milling about for exercises in the yard as they passed through the gate to the homely house, “Well, if they had been wanting to keep such a treasure then they should have treated him better. Tirmo is lovely, I regret nothing. The whole city can burn to ash, for all I care.” 

“Right. Yes, I see the resemblance now. I feel like Ada should meet your poor kidnapped adoption. For the commiseration’s sake,” 

Erestor, approaching with a harried look, paused mid step. He looked between Elladan, Bilbo, and Nori, then he sighed deeply, “Master Bilbo, have you kidnapped a dwarrow to raise?” 

“Not yet. I did kidnap one to marry, if that counts?” 

Elladan let out a half panicked bleat of laughter and Erestor visibly shoved the words he wanted to say to the side, in favor of pained silence. 

Nori sighed, “Oh, that could be fun. No spare pebbles running around the mountains though, maybe another time. I’m his husband.” 

“I-“ Erestor fought for words, then turned and signaled Glorfindel over from his training with the guards. Glorfindel, tossed his long braid over his shoulder and came over happily. 

The two were long married, and Bilbo on all three of his previous visits had exchanged anecdotes about their marriages over wine with the pair. 

“Mae govannen,” Glorfindel said cheerfully, before he zeroed in on Nori with a growing grin, “Oh, you must be Bilbo’s husband, he always has such lovely things to say. Ah, I believe one of his musings last time was that you had hair like autumn fire kept in a mortal form that surpassed even the trees?” 

Nori gaped with a rapidly spreading blush. Bilbo was also flushing, even as he appreciated the ruddiness of Nori’s embarrassed shock, “Ai, I might get a tad too lyrical when tipsy.” 

“You think?” Nori hissed, “Mahal’s tar-licked boot heels, Bilbo, why?” 

“Language,” Erestor chided, as Glorfindel snorted, and Elladan blinked, taken aback. 

Nori repeated the curse in fluent Sindarin. Erestor’s eye twitched. 

Glorfindel laughed brightly, “Well, we have guests at the moment, from Lothlórien, if you can perhaps keep the better curses to polite company but Hír nîn will be joyed to see you, truly. I can have my soldiers get your bags to your room, and your cart and mounts squared away, if you like?” 

“They asked for the ground floor,” Elladan said, mischief stealing across his face, “I was thinking of the Peony suite.” 

Erestor blinks, and looks baffled, “That- Elladan that is a family suite, it has a nursery. I’m sure Lady Gilraen will not mind neighbors, but there are serviceable rooms without such features. Bilbo likes the library, besides.” 

“That sounds perfect, actually,” Nori says, distractedly handing Durhul’s lead to one of Glorfindel’s guards, “Even if I’m quite sure we won’t use the nursery, per se.” 

Bilbo hops off of Kidzi, handing her off, and joins Nori in pulling off the prepared overnight bags, and putting the ponies’ bags in their place on the cart. Tirmo watches him from under his cloak with one baleful gray eye. He is still and silent, but he isn’t shaking or tense, so Bilbo just presses his hand to Tirmo’s head through the cloak for a moment. 

The bags are carted off, and Nori has to stop the eager guard from leading Kidzi after Durhul’s with the cart. Elladan is openly snickering now, and the other two are watching blankly. 

Bilbo carefully pulls Kori from the depths of Tirmo’s cloak first, handing her off to Nori as she yawns herself awake and wiggles gleefully. 

“She’s so small!” Elladan squeals suddenly, “Aww, look at her ears, they’re so floppy. Hi, baby!” 

“What in all of Arda?” Erestor says, in a dead tone. 

Bilbo peers over. Kori has contorted herself in Nori’s hold so as to stick her foot in her mouth, and all three elves look besotted. 

He pulls Tirmo’s crutch from its hooks on the side of the cart and leans it upright as he reaches for Tirmo. Tirmo sits up, and tugs his hood further into place over his head, chewing his lips anxiously, and replacing it with his wreath when Bilbo taps at it. 

Tirmo scoots until his legs are dangling over the edge of the cart, and grabs the crutch, pulling it under the cloak before he slips it into place and wraps his grip around it. Then he wavers forward, supported by Bilbo’s grip on his other arm and his waist, and stands. 

He is not steady. He is sleep heavy, and scared, and he leans heavily on Bilbo as a result. Nori nods at the guard and the cart moves away. Tirmo whines very, very quietly as it does. 

“What the fuck,” Erestor whispers, with blunt profanity that Bilbo has never heard from the prim elf, and neither have the others from Glorfindel and Elladan’s arch looks at him. 

“Res?” Glorfindel asks cautiously. 

“Sorry, sorry, that looks- that looks very much like Maedhros’ cloak, from when he was Lord Himring.” Erestor jerked back a step, “I’m- I’m going to go let- I- is he alright?” 

“That is not a child,” Elladan breathes. 

Nori snorts, “He’s our baby.” 

Bilbo snickers, and Tirmo lets out the delighted little puffs of laughter he always does when they reiterate that old joke from weeks ago, confirming their ridiculous truth. 

Glorfindel snorts, always possessed of good humor, “Right. Is your baby injured?” 

“Healing. We’ll, he’ll be fine. He’s relearning to walk now, and garden paths are good for that.” 

Glorfindel nodded at Bilbo, and gently nudged Erestor, “Go on, let him know they’re here.” He looks steadily at Elladan then, “Go with him, you escorted them and can provide an extra report to Erestor’s recounting to your Lord father. Your grandmother will surely be listening in, distract her.” 

Elladan nods grimly and they both head up the steps to head into the house at a fast clip. 

“Come along then, I shall provide escort to your rooms, allow you to settle in before Elrond comes to greet you,” Glorfindel says lowly, and he offers to lift Tirmo up the steps. 

Tirmo huddles into his cloak and bites his wreath harder, sending a pleading look to Nori instead, who lifts the much taller frame of the elf easier than Bilbo. Nori hands Kori to Glorfindel instead, who abruptly freezes, cradling the babe carefully. 

She is nearing seven months now, and has grown much, but she’s a faunt, not a manchild or elfling. She wriggles in Glorfindel’s hands, slightly smaller than his bracer on his arm. 

Nori scoops Tirmo up, who curled his arms around Nori’s shoulders and his legs around the arm under his knees, and he buried his hooded head in Nori’s neck. It was as awkward as it ever was with Tirmo nearly double Nori’s height, but no one laughed. 

They made their way up the steps slowly, and followed Glorfindel down a hall, past the healing halls which inexplicably made Tirmo curl tighter in Nori’s hold. 

Glorfindel was kind about it, and held the door to the Peony suite open for them, bags set neatly inside the door already. Nori made for the bed, and set Tirmo down, hopping up beside him to pat at his hand gently and let Tirmo lean in for a hug. 

Bilbo lingered by the door to take Kori back, and set the crutch by the door against the wall. 

Glorfindel cleared his throat then, and in a low tone, pitched for Bilbo alone, asked, “Is he elven or human? Because, it's all well and good for you to joke about adopting an adult, but any elf would not continue to take it as a joke. Not forever. Should anyone be worried?” 

“Probably, but Nori and I have him. The cloak is modeled off of a storybook character though, the Mountain Lord. Nori is pretty sure the reference is Azaghal,” Bilbo bared his teeth at Glorfindel suddenly, “He is elven though, and he trusts us. I don’t care how worried anyone is, I’ll protect that trust. 

There is a long, fraught moment where Glorfindel searches his face, with the solemnity befitting his past that he so rarely affects. “Good,” he concludes, “I’m still going to ask Elrond to check in, at least to know what happened.” 

Bilbo nods and pulls the door shut. 

There is a mere hour's time before someone knocks at the door. 

Tirmo has relaxed, they all have, and sits by the fire on a plush rug with Kori, his hood tucked into the ruff of the cloak and braids loose. He is dangling Kori’s wreath over her, letting her grab it, gum at it cheerfully, and repeating the game when she inevitably throws it. 

He has relaxed enough to be humming nearly silently, tiny snatches of birdsong and scales through his pressed shut lips. He very rarely makes sound with his mouth open, and Bilbo and Nori refuse to push him on that. 

His humming cuts off abruptly when the knock comes, and he pulls Kori into his lap, as she waves her tiny fists in protest. 

He reaches with his other hand fumbling for his hood, and failing to grasp it with his curled, splinted fingers. A sob tears through his throat and Bilbo ignores the door in favor of coming to kneel in front of him. 

“Hey, shhshhsh, Tirmo, it’s ok, I promise. No one will hurt you, Nori and I won’t let them, you’re alright, come on, I’ll take Kori, head between your knees, love, deep breaths,” As Bilbo comforts Tirmo and stroke his braids into a barrier instead of his hood, Nori moves between the door and them. 

The door opens, to the complaint of someone in the hall, “Lady Galadriel! This is not your realm, I do not care how curious you are about my guests, we respect privacy here!” 

The lady in question scoffs and flaps her hand at whoever was in the hall, “Oh, please. As if such things matter. Naugrim already dislike elves.” 

“Aye,” Nori snarls out, “Many of us do. I have many elvish people I regard as friends however, as does my husband. Certainly I think you will not be amongst that number. Out.” 

She stares at Nori and Bilbo, then her gaze drifts to Tirmo, and the beauty of her ethereal face transforms into a feral snarl. Tirmo is whining inaudibly into his knees, and Bilbo shifts to be another barrier between him and the lady. 

Elrond slips in behind her, an equally ugly expression on his face, though directed at her, “I would ask that you not harass my guests, nor indeed my friends. I don’t care who, or what they are, Imladris has ever been open to all.” 

She ignores him and steps forward, the ugly, warring notes in the Valley Song rising with a jangling ring. Elrond gasps raggedly, flexing his hand in pain, s he winces, his eyes shut. 

The protective song of the Valley wanes, just slightly, in the face of the Lady’s discordant melody that sang opposite Elrond’s own. Almost on instinct, drilled by Rosa during their scant training in the Shire, Nori and Bilbo both pull on the strains of the Song, Nori with a soft, defiant hum, and Bilbo, crouched to defend Tirmo as his fingers danced on the floor. 

She steps forward again, and she sneers, “Kanafinwë Makalaurë. Hiding behind halflings and naugrim, are you? Coward.” 

Tirmo sobs, loudly, the loudest that Bilbo has ever heard him aside from the depths of his dreams, and Bilbo stands, pulling a knife from his trouser pocket as he does, and flicking it open. 

“Lady Galadriel!” Elrond thunders abruptly, looking vaguely harried, and entirely furious, “Out, now!” 

She graces them all with a scornful, look of fury, and sweeps out. 

Elrond sighs heavily, and pulls the door shut, leaning on it as he massages his temples. 

Bilbo dismisses him immediately, turning back to Tirmo, who has snatched Kori from the rug where Bilbo had set her down to roll, and has curled around her, tugging at his braids and shaking violently. His lips are pressed tight and loud whimpers and whines rack through him. 

Bilbo tugs him forward, and rocks back and forth, grateful that Elrond is allowing them this time for Tirmo to calm, before he speaks to remind him of Elrond’s presence. 

It takes a half hour for Tirmo to calm, and that may yet have been sheer exhaustion more than much else. He sat slumped nearly sideways, tears drying on his face as he leaned on Bilbo, cradling Kori close. 

Elrond came close then, and crouched in front of them. He ran his eyes across the scars on Tirmo’s face, the brace of leather and brass on his curled hand, the withered muscles and lingering gauntness of starvation. 

He looked at the old wear marks and scars on his wrists and ankles, and took a moment after seeing the matching one on his neck to close his eyes, before he glanced between the crutch beside the door, and the awkward splay of Tirmo’s legs, thin and always held together at the ankle when he rested. 

Elrohir slipped in the door, nodded at Nori and came to sit next to his father, wincing as he passed a large bag to him, one with the stylized kingsweed leaf of a healer pressed in. 

Elrond swept his eyes back up, Bilbo watched as he paused on the horse-painted wood beads and harp earrings, then he met Tirmo’s eyes. He was solemn, and sad with tears streaming down his own cheeks. 

Bilbo stroked Tirmo’s forehead, brushing his braids back, and ruffled the fur of his cloak up for Tirmo to press into. Tirmo pressed his lips together, too hard as Bilbo had to pinch his bleeding lip out from where he’d caught the edge of it between his teeth as he clamped his mouth shut. 

Tirmo lifted his twisted hand to grasp his wreath with the little grip he’d doggedly regained, and began to worry it between his teeth, a habit Nori and Bilbo had drilled to save his lips from being bit and chewed to ribbons.

Elrond watched him still, humming slightly as he held the healers bag loosely. He kept pausing in his melody, as if expecting it to be finished, and when no one did he would continue. 

Eventually he started singing the song, soft, sweet, and in Quenyan. He paused, and waited, and Tirmo bared his teeth with a huffing hiss, before shutting his eyes and burying his mouth into the ruff of the cloak, huddling into the fabric desperately.

He lifted his good hand, pointed at Elrond, and signed, “Tell baby love. Tell baby go away. No sing. No, no, no sing.” 

Each downward snap of the ‘no’ was emphatic, and he devolved into just those with the occasional chin out flick of ‘sing’, before he finally tucked his hand away again, in the cloak, likely cradling Kori, the baby always indulgent of her adopted sibling. 

Bilbo curled his arm around Tirmo’s slumped shoulders and drew him close, pressing a kiss to the top of his bent head, and squeezing him tight for a moment, “No one will make you sing, my love. I promise. No one at all.” 

Nori slipped over, and carefully slotted himself next to Bilbo, stretching Tirmo’s legs over his lap, and tugging at the cloak to reach Kori. “He isn’t comfortable with voluntary sound yet. Please don’t ask him.” 

Elrond was silent for a long moment, then he slumped in place, “Oh, Atya. What has been done to you?” 

Chapter Text

“Dear Inkheart, I pray that you never have the need to test the hospitality of elves. Whilst we find those of Rivendell to be pleasant, if nosy, I must inform you that the Lothlórien contingent has few manners, and fewer boundaries. The histories in the library are beyond reproach however, but still, we shall linger for shorter than intended, as the Song of the east beckons us ever further. I am glad to report though, that the children are well indeed, and have begun walking now, and that that Spices has begun to speak, in the manner of children, but there is no greater feeling than being called Adád. Spoons chose an elven parent-name, but he is also thrilled with being called Atto. I may even be open to mor, should opportunity arise, but perhaps sometime later.” 

— Excerpt from  “The Thief's Key”, Volume Five, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

The Lady Galadriel remained an ongoing issue, glaring at Tirmo from beside her husband whenever he shuffled down the hallways past her with Bilbo or Nori. 

The rest of the elves were nosy, curious creatures, but they let Tirmo be, for the most part, aside from many of the guards, and staff who would bow to him, respectful and reverent. 

Those occasional bows, acknowledgement of old Lordships and fealty, always made Tirmo shrink in on himself. He didn’t respond to Maglor, or to Makalaurë, not with any grace, though he did respond occasionally to Kanó, if Nori shortened it, but never to the full Kanafinwë. 

He still used the crutch, after two weeks of steady practice, but he didn’t lean so heavily on Bilbo or Nori. Often he would walk with them and Elrond would slip over to walk with him, either silent as he offered companionship and an arm, and other times singing quietly or chattering about his own children to Tirmo. 

His cloak was still an ever present thing, taking his still gaunt form and bulking him tremendously. There were several elves, both amongst the Rivendell elves, and the Lothlórien visitors, that startled badly when he came towards them. 

Tirmo didn’t seem to notice. Nori thought it was hilarious. 

Now Tirmo had sprawled on his stomach in the garden, his cloak folded neatly in front of him with Kori on it, crawling around after a soft ball. Bilbo sat beside him, unpinning his braids and setting his horse beads and clasps into a dish. 

Periodically Nori would grab a bead out. The painted horses had begun to chip, having been made as somewhat of an experiment some years before Tirmo had claimed them. 

Tirmo adored them though, far too much to let the paint flake away properly, so Nori would pluck a bead up, carefully chip the horses out with a knife, leaving indentations and reliefs, and adding detail as he could, then he’d repaint them in stages, leaving ink in the horse carvings to soak in deeper. 

Elrohir approached, with an elleth beside him, one frequently with the Lothlórien group, and Bilbo eyed him, and eyed her with a half glare, “Hello, Elrohir, may I help you?” 

He had long since banned any Lothlórien peoples from interrupting Tirmo’s garden times, which an almost gleeful Erestor helped enforce with a revolving roster of volunteers to maintain a subtle barrier. 

“Hello,” the elleth says, as Elrohir reels back from Bilbo’s politely cool tone, “I am Arwen, I was hoping to meet my grandfather. It simply took a while to extract myself from Grandmother’s protective measures and to escape her insistent escorts to do so.” 

Elladan wanders up as well, with a small squirming bundle in his arms, “Yeah, Ada’s being super protective. We’re fine with meeting him without being rude. I brought our foster brother to play with Kori, if that’s fine?” 

He sets the bundle down and unwraps a small toddler, setting the blanket aside, and dropping a few toys between the babies. 

Arwen points at the baby, “This is our excuse. We’re babysitting. All of us told different people different things about who was watching him, so they didn’t realize that he had three minders.” 

“Ha!” Nori barks, “You know that there’s going to be a panic when they compare notes and realize that no one actually knows where he is, right?” 

The twins and Arwen all stiffen dramatically, exchanging horrified looks. 

“It’ll be fine,” Elrond says behind them, arms crossed as they all startle, and Elrohir shrieks, “I saw from the window. It can be an experiment, actually, considering that Glorfindel is on Estel tracking duty for the day, and is meant to know who is minding him.” 

Tirmo snorts, and buries his face into the ruff of fur his arms were resting on as his shoulders shake with laughter. 

“Ada,” Arwen breathes, “That is so wicked.” 

There is a loud snicker from the bench where Erestor was reading. Elrond throws a pebble at him, and sits down on Tirmo’s other side, graceful, and elegant, even as his robes poof slightly from the movement. 

“He comes by that one honestly,” Erestor calls over, as Elrond throws another pebble, half heartedly at him, “How long did Maglor look for you and Elros back then?” 

Bilbo grins at him, and looks at Erestor, “That sounds like there’s a story there.” 

“Oh, stop,” Elrond grumbles, “It wasn’t that bad. I hadn’t even realized that Maglor was missing us then.” 

Erestor sets his book down and joins the group in the grass, nudging Elladan over to sit between him and Arwen, where he had a barrier between him and Elrond. 

“He and Elros, when they were children, managed to convince Lord Maedhros to take them to a pond in the woods by Amon Ereb. They wanted to swim, and to pick flowers. They forgot to tell Lord Maglor what they were doing, as the flowers were for Lord Maglor’s begetting day, and to this day I am unsure if Lord Maedhros forgot also, or if he chose not to.” 

Tirmo tips his face up to grin at Erestor, and signs at him. 

Erestor looks to Bilbo for a translation, “He said that it was probably a mix.” 

“Yes, that sounds right. A harmless prank until Atya panicked worse than Atto predicted,” Elrond sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“They came back for dinner, but since they’d set out before dawn, that meant they came back to the whole of the fortress in an uproar, search parties setting out, Lord Maglor stalking Amon Ereb like a omen of death, and the whole Fëanorian contingent preparing for war.” 

Elrond giggles hysterically, wistful and far away, a sound that draws his children’s delighted attention, “The worst part is that Elros and I were so excited to give him the flowers and wish him well that we didn’t notice how frazzled he was. He nearly started crying when we sang him the begetting song, he’d forgotten what day it was from being so panicked.” 

Tirmo lifts his hand, “Punched for it. M had hurt face for week.” 

Nori translates this time, and Erestor outright cackles. 

Tirmo squirms in place, and reaches his braced hand out to nudge the ball into a lazy roll, and watches as Kori giggles, crawling after it, and catching the little edain’s interest in the process. Estel, in his toddler’s curiosity, grabs her floppy ear and yanks. 

Her shrieking scream startles him, and suddenly both babies are wailing in affronted shock. Elrond reaches for Estel, and pulls him into his lap with a deep sigh, as Nori pulls Kori back, rubbing gently at her scalp and the base of her ear. 

Tirmo giggles and reaches to stroke Kori’s head, as she tries to grab at his fingers, shaking them with all her might. For several minutes the group sits in companionable silence. 

“So, is Lord Maglor helping to raise this child too? As he did the Peredhils?” Erestor asks cautiously, ignoring the brief distaste across Tirmo’s face. 

Bilbo snorts, “Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Kori is Tirmo’s younger sister now.” 

“Uh,” Elrohir says, scrunching his face, “Wait, how does that work?” 

“Well,” Bilbo says patiently, “Nori and I have adopted Tirmo. Kori is our daughter, which makes her Tirmo’s sister. Of course given prior relationships, this also makes you my great-grandson now.” 

“Oh no,” someone whispers, and Elrond’s face goes entirely blank. 

Nori lifts Kori, pastes on a shit eating grin, and looks directly at Elrond, “Behold, your Aunt. Your Essa Kori.” 

Kori gurgles and pulls her foot into her mouth to chew on her toes. 

Tirmo starts huffing out a laugh, one with a hint of sound, as he levels the very disgruntled Elrond a fond look, and starts shifting to get up. His unpinned braids start to unravel, and he wrinkles his nose. 

Bilbo snorts, “You do still have your sleep braids in, love. Do you want them redone?” 

Tirmo considers, then nods, settling into a better position to sit comfortably on the grass, and he starts cautiously taking his brace off. Bilbo had introduced stretching exercises for his fingers a week and a half ago, to encourage mobility. Tirmo found them easiest to do when occupied by another activity. 

During his morning and night braids were the routine now. 

There were several new people watching as he loosened and removed his brace and Tirmo watched his hand instead of meeting anyone’s eyes. He set it aside and began his stretches, as Bilbo carefully stood behind him to unravel his hair fully. 

Tirmo had not expressed any want to cut it since Nori had finished detangling it nearly two months ago, and none of them have brought it up, but that means that the full length of it stretches to perhaps a foot and a half longer than Tirmo’s own full height, straight and full, but fine haired. Nori had been allowed just once to carefully trim the split ends, but elvish biology meant that it had barely been an inch's length off. 

Bilbo begins carefully combing and oiling Tirmo’s hair and he melts as he always does, nearly purring with contentedness, even as he glows with pride at Arwen’s awed gasp. 

Elrond himself snickers, “Oh, Atya. You and your hair.” 

Tirmo glanced up to toss an expression of playful haughtiness at him and stick his tongue out, only to pause as he noticed that Elrond had picked up his brace, and was turning it over carefully, peering at the knobs and wires. 

Tirmo’s hands froze midstretch and he watched. Nori glanced up, carefully set Kori back on the blanket to play with Estel, and stood to go around the back of the group and crouch behind the gap between Elrond and Elladan. 

“Inyo, that is not yours.” Nori says gently, and holds out his hand for the brace. 

Elrond flushes darkly and sets it in Nori’s hand, tossing a look of pure affront at his giggling children. 

“You are not actually my grandfather,” he says to Nori, mild frustration and mortification in his tone. 

“So?” Bilbo asked, shrugging as he began to twist small braids into Tirmo’s hair three strand, then four, then five, weaving a net in his hair, “Kin and kith need not be logical. My adopted son is thousands of years older than me, still he is mine.” 

Elrond shrugged, and Nori moves away to set the brace in Tirmo’s lap, who immediately paused his stretches again to tuck it under the edge of his spread cloak. Arwen snorts loudly across the cloak, from where Estel is playing with her fingers. 

The quiet company continues, as Elrond and Erestor both lean back to talk quietly about logistics and supplies for the running of the house. The twins and Arwen are talking with each other also, exchanging old stories and new ones as they catch up. 

Tirmo just sits, and stretches his hand while Bilbo begins adding the dry beads, wires, and clasps into his braids, and twisting them into a new pattern as he does, pinning it into place. 

Kori crawls into Tirmo’s lap, and uses his arm to support her into an unsteady stand, and Nori sings softly, a low baritone in an old Khuzdul hymn, and Bilbo sings along quietly as Tirmo taps his fingered and times his stretches to it. 

It is pleasant. 

They leave Rivendell after a two month's stay, with a horse and a much larger cart to be pulled by the horse, gifted to them by Elrond. 

The Lothlórien group had left a month and a week before them, upset with the small but growing protectiveness of the group of people around Tirmo, ones beyond his adopted son and family. 

Tirmo himself had taken the opportunity as it had been, and had spent as much time as he could walking, in the library, carried by whoever got there first until he could tolerate stairs, and watching over Kori and Estel. He had started responding to Maglor more, by the time they left, but not often without flinching. 

Nori had found a history section in the library, whole compendiums on the deeds of the Noldor and separate ones on the deeds of Maglor Fëanorian. He had read them, in the same room as a nervous Tirmo reading his own, he wasn’t cruel enough to hide any reactions he might have had. 

Nori had read the history until it concluded with the cursed flight with the silmarili and descended into speculation. According to this compiled history Maglor Fëanorian wandered the shores of Arda, constantly singing laments, dispossessed and banished. 

Nori shut the book, and thought about where Maglor the Fell-Voiced had truly ended up. He thought about Tirmo, the broken being that was what remained of one of the most feared elves in history. 

He thought about Tirmo’s silent laughs, mute wails, his waking life void hushed and stolen by thousands of years of terror, and of that Great Bard of old who was said to have never been truly silent at any point, powerful and strong. 

The only time Tirmo felt comfortable with anything more than a whine was in the depths of a nightmare, no true comfort at all. 

He thought about the close bonds with his kin, long dead, as they’d dwindled slowly to a cousin that hated him to the point of irrationality, sons that he had protected with his absence and left, and a brother that had left him too, after so long together that now freed Tirmo still looked for him out of the corner of his eyes and clung to a replica of a cloak that had been gone long before his brother’s suicide. 

He thought about the glee Tirmo displayed, grinning through the scars twisting his face and bouncing on his heels, when he’d walked down a single hall with support or crutch and had only needed to lean on the wall once, and he thought about the elf in the histories listed as the deadliest fighter of the Fëanorians, who had led cavalries, and held the Gap, and survived so much. 

He looked at Tirmo, with his crude wooden beads compared to the finery he had doubtlessly once worn, and his too big cloak, and his broken hand and spirit. He looked at his shaking hands, and scared hunch, and Nori found that he didn’t care at all what he’d done then. 

He said as much to Tirmo, and held him as he cried. He did so again later, trading off with Bilbo, as Tirmo discovered the events of the ages since he had been locked away. First when he’d read of Elros, then Eregion and his nephew, then again when he read of the fall of Numenor, and then again of the changing of the world. 

They took to telling the hobbit histories as they aligned the Second and Third Wanderings from that time. It helped, but mostly for their steady voices over the content, Nori thinks. 

All in all, Tirmo makes great strides in Rivendell, improves much and adjusts, but it is not restful. 

Even Elrond, who Tirmo tries his best to dote on still, as he must have in Elrond’s youth, has grown and matured and is occasionally disturbed by Tirmo’s silence and hurt. There are too many expectations in Rivendell, and Elrond himself suggests he may heal better elsewhere when he begins to only seek to spend time with Bilbo, Nori, the toddlers and the twins. 

He is of course correct, and outside the bounds of that haven Tirmo curls in the cart and sleeps. He sleeps deep and long, waking groggy and exhausted to eat and limp around wherever they’ve camped, and sleep again, holding the pattern for a week. 

They make great headway east then, all the way through an old mountain path before Tirmo has the energy to do more. Bilbo voiced a tiny comment to Nori later, that he was glad that Kori was willing to stay with Tirmo and sleep, or play quietly around him as he did. 

That of course changes when Tirmo stays awake again, and he is constantly pulling her back into the cart as she tries to escape. He distracts her with pilfered inks and paper that stain her hands, and toys he makes himself from fabric scraps, rabbit glue, and scraps of wood. 

They cut through Mirkwood, on an old road made straight by Nori and Bilbo’s rudimentary Songs of enchantment. This holds Tirmo’s attention all over again, and on one of Bilbo’s silent days, rarer now, he watches as Bilbo lays the protection down with a dance, stomping precisely, and twirling with a silk ribbon while Nori sings. 

Neither Nori or Bilbo have finished their masteries in Song enchantments with Rosa, but it’s good enough for that, and they’re passably good enough for Bilbo to talk Tirmo through scrunching his toes into the loam and moss to hear the Songs, and how to tell them apart, the First Song from the Void, the Ainur’s Melody, loud and abandoned, and the dark thrumming that spreads up from Mordor even to here. 

Tirmo starts getting lessons then, on how to hear and listen, old hobbit tales of the void and the Song, ancient tales of young foolish Vala and void children not yet adjusted to the world, and of the first foolish oaths that led to ruin and set a precedent for the Vala, without their approval. 

He doesn’t get lessons in how to harmonize with the song yet, on how to lay enchantment with his voice, but Bilbo teaches him Song-steps and dances that have no small effect. 

Tirmo takes to these joyfully, wearing boots and moccasins less and less in favor of listening and dancing barefooted with Bilbo in the evenings, great circles of sweeping stomps and whirling grace as he spins between the trees with Bilbo, gaining confidence in his returning strength. 

Kori learns to walk then, toddling after Tirmo as he dances, and he lifts her up to dance, and sometimes lets her cling to his leg as he moves slower. 

One day as he watches longingly as Nori lays a Song ward out, and Bilbo sings with him, sewing instead of dancing that evening, he hums a few notes along with Nori. 

They are hoarse, quiet, but powerful. Nori pauses for a half breath, then keeps singing, and Bilbo smiles at him and continues sewing a new shirt for Tirmo. Kori claps happily, but she also says nothing. 

They do not demand he do more, that he sing, that he waver reality in its roots with his voice, or that he do anything more than he wishes too. He hums a few more notes, wavering and out of practice. 

The only acknowledgment is Bilbo kissing his forehead when the enchantment is laid, and a cup of tea with Nori’s, as if his throat is as sore as the dwarrow’s. 

They leave Mirkwood shortly after that, but Tirmo hums slightly sometimes still, never alone, always when one of them is singing, but he does. 

He tries something else a month after that, as the Orocarnil Mountains loom just north of their meandering path, Oliphaunts in the distance, and pulls out the travel harp that Elrond had given him when they’d left for the first time. 

His braced hand has much more movement now. Not enough for the strings, but enough to hold the harp as Tirmo relearns how to play with his off hand. It is admittedly terrible at first, and Kori whines terribly at the sour notes and repetitions of melodies as he practices. 

When he is comfortable, then Tirmo tunes his harp again, sits in the cart as they keep east, and plays it, not in a known melody or composition, but matching the strains of the Song, and amplifying them in the same way Nori did with his voice. 

His goal becomes clear a moment later as the gathering storm fades and the sun peeks at them. It exhausts him terribly, as Nori and Bilbo had been when they had begun learning, and the storm still hits, terrible and loud, an hour later. 

He glows anyway under their praise as they all huddle in the cart from the rain, and he teaches scales to Kori on the harp. 

“How does this work?” Tirmo eventually signed, “Where we’re going?” 

“Mm. I’m not sure, actually. We were originally just going to see if we could get to the first sanctuary,” Bilbo said, “It’s far east, supposed to be near Cuivienen, but of course there’s no maps anymore.” 

Tirmo brightens, and rapidly signs, “My Haru came from there. He was king because of it.” 

“Amongst many others, I’m sure, love. Royalty hardly matters now, not away from your Aman.” Nori says, amused, and Tirmo scrunches his nose and hums in reluctant agreement. 

Kori, bounces from her position where she’s scrambled on top of the cart, “It matters! Tirmo used to be a prince. That makes me a princess. I want a crown!” 

Tirmo cackles, and flashes the sign for flowers at the toddler, who speaks in such an odd mixture of Æthel, Khuzdul, and Quenyan, that while they all understand her, no one else would. She somehow hasn’t managed to pick up any Westron or Sindarin at all. 

She crows in joy, and jumps down. They’d gone past the edge of any maps that even the Easterlings kept some months ago, and had begun to take their own, to the best of their ability. 

Papers and paths and maps and ancient stories had been copied down, drawn, and pinned to the inside wall of the cart, tracing their path. Tirmo had started tracing things with gray thread, drawing a terribly crooked path through amateur maps on the wall. 

They kept calendars too, on the opposite wall, a carefully carved series of labeled grids, and Nori and Tirmo had painted in all major events on a quiet day, when Bilbo’s tongue was still and Tirmo was recovering from a nightmare. Activities, simple and joyful ones, were the best medicines for those dreadful days. 

The hobbit festivals all got painted on, as did the overlapping dates of Yule from all three races, a strip of winter dedicated to the celebration, then Durin’s day and Nost-na-Lothién, or May Day, then they’d marked birthdays, even painstakingly calculating Tirmo’s to paint on with a cheerful pink harp. 

They’d marked the calendar then, as best they could, tracking the days as they pushed east, sometimes passing Avari tribes and mannish settlements, but less so the further they went. 

The whole calendar had gotten little tracking notches thrice by the time they reached the mountains they had vaguely been aiming for, and they were midways through a fourth, celebrating Kori’s fifth birthday happily. 

A distant tower massive, and crumbling, was visible through the mists, but it stank of something wretched through the Song strains, and even Tirmo, greedy for every Song snatch he could hear, had curled his legs into the cart miserably. 

No one looked towards the remnants of what must have been Illuin, Nori with respectful avoidance, Tirmo with quiet reverence, Kori from something akin to peer pressure. Bilbo had looked once, glared, then avoided the sight by casting fey stares at the trees around them and at the black between the stars. 

When they entered the mountains they learned why, and Nori regretted his curiosity and love of hobbitish slants on history for the first time. 

Bilbo had sat at the fire, in loose silver silk pants, and a blue tunic, laced at the throat. He wore his hair loose of anything but his marriage braid and bead, and the curls floated about his face, deep brown and gold and wild. He’d left off the leather bracers and tunic from Nori, the only armor he daily consented to. 

In the flickering firelight the blue of his eyes pulled the light in, circles of shining blue around pupils of shadowed depth, and his eyeshine in the dark gleamed silver, highlighting the oddly rabbit like shape of his eyes. 

Previously Nori had adored that shape, a distinctly hobbitish feature to have rounded eyes that sloped gently to their noses, with very little whites around them. He’d thought them pretty, the only hobbit specific feature that wasn’t vaguely predatory. 

Now they were mildly unsettling in the firelight, and Kori’s rabbit-like eyes gleamed in the firelight also, deep and dark, for all the jewel-like blue that glowed still. 

Tirmo paused also, and settled with his stew carefully, and smiled with a small flash of teeth, just wide enough to show the gap where one had been missing after he’d run into a tree chasing Kori. He’d been chewing sticks for a week now as it grew back in. 

Bilbo grinned back, wide and feral with his song-teeth fully extended, needle-like and bristling as they curled around his canines. Tirmo froze, spoon in his mouth and stared. 

Bilbo ate his stew quickly and leaned back, loose and calm, a storytellers classical position in the Shire. Nori settled to listen, and Tirmo and Kori, well used to Bilbo’s history lessons, did so as well. 

“Once, there was a world, newly sung, and spinning itself into existence like a tapestry rug. On one side was Ëä, pulling the threads and painting the picture as directed. On the other was the Void, the Blæcnän, watching the messy, tangled underside cover the place they had once existed, alone and undisturbed. 

“They found it odd to be disturbed so, for once there had been a world up there that they had played in and explored, and while they had let it fall into disrepair, they remembered it still. They listened first, singing their old hymns and slipping their voices in the spaces between the threads of the new world. 

“Erū was who sang, they learned, and others sang with him, a chorus of weavers and dreamers, and they looked at Erū and named him Wÿrmhtà, which one who creates in the wake of destruction. They had not decided whether they liked him or not before the chorus stepped onto the tapestry and Ëä faded and died. 

“The watchers saw the empty space left by the weft board of the Wÿrmhtà and took it, stretching the Blæcnän until it wrapped into all the empty spaces, until the void was them and they the void. 

“Then the watchers watched, for this was still new, and they were curious. The Great Voidspinner watched and hungered, the Warmongers of old longed to hunt, and the watchers watched, even those Dancers and Singers from the old Song began to poke through their own holes to see the new things. 

“Then they began to step through entirely, twisting through the hole they occupied, sometimes fraying the tapestry and filling the hole with threads of the Blæcnän, leaving puddles and pools of Old Magic from before the world behind in their wake. 

“They discovered that they were not suited to this world, so they learned and changed in those earliest of days, and explored ever further on feet they didn’t have before with eyes that saw less and more, and ears that heard overlapping songs and longed for their first home.

”They discovered that, changed as they were, they could not return home. Songs of mourning were sung and they despaired of finding a home again, settling beside a hollow in the mountains, where the biggest pool of the Blæcnän sat, silvered and powerful, and they sang until they heard the First Song again, then they learned.

”They learned how to give themselves back the Void whence they came, how to listen to those seeing the threads tangling below, how to warp those notes they could hear, limited in the restraints of changed form, to affect their surroundings. 

“They learned of others, whispers of their old kin urging them to be curious once more, and so they went. They found great beings, ones who were ordered, and peaceful, and who did not, could not, see the spaces between the wefts of the world. 

“They commanded the skies, the seas, the growing things and the growing greens, and they shaped the weave of the threads with their helpers, little flitting things of spirit that ducked under the threads but remembered not what they saw. They were odd, these singing things, similar to the Wÿrmhtà, but different too, less fleeting and less powerful too. 

“The Watchers let themselves be seen, and pulled away, hiding in the empty spaces as they always had long before Ëä’s first note, and they showed themselves again to the few who did not recoil, and did not to those that did. 

“The ones who sang had names, but the Watchers spoke them not, for names had power, and so they gave their own, and those who listened and those who saw, they heard the Watcher’s names and kept them. 

“Y’vonn’ha’Ř, the Root’s Voice, was the first, and they called her sister too. She brought her husband near, and they called him Am’hal’yë’Þ, the Mountain’s root, and they taught them to shape life from the clay and the rocks of the world, in the manner that the Watcher’s made their own children. 

“Y’vonn’ha’Ř was first, and afraid of her king, she taught her children silence and stillness, and they his amongst the trees she made them to protect. Y’œn’țë, she called them, and she loved them fiercely. 

“Am’hal’yë’Þ was next, and he created the Stonekin, and the Watchers delighted in them, teaching them to dance and to listen deep, and to hide. When the king came to near, though, the Stonekin did not quiet their steps, and afraid of their steps drawing attention, Am’hal’yë’Þ put them asleep and hid them away in deep tunnels. 

“He was not fast enough, and the ones that remained became brittle in the wake of the king’s anger, and Am’hal’yë’Þ would not wake the others until it was safe, building a hall to hold them safe, with the fragile hurt ones laid in a place of rest to heal. 

“In their sorrow they brought others to the Watchers to learn, for the world was yet new, and their sister was yet busy, and they would be too soon as their sister-queen had asked for them. They wished not to be alone in those that knew the Watchers, nor the Watchers to be alone whilst they were away. 

“M’þor’kèn’Â they brought, called the Hymn-Hearted, and Ny’ßa’râl, the Joy-Footed, and her husband, Ta’klâs’yeñ, the Chaser. The Watchers taught them, they danced with Ny’ßa’râl, and they hunted with Ta’klâs’yeñ, teaching the animals to run and to bite, and teaching Ör’mé’om’ä when he came to learn also. 

“They watched as M’þor’kèn’Â learned, and was not satisfied, and sought more, and was not satisfied. They stopped calling him brother, and drew back, and he was not satisfied. 

“Their first brother and sister returned, and invited the Watchers to look upon their efforts, and were proud in their accomplishment. The Watchers looked and saw, and they were also proud. 

“The stars were long enjoyed, but they were cold, of only the second song, and they were far away. The sister-queen to their sister had asked them to assist her in building new lights, and they had. 

“Y’vonn’ha’Ř had formed great globes, formed of the woven pools from Blæcnän and had given them to Am’hal’yë’Þ, who took the ground itself and twisted it into mighty towers to hold the globes, as intricate and sturdy as his wife’s weaving, and done so over two of the smaller pools, protecting them as he sang them up. 

“Their sister-queen had filled them with her cold light, singing the one song, but it mingled with the songs of Blæcnän, and her cold light glowed all the brighter, though she knew not why. The Watchers saw these towers, these great Minglings and Harmonies of the two Songs, and they were gladdened and proud. 

“All returned to normal, some Watchers hunted with Ta’klâs’yeñ and Ör’mé’om’ä, some danced with Ny’ßa’râl, others wandered with Y’vonn’ha’Ř and Am’hal’yë’Þ, and still others stayed in their home and first met the new kin, ringing with new notes, humming of long faded Ëä, and they were curious, and they taught them too. 

“M’þor’kèn’Â had long since left, learning himself, close to the home of the Watchers, but far from the home of the singers, and he was unhappy, with the lights for being a prideful thing when he had not done it, with being regarded as no more than a singer, a hymnist, with not being the favorite of the Watchers, who favored none so much as their Song and Blæcnän. 

“As he sat and learned hate M’þor’kèn’Â learned also to twist the note of the Song taught to him in joy and kinship, and he turned them to hateful sour things, and he sang them out from his dark corner where he hid, first quiet, but growing in strength as he was still not satisfied. 

“He drew some of the small singers to him and seduced them with the lilt of foul temptation and resentment for others’ joy and accomplishment. He drew some of the Newcome, the Starkin, born of the Wÿrmhtà Song and of the StarLight, and he took the notes in their songs and tore at them, twisting their hearts, for M’þor’kèn’Â wanted devotion more than love. 

“Then, with confidence in his strength, he rose from his seat, and he took hold of both Songs, and made his own, an ugly mockery, a thing of venom and malevolence, anathema to the things the Watchers had taught him, to delight in everything and take joy in all. 

“With his new song of spiteful rancor he tore the towers down, drinking his sister-queen’s light in and swelling with his pride at doing so, and crushing the globes to shards to throw in the see, where the deep things of Blæcnän reclaimed them. 

“Then he retreated, arrogant in his newfound victory, certain in the reverence he would soon receive. He called to himself still who would come, and twisted them, and waited for the Watchers eagerly. 

“The Watchers were instead horrified, and in the wake of the Singer’s fury, one and all, they fled. In seven great Clans they fled, in all directions but back, and they left their Great sea behind, hidden in the mountains, where no Singers had ever seen it. 

“Wræcasūrë they named him, traitor and twisted, and they resolved never to teach a Singer of such things, Great or Small. In their flight they left their Starkin and Stonekin cousins behind, and they were forgotten, and they also forgot. The Old ways fell away, and the Song grew quieter, and they fled still further as Wræcasūrë sang such rage that they shut their ears. 

“Sorrowed, the Singers bound their brother, and silenced him, and they too fled, returning once for the Starkin, and taking them away also. The hidden places in the world still watched, but they too were silent, and time marched on, many of the Watchers fled, and the others changed, twisting deeper into the world in their fear. 

“Time marched on, twice more the Song twisted, and the First Folk fell more, but still the great Betrayal is remembered, is hated, and the Song does not forget.”

Bilbo did not look. Not at the twisting rise of the dark tower, nor to the west. Instead he smiled, with needle sharp teeth and deep, bright eyes, and ears that hung low and solemn. “One day, Wræcasūrë will be betrayed also. The Void has taken him, those that remembered from the Singers cast him into Blæcnän, but he ill fits there, and cannot stay, cannot die.” 

Tirmo shuddered, and Nori hummed a low note, before, “Sometimes, I hear hobbit histories and they’re normal, but unfamiliar. Like old tales just slightly off from how they happened. Other times they’re like this and I wonder whether Bifur’s old fae stories held more than a grain of truth.” 

“Mmm,” Bilbo said, “Fae was a borrow word, Fægëoþer was what the singers called the Firstkin.” 

Tirmo lifts his hands, pauses, lifts them again and, “What is last betrayal? Of him?” 

“An old curse. A promise. The last sundering that rips his song out by its roots.” Bilbo shrugs, and the eery light fades from his eyes, “According to old legend of course. No one remembers the details. We don’t keep those. Names and oaths, those bind you long after anything else.” 

Tirmo shudders and leaves it be. 

They continue on, past long empty houses, past wandering beings that resemble elves, except that they’re hollow, empty, husks that wander through the trees, eyeless and mossy, tangled hair trailing after them through the forest and mud, leaving trails like a snails, eery feeling and wrong. 

The mountains are tall, and the paths twist, echoing with old songs, laments, and praise, and lilting hunt songs that entice them to dance and dance and never stop. Little springs bubble up here and there, silvery at the bottom, and blood red and brackish at the top, and the husks sometimes kneel to drink, spreading the taint deeper. 

The remnants of houses give way to caves, following mountain paths and carved into the sheer sides, stacked and winding into each other, and the husks here wander back and forth, sometimes back to the forests, past the group that breaths, on light feet and sure steps. 

Other times they wander right off the cliff side, and silent they fall, hair catching on jagged stone and holding them dangling from the cliff side. The ones who look to have been there longest hiss wildly, and claw at the stone, the flesh worn away on their fingers to form sharp claws of chipped bone, their teeth sharp and empty eyes staring inexorably at them. 

Tirmo shakes and shudders at these, sobbing and covering his eyes. Bilbo gives him and Kori both valerian tea, and Tirmo drank it eagerly, and slept deeply. 

They pass through th mountains, past a deep lake surrounded by plains, and roving with the husks, and continue on. The mountain that sings loudest has few husks, and Bilbo plants his feet and listens deep. 

There is a stream. 

It is not big, and it glitters faintly, and Bilbo steps in, then across, and the Song roars in his ears and his bones. Nori follows him and they step through the thick mire of a very old, very strong Songward, and it welcomes them, grasping at their blood and bones and breath, as their feet step just so and thoughts hum as much as their breath. 

Kori’s eyes shine, and the glimmer of tree light in Tirmo’s eyes deepens, and the trees grow massive, twisting to look with craggy faces and jingling leaves. The Songward pops like they’ve resurfaced from deep water, the surface tension of Old Magic breaking all at once. 

The first thing they see is a statue. 

Tirmo gasps and scrambles from the cart, leaving Kori behind. He goes up to it and touches the foot of the statue, an elven warrior, carved of marble, prostrate and with an arm up in defense. He looks scared, and his carven hair is tangled. 

“Moryo,” Tirmo rasps, the sixth word he’s said since he left the seaside captivity, and the first outside of nightmares. 

Another statue is ahead, bent double over a ridge in the statue’s base, agony carved in horrific detail on its face, and the statue’s spine, nonexistent as it is, would be broken. The carven ribs are caved in on one side and Tirmo cups this one’s upside down face, gentle and stroking its cheeks with his thumbs as his bad hand trembles. 

“Curvo, oh, Curvo,” he sobs and rushes to the next one as Nori chases him. 

This one is standing, barely, bent back with his back arching horribly, as if he’s been stabbed in the chest, and helpless fury is etched on his face as his hands hold the position of a fight clearly lost, still fighting as he died. 

“Tyelko,” Tirmo gasps, and Nori catches him, cupping his face and pressing a kiss to his forehead, and rocking him gently as he falls to his knees, crying wretchedly. 

There is another statue, closer the massive silver pool, and it is curled on its pedestal, prostrate and screaming, carved hair short, and features twisted and chipped. Bilbo presses a hand to its knee, and notices the missing hand, twisted shoulder, and broken ear. 

“Nelyo,” he says, steady and implacable, “Maedhros.” 

He turns to the last statue, barely discernible as it is crumbled, weathered, and lacks the detail of the others. Two figures, back to back, both fighting, both defiant, one hunched to one side as it still defies its challenger. 

“Ambarussar,” he says, and Tirmo sobs hard, practically screams into Nori’s chest. 

Bilbo turns to the figure in the trees, one of the First Folk, untwisted by giving itself to the world, and even sat back on its rabbitish legs, it is taller than the statues, “Why are these here?” 

“Promised they were,” it whispers, “Promised they are. Not of us though.” 

Tirmo sobs again, ragged and hurt. Nori glares at it, “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Oaths and vows and words. To the Void they promised, and the Void did take.” 

Bilbo pauses, “They are dead.” 

“Yes,” the being pauses, and tilts its head, bristling teeth like a pike fish bared, “No.” 

Tirmo looks again, pats the stone foot of his brother, and frowns. 

Bilbo looks at the statues and at the being, “You caught their fëar, they could live again. How?” 

The being shrugs, displacing a cascade of plants and dirt, “I care not. They belonged not in Blæcnän, they are too broken to belong here. I shan’t leave, and so they do not wake. I care not.” 

“Mmm,” Bilbo hums, and he looks at the statue of the Ambarussar, “Why are they crumbling?” 

“Fled,” it says, “Others stayed. Split flame longed for maker, and fled. Cruel, twisted flame fled. They go to other side of weave, for they were not beholden.” 

“They swore the same oath?” Nori offers hesitantly, “Fëanor and Ambarussar did.” 

“None are beholden. Oath fulfilled long ago, came to Void before then. We took from Void, fled. These didn’t. I care not.” 

 Bilbo stares. He looks at the glowing lake, then at the being, cragged and imposing, and at the statues frozen in pain. 

“There is an old story,” Bilbo says, “Of a taken child who wasn't a child until they were bathed in a Song Spring. One of the twisted ones, whose broken parts were repaired by Blæcnän.” 

“What is a child?” It asks. 

Bilbo looks at Nori who shrugs, and he looks at the being, “Uh. Someone who needs love, and care, and guidance, and who is valued, always. Someone young, usually, but, um, I think parents are supposed to do that long after children are grown.” 

The Being blinks at him, shuttering its eyes oddly with a milky white eyelid sideways then the normal one, it black eyes guileless, “What is a parent?” 

Bilbo blanks. 

He just stares at the being helplessly. “Is- is the legend true or not,” he demands instead. 

“I know not. I care not. These are terms of the Not-Void. I am of Blæcnän, I guard. I care not.” 

“Right.” Nori decides, “Fine. What will you do if we touch the statues?” 

“Do you intend damage?” 

“I don’t think so. We’ll test the theory, and if they live again, then we’ll take them away, love them like we do Tirmo.” 

The Being watches them. It does not move. Then all at once it stands, and steps to the Maedhros statue, “I will help. I am tired, I wish to return. I will help, you will leave, and I will die. It is well.” 

It picks up the Maedhros statues, and the base remains, and it crosses to the lake and sets it inside, on the edge, just barely submerged. It grabs the others easily, ringing the lake in marble people. They do not move. 

Bilbo steps back, grabs Nori and Tirmo and moves towards the lake. Kori tries to trip after them and the Being gently snatches her up. 

“Voidchild,” it says, “You live yet. Desist.” 

It holds her to its chest, and hums, deep and tritoned. 

All three of them step into the lake. The ground is spongy beneath their feet, but shallow. Bilbo walks to the center, Nori and Tirmo following him. Nothing happens. 

All the statues are submerged. 

Bilbo considers this. They are attempting to affect the statues, and to affect Tirmo. 

He sweeps a leg under Tirmo’s and shoves hard, and gently holds him under as Tirmo takes a startled breath, then continues as Tirmo chokes, and takes another, thrashing. He goes still, and Bilbo lets him go, letting Nori tug him away, still shouting. 

The Lake glows silver, blinding and thrashing, and the Song thrums. 

Tirmo comes up, crying and choking, and clinging to Nori. He is a half head shorter than the dwarrow now, and the scars on his face are silvered now, lividity gone. He pulls away and stares at his hands, small and his brace is hanging onto his wrist by a thin hope, now 

Tirmo looks the age of a mannish nine year old. His elvish ears look the same, slightly wider at the base, and still notch scarred, but they tuck down like a scared hobbit’s. He scrambles out of the lake and runs for the cart, wrapping himself in his cloak, far more dwarfed than before. 

A loud crack splits the air, and a shriek follows, and Bilbo wakes towards it, pulling a child from the shattering stone, wild red hair clipped around his ears and tangled into a messy halo. His hand is gone still, and scars twist his face, but they do not pull, and the asymmetry is not ugly. Bilbo pulls him, naked and shuddering from the lake and lays him on the sand. 

He is sobbing, clinging to Bilbo, and shoving him away in turn, and Tirmo hops back down from the cart. He pulls him into the cloak’s embrace, and hums happily, a short one-two notes, then silent again. 

“Hi, Nelyo,” Bilbo says, and another crack sounds, and he wades back to help Nori pull another child to shore. This one has nearly no color at all, tangled silver-white hair over silver-purple eyes, wide with terrified rage as he shrieks and screams in Nori’s hold. 

Another cracking, and the child pulled to shore is limp, crying quietly, and very small. A birthmark crosses his face, wine red and ragged, up around one eye and sweeping down past his jaw. He is small, Kori’s age roughly, but thinner than her. Bilbo takes him from Nori, and holds him gently, rubbing his back and shushing him until he falls asleep, limp and with his fists tangled in Bilbo’s hair. 

He sits with the other three elflings, beside the lump of cloak containing them, and they wait, Nori at the shore, and Bilbo with the children. Someone sniffles under the cloak, and the Being shifts, offering Kori in one hand, and a handful of ragged furs and leathers in the other. 

Bilbo snickers, and accepts Kori with one beckoning arm. He can rework Tirmo’s adult clothes for the children far better then he can work with the scraps of stinking, half-rotted hide. 

Nori wades into the lake and comes back with an infant, grumpy faced under his shock of dark hair, and Bilbo realizes with no small amount of horror that they left Ammë the goat in Rivendell, years ago now. The smallest child will have to eat porridge gruel until another solution is found. 

Nori takes the baby to the cart and digs out one of Kori’s sleeping sacks, long packed away, and swaddles him. Then he leaves him in Tirmo’s bedding nest and comes back to take the toddler and Kori. 

Bilbo takes stock of the remaining children. Nelyo, the oldest still, looks the age of a mannish preteen, perhaps eleven. With Tirmo looking nine, and Tyelko, as he must be, looking four, there is a decent age gap. 

Bilbo looks back at the cart. Curvo must be the baby, not even half a year by mannish reckoning, and that leaves Moryo to be perhaps two, which is about where Kori was now. Bilbo is suddenly very glad that men age at such a rate that they make a decent comparison point. 

Nelyo sniffles miserably, and asks in Sindarin, “What happened to us? What are you going to do to us?” 

Tirmo perks up and signs rapidly. Nelyo stares at him, uncomprehending. Tirmo’s face falls, and Bilbo quietly interprets, only to receive a disgusted glare from Nelyo, and a scoff from Tyelko. 

It is a shockingly bitter sound from the small child, and Bilbo valiantly does not laugh. 

Tirmo’s face falls rapidly as Nelyo glances between him and Bilbo and then Nelyo turns to Bilbo, furious and terrified, “What did you do to Kanó? Why isn’t he talking? Kanó never shuts up, not even in battle!” 

Tyelko stands up, wobbly and squinting badly, “Kanó talk, sing, anything! How about the butterfly song, you love that one?” 

Tirmo abruptly ducks and wiggles out from under the cloak and flings himself towards Bilbo, his tunic hanging off one shoulder and loose. His trousers are still in the lake. 

Bilbo catches him, and hugs him close as he clings desperately, evidently having forgiven Bilbo for half drowning him in the face of old trauma rearing its head. Tirmo glances down, realizes how badly his tunic fits, and bursts into tears, silent and wracking, as he tries to burrow into Bilbo’s chest.

Nori comes over and rubs Tirmo’s back, and ruffles his braids gently, before he goes over to the other elflings, and offers two of Tirmo’s shirts and scarves as belts. Nelyo takes the cream shirt and red scarf, Tyelko takes the brown one and the green scarf. The cloak closes over them. 

They are going to have to earn these two’s trust specifically. Moryo and Curvo are small enough to trust naturally, too small to not do so, they need care and therefore must trust the caregivers. 

Tyelko might be small enough to do so once they prove themselves, but he seems to be following Nelyo’s lead, and the eldest definitely doesn’t trust them. 

Bilbo hums softly, and stands, lifting Tirmo, who promptly wraps his legs around him. 

The Being chuckles, “Ah. Worked. Luck to you. Fare Thee well Songfolk.” 

Nelyo and Tyelko both look behind themselves at the voice, and see the being’s feet first, then the whole of it. Both of them scream, terrified and off guard, and still scared children despite their memories otherwise. 

Nori swoops in and plucks Tyelko up, holding him close as he clings, unthinking in his panic. Nelyo just runs for the cart, trailing the massive cloak behind himself. Bilbo follows, sedately, and Tirmo giggles into his throat, petty and amused. He knows more than his brothers now, far more. 

They are in old Cuivenien, or will be after they leave the first Sanctuary. There is nowhere to go. Any elves left behind have been long twisted and broken. There will be years to earn trust, to become parents, at least two and a half before they hit civilization, four before they are back at the Shire, if they do not stop anywhere long. 

Bilbo is not worried. 

Besides, hobbits tend towards large families, however children are gained. They’ll have help and advice aplenty when they’re home. 

Nori reflected later, as they got closer to the Shire and began to prepare to settle the children into a home instead of travel, that perhaps jumping from no children to six of varying ages was rather a large undertaking. 

Three of them were perhaps not calm, but well behaved at least. Tirmo listened to them, and only sometimes wandered off, following bits of Song. Curvo was a baby, and thus had few ways to misbehave in the first place. Nelyo was the quintessential eldest sibling, reigning his siblings in, and listening to Bilbo and Nori every time once he trusted them. 

There were far too many times that they had to remind him that Nelyo was his siblings’ brother not their parent, and that he could play with them, but that he could not scold them. 

The middle three were another story entirely. Kori was hyperactive and her curiosity led her to mischief often, whether she climbed trees and got stuck, or ran off after whatever caught her attention. 

Tyelko, equally hyperactive and distractible, with far fewer inclination to listen, often ran off with her. He also ran off on his own, sometimes just wishing to be in the trees, sometimes hiding away alone, stewing in anger or frustration. Bilbo had swiftly gotten in the habit of tracking the child to sit and listen, or talk. 

Moryo on the other hand was a handful purely for his mercurial moods. He he was often grumpy, clinging to whoever was his favorite that day, and he was picky with clothes, colors, foods, and more routine driven than Bilbo, latching happily to Bilbo’s schedules. 

He also frequently got dragged into Kori’s shenanigans. She dragged Tyelko into wandering off, but she’d drag Moryo into childish pranks, collecting crickets to dump down Nelyo’s tunic, spreading tree sap on the grip of Tirmo’s harp, and hiding the stuffed lobster that Nori had made and Tyelko had attached to with a fervent love for the patchwork critter. 

All in all, while the Fëanorians had all accepted the guardianship offered, the actual adjustment was slow. Nori weathered many comparisons to ‘First Atar’, both flattering and otherwise, and Bilbo did as well, though the hobbit more frequently was compared to their mother, or simply graced with looks of unsure looks of wary confusion. 

Hobbits were very clearly not in their repertoire of memories to reference and use for comparison to the now. 

Nori was also glad, that as willing as he was to do so, that Bilbo had taken point on nightmares most often. Nori would listen, and he was always happy to offer advice, he wasn’t particularly well versed in rephrasing things suitably for the way their child’s minds remembered their past actions, and the battles they were in. 

He had practiced some with Tirmo, before this, but Tirmo had long accepted his actions, regretful yes, but far more haunted by the thousands of years of torment than his own wrongs. 

Tirmo still came to him though, frustrated by his brothers’ confusion at his changes they’d died and left him last of them all. He talked some now, barely audible and afraid, but he still never sang and only hummed softer than a murmur. 

It unsettled his brothers, one and all, and no one was quite ready to tell what had happened to Tirmo, least of all Tirmo himself. 

They had veered around Rivendell this time, and no one minded, but as they veered closer to the Blue Mountains, approaching the Shire, all of them got nervous and restless, Tirmo included, as he set his harp aside and did not pick it up. 

The east road was open though, and Bilbo began exhausting the restless children by assigning each of them, save a clingy Moryo, landmarks to run to and come back from, until the whole lot of them curled into a pile of limp limbs and tired yawns. 

With a conspiratorial glance Nori began an old hobbitish homecoming song, a softer one that doubled as a lullaby, and Bilbo sang with him. The hobbits and smials they passed joined in, until the Shire was singing in passes, a soft humming through the hills until only Moryo was awake, looking wide eyed at the hobbits they passed, occasionally waving back at the hobbits welcoming them home. 

They were home. 

Chapter Text

“It is odd to return to some level of routine, if a far more active one. Yule has become the agreed upon time to stay put each year, whether I am with my family, my husband and children, or whether I am visiting my siblings, and uncle, some weeks ride off, or whether the whole lot of us visit our distant kin, and our grandchildren. That, also is odd, though not unwelcome. Yule we stay put, no travel, no fights, simply gifts, companionship, and the healthy love that rules a family best. Still, the routine, day to day as strict as Spoons and Spindle keep it, does have its pleasures. Even our journeys, now loud and chaotic, follow a pattern. Patterns break though, and I fear that this one frays soon. Something will give, though I know not what. I suspect the unrest in the mountains plays a part, and i fear for my kins’ peace.” 

• Excerpt from  “The Thief's Key”, Volume Nine, as scribed for the recipience of Inkheart, with all notations and supplementary materials preserved. 

Bombur hummed, catching Kintur from his haphazard run across the kitchen, and scoops up Bichfur a moment after, taking them both back upstairs. He is at five pebbles now, the envy of many a family, and Kisto has decided she is done. 

Food and coin grow scarcer in Ered Luin by the year, and while the things Nori brought back semifrequently, and the coin from his travels supplemented the household well, those times grew fewer and fewer between. 

Dori’s tea house turned a tidy profit, but much of that was poured into apprenticeship fees, for Ori, Kistur, and Bistur. Bofur’s mining contract brought little in, and what was earned from the toys Bifur and he sold went right back into supplies. 

Five pebbles is a lot to feed, especially when six was more accurate when counting Ori, or eight even with how often the princes were over at mealtimes. 

With the growing whispers that swept Ered Luin in increasing circles, Bombur was just happy that his family was well, and well off, and he set aside a prayer to Mahal each time Nori came back hale and whole. 

Bombur peeked into the next room, a squirming daughter under one arm and the other child walking beside him, well behaved and swinging his hand. 

Nori sits there, on Bofur’s work table, legs crossed and singing in a foreign language and whittling a long pin. He is on his second pin, and Bombur suspects it’s a set. It would be the eight pair he’s peeked at Nori carving this visit, each set with complimentary chains and jewels to dangle from the thicker end. 

They don’t look like they can knit, so Bombur still isn’t sure what he does with them. Nori glances up, and flashes a smile at him, gold paint outlining his eyes, and Bombur nods back. 

He moves on. Whatever the rumors, the stories of a fae resurgence, of a coup against the royals, of a growing distaste of the Ereborean refugees, long since settled into Ered Luin, at least Nori doesn’t change. 

Nori is steady, he comes and goes, strange and wild, but always devoted to his family, bringing gifts and coin, and Bombur can’t imagine him keeping any secrets beyond what Dori asks him to. Nori is just- Nori. 

Tyelko sits in the garden, hiding under the willow and sobs. He knows that Bilbo, Atto, will find him soon, but for now he can sit, hug Guppy, and cry. Atto is going to find out how useless he is soon, just like First Atar, now that they’ve started proper lessons. 

Bilbo isn’t telling stories now, histories, and little ditties that tell how the world works, and songs about manners and herblore. He’s started getting the books out now, and the slate boards, and now he’s going to get just as frustrated as First Atar, because Tyelko just isn’t good at stuff like that. 

He misses Huan. Huan had never cared if it took Tyelko thrice as long to read a letter because the Tengwar wouldn’t stay still, or if Tyelko got distracted and frustrated by it, and came back to it later. Huan had never cared if he was dumber than his brothers. 

Huan just wanted to run with him and play. 

Tyelko pulls his knees to his chest, crushing Guppy to his neck and chest, and he sticks Guppy’s pincer in his mouth, miserably chewing on it. He can hear footsteps, two sets. He doesn’t want Nelyo right now, he doesn’t. 

“Nelyo, darling, you don’t need to parent your brother, let me.” Bilbo says, as matter-of-factly as always, and continues with words that set Tyelko to sobbing again, “Thank you for telling me what you thought the issue was, now I need to speak with Tyelko, and you have your own work to do.” 

Nelyo grumbles, something in Quenya that Tyelko doesn’t hear over the blood in his ears. He leaves and Bilbo sits in front of him, steady and calm, and Tyelko will not look at him. 

Bilbo sighs, “Nelyo said you had trouble reading the first time you learned.” 

Tyelko chews at Guppy’s pincer harder for a moment, feeling his misery twist sharply into anger, like it always, always does. He spits Guppy out and sniffles, snapping, “He shouldn’ta said anything. He’s awful. Why can’t he just leave us all be?” 

“Tyelko, darling, Sceorfa, child of mine, you don’t mean that. You would be very sad if your brother left,” Bilbo hums then, low and considering, “That said, he is a touch overbearing. Nori and I are working on it.” 

Tyelko’s anger drains out of him, too fast, and he feels dizzy and hollowed out. He drops his knees and looks at Bilbo pleadingly, crushing Guppy still. Bilbo laughs, and moves to pull Tyelko sideways a little, and unbinds his hair to brush it out, gentle like no one else had ever been with the tangles he always has. 

Guppy’s pincer goes back in his mouth, and he sits quietly while Bilbo brushes his hair, setting trinkets and beads aside, and unwinding the thread wraps that put color in his hair. 

“Did you know,” Bilbo starts, “that I taught Nori to read? It was when we met, Nori was nearly seventy already, and no one had taught him, or cared to figure out that he didn’t know.” 

Tyelko freezes. Nori reads, all the time now. He reads in his head, and out loud to them, and writes, and he always has books. He just went to visit his brothers, and he took books with him, even though when they’d been traveling before, after Bilbo and Nori had gotten them, they hadn’t had many. 

They had traveled for two and a half years, and only been where Nori and Bilbo called home, and Tyelko couldn’t imagine Nori without a book at all, ever. 

“Really?” 

Bilbo laughs, and drops the spool bag into Tyelko’s lap. He digs out his favorite green, and a few browns to hand back for hair wraps. 

“Really. He just didn’t know. And I didn’t know how to read Khuzdul then, Nori was the first dwarrow I’d met. So I taught him Westron, and Æthel, and we learned Sindarin together, then Khuzdul.” 

Tyelko shifts, “Oh. I’m different though, I’m just stupid.” 

Bilbo snaps the lock of hair he’s braiding to wrap sharply, more tug than pain, and flicks the back of his head, “Hey! Don’t be mean, you are talking about my much loved son, and I’ll have you be kind to him with your words.” 

Tyelko blinks. “Um.” 

“Be kind to yourself, Sceorfa, otherwise your mind will be cruel, always, and cruel minds always turn on themselves first.” 

Tyelko sniffles, “I am, though. First Atar always said. The letters never stayed still, and the words were wobbly, and my head hurts every time. First Atar said it was stupid, and that I was just lazy.” 

Bilbo’s hands pause, and he hums, his thinking noise, since sometimes words were hard for Bilbo. 

Then he keeps going, “Sceorfa, do your bones ever feel like they're a bit shaky, too much energy and what not?” 

“Um, yes? All the time. I get mad super easy, and Nelyo says it’s temper, but usually my bones hurt, and my thoughts are fuzzy, and it’s easier to be mad.” 

“How about when you’re not upset. Are your thoughts a little too fast sometimes?” 

Tyelko shoves Guppy’s pincer in his mouth and nods rapidly. 

“Honey, it sounds like you have too much heart, even the word-fits is normal for people with that.” 

Tyelko must look confused because Bilbo chuckles and ties off his thread-wrap to come around and sit facing him again. 

“Most people,” Bilbo says, holding his hands like a scale, “Have equal amounts of mind and heart, and sometimes it fluctuates which one they listen to, but the amounts are the same. Other people are born with more mind, or with more heart than the other, their scales aren’t balanced.” 

He reaches out and taps Tyelko’s heart gently, “You, my lovely, have more heart than mind. It’s not bad, it just is. When you have more heart than mind, or more mind than heart though, sometimes there’s side effects.” 

“Fast bones,” he says, muffled and solemn through Guppy’s pincer. 

“Eh. Kind of. It means your mind works differently, which is fine, every race has people with it. Men call it the Hunter-Souled, Elves, from the one book that mentioned it, called it the wander-hearted ones, and dwarrow call them avalanche-minds.” 

Tyelko stares, “Oh.” 

“Hon, that’s something we can work with. I’m the opposite end, you know. More mind than heart, I have something, which functions similarly, from a different direction.” 

Bilbo presses a kiss to his forehead and moves back to his hair, “I’ll dig out the colored glasses from when I learned to read, and we’ll work out a system for you to ask for help before your bones get jittery. If it gets bad though, it is always preferable for you to go and run around the garden perimeter, fast, until your thoughts are slower.” 

“Oh.” Tyelko hesitates, then asks, “I’m not dumb then? Just- odd?” 

“Just so.” 

Dwalin stood in the treasury of Ered Luin’s combined guilds, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Balin stood behind him, with Gloín beside him bent over the book of records furiously. Half a dozen Banker’s Guild apprentices and journeymen were milling around the vault, calling numbers back, and exclaiming about empty tags. 

Dwalin held a fistful of feathers, glossy black shimmering blue, with varying hunks of white, and ground his teeth. There were dozens more spread through the vault. 

They couldn’t even do anything about it either. Every single missing coin and jewel replaced by a feather in the vault, had been put into pouches tied with feathers, and left on the doorsteps of family compounds. Not every one, but the ones who struggled with guild fees and food, even in the slightest, all had one. 

Dwalin had discovered the theft from rumors about those pouches, investigated the origin of the coin out of idle curiosity. 

The discovery of a feather sticking out of the Guild Vault door had nearly stopped his heart. Balin and Gloín had been apoplectic. 

The residents of Ered Luin were calling the thief, the charitable thief who left coin for the poorest, the Ruddock Thief, he’d been gossiped into a near hero. There was no way for the guilds to get the coin back, much less prosecute the thief in question, especially when he had been pulling such feat at random for two decades now. 

Dwalin couldn’t catch him, couldn’t stop him. He couldn’t protect Thorin from the rumors spreading through Ered Luin, nor from the growing unrest. He couldn’t do anything at all to fix the situation with the guard, the growing corruption had been there long before him, and was now a near schism. 

Dwalin was tired. 

He yawned, and stepped back, as Balin looked up from the book at the movement. 

“Brother?” Balin asked, “Are you well?” 

“I’m tired. Do you need me for anything? Otherwise, I am going to go eat.” 

Balin frowned deeper, and Gloín looked up as well, his gruff cousin oddly concerned, “Are you not going to catch the thief? Dwalin-“ 

Balin’s elbow caught Gloín’s side, and he wheezed. Dwalin stared blankly at him. He held up his fistful of feathers. Gloín stared back. 

“Nice feathers?” Gloín ventured, and Dwalin broke into a desperate cackling laugh, doubling over with the efforts of it, as tears leaked from his eyes and his ribs ached. His cousin was horrifically narrow minded, and not prone to gossip. It often eft Gloín uninformed.

Balin sighed, and stepped over to pull him upright, ignoring Gloín’s alarmed expletive, “Oh, brother, yes, that is an issue. I am quite sure that Gloín can handle things here, accounting is his calling after all. I will take you to Dori’s for tea.” 

Dwalin let out one last half mad giggle, and let Balin pull him away. Dori’s teahouse had been called exactly that when it had opened, and it had been somewhat of a hidden jewel. Boring name, but the teas and pastries were excellent, and food once offered, was as well. The name didn’t draw many dwarrow over to the somewhat poorer eighth district. 

At some point Ori and the princes had replaced the sign with their own creation, a brightly painted, heavily doodled thing that was from the little leather bound series the three pebbles were so obsessed with. 

Dori’s Teahouse had been a hidden gem, popular to regulars, but not well known. Teabones’ Cups, as the new sign advertised, was wildly popular. Dori had tried to change it a few times, but ultimately gave up some years ago. 

Still, Teabones’ was the best place to relax, despite busyness, if purely for the company. Dori was great friends with Balin, and Ori was around if Dori wasn’t available. Dwalin had fought in Bifur’s company though, had helped pull him away from his law-brother’s body. Bombur was also a decent conversationalist, but Dwalin also enjoyed the simplicity of the teashop. 

Kisto whirled over, jerked her thumb at a table under a vent shaft, and dumped tiny Bichfur into Dwalin’s arms. He smiled at the babe, the Ur’s were the only family besides his own that ever trusted the old grizzled guard that he was with a child. 

A bag dangled from the upper edge of the vent shaft, and Dwalin poked it. An old Broadbeam superstition, the iron shavings to keep the fae out. The few people in Erebor who had similar superstitions, but they hung salted holly branches. Most spirits had gathered in Moria and Eregion, if they weren’t from Mordor. 

The bag wasn’t very heavy, not like the ones that Dwalin normally saw, and he plucked it down curiously. 

“Oh, Dwalin, can’t you leave the silly things be?” Balin moaned and Dwalin rolled his eyes, bouncing little Bichfur. 

He tugged the pouch open and poured it on the table. Sawdust and tin beads spilled out in a neat pile and Balin stares. Kisto approaches with her order pad, “Oh, another one? They keep turning up like that, have for years. Haven’t a clue where the iron goes, and it’s getting me paranoid. Bombur’s started lining the nursery vents with salt, you know.” 

She sweeps it back into the pouch, puts the pouch in her apron, and sets a salt bottle down in its place. As she sweeps off to the kitchen with her order, Dwalin obligingly pours a line of salt oolong the vent ledge. 

Nori, in the mountains for a time, brings their food over, delicately balancing the iron skillet with the berry-cheese pastry that only Teabones serves well. His hand is reddened under the towel he’s wrapped the pan in and Dwalin snorts. 

“Aiya, thief, why’d’ya grab a hot pan for? Look at your fingers.” 

Nori dropped the pan on the table and pulled a face at Dwalin, the odd dwarrow always up to verbally spar. 

And to pick Dwalin’s pocket, but that was a game also. Nori always gave it back when Dwalin didn’t, or couldn’t, catch him at it. There were always a few less coins, but they’d be replaced with little trinkets, a sketch of Erebor, an ink stick for Balin, a little tin of bruise salve, little things but Dwalin appreciated them. 

Once he’d entertained the thought that Nori kept his thief’s skills up, at a level to be the Ruddock Thief, but Nori rarely showed skill past pickpocketing, which he did with alarming frequency anyways. 

He coordinated with Dori frequently in order to negotiate bail or jail stays so that Ori wasn’t affected. Nori wasn’t as easy to catch now though, not like he had been as a pebble, Dwalin just traced his path through crowds of disgruntled nobles and merchants with light pockets, and never found the purses on him. 

Nowadays he suspected that nori followed younger pickpockets, relying on Dwalin’s old suspicion of him and drawing his attention away. 

He wasn’t in Ered Luin often, traveling frequently, but he was pretty, and an excellent support for his brothers and adopted clan house. 

If Nori had a slightly better reputation and an inclination to stay in one place for longer than a handful of weeks, then Dwalin would certainly consider courting the clever dwarrow. Until Nori matured enough to settle though, he was still an excellent, and entertaining, acquaintance and friend. 

Balin must’ve known that Nori was visiting his brothers when he suggested they go for tea, instead of home. It was always entertaining to see Nori on its own, but when the tea shop was busy there was an added layer, one that let Dwalin blow off some steam. 

Nori was pretty. 

He wasn’t handsome, not classically for a dwarrow, or even a dam, nor was he he the sturdy sort of beautiful. 

Nori was pretty though, in a thoroughly exotic sort of way for any western dwarrow. He wore his hair in the same three-point style, with his beard mirroring it, and he had the usual clan and line beads in. 

He also wound smaller braids through his peaks, with hints of copper wire, and with the height of his peaks, he must have a true abundance of length. Most dwarrow trimmed their hair to a relatively reasonable length, and kept it their, braid worthy and not cumbersome. 

The ability and honor inherent in true length was sought after. The longer the hair, or beard, the greater the honor, the pride in one’s craft. Dwalin’s own hair was clipped on the shorter end, because he hadn’t been proud of his guard work for many years, and he didn’t keep many braids for the same reason. 

Nori was tightlipped about his Craft and Calling, but his hair reflected his pride in what he did very clearly. 

With that added to the colors he often swiped along his eye lines, and his inklings, odd as they were, and the bits of jewel-like colored fabrics he wore typed to his waist, or embroidered, in what must be a painstaking task, on his leathers, and Nori was indeed, exotic. 

The lack of thickly corded muscle that even little Ori was developing made him rather birdlike, and even now as he flitted around the tea shop, following Dori’s barked directions as he carried teas, cups, and plates alike, Dwalin was not the only dwarrow sighing. 

He was the only dwarrow with Balin’s bony elbow digging into his side to drag him back to reality as Nori darted their way with cups, plates, and a steaming teapot of ceramic. 

Nori threw the things neatly onto the table, ducked under, and wriggled into a seat by the window on Dwalin’s other side as he groaned exhaustedly and rested his head on the table. 

Balin poured the tea, and Dwalin cut the pan’s cake into thirds. Nori sat back, and reached to take Bichfur. She went happily, and gurgled happily around the chunk of doughy berry that Nori offered her. 

“What tea today, then?” Balin asked, eyeing the oddly blue color as he poured it. 

Nori snickered, often plying them with new teas that Dori was unsure about as testers when he brought them back for his brother, “Butterfly pea and rose hip. It’s supposed to be good for clarity and calm, it's from my-, well, my friend Elro.” 

Dwalin stared down into his mug. The honey sweetened milk had turned the tea into a light blueish purple, something between a periwinkle and a cornflower, “Why is it blue?” 

“The butterfly peas are. They can be used as a dye too,” he smirks and shows off the soft blue and purple fabric winding up his arms today, “It’s the special for the day, I managed to convince Dori to allow experimental tea days sometimes, if I'm there to brew it for the first time.” 

Dwalin hums in appreciation and takes a sip. It has a floral, fruity taste, not very hearty at all, but it pairs with the pan’s cake well. He chances a closer look at Nori, who is skillfully feeding Bichfur and drinking his own tea, and feels his ears heat. 

He takes a deeper sip of tea and ignores Balin’s snort. 

Nori’s eyes are ringed in a deep blue, and the gold of his irises seems to glow against it. Dwalin drinks more tea and refills his cup. 

Bichfur coos softly, and Nori tickles her. Dwalin meets his brother’s eyes and sees his amusement and bares his teeth at Balin. Nori is good with children too, of course he is. Damn the dwarrow. 

He’ll leave again soon, Dwalin knows. He wonders if stability and comfort might anchor him better. Thorin has been making noise about trying to reclaim Erebor, those ancient lands. 

He’ll ask Dwalin along of course, and they’ll have to ask Dain for his armies. If that succeeds, if he has a home better than what a guard’s meager pay allows, since it’s not enough to live apart from Balin now, that would be better. 

If they retake Erebor then he’ll ask Nori to court. Nori starts up a conversation with him, about the happenings of Ered Luin. He takes the distraction easily, happy to focus on something other than Nori’s gentle handling of the pebble. 

Nelyo sat in the third pantry, knees tucked up, and his full name written on a slate beside him. Nori was the only person that ever found him here, Kanó might have once, but he didn’t like tight spaces anymore. 

Sure enough it wasn’t long until the wall-door opened, and Nori slipped in with a lamp. The door shut behind him. The third pantry was storage for emergency rations, flour cakes, pickled things, jams, and preserved meats. It was all shelves, and the door didn’t open from the inside. 

After the second time Nelyo had gotten himself stuck Nori had hung a flat board on the shelf outside. Green meant that Nelyo was hiding in there, red meant empty, and if it was green then Nori would crawl in, and Bilbo waited to hear a knock. 

If Nori wasn’t here then Bilbo would periodically check in by knocking gently at the wall, and if Nelyo knocked back then he’d open it. No one other than the adults, Nelyo, and Kanó were tall enough to open it though. 

Nori hung the lamp on the hook over the door, and settled next to him, playfully squishing him against the wall as he giggled weakly. He picked up the slate and turned it over. 

“Nelyafinwë Maitimo Fëanarion.” He read, and picked up the chalk to scribble something underneath in his cramped Tengwar, “You forgot a couple.” 

Nædre Ri-Baggins was below it. Nelyo pursed his lips, and flipped the slate. 

He took the chalk and rewrote the name, with his epessë from Bilbo and Nori and their family name only, adding Nelyo as an afterthought. The slate still looked empty, and he frowned at it. 

“Is there a reason you are in your little den agonizing over your names?” 

This was the worst part about Bilbo and Nori. They were always so calm, and gentle, and they always wanted to talk, and wanted them to talk. The only time he’d heard them yell was when Kori had fallen out of a tree. 

It was awful. Atar would have yelled by now, and given him chores to distract him, or maybe he would have told Nelyo what an honor all of his names were. Ammë would have told him to stop fussing over nothing and go play. Nelyo didn’t like having to figure out the right words every time. 

It was better when he had been an adult and could tell people to go away and he was scary enough that they had. No one had made him talk about feelings then, except Kanó, sometimes. 

“They don’t fit. I don’t like them,” he decided on, and Nori hummed. Nelyo knew what he was going to ask, and he hated it. 

“Why?”

”Nelyafinwë means third Finwë. It was Atar being mean, uncle Nolö’s means third too. Maitimo means pretty. I’m not. They’re awful.” 

Nori tapped his fingers in his thinking gesture, the one he did when he helped with lessons and every time they had deep talks. “You are though, both.” 

Nelyo whipped his head up to look at him and slapped his hands down in frustration on the ground, “No! No, I’m not!” 

“Mmm.” Nori pulled Horns from his coat and handed him to Nelyo. Nelyo took him, trying to pretend he didn’t want the stuffed goat as much as he did. Nori gave him the wide-tooth comb too, and Nelyo gave up, brushing Horns’ yarn coat until it was fluffy as tears started to streak down his face. 

Nori reached out and tugged Nelyo into his side, wrapping him close and kissing the top of his head. They did that a lot, too, Bilbo and Nori. They’d hug them, and cuddle, and kiss, and even carry them, a lot more than Atar and Ammë ever had. 

“Technically, you are Bilbo and I’s third. We had Kori, then Tirmo, then you, then your other brothers woke up. We could change the Finwë though, easily,” Nelyo nodded rapidly, and Nori hummed, “I happen to think you’re beautiful though.” 

“Am not,” Nelyo grumbled, “I don’t have a hand, and I’m scarred all over, half my ear is gone, and my hair isn’t even long enough to braid properly, since we had to cut it.” 

Nori cringed slightly. The journey back from Cuivenien had let his hair grow, until it was just past his shoulders, but Moryo and Kori had been playing, and they’d gotten glue in his hair. It poofed out around his jaw again now. 

“I have scars as well,” Nori said softly, tilting his head to display the silvered line across his nose and up around his ear from an orc blade, “As does Bilbo and Tirmo. Are they ugly too?” 

Nelyo shook his head, holding Horns closer. 

“Good. I didn’t think so either. Your hand isn’t ugly either. Its loss is part of you, same as your ear. We can get you a prosthetic though, hobbit enchantments are good for those.” 

Nelyo giggled a bit. He’d met granberry Daisy already, and she’d lost one of her feet when she was a kid to infection, she said. Her false foot was wood, and it grew out from her knee with curly moss fur like her other one. She’d joked about having to clip leaves off in the spring, and she could run on it easily. 

Nelyo shook his head. He didn’t want a wood hand. 

“Fine, then,” Nori said, standing up and pulling Nelyo with him, “Hair. Let’s go to Bilbo and I’s room, I’ll put some braids in for you.” 

Bilbo let them out and Nelyo followed Nori to the big bedroom, usually he was only in here after nightmares. Nori sat Nelyo on the bed, and got combs, hair ties, beads, and another box that Nelyo didn’t recognize. 

For a long time Nelyo sat there, and he nearly fell asleep on the bed as Nori did his hair, and did things to his face and ears too. 

Nori shook him awake then, and helped him change out of the gray tunic and brown pants he’d stolen from Kanó’s laundry into cream trousers, a bright red tunic, and an equally bright blue tunic. He’d been trying not to wear the bright colors he’d worn in Tírion, but he let Nori dress him anyways. 

Finally Nori led him out, past Tyelko who did a double take with an awed, “Whoa,” down the hall to the bathroom with the best mirror. 

Nelyo looked-

He didn’t look like how he had in Tírion, that innocence and unmarried face was long gone. He did look pretty though, in a different way. 

There was a little silver filigree ear-point cap set over his docked ear, held in place by its shape and by a dangling gem that connected at three points to weigh it down. That was highlighted by his hair, carefully swept into interlocking braids held in place by clips, and pins until it was loose and coiled over and behind his other ear, with dangling beads adding a silver glimmer to his curls. 

Nori had painted his face too, with the colorful creams and powders that they put on themselves often, and he hadn’t realized they had so many colors. 

Each of his scars had been outlined with tiny delicate flowers and vines, as if they were growing out of cracks in his face, and the scars themselves had been traced with the gold kohl that Nori often wore, like the repaired pottery Bilbo loved. 

He squinted, and tried to identify the flowers. They all meant beauty, cherished, and loved. He blinked hard trying not to cry. 

He looked pretty, instead of broken. 

“You,” Nori said quietly, “are very much loved, and valued. Whether or not you were ever pretty never once mattered to Bilbo and I. You are beautiful in mind, and body, and I think you’ll find that elvish standards don’t matter. Your scars are a part of you, and every part of you is lovely, because it is you.” 

Nelyo sobs, and turns to bury his face in the hollow of Nori’s neck. 

The bookshelf in Ori’s room was the best one ever, better than Balin’s library even. Kilí just knew it. It wasn’t pretty, just a series of alcoves carved into the wall, but it was where the Thief’s Key was kept, and that was better than the rest. 

Of course, now it was an excellent resource. Uncle had asked him and Filí how they’d like to reclaim Erebor. Kilí had thought he meant more that if Uncle reclaimed it, if they'd like to live there, but Amád had thought differently, and she’d yelled for hours at him. 

Kilí thought it would be rather fun to help reclaim Erebor, actually, and he said so to his Uncle. Uncle Thorin had laughed, and agreed, but Kilístill listened to his advice not to tell Amád. 

If he was to help with that, whenever it happened, then he had to know what was out there. Kilí hadn’t ever left Ered Luin, not really. He had gone to the surface trees to hunt, but never alone, and never far. Erebor was far indeed. 

Ori was a good sport about it, always willing to reread his favorite books from Nori, and Filí was too, helping compile a travel guide of sorts from where Key and Spoons went. 

Kilí didn’t know when Uncle intended to retake Erebor, but he did hope it was soon. It was getting harder to live in Ered Luin when so many people hated Uncle. 

He curled between Ori and Filí and opened the latest volume, the eleventh, for the sixth time. This one had two medium journeys, one south to the dead marshes, they’d had to look on a map for that one, and one to Forodwaith, where apparently there were still ice drakes. 

This one would be important, he just knew it. 

Bilbo yawned widely as he gathered strewn and sodden moccasins to hang on their hooks by the door and dry. Tirmo had decided just last week, as soon as his brothers had all gotten used to his preferred epessë, that he thought Kanó would be better. 

He still responded better to Tirmo during panic attacks, and nightmares, but now the second eldest went by Kanó in his waking hours and was determinedly trying to force words past his lips. 

It was not going particularly well, he’d managed three words thus far, all quiet murmurs, and two of them had been followed by impressive panic attacks. 

Still, he’d said his second word, no, to Nelyo when his brother had been asking pushy questions, and again louder when he had not stopped. Bilbo had happened upon the results of that and had put Nelyo in the corner while he counted breaths with Tirmo. 

Then he’d sent Tirmo for tea with Nori and had a very long talk with Nelyo about boundaries. Apparently boundaries had not previously existed for Nelyo, he was oldest, he was intended to raise them and hold his brothers together, and therefore he had never acknowledged such things. 

Nelyo had never squirmed so much as he had during the conversation following. Apparently the reprieve in boundary pushing during the travel back to the Shire had been due entirely to Nelyo readjusting and becoming comfortable. 

Once he had he had tough it his job to help push his brothers into healing and how they’d used to be. Part of that previously had been to force his brothers to talk, so that he knew whatever situation had occurred and could fix it. 

What had worked in the first age though, worked better on military situations and adult siblings. This was not that, and Bilbo had begun large lists on the wall tracking boundaries and limits for all of them to pay attention to. Nelyo often sat and studied that list afterwards. 

Tirmo’s third word had been during a quieter evening with the younger playing quietly, and the rest reading. It had been too quiet, and with only the fire and a lamp to light the room, Tirmo had been increasingly nervous. 

Eventually he had gently tugged Nori’s sleeve and asked, very softly, “Song?” 

It was his worst reaction to date, surpassing even nightmares and flashbacks as he immediately drew the mental comparison to his own captors’ demands. Multiple siblings had been frightened and hastened off to bed, and Tirmo had not so much as breathed too loud for a week. It was following this that he decided he liked Kanó better for daily use. 

His first, of course, had been when he had come up to Bilbo and offered up a crying Curvo, awake from his nap, with a soft, desperate, “Atto?” They had still been traveling then, and Nori had been playfully jealous about not getting an Adád from him yet. 

Bilbo was pretty certain that Kanó was saving that for dramatic effect. 

Curvo, they had discovered, was prone to nightmares that devastated the infant, so that he cried hard enough to choke on his breath and turn blue at the lips. Even Tyelko had been taught to rub his sternum gently and encourage him to breathe. 

Atto became a semi-frequent word after that, as Kanó demanded Bilbo’s attention, the first of their adopted children to call him that, though Moryo quickly followed. 

Even as he grew more comfortable with quiet, but firm, no’s, and increasingly purposeful noise, though his humming never grew louder than his softest breaths, Atto remained his most common word, alongside the three tone waver he seemed to use for Nori specifically. 

He hadn’t even said his brothers’ names since he’d seen their statues in that clearing. He had signs for each of them, little particular twists of initials and an assigned flower. 

He ran though, danced from place to place on nimble feet, leant strength by practice and determination both, and slowly his child’s resilience meant the energy inherent in him had outlets. 

He played his harp often, in the garden and library most, would tap rhythms with his fingers, a spoon, his feet, music ruled him, and he loved it, but Bilbo knew that it had once been far more of a comfort than it was now, if purely from the sorrow they looked at him with when Kanó wasn’t looking. 

They still didn’t know the whole of what had happened. Tyelko chattered too much, and Nelyo worried, and stressed, and would ask too many questions of Bilbo, Nori, and Kanó. It was easier to say that he had been hurt, and was healing than to have rumors amongst the children get warped. 

But Kanó, Tirmo, was acting like a normal, if unnaturally silent, child the majority of the time, wrestling with his siblings, snatching the last cookie, even getting irritated when someone bothered him while he read. 

He had even explained the old Noldor tradition of bestowing a name to welcome someone to the family, be it by birth or adoption, as a way to help them welcome his brothers in. 

Names had continued to be a sticky issue, and the presentation of mixed traditions, their new names as a gift, mixed in with the old, written into the Ri-Baggins Line Book, the one they had co-opted from Mam and Da’s study, with the death dates for the fell winter all neatly penned in above the record of his and Nori’s marriage. 

The Line Book had stayed on display for two years, until the upcoming trip to Rivendell let Bilbo pack it away, and one child or another would come and trace their name, whether they could read it or not. 

Kanó, having been granted his first, was the only one who didn’t go and trace his name regularly. Instead he wrote it on anything and everything that he could possibly claim. Kanatirmo Mágalorë Sangfugôl Ri-Baggins had been etched neatly on his harp, his fiddle gifted to him by Daisy, his bed, and stitched into his clothes. 

Bilbo was beyond proud of how far he had come, even to the point that he now had to plan a trip to Rivendell, because Kanó had easily decided that Bilbo should tell Elrond what had happened to him, although he’d been cagey on anyone other than Elrond having permission.

Kanó had realized that there were other bards, and copies written, of parts if not the whole, of the Noldodantë. Kanó had realized, where even Bilbo and Nori hadn’t, that any other elf at all could be at risk of being shoved in a cave as a captive minstrel if that town so chose when they found him missing in less than half a decade. 

At least the children were all excited about the trip for the moment, packing gleefully and arguing about turns on the cart and horse. As if anyone were going to be permitted to ride the ornery beast Elrond had given them, it was a cart horse through and through. 

Olórin liked to pretend he was wise. Curumo thought he was. Aiwendíl was of the opinion that neither was either. 

Allatar and Pallando were wise, as much as one could claim such a thing. They were told to go east, and did, and then they died. 

Aiwendíl had followed the echoes of their deaths. Pallando had been meant to offer passage to Aman to the last of the elves hiding in Cuivenien. Allatar was meant to guide them. 

In the face of Utumno’s odd sentience, a grinding mind entirely unlike that of Melkor, how he had become or the thing he became. The pair had tied their very life force into a ward around the remnants of Utumno, tied it back to sleep. 

Aiwendíl had never had opportunity to see Melyanna’s girdle, nor to know its effects. This must surpass it though, he had thought, for his fellow Istär had tied not only their own life force into holding the new threat back, but several others, holding a whole forest to wither into ever spreading desert as the trees fell to the ward. 

Aiwendíl had strengthened it as much as he dared, humming the secret tunes and spells Lady Yavannah had taught him long ago when he was young. Then he had fled, far and fast, and told no one. 

He was not wise. He knew that. He was a coward, a lover of nature, and young. Yavannah had sent him to watch for specific signs, signs that occurred before each upheaval. He hadn’t known what to do when he actually found one, one that had doubtlessly long been there considering the things slipping past the ward. 

He discounted the awake state of Utumno as a sign. It did not count, could not count. So, for a time, Aiwendíl was content, to sit in his forests and simply be. 

He did watch though, as he was bid. 

Curumo believed himself wise, little protege of Aulë held at arms length after Mairôn’s betrayal that he was. He collected knowledge, and hoarded it, and pretended loyalty to his purpose as if he were not hiding away in his tower like the cockroach he was becoming. 

Olórin wasn’t much better, Nienna’s favorite forever trying to fix the little sorrows of the world. For a time it wasn’t bad, what Olórin did. He would bring comfort to the elves, companionship to the hard hearted dwarrow, curiosity to the short-lived men. 

It wasn’t until he brought the hobbits out that Aiwendíl began to truly watch. Funny things he called them, things he had not seen in the tapestry of the world. Olórin was curious, and he began to drag them out on journeys, short things, and just one family, the Tooks. 

The hobbits did not go on their own accord though, for many generations of men they only accompanied Olórin. Then, all of a sudden, they did. Still Tooks, and never far from their sanctuary, and always, always in groups. 

Children began to vanish again. Some mannish, some orcish, wailed about in that terrible black tongue, as if the orcs could grieve in some fell manner. Dwarrow children vanished in the flight from Erebor, and the Tooks that wandered had regained that old fell light from before the Lamps. 

Still, Aiwendíl did not speak. He was not wise. 

He did not tell Olórin the ancient tales, the old legends and older lessons. And when he met Belladonna Took, and he felt the crossing of half of Arda’s creations in her Song he said nothing. 

He said nothing when he met her son, and his husband, and their fell, fey, impossible children. He sent no word to his fellows, to Curumo and Olórin, nor the ashes of a letter to the ward-remnant of Allatar and Pallando. 

He said not even a prayer to the Lady Yavannah, aside from the ominous humming, it begins, it is here, they return. It begins, it begins, it begins. 

He hummed what the song already sang. Those who listened knew. Aiwendíl was not wise. 

Instead he carved whistles for the children, and beads, and let them pet his rabbits. They were good children. They always had been. 

Elrond stared in utter dismay at the multitude of children being unloaded from the cart. The second oldest, young, and scarred, and still so silent, waves cheerfully. His new brace, in verdant green, gleams on his hand. 

The oldest sees him and lights up. He is missing a hand. 

His inner voice sounds an awful lot like Glorfindel, as it muses about an invasion between his ears. The actual Glorfindel stands to his right, eyes to the heavens and lips pressed together. He looks defeated. 

Erestor, to his right is darting glances between each child, and his breath catches when he sees the toddler in grey and brown, clutching an older-than-before Kori’s hand where she stands in eyewateringly bright shades of blue. 

Erestor is his cousin, by adoption, Elrond abruptly remembers, the son of Haleigh, and who was undoubtedly Caranthir Fëanorien, whether or not he acknowledged it publicly. 

This- had the potential to have far reaching consequences. 

“Bilbo,” he said, “Welcome. Nori. Atya. Kori. Others?” 

Elrond phrased the last as a question, hoping that somehow he was wrong. 

Bilbo beamed at him, “Our other children. They were void-statues, and Nori and I didn’t like that, and Kanatirmo definitely didn’t. So we fixed it.” 

The set of Bilbo’s jaw was the same as when he had told Lady Galadriel off for actions alike to those of Sauron’s when she had prodded at minds not her own. The feral grin on Nori’s was the exact same as when he had introduced his toddler anew as Elrond’s aunt. 

“May I introduce,” began Nori, “Our children, Nelyacolla, Kanátirmo, Tyelkolimbë, Koriänder, Moryovanië, and our youngest, Curufinkít. Of course, the names did alter slightly after any adoptions.” 

Elrond whined in the back of his throat, inaudibly. Glorfindel made a choking noise, which unfortunately drew the attention of the previously squabbling younger children. Tyelkolimbë saw him first. 

“Oh!” The little silver elfling said, and even Erestor sucked a breath in, “Oh! He looks like a fancy, priss version of cousin Lobelia. Ew.” 

Elrond pauses, he had perhaps expected a jab about the fall of Gondolin from the reborn elf who had been assigned as the cruel. Erestor snorts next to him, and Glorfindel reels back. 

“I- who?” He manages, and Bilbo cackles. 

“A cousin of mine’s daughter, on my father’s side. In Tyelko’s defense, Lobelia truly is an odious child, pronged to bullying. And she does, in fact, have a passing resemblance,” Bilbo pauses, squints at Glorfindel, “Or, perhaps, more accurately, you both resemble marigolds rather strongly, moreso than each other.” 

Glorfindel stares at the group, clearly unable to formulate a good response. 

Despite himself, Elrond is glad of it. He hadn’t necessarily wanted to meet his adoptive uncles, but he had wished to see Atto again, and to see Atya at least happier. This can suffice, as odd as it is. 

He is far less enthused when several days into the month long stay, when Bilbo passes him in the halls and says, “Choose your most trusted for a delicate matter. Nori plans to take the children to play in the gardens and woods later, your twins and Lindir have offered to help. Kanó has given permission to tell you what happened to him, and I’ll do so away from them.” 

Elrond had nodded, and gathered Erestor and Glorfindel into his study later with Bilbo. He was curious, especially after being politely rebuffed for almost eight years now, the few times his letters had returned read and not unreceived. 

Glorfindel began, “As I think I need to ask, is there a reason why you are telling us now? Is this likely to reoccur? Do we need to help protect your children?” 

Bilbo pinched his lips and considered, “No, my children are quite safe. If any are at risk I believe it would be Lindir, those elves intending to sail, maybe, and very slightly the Gray Havens as a whole.” 

Elrond blinks, and takes far to long to process that, “That seems unlikely. The Gray Havens have stood for longer than the Ages of the World.” 

“I didn’t say it was a realistic risk, or even one likely to be a threat. The greatest threat is to Lindir, as I said.” 

Erestor leans forward, folding his fingers together in a familiar gesture that Elrond has now also seen multiple times from a toddler visiting at his table, “Please, do explain.” 

Bilbo hums, “First, we did not intend to find Tirmo, Kanó, in the first place. It was an accident, I don’t regret it, and neither does Nori, but it was not a joyful finding. I am going to give bare facts of the situation, and you may ask questions. This is not a tale, and I will not trivialize it by making it so.” 

Elrond forces himself to nod stiffly, then recalls something, “Wait, you said you found him from something in my books. How was that an accident?” 

“Your books had a reference to a theory that Maglor Fëanorien wandered the shores of Endor singing the Noldodantë forevermore. Another book mentioned a haunting singing along the shore on occasion.” Bilbo fixes Elrond with a look of unflappable calm, “I had not seen the coast, we used an idle curiosity as excuse to explore such things.” 

Elrond gulps quietly. He had investigated such things himself, as had Elros before his death, Celebrimbor before his, and Lindir even now, if only from idle interest on the minstrel’s part. 

“Mmm,” Bilbo nods, “Yes, idle curiosity, that was all.” 

It was oddly condemning and Elrond could not meet his eyes. 

“It did lead us to a small town, much reduced from its former glory, called Phantom’s Silence. Do you know it?” 

It was a Numenorean port city, Elrond did know it, as did Erestor. It had been one of the better cities to dock and return to when he had visited his brother so long ago. 

He nodded, and Erestor reached for the map shelf, the oldest of them had a shell bound copy of the oldest. 

“Do not let any elf, least of all Lindir, near to that place,” Bilbo said sharply, “Not ever.” 

Erestor froze, his hands on the map, and Glorfindel stiffened sharply. Elrond leaned forward, intently, as Vilya warmed on his finger. “Why.” 

Bilbo leaned back, an air of odd power rising around him as well, one that made Glorfindel’s breath audibly catch as his eyes dilated. Erestor scooted closer to Glorfindel as Elrond’s power and authority of all of Imladris battered firmly against the wild fury of Bilbo’s hobbitish composure. 

“Enough, Inyo,” Bilbo said, baring his sharp teeth, “You are young yet, in the Song’s sight, and your trinket is too preoccupied to help here. I am not your vassal.” 

Elrond leaned back, and frowned. He had not fully intended to do what had apparently been a challenge. It was a trick that Maglor had taught him as an elfling, to thread power into his voice, lend it an air of authority to ask for truth. To demand honesty. It was not easily bypassed, but it could certainly be ignored, only that Elrond would feel the lie. 

It was habit when asking questions that had to do with threats to his realm, after what had befallen his cousin’s realm when he had ignored the same precautions with Annatar. 

Erestor shivered next to him, and Elrond swayed as exhaustion hit him at the same time as Vilya becoming icy on his hand and the roots threaded through his exhausted feä became a thorny weight. Careful, whispered in the recesses of his mind, Careful, Inyo, in meddling with what you do not know. 

“Why?” He asked again, ragged with fatigue, “What is the threat?” 

“Tirmo wandered the shores singing the Noldodantë. This is a fact, one he has confirmed,” Elrond nods and his advisor and captain nod with him. The hobbit continues solemnly, “The Noldodantë is predominantly a lament, this too is a fact. The third fact of relevance is that Edain respond poorly to a threat or power that they cannot fight.” 

Glorfindel lets out a tiny moan of despair, and Elrond looks at him, “They mourned. A whole city of Edain mourned and they did not know why. There have been bigger consequences for the reaction to battle songs left unfinished, the Great Alliances betrayal, for one.” 

A chill goes down Elrond’s spine. Bilbo nods, and even Erestor shudders horribly. 

“They caught the source of mourning, and apparently even then he looked ragged, and so they thought him a ghost, not an elf. They chained him in a sea cave, a remnant of drowned orc tunnels from Bereliand. According to the city’s patchy records and myths, he still sang chained there in the dark.” 

Glorfindel leans forward, eyes sharp, removed from this as he is by the ties of kinship, “There are regular scars around his mouth. Deep and pitted, as if they have been there an age, and inflicted over and over again. They sewed his mouth shut to stop him singing. The greatest bard of the Noldor, and they sewed his lips.” 

Elrond sobs, without fully meaning to, and Bilbo looks at him, gentle and immovable. 

“Yes.” 

Erestor turns the map, now retrieved, over in his hands. “The city has been called Phantom’s silence since early in the Second Age. Since before King Tar-Minyatar died.” He taps the maker's date on the map nervously. 

“He learned of Elros from a history book when we visited first,” Bilbo confirmed, “He knew of Numenor, and Elros’ choice, but not much past that at all.” 

“How is he alive?” Erestor asks, quietly awed, “Even the strongest among us would have faded after that long with food or sunlight.” 

“That ‘or’ was his undoing,” Bilbo said quietly, and he pats Elrond’s hand gently, lifting it into Erestor’s lap where they can cling to each other for support, Glorfindel rubbing Erestor’s arm in support also. 

Glorfindel looks at Elrond with ancient eyes full of tree light, and then at Bilbo, solemn and sad, “They didn’t forget him. There are still persistent, almost regular, rumors of Maglor singing by the beaches amongst elves, and they keep their name still.” 

“Just so. There was a whole superstitious tradition that was in place, one that both preserved his life and prolonged his suffering,” Bilbo met each of their eyes, “I do not think any of the Eldar could withstand such a thing and come away with their sanity intact. I remain unsure that Tirmo did. His mind has remodeled itself after a hobbits’ to an extent. 

“What-“ Elrond’s voice cracked and wavered, and he cleared his throat before continuing, “What was done to keep him from fading?” 

Bilbo held his gaze, and sighed, “Every forty years the elders of that town would venture into the caves. They would cut the thread from his lips, ply him with wine, fishbroth, and honeyed water. Tirmo hasn’t said whether he drank of his own accord or whether they poured it down his throat, and I don’t think it matters.” 

Elrond gulps thickly. The fishbroth alone could easily reset an elf from the brink of starvation, full of protein and vitamins as it was. He used it often in his healing halls. The wine on a starved stomach would cause severe inebriation, no matter how much tolerance a body had previously. 

The honey-water would allow for a dry, raw throat to speak, and considering Maglor’s firm refusal to make a sound, even now years after, Elrond could hazard a guess at where this was going, “They made him sing,” he rasped. 

Erestor had pressed a hand to his mouth, at Elrond’s words, and Glorfindel looked as grim as Elrond had ever seen him. 

“Yes. They would come every forty years, like clockwork, release his voice, ignore any pleas he might have had, feed him, water him, get him drunk, make him sing, and stitch his lips shut once more.” 

Elrond, in an awful moment of medical clarity, recalled a text he had referenced, and expounded on himself. Edain, when drunk, lost inhibition and memory alike, minds fuzzing, but they were often biddable. Dwarrow became boisterous, belligerent, and also their memories fuzzed. 

Eldar reacted without any impact to the retention of memory, or at least to a lack of. Rather, their minds addled under the drink, becoming biddable, yes, and jovial regardless of situation, and their inhibitions vanished on the wind, left to the whims of instinct, impulse, and suggestion. 

There was a reason that elves drank at festivals, and amongst their own kind only, with very rare exceptions. 

When the drink wore off however, the Eldar would recall, with the perfect clarity and retention innate to the firstborn, exactly what had occurred, or been done. When occurrences rarely progressed past terrible dances and drunken songs, this was well.

He could easily imagine how a tormented mind would take the dreamlike, hazy, strong recollection of perfectly clear memories of drunken hurt and internalize it entirely. 

Elrond clutched Erestor’s hand tight, as he realized exactly how broken his father had become. Erestor clutched him back, old enough to recall his uncle from when Maglor had ruled the Gap, riding fast and singing on the wind. 

“You cannot let Lindir go to the coast, not without escort, nor without warning. No one else either really, but Lindir especially.” Bilbo said fiercely, and as one the three elf lords agreed. 

Later, as he watched Bilbo doting on the feared Fëanoriens, now children and healing as they had not been able to for any period of time after their grandfather’s death, he calculated a rough estimate of how long his beloved Atya had been tormented. 

He did not know he could feel this furious. 

Kanatirmo, the child in his father’s place, laughed silently below him, scrubbing a hand through a protesting Tyelko’s hair, rough and playful, and taken out at the knees by a charging Kori. 

He was happy, now. 

He supposed in the end, that was all he wanted, really. 

Thorin stares at the map and key that Thârkun had placed down in front of him. The wizard had been cagey about how long he had held these relics, these artifacts, his inheritance from him. 

It was hope and terror rolled into one. He ground his teeth together, not daring to look at the wizard for fear of losing the tenuous hold on his temper. 

“It is time, oh King Under the Mountain, to retake your home,” the wizard said, and blew out a lungful of smoke. This was not a smoke-shelter, the ventilation was not designed to filter pipe weed and burnt breath. 

Thorin coughed and his eyes watered. The wizard drew in another breath, uncaring. 

Balin sighed beside him, “Well, at least it is fortuitous timing, what with the increasing unwelcome here in Ered Luin. Shall I draw up an expedition's contract then, my prince?” 

Thorin’s eyes slip shut, the image of a key to one of many hidden doors seared onto his eyelids. Many secret doors there were, many passages too. They had but one map and key though, one chance without such provisions of an army like that from the first age. 

Thorin loved the old stories of ancient elves. For all the animosity he bore the elves today, for their impassivity and apathy, and the help needed and ungiven, he loved the old tales of ancient dwarrow and elves long gone. 

He knew though, that both elves and dwarrow were diminishing, overtaken by quick-lived impulsive, savage men kind. 

Perhaps if they succeeded, if they slayed Smaug like those ancient warriors, that slayed and hurt great beasts of their own, Turin, Fingolfin, Felakgund, that great friend of dwarves, and even Echthelion, then they would succeed indeed, rise to a height again, ceasing their slow march towards obscurity. 

All of those great warriors died, most in battle, Thorin knew. Very few great warriors remained indeed, and Thorin might trust in Mahal’s guidance, but he had no illusions that he would be granted divine aid as those in elder days were. 

Thorin looked at the map again. 

“Yes,” he said to Balin, “Draw up a contract, and spread word inviting any who would come. It will be voluntary not compulsory, I will not conscript those who have other duties or loyalties, as my father did for Moria.” 

The wizard harrumphed, “Call who you will, and I will offer another name. I suggest you see to drawing what aid you can, and proof of concept is good for that indeed.” 

Thorin puzzled over the wizard’s words a moment, he hated riddled speech with a passion. Dís was far better at such things than he. Balin was too, as he hummed, “Expedition contract indeed. You mean to steal from the dragon first, to prove it can be done, draw aid from our cousins in the Hills.” 

“Hah,” Thorin barked, “Have Dwalin ask his thief friend, see how long it takes to get a no, a dwarrow skilled enough to steal from a dragon? Hah! We’ll bring dirks and the sword of Echthelion too, shall we? Perhaps e’en Aeglos or Gurthang! Hah, you are mad, Thârkun, mad!” 

“If you would allow me to offer council, I have one in mind, to offer, one of a family and a people I know and who would be most capable. A burglar, if one supposed,” the wizard blew another mouthful of smoke out, and frowned severely, “I shall give you directions to his house, and you might pick him up on your way. I might even guide you, for I would find it amongst my sworn duty to aid this endeavor.” 

“Pretty words,” said Balin softly, “For a declaration assuredly made with ulterior motives.” 

“Aye, but those motives are my own, and they center on the dragon being slain. A matter which benefits us both may be collaborated on, yes?” The wizard agreed, and Thorin grunted his assent. 

“Mutual benefit. Hmph. Oddly dwarfish logic there, wizard. Since then, you have your own benefits indeed, then you shall have no share in the spoils, though we will offer it to your burglar.” 

Balin glanced sideways at him, then nodded and wrote it down. The wizard merely smiled pleasantly, wretched thing. 

“Timing?” Balin asked quietly. 

“I wish to be setting out in a month's time, as winter turns to spring.” Thorin slumped slightly, and allowed the hope to overtake his terror for a moment, “I wish to have this done, so we might know with assurance, whether the dwarves of Durin’s line will have a home once more, or if we are to follow those faithless elves to the fated memories of men.” 

Balin nodded, and Thorin ran a finger on the key. They’d succeed, they had to.  

Chapter Text

“This begins the first Travel Log of Ori, house of Ri. Thirteen we number, in the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, listing our leader as Thorin Oakenshield, of the Line of Durin. Joining him are Dwalin, Balin, Gloín, and Oín of the Lines of In, Bifur, Bombur, and Bofur of the Line of Ur, Dori, Nori, and Ori of the Line of Ri, most reluctantly on Nori’s part, though. Dori forced him to sign. Also amongst us are both Kilí and Filí of the line of Durin also, though Lady Dís is most displeased with them for it.” 

- Excerpt from the Travel Log of Ori, to be scribed later as a historical account. 

Nori sat on Durhul grumpily, having been the only one with a pony already, and thus having loaded her bags not with his own luggage to return to his family, as had been his plan, but with everyone else’s as well, and now he had to sit on top of the poor pony to prevent her from her goal of biting who ever strayed close. 

She’d already bitten Gloín, the wizard, and a very startled Balin. Nori had snuck her carrots anyways, rewarding her for once for her petty aggression. The mare was elderly now, only went the distance between Ered Luin and the Shire, and she was not happy about her company. 

Served her well. She didn’t want to be here, and neither did Nori. 

Dwalin had come, eager and excited to invite Nori on a quest to fight a Mahal damned dragon. Nori wasn’t sure what part of their friendship had given Dwalin the impression that he was at the trust level to invite Nori on a death quest, but he needed to fix that. 

He refused, of course, and Dwalin’s face had fallen comically fast. Balin, nearby and talking with Dori, had turned and even Dori had looked briefly furious. It had ended with Dori insisting on signing the contract, half to spite Nori, and Ori doing so as well from a twisted sense of reckless curiosity. 

Nori had done so as well, purely to keep his idiot brothers alive, as had the Ur’s, from loyalty and such especially, Nori thought. He had not wished to sign the contract, not really, it was very much against hobbit culture to bind oneself to legal promises. 

It was one of the many things he chose to follow, if only because loopholes and bindings were tricky enough before wordsmiths like Balin got involved. 

He had anyways, and now they all followed a cheerful wizard southeast after who was apparently their last member. The wizard was going to leave them to camp overnight, and ride to meet their last member in the morning, before they all met him there. 

Nori was not enthused. The few times that Bilbo and he had joined with strangers, or taken them with them, had ended poorly, their children the only exception. The wizard was also holding something back, and he knew it. There were instructions, on where to go, and little else for the next day. 

He had not seen those directions. Apparently they would arrive in groups, and Dori was not sharing his copy. Stubborn mule of a brother that he was. He slid off of Durhul and grabbed the satchel that was all he had for travel, considering how much else had been put on Durhul until they had more ponies to redistribute luggage onto. 

Pointedly he ignored Dori to sit beside Bofur, with Bifur providing a barrier on his other side. There were twigs in his hair, his peaks that were so well suited to Ered Luin, were not anywhere else. 

He pulled out his comb and bag of ties and beads that he wore usually, and a pick for the tangles. He put his hair oil on the ground and miserably tugged at a twig. 

It came out with multiple leaves attached and Bofur snorted loudly, turning away to poorly muffle his laughter into his shoulder. Bifur snickered once and pulled out his own comb, turning, to help unravel the short braid behind him, of all the hair leftover after his peaks. 

Then Bifur paused, his eyes widening as Nori took over, unwrapping and unraveling his hair from the armature wire holding it in place. With each peak down, Bifur would help comb and oil it, as did Bofur after he stopped laughing, but the pile of twigs in front of him kept growing. 

Most of the other dwarrow around the fire were politely looking away, but Dori was occasionally tossing looks of quiet, dejected fury their way, and everyone else would occasionally glance over, awed as Nori kept unwrapping more. 

He had stopped actively growing it nearly a decade ago, but even at the length he kept it trimmed, it was nearly to his ankles. His braids pulled the length up to his knees, where all of the children, and Bilbo, could play with them, running the lengths of his three braids through their hands. 

Typically, in the tighter, well oiled, long and beaded braids he kept it he would need only to maintain it every few days, whereas the peaks had to be taken down, braided loosely for bed, and redone each morning. It was exhausting, and Nori gladly redid his hair into his preferred braids. 

His wooden beads went in, some with children’s teeth marks from first Kori, the briefly, Moryo, and now Curvo, and the longer wood clasp that Kanó and Tyelko chewed when nervous, which earned odd looks from Bofur, and dawning realization from Bifur, who thankfully said nothing. 

His wedding braid he wore like usual, the silvery bead by his temple as the braid which held it wove loosely through the larger one above it, and he secured it with his spiked copper wires and bronze clasps, all carefully turning his lengthy braids into a melee weapon, should he so choose. 

Dwalin was staring at him and Nori bared his teeth, “What? Travel braids are far more practical, and I prefer them anyways.” 

“Ah,” Bofur muttered, watching Nori hook his courting ribbon, the silver stitching long faded to a dingy texture only, into the clasp at the top braid and wrap it carefully down the top half tightly, tying it with loose tails underneath the braid, “That explains much.” 

Nori looks at him, and Bofur stares back, looking oddly shocked, “What?” 

Ori giggled loudly, “That was the fastest braiding I’ve ever seen. You must do them a lot since you travel so much. There’s so much stuff! Where is all of it from?” 

“I made most of them,” Nori said slowly, accepting his bowl of stew from Kilí who was passing them around from the pot over the fire, Bombur ladling yet more bowls up. 

Balin cleared his throat loudly, and Dwalin went oddly red, jerking back from his brother as if he’d been elbowed. Nori squinted at him uncertainly. 

“Are you alright Dwalin? You’re awfully flushed, do you have a fever? I have cold medicines, or the herbs for them at least, in my bag if you’d like tea.” 

“Sure,” Dwalin said, “Sounds great. Love your- love your tea.” 

Dori made an odd strangled sound, and Ori snickered. Bofur cringed beside him. Nori nodded sagely, “That’s the right reaction. Medicinal teas taste awful. Give me a second, I’ll grab my kettle.” 

Balin made a sound like Dori’s, and Bombur sighed deeply. Nori eyed them all. Weirdos. 

Dwalin did indeed make a face as if the tea had offended him mortally when Nori handed it to him, but Nori glared at him until he’d drained the mug, grimacing the whole time. A head cold was a terrible way to start a quest. 

At least this stupid quest wouldn’t be totally boring, he thought, with how many questions he’d soon have to answer. The following afternoon as they followed Dori’s scribbled directions directly into the Shire he amended that statement. 

It wouldn’t be boring at all. 

The soft border chimes had spread through the Shire just before tea-time. Big folk through the Shire. It was rare, planned drills were more common, most big folk stuck to Bree and the outskirts, but some did cut through. 

The drills were commonplace now, in the decade since Nori and Bilbo had brought home their children the expeditions for families to claim their own had quietly increased. The Gamgees alone had three taken children, two goblins and a manchild, from Daisy’s trip with Nori. 

So when the bells chimed, and spread, a warning that Bilbo was happy to pass along as he swung his own warning bell, he watched all six of his children grab their toys, blankets, and books, and head inside, Kanó carrying Curvo. Daisy’s own were doing likewise, across the path, as Marigold and Haddix clung to their older siblings, and Toren lugged the chubby baby Samwise in. 

All up and down Hobbiton the children went in, and watched through curtains, as adults chose defensive positions to look busy and be still well able to fight if the big folk weren’t friendly. 

Bilbo thanked the Song that today had been practical lessons in the garden, and that he was wearing his old gardening clothes, which looked appropriately hobbitish. Any other day he would have been in his usual flowing silks tucked into sensible waistcoats and dwarfish bracers. 

He grabbed up a gardening cap, and roughly shoved his curls up, and sat smoking by the gate, watching Daisy pull weeds beside her own. She tapped the ground by Bilbo’s feet and he looked down to see Grump, Moryo’s stuffed owl. 

He glanced back at the windows, caught Moryo’s eye, held Grump up, and made a show of tucking him into his shirt for safekeeping. Moryo nodded firmly, and chewed his lip nervously. Kori, always at Moryo’s side, held up her little arctic fox, Fennel, and danced him smugly. 

The curtain fell as the two began to shove each other and Nelyo pulled them back exasperatedly. Bilbo chuckled, and turned back to watch the road. 

It wasn’t five minutes until a wizard came sauntering up the road. Gandalf, who had been invited to his mother’s funeral after dragging her off so often before, and hadn’t bothered to come. Gandalf who hadn’t visited the Shire in almost fifty years, since well before the Fell Winter, who had nonetheless been counted as one of Mam’s dearest friends. 

Try as he might, Bilbo could not recall that conversation later. He’d tried to be polite, to drive the wizard off with curt pleasantries. He remembered nothing past good morning however, as the moment that the wizard had responded with a riddle the blood had roared in his ears. 

Bilbo blinked and he was inside his smial, leaning on the door as all his children watched him nervously, and he counted his breaths. It didn’t work very well, and Bilbo tipped his head back against the door, and wished Nori were there. 

“Atto?” Kanó asked, soft and only audible because of the silence from anything other than his voice and Bilbo’s own harsh breaths. 

“I’ll be fine, my loves,” Bilbo choked out, “Just old memories and older anger, is all.” 

Nelyo hummed, “He asked- he asked if you would go on an adventure.” 

“Ah. Did he? What did I say?” 

His oldest children all exchange odd looks, and Moryo reaches for the lump under his shirt that is Grump. Kanó signs at him delicately, “Said no. Said adventures are nasty, uncomfortable.” 

Bilbo looks at his children’s nervous faces, used to the infrequent longer trips, and the more frequent shorter trips to the woods around the Shire to practice foraging, and snorts despite himself, “Why, of course they are. One never gets to plan properly for adventures. Our family trips and walkabouts are much nicer, wouldn’t you say?” 

As one they relax. Bilbo snickers despite himself, “Alright, everyone is going to change out of garden clothes into whatever is comfiest. After a scare like that I suppose we’ll have inside lessons, and we’ll all make cookies and frost cream.” 

They all scramble off, save Curvo who is plopped in the corner, looking confused by the turn of events. Elves, even ones shifted to be partly Æthel, age slowly. Roughly six years to a mannish one. 

It mostly means that he and Nori get to spoil all their children for a very long time indeed, and gleefully so. It also means that Curvo has just now hit the age to start learning coordination. He is mobile, if clumsy, but certainly not enough to dress himself without backwards clothes and mismatched buttons. 

Bilbo scoops him up, and takes him with him to put him in his favorite black jumper and red overalls. Bilbo is perfectly happy with house silks, and he’s sure that the other children will simply wear either favorite outfits or pajamas as well, comfort days in the smial are valued highly. 

The remainder of the morning slips away into multiple batches of cookies, and lunch is a mushroom soup, always hit or miss with the younger kids, but with the distraction of frost cream making later, they all eat it. 

Bilbo is on edge though, and they can all tell, listening for bells and trying to keep activities away from windows. Poor Nelyo and Kanó pick up on it the most, Nelyo redirecting Tyelko and Kori’s antics as much as he can, and Kanó becoming clingy again, hovering and stepping lightly, his harp abandoned on his bed by a satchel. 

The inherent chaos of the household returns with a flourish with the frost cream, as Bilbo kneads bread, and starts a stew and the children all playfully fight over flavours as they mix their creams. 

Nelyo vanishes, and comes back from the deep cellar with a bucket of ice chips, the only one trusted to wield the chip chisel yet, and Bilbo gets the little churns down. Kanó stretches and exchanges his little churn for a medium one, and amongst the uproar of his brothers, signs that he’s making some for Bilbo. 

Then all tension from the wizard’s wander is forgotten as a new fight breaks out as suddenly all of them want to share with Bilbo, but only Kanó planned enough to make extra cream. Eventually the compromise is reached that Bilbo gets a bowl of Kanó’s and a spoon from everyone else’s. 

Nelyo, having lobbied to give Bilbo all of his and share with Kanó, is the most disappointed by this. Bilbo has to gently point out that as much as Nelyo likes his flavored cream of honeyed fermented garlic and corn. 

Bilbo will eat his spoonful from Nelyo, but he has never understood Nelyo’s bizarre flavor choices. He doesn’t want a full bowl. 

He relaxes in the comfort of his children chattering, in the steady clunks of the churns, and the soft murmurs of Moryo helping Curvo with his churn, as Kori occasionally works both hers and Moryo’s, one hand on each with great energy and relish. 

Kanó leans on his legs and he ruffles the gathered plaits of braids with one hand, as he lets the stew simmer, earning an offended squeak from Kanó as he abandons his churn to tug his braids back in order. 

It is verging on late afternoon now, the light through the windows starting to tinge gold, and Bilbo is holding Curvo as he naps, the toddler never sleeps alone, wails from nightmares the few times he does, and he is moving slowly around the den as he stacks bowls from sleepy grasps and distracted kids. 

Moryo and Kori are also asleep, curled together on the couch and leaning into each other over Tyelko’s lap, as he also nods off, dozy but not asleep yet. Nelyo and Kanó are playing mancala on the floor, victorious chirps signaling Kanó’s impending victory. 

Nelyo looks sulky about that, but he says nothing since he still holds the monopoly on both chess and checkers. The bowls and spoons get set by the sink to wash later, and Bilbo carefully replaces his earring in Curvo’s mouth with one of his Nori-made wood beads for exactly this. 

Curvo accepts the substitute with a sleepy snuffle and settles back easily, tugging Bilbo’s braid to teeth in his sleep instead of his ear. Bilbo wandered back slowly towards his other children, bouncing his youngest gently when the knock at his door sounds. 

He freezes. The quiet sounds of Nelyo and Kanó’s game stops abruptly. 

It’s probably Daisy, or a bouncer, letting him know that the big folk have left, that any stolen children are safe, he reasons to himself as he moves towards the door. 

He opens the door to reveal a dwarf, taller than Nori, which meant Bilbo also, and much bulkier with muscle. He smiles, freezes briefly as his eyes rake up and down Bilbo, and barks, “This Bag End, right? Aye, it’s where th’ map sent me, any case. Dwalin, son of Fundin, at your service. Dinner down the hall, aye? Smells right good.” 

With that he shoved past and sauntered to the kitchen. Bilbo watches him with sheer alarm. 

Nelyo ducks back around the corner as he passes and Bilbo follows him. 

Kanó is standing over the three sleeping on the couch, clutching one of the daggers that Nori insists they travel with, even to the woods around Hobbiton. He is shaking, and Bilbo pulls him into a half hug, and presses a kiss to his forehead. Then he takes the dagger, and the sheath, and puts both at his own waist instead. 

Kanó shifts nervously, but he helps untangle Curvo’s grip and takes him, perching on the arm of the couch as he clutches the toddler close. Bilbo tugs a blanket around the lump of children on the couch, helping hide them, and hooks Kanó’s cloak over his shoulders. 

“We apparently have an unexpected guest, possibly one of several. I do not know yet what is going on, Kanó, I’m going you all in, watch your siblings, don’t let them leave if they wake up.” Kanó nods, and Bilbo turns to Nelyo, who is chewing a red braid nervously, “Nelyo, I’m sending you across to your granberry’s, I want you to tell her what’s happening, see if she and Gaffer will come help.” 

Nelyo nods and darts out, and Bilbo steps out after him, shutting the door after himself, and then runs for the door as he hears Nelyo shriek with fright. 

”Oh!” Says an unfamiliar voice, “Are you master Baggins? Jumpy creature, aren’t you?” 

There is another dwarf at the door, and Nelyo is panting through the start of a panic attack as he presses himself against the wall by the door. Bilbo marches up, and ignores the dwarrow stuttering to silence at the sight of him. 

“Nelyo, darling, breathe.” 

Nelyo drags in several deep breaths, ragged and shaking, “I’m ok, Atto, promise. He scared me, is all. I’m- I’m going to go get Granberry.” 

He ducks around the dwarf in the doorway, and runs for the Gamgee smial. Bilbo looks hard at the dwarf, and he bows, still evidently confused, and the dwarf introduces, “Balin, son of Fundin, at your service. Er. The wizard promised there would be dinner?” 

“Down here, brother,” calls the first dwarf, and the second hangs his cloak politely, and proceeds to stomp dirt down his hall from his boots. 

Bilbo pinches his lips together, and follows muttering darkly, hoping for even the simplest of explanations, “Of course he did. Blasted wizard. Radagast is the best one of the lot. Tree roots of an Entwive’s fury, that damned wizard. Going to burn his hat and his beard with it.” 

He gets midway to the kitchen after them and there is another knock at the door, more reckless hammering than knock, and Bilbo whirls around. He marches to the door, his confused frustration easily becoming slight fury, and when he opens the door to two young dwarrow whose first move is to scrape their muddy boots on Mam’s glory box. 

Filled with awful clarity and cold rage Bilbo snapped his hand out and caught the blond dwarrow by his ear, and the other by his in the next instant, then, he twisted, hard. 

Both of them hit the ground hard, scrabbling at his hands and yelling. Bilbo leaned in close and hissed, “I may not know why you are here, but I will do my best to be a gracious host. In return the least which you may do is to be a good, and decent guest. Am I clear?” 

“Yes! Yes!” The blond yowled, high pitched and whining, “Let go!” 

“Good.” Bilbo hissed, and released both of them. They scrambled halfway back out the door, “The first thing you may do is remove your boots, shake them off and leave them, neatly, outside the door. Clear?” 

Both nodded, and began yanking at the laces. Bilbo watched them hawkishly, and nodded as they began to clap them together over the ivy trellises. The other two dwarrow came up from the kitchen and Bilbo whirled on them, and began pointing, “You as well. Rock headed dunces, you all. Boots off, weapons go on the weapons rack in the closet here where little hands can’t reach, and you will all be courteous in someone else’s smial, so help me.” 

The other two stepped out to unlace their boots as the young ones began to pull off knives and a quiver from their persons. Bilbo marched off to the kitchen and pulled three buckets of water and vinegar, a broom and mop, and several scrub brushes before returning. 

“You, blondie,” he snapped and the dwarrow in question jerked to attention, looking apprehensive, “You, since you did it first, get to scrub my Mam’s glory box clean. It is old, and delicate, and beloved as it contains the last remnants of my sisters. And you scraped your boots on it.” 

The dwarrow cringes, collects the scrub brushes, and pulls the glory box into his arms to sit by the door and scrub it. Bilbo wheels on the brunet, “You, since your friend is busy, get to scrub my baseboards and moulding, where your own boots got scraped.” 

The last scrub brush is taken by the youth, who cringes from Bilbo’s glare. He turns to the two elders, one of them who had introduced himself by the same name as Nori’s friend. 

Well. Any friend of Nori’s could clean up after themselves, or Nori certainly wouldn’t be friends with them. He shoved the broom into Dwalin’s hand, and the mop and pail into the other’s, “You may sweep after the mess you made, and you may mop up after the trail you followed.” 

Meekly they both nodded, looking quite aghast indeed. Bilbo huffed. 

The sound of sardonic clapping came from the garden and all four dwarrows’ ears turned red. Gaffer Gamgee stood there, holding a large pot of veg and paper wrapped meat, Hamfast beside him carrying bundles of towel covered loaf pans. 

Daisy stood before them, clapping as she grinned, sharp and triumphant, Marigold on her hip clapping along. Nelyo stood just behind her holding Haddix on his hip, and he stared at Bilbo in delight. Daisy cackled, took Haddix from Nelyo, and nudged him towards Bilbo, “Aiya, both of you, go change out of your house clothes. I will supervise the penitent wretches.” 

Nelyo darted in, pausing beside Bilbo with a stage whisper, that was too loud from a child’s lack of grace, “That was awesome. Can you make them go away, too?” 

Bilbo snorted, and shook his head, linking his arm through Nelyo’s to pull him away, “I still don’t know why they are here, my darling, nor how many are coming. Best they stay until I know that. Come, help me choose nicer dinner outfits for your siblings.” 

Nelyo ran ahead after turning just long enough to stick his tongue out at the dwarrow. He was far more used to the respectful, even courtly, manners of the eastern dwarrow and of Elrond’s household. Before even that he was used to a military strictness before that, and the formalities of Aman before that. 

Above all of that though Nelyo had chosen to live his new life by hobbitish manners, and hospitality went both ways for that. Bilbo pulls silks and jewelry from his closet, and Nelyo does the same, pausing to collect his brothers and Kori, and like they are traveling again and about to visit Elrond, all at once and chaotic, they change. 

Nelyo, the small diva that he is, starts picking jewels out, and tugging the clothes straight on his siblings, ignoring Kanó laughing in the corner. 

Bilbo, perfectly capable of dressing on his own like the adult he is, leaves them to squabble, gaining volume back as they snipe at each other in one of the safest places in the smial, Bilbo and Nori’s bedroom. 

Three more dwarrow have come, a gruff red head with a mane of a beard, and a wizened dwarrow with thinning white hair and beard, and finally a plump dwarrow who is trying to cook with Gaffer, his looped beard braid bouncing as he ducks the occasional pan swing from Daisy, incensed at the intrusion into hobbit space. 

Marigold and Haddix, the adopted shire twins from Daisy’s trip with Nori, hiss from the mantle over the oven, lingering green in their skin flaring and their coarse hair tangled and wild. 

Bilbo leaves them to it, and points the remaining five to a closet with a sliding door behind the redhead, “Oi, you lot, there’s already too many for my poor table, and I've the impression that there’s more of you coming. One of you start grabbing leaves out and help me expand the table, the rest start grabbing chairs.” 

Dwalin moves first, yanking open the door and grabbing the first thing he can, and pulls out a leaf of the table, a lipped piece of wood designed to interlock in. Bilbo nods happily, ducks under the table to unlatch it, and directs the redhead to the other end as they start to stretch the table open from its rails. The redhead follows his direction, but stares in blatant confusion. 

In a matter of minutes the last several leaves are in, and the table has twenty six chairs around it, just shy of the amount used when the whole family and the Gamgees have their monthly dinners. Baby Samwise had put the Gamgee child count at nine. Daisy still planned on more. 

Bilbo glares them all down until they sit on one side of the table, leaving the other side bare, all in a row of grumpy, sullen dwarrow, all grumbling in their furs and leathers. And he turns his dark look on the kitchen, where the jolly dwarrow is still trying to cook with Gaffer and Daisy. 

Then there is a knock at the door, and Bilbo goes. 

A group of five dwarrow stands there, and amongst them is Nori, rapidly verbally flaying one of them with his tongue in khuzdul, as the last three watch with awkward distraction. 

“Nori,” Bilbo says, a gasped sound of gratitude for his husband’s presence, frustration at the situation, and sheer utter relief. 

Nori spins, elbows the silver haired dwarrow out of his way harshly, and steps towards Bilbo, kicking the door shut behind him in all their faces. Then he folds Bilbo into a hug, and shudders as hard as Bilbo does, “Oh, amrâl, my abnâm, this will not end well.” 

“Mmm.” Bilbo hums, then sighs, and shoves Nori hard, pressing him against the door to keep it shut against whoever had tried to shove in. Nori wheezes as all air in his lungs whooshes out of him, then laughs breathlessly, brushing a hand through Bilbo’s curls, and pinching his ear playfully. 

“Ew,” says Nelyo judgementally, covering Moryo’s eyes with one hand, and Kori’s with the other. Kanó holds Curvo with the baby’s face pressed into his shoulder, but he does not bother to try to cover Tyelko’s eyes. 

Instead Kanó tilts his head, smiles, and signs, “Cool. I want a sister this time.” 

Nelyo blanches, Tyelko shrieks in a aggrieved horror, and tries to slap at Kanó’s signing hand, and Nori sinks against the door, cackling. Bilbo blinks, “That’s not quite how it works, darling.” 

Kanó tilts his head, smirks, and signs, “Have sex. Happy parents. Get me a sister. Like sisters. Too many brothers.” 

“Please don’t,” Nelyo whispers, looking haunted, “No sex. You’re both so gross.” 

Bilbo gives up and cackles with Nori, and they both roll away from the door, laughing like loons and tangled together. Nori scrambles up and lunges for them, snatching Curvo away and reaching with clawed fingers for Kori as he growls, a game he plays frequently. 

The children all play along, delighted and obliging, shrieking as they run for the kitchen and their twice-adopted grandmother as Nori chases them. Curvo laughs in Nori’s hold, and squirms ineffectually grabbing at Nori’s braids and immediately sticking his favored bed in his mouth to chew on. 

Bilbo opens the door again, and bares his teeth in a slightly mean smile, “Boots by the door, weapons in the closet. Or I’ll kick you out myself.” 

Then he chases after his husband, twisting around the ousted dwarrow trying now to set the table, spinning his children with him and releasing them to spin off with gleeful giggles, and tagging Nori with tugged braids as they play chase with each other around an amused Daisy Gamgee, who gracefully steps out of the way for Bilbo to leap on Nori, knocking him to the ground as they roll, curled around Curvo as he laughs and laughs. 

Tyelko and Kori shriek as one and jump into the impromptu scrum, wriggling fingers trying to tickle their parents as Bilbo and Nori often do to them, which doesn’t work until Moryo joins in, grinning brightly and Nori jerks away with a yelp and laughs loudly as he scoops Moryo up to tickle him back. 

Nelyo laughs delightedly then lets out an offended shriek as Bilbo hooks an arm around his legs and pulls him off balance and Nori abandons Moryo to help Bilbo tickle Nelyo, who squirms and kicks, and calls for Kanó to help. 

Kanó perches himself on the table, watching, then curls his feet under him, tenses, and pounces like a great cat, taking Nori down again, and Bilbo grins at Nelyo, who grins back and immediately helps betray his brother, as all of them start poking Kanó and tickling him, even Curvo with his pudgy toddler hands, as Kanó half shrieks from breathless giggles. 

They all collapse into a pile, breathing heavily, with stray giggles, and Bilbo chances a glance at his unwelcome guests. They all look scandalized, appalled. He levels a feral grin at them, songteeth extended, and as the last four stand in the doorway, equally shocked, Bilbo gives in to his impulse. 

He levers himself up, tangles a hand between Nori’s beard and his leather jerkin ties, and pulls him up into a kiss, biting his lip and, getting bit back, their breath mingling, as Nori laughs again into his mouth. 

Curvo shoves at their faces, “Ew. Ew-ew, Adád, yuck. Gross Atto, ew-ew.” 

“You tell them, Curvo, love.” Daisy says, then she softens, “Aiya, you two. Married over two decades and still kissing like new stolen spouses. Bless. Gaffer, why don’t you kiss me like that?” 

She turns to her husband, and Gaffer, a gentle giant by hobbit standards, looks at his wife silently, eyebrows raised. He steps towards her, and Nori is not the only one that shrieks a horrified denial. Daisy sighs deeply, “Ah, well, maybe later then.” 

“What-“ the silver haired dwarrow says, voice cracking in the middle of the word, “Nori, what?” 

Nori stands, nearly tips over again as Kori and Moryo cling to his arm, but braces them and lets Moryo climb to his other side easily, as Kori perches on his hip. Nelyo scrambles up too, trying to fix his hair, and Kanó tries to help and only succeeds in tangling his brace into Nelyo’s braids. 

Bilbo stands beside him, Curvo on one hip, still chewing on the wood bead in Nori’s hair, and Tyelko on his other, as he leans back to stare at Nelyo and Kanó’s fruitless attempts to disentangle hair from hand upside down. 

Nori grins brightly, “My husband, Bilbo, and my children,” he introduces, and then he too is distracted by the increasingly frantic efforts of Nelyo and Kanó, setting the two he holds down in favor of digging a comb from his pocket. 

A strangled sound comes from multiple dwarrow. Dwalin looks particularly shocked, and intensely disappointed. Bilbo narrowed his eyes at the dwarrow. He hadn’t fully taken Nori’s stories seriously enough apparently, he had thought his husband was exaggerating somewhat when he relayed the oblivious descriptions of what was obviously a crush. 

Apparently not. The hatted dwarrow snorts finally, and steps from the doorway, “‘Tis nice to meet you finally. Nori is protective, I didn’t even know ye’re name. An’ while I suspected children, I hadn’e any confirmation. I’m Bofur, this is Bifur, an’ Nori’s brothers, Dori and Ori. My own brother o’er there is Bombur, though I’m sure he introduced himself.” 

“The nuisance? No, he did not.” Bilbo replies distractedly, trying to juggle Tyelko as he leans further back and Curvo as the toddler tries to slip into Moryo’s waiting arms. 

Nori abruptly pauses and barks a laugh, “Oh. Kitchen? Ai, Bombur.” 

“I almost gutted him like a fish,” Daisy declares meanly, “kept trying to mess with the stew. Wrecca. Fool.” 

She drops the stew pot on the table with a loud thump and sneers at Bombur. Nori cackles, and the other dwarrow look at him in terror, “You wouldn’t have. You’d’ve set Marigold on him. He’d be covered in child’s bites but you wouldn’t gut him.” 

Daisy sniffs haughtily, and wrinkles her nose, “Haddix, not Marigold. She gets whiny if she breaks a tooth. But you’re right, I wouldn’t waste my good knives like that. It’s not even winter for that to be any use. No need for meat.” 

It’s an old hobbit joke, from the wandering days when carrion and corpse were more available than venison, and the orc heritage in many lines ran stronger. Nori is well used to it by now, and Bilbo grew up on such things, therefore neither of them think very much of the usual reply, save for the following silence from alarmed bystanders. 

”Come winter, the cookbooks in the kitchen,” Nori manages then to pull Kanó’s hand from Nelyo’s hair and Nelyo starts pulling the tangled, ruined braids down entirely, wiping at where the makeup he’d stolen from Bilbo earlier has run from tears as his hair had been yanked. 

Kanó scampers away, tugging a bowl from the stack Gaffer is laying out around the table and reaching for the ladle in the pot, multiple strands of Nelyo’s hair still trailing from his brace. Daisy smacks his hand sharply with her platter of bread, sending a few rolls flying, and swears profusely at the loss. 

Hamfast snickers from the kitchen doorway, a sibling on each hip, “Them dwarves look like some folks going to be biting them. Ain’t no one traveling yet.” 

Bilbo grins, and gives in to his good manners and better sense, “Old jokes and older tales. Sit, eat. The Gamgees are going home shortly. Is this everyone?” 

Someone shakes their head slowly, and Bilbo sighs, and drops Tyelko in favor of snatching up a fleeing Kori. Moryo stumbles to the table, carrying Curvo who is not helping him, and also quite heavy for Moryo to be lugging around. 

There is a knock at the door, and Bilbo sighs, then counts swiftly, matching the number of dwarrow to the number Nori flashes him, two missing. The likelihood that the wizard is at the door is high. 

Bilbo smiles ferally, pats each of his children’s heads as he passes and sprints for the door, bouncing off the walls just once to fling himself at the door. He opens it, shifting his smile to bland geniality, and watches Gandalf freeze in place, confusion overtaking his face entirely. 

There is another dwarrow beside him. He looks regal and important. Bilbo does not care. Bilbo reaches up, draws the Song up through his feet and bones and blood, and grabs the wizard’s beard, running back the way he came and dragging the wizard behind him as he goes, ignoring also the half strangled protests. 

He reenters the dining room and bodily throws the wizard at the wall. He hits with a thunk, and a jar falls from the shelf to shatter on his head. Several dwarrow scream. 

Kori hops down from her seat to run over and poke the wizard. Bilbo just stands victoriously over him, breathing hard, and his arm aching right up to his shoulder. 

Nori sighs deeply and collects Kori, and Tyelko who had joined her, “No, no, don’t touch that. You don’t know where it’s been. We don’t prod strange Maia.” 

Kanó breaks down cackling, shoving his stew away and burying his face in his arms to wheeze hysterically at something the rest of them had missed. Nelyo and Moryo just stare at Bilbo, and Nelyo loudly says, “I wanna do that! That was so cool! Can I body slam a wizard, Adád, please? I want to throw Eonwë into a tree.” 

“Hush, Nelyo, don’t be rude,” Bilbo says easily, “I’m done now, he’s a guest. And you may learn to throw a Maia around when you’re older.” 

Gandalf sneezes and groans, covered in a fine layer of powdered beet sugar. The last dwarf stares down at him, then at Bilbo, then at Nori, “Oh. I agree with the child. Who is the child?” 

“My oldest third born,” says Nori easily, and the new dwarrow nods regally. He scrunches his face, confused, and scrunches it further into something grumpy. The poor dwarrow had the widest range of grimaces that Bilbo has seen outside the Sackville line. 

He looks at Bilbo again, “You must be Dwalin’s thief friend’s spouse then. Nice to meet you, I guess. I am Thorin Oakenshield. Please do not throw me into a wall.” 

Balin wheezes at the table, and coughs on a mouthful of stew, “You knew that Nori was married?” 

“Yes?” Thorin looks confused, and vaguely harried, “Did you not? He has worn a marriage braid since the first time you ever dragged me to that damn teahouse.” 

A chorus of groans and grumbles goes around the table, and Thorin’s confusion gains an irritated edge, as he scowls fiercely. Ori, the younger brother in law, squints at Nori, and grumbles scornfully, “Why wouldn’t you tell me you were married?”

”Dori forbade it. I tried, but two sentences into the explanation of who I had met and was going to court, Dori declared that he wanted to hear nothing of anyone involved in my craft, and that I certainly wasn’t allowed to tell you. I wrote instead, didn’t you get the books?” 

Kilí wheezes and Filí and Ori both look entirely off guard. 

Thorin looks around again, raises his eyebrows, and counts the kids with growing incredulity, “And you have six children, apparently. Fruitful marriage. We’ll have to find another thief, I suppose. Balin, we should strike Nori’s name from the contract, pebbles are important.” 

Bilbo blinks, “Was that what all of this was? A contract job? Seriously? You lot communicate horribly. Nori and I are both registered Thief-Masters in the Shire, thank you, and Nelyo is midway through his apprenticeship, and can certainly use the practice. The children are all well used to travel.” 

Thorin visibly pauses, and squints, “Er. It is highly dangerous. Pebbles are- they aren’t- I realize that you are head of your house, and it will be your call, but I advise-“ 

“-What do you mean head of house.” Dori says flatly, eyes narrowed. 

“I- Nori is a dam, yes?” Thorin looks confused again, and now so does everyone else, “He wears a wife’s braid, and the pebbles had to come from somewhere.” 

He turns to Nori, and says, very solemnly, “You truly are one of the best disguised dams I have met. My sister has considered asking your advice so she might move about in the markets unrecognized,  but fears she would simply be mistaken for me.” 

No one moves. No one says anything either, but bewildered looks are exchanged all around. 

Nori snorts, and elbows Bilbo hard as he cackles next to him, “You are very wrong, but thank you. Kori is a special case, and the other five are stolen. Our six children are very much ours, but Bofur has been diligent about iron, and weapons stay on the rack by the door for a good reason.” 

“I see,” Thorin says, “No, I don’t actually. What does iron have to do with anything? Why would you steal children?” 

Bofur moans suddenly, and Bombur takes harder look around at the children, “Rather, ah, elvish, aren’t they?” 

Moryo perks up immediately, having worked the math out with Bilbo a year previous, “We’re mixed. Peredhil, but, um, the not fancy kind. That means, um, five, no, uh, yes, five eights elf, no that was wrong.” 

“You’ve got my math. I’m five eighths Æthel-hobbit, and three eights Dwarrow,” Kori says, “Yours is a nine. I think.” 

Moryo ponders for a second. Bilbo presses a hand to his plaits and lifts him back to the table. He drops a roll by his plate to be dipped into the stew and hums, “Work backwards, love.” 

“Oh,” Moryo says, “Right, smalls to bigs. Uh, two parts dwarrow, three parts hobbit, and four parts Eldar. That’s- um, that’s nine parts, yes.” 

Bilbo nods proudly and passes the nightshade powder down the table after spooning a large scoop into his stew and stirring it in. Nori puts a much smaller scoop, Nelyo skips it entirely, and Kanó puts two. By the time it has been passed through all the children Gandalf has taken a seat beside Kori, between her and Thorin seated at the other end. 

He looks in the jar, sniffs it, and sets it aside. There is a flurry of half hearted protests from various dwarrow, and Gandalf looks at Bilbo heavily, “Bilbo Baggins, have you truly fallen so far from how your mother raised you so as to poison your guests?” 

“Excuse me?” Bilbo said icily, and the wizard snaps the lid closed and slams the jar on the table for emphasis. The consequences hit before his words can escape though, and Tyelko scrambles away, flinching out of his seat, and Nelyo runs for the kitchen, and the third pantry with Tyelko chasing him. 

Moryo and Kori, closest to the wizard both stare, Kori’s eyes welling with angry tears as Moryo’s breath comes faster and shorter, and his face flushes as he silently cries in shocked fright. Curvo simply wails from his spot on Nori’s lap, and Kanó curls into a ball on his seat, hands over his ears and lips pressed tight. 

None of the children handle violence well these days, and the smial is a safe place. Any anger is taken to the garden, where wood can be chopped and weeds pulled. None of them had their guards up as they would during travel for loud noises and unexpected frights. 

“My mother,” Bilbo says, chilled and frosty with a rare, true fury, “did not raise me. Instead she died, attempting to find you as the winter came suddenly, and her children were sick. My Da died after her, as did my sisters, and I raised myself. She was a fierce woman, mannerly and hospitable, yes, but she was also a mother.” 

Bilbo takes the still sobbing Curvo from Nori and lets his husband go check on the others as he holds the wizard’s stare and continues, “You could not even be bothered to go to her funeral when sent a notice, nor her later memorial. I am convinced that you hardly knew my mother at all. But I will inform you the powder is her recipe, and she began teaching me her poisons before her death.” 

“And,” Nori adds, rubbing gently at Moryo’s back, “While some toxin resistance is helpful, the nightshade powder shouldn’t be toxic. It is the black variety, not red.” 

The wizard harrumphs, and Bilbo gracefully delivers the killing blow, “You may eat your stew on the porch, Gandalf, and find lodging at the inn. I will not have someone in my smial who will not read the room, remember his manners, nor scare my children. Out.” 

Gandalf looks mulish for a long moment, and Bilbo shifts to get up. The wizard leaves. He eyes Kanó suspiciously as he passes, “There have not been any elfling births in nearly two centuries, not on Endor.” 

“Out, Gandalf,” Bilbo says, and the wizard leaves, throwing a hard stare at the stars embossed everywhere as he goes. 

“Is that true?” Ori says, quietly, “That there haven’t been any elflings? The pebble birth rate is down in Ered Luin too, I helped compile those notes.” 

“No,” Bilbo said, “And yes. The western elves are dwindling, but the eastern tribes, both mixed and not, thrive yet.” 

Nori comes back from the kitchen holding a shaking Tyelko and supporting Nelyo as he clings, settling them back in their seats. He looks at the line of dwarrow, “Hobbits do not steal children lightly. Remember that.” 

All of them are quiet, eating their stew and rolls, and getting seconds as they talk quietly amongst themselves. Bilbo appreciates it as Curvo settles, but the others don’t, Kanó silent and shaking, Moryo still gasping through tears, and not moving away from Kori’s protective glare, and Nelyo and Tyelko still half shut down. 

Nori eventually untangles Tyelko, who whines and tries to hold onto his braids, and passes him and Nelyo’s clinging grasp to Bilbo, who is surrounded on all sides, “I’m going to go grab everyone’s stuffies and let Charlotte in. I’ll fill you in as we pack tonight, and Balin can leave the contract on the table. We need to get them off to bed.” 

Bilbo nods, and struggles upright, encouraging Kanó to his feet as he does. Moryo and Kori gravitate over, and Bilbo begins leading them to the den. It has been a bad day, and an awful night, one with overhanging stress from the bells and wizard’s visit all mingling into the overwhelm from later, fully overriding the calm in the middle, of cookies and frost cream and naps. 

There will be more bad days, and more good ones. That is how life goes. But Bilbo can put his children to bed after they snuggle with the dog, an impressive gift from Bukdra, and can keep marching on. The day will turn again. 

Balin sighs, deep and low as they are all left in the dining room, subdued and full on a hearty stew. He looks at his prince, frustrated with him first, “Really, Thorin?” 

“What?” Thorin crosses his arms defensively, “What did I do?” 

Gloín blinks slowly, “Wait. Redbraids, that odd dwarrow with the silks, that’s Nori?” 

Balin lets his forehead hit the table, “Yes, Gloín that is Nori. You were introduced.” 

“Sure, but, that’s Foxheart, he’s a eastern trader. I’ve known him for years. Ain’t friends, I hate them east folk, worshippin’ point ears and old stories more’n Mahal, but we talk,” Gloín pauses and visibly weighs his words, “He wears his marriage braid openly, only tucks the bead away since it’s precious. That’s Nori, the one Dwalin is supposed to have some half-baked crush on?” 

Dwalin goes bright red, and Dori speaks next, “He didn’t even tell me. One would think he’d tell his brothers. For the record though, I had thought that crush was mutual. Nori always finds time for Dwalin.” 

Gloin snorts roughly, and Balin glares at his cousin balefully as he speaks, “Nah, ain’t that. Nori loves that damned hobbit, and all them point ear kids. He dropped everything, dignity, secrets, and hung the fuggin’ subtlety, to play with the buggers and kiss his husband. Ain’t a chance in Mahal’s breeches there.” 

Dwalin scowls beside Balin and Balin snorts meanly, “You kiss your children with that mouth, Gloín?” 

“Yes. I don’t see any of yours around to complain about your crude language, do shut it, Balin,” Gloín snipes back, and Balin scowls, digging in his pockets for the contract copies. 

“Do- do you really think that hobbits eat dwarrow?” Bombur asks, tremulously. There is a too long pause where everyone stares at the jar of nightshade and do not speak. 

Thorin looks around at everyone in alarm, “What. What?” 

Bofur shifts awkwardly, “They said there’s cookbooks in the kitchen. I’m a little afraid to look.” 

Thorin stands, shoving his chair back with a screech against the paneled floor, and stalks into the kitchen. He comes out with several books, already flipping through one, “Different language and letters, but the pictures are telling. There’s recipes that include how to render a troll, orc, man, ice drake, and dragon too.” 

Silence reigns. Dori breaks it, his voice shaking, “Do you mean that my little brother has wed a cannibal?” 

Dwalin shifts beside him, and Balin narrows his eyes at Thorin who looks contemplative. A Thorin who was thinking in abstract concepts was at his worst level of tact. Thorin did not look at him to meet his eyes. 

“No, I don’t think so. There’s no hobbit recipes,” Thorin said absently, sitting back where he had been as he flipped through the book, “Or, rather, recipes that cook hobbits. They all seem to be for a hobbit to use. Predator, definitely, but not a cannibal. It also looks like these are preserved but not used.” 

“Nori married a predatory hobbit?” Ori asked tremulously, “Is he going to be in danger?” 

“I didn’t know hobbits could be predatory,” mutters Bombur, and he nibbles on a roll thoughtfully, “Good cooks though, most quick breads are gritty and thick. These are nice.” 

Thorin hummed again, distracted by the aspect that aligned with the only part of diplomacy he was any good at, sheer curiosity, “I think the whole race might be, though judging by the kitchen the books came from, they are omnivorous, and they aren’t eating people right now. There really isn’t a lot known about halflings, really. How did this come up?” 

“They were joking about it,” Kilí says, the princeling pale as he surfaced from his whispers with Ori and Filí, “Before you got here. About gutting and eating Bombur, but Nori laughed and said they’d let the baby bite him first.” 

Bombur shuddered, and Bofur snickered, and butted in, “They said that like the baby was a weapon not a monster. Bruises over death. Those jokes were more like the kind Nori makes when we go drinking, old history in crude ways and fey words. He married a fey touched, you know, I’ve known for years.” 

“What.” 

Several people said that, Balin included, and he immediately began wracking his repository of knowledge of the Unkindly Ones, both the old tales from Erebor and the older ones from up and down the Blue Mountains. 

“Oh,” Thorin said thoughtfully, “Yes, that tracks. Stolen children indeed. At least stolen elf children seem like a good weregild after Erebor’s fall. Your brother has good taste.” 

He said the last bit to Dori, and Balin wanted to shake his stupid, tactless cousin until his brain rattled back into place between his ears. Dori’s nostrils flared with fury that he was too polite to release on the crown prince, King now that Thrain’s death was all but confirmed. 

Balin steepled his fingers and bent his head into them as he recalled all he could, ignoring Dwalin who began to vociferously defend his friend, and Thorin, who was just- Thorin. 

The Unkindly Ones had a hand in most tall tales and fables Arda over, but they weren’t recorded in detail like the histories of the Valar and the recorded ages, instead just gathered tales of superstition and fear. 

In Erebor they hung holly and salt and warding signs, partly for the fae, partly for the wrathful spirits from the fall of Eregion and Moria. In Ered Luin they scattered salt, and used iron as a deterrent, and guarded their children jealously. In the Ironhills Dain had written once of the Rowan sprigs over doorways, and bowls of cream left to appease them, and to see if they had come. 

Balin wasn’t sure if the elves or men warded them off as strictly, but certainly the mannish villages that Ered Luin traded with certainly had their own tales, of children going missing in the woods, or born fae-touched and queer. 

The Unkindly Ones were dancers on the wind and through shadow, not loyal to the dark in the world, to Morgoth long defeated, nor to the enemy that remained, but beholden to some power of their own and fiercely loyal to themselves and their chosen. 

They valued children yes, but sometimes returned them also, changed and loyal to that other power, to the trees and sky and stars, like elves but instead of the pride and haughty arrogance of those firstborn of Erū, they were fell, feral things in all tales, who did as they pleased and kept to themselves. 

It was a turning point in any faerie stories when the Unkindly Ones deigned to interfere, leaving their hidden places and spirit tales. Sometimes it turned out well, other times it ended as the tale of Narvi’s Beloved, taken in by a Fae One’s tricks and fallen to betraying the agreements and contracts binding them. 

The one truth that any dwarrow knew is that no one broke a contract with a fey touched one, not without those hidden places opening to spew fury out. 

Nori certainly hadn’t married a faerie, as Bofur purported, the faeries lived in the wind and shadow and not in burrows like a badger, but, he may have married one who was as fae touched as Blin had ever heard of. 

He dug out the contract, and his spare parchment and pens, while his fellows debated and then sang and smoked. He began to pen a modified contract, one that had fewer stipulations and provided a spot for the children’s consideration. 

He left both contracts on the table, and hoped that they would sign but one, and leave the fury of the Unkindly Ones in the hidden places should something go wrong. Nori was in no danger, Ori’s fears were unfounded. 

The rest of them were. 

Bilbo and Nori sat on their bed, having directed the various dwarrow to guest rooms after the song had petered out. Their kids, all six, had piled into their bed, and Curvo was the only one still sleeping. 

Bilbo looks at Nori as they settle back into their spots, shifting the sleep-floppy limbs of their kids here and there as they do, and Bilbo tilts his head at his husband. Kanó does the same head tilt, and giggles softly, and Nelyo gently shoves him over onto a complaining Moryo. 

Nori looks back, and sighs, leaning onto Bilbo and burying his face into Nelyo’s curls, as he pulls him and Tyelko into their laps. Kanó claws his way up beside him into Bilbo’s and elbows his way into being half curled under Bilbo’s chin and half around his brothers. Kori drags Moryo up to lay across their tangled legs, and Curvo simply snuffles in his sleep, abandoned at the other end of the bed. 

“They want to take Erebor back from Smaug,” Nori whispers raggedly, “They want us, me and you, to steal something from his hoard, to prove it can be done. Undoubtedly the damned arkenstone from the Mad King, to unite all dwarrow, as if it's a first age silmaril. Damn the wizard for putting this into Thorin’s head.” 

Nelyo jerks, and pulls Tyelko tighter into his hold, “That’s bad. That’s very bad. Who is Smaug?” 

“Dragon, dearest, Smaug is a dragon who drove the dwarves out from one of their strongholds, the one where Nori was from once,” Bilbo says, scratching gently at Nelyo’s scalp, “Mmm. It’s truly not a very good idea. Why did you agree?” 

Nori sighs next to him, “I didn’t want to. Dwalin asked, and I said no, and Dori-. I think that might be the worst fight Dori and I have ever had. Balin and Dwalin were there the whole time while we yelled, and the Ur’s too, and Dori signed the damn thing, half as a matter of pettiness. Ori and the Ur’s too, not to be petty but for glory and stability, and Bofur to help keep Ori alive.” 

“You couldn’t let them go without you,” Bilbo says quietly, “You love them too much to let them die alone.” 

Nori sobs without fully meaning to, and Bilbo hums soothingly, “Yes, I- yes. I didn’t know the wizard would bring us here though, I promise I didn’t.” 

Nelyo squirms and looks up at Bilbo pleadingly, “We’re going, right? It’s like, like Nagarthrond, but worse, and better because no Þauron. We have to do it better this time. No dead cousins.” 

Bilbo considers, “Yes, we will. We’ll visit the shrines in the back garden in the morning, and we’ll ask the Song’s blessing, and guidance, and that will help” 

There is a long moment where Bilbo is just humming softly, the thrum that indicates that he is listening to the Song and trying to communicate as much as is possible this far down the line from the First Folk. 

Tyelko shifts and grumbles, “It won’t be Nagarthrond, Nelyo, don’t be mean.” 

“None of us are meant to die yet, not for a long time,” Bilbo says finally, voice echoing slightly at the edges, “I think we can extend that if we do the right offering.” 

Nori blinks, considers his children, and the size difference between Smaug and the Great Drakes that had all been killed, and growing awareness and awareness of both the Song and the thrum they’d heard in Utumno. 

“Do you think the Song would accept the sacrifice of a dragon?” Nori wonders, “Perhaps, since we are not meant to die yet, then we can use that. And the Song dislikes twisted things, and might even help.” 

Kanó giggles ominously in tandem with Bilbo’s growing smirk, “Yes, I think it would. If we sign the contract will that have much effect?” 

“Mmm,” Nori considers, “No. I didn’t sign my full name, I signed as House Ri, under Dori, so technically I’m not contracted. If we wanted to tie that in then the Song would be paying more attention, right?” 

Bilbo nods, “Signing properly it is, at least you and I.” 

Nori rolls his eyes at him, and yawns, “Yes, well. That sounds fine, I guess. We can pack in the morning, load up the ponies and Charlotte, and do it then. Sleep now, though.” 

“Mmm,” Bilbo agrees, “We’ll have Daisy handle affairs.” 

“I am at least glad that my brothers can meet you now,” Nori says sleepily, “and the kids. Bifur and Bofur will spoil them terribly.” 

Bilbo hums in response, and sleeps. 

Chapter Text

“Addendum one: Any and all damages brought against the Company, whether during the course of the Adventure or subsequent to it, shall be bourne by the Company and the Burglar on a pro-rata basis, but the reverse situation does not apply.

 Clause eight of Contract: Burglar shall devise means and methods to circumvent any difficulties arising from any illegal or illicit occupation or guardianship of Company’s rightful home and property. Successful disposal of any such guardian, creature or squatter in said home shall not necessarily earn any additional monetary or fiscal reward, but will definitely guarantee Burglar (if he survives) and Burglar’s family the undying gratitude and promise of service in perpetuity and forever of the Company and its successors

Clause nine of Contract: Burglar is in all respects an independent contractor, and not an employee, partner, or joint venturer or subsidiary of the Company and is not entitled to pledge the credit of the Company. The Burglar agrees that at no stage during or subsequent to the Termination of this Agreement will the Burglar claim that he is or was an employee of the Company. …

Footnote of Clarification: This agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties, and replaces and supersedes all prior understandings and agreements whether written or oral, with respect to the subject matter described and set forth herein.” 

— The Burglar’s specification of the Greater Company Contract, as Signed and Witnessed.

Thorin regrets ever listening to the wizard. The Ri-Baggins family was odd, off putting. 

Fey. 

Not entirely of course, the children played as children do, shouting and wrestling and chasing each other around, the baby’s-fat heavy toddler always clutched by someone, be they a parent or sibling. Nori and Bilbo were well matched, and wrangled the rambunctious pebbles with an alarming ease that Thorin frankly admired. 

There were little issues though. Small things that were at odds with what ought and what was. 

One child was eerily silent, but seemed to command the very strings of the world at night with his harp, and his parents’ singing in a strange tongue. Another was tall and responsible, and frequently referenced events that were so long ago they had passed into memory, and compared dinner arguments to battle strategies. 

Good ones. Thorin had begun taking notes. 

The third occasionally talked to people who were not there, snarling incoherently at shadows he called odd things, until whichever parent was closer could sweep in and pick him up. He was cheerful, far too energetic the rest of the time, But Thorin had started jumping at shadows himself after the third time he’d screamed at nothing about wolves of all things. 

The twins, he thinks, were mostly normal. One far more hobbitish, and the other observant and just as mischievous. The redhead twin was oddly obsessed with herblore, and fire, but Thorin had grown out of his own obsession with cave mosses and stone-veins once. The other twin had an obsession with numbers, and frequently stole purses to simply count the contents. 

Gloín seemed to hate the child on principle after the seventh time he’d caught him counting it out into neat piles and muttering ration statistics. Odd child, who thought about rations and budgetary concerns barely out of diapers? 

The last was a toddler, one clearly spoiled rotten despite his parent’s best attempts, who was quite fat off of snuck cookies from not only his siblings, but also treats from the Ur’s and Ori. Kilí and Filí too, he had caught feeding the child. 

They were odd things, but Nori had revealed himself as such as well, and Hobbits were already odd things in the first place, so the whole family’s propensity to dress in bright flowing silks with embroidered vests and girdles, and leather armor overtop was hardly the strangest thing. 

Nor were the face paints, with gold traced around Nori’s eyes and silver on the Burglar’s, sometimes traded for the wild colors all daubed on the children’s. Nor were the ever complicated braids with beads on all of them, that Thorin truly couldn’t tell was a dwarfish style or an elvish one. 

No, the peculiarities of the Burglar and his family were not so bad, and Thorin could ignore them, save the noise, with practice. That was not why he regretted the wizard’s choice. 

That was reserved entirely for the fact that he was now made aware of Dwalin’s pathetic crush on Nori, and its most unfortunate extension to the Burglar as well. 

He had never before heard his cousin, older and tougher than him, and practically his older almost-brother, sigh like a lovesick dam-child. He never wished to again. Yet still it happened constantly. 

Dwalin had watched the odd family get ready in the morning just once, as they’d left the Shire behind them finally, accursed place, sighing and offering help as usual, and had gotten wrangled into managing the middle three children, the silver one and the not-alike-twins,  while the older two helped their parents roll the bedding up. 

The children had surrounded the poor dwarf. Thorin had watched with pity as Dwalin had sat through a charcoal oil being lined around his eyes and a berry dyed wax smeared, messily, on his lips and cheeks. 

The dam-child had pulled out ribbons then, and with Dwalin’s very hesitant, nervous permission, began weaving them into many tiny colorful braids gathered into a knot at the base of his skull. They were child’s braids, lumpy and unevenly tied, but still shockingly skilled for their age. 

Pebbles didn’t usually start learning braids until twice their age. Thorin was reluctantly impressed. 

By the time the older children were coming to collect their siblings, Dwalin had been painted to look vaguely racoonish around the eyes, with bright red cheeks that blended to his ears, and purple smeared on his mouth, not constrained to the confines of his lips with wax in his beard. 

He looked proud of his distraction skills, as ever softhearted for pebbles, and utterly ridiculous. Balin had peered over, and turned away snickering. 

Dwalin had been unable to fully clean himself off. The charcoal lines came up with water, as did the waxes, but a stain remained on his cheeks and mouth for several days. Dwalin had not asked to help since. 

The saving grace, besides the skill, which thus far was good, that let Thorin forgive the wizard for introducing this group of nuisances into his company was the knowledge carried of both the lay of the land and dangers. 

Of course, there were some things which alarmed everyone, even the wizard. The fact that ponies weren’t an issue was helpful, but the workaround was beyond alarming, even now several days past the Shire. 

Nori and the Burglar had ponies. They had left Nori’s old nag at their burrow, but had gotten several younger ones out from their odd almost-paddock built into another neighboring hill. The addition of four ponies let the two reserved for Nori and the Burglar be used for bags, which was well. 

It had led Thorin to believe that the ponies were for Nori, the Burglar, and the two older children. It had led Thorin to believe that the younger four would remain behind in the care of the Burglar’s relatives. He lost that impression as Nori strapped a cushion filled basket to his pony’s side and lifted in the smallest pebble, who pouted at them all through the gaps in the weave. 

The Burglar whistled, then as if it were an actual explanation, said to Thorin, “Tyelko, Moryo, and Kori aren’t old enough to ride ponies yet, and I doubt the cart is a good idea. We can belt them to Charlotte though, and let them ride the dog.” 

Dog. 

Dog he had said, as if that word were at all an adequate description for the beast that had come bounding from the depths of the smial and bowed in front of the Burglar, tail whipping to and fro. 

That was certainly not a dog. 

That was maybe some level of dog-warg-wolf hybrid, but it was certainly not just a dog. It was a mottled gray and brown with black spots near its rump, and while it wasn’t quite the size of a warg, it truly wasn’t far off, definitely bigger than a bear. 

It had a neatly braided leather collar dyed in pinks and purples and ribbons tied neatly into the fur on its ears, dozens of neat little bows and crotchet flowers on its shaggy head. 

Thorin was not the only dwarrow to draw weapons upon seeing the massive thing bounding up. He was the first, and perhaps only, to catch sight of Nori’s nasty little smug smirk at the terror sweeping them. He was definitely the only dwarrow to be glad of it as a matching basket with cushions was loaded to the leather harness and a riding saddle was strapped to the dog. 

He was extra glad of the revelation of riding harnesses being strapped to the middle three children, ones that hooked to the saddle of the beast. If it was good natured enough to let itself be groomed and beribboned by small children, then it loved them enough to flee with them attached. 

It made Thorin slightly more comfortable bringing pebbles along on a quest that he was sure would ultimately fulminate with a dragon slaying. It was all well and good to say that they were simply stealing from the dragon in order to summon an army. 

Thorin had no army, and if he truly did manage to summon Dain’s forces then his cousin would surely try to claim far more than his remit in exchange, Erebor could not afford to lose chunks of their gold to assisting forces, not when it would need to be used for rebuilding and rehoming and making Erebor shine once more. His people starved even now, and were scattered besides. 

No, the pest control aspect of the contract was there for a reason, even on the Burglar’s extension. Thorin really would prefer the pebbles safely out of the way in case of that. 

Still, the dog was well past alarming. It carried the children, obligingly held still as Nori and the Burglar, and the two elder children danced between pony and dog, exchanging mounts and goods from their bags, and forming a slight separation from the group. The dog was the center, of sorts, of this withdrawal, growling fiercely at any who approached too fast. 

The Burglar would coo, say a gentle, “”Hush, Charlotte, all’s well.” The children would giggle and scrub their hands through her fur. Nori would just look at them and shrug his shoulders lazily, and when everyone had looked away after Thorin had caught him lifting his lip into snarls and sneers, oft directed at Balin. 

Something had spooked the whole family, and it had to do with Balin. It had to do with that thrice damned fae-touch. It made them disquieting, unsettling, standoffish and nervous, removed, and dangerous. 

Dwalin had better get over his stupid crush soon. He was going to get his heart broken otherwise. 

That fey family, barely even holding a pretense at proper dwarrow manners anymore, was hiding something. Something that had them walling secrets up and hackles raised in defense, growling like the dog did even as the company merely saw a wagging tail. 

Thorin would hazard that the wizard didn’t even know what it was. Thorin was not sure he wanted to find out, not with him seeming to be the only one bothering to look. Everyone else was charmed by the pebbles, and Nori and the Burglar’s easy charm. 

Bilbo pulled out his travel log, perched in front of Nori on his younger mare, Dæge, as they went over the contract again. They’d perused it multiple miles over already, the first out loud with the kids in the shrines, as the sun came up before they’d gone to pack. 

The Song had never been so loud, nor had Bilbo felt the Watchers’ presences so keenly. Usually they frequented gardens and farmland, nibbling on plants with sharp fangs and their beady eyes fathomless. Then, as Nori had read the contract, one had actually hopped up, unusually strong aspected and solid, and nibbled the end of the contract, breaking the margin. 

For dwarrow it meant nothing. For hobbits, who were bound to word and contract and oath tightly, and never spoke agreements that were not hashed out first if they could help it, not without being compelled somehow, for hobbits who read every contract to the Song before signing it meant much. 

No response was good. The Song heard and found no issue. A presence of Watchers wasn’t ideal, it meant the contract was dicey, and perhaps would have consequences, be they good or ill. A Watcher nibbling the edge of the contract meant immediate renegotiation if not it being scrapped entirely, along with any such terms or intentions altogether. 

A broken margin had only happened thrice that hobbits knew of, and only one was officially recorded. 

Once, the teacher’s contract between the First and M’þor’kèn’Â, which was twisted to much ill and betrayed, this one was etched in stone not in parchment and was supposedly left chipped away at later, and burnt, and the Watchers between the Wefts became wary. 

Twice, during an early age between the Firstkin, the Stonekin, and the Starkin, to hold firm together against the early ravages of M’þor’kèn’Â and his twisted song, to ally and hold together in the absence of the long fled Singers. This one too was a legend, but supposedly the margin was breached, and the agreement of the Starkin damaged, indicating their later betrayal following their Great Rider away. 

Thrice, between the Three Clans and their neighbors, the Treebound-Starkin fled from their first trees, and the Cave-Hewn-Stonekin populating the mountains. This one was nibbled past the margin, recorded, and signed anyways by the Three Clans. It was proven to be broken as the lieutenant of M’þor’kèn’Â began to hide away, and twice over each ally did not hear. 

Each time heralded a Wandering, and Bilbo and Nori, both avid readers of old lore, had frozen at the nibbled margin. Kanó, a lover of books in general, and Nelyo, passable at hobbit Lore, had both shifted, concerned but not sure why in full. 

Tyelko had just cooed at the rabbit and tried to snatch the Watcher up. Moryo had stood to peer at the contract better, his fingers twitching and brows furrowed as he said, “This is a bad contract. A very bad one. There needs to be a-, um, an end clause, otherwise it’s indentured servant stuff.” 

Nori ruffled his still loose hair earning a put upon whine, “Yup, we know. It’s part of why it got eaten. That is a warning. This is a very, very, mean petty contract, and I am disappointed in Balin for penning it.” 

“Balin,” Bilbo murmured, “Is going to be very, very nervous, for a very long time. The Watchers are not going to let him go unwatched after this. Not after trying to trick a hobbit into this farce, did you feel the geas the wizard left on it? Handy little compulsion there.” 

Nori nodded and rubbed the top edge of his contract between his fingers, “The greater Company Contract was fairly restrictive too, but it had end clauses and workarounds. I didn’t put my full name, it is technically unsigned. This though, is a travesty. Half of it is in Khuzdul, too.” 

Bilbo snickered, “Can you imagine if I hadn’t known you beforehand, and thus couldn’t read Khuzdul? Ai, what a mess that would be.” 

Moryo looked at the contract again, holding the far end over his knees and scowling fiercely. Nelyo perched behind him, also reading. Bilbo sighed deeply, and inked his pen morosely. 

“You won’t sign properly, of course?” Nori said bemusedly, watching Bilbo sign with a flourish, using elegant Khuzdul cirth. Balin was definitely going to be fostering some paranoia now, given that Khuzdul was meant to be secret, Nori had simply never held anything back from Bilbo or their children. 

Bilbo scoffed, “Of course not. You don’t even sign properly on good contracts, but now I’m curious, about your brothers, but moreso about this dwarrow that penned this, what he will do about territorial Watchers, and about where this leads.” 

“Does this mean that we get to see a dragon? Because I don’t think I want to fight anything like Glaurung again.” Tyelko fiddled nervously with Guppy, unusually serious as he wriggled in place, “Maybe we can trick it? Like the troll story?” 

The troll story was a truly ancient story, from well before the last Wandering wherein the hobbit in the story coated himself in a stone shirt and clay and pretended he too was a troll in order to avoid being eaten. 

Bilbo valiantly held back a snort, looked at Nori, who was also red from holding back a reaction, and finally he looked at Nelyo, who looked quite frankly disgusted and horrified, holding one hand over Kanó's face to muffle his snorts of laughter, and obviously trying to figure out how that would work. 

Kori evidently knew, “Oh! Yeah, like if we covered ourselves in all our jewelry, a’cause dragons like shiny things, then we stab it in the belly when it picks us up!” 

Moryo perked up beside her, looked intrigued for a mere moment, then paused and furrowed his face in consternation. He sat back down on his heels and stared at his sister. He looked entirely stumped, “Maybe? Maybe that’d work? Uh, Nelyo?” 

Nelyo shook his head rapidly, dawning horror taking over his face, and twisting the little vines of larkspur he had started painting over his scars, and yanking his hand back as Kanó bit his palm meanly. “No, no, do not do that. Please do not.” 

For his part, as Nori signed anew besides Bilbo’s partial name, he hummed thoughtfully, “It’s a bad idea in principal, but the theory might actually work. Smaug is a lesser drake, bad nowadays without the Great Dragons to compare, but he came to Erebor for treasure, if we did have a sufficient shiny we might could rig something.” 

This earned horrified looks from each son, save Curvo who was more interested for the moment in gnawing on a cookie, and a single delighted look from Kori, who was quite frankly always up to pull tricks of any kind. 

“What shiny?” Nelyo blurted suddenly, “What? The book from last year said Erebor had been filled with gold, we don’t have another mountain of gold. Closest would’ve been Nagarthrond or Thargellion, and they sank.” 

Bilbo smirked, “Ought to mug Gil-Estel for his shiny, that’d work.” 

Moryo burst out laughing, tipping sideways from the force of it, and giggled until there were tears leaking from his eyes. Nelyo just stared, speechless and Kanó’s hands fluttered uselessly, not finishing any sign at all. 

After a long, fraught moment, as none of them were oath bound any longer but no one spoke of it anways, Nelyo began laughing also, near choking on his breath, which set Kanó off, as he giggled, half hysterical and snorting, and Tyelko was the last one gaping at them alone. 

“Can we?” Tyelko asked, breathless and gleeful, “How?” 

Nori laughed, boisterous and cackling, and let the contact roll back up, ink dried, “I truly don’t know darling, likely not. We’ll figure something out, I promise.” 

Nelyo flopped backwards in the garden, his low ponytail poofing stray curls up around his face. Tyelko reached over and stuck a single sprig of mint in. A rabbit, a normal one this time, hopped over to nibble at the leaves. 

Nori tapped at the scroll for a moment, “I will say though, I think that once Erebor is retaken I’m going to break ties with all but family. I will not stay there like they’ll expect. To do this, this travesty of a contract to anyone is nasty. To attempt to do it to my husband, I find it unforgivable.” 

Kori picks up the smaller scroll, “What was on this one?” 

“It had less terms, but it wasn’t dissimilar in missing an end contract, and it had some tricky phrasing that would have bound the two. In signing that the other was implied as signed,” Bilbo explains, “More straightforward in Westron, but just as twisty.” 

Kori sneers at it. As tricky as she is, as many shenanigans as she drags her brothers into, she doesn’t like being tricked, and she never directs them at Bilbo or Nori, aside from very occasional light tricks, more jokes than traps. 

Then they all break, leaving the contract on the table for Balin to pack. Nori leaves his heavier leathers behind, packing his silks and bracers instead, and every throwing knife and dart he can tuck away. 

Bilbo packs like he always does, and for the children also. Mostly for the younger four, Nelyo and Kanó are capable enough, though Nori checks their bags anyways. Nelyo had forgotten to pack trousers at all, though he had grabbed a few lovely swirling skirts. 

Kanó had completely forgotten both underwear, socks, and his repair kit for his brace. Nori checks their bags again. 

They really do need to leave the Shire though. The Watchers are gathering, the Song is shifting, the Spring is rising higher. It won’t be safe for the dwarves for much longer. Something is brewing in the depths of the world. 

The longer they stew in the Song, drink the Spring tainted well water, and dance through the Shire the more Æthel they become. This wasn’t an issue for those who lived there, Hobbits were Æthel, and their stolen children only benefited from the slow shift, or for Nori who knew and accepted, his brown eyes having long since shifted gold. 

It would be a problem for the dwarrow who didn’t wish to be tied, even lightly, to the void. They left that day, on ponies with Charlotte in tow, and the Song raced under them, stretching farther than it had in years. 

Bilbo had smiled as the ponies plodded along, riding at the back of the group as his children collided verses of a walking song back and forth playfully. Gandalf rode at the front of the company, Thorin beside him and Balin at his own side. Balin glanced back to see Bilbo’s carefully placid smile. 

Balin looked forward again, faint worry crossing his face, easily dismissed as he looked away again. There were nine white hares lined by the road and a single crow wheeled overhead. 

The last white hare was eating a squirrel. Several dwarrow looked askance at it. Nori tossed it a copper edged wood coin. One side had an acorn carved in, the other a triskelë. It landed before the hare, and vanished into the loam. 

“An offering,” Nori murmured lowly in Æthel, “For safe passage and good returns.” 

Bilbo pulled his grass bundles from his saddlebag, and surveyed them. Kanó drifted his pony closer and watched as Bilbo sorted them. 

Bluegrass for danger, sweet grass for safety, wheat for prosperity, Kingsweed for health and death, dried cornflowers for sacrifice, fescue for survival and endurance, and ryegrass to bind it as a plea and hold the center speaker. Bilbo dithered over this one, sorting through his box of dried flowers. 

One was presenting itself and Bilbo didn’t wish to acknowledge it. Still, he plucked it out, three dried stems of it, and added it to the bundle. Bear’s ear, Mountain’s Cowslip, Auricula. One and all the same, all meaning an ugly thing behind their pretty centers. 

Avarice and greed. 

Bilbo handed one bundle to Kanó, who enjoyed weaving with Bilbo, and the other to Nori, who let Nelyo hold the auricula as he turned it over in his hands, quietly sketching it with his travel colors in his smaller travel book, one that contained mainly sketches and maps he’d drawn and very few words at all. 

Bilbo wove a prayer then, ryegrass first leaving loose strands in the center of the circle of knots, then he twisted those into a delicate Dara knot. Then the bluegrass was twisted in, ends tucked, and they did not touch the Dara knot, only in forcing the knot circle around it. Sweetgrass then, and wheat along the same pattern, then fescue which wove the anchoring edges of the Dara but no further. 

The kingsweed and cornflower twisted together first, death and sacrifice and health, around the edges dotting it with small blue and glittering white flowers, then they wove around the whole Dara knot, lacing it in a web of flowers and crossing stems stripped of leaves. 

The auricula went last, set in the center of the knot, and the stem was woven only around the very center of the Dara knot, never stretching to even meet the fescue. 

Bilbo held his prayer knot and looked at it. It was a heavy knot, light in the hand but tied tighter and fuller than he’d ever had to before. Nori twisted his own beside him on his own pony. Nori met his eyes and flicked his knot over his fingers, dancing it like it were a knife. 

Kanó was still weaving his, humming nearly imperceptibly as he let the Song guide his work. He looked increasingly alarmed as he worked the fescue in, wanting to weave it to the center to hold the strength. He left it at the ends where it wanted to be instead. 

He met Nori’s eyes before Bilbo’s, and twitched his fingers shortly. It wasn’t an official sign, but it was his usual display of discomfort. Nori nodded and held up his finished knot, Bilbo doing the same as well. Kanó shifted on his pony, Cupcake, and bent his head to keep weaving. 

Ori slowed to ride between Nori and Bilbo looking hopeful and intrigued both, and nervous besides. 

“Those are pretty,” he said, “I didn’t know you could do that with plants.” 

Nori glanced at him and hummed, “Yes, I suppose they are if you don’t know how to read them. They are, even if you do, but I don’t think I like them.” 

Ori blinked and several other dwarrow began to look over. Gandalf laughed boomingly as he too let himself fall behind to peer over, “Ah, hobbit prayers. Taking up your husband’s habits, Master Nori? Good on you. Dear Belladonna always did those as well.” 

“Mmm,” Bilbo said, acid on his tongue and spite sitting like a stone in his heart, “Yes, hers never required more than sweetgrass, wheat and ryegrass. She only added fescue once, and the second her knots called for bluegrass she set off to find you before winter set in. Then she died.” 

Gandalf blinked, startled, and reared back in seat in offence, “My dear Bilbo, why would a hobbit prayer call for anything other than what you put in?” 

Bilbo watched as Nori silently assessed the wizard, found him lacking, and turned to Ori instead, “These are called prayer knots, Ori. You grab whichever grasses feel right and weave them as they will. Bilbo let them call, and all three of us wove. Usually there’s more deviance.” 

“It’s never good if three prayers end up identical,” Nelyo offers, “They aren’t only prayers, they can be warnings. Usually if three people weave then you get three warnings. Kanó’s usually warn about dangers, Adád’s about timing, and Atto’s about severity.” 

Oín is interested now, falling back and nearly jamming his ear horn in as he asks, “These are a type of foresight, then?” 

“No. Yes.” Bilbo scrunches his face trying to figure out the difference between weaving a knot from the notes between the warps of the world and reading them after, and seeing between the threads until it drives you mad. 

Proper foresight, like Aunt Rosamund’s, is dangerous. Aunt Rosa never dares to look herself, flung between happenstance and consequence, past and present and future, never here nor there, it is a storm and she learns nothing and everything, and prefers when snippets pass her by and she can catch them instead.

”A type, yes,” Nori says, “Less dream and more casting bones. It is accurate, but often vague. Kanó’s tend to weave smaller shapes in, bears, or spears. Mine have patterns that can be broken into units, but are hard to read. Bilbo’s spike and smooth in intervals. It takes practice to read nuances, and most hobbits never travel enough to learn that.” 

Ori leans over, eagerly, “What does yours say?” 

“Danger.” 

Ori draws back. He looks at the knot and frowns, “But it's so pretty.” 

Nori twirls the knot over his fingers again, and lets his fingers linger on a kingsweed flower close to the journey’s start, “So is a viper, until it bites. Or a daffodil until you cook the bulb as if it were an onion. Danger can look pretty, Ori, never forget that.” 

Nelyo shudders lightly behind him, “Þauron was always very pretty. And vain. So was Moringotto.” 

Ori rides forward again, close to Dori. Oín lingers. He looks at the knot, and meets Nori’s eyes, “Your’s track time yes? Why’re you lookin so grim then for, boy? Biggest dangers at the end isn’t it?” 

Nori looks at his knot. The cornflowers dot the center fewer times, and cluster towards the end of the circle knot, ominous and blue against all the dried greens and yellows. Then he pinches off the small white flower and holds it high, only a step off from the hearth knot anchoring as the Shire. 

“This is the right flower. It means death.” Nori lets it fall and looks at the gaping spot where it had sat. His time measures are irregular this knot, event rather than moon shift. He hands it to Nelyo to sketch, they won’t be able to read them until after the journey, not properly. 

Oín looks at him seriously, and peers over at Bilbo’s knot and at Kanó’s nearly finished knot. “Ah. What do you do with them?” 

Nori holds his gaze and says nothing, and then turns to watch Bilbo coach Kanó through the final tie off. Kanó’s is jagged with knot shapes. They are not definable, only the ragged edges that indicate fire are. 

“I would not have thought any devotees of Yavannah would burn her greenery,” Oín muses finally, "Although, her husband being what he is, I suppose it suffices.” 

Dori sneers ahead of them, “I would not have thought any good dwarf to serve her.” 

He sneers the ‘her’ out with such derision, and Nori sees Bifur and Bofur wince ahead of him, and Bombur slightly with more subtlety. Nori grits his teeth, sick of the argument for years now, Dori rehashing it each time he sees the vines winding up his arms in inklings to honor Bilbo, and the thrice stacked stones for the Earth Mother. 

Tyelko, the stubborn child pipes up, the only one currently awake on Charlotte’s back as Kori tips into Moryo, and Moryo tips into Tyelko, “That’s not fair. People get to like who they like. Also, we don’t. Prayer knots aren’t to the Ainur at all, though I personally still like Oromë best.” 

Dori ignores him, shooting a nasty look at Nori’s third eldest, and Nori reflexively snarls back, shifting Dæge in front of Charlotte’s plodding walk. 

Bifur half turns and signs, “Who to?” 

Nori flashes a grin and Bilbo hums, looking at the hare hopping beside Charlotte. Neither answer, and Bifur nods as if he understands the non-answer perfectly. He might. Bifur is odd, also. 

Luckily the conversation peters out into an awkward silence broken by Curvo starting to fuss in his basket, having woken and gotten bored with playing quietly with Long. Bilbo directs Sunnīg closer to Nori and lifts the toddler and his stuffed mongoose out as Nori holds the riding basket open for him. 

“Hi, Atto,” Curvo whispers, in what he probably thinks is a quiet voice, “I got’th to go potty.” 

A series of snickers and coos sweeps the company ahead and Bilbo swings off of Sunnīg, handing the reins to Nori as he takes Curvo over to the bushes. Curvo does, and with a practiced move from several trips before, Bilbo swings him onto his back and secures him with the silk scarf he had bound over his hair, letting his curls and braids swing freely. 

Then, Curvo squealing with glee on his back, Bilbo breaks into a sprint, leaps and grabs Nori’s outstretched hand, using it as a counterbalance to flip onto Sunnīg’s back and takes the lead back. Sunnīg snorted disdainfully and slowed to a canter as Bilbo shifts and rearranges the riding blanket and harness. 

Curvo giggles maniacally, “Again!” 

“Oh, please do, that was very impressive,” Bofur calls clapping delightedly as several other dwarrow simply gape. 

“Is that safe for the babe?” Dori asks, somewhere between disdain and concern. 

Nelyo sighs, “It’s usual. He has to learn eventually, you know. Or he’ll be as bad at tumbling and treewalking as Adád is.” 

Ori lets out a giggling snort, “You mean Nori can flip onto a pony too?” 

“I can, if needed, though Bilbo looks prettier doing so.” Nori says. 

Bilbo considers this, “Mm. I don’t know about that. You do look fierce when you do so, especially when you are holding one of the littles. Nothing quite like you looking like a dwarfish interpretation of an olden Clan Warrior. Even if our children were stolen away long ago. I have half a mind to fill Kanó’s desire for another sister, just to see you ride away with a changeling child, fierce and proud.” 

Nori’s ears flush red and he directs a soppy smile at Bilbo, ignoring the theatrical gag from Tyelko and Nelyo, “Certainly I am not hardly so pretty as you, the Master Dancer, you are as graceful as the winter wind. Mayhaps wait a little on a seventh, though. Perhaps twins then? We could carve a clay-stone set and head east again.” 

Nori pauses then finishes his thought in rough accented Sindarin, both of them still learning the tongue, delighting in watching the wizard, Balin and Thorin, the only other ones that knew he tongue in the company part choke on their breath, “Besides, I might like to see you look just as fierce with a babe strapped to you, once Curvo has grown some.” 

Thorin lets out a wheezing sound ahead, and declares loudly to the wizard, “I do not care how useful or skilled they are! I will never bring a married couple along on a journey such as this! Ugh.” 

Nori cackles abruptly, and Bilbo leans over Sunnīg’s head, also shaking with laughter. No one will look at them. It is amazing that the trick of flirting with each other to make sure embarrassment is a good motivation works on dwarrow as well as one’s recalcitrant children. 

Nelyo pipes up, “They aren’t actually planning on more kids anytime soon. They just do this to make us squirm. Kanó is the only one that likes it, he thinks it’s cute. Kanó is weird.” 

Bofur lets out a nervous, high pitched giggle, and no one speaks. A few minutes later one of the early spring rains starts, light at first then torrential. Still no one dares to speak, and the company keeps moving. Nelyo starts a rain song, light and cheerful, and Kanó taps the beat gently on an eastern finger harp, pulled from his saddle bag as it was easy to transport. 

Nori starts singing with Nelyo, bass to Nelyo’s high childish tenor, and they volley the verses back and forth, switching languages like a game, and laughing when they get rain in their mouths. 

Eventually the rain slows, and Thorin calls for a halt, well into the woods as they are, as they reach a clearing filled with long burnt and overgrown ruins of a mannish house. Bilbo looks at it steadily. 

“Why are we setting camp in the trollshaws? It is still hunting season.” 

Nori looks at him, “We haven’t passed any bells yet.” 

“What are you two idiots on about now?” Gloín snorts irritably, “Trolls in the trollshaws? Please. And what hunters use bells?” 

Thorin makes an odd sound, “Do- do your people still eat trolls?” 

Gandalf snorts, “Eat trolls? Truly, what ridiculousness and nonsense. No one eats trolls.” 

“Late winter to mid spring is hunting season, when the late rains and fogs let them move down from the mountains in their tunnels and come out to hunt. The Tooks and Proudfoots pen the area in, and as they clear each sector it’s strung with bells to keep them out until next year.” 

“Bells?” asks Kilí, “Whatever for?” 

“Fiction!” Gandalf declares simultaneously, grumpy, and resolute, then he rides off. Dori calls after him, but the Wizard merely scoffs and continues. Nori nods approvingly. Best thing his brother’s done all day, driving off that overgrown busybody of a maiar. 

“Bells,” explains Bilbo, as if speaking to a small, particularly dim child, “are a deterrent to trolls. They do not like the sound. We don’t know why, and it is not our fault that you other races haven’t figured that out.” 

“That’s ridiculous,” said Dwalin, and several nods went around the circle. 

Bilbo shrugged, “Suit yourselves. If there are trolls though, then that’s on you.” 

Then he pulls out his bedroll and shakes it out decisively. Nori snickers. It is an old legend, but trolls encountered far enough away from here to have never known the hunting grounds do run at bells. 

Or, they startle at the sound and run when they see Bilbo, or Kori. Hobbits have been eating trolls since their creation, and Nori supposes that he ought to be glad that they never picked up on the overpopulation of orcs, it is frustrating enough at times telling troll meat from the more benign offerings at Shire markets. 

He says none of this, merely helps lay out bedrolls and helps the children put their sleep braids in. Hobbits are odd, he had known this since before he’d ever stumbled through the Shire that first time, injured and winter stricken. 

He hadn’t changed his opinion, no matter how many hobbit mores he adopted, or how odd he became himself. Hobbits, Æthel were odd. 

Nori sat by the fire and combed Tyelko’s hair out for a braid between mouthfuls of stew, and was content, until Charlotte, charged with guarding the ponies for the night, began to bark. Until several dwarrow were up and running, and Kanó was not there. 

Kanó was not there. 

Kilí and Filí had been supposed to guard the ponies. Charlotte was helping, but no one really seemed to trust the warg-dog thing. It was dreadfully boring, actually, and the stew smelled amazing behind them. 

It meant Ori’s arrival with the Eire quiet kid of Nori’s was definitely a welcome distraction. They each carried a bowl of soup. The quiet kid signed something with his free hand, after some shifting, and Filí squinted uncertainly at the signing. 

“Kanó,” Ori starts, then he squints also as the quiet kid signs again slower, “Kanó says he forgot something in his pony’s bag.” 

Filí sweeps his arm in greeting and takes the stew bowl, “Feel free. Grab what you need.” 

The quiet kid, Kanó he guesses, which matches at least one parent, sort of, nods and steps forward, dancing silently between the grazing mounts in search of his own. He finds it, and begins digging in the bag. 

Filí leans back with a mean sort of smile, “So, Ori, you’re an uncle now, huh?” 

Ori’s face twists through multiple emotions in rapid succession before he settles on panic, “Oh no. Oh no, I am. I’m too young to be an uncle, this is awful. I have six niblings, why, at least Bombur’s kids were cousins, this is-, oh no.” 

Filí cackles. He can’t help it. Quiet kid has retrieved a stuffed rabbit from his pony and is now standing at the edge of the clearing staring into the trees. The dog is watching him from the other side of the pony herd, ears up and alert, and pink-purple ribbons twitching in cascades form her ear swivels. 

Ori trails off and looks at the kid, ”He’s small. And he signs like Bifur, which is weird, but so does Nori, and you know, at least I know sign from them. What is he doing?” 

Filí looks over at the kid, and so does Kilí with his face stuffed full of stew. The kid is on his tiptoes now, reading for something with the arm not holding a rabbit. 

Something leans into view and snorts at the kid, grabbing a pony with one hand, and the kid in the other. The kid grabs something with his free hand, shaking a string of hidden bells desperately as he is pulled away. The things snarls, more expression than sound, and plods off quickly. 

Kilí’s spoon hits the ground. Ori is frozen beside Filí, who counts the ponies. They’re three short. They’d missed this before now. 

In an instant the dog is on its feet, barking and snarling in the direction that the troll had gone, and Ori whines beside him, “Oh, Nori’s going to kill me.” 

Filí’s only thought is to wonder why the kid grabbed a string of rusty bells instead of screaming. He should have screamed. 

Why didn’t he scream? 

Ori turns to run back to camp, and slams into Dwalin’s chest. Kilí is still frozen, cheeks full of stew as he stares. He swallows thickly and whimpers quietly. 

Filí sympathizes. He didn’t know trolls could be that silent, they could’ve been snatched. Easily. 

Why didn’t the kid scream? 

Uncle Thorin appears in front of him, and shakes him, hard, “Filí! Filí, what happened?” 

Filí whines without ever meaning to. He is on this quest, helping his uncle, he is an adult, he passed his warrior training. He is capable, he has to be. 

There is cotton in his ears and his vision is foggy. His ribs hurt. He shivers and wonders why, because he isn’t cold. He is but he isn’t. He shivers again.

“Filí!” His uncle yells. 

Filí looks at him, stew down his front from where he’d dropped his bowl, and his fingers trembling nervelessly. Nori is behind Thorin, scanning the ponies, and Ori is sobbing into Dori’s chest. Kilí is pressed into Dwalin’s chest, safe and protected. 

The kid is still gone. 

The dog’s barks are still echoing, and Filí can’t tell if it is still barking or just in his head. His uncle shakes him again and Filí sobs, hard, an awful cracking sound of fright and shock from seeing the thing, it must’ve been bigger than a mannish house, and it had just appeared. 

He sobs again, then he asks. His uncle would know, he knew everything, his uncle and his Amád did. 

“I don’t understand.” He says, his voice shaking so much it doesn't sound like him at all, “Why didn’t he scream? It just- it just grabbed him, and took him away, and it came out of nowhere.” 

“What?” Nori says this, low and dangerous, and Thorin snarls something at him that Filí can’t hear over the heartbeat in his ears. 

“I don’t understand,” he pleads again, looking at Nori this time, “Why wouldn’t the kid just scream?” 

Nori turns and runs, and the hobbit is beside him. Several others run with him, and Uncle passes him off to Dwalin. Then Uncle is gone, and Dwalin is too, and Dori is holding all three of them and shushing them gently like they’re pebbles hiding after another assassination attempt, with Bifur standing guard. 

Filí sobs, and wishes that adulting weren’t so hard. He doesn’t know why he’s crying, he should be fighting with them. 

Why hadn’t he screamed? He could’ve screamed, even if the kid hadn’t. 

Why hadn’t he screamed for help?” 

Kanó stared at the troll. It was very big. He slowly turned in a circle. There were two more, all of them around the small bonfire that they’d left a cookpot steaming on top of. 

Or, well, several metal carts smashed together into a dripping approximation of a cookpot at least. 

He had the vague feeling that the last time he’d seen trolls, fighting as an anonymous face amongst the men of the last alliance, they hadn’t been this big. Then, he was smaller now, by a lot, than he’d used to be. These were just a bit shorter than the trees, lumpy and thick and Kanó felt very small in comparison. 

They had three ponies, two of the dusky dwarf ponies, who were whickering nervously, and Nelyo’s Finna, who stands guard in front of them, legs braced. Kanó had been set to balance uncertainly on the tree trunk brace holding the kind of pot over the fire. 

He is hot, and his bare feet are burning a little as he shifts nervously on his uncertain perch and turns in place a little. He hugs Turtle tighter, rubbing his ears against his cheek. The trolls are arguing, but Atto and Adád will come for him. 

They always have, ever since they found him in the cave. They’re the only ones that haven’t ever left him behind, even if most of his brothers are back now, and Nelyo is almost like that from guilt. 

Kanó tilts his head and looks at the troll in the middle, the one that had grabbed him, surprisingly gently but urgent and firm. 

“Ye don’ unn’erstan’ Bert, the ‘ittle grabbed them damned bells,” he says, rough and gravely, “‘e’s one’a thems jingle hun’ers, I knows it.” 

“Tom, you ain’t knows nothin’. E’s a half-bit thin’, tha’s all. E’s stew, dinner a’for the sun wakes is all.” 

‘Double negative,’ Kanó thinks half hysterically, ‘He knows more than they think.’ 

The last troll very gently pokes at him and Kanó stumbles back a little, “Is you a jingle hunt’er, then, eh? Let’see yers teeth. Why’s you rabbit green fer, anyhows?” 

Kanó obligingly bares his teeth, hissing his breath out sharply and displaying the odd barbed fangs he’d grown after the pond in the east, chewing on carrots and whining around the pain of his mouth reshaping itself. 

Nelyo had done the same as him, chewing things miserably for months while he’d adjusted, and clinging to Kanó, and anyone else in reach, the whole time. Tyelko had just started that, and had one fang and a sore mouth everywhere else. 

The troll peers closer then rears back, “Fund kasak,” it hisses and the others draw back. 

Bert leans in and narrows his piggish eyes, the eyes small in the troll's face are still bigger than Kanó’s hand and he steps back again. He sticks Turtle’s ear in his mouth. 

“You is not an grown jingler,” he rasps, “You is not ringin’. You’se cans be cooked. William, grabs him.” 

Kanó considers the trolls for a long moment, then, holding Turtle by his ear between his teeth he scrambles away and jumps from the tree limbs, rolling away from the fire. 

He’d stolen Adád’s knife yesterday, and Adád hasn’t asked for it back yet. He pulls it from the sheath on his thigh under his tunic and turns, sliding under the troll's hand as it tries to grab him. 

Kanó had lived longer than any of his brothers, longer now than his grandfather had before Morgoth had killed him. Most of that had been in a cave, admittedly, but there had been a reason for his being chained like he had been. 

With his hands outstretched and chained short to the wall, and likewise with his feet and neck, he’d had little movement. It had taken them many song-times to learn the necessity of it. 

Kanó knew how to kill, and how to hurt. 

He slides the knife through the back of the troll’s ankle as he slides between his feet and runs past. The troll he’d swiped at bellows and trips backwards, and Kanó dodges away from his falling bulk. The troll snarls, turns onto his side and good leg, and reaches for him. 

Kanó ducks away and twists under the other troll’s grasping hand and he sprints for the ponies, slashing at the ropes holding them tied to the trunk at the edge of the clearing. 

Finna snaps at the two other dun ponies and they all three run. Kanó trips after them, starting to break into a run only to slam into something, and fall backwards.

Something drips from his nose, hot and coppery, and Kanó clutches at his face for a too long moment, tears pricking at his eyes. 

He’s lost his knife. 

Kanó’s eyes shoot open and he scrambles to find it. It’s not to his left, or right, and through blurry eyes he squints for the dull gleam of Nori’s folded steel knife. Through the dull ache of his face and ringing in his ears he wonders if he’d run into a tree. 

“Lookin’ fer som’thin’, ‘ittle fang?” 

Kanó freezes. 

He looks up. He looks up, and up, and up. 

The pretty swirls of Nori’s folded steel knife glints above him, pinched in the fingers of the biggest troll. The troll leers at him. His other hand is still outstretched, blocking the trees where the ponies had run. 

“Ye cost us our supper,” he drawls, eyes narrowing as he crouches fully, one knee to either side of Kanó and leans forward, folding his arm with the knife behind him. Kanó is surrounded by the massive troll, and very small in comparison. 

Kanó wants to scream. He wants to whine, to whimper, to shout, to cry. He wants his Atto and his Adád, and he wants to scream. He opens his mouth and instead nothing comes out. 

“Sing, then,” the troll says, breath fetid in Kanó’s face as he leans still closer, his awful smile full of grinding teeth, and he licks his lips, blowing the scent of old corpses and rot into Kanó’s face. His mouth is bigger than Kanó’s head, much bigger. 

Kanó manages a tiny whimper, a whisper even he can hardly hear of, “Atto.” 

“Sing, ‘ittle bird,” the troll says, low and smug, and his face an arm’s span from Kanó, diminishing him entirely, “Ye cost us our supper, sing, or I’ll eat’cha whole.” 

Kanó stares at the troll, opens his mouth, tears streaking down his face as he gasps in air, choking on the putrid decay of it, and sobbing with air he didn’t have through a nose that was still bleeding. 

He can’t even so much as squeak. The troll reaches for him, slow, and triumph hasn’t, and reveling in his terror. Kanó doesn't have his knife, the troll is too big for his knowledge of joints and how to hurt to help him, and he can’t sing the battle songs he used to, not without a harp to replace his voice. 

Kanó sits there on the ground, crying and shaking, and the troll is going to eat him and he can’t stop it. 

A glittering, tinkling line is thrown over the troll's throat from behind and drawn tight. 

The troll chokes and reaches for his neck instead, scrabbling desperately at the pewter chain of bells around his neck, dropping the knife and reaching behind him for whatever had dared to collar him with the hated things, and as he scrabbles the bells ring merrily. 

Kanó lunges for the knife, grabs it and scrambles back, crabwalking on his backside until he hits something solid and he whirls around, jumping to his feet, knife outstretched. It is a tree. 

Kanó holds the tree at knifepoint for a long, fraught moment as he processes its tree-ishness. Then he feels stupid and spins back around to place his back to the tree, where it is protected and the knife can cover his front. 

Atto is atop the troll that he’d cut the ankle tendons of, holding the ends of another bell-chain, tight around the troll’s neck as he twists it tighter, and tighter, and tighter. He is looking directly at Kanó, protective fury writ into every line of his body, and amused relief on his face. 

The troll is thrashing, and cursing, and wheezing. The awful big troll, the one that had been going to eat him, is under Adád who is doing the same thing, and stamping on the back of his head to keep him down also, which slams the troll’s head and neck down into the shrinking circle of the bells. 

His parents did come, and they are garroting the trolls with bell-chains, and very meanly are they doing so. 

Kanó slides down the tree, sitting in a heap, and stares. 

The big troll makes an awful hacking sound as a line of blood appears on his throat, then thrashes harder as Adád yanks up on the chain ends. 

The thick, red-black troll blood gushes from its neck as it twists and thrashes and falls still. Adád yanks again and it doesn’t move. Its head lolls to one side, eyes staring blankly at Kanó. 

Kanó looks away.   

The last troll is frozen on the other side of the fire. It is staring dumbly between its two compatriots as Atto’s troll stills, gags, and dies too. 

An equally frozen group of the dwarrow they’d been half conscripted by is behind it, axes and hammers and mattocks raised in a threat towards the troll in front of them, one that hadn’t been finished. 

Adád releases the bell-chain, keeps hold of one end, and walks off the troll, hopping down as if it were simply a particularly lumpy path. The chain untwists and trails after him, blood soaked and leaving a line behind him. It jingles lowly, and the third troll shakes. 

“‘E- ‘e let our supper go, ‘e owed us,” the troll whispers desperately, “Bert said so, Bert knows lotsa stuff. E’s a ‘ittle jingle, couldn’t’a ‘urt us, an’ ‘e owed us. Bert said.” 

Atto straightens, breaks his gaze on Kanó to turn his slowly to the troll, pulling his chain to wrap in loops from his hand, jangling discordantly as he does, blood lacing itself in swirling spatters in his silk sleeve. 

“No,” he agrees, his brown-gold hair wild around his face and fangs bared, “Kanó likely could not. He is little, our child indeed, beloved and protected. We however can.” 

Adád drops his chain, and steps to Atto’s side. With his clean hand he leans down and picks up Turtle, who had been dropped in Kanó's frantic escape attempt. He holds Turtle out between him and Atto, and Kanó stands to scamper forward to slot himself between his parents and take Turtle, hugging him close and probably getting him bloody. 

He sniffs, then sniffs again harder. It makes his head spin, thick and heavy, and he squeezes his eyes shut in face of the pain. He thinks his nose is broken again. 

Atto looks at the troll, hard and sly, and very, very cross. Atto likes routine. He likes bedtime to be just so, even when they’re traveling, and he likes to be able to fuss over everything and everyone being in their place. 

The trolls, this one especially since it had grabbed him, had ruined Atto's routine. He hadn’t been in place, his bedtime braids had been ruined from how Atto had done them, and now he needed a bath because his nose was still dripping blood down his front. 

His Atto had nearly eviscerated Cousin Peony Bracegirdle when she’d begun calling for tea at bedtime without warning, and bringing cousin Lobelia with her to play with them. No one even liked cousin Lobelia, except cousin Otho, but Otho was awful too. 

The trolls had done a lot more than Cousin Peony and cousin Lobelia. At least Cousin Peony and cousin Lobelia never ruined the results of bath time or braids, they were just loud and mean, but mean like Old Uncle Nolō from Before, where you had to think about it later.  

The Trolls had ruined bedtime, and gotten him messy, and scared him, and made them messy, and made him cry. 

Cousin Lobelia had made Tyelko cry once, and Moryo twice. On the same visit even, which was doubly impressive except that Nelyo had wanted to punch her and couldn’t because cousin Lobelia was a girl, and she cried worse, all shrill and dramatic, and it wasn’t worth the punch to hear it. 

Atto had made cousin Lobelia walk home in the rain for that, and then they’d all had cocoa and storytime and cuddles for the whole afternoon. 

The troll wasn’t a cousin though, and Kanó knew that the troll was going to have to do a lot worse than walk home in the rain. 

Atto still has his bell-chain. He lifts it and shakes it, hard, producing an absolute cacophony of noise. 

The troll shrieks and runs, turning on his heel and straight into the dwarves, whom he promptly trips over, nearly squashing Mister Gloín. The dwarves all fall on him, hacking and hitting and slashing, and the troll whimpers and squeaks, and thrashes, and runs again, bleeding and hurt, and cradling his arm to his chest. 

He is the smallest troll, but still big, and still far bigger than the dwarrow, and he steps over them as he runs, turning sharply to the mountains. The dwarrow start to chase him, but subside as the troll goes opposite the camp. 

Kanó looks at his parents, uncertain. He thought they’d do worse than that. Atto is impassive, twitching his bell chain occasionally, but still, watching through the trees, pupils thin and alert. Adád is humming, a counting song they’ve been using to teach Curvo his numbers. 

He glances at Kanó, and sings the last stanza quietly, grinning and solemn, “Down by the bank of the Hanky Panky, a bullfrog jumps from bank to banky, with a hip, hop, hippity, hop, leap off a lily pad and go-“ 

Usually the song went ‘Kerplop!’ then, and Curvo with practically scream the word. Instead Adád trailed off and an awful crash sounded from deeper in the woods, along with a terrible scream. 

Cousin Adalolf Took and Cousin Holman Proudfoot peer from the trees. Holman cheers suddenly, “Eh, lookit there, eh, Ada? Cousin Bilbo and Cousin Nori nabbed us another two beasties. Toldja them bells from this sector weren’t nothin.” 

Ada rolls his eyes and slides down to stride over, dismissing the gaping dwarrow as he passes them, “Oh, shut up Holman. We knew they weren’t nothing. No one knowing if it were a troll or a stupid traveler was the question. ‘Member them stupid rangers with the elves up them trees pullin’ th’ bells down like? Idiots.” 

Kanó giggles breathlessly, sticks Turtle’s ear in his mouth, and scrunches his face pulling it back out. Turtle tasted like troll foot. Blood to, and dirt. Kanó spits miserably and scrapes at his tongue. His sleeve is dirty too, it didn’t help. 

He tugs at Atto’s sleeve and when he looks at Kanó he signs, “Turtle needs a bath.” 

Atto looks at him, and smiles, “So do you.” 

This draws the attention of the Cousins and Holman gasps, dramatically, “Ach, little giggle, whyever you so blooded? You try an’ kill these beasties?” 

“He’d better not’ve. Kanó is a baby, they’re all babies.” Ada declares darkly, glaring at Nori darkly, as he’s of the opinion that the Gamgee adoptee is a calming influence, one he doesn’t approve of. “Kanó, eh, Bilbo, ehh, anyone talking, what happened?” 

Holman whirls to stare at the dwarrow, “You sacrifice my baby cousin? You throw Nori and his husband and baby to the trolls? Where are my babier cousins? What did you do?” 

Adád snorts behind him, and Kanó giggles again, still quiet and breathy, as Adád drawls, “Really, Holman? They didn’t do anything. And I’ll remind you that you are in fact younger than me.” 

Holman’s mother was Daisy Gamgee’s niece, and while the Proudfoot line has more mannish newblood, living shorter blazing lives, Holman himself grew fast and married out from the Bell Clan into the Proudfoots. 

Despite this, or maybe because of it, he insists that Adád is his younger cousin. Holman is good with the children for a reason, and it likely is because he practically is one. 

Holman whirls and strides over to where Ada is fussing over Atto and Kanó. He starts checking Adád and Kanó too, pinching for injury and scrubbing drying blood off in great flakes. 

He leans close to Adád, and Kanó tilts his head to listen in, earning amused looks from every adult around, parent and cousin alike. 

“There are Watchers everywhere,” Holman whispers, “Do you know why?” 

Atto flicks one ear hard enough to whack Kanó’s head lightly, and then presses both back, scared and defiant, “Contract. They nibbled it past the margin when we brought it for approval.” 

Ada hisses, “Did you tell anyone?” 

“Daisy,” says Adád, lowly, “In a letter. You, now.” 

“You signed it. Not real names, no one smart does that ever, but still,” Holman concludes, whispering harshly, then he smacks Adád upside the head, hard. 

“They had too,” Ada groans, “Nibbled margin is still acceptance, it’s just early warning too. It has to happen. Flipping rest notes and marshtrails, Bilbo, seriously?” 

Atto shrugs, “Three trolls, big ones, and this late in the season, and Watchers everywhere? Do the numbers, Ada.” 

A long beat of silence follows, and Kanó tries to figure that out too. 

Holman is first, or at least first to say it, “It’ll be bad then. Whatever the Song is gearing up for, if it’s pushing food towards us. Fell-grim spit shark-roots, damn this’ll go bad.” 

“We’ll process the trolls and spread the word, make sure everyone is ready for a Wandering, and we’ll burn plenty prayer knots hoping it isn’t needed. Be careful, cousins, please,” Ada whispers frantically, “If it comes to crush I’ll help Daisy and Gaffer pack your place up, promise.” 

Atto nods solemnly, “Aye, go well.” 

“Go well,” they echo, and Ada goes to one troll to start processing it, and Holman to the other. 

Atto picks him up and sets him on his hip, cradling Kanó close like he’s a baby not a half-handspan taller. Kanó hums, and rests his cheek on Atto’s curls. He’s getting blood in Atto’s hair, neither of them care. 

Atto carries him back to the camp, where Nelyo bolts upright, jolting Tyelko up from his daze as well, and Kanó waves lazily and yawns. Then he yawns again, and goes to sleep on Atto’s head. 

He’s tired. He’s good at surviving things, but it is exhausting to do so. 

Atto can deal, he’ll wash in the morning. His siblings are safe, he’s safe, and he’s tired. 

Chapter Text

“In the year of 2941, Third Age of the Sun, there was a particularly memorable incident. Imladris has of course always welcomed whoever needed her succor or sanctuary, was built to offer such in fact. As years wore by fewer men came, then after Erebor’s fall there were no dwarrow taking advantage of the security offered, until that particular family that had been visiting often, despite their unusual circumstances. This was, perhaps not well, as Imladris was always meant for more than the Eldar and the Dunádain, but it worked. Why Mithrandir saw fit to disrupt this balance so thoroughly is beyond this scribe. Nor do I understand why he did so in such a fashion, though frankly I think he did not know. It is of course always nice to see my Lord’s extended kin however, and it went relatively well, though consequences shall not be far off, one would think.” 

— Excerpt from the Daily Recordances of Lindir, Steward of the Homely House.

Dwalin glanced at the wizard, at the thief and his husband, then at the ground. The oldest child, half a head taller than Nori was fussing over the quiet one, who had possibly passed out onto his parents. The silver child was hovering at the edge of the group holding a waterskin tightly. 

Nori didn’t seem worried, he was almost indulgent of the children’s concern for their brother. Dwalin was a bit worried, the kid had seemed almost haunted when he’d pressed back into the tree, and was nearly blooded down his chest from his nose alone. 

Dwalin focused his worry on the three pebbles that were trying so very hard to be adults. Kilí was clinging to Filí and Ori in equal measure, all three tucked into Dori’s protective hold, as Dori gently petted Ori’s head. 

Dwalin wasn’t sure if anyone had told Dori what had happened, he knew that he’d just passed Kilí off to him and run at hearing that Nori’s wee pebble was in danger. He stepped closer and drew the princes away into his own lap as he sat across from Dori, knees touching, “Would you like an update?” 

“Yes,” Dori said, and he glanced over at the knot of Nori’s family, “Is Nori alright? What happened?” 

“There was a troll, three really, but only one that the boys saw coming back for another pony,” Dwalin presses Kilí’s head into his chest more firmly as he shudders and meets Dori’s eyes steadily, “Nori’s little one was getting something from his pony’s bags and tried to raise the alarm. The troll snatched him up instead.” 

There is a long moment of quiet, then Ori’s breath hitches and he wails out right. Dwalin starts and looks at him. Dori rubs his back and shushes him, tears gathering in his own eyes, and Ori chokes out, “I took him, took Kanó to get his toy. It was my fault, Nori’s gonna hate me forever!” 

Dwalin pauses, considers what he’d said, and cringes, “He’s alive, Ori, I promise he’s fine. Pebble is a bit rattled, very quiet, and he’s a bloodied nose. He held his own until we got there, very well, and he is fine.” 

Ori sobs raggedly, and peers out, craning his neck to see. Bifur stands from his position at Dori’s back, dropping his boar spear and heading over to the huddle across the fire sedately. He signs something at the group, and returns with Nori and the smallest pebble, Bifur cooing at the toddler in his arms in broken khuzdul. 

Nori kneels beside Dori, and tugs at Ori’s shoulder just enough to turn him in Dori’s hold and press his forehead to Ori’s, “Ai, Ori, you are fine. It was a bad situation, one that Bilbo and I had warned Thorin about. We should have insisted better, but we didn’t. ‘Tis not your fault.” 

“Is- is Kanó ok, really?” 

Nori snorts, and Dwalin presses his lips together in faint disapproval, “Ach, Kanó has been in worse situations, most before we took him in. He’ll be fine. He’s sleeping, has this fantastic ability to just pass out when he’s tired of feeling scared, as soon as he feels safe even slightly. Though it was right terrifying the first time he did that, just tipped over snoring during his older cousin’s ghost tale.” 

Dori turns and looks at Nori, “Is he injured?” 

“Broken nose, possible concussion.” Nori shrugs sheepishly, “He is reportedly more angry that he wasn’t allowed to help kill a troll.” 

Dwalin snorts at that, this time, “Aye, as if either of you needed help with that. I hadn't believed you when you said that trolls were frightened by wee jingling bells, but if’n that’s how ye’re going to use them then I ain’t doubting you anymore.” 

Nori shifts and grins sheepishly, “They had my kid, and were making him cry. I got mad, and Bilbo was madder. It worked out.” 

“Ye slit a troll's throat, nearly tore its head off, with a chain of Mahal damned bells. Your husband did the same, and the pair of you scared the third into running away from you. I ain’t pushing that, your kids can do what they damn well please, ain’t no one tellin’ em no now.” 

“What?” Dori says, and Filí peers up, scrubbing at his face gruffly, still shaking slightly. “What?” 

“The third one's dead too,” Nori said offhandedly, all casual like, and Dwalin feels his spine stiffen with sheer tension, “Bilbo and I didn’t have troll weapons handy, we aren’t hunters and we hadn’t thought we’d need them, so we pulled the warning bell lines. Any hunters in the burrow-lodges for the hunt season took care of it, and the two that you saw were scouts for that party.” 

Dori makes an odd sound, somewhere between a grunt and a whimper, “Nori what?” 

“They had my kid,” Nori shrugs, again, and Dwalin decides right then and there that he’d rather count Nori as a friend, and Bilbo too, than ever pursue a threeing that might put him at odds with that. Even if the two of them are pretty enough, and tough enough, to seduce e’en a craft-wed dwarrow, he’s not dumb enough to move past pining with his life on the line. 

Kilí jolts, leaning towards Nori eagerly, “You killed a troll? Really?” 

“He did,” Dwalin says, “It was impressive. He and the Burglar beat us there and were already at it, and we gaped as much as the last troll did, at the sight o’ the two of them strangling them massive things with nothing more than old chains.” 

“We didn’t strangle them, that was a makeshift garrote, thank you.” 

“Hah,” Dwalin barks wryly, “Thief’s weapon for a thief.” 

It is an old joke, a play on Nori’s dancing around Dwalin's knowledge of his skills. Dwalin knows Nori, at least as much as any dwarrow not his kin knows the flighty bugger, and he knows that he is at least a pickpocket. Nori is frightfully good at changing the subject and it became a mutual jest years before. 

Nori’s usual response is a playful redirection, this time he is silent for a long moment, and Dwalin meets his eyes. Nori grins widely, “Yes, it is at that. Can’t arrest me out here, eh?” 

Nori stands after one more press against Ori’s forehead, and collects his dozy toddler from Bifur to head back towards his family. Bifur follows him, and Dwalin sits with Dori a moment longer as the pebbles finish collecting themselves before they scramble over to the bedrolls and books in Ori’s satchel. 

Dori sighs deeply and tips forward to bury his forehead into Dwalin’s shoulder, “They’re really fine? Nori, and his husband and child? I wasn’t ready for them but I certainly wouldn’t wish that grief on anyone, leastways my little brother.” 

Balin drifts over and sits leaning on Dori, watching Dwalin. Dwalin hums, and presses a hand to the back of Dori’s shoulder gently, firm and solid, but gentle. His older brother’s best friend is much younger than him, closer to Dwalin’s age than Balin’s, and it is times like this that show it, instead of the snarky, protective, grown-too-fast tea shop owner. 

“They are well. Your brother and his mate are vicious, and their child, your nephew, is well, merely rattled and recovering from a truly nasty scare,” Dwalin tugs Dori into a hug then releases him, “You should try to know them. You have six niblings, that is a blessing, even if Nori had not told you before. You have a brother in law. Know them, they are your kin.” 

Dori sniffles, just once then squeezes his eyes shut, and when he blinks them open he settles the mask of affable gentility back on, like a shield, “I will. You’re right. Do you-,” he hesitates, looks at Balin, and finishes his question, “Why is Nori refusing to speak to Balin? Why is the Burglar glaring at him? Do you know?” 

Dwalin looks at Balin, and Balin closes his eyes and turns his head away, staring at his boots. His older brother is an idiot, not with his books and letters and histories, but oftentimes with people. It is a large part of why he gets along so well with Dori, who is fantastic with people, but doesn’t always understand them, and relies on his strict manners as a crutch. 

Balin hunches slightly, and he worries a piece of his beard between his teeth in a nervous gesture that he’s used since he and Dwalin were pebbles in Erebor. Dwalin grumbles, frustrated and exasperated despite himself at the blatant signs that he doesn’t know either. 

Balin shifts at Dwalin’s stare and answers, “I-, mm, I think I may have messed up the Burglar’s contract. I did not know that Gandalf’s burglar would be a hobbit, let alone a fae-touched one, and I structured it like a dwarrows’ contract. Nori wasn’t happy with the one he signed either, in Ered Luin. I don’t- I don’t know why, though.” 

Dwalin snorted, “Brother, your legalese makes other races squirm. It is well for dwarrow, we are stone and the firm clarifications and catches are comforting, but I know many men-folk that think us to be slavers for the conditions we think is typical. Nori is often away, did anyone teach him basic contract-craft?” 

Dori’s mouth drops, “Oh. Bifur taught Nori lots, and I didn’t think to check. Um. Does- Do you think Bifur knows basic contract-craft?” 

“No,” Balin says, easily, “Most of the clans native to the Blue Mountains don’t, they don’t use it, not like Erebor and the Ironhills learned to. That is- hmm.” 

“Huh,” Dori says, “Huh.” 

That seems to be the end of it, and Dwalin shoves Dori into Balin, laughing as they tip over into a squawking pile of limbs. Idiots. Clever, smart, brilliant idiots. 

Dwalin gets up to go check on Thorin, whose pride is likely stinging at having been both wrong and bested by a burglar. He sees the wizard as he goes, and pointedly ignores him. The wizard can sulk in the trees as much as he likes, useless help that he was, though he did wish that he would stop staring at Nori’s pebbles so keenly. 

Dwalin flops down by Thorin on his bedroll, and laughs as his cousin turns his back immediately. He pokes Thorin in the shoulder several times, and the dwarf turns to look at him grumpily, “What? Going to make fun? Should’ve listened to your married crush?” 

Dwalin rears back and reassesses. Thorin is more than grumpy from punctured pride, he is outright stressed. He is only this sharp tongued when he is worried about something serious. 

“I was, now I’m going to ask what’s wrong. Thorin?” 

“They’re pebbles, Dwal, just babies, half of them. They shouldn't be here.” Thorin breathes out shakily, “He could've died, and Nori wouldn’t have known until too late if that dog hadn’t helped raise alarm, if Ori weren’t watching, if-“ 

“Thorin, if you dwell in the if’s, then you will never move on from the fear of what could've been. Yeah, it was awful, and dangerous and the pebble could’ve died. He didn’t.” 

Thorin finished turning and he tugged his furs up, and his feet too, curling like a dwarfling, “Dwalin, I’ve been watching them, the pebbles. They’re all a little strange, but that one doesn’t talk at all, doesn’t make sound as far as I can tell. If something- if something happened he couldn’t scream.” 

Dwalin processes that for a very long moment. It is admittedly, very much alarming. The first thing any pebble learns in self defense is to scream, as loud and shrill as possible. The second is to ask for help. Nori’s pebble being mute puts him firmly in option three territory for pebble fighting, hide and ambush. 

“Ah,” he says finally, “Ah. Hmm. Maybe we can put a small rota, of any volunteers, just to make sure that particular pebble doesn’t wander off alone when he can’t ask for help.” 

Thorin shrugs, “Maybe. I think the pebbles should’ve stayed behind.” 

“Probably,” Dwalin agrees, “But I got the impression that there wasn’t much other family close enough to take them in. Stolen children, remember? Most hobbits probably don’t want to raise pilfered, weregild elf children. I wouldn’t. Where would they go?” 

Thorin sighs, and frowns, “I offered to release their contracts. Balin talked me into leaving them the choice. Now they signed, and they’re glaring at Balin. Nori knew it was a choice, right?” 

Dwalin grumbles, “It wasn’t initially, not for Nori. Dori twisted him into, after a fashion. You’d’ve had to release his brothers, and probably the Ur’s to get Nori to leave. Also, Balin did that to himself, somewhat. He didn’t craft a burglar’s contract for an inter-race signee, didn’t know to. And apparently Nori doesn’t know contract-craft, so his work is, ehh, not liked?” 

Thorin scrunches his face into a scowl, ever grumpy in his repose. “That’s stupid. Balin is usually cleverer than that.” 

Dwalin laughs, booming and abrupt, and Thorin startles, along with half the clearing, “Aye, that he is. Ah, well, too late now.” 

“Ugh,” Thorin grumbles, “I hate contract-craft. Why can’t every race just be precise and particular when it matters? Why do we have to dumb down our contracts?” 

Dwalin laughs again, and Thorin shoves him, rolling away again. 

Bilbo yawns widely, stretching as best he can on his pony the next morning. Kanó veers closer on Cupcake, vacillating between him and Nori after a long night of dream terrors. This isn’t unusual for Kanó, but usually he’s peaceful after the first, once he fades back to sleep between Bilbo and Nori. 

Last night was certainly not that, he had jerked awake, whining and shaking, multiple times and Bilbo sent a pointed prayer knot of insults to Irmo. 

Nelyo was swaying on Finna as well, tied to her saddle with a scarf, just in case he wanted to doze off. Tyelko, Moryo, and Curvo are all asleep on a highly protective Charlotte, who is much snappier now than she had been for the last several days of travel. She had needed to choose between her tasks of guarding the ponies and Harding the children, and had failed both. 

No dwarrow were drifting within six feet of her without a growl and a snap, which left Bifur to stare at them from a distance, bereft of both the dog pets he’d even enjoying and the pseudo-grandnephews he had been adoring for days. 

Kori on the other hand was flitting between ponies and trees with nearly frenetic magic energy. She had been sleeping through Kanó’s nightmares since she was a baby, and had done so again. 

Bilbo glanced up into the trees again and caught sight of her wild mane of red curls, contained only by a silk scarf, a blue one patterned with deep purple butterflies, and her curls floofed out from under it in a tangled cloud around her still floppy ears. 

She bobs in place on her branch then leaps, Nori holding his arms open obligingly to catch the missile of over-energized fauntling. She cackles maniacally and wriggles as Nori doesn’t release her immediately. Bilbo drifts over, running a hand over Kanó’s braids as. He hands a bundle of hair ties and combs to Nori. 

Kori pouts magnificently, she hates getting her curls brushed out, nearly always screams during the process, but needs must, and so Nori unties her scarf and begins to pick out her accumulated twigs. Sure enough it is half a production as she fusses and shrieks at Nori’s gentle handling of her massive snarls. 

Bilbo cringes, exchanges a empathetic look with Nelyo, the only other one from Bilbo and Kori in their little family with curls, and they leave Nori behind to fight her hair. 

Kanó giggles, and rides ahead with them, twisting his brace looser, then tighter, then looser again. Bilbo levels him with a stern look and Kanó pulls a face right back, adjusting his brace properly and leaving it alone. 

They were on the road again after a slight delay that morning. The dwarrow had insisted on seeing the troll tunnels, right on the edge of the North-Downs, and had explored a bit, burying some of the mathom hoards used to tempt trolls down, useless shinies to most hobbits, certainly none of them could bear swords that long, and Bilbo was frankly impressed that Thorin comfortably could. 

At least the blasted wizard had taken the longer one. Thorin certainly couldn’t feasibly use that one. A smaller dagger was pressed on Kanó by a combined force of Dwalin, Ori, and Bofur, with Thorin grumbling approvingly in the background, and Nelyo had been similarly pressed with a curved knife. 

Nelyo and Kanó had been bemused more than anything, and for some reason the dwarrow had begun taking turns watching the children and Kanó in particular like hawks. Tyelko, Moryo, and Kori had been intensely jealous of their older sibling’s knives. 

Dori, of all people, and Gloín had turned back to the hoard to dig for more. Nori had to pull them away, and tell them that they had an age limit. 

It was technically true. Dwarrow children trained with blades as soon as they were able to lift training shafts, elf lines only as needed when they hit their late childhood milestones. Hobbit faunts learned in stages, and stopped when they wished, moving on with proficiency. 

Every hobbit faunt started with hand-fighting, with the kick-styles and how to flip a larger opponent, and to use joints against another’s advantage. After that was blunt instruments, cudgels and conkers and frying pans. Projectiles were next, darts and arrows, and throwing discs. 

Weapons and blades came last, and most hobbits didn’t bother unless they were aiming to be a shirrif, or to work with the border Rangers. Tyelko was almost proficient with hand-style fighting, but he had to practice his tumbling more first. Moryo and Kori were still working on joints and tumbling as well. 

This explanation had of course required a demonstration, and Bilbo would treasure the look on Gandalf’s face when he walked out of the cave at the exact moment that Bilbo tossed Dwalin at Gloín, ending the impromptu spar in mere seconds. 

Nori had promptly tossed Bombur onto the pile, settling hobbit methods as superior in this aspect, as Bofur cackled until tears streamed down his face into his beard and he sat in the dust, clutching his ribs. 

Bilbo likes his cousins-in-law. 

Nelyo and Kanó technically weren’t old enough either, but they had some latent training still, and more importantly they were mature enough to be trusted not to pull knives on their siblings simply because they could. 

However the detour of a troll cave raid and a few impromptu spars had delayed the continued journey until they were leaving the trollshaws at near noon, the sun reaching its zenith in the clouded sky. 

Nelyo veered Finna closer to Bilbo, Kori’s shrieking behind them starting to slow as Nori twisted braids in, and held his sketchbook out with a quiet, “Atto, look.” 

His drawing of their journey’s prayer knot was open, with Nelyo’s looping scrawl adding notes and theories to it. The first Kingsweed flower was tentatively labeled, ‘Trolls?’, the second was right behind it, smalller and delicate before a long break in the flowers. 

Bilbo nods slowly, “That could be bad. Honey, did you hear anything?” 

Nelyo shakes his head slowly, “No, but the sun is clouded and we’re in the open, no trees for cover. There’s also something that way, a group of riders I think.” 

Bilbo looks where Nelyo points and squints uncertainly. There is something there, one smaller group heading directly toward them from the woods of Rivendell to the north, and a larger group further away and nearly unmoving. 

The smaller group goes straight up the incline towards them, and Nelyo presses closer on one side, Kanó on the other. Gandalf straightens ahead of them, and pulls himself, and the dwarrow with him, to a halt and swings off. 

“Radagast,” he says, cheerful and patient, with an edge of apprehension. The other wizard in question crests the hill, and his land sled grinds to a stop surrounded by winded, agitated hares. 

Radagast inclines his head briefly at Bilbo, and faces Gandalf fully, “Fire,” he says, oddly serious, “Fire, flee, a warning from the East.” 

“Um,” Gandalf replies looking blindsided entirely, “That’s nice? Do you- er, Radagast, would you care to elaborate?” 

“Fire,” Radagast says, very seriously, and his fingers twitch. Kanó shifts beside Bilbo, and then taps Bilbo’s elbow and wiggles his own fingers. Bilbo looks at Radagast’s hands again, and watches as he signs tower and wolf over, and over. 

Gandalf sighs deeply, and scrubs his face looking exasperated, “Right. Thank you, Radagast. Is there a reason you left your home? You don’t usually leave your wandering in Greenwood.” 

“Greenwood is dead,” is the blithe response, as Gandalf shoots from exasperation to alarm, “Mirkwood is, eh, the squirrels are happy, and the rabbits and deer. Doriath ever fades with her old Queen’s memory despite location.” 

Gandalf’s face does a- thing. Bilbo can’t describe it, but Nelyo snickers and leans over to whisper into his ear, “He looks like Half-Uncle Nolö when Atar said something he understood but he didn’t want to. Like he’s bit a lemon instead of a cake.” 

Nori snorts from where he’s ridden up to stop beside them with Kori pouting in front of him, “Aye, apt description. Kori, love, go say hello to the rabbits.” 

Kori lets out a shrill of glee and hops down from the pony happily, wiggling as Nori lowers her slower than her attempted dive, and runs for them eagerly, scrubbing her hand through the fur ruff of her favorite Rhosgalen rabbit of Radagast’s, the one she’d named Flurrytail, and that Radagast had kept her name for.

She’d tried to name another one Stew once, partly because Nori had joked about it a month previous to the instance, but mostly because she was a toddler in a phase where all she would eat was stew and thus it was her favorite thing in the world. 

Radagast had been so offended that he hadn’t kept any of her names for another two visits. 

“Radagast,” Gandalf finally says, cautious and gentle, “Melian has long since departed these shores after the deaths of her family. She resides in Aman. She cannot effect the Greenwood.” 

“Fire, flee,” Radagast replies, and he looks at Gandalf, scorn deep in his gaze that Bilbo thinks that Gandalf is not even trying to look deep enough to see, “The Eye seethes in the south wood, ever watching for the lost Holly Ring.” 

Gandalf jerks back. He stares at Radagast in outright horror, and he grips his staff, “Ah. I will- I will speak to the others of this. Are you quite sure of this, Radagast? I know you are- ah, distractable.” 

Tower. Wolf. Bilbo watches Radagast’s fingers again as he continues flicking the warning for them in Kanó’s modified signs, ones that not even Bifur, who’s Iglíshmek had originated the variant they use, would fully grasp right off. 

Tower, the sign for a high fortress, a combined form of tree and castle, combined with a down flicker of ruin. Wolf, not wolves, not wargs, not even the general sign for anything doglike, just a singular wolf. 

Bilbo presses his lips together. Radagast gave Gandalf a public, or at least loud, warning about Melian’s fading power in Greenwood, and Sauron’s remnant, and to them a warning referencing Tol-in-Gaurhoth. 

Something is awake in Dol Guldor. It does not bode well for the coming dragon, which would undoubtedly be aligned with such things. 

Bilbo flicks his fingers in a casting off gesture, and mutters a vicious prayer in Æthel, hoping perhaps in vain that none were aware of their ill boding quest, that none were chasing them who were of a mind to warn the dragon of the coming dwarrow. 

“Atto,” Tyelko whispers from behind them, “Adád, something’s in the valley down the hill.” 

”Fire,” Radagast agrees, his mouth curving up as he hands Kori to Nelyo who grips her tight and curls around her on his pony, “Flee.” 

An arrow thunks into the ground a handsbreadth from Thorin’s pony and his grumpy old nag rears back, dancing in place and tossing her head. It is an orcish arrow, pitch painted and ragged, barbed with bone shards down half the shaft on two sides. 

“Flee,” says Radagast, and he leaps back onto his sled, and speeds off. 

“Go,” Gandalf roars, “Across the valley, and into the woods, there’s a tunnel, we’ll be safe in Rivendell, Go!” 

The wizard leaps onto his own horse, draws his newly claimed blade, ignoring the curled lipped sneers from half of Bilbo’s children, and rides towards the orcs, swinging at one already to clear a path for the rest to sidle past. 

Nori snorts, “Just go for the woods. The tunnel is stupidity with ponies, but we’ll hit the edge of any patrol patterns quick enough.” 

“Elves,” Thorin scoffs, “We can fight without the tree-hugging point-eared bastards. Elves!” 

“I can’t,” Moryo pipes up, still half asleep, “I’m foot sized still, for an orc. I’mma get stepped on.” 

“Elves it is,” Dwalin declares, “Thorin, you’ll deal. Pebbles and parents in the center then, let’s go.” 

A bewildered Bombur and a fiercely glowering and bristling Gloín are herded into the center with them, and they all shoot forward at once, the other dwarrow flanking them with axes, and mattocks, and swords drawn, even as Bilbo and Nori hold knives and throwing discs at the ready. 

The woods fast approach, and Bilbo twists on his pony to fling a blade edged disc at an orc, lodging in his throat deep enough to stick in his spine as Balin lets out a war cry, hitting another with his hammer. 

Tyelko and Moryo are hunkered down on Charlotte, both clutching her fur and crying softly, Tyelko is shaking hard as he presses his younger brother to her back so he can’t see. Tyelko looks around though, flinching at each spray of brackish orc-blood and battle cry of the dwarrow. 

“The tunnel!” Gandalf calls again, pointing with his sword before he swings at a warg, “Go!” 

Nori scans the trees beside Bilbo, and they spot the flash of silver denoting one of the twin’s fallen hoods before they can make out the rest of the patrol. They are paused in the treetops, assessing, but too far off to see who it is. They’ll help, Bilbo knows, no matter who it is. 

They’ll help faster if they hear a distress call, one of the common Rivendell patrol calls, taught to Nori and Bilbo for exactly this. Bilbo glances at Nori, who puts his fingers to his mouth, and counts down with his fingers. 

They whistle together, loud and harmonizing, a three note rise-fall, and the patrol becomes a blur of movement, the hood falling entirely to reveal Elladan’s shorter silver hair, still dyed nut brown at the ends from their last visit where he’d had the poor judgment to let Tyelko play with his hair without supervision and had tried to cut the patchy dye out. 

Half the patrol flanks their group, leading them further in, and one breaks away, mounting a horse to flee further into the woods for backup, and Elladan leads the rest in a furious assault on the orcs. Bilbo and Nori take the lead now, Charlotte sprinting behind their ponies in a flank, as the dwarrow all curse and follow them, grouping into an awkward clump behind the graceful hobbitish ponies. 

The outer villages and farming homesteads start to pass by in a blur as they leave the woods in favor of the half cobbled main road and thunder towards the main house. Gandalf joins them, tossing bewildered looks at Bilbo and Nori intermittently, and one group of armored elves breaks away from the several leaving the house borders to surround them and lead back in. 

The elves escorting dismount all at once, some leading their horses back to the stables, and three breaking away to head towards the stairs, welcoming etiquette and Noldor hospitality taking precedence in the face of guests. 

Gandalf steps forward, fashioning himself as leader, to greet Elrond in Sindarin, smooth and sly, “Good afternoon, my old friend. I must impress upon your hospitality, I’m afraid, along with your warrior’s assistance. I thank you for that, it was well timed and much needed.” 

Elrond pauses, and considers the wizard oddly, “Imladris ever welcomes any in need, you know this Mithrandir. Your guests are no imposition, and though I was unaware that you knew a distress whistle for the patrol, no thanks are needed there either.” 

Elrond’s response in Sindarin is stilted and hesitant, it is polite to answer in the language the conversation was started in, but not polite to disclude one’s guests by using a tongue they do not know, though Balin and Thorin are at least semi proficient, judging by their faces. 

Bilbo frowns and carefully holds his face in an expression of incomprehension as Gandalf glances furtively back at him and Nori, and Elrond spots them, confusion and joy knotting his eyebrows together. Bilbo shakes his head at him, and Elrond’s expression shifts more to confusion and alarm. 

“There is more afoot, I am afraid, I will be calling a meeting of the White Council,” Gandalf continues and Elrond’s brows furrow further. Erestor opens his mouth beside Elrond to protest, well aware of the firm separation between Lady Galadriel and the children she cannot seem to help being frightfully spiteful to. 

Then Erestor winces and shuts his mouth, glaring at his lord as he raises the foot Elrond had stomped on in pained affront. Gandalf shifts, eyes the two elves, glances again at the dwarrow, hobbits and various children and mounts, and then steps closer to Elrond, lowering his tone and voice alike, as Bilbo quietly signs what he can hear to Nori behind him. 

“I have word of the Enemy moving once more, and indeed he may have already put pieces into play. I caught hobbits butchering a troll for food, as if they do not have a surplus of plenty, and my friend’s son seems to be raising some kind of brood of wraiths, resembling the greatest kinslayers and using their names also” 

“I don’t- what?” Elrond manages, looking again at Bilbo, and Gandalf nods in full seriousness. Glorfindel, stepping up behind Bilbo and Nori, already holding Moryo and Curvo, tilts his head. 

“I should like to free the children from whatever fell thrall casts them into such a likeness, they’ve an innocence that only belongs to the young, but the Enemy must have ensnared them as some level of spy for that likeness to be of any use to him.” 

Elrond opens his mouth, shuts it again, stares at Gandalf, and visibly gives up. He turns to look at Linder behind him, and switches to Westron, “Would you please ask the staff to air the Crocus wing, our last dwarrow visitors were quite some time ago.” 

Lindir nods, mouth twitching as he looks away from Gandalf, and he starts giggling as he hurries into the House, audibly shifting to cackles the second he is past the door. Gandalf stares after him, offense visible. 

“Hello, Haru Bilbo, Haruya Nori,” Elrond says, “Tis good to see you. What is happening?” 

“Well,” Nori starts with good humor, “I certainly haven’t any clue why Gandalf thinks our children are wraiths. That is certainly bizarre. Nor kinslayers, to be frank, certainly we haven’t had any murders or betrayals amongst hobbits since they lived in the Valley.” 

Erestor looses his composure then, looking from his currently a child, reborn, father, being held by his husband, his father who certainly was a kinslayer, then at Nori, then at Gandalf, who is swelling with ill contained outrage and indignity, and Erestor doubles over laughing, clutching Elrond’s arm, and bracing himself with it. 

“What.” 

Bilbo isn’t sure who said it, one of the dwarrow certainly, but he does know how to answer it, “Oh, introductions, yes. Dori, Ori, Bofur, Bifur, and I suppose Bombur, this’ll be most relevant to you since you’re family on Nori’s side.” 

“Wait,” Dori breathes, alarm and apprehension underscoring the word, “Wait, no, wait-“ 

Nori steps forward, plucking Tyelko from Charlotte in a practiced move to hand up to Elrond who takes him easily, melting as he cradles the tear stained, still shuddering child, and Nori slips between Elrond and Erestor, taking an arm each, as Bilbo grasps Glorfindel’s elbow to lead him forward. 

“Dori,” Nori says, with pride suffusing his very being, “May I introduce two of Bilbo and I’s grandsons, and one of our grandsons by marriage? This is Elrond and Erestor, our inyos, and Glorfindel, who is married to Erestor. We have a few great-grandsons around that we’ll introduce to you, and our great-granddaughter lives in Lothloríen currently.” 

Gandalf chokes on his own breath, and Bilbo turns his wide, proud smile to him, gloating and smug, “Of course our other grandchildren, Celebrimbor and Elros have both passed on, but they are both loved and remembered anyways.” 

Thorin wheezes out something incomprehensible. Bilbo blinks at him, and tilts his head. 

Thorin repeats himself, laughing slightly from sheer overwhelmed hysteria, “I was kidding, I swear I was. I asked Mahal for one of the First Age Warriors to show up, as a joke only. Fucking, Mahal’s ballsack hanging by a steel thread, I swear it was a joke. Pit’s sake, I asked for Maedhros specifically, fuck. Ai. Should’ve prayed for the dragon to keel over dead.” 

Dwalin cackles then, “Oh, Mahal, no. That, oh, Dori, Dori, you’re a great uncle now, hah, oh dear Maker, no, you're a great-great uncle even.” 

“Multiple times over,” Balin adds faintly, “If we count Tar-Minyatur’s descendants, if my truly ancient history knowledge is correct.” 

Dori sways, lets out a tiny squeak, and faints. 

Bilbo snickers meanly, taking Curvo from Glorfindel as the toddler reaches for him. Gandalf stares still frozen. Elrond sighs, and brushes a hand over Tyelko’s hair before tugging Nelyo into a half hug. 

Sometimes, Elrond thinks belatedly, sometimes it is not worth getting up that morning. 

He wishes his foresight worked on the sheer chaos his family could produce as well as the terrible events yet to come, and even that had been muddled of late. He stands, holding his uncle on one hip, as his cousin grips his free arm for balance as he cackles, and truly, he wishes for some sense on this wretched day as he tries very hard not to look at Mithrandír. 

Mithrandír, who Elrond would very much like to continue calling a friend, stands there, growing fury on his face, as his eyes gather rage and power alike, glittering more than Narya on his hand. A few of the dwarrow are poorly hiding snickers, and Erestor is not bothering at all. 

The Maia seems to swell in place, power gathering and trembling the air around him, swirling in great eddies of fëa around him, and Glorfindel drew himself up behind Elrond, a head taller and very protective over his Lord and Ainu’s assigned charge. 

The odd mindspeak that the Ri-Baggins employ, something off to the left of osanwë, and unsettling besides, whispers through the ripples and shimmers of Mithrandír’s half directed power, sluicing through to settle against Elrond’s mind, and slip past his shields, into fault lines he hadn’t been aware of. 

Bilbo’s steady mental voice hums against the backs of Elrond’s eyes and through the sudden shudder down his spine, ‘Well, that’s quite enough of that then. Best not to spread that further than this layer of the world.’

Vilya thrums on his finger, cold and icy and sending static down his hand in bolts of rumbling discomfort, but the hum of Imladris’ wards settles, flares, and strengthens as it reknits around him from whatever Mithrandír had done. 

Something doesn’t feel quite right as Vilya’s song resettles, but Elrond can’t place it. 

Galadriel pokes curiously at his mind, and at Mithrandír’s through Nenya, and Elrond walls her off immediately as her curiosity sharply turns to rage. They had been so careful, really, and now it was all for naught because Mithrandír simply had to meddle with the world’s happenings. 

Galadriel knew of Kanó, or at least of his return to elvish society, but they had managed to keep the names and old lives of the children from her after one memorable incident where Nelyo had defended Kanó’s honor against her insults, and had run partly afoul of Galadriel’s usual discourtesy with her powerful osanwë, taught by Melian who purportedly had even less manners with such. 

It was one of the only times that Elrond had ever seen his Atto cry, in either of his lives, though he had seen Atya cry plenty in both. He never wished to see it again. Atya, at least, was a silent crier both times, though Kanó moreso, with tears streaking down cheeks and measured, gulping sobs. 

Nelyo, when he cried, lost his breath and would gasp like he was dying between ragged, wrenching sobs, and his lips would blue between his screaming wails that began each round of sobs. When he calmed enough to stop crying it still took a near hour for the softer cries to peter out, and he would be hoarse and clumsy from exhaustion for hours. 

It leant an awful depth to the ever-present rasp that Maedhros had but Nelyo didn’t, given the Thangodrim. 

The eddies of rampant power around Mithrandír flick once then dampen, all at once, as a shroud of what looks like a net to his Fëa sight settles over the Maia. The uncomfortably static burning sensation that had filled the air snaps away, fading like a candle has been blown out, with the same soft abruptness. 

For a terrible moment Mithrandír looks terrified. 

Elrond clears his throat, catching sight of the returning patrols coming up the road, “Yes, well. Be welcomed, both kin and kindred, to Imladris. We have- erm. We are airing out the hall usually occupied by dwarrow, and we shall have dinner shortly. Are there any questions I may be able to- no, put your hand down, Kori.” 

“Essa Kori,” the tiny impish child corrects, and Elrond sighs through his nose, trying desperately not to look like he wants to cry-laugh as much as he does, “I have a question though.” 

“Yes?” 

Glorfindel snorts indelicately behind him. Elrond is going to give into childish impulses and put frogspawn in his boots. He’d never suspect Elrond, he’d chase the twins until a false confession first. But he’d chase them barefoot and Elrond would feel better. 

“Can we play with Estel before dinner?” 

Elrond looks at the trees over her head, and sighs again, grinding the heel of his boot into Glorfindel’s toes at the sound of another snort, “Are there any questions from those who have not been here before?” 

“But can we?” 

He is saved from answering by the form of his young foster son barreling in and tackling Kori down the stairs. Elrohir chases him halfway down, ribbons tangled haphazardly in his hair and ink spilled over half his face, before he pauses, catches up on the situation, and flushes darkly. 

His younger son is far too frazzled for the simple task of keeping Estel on task for the lessons that he was supposed to be doing. Elrohir’s silvery hair is bound up into a braided topknot, and it is falling out rapidly, leaving strands to stick out in stray beribboned clumps. He blinks uncertainly at the silver haired dwarrow at his feet. 

“Uh,” Elrohir says, and the dwarrow sits straight up. He looks confused and alarmed, as does the dwarrow. 

Elrond gives in to his worst impulse thus far today. He lets a serene smile paint across his face as Elrohir stares at him with a growing alarm, “Ah, Elrohir, yonya, excellent timing. Master Dori, this is my middle son. Elrohir, this is Master Dori, he is your great-great uncle.” 

Elrohir lets out an odd squeaking sound and sits down right there on the steps. The silver haired dwarrow gapes, looking tremendously overwhelmed. This is the point at which an orc-blooded Elladan breaks away from his returning patrol to join them. 

“Ah, my eldest, Elladan.” Elrond says, and the dwarrow whines on his outbreath, Elladan obligingly lifting his hand in a lackadaisical greeting, one entirely picked up from Nori, “Elladan, truly, can’t you see the family resemblance? This is your great-great uncle, perhaps your hair did not only come from your mother, yes?” 

Elladan slowly looks at the dwarrow beside Elrohir, then slowly back at Elrond. He looks at the still fuming but diminished wizard, and at Estel playing with Kori and Moryo happily. He finally stares directly at Erestor, who nods faintly. 

Elladan slowly turns, and stiffly walks away. Elrond hears him mutter about how he either needed to detox from bad mushrooms, or needed more rest. He pokes at his head and scowls at the lack of any lumps. 

Elrond giggles, a release of some kind as he leans on Erestor now, simply giggling like a maniac. He’ll have to run to the kitchens soon, let them know about their guests, the garden harvest supper planned previously won’t quite suit, but for now he leans on his cousin and laughs freer than he has for centuries, since he had since his own children were young. 

“Ah,” says the balding dwarrow, from the front of the group, “Not quite sure how that happens, but I for one do see it. That wave alone was entirely Nori, when he’s too tired in the morn and Dori puts ‘im to work at least.” 

Elrohir squeaks again and Elrond can visibly see his son regret his friendship maintained with Bilbo, and the pseudo-cousinship he so delights in with the various children that are his great-uncles. 

Curvo squirms in Bilbo’s hold and Nori tries not to cackle outright as he takes the toddler. He is not successful and Elrond glares darkly at him. Elrond lowers Tyelko to the ground and the little boy stays there beside him, one hand tangled in Elrond’s robes, the other clutching Nori’s tunic. 

“Is anyone injured?” Elrond asks eventually, directing it at the company as a whole, the manner with which they’d arrived did not lend itself to safe travels. 

Tyelko tugs at Elrond’s robe just once and Elrond looks down at him, “Kanó broke his nose. And I got whacked by something when Charlotte was running through the battle just now, but Moryo didn’t because it only hit me. My shoulder hurts.” 

Elrond meets Nori’s gaze then whips his head around to look at Bilbo. Minor injuries are very common on the children, rambunctious as they are, skinned knees and scraped up hands and bruises, and just once a broken arm from Nelyo falling out of a tree. 

Bilbo is already moving to check Tyelko’s shoulder, commenting, “I saw that actually. He got smacked by a rock, not a big one, just a story projectile from the road, just a bruise forming there, buddy, I’m not feeling anything deeper.” 

“K,” Tyelko murmurs, and he tugs at his horsetail with a wobbly frown, it’s obviously been starting to fall out for a while now. Elrond watches him for a moment longer before gently nudging him towards Bilbo so the child’s parent can pick him up. 

Tyelko immediately buries his face into Bilbo’s neck, and holds on, splattered with orc blood, inky and stark against the ivory tunic he’d worn that day, and Elrond refocuses on the dwarrow, several of whom are watching gently, and cooing at the elflings. 

Elrond approves. The childlike former Feänorians are adorable. 

The gruff dwarrow with the fiery curls looks at him, “We thank you for asking, and for your hospitality. We ain’t got nothing major, aside from hunger, just scrapes and bruises and we’d druther care for our own ourselves. Gloín, son of Groín, at your service, laddie.”

Elrond nods and suffers through the next many introductions, still keeping half an eye on Mithrandír who seems currently content to listen and observe. Glorfindel wanders off midway through, ostensibly to check on his warriors, and Erestor vanishes with Moryo, Kori, and Estel shortly after. 

Elrond feels unduly exhausted by the time he’s leading the dwarrow to the Crocus wing, and then on to dinner, between doing duties for new met kindred that he hadn’t done since acting as Gil-Galad’s herald, and the constant poking at his mental shields by Mithrandír and Galadriel. 

Dinner is an ordeal as well, most of the dwarrow are reluctantly polite, in deference to Nori and his brothers familial connection, but the whole lot of them are visibly hesitant. Several snarky insults are bitten off, and others get said, less intended as insults as what must be common belief, but insulting nonetheless. 

He had founded Imladris as a sanctuary yes, a shelter and a haven. But it had first been his own sanctuary away from the politicking and war that had so defined his childhood. Truly, he didn’t mind chaos, but their was a difference between a peace that was not boring, and the chaos brought by rude guests and miscommunications in extremis. 

He’d forgotten to warn the kitchen. 

Weedeaters had been tossed up and down the table. The kitchen was scrambling to prepare some quick breads and meat dishes, but the garden harvest dishes would have to suffice until those were actually done. 

Aulë’s hammer, Elrond was Noldor. Most of his house was Noldor, at least, though much of Imladris was mixed and they certainly did have others. They ate meat. They weren’t Doriathrim, or Vanyar, not that Elrond had ever met any Vanyar. 

The first harvest of spring was always eaten as a meal, an old tradition from the Nolöfinwean contingent after crossing the Helecaraxë, one that had merged with the Feänorian celebration of Winter’s End a very long time ago. 

Maedhros had celebrated Fingon’s spring feast, having missed the first winter entirely due to his captivity early on. Maglor had celebrated Winter’s End, had helped institute it even. Elrond had grown up celebrating both with them and Elros, and Erestor though he hadn’t known they were cousins at the time. 

When he had founded Imladris the Doriathian Beltane feast had been brought, and any Avari simply loved an excuse to feast at all. The Garden Harvest that had resulted as a merged feast very early on was important. 

It wasn’t bad either, there was cured meat and poached egg in the salad, and the mixed grain porridge had many options to stir in, and they’d managed to pull enough trout from the river traps to add meat in with the winter stores for something hardy enough for the dwarrow. 

So why, Elrond wondered as he pinched the bridge of his nose, was the dwarrow that Nori had practically glowed with pride for earlier when he’d introduced him earlier to Elrond as Bifur, the dwarrow that had practically raised Nori as some level of uncle mixed with parent, why, Elrond wondered, was he eating the centerpiece. 

The centerpiece was technically edible. Technically. It wasn’t tasty, and the poor dwarrow wasn’t likely to feel particularly well later, but certainly cultivated lichens and wild roses were edible. 

Bofur, very recognizable from his hat and the descriptions Nori had told alike, looked mortified from his seat between Bifur and Gloín, the latter of whom was complaining about his salad lowly. He caught Elrond’s gaze and bobbed his head apologetically. 

Once Elrond, several visits prior, had sat with Nori in the gardens and asked questions to get to know him, answering in turn. They’d phrased it like a game, each taking turns asking a question that both would answer. 

It had actually been rather fun, as they’d shifted from gentler topics suchlike favorites and preferences to deeper ones, both getting to reminisce and relate with the other. Elrond had gotten to know much of the hobbit culture Nori had adopted, and shared what he knew from growing up under Maedhros and Maglor’s care. 

Nori had learned much of the first and second ages and gotten to share both about how the children were doing now, but his shared questions with Elrond’s childhood revealed much about the current plight of the Dwarrow. Most especially about those who fled Erebor, and of those who resided in the Blue Mountains. 

Elrond had more in common with Nori than he’d thought, with guardians who scrimped and rationed food so that children were full before them, and very fraught political situations. It wasn’t exactly alike of course, and at the time Nori’s phrasing had been delicately thought out and Elrond had suspected that he was underplaying it. 

Elrond watched Nori’s adopted cousin, the one he called his best friend and near brother, as Bofur ate slowly but surely, not complaining in the least and focusing on bites heavy with hams and bits of egg. He watched as Bofur made sure that for every bite he had that Kori beside him ate two. 

Elrond looked as Dori and Bombur did similar, focusing on their temporary charges of Curvo and Estel, as did Thorin with the two young dwarrow on his either side. Erestor leaned in from down the table, sandwiched between an insistent Moryo and Glorfindel, the latter of whom was merrily chattering with Lindir and Bilbo. 

Bifur was still eating the centerpiece, and as the kitchen staff swept in the the second course, a lighter fruit selection to hold attention while the trout finished baking Elrond watched as the dwarrow accepted his plate, and very carefully sectioned his into portions, dropping them onto the plates of Bofur, Bombur, and Dori while they focused on their respective charges. 

Bifur ate the two pieces left and reached for the last scraggly rose. 

Elrond remembered catching Maedhros doing that once, putting parts of his meal onto his and Elros’s plates, and sneaking the last onto Maglor’s. He carefully leaned over to Nori, and spoke softly in the Quenya he delighted in using whenever his family visited. 

“Your almost adád is sneaking his food onto the others’ plates. We are not at a lack, so I suspect it is a habit, likely from them feeding others, as your older brother is doing similarly to your younger,” Nori sighs sadly, and Elrond continues, “Atto did the same when I was young. Atya snuck his food to Elros and I, and Atto would sneak his to Atya.” 

Nelyo yelps in shock two chairs away, and hisses, “You knew about that?” 

Elrond cringes slightly, “Ah, erm, well, yes, and I suspect Atya did too, but I think I was the only one that noticed that you didn’t really eat as a result. Anyways, if I send some food to the rooms for their use can you get him to eat? That lichen is not easy on an elvish system, I can’t imagine it’s good for a dwarvish stomach.” 

“That’s frequently used for a laxative so you aren’t wrong,” Nori says, and Elrond cringes, “Yes, I will. Perhaps some fluids also?” 

Elrond nods solemnly, and leans back. He keeps watching his guests. The ones that eat with most ease are the children, the three youngest dwarrow, and Bilbo and Nori’s children, since they were protected from scarcity or did not know it in this lifetime. The next were the ones who looked well fed, those in finer clothes and complaining, those who were likely noble of some level and well off. 

Lastly were those who were dressed in rough spun clothes, thinner and practically dressed, the Ur’s, with the exception of Bombur who was that way from his profession from what Nori said, and Dori, and Thorin, who dressed well, but had the tightness around his eyes and attentive demeanor of a guardian given to feeding the children first. 

Thorin reminded him of Maedhros before he and Maglor had sent Elros and him away, towards the end when he was stressed, failing to provide and knew it, and oath driven. 

It scared Elrond not in any small way to see that again, even ages later from someone very different in so many ways. 

Nelyo was different from that now, carefree and happy in a way that Elrond had never seen him as a child, and in a very different way than how Elrond suspected he was the first time in the Years of the Trees, they all were. 

Elrond was glad of it, of his chosen family’s return to life and happiness and healing, albeit in a manner he hadn’t expected, but he could admit that it was often hard to see and reconcile. 

There were stark differences between the formidable elves that were Maedhros and Maglor, his Atto and Atya, and Nelyo and Kanó who were children that were damaged in innumerable ways but steady and confident in the love they received. 

Erestor had the same difficulties, with the difference with seeing his father even younger than Elrond’s, and with his uncles also, who while they hadn’t known him as their nephew at the time, since peredhil were accepted until Earendil, or moreso at all until Elrond and Elros’ births, but Erestor had known them. 

Even now, two ages past, Elrond could not understand why peredhil were acceptable from Melian’s line, from Luthien’s get, but any from purely eldar and edaín weren’t until Earendil was born in Gondolin. Erestor had cousins, a sibling even, and they had all been born with the gift of men or immortality seemingly assigned at random. 

Erestor’s older brother had aged, slowly, as chieftain of the Haladan, and died before the choice had ever been a thought, a possibility, his cousins also. Erestor still didn’t have the Choice, apparently only given to Earendil’s descendants. 

As such the prejudice on peredhil had persisted, even now in places. For nearly the whole first age, the common belief had been that Peredhil, born not of the firstborn nor the second born of Erū, but of a combination thereof, did not, could not, have Fëa. The prejudice that Peredhil had no fëa, no soul, and therefore were not people persisted for a very, very long time. 

Truly, it was no wonder that those born such hid their heritage, and often joined Feänorien forces and encampments, finding succor and sanctuary with the other Eldar peoples that were hated and feared, with those who could not afford prejudices in such a world that cared not if they died either. 

It had taken a screaming breakdown from Elrond in the second age after Celebrimbor’s death, after the loss of the last of his family, even then Galadriel had not truly liked him for his adoptive parent’s sake for Erestor to tell him of their kin ties, and far longer still for any such information to be trusted to anyone else. 

It hadn’t been until Elrond and Elros had been sent to Gil-Galad’s forces by their parents that such prejudices had affected either of them, though Erestor had clumsily tried to warn them at the time. 

Even now, ages later when those Lords and councilors were dead or sailed away, Elrond still blamed the court around the High King of the Noldor at that time for Elros’ choice of mortality. Gil-Galad was kind, Erestor had tried to shield them, and Celebrimbor had sheltered them as best he could as a subject of vitriol himself. 

Still they had been called abominations, soulless, had been pushed around when their new guardians weren’t around, and sent on fool’s errands to try to prove a lack of intelligence where Elrond and Elros had simply been trying to fit in where they weren’t truly wanted. 

By the time of the Valar’s arrival, the presentation of the choice, the new forces of Noldor under Finarfin’s banner, Elros was so disgusted by the Eldar that he had made his choice before they’d finished speaking, having already made plans to leave with the mannish camps he’d long since slipped into. 

Elrond made the opposite choice, years later, after Maedhros’ reported death, when the remnant forces of the Feänoriens came to him and Celebrimbor for direction and a lord, holding no loyalty whatsoever for Gil-Galad or Finarfin, not with nearly two thirds of them being Peredhil of some level. 

Celebrimbor had refused immediately. He wore the star, acknowledged his kin and Elrond as cousin, but he had renounced his father and thus his house, and even then he had not wished to change that. Elrond could not leave them unprotected, and that same contingent still resided in Imladris, those who had not sailed. 

If he had not chosen the path of the Eldar than they would have been ostracized, much as he and Elros had been in Gil-Galad’s court, much as Celebrimbor had until Eregion’s founding and the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, and even for a time after that. 

Seeing those figures, still hated by most Eldar on Endor now, and beloved by those permanent residents of Imladris, though reluctantly so for some, seeing those ancient warriors, those great minds, those considered amongst the most infamous and famous alike of the Noldor reduced to children, happy and innocent, hurt. 

It was wonderful too, a gift that they lived and remembered, and that they were loved, but Elrond had needed to pull Nelyo from a tree last visit, had scolded him for climbing past where he could safely get down as if he were a valley elfling before he’d realized who he had pulled from the branches of his old elm. 

Elrond had let the sulking elfling go after that, and Nelyo had slunk off, chastised, and Elrond had gone and poured himself three fingers of aged mead. His father, who had once towered over him and frightened him every time Elrond had been naughty, scolded him and comforted him alike, and he had gotten himself stuck in a tree because he’d forgotten that he lacked a hand. 

It was easier to draw that line, between Atto and Nelyo, between the past and the now, and after such had been done then Erestor and Elrond simply got blind drunk, sorted that mental distinction out, and decided to be happy with their expanded family. 

Elrond could see another drinking binge in his future with Erestor, as Ori leaned towards his cousin and asked what he liked to do for fun, and what gifts he might like. Erestor’s eye twitched, and Moryo leaned forward to brag about the elf he had raised more than a lifetime before, and suggest gifts, appropriately decided but perhaps not age appropriate. 

Erestor would certainly enjoy a new abacus, or paper organization clips, but he was also perfectly capable of purchasing such, and while Erestor liked cats, he was certainly beyond too old for a stuffed one. 

Elrond leveled a shit eating grin at Erestor and hid his snicker into his wine as Erestor pulled a face right back at him. 

Ori decided that he’d knit his new grand-nephew a scarf. Erestor looked vaguely pained. 

Mithrandír poked at his mind again, and Elrond shoved back along the bond enforced between their rings, his cousin’s creation and they liked him better. Mithrandír loomed behind Elrond and he leaned back to look at the wizard, with poorly hidden irritation. 

“I would like an explanation,” he said, firm and unwavering, “I have already contacted the Lady Galadriel, and she is gathering the White Council here. Elrond, why have you told none of this of such a development?” 

Elrond holds his gaze. Mithrandír is wise, a valued friend, and trusted with much. However Elrond still remembers his visit in his earliest days to Imladris when he had little care about who had overheard any careless words about kinslayers, and had wondered if truly such a thing could be seen in a fëar. 

He had said this directly to the face of one of Elrond’s councilors, who was both a peredhil and a kinslayer, and the cascade effect from that had not gone well. Mithrandír does not always think about consequences, and indeed often leaves them for others to clean up. 

Elrond blinks slowly, catlike in a very peredhil manner, one that unnerves full eldar, who feel no need to blink at all. Mithrandír draws back slightly, always at ends at the smaller discrepancies in Elrond and others like him. 

“Would you like an explanation?” He says, channeling his inner Maedhros, belligerent and diplomatic in extremis, “That’s nice. Why? Isn’t it simply lovely that it has happened?” 

“How, Elrond.” 

“Mmm. I don’t know. I haven’t asked. I’m not sure I care, as I don’t think it is replicatable.” Elrond curls his lips into a thin smile, the one Gil-Galad used to use on particularly stupid councilors, “Why? You are after all the one who counsels everyone to forgive past crimes and move past the previous ages, are you not?” 

“I did not mean that for Feänorians, and you know it. How were they plucked from Mandos’ Halls? How have you perverted the Valar’s dictates and laws?” 

Bilbo turns, and Nori shifts on Elrond’s other side, Elrohir swelling with indignation behind Nori on Elrond’s behalf. Elrond simply smiles beautifically at the istari, “What makes you think that I did anything?” 

Mithrandír leans in, “You must have. Your ring is the most powerful of the three, and you the most attuned to it, and something is blocking my connection to my Vala, my very prayers cannot penetrate the veil over my mind. Who else?” 

Elrond leans back. He offers a truly nasty smile to the wizard, “And yet, I did nothing. I am glad of it, I like my family, and value them for all it had dwindled so thoroughly, but indeed, I did nothing. Meddle elsewhere, Mithrandír, I have lost enough kin. You may not have them.” 

“If not you, then who?” 

“Does it matter?” Bilbo offers, lazily and unconcerned, but his eyes sharp, “Does it truly? Are there not greater issues?” 

The wizard scowls at him, “Yes, Bilbo Baggins, it does. Simply because you have been bewitched, or recruited, or something, it still matters. It is an impossibility, and a liability for such.” 

Bilbo shrugs and turns back to nudge Tyelko into eating his fruit. Elrond looks at the wizard, frustrated as he is and standing there in a confused huff, and Elrond extends a scrap of pity past his own indignation. 

Mithrandír and Galadriel have been picking at his mental shields until his very breath aches from his pained head, the wizard has been harassing the whole group trying to gather information, he has frightened two of the children, he has broken hospitality rules multiple times over in increasingly worse ways, and invited a council to his home, when three of them are not welcome while his family are there. 

Elrond is angry with them, past furious with the situation at hand and as a whole, and his scrap of pity is a fanged viper that he hopes stays with Mithrandír for a very long time. 

“There are more things in Arda, Ólorin,” he says, folding a scrap of paper from his pocket with swift movements, “than belong to the Valar, or indeed to Erū Himself.” 

He hands the folded paper to the Istar, who stares down at the black spider, ashen. 

The trout is brought out then, and Elrond turns back to the table, dismissing him easily. Behind him Mithrandír leaves, simply wanders away. Elrond takes a sip of his wine and focuses instead on Kanó’s excitedly signed telling of his daring escape from the trolls, as Nori quietly clarifies the embellished points for him. 

He doesn’t care how it happened. Mithrandír and Galadriel can obsess over it all they like, and Saruman can join them. He is happy to spoil the children, and revel in having kin again, odd as they are.