Work Text:
T.A 2942
February 6th
Bilbo heaved a dramatic sigh and rubbed his fingers against his forehead. He let his eyes drift closed, the patterns from the flickering candles still painting shapes even in the darkness. He hadn't written any prose in so long that trying to get a spark going was akin to trying to light a fire in a rainstorm.
“Oh, Bilbo! You--... oh,” said Fíli, breaking off into a chuckle. “You had ink on your fingers.”
“Blast it,” Bilbo groaned, pulling his hand away quickly and blinking at his fingers, stained black with thick ink. He grabbed his handkerchief and did what he could for his hands before he poured a little water from the jug onto the corner of the fine cloth.
“It suits you,” grinned Kíli, seemingly blissfully unaware of the ink smudges all over his own face. “You've become too Hobbity again recently, you know.”
“Hah! Too Hobbity!” Bilbo laughed, scrubbing at his forehead. “It's a terrible thing when a dwarven prince says a little hobbit from the Shire has more sense and elegance than himself, isn't it?”
“I didn't say you had more sense and elegance, I said you were too Hobbity!”
“It's true, you just interpreted his words to mean that,” said Fíli, a playful note in his voice. Bilbo rolled his eyes, turning his handkerchief around to use another corner.
“My deepest apologies. What, pray tell, did you mean by 'too Hobbity'?” he asked, folding the handkerchief back into his pocket when the corners came back a very faint grey. That would do for now. Besides, Erebor often left a thick, ashen dust on his skin. A smudge here or there would hardly look out of place.
Kíli was silent a moment, tapping the end of his quill against his chin. Bilbo glanced down at the young dwarf's parchment, spotting more squiggles and doodles than the lines of poetry Kíli was meant to be writing.
“Fussy,” Kíli finally said, a grin stretching wide across his face.
Bilbo snatched a crumpled scrap of blotting paper, a twinge of satisfaction rushing through him as it bounced right between Kíli's eyes. Fíli laughed loudly, but a second later it turned into painful wheezes. Kíli dropped the scrap he'd picked up to throw back.
“Fee...”
Bilbo reached out, putting a steadying hand on Fíli's back.
Fíli waved his hand, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths before he nodded and slumped in his chair.
“I'm fine, I'm fine. Just... breathed in too suddenly. It's fine.”
Bilbo could feel the tremble in Fíli's muscles as he gently squeezed his shoulder, taking his hand back when he was sure the dwarf wasn't about to collapse. He'd experienced more than enough Durins collapsing on him for the rest of his lifetime, thank you very much.
Fíli rested his arms on the table, looking over to Kíli.
“So. What've you got so far, brother?”
“Oh, I... well...” Kíli said, picking up his paper and looking down at it. “I... well, I've got some notes.”
Fíli made an encouraging noise.
Really, Bilbo thought, for all their bickering and bantering, sometimes watching them made him feel quite... lonely. He'd always wondered what having a brother or a sister would be like; or even very, very close cousins. Oh, he'd had friends and family by the bucket-load, but none seemed willing to put up with his oddities, nor those of his parents.
“I've got, uh. Beauty. Grace. Uh... elf...” Kíli said, trailing off at the end. “What about you, Bilbo? What've you got?”
He glanced up at Kíli, gaze flicking over to Fíli before he cleared his throat and sat up straight.
“This is just the first draft, of course, and it's certainly not ready yet,” he reminded them. “He sat a long while at the end of his bed, thinking about dragon-fire and lost mountain kingdoms, and found himself very much afraid. No, he would not go. In fact, he would tell Gandalf and the rest in the morning that he would not go on such a foolish journey. With his mind made up, he climbed into his warm comfortable bed and closed his eyes. From his sitting room he could hear humming, and singing in low, trembling notes.
Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
Kíli groaned loudly, resting his head on the table.
“You wrote that so quickly...! Are you sure you didn't copy it? It's not some old book you've stolen?”
“Certainly not,” Bilbo huffed. “This is my story, after all! Who on earth would I steal it from? Using someone else's words is like using someone else's jacket – too tight and too loose in all the wrong places. Try and do something with your notes. A mediocre poem written honestly is a far better gift than nothing at all.”
“Besides,” Fíli said, “better to show someone what you're rubbish at while they still think you're a prize gem.”
Kíli made a complicated gesture, one Bilbo recognised as being incredibly rude. Bombur had used it frequently on their long march.
“Hush, the both of you. I'm the only one here actually trying to think, and you're making it difficult to do so,” Bilbo said dipping his quill in the ink pot.
Silence fell as he and Kíli scribbled. Fíli was reading something Ori had brought him from the library, propped up in a soft chair which had been dragged to the table in Bilbo's quarters. A small candelabra sat in front of them, and Bilbo felt himself relaxing into the comfortable atmosphere.
Some days he felt utterly distanced from everyone and everything around him. Like he was some dandelion puff, blown in from the green fields and lost among stone – a lonely visitor where he didn't belong. Some days he looked around at the families surrounding him, at the closeness fostered between kin and clan, and thought if he just left, well. No one would even notice.
But other days he looked around at his companions and thought to himself that they were perhaps the best family and friends he could ever ask for. He felt fiercely at home when someone would go out of their way to find him and show him something, or give him something, or ask for his advice, or just sit with him while he took refuge away from the bustle of the main repairs.
The smallest gestures of friendship still meant more than any title or proffered gold for his troubles. So when Kíli had dragged him round a corner, clutching a new letter with a few lines of (rather basic) poetry from Tauriel and asked him to help compose a reply, he'd been delighted.
Dwalin had helped Fíli to his little study, and Bera had appeared with tea and honeycakes – which were quickly scarfed down while Kíli was listening to Bilbo explain the basic concept of writing poems.
If anyone had tried to tell him that one day he'd be sitting in a faraway dwarven mountain, writing his humble adventure tale while the king's nephew wrote poetry for an elf he was in love with, Bilbo would have asked for a taste of whatever mug of the Gaffer's brew they were drinking.
But this was his reality somehow, and he had many more chapters to go.
Kíli suddenly stood up, holding out his parchment at arms length.
“She is beauty!” he announced so loudly Bilbo winced. “She is grace! She is from the elven race!”
The following silence seemed louder than the words. Kíli dropped his arm, looking expectantly at them. Fíli cracked first, collapsing into helpless giggles that soon infected Bilbo.
Kíli sat down heavily, slamming the parchment onto the table.
“You said you wouldn't laugh! You promised you wouldn't laugh at my poetry!”
“I'm not sure that was poetry,” Fíli grinned, trying to steady his breathing. Bilbo wiped a few stray tears from his eyes, shaking his head and swallowing his laughter. He had promised, but he'd had no idea how tricky it would be to keep.
“Well, that... was certainly something. A, ah... interesting first attempt. I see you included some rhyme, and the, ah, structure was... there,” he said, trying not to laugh again as Kíli glowered.
“Simple, blunt, and clumsy. Just like you,” Fíli teased. He ducked out the way as a crumpled ball of blotting paper flew past his head.
Bilbo put his hand between them.
“Now, now! Don't mock what you yourself cannot do, as my father used to say.”
“Exactly! You write one, and we'll see who's laughing,” Kíli groused, crossing out his lines with a flourish. Fíli put his book aside before he reached for another quill from Bilbo's little pot and took some paper.
Once more silence fell between them and Bilbo turned his attention back to his own lines. Perhaps he should try to write a few lines for Tauriel, too... just in the spirit of things.
After some time had passed Fíli put his quill down.
“Here,” he said. Bilbo and Kíli both looked up. “Oh Tauriel, oh Tauriel! Her voice is like a silver bell, eyes as green as a mouldy well, oh Tauriel, oh Tauriel!”
“You didn't even take it seriously and it's still better than mine,” whined Kíli, dropping his head down onto the table as Fíli snickered.
“Oh look, Bilbo wrote one, too,” Fíli said before Bilbo could cover it.
“Ah, well, I think... perhaps it's not helpful,” Bilbo said quickly, turning the parchment over. He was meant to be helping and encouraging the young dwarf, not showing him up.
Kíli raised his head, an acute look of melancholy on his features.
“No, no. Read it, Bilbo. I'm a lost cause.”
“That's not true,” Bilbo said, as kindly as he could. “I'm simply more... practised. I don't want to upset you.”
“And I'm the oldest brother, so I'm naturally better at everything,” Fíli smirked, leaning to avoid another bit of flung parchment. “Besides, you've never even read poetry before, Kee. Let alone tried to write it. I've read a fair bit. If you really want to write something, you should get Ori to help you find some poems and just... adapt bits of them.”
Bilbo nodded, giving Kíli an encouraging smile.
“Exactly! I would never have been able to describe a mountain before seeing one.”
Like watching a child at a festival being given coin to spend at the fair games, Kíli's eyes lit up with new hope.
“Right...! You have to be taught how to fire an arrow, and Dwalin made me spend hours watching bowmen before he let me try, so if poetry is the same, then I'll just read some poems, first! I reckon Tauriel's read hundreds of poems, that's why she's so good. Come on, then, Bilbo! Tell me yours before I go find Ori.”
“Oh, well... alright,” Bilbo said, turning his parchment over. He cleared his throat, still feeling a little guilty.
“She who wanders long and far,
Who's kissed by every single star!
Oh how the fire in her gaze
Sets my aching heart ablaze.
As beautiful as Elbereth
With ancient song upon her breath
She who walks in bright starlight
Who lifts my pounding heart in flight,
Say you'll take my yearning hand
And walk with me on this sweet land.”
Both Fíli and Kíli stared at him for a long moment before looking at each other.
“Mahal's balls,” Fíli said as Kíli shook his head in disbelief, gesturing to Bilbo.
“Brother, is there anything a hobbit can't do?”
Bilbo barked out a laugh, feeling equal parts embarrassed and delighted at their reactions. He pushed the parchment away, flapping his hands.
“Don't be silly, I spent my boyhood writing poems! It's simply practice, that's all, I can't fire an arrow or wield a sword. Off with you, Kíli! Go find some books and bring them back here, and we'll make a much more serious go of it. I'm going to get some more tea, and perhaps some lunch, too.” He stood up, brushing himself down.
Kíli grasped his shoulder, grinning warmly.
“If you could write that so soon about someone you barely know, I wonder what your courting song will be like.”
Bilbo laughed, patting Kíli's hand and pulling on a short cloak.
“Well, I suppose you'll have to wait and see! Right, I'll be back shortly.”
He hurried out the room, unable to wipe the little smile from his face.