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When Isla awoke, she was on a ship. Her mind, slowly stirring itself to consciousness behind her closed eyelids, was drifting on the gently rocking deck under a balmy evening sky. Even though this was her first time aboard a boat, she found it strangely relaxing. The steady, predictable motion matched the cadence of her lazy heartbeats, and the air around her was warm and soothing. She sighed and wriggled, her chin pressing into…
A shoulder.
The hobbit’s eyes snapped open, but the rocking motion continued, and as she instinctively flexed her toes, she realised that someone was carrying her. It took a few moments for her to get her bearings, but her nose told her that it was Thorin. Compared to hobbits, dwarves were positively anosmic — barging into orc-nests and troll-holds without so much as gagging, when Isla was breathing through her mouth for fear of vomiting. Each dwarf, like each hobbit, had their own particular scent. Not an odour; no, on this journey everyone smelled, and there was no getting around it, but a specific note that marked them out differently in the hobbit’s nose. Balin reminded Isla of a rich plum jam that her mother used to make: deep and complex, and only pulled out of storage for ‘special’ visitors; Gloin and Oin had a tang of fresh leather; and Thorin…
She tried not to sniff the Thorin as she reminded herself of her scent. She wouldn’t say it was her favourite aroma, but there was something intoxicating about the dwarf that made her feel comforted every time she took a deep breath and the dwarrowdam was nearby. It was a stroll at dusk through the winding streets of Hobbiton with honeysuckle blooming on either side of her: heady and nectarous. A roaring bonfire; or more like the smouldering, smoking remains of one. Thorin, to Isla, smelled like the edges of the Shire — how she had imagined the outer edges of the Shire to be before she had set out with the Company: wild, uncharted, and yet somehow familiar at the same time.
Thorin’s laboured breathing came in short grunts as the hobbit bounced against her. Isla wrinkled her nose. The thoughts “am I really that heavy?” and “why am I being lugged around like a sack of potatoes?” entered her still sleep-addled mind.
Where had I been last?
The Hall of Fire’s glowing doorway was rapidly shrinking away as Isla moved through the corridor that led to the Company’s living quarters. The last thing she now remembered was listening to a rather beautiful elf with a honeyed, husky voice singing as she plucked at a harp. Isla had just closed her eyes for a moment, savouring the song and the strange elvish language… she must have dozed off.
Why is the dwarf carrying me in the first place?
If the guests were being bidden to leave for the night, wouldn’t it be more Thorin’s way to prod her awake with a gruff “time to leave, Miss Baggins”, before stomping off. Come to think of it — when had Thorin come into the Hall of Fire? She hadn’t been there for the several excellent poetry readings, and she imagined Thorin would rather slowly drive a fork through her thumbnail than sit through hours of elvish song. Was it the harp that the dwarf had heard from down the hallway and come to inspect? Perhaps to sneer at the weak playing of soft elven hands? Isla smirked, imagining the dwarf rolling her eyes at the pretty elf lass, before showing her a thing or two on the harp. Compared to the one Thorin had brought to Bag-End, made of sturdy dark wood inlaid with gold, the elf’s instrument was as flimsy as a chicken’s wishbone.
Isla pressed her face into Thorin’s shoulder and contemplated tapping her on the shoulder. She could walk the rest of the way to her room — it was only around the next corner — but there was a certain embarrassment about doing that; almost as if the time for excusing herself of the situation politely had long passed. Glancing through wayward strands of Thorin’s hair, which covered the side of the hobbit’s cheek like the canopy of a forest, she sighted a full, yellow moon beaming through the arched windows of the House of Elrond — a few fireflies zipped across it, and from somewhere off in the distance came the gentle melodious lilt of continuous elven singing. She felt her eyes beginning to close again. All she had to do was to pretend to be asleep for a few more minutes, and she may even drift back off.
Isla didn’t have much time to contemplate before she heard the door to her bedroom being booted forwards. She winced. Hopefully it wouldn’t leave a mark. The window had been left open and cool air gusted over her skin as she was laid down in the four-poster bed. The room was dark, and no fire had been lit as the evening was warm enough.
Why hadn’t she left?
Through a crack underneath her eyelids, the hobbit could see Thorin standing by the foot of her bed. The dwarf’s eyes burned inside her shadowed face, like the glowing eyes of a cat. Slowly, Thorin reached down for the coverlet and cast it on top of Isla. She turned; or rather, her shoulder moved, and then she stilled, looking back down at the hobbit.
Isla felt the heavy tread of Thorin’s boots on the floor as she moved towards the head of the bed and the hobbit held her breath, closing her eyes tightly and forcing her chest to move slowly. She swallowed hard, knowing that the closer the dwarf got to her face, the more likely it was that she could tell Isla was truly not asleep. The bed around her dipped as the coverlet was tucked in on all sides with firm hands, and then she sensed the dwarrowdam’s back straighten.
“If you are wondering, Miss Baggins, the performances had finished for the night. Goodnight.”
The curtain across her bed swung shut, and the dwarf stalked back to the door, closing it more gently than she had opened it. Wrapped in her blanket cocoon, Isla’s face was on fire. Well, this would be an awkward breakfast.