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Bilbo isn’t sure what really woke him up. One moment he’s drifting off to slumber, the next moment he’s fast asleep, then the next-er moment, he’s staring dazedly into space, snapped awake by something and feeling utterly disoriented.
“Oy, psst, you’re awake, I can see you!”
The Hobbit blinks for several moments. Like most good people, he has a voice in his mind that talks to him. You know, the one that snarls at him when he’s thinking of leaving this insane quest and returning to the Shire, and also the same one that snickers at him when he eventually stays anyway. But he was asleep. Who in the name of meat pies talks to their own brains when they’re asleep?
“Bilbo Baggins, funny Hobbit!”
The Hobbit bolts upright instantly. That was most definitely not his own brain! Heart thumping like a drum, Bilbo’s gaze tracks frantically over his surroundings. It is still as the dead around him. The Company of Dwarves are soundly asleep around him, with only the colossal figure of warrior Dwarf Dwalin taking second watch some distance away. Everyone else is also some proximity from Bilbo. The nearest Dwarf to Bilbo would be – he stares suspiciously at the familiar dark, somewhat greying head of that particularly Dwarf.
Thorin Oakenshield.
Just before they turned in for the night, Thorin had informed him gruffly that he would sleep a little nearer to Bilbo, in the event that he does something foolish like roll over and fall off a cliff. Bilbo just sniffed and did not deign to answer.
“You look even funnier up close.”
Dancing ponies and cheese loaves!
Bilbo nearly leaps out of his skin. His heart now feels like it’s going to pound right out of his chest. Who spoke? Where is the voice coming from? No one is awake! Should he inform Thorin? What would Thorin do if Bilbo tells him someone is chatting with him in the night, and he cannot see who it is…
Like an invisible magic being.
Thorin’ll have his head.
“My name’s Conscience. How do you do?”
Bilbo’s jaw drops open. Now that he is staring straight directly at the leader Dwarf, there is no doubt about it. The voice came from Thorin.
“Are you speaking to me, Thorin?” Bilbo hisses, eyes darting this way and that to make sure no one else can hear him.
“He’s asleep, can’t you see? Just because I grow on his head doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with him.”
A few things first.
The voice is clearly not Thorin’s. It is higher, a strange blend of a rough male timbre, and the smoother tones of a female. Secondly, it sounds decidedly snarky.
Thirdly – and Bilbo is starting to finally accept that age has caught up with him and he’s slowly losing his mind – he thinks it’s Thorin’s hair talking to him.
There is a hysterical moment where Bilbo wants to laugh, but he doesn’t think it’ll go down well with the Company. In addition, Bilbo doesn’t think he can stop laughing once he starts. Thorin’s hair is talking to him. He’s going fucking insane.
“Oh, all right. Conscience’s not my real name. I’m just plain old Hair.”
“You talk,” Bilbo says numbly. His eyes are fixated on Thorin’s long, wavy locks. Other than it’s usual tousled state, it’s not doing anything. It’s not dancing, or beckoning to him, or snaking out to slap him across his gawking face. It’s not doing anything to indicate that it’s alive.
“And you’re staring at me. That’s not very polite, you know.”
Thorin’s hair is talking to him about manners.
I’m dead somehow already and in limbo, Bilbo decides and looks at the cliff. Perhaps he should save everyone the trouble and throw himself over.
“Please don’t,” Thorin’s Hair tells him curtly. “The last time he had to fish you out of the river, I got myself tangled and he was so angry with me. It’s not my fault, you know. You try being me.” It sniffs delicately. “Threatened to cut me too.”
“He should,” Bilbo says without thinking. He can’t think. His mind is trapped in a dark, sunless place right now, surrounded by images of gleefully swaying hair tresses. “You’re too long.”
Thorin’s Hair spits a Khuzdul-sounding curse at him.
Bilbo blinks. The Dwarf and his Hair have the same fiery temper. Clearly, they deserve each other. “Well, I didn’t mean – ”
“Oh, I forgive you,” the Hair cuts him off breezily. “You’re a grocer, after all.”
“I’m not – I’m a Hobbit,” Bilbo mutters crossly, quite forgetting he’s arguing with – well – hair. “What are you anyway? Are you male? Female?”
The Hair keeps quiet for a long moment. “I’m really just hair, Bilbo,” it says at length, its tone grave. “I didn’t know Hobbits have gender roles for hair. What, the Males go out and hunt, and the Females stay home and knit?”
“No, they – our hair – don’t!” Bilbo retorts, not sure what on earth he’s saying. He doesn’t know how Thorin stands it; his Hair is infuriating. “We don’t even talk to our hair. We’re not supposed to. It’s not proper!”
Another pause, then a high, silvery peal of laughter resounds in the air. It’s nothing short of astounding that only Bilbo hears it. “Oh, I know that. You should have seen your face. You’re a funny Hobbit.”
“You’re a pain in the arse. He should shave you off.”
“He cannot. I make him look majestic.”
Bilbo blinks again. Then his lips twitch. And before he knows it, he’s stuffing his hem of his shirt into his mouth to stifle his giggles. By Bungo’s hairy feet, he may be starting to like Thorin’s hair.
“I feel like we should get to know each other or something,” Bilbo gathers the remaining shreds of his brain and his mirth under control.
“You want to touch me inappropriately?”
Just like that, the smile slips off Bilbo’s face. He mentally retracts his earlier profession of any liking for the Hair. “Frankly, I don’t know whether to snip you off or tie dead knots into you.”
“Oh, have a sense of humour, Mister Baggins,” the Hair laughs again, merrily and mischievously, like a devious little goblin. “I like presents. Clasp, ribbons, flowers, clips, anything. Give me something, and I won’t say a word about you wanting to stroke me.”
Bilbo is appalled. “Why should I give you – ”
“Hush! Beard’s coming!”
And just like that, the Hair falls completely silent, and Bilbo is left feeling stupefied as the giant shadow of Dwalin falls over him.
“Are you talking to someone?” the Warrior Dwarf hisses gruffly, which sounds like soft thunder coming from him. “Why aren’t you asleep?” He’s looking around them, suspiciously and warily for any signs of danger. He looks exasperated and annoyed with Bilbo, like he always does.
“Oh I am, I just – ” Bilbo says, tripping over his words as his mind goes into overdrive creating a plausible reason for his current state. “I had a dream about hair.”
Dwalin stares at him like he’s an idiot. “You don’t even have much to speak of.”
Bilbo harrumphs and flops back down onto his bed-roll. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep again. So, he sleeps soundly through the rest of night, his brain filled with dreams of majestically swaying hair in the wind.
++++++++++
Thorin Oakenshield looks down at that object on his palm. It is a wooden comb with long bristles and intricate patterns etched onto the rosy-brown surface. He looks up and eyes the Hobbit for a long moment.
“What. Is. This?” Thorin barks.
“It’s a comb, of course,” Bilbo Baggins retorts. He gestures vaguely in the direction of Thorin’s head. “For your, you know, hair.”
“And why would I need this?” Thorin is starting to snarl in the way he does when he’s going to combust and is trying his level best not to.
“Your hair likes it!” comes out of Bilbo’s mouth before he can catch himself. He falters, looking mortified at himself.
They stare at each other for an overly-long bizarre moment.
“Fine,” Thorin snaps and pockets the comb.
Thorin keeps his bearing very rigid, nodding gruffly at the Hobbit as he stammers something before quickly disappearing from sight. Then he waits for several more moments, ensuring the surroundings are absolutely clear of any prying eyes or eavesdroppers.
When he is finally sure no one else is around, he slowly winds a hand into his hair, takes a large handful of it, pulls it around one shoulder and glares at it with the fury of a storm.
“So you need a comb now?” Thorin thunders. “You get yourself tangled up and it’s my fault?”
“I…” Hair stutters in a small voice, curling miserably into itself. “I just…I can’t help it, sometimes…I get excited…”
“Sort yourself out now!”
Like an eager puppy, his hair begins to twist itself out of its knots, rippling out into smooth locks. Now and then, however, it stumbles over itself. “Terribly sorry about that,” it’ll blurt out, wrapping a little around Thorin’s neck in apology. “Don’t know what I was thinking there…Oh uhm, give me a moment, sorry!” it cries when Thorin hisses at a particularly hard tug at his scalp. “Are you angry with me…”
Thorin raises a dark eyebrow. “Not if you’re good. I may consider using the comb on you.”
Like magic, his whole head of hair flings itself out like a happy carpet.
“Stop that.”
So it settles down and obediently drapes itself around Thorin’s shoulders and back in a perfect fall of shining, wavy tresses.
“Disciplining the Hair?” A voice growls as it approaches.
Thorin looks up and snorts when he sees Dwalin. “Doesn’t need as much discipline as your Beard does.”
Dwalin’s beard seems to grow darker as it bristles furiously against his chest. “Silence,” Dwalin commands it. “Do not be rude to the King.”
A brown object spins through the air, and Dwalin catches it in a burly fist. He stares down at the innocuous-looking comb. Thorin shifts on his feet as he looks at anything but Dwalin’s face.
Dwalin keeps his face very, very straight. “We’ll share.”
finis