A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Twenty - Nearing the End of Childhood

{Due to a SERIOUS accident I updated with the wrong chapter (21) before adding this one, and I apologize profusely for the misstep. Here is the chapter I missed, in its proper place.}

By the time I'd spent four years immersed in my lessons I had been deemed a passable female, so I spent many of my free afternoons-if I wasn't in Dale haranguing Bard or his children or others I'd taken to-wandering Erebor. This place never seemed to fill no matter how many people immigrated to it. I deemed, then, that it must have many deeper halls and chambers I was not aware of. Of course people preferred the homes closer to the central part of the underground city, but as those areas never appeared to overfill either I began wandering the uninhabited halls, searching for the places people hadn't occupied in centuries. I liked uninhabited places sometimes-they were quiet, they let me think, and there was something thrilling about walking paths that only ghosts had recently touched. Some places were undisturbed enough their ghosts didn't frighten me.

"I really don't think it's necessarily clever for you to go wandering through places you're unfamiliar with," Bofur pointed out one evening while I finished checking our meat for pinkness.

I took the pan off the fire and Bofur slid out the cutting board for me to place it on without scorching the table. "Should I carry a ball of yarn with me to unravel between our door and my destination?"

"You haven't got a destination. You know you could be lost down there for weeks and we'd have not a clue of where to look for you. Those halls stretch for miles in some places."

"I remember everywhere I've been. I'm doing all right. I haven't gotten lost yet."

"Not lost for long you mean."

"Yes precisely."

"Mabyn." He put down his dagger with a heavy clank. "I know I don't tell you to do a lot of things but I truly wish you'd listen to this one. You could die of dehydration. Do you have any idea how painful that is?"

I put my fork down. "I do keep track of the passages I've taken." He opened his mouth and I spoke over him. "What if I took someone with me?"

He sighed. "Who?"

I pursed my lips. I hadn't actually thought that far yet. "What if Runi or Byrnhild took me? Or Fraeg?"

Bofur shook his head. "I'm not sure any one of them is interested in exploring the damp, dusty halls the way you are, popkit." He still called me that, even though I was ceasing to think of myself as a child, even if I had never truly felt like a child anyway.

I slouched briefly, working my lips back and forth as I thought. "Do you think Gimli would go with me?"

Bofur's brows lifted. "Probably, if you brought food."

I sat back up. "I'll bribe him tomorrow then. What kind of food does he like?"

"You would have to ask Freda, I'm afraid I don't know the lad that well."

After supper I dropped in on Gloin's family. Freda and Fraeg were the only two in at the moment but I was sure they wouldn't find my question too much of a difficulty.

"Gimli?" Fraeg asked with a chuckle sitting before the fire with embroidery far better than mine. "Oh everything. Soft spot for clover-blossom mead and Ma's dimple biscuits, I suppose. Ma, what kind of food does Gimli like?"

Freda called back from the kitchen, "All of it, why?"

"Because Mabyn intends to bribe him into doing her a favor."

Freda's laugh echoed from the back rooms and she came out with her arms full of stripped sheets. "That one? As far as your skills yet go your best bet is to try a roast sandwich. Never was much of one for fancy foods."