A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Twenty-Two - Interests of Others

Some eight months later Tilda invited me to a summer celebration they were having down in Dale. "Have I got to dress up?" I asked her, walking around the edges of the fountain with a buttery sort of crisp in hand.

"Not really. We all wear bright colors and put ribbons in our hair but that's it." She laughed as I stretched to step over her lap.

"What's it celebrating?"

"Growth, warmth, color, joy. All the good things in life I suppose. We hang hundreds of wide ribbons back and forth between the houses and paint silk scarves and children paint their shoes. There are competitions for the best ones."

I was finished with my crisp so I hopped down after my next revolution and sat beside her to pick at her paper cone of sugared nuts—she never finished them all anyway. "Sounds like fun. When should I be here?"

"Can you come back after supper? The opening is at sunset so you should be here a little before that."

"Tilda! What kind of warning is this? That's only a couple hours!"

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I forgot."

"For how long did you forget?"

"Just a couple weeks."

"Oh my goodness." I stood again, throwing the last of my pilfered almonds into my mouth. "All right, if I've got to come back soon I've got a few other things to sort at home first. Meet you at your house?"

"Yes and leave your hair down!" she shouted after me as I darted away across the square.

I stopped and shouted back to her. "What?"

"I said leave your hair down! It's tradition."

"What all of it? Have you seen how long it is these days?" It had gotten out of hand in the last few years so I kept it trimmed to sitting-on length.

"Well most of it. You can tie it back from your face if you keep it simple."

"You heathens!" I waved and hastened back up toward Erebor.

"They're having some barbaric celebration tonight down in Dale, may I go?" I asked Bofur over dinner.

"Sure! Tell me about it."

"It apparently celebrates all the nice things in life, starts at sunset and I'm supposed to leave my hair mostly down. I think it's an all-night sort of thing."

"Well my same request as usual," he said. "Or should I just assume you're spending the night?"

I pursed my lips. If the celebration started at sundown there was no telling when I'd be tired enough to go back. "I think I'll just find a place to stay in town. I don't want to have to exercise your swimming lessons just yet. Or at all for that matter."

He chuckled. "Good lass. Take some money with you. Oh hey, how's Dain doing? You haven't complained about him in a few months."

I shot him a look, one eyebrow raised. "I don't like to complain."

"What do you do at those meetings of his?"

"Pour wine, organize or fetch papers, carry messages. Sometimes I'll spit something out if I remember it and he doesn't. People don't always like it when I do that though."

He speared himself another slice of ham. "Whyever not? They think you'll get it wrong?"

"On purpose."

"What, seriously?"

I shrugged. "Not everyone trusts me. And that's fair. I think it's only because I came here when I was a child—or more of a child—that many people trust me at all. An adult foreigner coming and getting ingratiated with everyone's rulers would be under immediate suspicion, don't you think?"