A passion for Mushrooms

Carry That Weight

Eventually, Bofur went back to dancing with the still merry group at the center of the golden dance floor in the Hall of Kings. Left alone on the stone bench near the wall, Bilbo sighed in relief and put a hand in his pocket. He was very glad to have brought his little ring along to the party. At the start of the evening, he’d thought precautions were needed in case his friends had a joke that went too far. Didn’t it just figure that he should need the ring to save their feelings instead of his own. Still, he would do a lot more than turn invisible to protect Thorin Oakenshield from harm. Even just a little harm to his pride.

Putting on the ring was always a strain. When he was wearing it the world turned so washed out and colorless. Yet using the ring was thrilling, in its own way. Once he was invisible, he could do anything he liked. Anything at all.

Finally, he was able to set the gold box down on the stone bench and rub his poor thighs. They felt practically bruised from bearing the heavy weight of Thorin’s gift for so long. He stretched, shook out his hands, and took long slow breaths to rest from the strain.

Of course it had been very kind of Thorin to give Bilbo a present. Knowing that hobbits liked gifts, and that under dwarven custom only a king could give one without all sorts of meaning attached, Thorin had chosen to do something nice for his friend. However, Bilbo wouldn’t have minded something a lot smaller. Perhaps even something hobbit sized. Clearly that would have been asking too much.

Focusing on how kind it was for Thorin to think of him, Bilbo put his back into it and picked up the box with the enormous gold necklace inside. He managed to make it out of the Hall of Kings and halfway down the corridor to the great forges before needing to stop and take a rest, panting invisibly against the wall. At such a speed, he might make it to the royal wing by breakfast time. Provided, of course, that he did not rest as much as he wanted, only as much as he needed.

There was no help for it. He would have to borrow a wheelbarrow from the forges and hope that no one noticed or told his friends about it. That was a fool’s hope, of course. Dwarves tended to gossip more than drunken Brandybucks at a wedding, but maybe no one would tell Thorin. The king didn’t exactly chat over drinks at his guild hall in the evenings. Bilbo sighed and hefted the box once more. This time, he managed to make it nearly a hundred paces before he had to set it down again. Despairing, he sat down on top of the box, gasping for breath.

Hope came unlooked for in the form of a lone dwarf walking swiftly from the Hall of Kings.

“Fili!” Bilbo said happily, not taking off his ring.

Looking around with wide eyes, Fili said, “Bilbo? Are you following me? I did not leave them alone on purpose!”

Bilbo blinked, then laughed. How strange that they should both be doing something clandestine when they encountered one another. “I do not care if Kili and Tauriel are alone together. You mistake me for your uncle.”

Narrowing his eyes in Bilbo’s general direction, Fili asked, “Then why are you following me about in secret?”

“As it happens, I do have a secret, though I am not following you at all. I simply need your help. Only you must swear on your honor to tell no one. Please. I cannot manage on my own.”

At once, Fili’s face settled into a noble countenance that Bilbo thought quite princely. “I so swear it. If it is in my power to help you, I will always do so, Bilbo. You know that.”

“Yes I do,” Bilbo said, grinning ruefully and taking off his little ring. “And it is not so serious as all of that. Only can you please help me carry this box back to my rooms? My arms are likely to fall off in protest if I try to lift it again.”

Blinking in confusion, Fili stared at the hobbit. Then the heir to the throne of Erebor bent over and lifted the box easily with one hand. Bilbo might have hated him for that, but Fili seemed to weigh the gift in his palm, moving his elbow up and down. Finally, he said, “This is heavy.”

“Give the dwarf a prize!” Bilbo cried, as though he was hosting a booth at a spring fair. Feeling immediately guilty for this rudeness, he apologized. “I am sorry, Fili. Yes. To me, it is very heavy. Very heavy indeed.”

“Because it is solid gold,” Fili said, as though testing the words. “It must weigh half again as much as you do. A hobbit cannot lift it.”

“I can lift it well enough,” Bilbo snapped. Of course, then he needed to apologize again. “Only I cannot carry it very far. I am not a dwarf.”

“No,” Fili said, and the pity in his face seemed far more than the situation warranted. “You are not a dwarf.”

“Look,” Bilbo said, “I am not upset. I know very well that I am not a dwarf. I was not made of stone by the mighty Mahal, but that does not make me any less than any of you. It is not as though I am not very happy with my hobbitishness. There are many things that I can do that a dwarf cannot, in point of fact, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

“Uncle should have remembered it,” Fili said, his eyes hardening.

“Oh dear. There’s no use in you getting upset about it, either. I’m very happy he gave me a present, even if it is one like as not to break my neck if I ever wear it. If you could just help me get it back to my room, we can say no more about how dreadfully heavy gold is.”

“He embarrassed you. Publicly.”

“No,” Bilbo said quickly. “Not at all. If you did not notice I could barely hold it, I doubt anyone else did either. As we say in the Shire, it is the thought that counts. Your uncle thought to give me a great gift of gold.”

“That is a good saying. Yours are a wise people, Bilbo, and I think your solution to the problem a fine one. I will help you carry it back to your chambers and display it prominently. Somewhere my uncle cannot fail to notice it if he visits.”

“Precisely!” Bilbo was relieved that Fili seemed to agree that this was the most polite course of action, because the young prince’s face was still twisted in an angry scowl.

Fili’s was a kind nature, though, and it was very easy to cheer him up as they walked along. Pressing him for details about Kili and Tauriel’s plan for the dance was very effective. As was asking about his own progress in mastering the noble art of smithing metal. The prince was beyond happy to talk about Tauriel’s serious dedication to being accepted by Kili’s family. In him the elf had a willing brother, even if the rest of the house of Durin was less eager to welcome her into their line. Both of them smiled to talk about the young lovers. Just knowing them gave one the feeling of being inside a very noble story, like that of Beren and Luthien, though Fili certainly didn’t think of his brother as a great hero. The smithing was a trickier subject, for Fili detailed some process for setting light into crystals that sounded rather a lot like magic to Bilbo.

“As the way you make those windowed cookies with the sugar clear as glass shall ever be opaque to me,” Fili laughed. “But that is because I do not care to learn, not because I think it unnatural.”

True to his word, Fili helped Bilbo display his new mathom proudly at the center of his bookshelf. It was the work of a moment for the dwarf to prop the box so that it stayed open while magnificently displaying the medallion inside. He even laid out the chain in such a way that it looked like Bilbo might have only just taken it off and set it down. That was an excellent touch, in the hobbit’s opinion, and one he might not have thought of himself. Best of all, before leaving Fili repeated his promise not to speak a word of their conspiracy to anyone, not even Kili. There would be no need to hurt Thorin’s feelings.

This was a very good thing because over the weeks that followed, whatever had been troubling the king seemed to get worse. He spoke to Bilbo at breakfast even less than he had before, and his smile seemed tighter somehow. It was certainly more rare. He did come to the hall for dinner, but he said nothing at all there and scowled at everyone constantly.

Whenever Bilbo asked what the trouble was, Thorin would huff and say there was no trouble. Which was about as convincing as a fauntling covered in frosting saying he did not know where the cake had gone. Unfortunately, there seemed to be nothing Bilbo could do, and the king’s mood grew steadily more disagreeable.