A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Nine - Bofur's Neighbors and Gloin's Family

With what was left over from our stores Siv made us sit down—Bofur tried to rise to make the toast and she planted her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down—while she whirled together a rather spectacular meal of snacks and other bits and bobs. When I saw a spark set the crust of a bread slice on fire I stood too but Siv spun, pushed me back down, then twirled the grate out of the hearth and blew out the spark before it had the chance to do more than whimper its name.

I decided I wanted to be as competent as her when I grew up.

Of course as soon as we were done with that meal she took off for more food and company from her house so she could feed us all supper as we began putting together what Bofur wanted from his house. Bofur sent a dwarf-girl into town with an order for a wagon to be delivered by the end of the day, then he showed me around the house as Siv came back with two heavy baskets—one over each arm—and began pointing out and describing things he wanted to bring.

Only about a minute behind Siv was one of her two sons, Dolin, carrying a pot of a massive size Bofur apparently didn’t have, and two minutes after him came another, Dofin, with a variety of cooking utensils serving the same purpose. Dolin was older than I but not quite an adult I’d guess, since I still couldn’t follow dwarf ages, and Dofin was perhaps a little younger than I. They readily introduced themselves to me, and asked me, just like their mother, what was wrong with me to make me so emaciated. I cheerfully explained as I had to Siv, they nodded just as she had, and they too returned to the task at hand. I decided I liked them.

We then commenced first bringing to the center of each room that which Bofur decided he wanted to keep from it, including furniture, paintings both in the frame and out (there weren’t many of these), mementos, a few wooden figurines he said his father had carved, and a few stone ones from his grandfather.

“Let me take that for you, lass,” said Dolin, lifting the only large framed picture—of Erebor in the fall—from where I’d propped it between my hands and leaned it against my chest. He took it and lowered it against a small desk with far too many drawers than a sane soul would know what to do with. Just a few minutes later Dofin took a wide nightstand—also with drawers, which were the hardest part of the carrying endeavor—and set it in the middle for me. After this happened twice from both of them when I carried anything more cumbersome than a candlestick I caught Bofur before he went back inside after haggling with the wagon-seller and demanded to know why I wasn’t permitted to carry things.

Bofur heaved a mountainous sigh. “Lass, it’s got nothing to do with you, really. Well I suppose it’s a little to do with you. You do look—how was it Siv said it—well how she said it wasn’t necessarily the most kindly way either.”

I closed my eyes. “Bofur.”

He sighed again. “Lass, you don’t look healthy by our standards, not entirely. I mean look at the lot of us! Have you ever met a dwarf of your, well, horizontally diminished proportions.”

My fists flew to land on my hips. “Bofur I am perfectly healthy! I’ve even rounded out a bit after getting sick at the end of last fall.”

“Yes but to us you just don’t look right!” he cajolingly insisted. “It’s two different cultures, I get that, but you’ve just got to understand that you look rather, well, delicate. And you’re a girl, and most lads will be in the habit of doing things for you anyway.”

I threw my head back and groaned. “I understand. Is there any way to cure them of this? I’ll go mad.”

Less than three minutes later I was in the rafters loosening the screws for the blue lamp Bofur wanted. He had gone to find a ladder and I, to save time and so he wouldn’t have to find two, was getting the work started for him. I’d found a pair of chisels in a drawer somewhere and used them to pinch the heads of the knuts securing the chandelier.