A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Twenty-Five - Unexpected Pains

"You know that cramp I had earlier? It's gotten awful, I feel sick and hot, and the place where it hurts is sore and swollen."

He sat abruptly up, digging at his eyes. "It's swollen? Where?"

"Um, the lower right side of my stomach. Ish."

Bofur leaped out of bed and I turned to face the doorway. "Put some pants on!" I admonished, and heard him rummaging as he hastily did so. "Where are we going?"

He put his hand on my shoulder as he passed me. "To see the healer. I may say a lot of derogatory things about your stomach but it should not be swelling. Where's your boots?"

Without bending, leaning into the wall, I began wiggling my foot into one. "They're here." Bending made things feel worse.

"All right, let's be off." He had his own boots hastily stuffed on already, the laces straggling from his ankles.

We hastened down a few levels and east to the nearest healer's home and Bofur banged on the door. Since late-night calls were almost never for his wife, a baker for Erebor's large communal kitchens, the healer himself answered. "Bofur! And Mabyn, so nice to see you. What've you got?"

"She says her stomach hurts down and toward the right, and she mentioned it hurting this morning too. She's got a fever, feels sick, and says the spot that hurts is swollen."

The healer's expression immediately took on a graver countenance, and he ushered us in, through his living room to the rooms he used for his work. "Sounds like an irritated appendix," he said, throwing a thin hay mattress over the low table in the center of the room, and a white sheet over that mattress. He saw the widening of my eyes and commented on it. "Sound familiar?"

"I've heard about it from my realm. Are you going to cut it out?"

He nodded, eyes steady and calm from behind his beard. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to. Sometimes these things pass, but if it bursts it's almost sure to kill you of blood poisoning."

I'd already eased up onto the table and at this flopped back with less care than I should have. "Been there, done that, let's not do it again." I propped myself up on my elbow, suddenly frightened. "Wait you aren't going to do it while I'm awake are you?"

He guffawed. "Goodness no, we'll get you roiling drunk first, so if you're comfortable you might as well sit up. There anything you like? I've got the best stock here." He opened up a few cabinets.

I grabbed Bofur urgently by the hand. "Is there any elvish wine in Erebor?"

He gave me a strange look. "I doubt it—we don't usually care for the stuff."

"What about in Dale?"

"What d'you want their wine for?" the healer asked, still rummaging through his own bottles for something he thought I'd at least hate less than the rest.

"It's guaranteed to put me out cold for a couple hours at least. I used it for pain once before and it was....interesting."

Bofur nodded. "I'll check." He hurried for the door.

The healer called after him. "We should get this started as soon as possible—the longer we wait the more risk there is of a rupture."

Bofur nodded briskly. "I'll be right back."

I sank back against the mattress with a grimace, and sighed, folding my hands over the bottom of my ribs. "This is going to be the worst couple hours I've ever had."

The healer chortled. "You sure you don't want to start with our wine, then?"

I twitched a smile. "I'm fine. It's the anticipation that's the worst."