A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Sixteenth Entry - Elvish Wine

The elf to Oloran’s right caught me by the hands and swung me up, then high so my feet soared over the table and the heads of the people sitting at it, then swooped low and around again. I cried out my enjoyment of the spinning, and the other elf snatched me out of the air as I was tossed, and spun me once by the ankles. Then I just dangled there, cackling, both hands pressed to my aching belly, my hair trailing on the ground.

“This is so much fuuuuun!” I rejoiced. “Do it again!”

So they did. But only by the hands, as apparently they were worried something might spill out of me if they swung me too much by my ankles. When at last they put me on my feet again I threw myself back and forth trying to find the right angle to stand at, and knocked into a number of things and people before the elf who had sat on my left put a hand on my shoulder and guided me toward my raised seat. I looked up at the bench and crate—which together were the height of my chest—and whimpered, tears nearly springing into my eyes. “It’s so high. I’m so tired.” I slumped against the bench and crate with a moan, my forehead knocking down onto my folded arms on the crate’s upturned bottom.

Oloran laughed. “Never fear, little one.” He picked me up with his hands under my arms and swung me up and over the bench and sideways across his lap. I crashed my face into his shoulder and shut my eyes, pulling my knees up and sagging into his chest. I didn’t know where all this tiredness had come from but it had me solidly in its grip now.

I fell asleep there in moments. Without me making a spectacle of myself the conversation of the elves dimmed both in my ears and in volume, and the elves carried on eating and talking, with Oloran eating and talking around me and somehow never jostling me awake. I’d have to thank him for that later.

Some hours later someone carried me back to my cell and bundled me up with my blankets on my mattress. After that I slept. And slept. And slept some more. Guards came by about every hour to see that I was still breathing. I rolled over a couple times and was occasionally, absently aware of the murmurs of people outside my door, but for the most part I was out cold.

When I finally woke up there was a cold meal and two cups of water waiting for me. I slogged over to them, completely without either headache or nausea, but still suffering some residual dizziness all the same. I grumbled about the strength of elvish wine over my water and sandwich, and within fifteen minutes Mirinel came stepping lightly around the corner to see me.

“She awakens!” Mirinel sang. “How was your nap?”

I groaned emphatically and dragged my palms down my face from where I sat on the floor. “What time is it?”

“Three of the afternoon.”

“Butterfly balls,” I grumbled. “I did not issue permission for so much time to pass while I was sleeping.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Are you still inebriated?”

I lifted a finger as though to state my case. “Most assuredly at least a little bit.” I clawed my way up the bars. “Do I have to pass a sobriety test before you let me out or may I still walk about with you?”

She unlocked my doors. “You are perfectly welcome to accompany me. I only request that you not cavort about on the stairs, as I doubt you would fare well in your present state.”

“Don’t worry my present state and I aren’t getting along well.” I tottered out of the cell and latched immediately onto the loose fabric hanging from the bottom of her tunic.

“Can you sing for our king today?”

“Is it that time already? Of course. It’s my feet that have a mind of their own, not my voice.”