A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Ten - Travels and Minor Troubles

Gimli’s blunt hands came off his belt to shape the gestures and emotions he was describing, and I found myself watching him with a serene sort of gladness that he could find such passion in something so intangible. I had never believed in any god or gods, never believed in a higher power. I had never had that comfort, because in my world the only comfort that came was that which I bled for myself. But the religions of others fascinated me, and I knew I would have to revere the dwarves’ beliefs, at least, if I was to remain welcome in their sacred home.

“What’s Arda Unmarred?” I asked him after he’d explained of the dwarves’ creation. Fraeg had braided my hair away from my face that morning so most of it was wrapped in multiple weaving crowns around my head, with the rest she hadn’t known what to do with hanging down past my waist. I was glad to have it up with the breeze—there was little I hated more than babysitting my hair on a windy day. I may well have stolen a dagger and hacked it all off. Fraeg would have been horrified.

“Arda Unmarred is the paradise that Arda, this world, was in the moment of and moments immediately after its creation,” Gimli told me, in the voice of hushed and firm belief. “With the evil in the world today, and corruption, now it is known as Arda Marred. But someday….” He nodded. “Someday the world will be whole again, and the dwarves have been promised that we will have a hand in reshaping it.”

“That sounds like a beautiful place.”

Gimli nodded. “Oh it will be, lass. Rest assured, if we have a hand in making it, it will be.”

“Do you realize that lass has gone and made the personal acquaintance of every one of us?” I overheard Freda asking Gloin one evening as I was reaching for the blanket inside our wagon that had gotten stuck between two tipped chairs. I had indeed sat down for a discussion with Freda too, about how to manage my long hair without cutting it, for which she’d had a few suggestions.

“No, what of it?” Gloin wanted to know, rummaging near his own wagon. I could only hear them because they were on my left side and not far away. We always parked the wagons close at night.

“Well clearly she wants to be accepted,” Freda asserted, though I could tell she hadn’t quite drawn to a clean point the relevance of her observation. “I just like that she’s gone out of her way to talk to us. We feel a bit strange not knowing all of your companions and I’m sure everyone else feels a bit strange not knowing your family. We four are the odd ones out.”

Their conversation went on another line or two but I turned my deaf side toward them so I wouldn't have to hear it. How could I not have noticed this before? I’d thought I was just being friendly, but hadn’t I made a point to find some common topic to discuss with each one of them? I had ingratiated myself with them just like I had the four rulers Elrond had drawn to my attention. I was establishing a network, assuring that they would have some form of trust or affection or at least familiarity with me. And I’d done it without even thinking, starting the very first day.

How could I not have seen this? How had Elrond, who barely knew me and for the most part only knew of me?

Did I truly have any friends? Or was every person I met just a potential ally I felt the need to coerce into liking me so they would stand up for me if the need arose?

With such thoughts on my mind I was in no way shocked when I woke up with my face in the grass, having tried to sleepwalk away from my bedroll but not getting far because I’d tied a length of linen between my ankle and one of the spokes in the wagon wheel.

“Mabyn?” Fraeg asked sleepily, sitting up from where she slept not far from me. Bofur was on watch against the wagon wheel to my right but he had fallen into a light sleep. I’d wake him before I went back to sleep myself. “Are you all right?”