Once we’d rolled in the grass enough to dry and put our shoes back on Bofur and I strolled over toward the other side of the mountain, where multiple wooden structures had bloomed since Erebor had been restored. The dwarves didn’t have much use for horses—they were too tall for us to saddle and ride—but goats, pigs, cows, ponies and small mules often came in handy. Bofur tossed me an apple he’d had tucked away somewhere and ate one of his own as we walked. He asked me about my lady lessons and I told him truthfully what I thought of them—my opinions were softening, however that did not mean I liked them by any stretch. It was nice to be able to choose what we ate every night though.
When we reached the pastures—I noticed this new one was distinctly smaller—I hopped right up to stand halfway up the fence but Bofur bent underneath one of the boards and gestured for me to do the same. “Come along. They’ve only arrived today so I don’t know if they’re out yet.”
So I vaulted the fence and followed him. “You’ve got your smug socks on,” I told him when I caught up.
“I do not, I’m just enjoying the sunshine.”
“You’re mighty pleased with yourself for just enjoying the sunshine.”
“Gods save me from the suspicions of Little Mistress Mabyn!” he exclaimed. “Can’t you accompany me to visit the lady horses without wondering just why I’ve got a certain smile on?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You couldn’t express more smugness even if you twirled your moustache. This living together thing has taught me to get to know you too you know.”
He heaved a sigh worthy of my own use and simply shook his head at me. “Someday we’ll cure you of this suspicious heart of yours.”
“I like my suspicious heart. It keeps me out of trouble.”
He guffawed. “I would hardly say that.”
We reached the stables and pushed open the bottom half of the door, the top half already being open. The sounds of all the creatures in their stalls were just the same as they were in Dale’s stables, but all distinguishably more diminutive. I was smiling already as I ran to the first one and leaned over the side—the walls were only up to my ribs. The miniature horse inside this one was gray, and when he looked up at me from a height of only about my waist he pulled his lips back and whinnied.
I grinned. “Saucy fellow.”
Bofur joined me with his elbows hooked over the stable wall. “See? They’re adorable little things. What ulterior motive could I possibly have in showing you something that I knew would wrap your shining heartstrings around their little hoofs?”
I stuck my tongue out and blew it at him. This particular lady horse wasn’t interested in getting to know me so I moved on to the next one. She had a dark little foal suckling at her belly and I decided not to disturb her.
“Mabyn, what about this one?” Bofur asked, having moved on to another low stall. He had been joined by another man, with whom he was chatting and gesturing into the stall when not stealing glances at me.
“I’ll get there eventually.” Whatever he was up to, I’d get to it on my own time. He’d made me swim, now he could wait. I greeted four more tiny horses before coming to his side. “This one’s pretty too,” I equably agreed as I peered down into the stall, which housed a brown mare and her roan-and-spotted foal. This foal still of a suckling age as well. He—nope, she—came up only to my thigh in height. The mother’s head was only a little shorter than mine.
“What do you think of the foal?” the stablemaster asked, lifting the latch so I could go inside, which I did only hesitantly—I had been born a city girl, and large animals weren’t something I had a lot of experience with. “You can let them share the rest of that apple if you’re done with it.”
True to form, I still had half the apple left so I went to hold it out between my fingertips.
“No no, on your flat palm, lass,” the stablemaster corrected. “Like this.”
I cupped the apple in my hands and tentatively held it out. These small horses had large teeth too. I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t be able to flinch when I saw them, and felt only soft lips plucking at my palms, and cracked one eye open. The mare and foal were both nosing at my hand as they sought out any clumps of apple they might have left uneaten. I smiled hesitantly, dropped my hands and wiped them off on my apron.
“See now, they’re not as bloodthirsty as they look,” Bofur teased. “What’re their names, Gunnar?”
“The mare’s name is Sweetcheeks, and the foal hasn’t got a name yet.”
I slid down to sit against the wall in the hay, and the mare stood over me to sniff me from my hair to my toes. Only once she deemed me harmless did she permit her foal to do the same, though she kept a watchful eye on the both of us. Good lady.
The foal lipped at my hair. I reached up and gently removed it from her mouth. “Excuse me, that’s mine. You’ve got your own.” Her fur was still as soft as a puppy’s, and I fluffed it up where her mane was still growing in. Since I’d taken back from her my hair, the little foal grabbed the ribbon of my apron instead and hurriedly backed away with it, the bow unraveling and the apron jumping to follow her across the stall.
The ribbon behind my neck brought me lunging forward, the foal being stronger than I would have expected based on its spindly legs. “Hey now!” I stood up and reached for the ribbon. “Really? You clepto. Give it back.” I made a snatch for it and the foal skittered away. “Are you really going to put up with this?” I asked of the mother, who was ignoring us and had her head in the feed trough. “Apparently so. Give it. Come on, behave.” I had to lightly pinch her nose, but the foal finally gave it up. Swiftly I retied it, then turned up the bottom of my apron so it protected the ribbons where they tied in the front.
“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you,” Bofur said, with that smug look on his face again.
“Excuse me?” I demanded, putting a fist temporarily. “She’s not my problem, she’s his!” I pointed at the stablemaster.
Gunnar shook his head with a chortle. “Oh no lass. This one’s only my problem in housing.”
My eyebrows dropped in warning. “Excuse me?”
“She’s yours, lass,” said Bofur. “To carry you back and forth from Dale and Mirkwood. Or rather, to pull your carriage.”
I threw up my hands. “Bofur! I can ride a pony just as well as I need to. I’m not that small.”
“So you don’t have to carry so many things back and forth from either place then,” he said with a dismissive shrug, mind decided. “Put your things in the cart instead.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Oh, Bofur, it’s not as if I carry that many things back and forth! The elves give me everything I could need in Mirkwood and I never buy much in Dale.”
“No but I’ve seen you make two trips to carry back a chicken, potatoes and a head of lettuce.”
“Did you see the size of that chicken?” I said defensively. “It was the size of a turkey!”
“Then as a pet.” He absolutely refused to let my arguments stand. “Come on, Mabyn, why not?”
“I’ve already got a pet.”
“Lots of people have more than one animal.”
“Horses are expensive.”
Bofur knocked his head down on top of his arms several times. “Mabyn. Do you really think one of the dwarves who saved Erebor is strapped for gold? We’re all well-off.”
“You don’t show it.”
Gunnar laughed. “That’s because men make money, lass, and it’s the wives who spend it.”
“Gloin’s family isn’t parading around in silk,” I pointed out.
“Gloin is a tightfisted brute when he’s of a mind for it,” Bofur replied peaceably. “Besides I’ve got about everything I need. The most important lady in my life doesn’t seem to want heavy pretty things like jewels wearing her down so I’ve seen fit not to burden her with them.”
“Spoiling me is not good for my character.”
“Mabyn. Since when has anyone else that we’ve known ever been able to influence your character? You’re a right stubborn brute yourself you know.”
“I’ll teach you how to train her,” Gunnar said, entirely on Bofur’s side and already convinced of who would be winning this discussion. “By the time she’s grown you’ll both be trained.”
“Bofur…. Where did you even come up with this?”
“King Dain noticed you didn’t carry much with you when you went to Mirkwood and thought it a pity that you had to carry everything in your saddlebags, and not many of those. Oh Mabyn, don’t give me that look.”
At the very mention of the king I had crossed my arms, scowling. “What does he care?”
Bofur rolled his eyes, unlatched the door and let himself in to sit across from where I’d plopped back down again. “Mabyn, King Dain isn’t a bad man.” The stablemaster ambled off. “I understand how you learned to avoid certain men but it still isn’t fair to him. He’s a perfectly decent fellow to know, if a bit forthwith at times.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Yes but you haven’t got any reasonable reasons not to! It’s not fair to hold that against him, lass, you haven’t even tried! You tried with the Elvenking.”
“Oh surely, to get him to let me out of his dungeons!”
“Shall we throw you in Dain’s dungeons then, to give you motive?”
I threw a handful of hay at him. “I don’t want anything of his.”
“For the love of mutton, Mabyn! The foal isn’t from him just because he gave me the idea to give one to you! Isn’t she a sweet enough creature?”
“Oh she’s plenty sweet, she’s absolutely darling. But I. I don’t need her, Bofur! It seems a waste of money to give me things I don’t need.”
“Mabyn, you have proven that there are many things in life you can indeed survive without. But you ought to learn to permit other people make you happy once and a while. It’s all right to have a few unneeded things in your life you know. That’s what ale is for.”
I rolled my eyes. The foal came stepping lightly back to me and nosed my hair. I couldn’t help smiling up at her.
“See?” said Bofur. “You’re best friends already.”
The foal stuck its blunt, soft nose into my ear and I jumped, then threw up my hands in surrender. “You are incorrigible.”
Bofur grinned. “That’s my lass.”
I was very glad to belong to someone, and looked down into my lap to hide my blush.
Perhaps two weeks later, while the foal, mare and I were out enjoying the sun in the opened pasture, Bofur and Freda strolled over to see me. I had been given additional time off from my lessons to allow me time to bond with the foal, and vice versa, as the dwarves’ training methods for these tiny horses required strong trust between the two.
“The two of you seem to be getting on nicely,” Freda remarked, approving, as she leaned on the fence. I turned so I was half-facing the two of them. The foal, which I had not yet named, pranced around me as though trying to throw invisible butterflies off her back. Her mother, as usual, ignored her antics and continued serenely cropping grass a few meters away.
“I do like animals,” I told her, running my fingers along the foal’s downy sides every time she danced past me. “I just haven’t got much experience with them.”
“New experiences are often enjoyable,” she agreed, and I lifted a single eyebrow at her bland tone. Perhaps Bofur was right, and I was a naturally suspicious person. It wasn’t for no reason I hadn’t lost that habit yet though—she and Bofur were going to get at something soon and I knew it.
“So how are your morning jobs going?” Bofur wanted to know, decidedly casual.
“Fiiine,” I replied, letting him know I was onto him. The foal butted at my shoulder and I looped an arm over her back to scratch her side. Truth be told I was getting rather tired of jewelry-sorting, having been at it for at least six months now.
“Ever think of adding something different to your mornings?”
I flung my head back and groaned. “Just cut straight to the ham, Bofur—what do you want me to do now?”
“I’ll leave this one up to you though,” he said, patting his hand against the air in my direction as though to quell my misgivings before they could fully mature. “I do believe you ought to do it though.”
“Do what?”
“It’ll be good experience for you,” Freda agreed, pulling a small bit of sewing out of her apron pocket and going to work on it while we shuffled in circles around what was actually being discussed.
“Especially considering your position,” Bofur added.
“BOFUR DO WHAT.”
“Dain is looking for another attendant since his married and went back to the Iron Hills.”
“No.”
“It’s an excellent opportunity.”
“Haha no.”
“If you intend to make friends with half the powerful men in the realm you ought to have some knowledge of diplomacy.”
“I don’t plan on making any more of that sort of friend.”
“As if you planned on making even the first one.”
“I wasn’t exactly set against it at first either!”
“Mabyn, Dain thinks you’re in a prime position to be his ambassador to Dale and to Mirkwood someday—maybe even beyond. Right now you’re just a dwarf with a few strong connections but if you add Dain to that list, that’s one more person enemies will worry about if they ever think to target you!”
“Doesn’t that just mean I’d be worth more to them, should I even have them?” I shot back, spreading my hands. “There’s a benefit and a risk to all of these things!”
“Yes but don’t you think the benefits outweigh the risks?”
“No not really. Why should I spend time with someone I don’t even like?”
“Because that’s what it means to be an adult, Mabyn, which is something you’re going to have to do eventually.”
“Oh sure, eventually. Not now.”
“Just what do you think these years right before you come an adult for are then, if not to prepare you for it?”
I spread my hands. “I don’t know! In case you haven’t noticed I never really had a traditional upbringing.” And probably never would.
“No but you said yourself you’ve been an adult since you were a child,” Bofur pointed out, and I glowered at him.
“That’s not fair. That was by necessity.”
“Oh and this isn’t? Making the acquaintance of the man who rules your home and already has an interest in knowing you? You don’t want Dain thinking you’re on his bad side, of that much at least I can assure you.”
“I’m not on his bad side! I’m not on any of his sides!”
“Mabyn,” Freda said thoughtfully, “didn’t you tell me once King Thranduil had asked you to pass his regards on to Dain?”
I glowered at her too, shoulder slumping. They all knew how much I hated breaking even small promises. I didn’t have much trouble with lying—not that they necessarily knew that; I hoped they didn’t—but if I told someone I’d do something I tried very hard to fulfill that. Otherwise of what value was my word if I didn’t hold onto it?
“Aye and how long has it been since you’ve seen Thranduil?” Bofur wanted to know.
I stood up. “Too long.” But I couldn’t go back without having done what he’d asked me to, so I swiped off my backside and stomped inside to look for Dain. “In fact I think I’ll go see him tomorrow.” I did miss Thranduil; I’d just been so busy I hadn’t even thought to ask if I could go back yet.
I stomped through Erebor for more than an hour before I found Dain, mostly by following the echoes of his bellowing through the cavernous halls for the last twenty minutes until I located their source—I’d been avoiding them for the last several months so this too was a new experience for me. New experiences being enjoyable, my left earlobe.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of what Dain was bellowing about behind the last door I had to open to get to him, but it didn’t sound like there was anyone else in there with him so I hammered my fist against the door, still scowling. He shouted for me to open it and reduced the bellows to irritated mutters as I dug my toes in and heaved it open.
Dain was still grumbling to himself when I slipped sideways through the small gap I’d been able to make and stood there tightly wound, arms linked across me. By the sound and look of it he’d misplaced something. This room was filled with desks and bookshelves, and was near the top of the mountain, so it had a wide expanse of windows lining the domed ceiling. Multiple, patterned rugs overlapped on the floor. A number of weapons hung on brackets on the walls.
“Thranduil said to give his regards to you.”
At the sound of my voice he turned. “Mabyn? And here I thought you’d rather bite a finger off than find yourself in this part of the mountain. But if that’s what he had you pass on, why weren’t you here months ago?”
I was still standing along the wall. “I forgot.”
“Oh aye, sure you did. ….That buggering ledger.”
I glanced about myself out of human habit when you knew someone had lost something. There was a ledger almost entirely obscured beneath a slide of papers. I wiggled it out and drifted through the pages—they too were written in Westeron. It was remarkable how little the dwarves used their own language. I cleared my throat and held it up. Dain turned.
He heaved a sigh. “Well where in the bloody—” I pointed. “Oh well that explains a lot.”
I stepped forward to give it to him so he wouldn’t cross the room to come to me.
“My thanks,” he said absently. “When you going back to see the Elvenking?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Well send him my regards back.”
I sighed and beat my retreat, throwing my back into closing the door behind me.
“Why is it that all of a sudden everyone wants me to learn new things and do new things and have new things?” I griped to Thranduil a week later while I sat with the embroidery Freda had made me bring, the Elvenking at his desk in his pretty home. “I know plenty of things already. Why’ve I suddenly got to stitch in nine different directions and cook and clean and know how this works with that and match colors and why for the love of anything do I have to make friends with Dain? I don’t want to.”
“Yes because we all only engage in activities that we wish to,” he drawled, gently turning a page in the ancient tomb he was browsing.
“But what’s the point of all of it?” I wanted to know, waving my needle about as though illustrating the lack of points I could find. “I got along plenty fine without being an expert in all of these things before.”
“Your society was quite different than those you find here, however.”
Well shoot. That was entirely true. Fitting in to a small group of people was one thing, but one couldn’t oppose the entire society. They may make it for a little while, but they’d never survive in the end. An entire society could only tolerate so much opposition. It was like a body fighting off foreign bacteria.
“Do you think I should make nice with Dain and be his attendant?”
“Would my opinion influence you?”
I narrowed my eyes up at him from the footstool I’d claimed. “Not telling.”
He lightly rolled his eyes. “I do believe it would be useful to your future to have the knowledge and experience to know how to properly address and work with those of high regard.”
I stuck my tongue out and blew.
“You are in quite a mood today, aren’t you?”
“It’s been accumulating. Sorry.”
“Is there something you disagree with as far as ‘new’ things? I am sensing a pattern.”
“No! Well, a bit I suppose. I like choosing what I do, not being lumped into it. And I don’t need an expensive pet or expensive anything so why should I let Bofur spend his money on such things? They’re frippery, really.”
“Is something that causes you joy frippery?”
“All sorts of things that cause people joy are frippery. No one needs a hundred rings and necklaces, no matter how happy they make you.”
“But to someone who herself has very little, is it frippery to add one more thing to perhaps a dozen other possessions?”
I paused in my embroidery again and narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not going to send me home with a gown sewn with emeralds or something are you? Because I will leave that thing hanging over a tree for someone else to come and find.”
“How very ungrateful of you. I was not going to enforce a gown upon you, no. But I was going to extend an invitation to you to one of our upcoming celebrations.”
“When and what’s it for?”
“Early winter, as a thanks for the past year’s harvest.”
“Sounds like fun. Count me in and write when you can specify the date so I can tell Bofur.”
A few afternoons later I found myself a cozy spot to sit up in the top of some sturdy tree, high enough that I could feel the light sway of its body when the breeze caught it, and worked away at further stitch work. I was tired of the embroidery so I was knitting this time. I’d been up here for a couple hours with a book in my lap so the knitting hung down several feet beneath me—I was certainly getting faster, with all this practice.
A voice floated up from far below me. “Some would suggest it is not safe for you to venture so high without having warned anyone else of where to find you if you should fall.”
I grinned into my knitting, recognizing the voice. “Why should I worry so much when I’ve got so many people to be so worried for me?” I called down to Legolas. “Come up and sit with me a moment. The view is quite nice when the leaves aren’t in the way.” Which was rare, but amidst the occasional stiffer breezes they did flatten to one side and allow me a glimpse of the far-off lake.
I barely felt the vibrations of his movement as Legolas climbed up to join me. He stopped on a thicker branch not far below me and off to one side, though I wasn’t so high up that he couldn’t have come to my level.
“I see you are indeed accruing additional skills,” he said with a small smile, having evidently caught wind of my displeasure with said skills.
“Yes,” I sighed lugubriously. “Freda gave me homework. Byrnhild did too actually, but I’m not sure I’ll finish it all. They seem to think all I do when I’m here is sit by myself and twiddle my thumbs.”
“What are you making?”
That remained to be seen. I paused in my knitting to lift the swaying length of fine, light green wool. “It was supposed to be a sleeve. But I got a bit carried away.”
He chuckled. “I suppose you will have to settle for a scarf then.”
“I wonder if she will still let me count this toward what I was supposed to accomplish while away. She will give me a very exasperated look when I hand it over, certainly.”
“Are you at least beginning to enjoy what you are learning?”
I lifted and dropped one shoulder. “Eh. It gives me something to do with my hands when I’m just sitting and thinking. I didn’t do too much sitting and thinking before, mostly I was running somewhere or doing something.”
He nodded. We sat in the leaf-rustling, bough-swaying silence for several minutes before he said, “Father implied that you were considering becoming an attendant to Dain.”
Some of my peaceful mood disintegrated into something far more resigned. “I think I have to do it.”
“You do not want to.”
“Of course not—despite all evidence otherwise I truly don’t like people of power, particularly men, so the decision doesn’t come easily to me. But with so many people wanting me to do it—and admittedly not all of their arguments are foundless—it seems….a good choice, I suppose. I just don’t like being made to do things.”
“You have said yourself that no one is forcing you to work with him.”
“No but just because they haven’t clapped me in irons like you lot tried to do once upon a time doesn’t mean they don’t have influence. Bofur wants me to do it, as does Freda and a host of others I’d expect, but I think they’re trying not to gang up on me with all of them being on the opposite side I’m on. Your father has said before it would be good for me to get to know Dain and to get to know a bit of politics. I’m not sure I am capable of learning tact, but there’s something to be said for trying, right?”
“Assuredly.”
“Besides I suppose it won’t permanently damage me to learn how to get along with people I don’t get along with instead of just avoiding them. For all I know I’ll be a famed military general someday and I won’t like half the fools I’m commanding.”
“Quite possibly.”
My needles—attached to each other by a waxed cord at the bottoms—clicked away as I worked through it and finalized convincing myself. “It’s not as if he’s ever done anything to earn my avoiding him, really. I kind of set out not to like him I suppose, which isn’t truly fair. Well. It isn’t fair, and that’s all there is to it. Life isn’t fair though. Not that I should live that way myself.”
“Most likely.”
“Half the point of all this though is that he wants to groom me to be his ambassador. But what if I don’t want to be his ambassador?”
“Then do not.”
I shook my head mournfully down at my meter-and-a-half-long sleeve. “I suppose it won’t traumatize me to learn a few more things on top of everything else I’m already learning.”
Legolas had turned away as though listening to something else, but just speaking aloud was what was helping me sort out what I wanted, so his attention wasn’t necessary, and I was hardly going to demand it from him. “Will you accompany me back?” he asked then, returning his awareness to the range that I too could observe.
“Why? It’s not getting dark yet.”
“Tauriel asked me to find you.”
“And you have.” I was just teasing him now. If Tauriel wanted me I’d come back for her.
Legolas almost imperceptibly sighed, and I laughed.
“Don’t get too dispirited, I’m coming.”
“Give me this.” He tugged on the end of my knitting and, after tucking the needles in so I wouldn’t lose any stitches, I dropped it for him to take, even though I could climb down perfectly adequately with it myself. I was wearing a violet tunic and trousers the elves had given me so it wasn’t as if he’d see anything as I flung my legs over one side of my forked branch and dangled from my stomach, bare toes wiggling for the branch Legolas had been sitting on. When I didn’t immediately find it I slid a little lower, and Legolas reached back up to guide my foot to what it was looking for.
“I’ve got this,” I promise him, keeping close to the trunk as I came down another level. He never descended much further than I had gone—he of little faith. Yes yes going down was always more troublesome but that didn’t mean it was difficult. I’d been doing this for ages; I was a professional. “So what’s Tauriel want? Just because I know how to cook now doesn’t mean I want to cook for all of you. Lovely people as you may be, I still don’t necessarily enjoy it.”
“I do not know why she wished to see you, but I do not believe she wished to force you to cook.”
I dangled and dropped onto the next limb, since it was wide enough. I was able to dangle and drop to the last few limbs, actually, then swing down into the roots and moss. I reached for my knitting back and Legolas returned it to me. “I didn’t see her this morning, she must be devastated that I didn’t get to say ‘hello’ yet.”
A faint smile. “I am sure that is the case.”
“Do you elves ever get tired of walking as slow as I do when I’m not running?” I asked. On account of how wonderful and green the forest smelled this close to their mossy mountain I was taking my time, positively meandering, as we headed back toward his home. “I noticed the elves in Rivendell tended to walk a lot slower in general than I’ve seen you and the others walk in general.”
“It does not bother me,” he said. “I cannot speak for others, but I believe there is a difference of culture between our realm and that of Rivendell.”
I pursed my lips as I thought. “Sounds reasonable.”
We walked for several more minutes. Legolas didn’t give the appearance of feeling held back, but he did drop a hand behind my shoulder as though to nudge me into a quicker pace. Because I had the impression he wanted it, I walked faster. “Is there any reason we should be moving faster?” I wanted to know.
“This pace is fine.”
“Then why do you keep listening to whatever’s behind us?”
He didn’t answer, so I muttered to myself, wrapped my knitting around my neck to keep my hands free and took off at a steady run. I wasn’t sprinting, but we’d make it back to the mountain in less than a minute at this pace. Legolas followed easily at my shoulder, and when we crossed the bridge to the elves’ fortress I slowed. He touched my shoulder to encourage me to go inside and spoke swiftly to the two elves guarding the door. One hurried inside while Legolas hurried back the way we’d come.
I stepped out onto the bridge again, the remaining guard following me, and shouted after his disappearing shape, “If you get yourself killed I get your desk!” I’d seen a glimpse of it the last time I’d visited, and it was gorgeous. All swirling, etched wood and smooth lines.
Only slightly perturbed, I went inside as he’d wanted me to. But only as far as the curving balcony just inside, so I could watch and listen for his return. No sooner had I sat down as eight other elves had come racing out of one of the lower halls and departed in the same direction as Legolas.
I pursed my lips, crossed my legs to sit more comfortably, and waited for a particular elf to return so I could school him about not being straight with me.
It was only about an hour—and another foot of knitting—until they came back. Legolas was one of the last ones in. I didn’t see any missing pieces, but I hadn’t expected to either. If the danger had been a true crisis he probably would have just thrown me over his shoulder and sprinted me back to their haven. It wasn’t like I was a heavy burden for an elf.
He met me on the stairs as I was coming down to him. “Why didn’t you just tell me why we had to leave?” I wanted to know. “It wasn’t like I was going to panic.”
“I did not expect you to panic, specifically,” he admitted, gesturing to encourage me to follow him so we weren’t simply standing on the stairs. “You have not responded consistently to danger however, at least as I have observed.”
“When have I n—Oh.” I had indeed frozen on the balcony before Erebor when the battle began two winters ago. Had it truly been a year and a half already? “Well, that was a slightly different situation! That was a war! If you only took eight people with you and weren’t in any obvious hurry to get me back here whatever you scurried off to reprimand can’t have been too catastrophic. If you just told me directly ‘Mabyn we need to go home on account of the fact that there is a rabid bear on its way over for a snack’ then yes I would have hurried, and I wouldn’t have panicked unless you gave me reason to. Or at least it’s very unlikely that I would have. I trust you to let me know when it’s appropriate to get hysterical.”
He shook his head, appearing amused by my hypothetical situation. “I will do my best not to mislead you in the future.”
“I appreciate it. Where are you off to now?”
“To clean my weapons.”
“Hm. Where?”
“The guardroom. May I ask why?”
“To see if I’m in the mood to watch you clean stuff. If you’re going to the guardroom though there’s a good chance of seeing other people I know and they may be able to entertain me.”
“I see. Simply my presence is not enough?”
I laughed. “Now you sound like me! Of course it is, if I wanted to just sit and feast my eyes on your gorgeous face while the rest of me wastes away. But I spent most of the afternoon sitting quietly so I figured it was time I socialized properly. It’s not as if I see you all frequently anymore.”
“Do you no longer sing to yourself?”
“I had nothing at all with which to entertain myself in my cell—in the tree I had my dratted knitting, and my thoughts. My thoughts were darker back then too, and I didn’t particularly want them around for extended periods of time.”
“Fair enough. Did you find Tauriel?”
“Of course not, once I realized she hadn’t actually asked for me.”
He only shook his head at me.
When we reached the guardroom I darted around him as he went to a cabinet because I’d seen Oloran and Visilyen discussing something over one of the tables and an early supper—they must have a shift coming up. I called their names, ran along the bench and thumped down to kneel next to Oloran so I could still see over the table as if I were a normal-sized person. I told them about the miniature horse Bofur had given me, the abominable swimming lessons and how I was learning to knit. I’d only been here a week thus far and this was the first time I’d seen them.
“Legolas tells me you have decided to attend Dain when you return,” Thranduil said over supper, at which Legolas was unfortunately absent.
“Yes,” I said with a melodramatic excess of misery. “I decided the possible benefits outweighed the possible risks.”
“I do believe you have made a wise decision in doing so.”
“Thank you. Hopefully we won’t be tearing each others’ throats out by the end of the year.”
“Oh, please do not make me feel the urge to avenge you,” he sighed. “Revenge is so very predictable and tedious.”
“You poor man, I’ll do my best to prevent you from having to engage in such a degrading activity. How about croquet? That’s supposedly a very blue-blooded activity.” Visualizing King Thranduil with a croquet bat—or whatever it was called—swinging between his legs nearly made me cough up my berries and greens, but I suppressed the urge. No need to make him over-exercise his heavy eyebrows raising them at me all the time.
I spent three weeks bobbing around Mirkwood trailing some type of sewing project nearly the entire time. I ended up turning the light green sleeve that would have fit a horse and still dragged into a scarf. I tied it neatly off and left it wrapped around the handle to Tauriel’s home. Light green would suit her. That and she was more likely to wear it than Legolas or Thranduil.
Upon my return to Erebor I went right back to my lessons as usual, but instead of jewelry-sorting in the morning instead I crept up to Dain’s large study and knocked.
“Just shove the door open, lass,” he called through said door as I threw my weight into it to get it open. Maybe I did need to start eating more. Bofur was certainly always of that opinion.
“So….how am I going to be useful?” I wanted to know as he straightened a variety of papers on the desks lining many of the walls.
“Oh, a variety of ways, lass,” he said, now absently searching through the papers he’d just organized. “I’ll need your help to keep most of the paperwork that comes and goes from getting lost or mislabeled or otherwise where it oughtn’t be. I’m not a dwarf for keeping track of things, I’m afraid to say. You can help me classify a lot of the correspondence I receive as well. Keep the inkwells full and the quills sharp—if you don’t know how to sharpen them, ask someone please before trying to do it yourself. If I’d like messages carried verbally or written you will often carry them for me if they’re urgent or of a sensitive nature. If you notice anything else that needs doing you’re welcome to try your hand at that as well.”
“That doesn’t sound like work you’d require anyone particularly special for.”
“This is just to get you started, and used to the type of information you’ll be dealing with or handling if you choose to remain on this path, which clearly I hope you will. Your part in giving assistance will become decidedly less menial as you progress, I assure you.”
I nodded. “Okay.” This was all pretty basic clerical work to my ears. “So what do I do now?”
“These papers and files and notes have all just come in this morning.” He hovered his hand over an impressive stack. “I need them sorted by topic—whether each bit of information refers to people, possessions, property, internal affairs or foreign affairs.”
“Under what subject would crops fall?”
“I think Arlan had them under property.”
“Why?”
This threw him for a moment. He flapped a hand as he sought out the memory. “Something to do with the crops not being accessible as a possessions until they were harvested, therefore being more similar to property than possessions.”
“Aren’t possessions one’s property?”
He eyed me from underneath his bushy eyebrows and I gazed innocently back. “Are you trying to be difficult, lass?”
I shook my head. “Just clarifying.” And maybe I was needling him a little, just to see how he reacted. For future reference.
“Yes, one’s property is one’s possession, and one’s possessions are also considered their property. I use the term ‘property’ in this sense to regard such things as land and housing.”
“Gotcha.” I went to stand at the pile as soon as he moved on to something else and began sorting it all, scanning each page, folder and missive for relevant words before sorting it. I thought it would be easier to sort these further into subcategories indicating whether or not the information came in the form of a report, in a file of some sort that had been returned—there were a few scrolls and ledgers—or in the form of a missive—which were predominantly small, tightly wound scrolls. I soon got tired of straightening the stacks when the smaller scrolls got in the way or rolled off on their own under the desk and got stepped on, so I asked, not too loudly, in case he was thinking, “Scrap paper?”
He pointed a quill over his shoulder. “Cabinet by the door, bottom shelf.”
I pulled out a low crate of jumbled and creased, inked up and torn sheaves of paper, chose five relatively intact pieces, and folded and crumpled them into poor imitations of boxes. Once this was done I brought them back and sat them directly above each of my piles, then unceremoniously dumped all the tightly wound missives into their new homes.
“Finished,” I said about an hour later—it had been a large pile. “The correspondence is separated into the boxes above each pile.” He made some sound of acknowledgement, and I chose my next task of separating all of the items within the foreign affairs pile so the information regarding all the separate places—the Blue Mountains, the Iron Hills, Dale, Laketown, Mirkwood and a few others—weren’t all jumbled together like frogs in a mating frenzy.
That took another twenty minutes because it involved slightly slower scanning. “May I open these?” I asked, holding one up. “I’m categorizing these based on what area they refer to.”
“Help yourself.”
“How do I know it isn’t personal correspondence?”
“Because that pile is reserved strictly for strictly informational topics.”
I nodded and carried on. The information was fairly random to me, but some of it was interesting. I went back through the property and crops information again, not sure if I’d noticed a pattern or not yet. I might have, I decided on second looks, but kept it to myself until I could prove it. No point bringing up something that wasn’t solid yet.
I began humming dimly to myself as we worked, not wanting to disturb him but not yet caring enough about what I was immured in to not be bored by it. To be honest we rarely spoke to each other, but instead rotated around one another for whatever work we felt needed doing. I eventually figured out what had been niggling at me that first day, and by the end of my second week had accumulated both enough evidence and enough courage to mention it.
“There’s a smelting operation running on this side of the mountain, right?” I asked, holding up the map between us like a curtain, my finger holding the place I referred to.
“Oh aye. Iron and steel and—”
“The fields downriver are benefitting from all the iron that gets into the water there. If you established a system to bring the water from directly downriver of that operation to the fields on the opposite side of the mountain—yes, I know they all belong to Dale—it would stop them from yellowing as they are and increase their overall yield.”
I could tell without looking that he was staring at me. “How d’you figure all this?”
“It’s part of what I studied in school in my realm. I was beginning to specialize in certain things and also did a great deal of research on my own when I was interested in something. Vegetables and fruit trees in particular love iron-rich soil, but if the soil’s been worked for decades or centuries it loses nutrients. The iron helps bring those nutrients back to it and the crops benefit from it. I know they’re not your fields but I’m sure Dale would appreciate it.”
He nodded, cogitative. “I’ll look in on it, my thanks.”
I nodded absently and went back to my sorting. It had become more engaging once I’d begun noting patterns such as these.
Another day, perhaps a month and a half into our working together, I said, “You don’t need to ignore rock with lots of quartz in it if you’re looking for gold—they’re frequently found together.”
I turned out to be right then, too.
I was gregarious with my knowledge though, and didn’t hoard it just for King Dain. I told Bard he ought to spread the ash from a crop that had gotten blight onto another that hadn’t—he’d been about to dump it in the river. “The blight shouldn’t have survived the fire,” I told him as I worked at my embroidery one afternoon. “And ash can be good for the plants.”
“I hear your work with Dain is going well,” Bofur said, carefully casual, one evening after I’d finished doing the dishes from supper.
I nodded. “Mmhm.”
“And you’ve been very helpful.”
“Mmhm.”
“You still tiptoeing around him?”
“Mmhm.”
“Mabyn.”
“Bofur. I can’t just decide to like someone simply because I work with them. I’ll get around to it or won’t, but it’ll be on my own time.”
He harrumphed and I harrumphed right back, and he smiled.
(pg296)