Sansûkh (Bagginshield & Gigolas)

Chapter Nine

Frodo grew like a weed. He was a curious young fellow, and as cheerful and adventurous as a Hobbit could be. Thorin rather approved of his loyal friend Samwise, but the Took and the Brandybuck were far too reminiscent of Fíli and Kíli in their rambunctious thirties. He could barely look at them without wanting to scold them.

Bilbo grew older, but barely showed it at all. He became a little reclusive as the years turned and took to writing in his study more and more often. Thorin read over his shoulder. It never occurred to him that he shouldn't.

"Here now, my beard has never been that long!" he protested at one point, and Bilbo tsked.

"It's called artistic license," he muttered to himself, but he crossed out the line anyway.

Time stretched and stretched, and Bilbo lived on and on and on. He prepared for his eleventy-first (as he called it) birthday party with the greatest of glee, chuckling and muttering to himself day and night and rubbing his hands in anticipation. Bofur sent a whole cartload of toys from his shop to hand out as birthday-presents for the little ones. Thorin had never quite understood the Hobbit practice of giving gifts upon one's nameday – but each to their own.

The surprise was carried off in fine style, and he stayed to enjoy some of the confusion. Hobbits were so prim and easily shocked, and their astonishment was rather entertaining. Eventually, Thorin arrived at the door of Bag End just as Bilbo was leaving. He watched with a small smile as his Hobbit picked up a favorite walking-stick and began to make his way down Bagshot Row, singing as he went.

"Safe travels, my Burglar," he murmured, and turned to enter Bag End just one last time. This Hobbit-Hole was where it had all begun and he would say his farewells for old times' sake.

His eye was caught by the ring, sitting innocently on the stoop. He bent to study it. Bilbo's little gold ring? Why had he left it behind?

"Well, Thorin Oakenshield?"

Thorin whipped around in shock. Gandalf was still standing by the fireplace, looking absurdly huge amongst all of Bilbo's things. "You... you can see me?"

"Of course I can see you," Gandalf said. "You're standing right there, aren't you?"

Thorin took a step forward, his eyes wide. "No-one has seen me. No-one has ever seen me! Not in sixty years!"

"You certainly haven't been coming to chat with me or Radagast then, my dear boy," Gandalf said, casually stealing some of Bilbo's fine pipe-weed and packing his pipe. "How many times must I remind other folk that I am a Wizard!"

"I cannot believe this," Thorin said, stunned. "Do you always see us?"

"I don't spend a great deal of time in one place, as a rule, and so I never stay long in lands where a Dwarf's spirit might linger," Gandalf said, stretching out his legs and lighting his pipe. He blew a smoke ring. "And no, not always, to answer your question. It is a matter of perception, and such things require concentration. Sometimes I may look at a Dwarf and know that he or she is no longer in the world of the living. I don't always know them, of course. Certainly not as well as I knew you."

"Sometimes I wonder if either of us knew me at all," Thorin said darkly, and sat down on a chair. "I cannot believe it. Wizards can see me."

"All of us who were once servants of the greater powers still have some of our gifts," Gandalf said, raising a bushy eyebrow. "And not all of us are friendly."

"I was not aware you were," Thorin snapped back, and Gandalf chuckled.

"Oh yes, Master Oakenshield. Compared to others, I am indeed friendly. Or at least I try to be a friend."