Loyalty, Honor, and a Willing Heart

Chapter 28 - Stuffed Pony

The Company was excited with the news Bilbo, Fili and Kili brought from their search, uplifting moods and making they chatter like a bunch of teenagers. They explained the path was narrow and difficult to make, but after all they got through since departing from the Blue Mountains no dwarf was scared of a little risk. All of them spoke at once, figuring out who would do what and when.

“It is right above this camp, we only cannot see it because there’s an overhang in the cliff. The bay is large enough for us to move our camp there to, except for the ponies.”

“We will see it in the morrow. How long is it until New Years Day?”

“Not much time left, I deem. The moon has almost waned.”

“So, we have to move the camp and haul up the charcoal in the burlap sacs that are empty.”

“Óin’s plants are already incased, we leave them down here.”

“Someone must stay to keep the ponies.”

“I’ll stay!” Bombur offered. “I don’t know if the path is broad enough for me to tread along it.”

“You will have to get to the bay sooner or later, Bombur. When Smaug is stirred no one will be safe outside the Mountain.”

“I’ll keep the ponies as long as needed, in the meanwhile we think about how to get me there.”

“All right, but remember there will be no other way than to get to the bay.”

They slept in a better mood than they had in several days, albeit the cold of the upcoming winter and the lack of a fire to warm their bodies, food and souls. They were almost there. Almost home.

Next day they managed to makeshift sheave with Óin’s staff and a tin mug they took the bottom off and molded to have a groove in its middle for the rope to slide along it. With this they could haul the supplies much faster than carrying them all way up, which took some hours because of the winding trail, and was safer, because the narrow ledge was skipped.

Bilbo was exempt from any other duty than to stay close to the gray stone (the “doorstep” as they said after his words in Bag-End, an age ago), and think of a way to get in; although, he was sure it was just a matter of time, of waiting until the sun light of Durin’s Day showed the Back Door, and he kept Thorin close to him, just in case. It was so easier for him than he thought would be when Gandalf and the dwarves came to his home, because now they had plans, and second plans if the first choice plans got wrong, and he had not to think about everything himself alone, as he felt the dwarves expected from him in the beginning, although he knew Thorin and some others didn’t quite believe in his competence by then. Actually, he didn’t either.

The hobbit waited patiently, ignoring Iris’ endless chatting while caressing her hair in his lap and looking from the stone wall to the west, and from the west to the stone wall. Thorin was quiet, too, explaining little details of dwarven lore, culture and history to Lily, who grabbed every bit of information and associated it to the knowledge she already had, to reinforce it. Bilbo envied their seemingly smooth relationship, but then Lily was a bit older than her sister, and Thorin had a way of dealing with people that Bilbo simply didn’t. Maybe it was what people called kingship. Iris was special to him, but sometimes he felt himself just a big ear, someone to hear her uneven chatting; there were pearls in what she said, but sometimes he had a feeling that she just needed someone to pay her attention. He could not remember if he ever had been this way in his betweens, and surely none who was that way kept close to him time enough time for him to get used to it. But how to explain this without hurting her feelings? Albeit all this, she was more than he could expect from any Shire girl, and he knew it.