A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Twenty-Fourth Entry - Waiting

The dwarves tried to make me partake of their midday meal later on that day, but I refused on the grounds that I was well-fed in the elven camp.

"Honestly," I insisted. "Every time I pass by a cook-fire someone offers me food. The humans are at it too since Thranduil implied that he'd hate them forever if they didn't treat me like a knocking princess."

The dwarves guffawed. "Just how did he put that about then?" Dwalin wanted to know.

"Picked the Master up by his collar and shook him probably," laughed Bofur.

"No actually he was quite civil about it." I sipped at the hot mug of mead I had permitted them to bestow upon me. "The Master put Thranduil up in his own house the night we passed through Laketown, though that house was a bit burnt around the edges. When I said I was hungry my guard for the day took me there and all those fancy men-the Master, Thranduil and Bard-were all in there talking and not looking at each other and tragically ignoring all the food laid out on the table. Thranduil introduced me to the others as his daughter and the Master offered me food and after I'd had a bite to eat I left. I think he was just making sure the humans would look out for me too."

"Or ensuring they'd be on his side if you were ever found somewhere not in the presence of the elves," Dori said grumpily.

"Well yes that is also a possibility," I said with a wry twist to my mouth. I knew better than to think the Elvenking valued me for my brashness and my singing. My singing wasn't all that good-my songs were just different. He valued me because he knew the dwarves valued me, and that was likely the lot of it. Still, it had been nice to pretend. It had been fun to tease him too.

"I get the distinct impression," Bofur began contemplatively, smirking, "that our Mabyn probably put the Elvenking a bit at a loss when first he met her."

We were sitting in a cross-legged circle again, and I was sitting slightly facing to my right so my left ear was closer to the center. I still had to focus to hear those in his direction though, not that there were many. When sitting down to our food-and in my case drink-there had been a flurry of entertained pushing and tripping as the majority of the dwarves tried to find space on my left side so they wouldn't be ignored on my right, as they apparently had been in the first half of our tile game.

"Are we right, Mabyn?" Bofur asked as the others chuckled, evidently agreeing it was so. "Miss 'frog spit' and whatever else you said that made absolutely no viable sense."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Well, I did tell him off once."

They shouted to beg me, 'with what, for what?'

Grinning, I explained, "Well, we were having an argument I think. Actually I think he was trying to interrogate me the morning after you lot scurried off. Anyhow he asked me something that in some way suggested I was being two-faced and I retorted that of course I was, I didn't treat everybody exactly the same because not everyone wanted to be or was warranted to be treated exactly the same, and doing so was along the lines of wearing the exact same outfit to every event and he, being who and as he is, said in his lofty voice 'oh do explain' or something along those lines. So I said-what was it I said. I said whoever had taught him that wearing such fancy clothes as he had on into battle was a fool and that was that. We glared at each other a whole lot, early on."

"I would imagine there would be a bit of disparity between your points of view," Bilbo put in, and I nodded, eyebrows raised.

"Oh most certainly. Took me ages to work up the courage to stand within an arm's reach of him."

"You seem quite comfortable with him now," Kili pointed out. "You let him pick you up."

The dwarves must have excellent sight, or they were passing around that spyglass. "Well that was a bit of a personal experiment on my part, to see if I could get over my fear of someone whom I logically believed did not intend to hurt me. Men in positions of power tend to make me antsy, you see. And we talked a lot while I was there-I told him stories and sang songs and told him bits and pieces of where I was from. So I get myself to stand a little closer every day.