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Sorry this one took so long, I've been fighting an encroaching migraine for the past two days -_-; Follows from Ghelekabad Books, Chapter One. Introducing Bofur and Bifur, this chapter ...
Title: Ghelekabad Books (Part II)
Chapter Title: The Toymaker
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Hobbit (movieverse)
Characters/Pairings: Bilbo, Bofur, Nori, Ori, Bifur, Dwalin, this part. Bilbo & Ori & Nori, Bofur & Bifur, Nori vs Dwalin
Summary: In an Erebor recovered under Thrain and in the process of rebuilding under his son Thorin, a wandering bookseller named Bilbo Baggins falls in with a bad, or at least rather suspect, crowd, and somewhat accidentally starts an industrial revolution with the help of a young scribe and a brain-damaged toymaker
Chapter Summary: A dwarven miner comes to Bilbo for help, a new business partnership is arranged, and Dwalin and Nori do not quite get in a fight, though it's a near-run thing
Wordcount: 3967
Warnings/Notes: A touch of Nori angst, a touch of Bifur angst, and some Bilbo angst to round it out
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Ghelekabad Books (Part II)
Chapter Title: The Toymaker
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Hobbit (movieverse)
Characters/Pairings: Bilbo, Bofur, Nori, Ori, Bifur, Dwalin, this part. Bilbo & Ori & Nori, Bofur & Bifur, Nori vs Dwalin
Summary: In an Erebor recovered under Thrain and in the process of rebuilding under his son Thorin, a wandering bookseller named Bilbo Baggins falls in with a bad, or at least rather suspect, crowd, and somewhat accidentally starts an industrial revolution with the help of a young scribe and a brain-damaged toymaker
Chapter Summary: A dwarven miner comes to Bilbo for help, a new business partnership is arranged, and Dwalin and Nori do not quite get in a fight, though it's a near-run thing
Wordcount: 3967
Warnings/Notes: A touch of Nori angst, a touch of Bifur angst, and some Bilbo angst to round it out
Disclaimer: Not mine
Ghelekabad Books - The Toymaker
There was a dwarf already waiting for Bilbo as he trundled his traveling case down to the stall. Which wasn't as unusual as it ought to be, the past few weeks, especially since Bilbo had let slip that he'd sent an order for more stock down south with the last caravan. They didn't usually arrive before his first cup of tea, though.
And, really, Bilbo couldn't be responsible until after that. It just wasn't civilised, to ask a hobbit to talk business before even his first cup of tea. A hobbit might make allowances on the road. In Dale, at his place of business, he really might not.
The dwarf didn't even budge as Bilbo lugged the case in behind him. Nor did he seem overly offended, just propping his chin in his hands as he leaned on the edge of the stall and smiling cheerily to himself as Bilbo puffed out a breath, straightening up from the case. His expression didn't change even when Bilbo moved to set up the stove and become civilised once again, save for a faint speculative edge to his smile.
He was an odd sort, Bilbo thought privately, absently setting out the second cup (pre-tea might be too early to talk business, but it was certainly not too early to behave properly towards a guest, however uninvited). The dwarf wore an open smile beneath his furry hat, and didn't seem at all disturbed to be ignored, watching Bilbo's hands move over the tea set with placid curiosity.
It might have been alarming, really. Except that it was rather too early for that, too.
"Cream?" he asked his impromptu guest, raising an eyebrow and holding out the jug in one hand, the cup in the other. "There's sugar, too, but I try to save that for Ori. Lad has a sweet tooth."
The dwarf raised an eyebrow, his smile morphing into a full grin, and shook his head. "Touch o' cream'll do me, lad," he said, straightening up and leaning over to accept his cup. "Thanks for that. Been a long mornin'."
Bilbo raised his own eyebrows, looking slowly around the almost deserted marketplace, with only the trundle of early morning carts and cases as people set up shop. "Has it?" he asked, with a small smile as he poured cream into his own tea. "All credit to you then, master dwarf. You're up earlier than I, it seems, and more cheerful with it too."
His guest laughed, bright and casual and easy, and Bilbo smiled into his tea. "Not much for mornings, are you?" the dwarf asked, cheerily. "I've a brother much the same. Mind you, he spends most evenings working the kitchens, so I expect it evens out."
"I'm sure it does," Bilbo agreed, appreciating the casual acceptance. He polished off his first cup in a gulp or two, and set up for the second to savour. He might have skipped some of the meals of the Shire, since leaving, but tea was another matter entirely. "You'll forgive my rudeness, master dwarf. I'm not much good until the first cup." He smiled, shook his head. "So then. What can I do for you?"
The smile slipped a little, not so much vanishing as fading slightly, and his guest put his cup gently down on the still-bare boards of the stall. Reaching up to rub his mouth thoughtfully, the dwarf examined Bilbo for a moment. Bilbo, for his part, looked placidly back, and decided it was too early to be visibly alarmed by anything just yet.
"... Bofur son of Sviur, at your service," the dwarf said at last, holding out an arm and shaking Bilbo's hand rather vigorously. "I'd heard you do translations, these days? To Khuzdul?"
Bilbo blinked, not so much at the request as at the oddly nervous tone of it, but nodded, gesturing with the hand not currently caught in the dwarf's grasp towards their new sign.
"Yes, we offer translations," he said, with perhaps some pride. "Not me personally, you understand. Ori handles the Khuzdul end of things. He'll be along in a few hours or so, commissions tend to keep him up nights." More than could be wished, really, but Ori seemed more excited and proud than anything, and neither Dori nor Nori had complained. "But we offer a few services in that vein these days. Books to sell, books to loan. Translations commissioned. The past week or so, we've been offering a small notice service, for men and dwarves both." He nodded gently towards the new tack board hanging from one side of the stall. "We handle a few more esoteric requests, too, so long as they're in a lingual vein and not too time-consuming."
Bofur blinked slowly, his grin creeping back a little. Bilbo was rapidly getting the impression that that smile was more than a little irrepressible. He rather liked it, actually.
"Do a lot, don't you," the dwarf murmured softly, grinning faintly down at Bilbo. "I seem to remember the last time I was down this end of the market, you were pretty much just a bookseller?"
Bilbo smiled ruefully. "Yes," he agreed. "But that wasn't really serving me very well. When I acquired a partner, things ... Well. They picked up pace, rather."
They'd picked up pace a lot, if Bilbo was honest. Not necessarily the commissions themselves, they were still fairly few and far between. But with the offer of Khuzdul and proper respect for their language and culture, the dwarves had gotten curious. In the first week, after seeing more than a few browse the stock, Bilbo had set up a system where, for a small fee, people could take away books for a time and read them before deciding if they wanted a more permanent translation done. It had become rather the cornerstone of the business, and though many of their customers made noises about commissions, of course, just want to see what's on offer, master hobbit, master scribe, yes sir, it was becoming apparent that the stall made as much money, and as reliable an income, purely from lending.
With that in mind, he and Ori had restructured things a little, focusing on making master copies of popular texts, and offering smaller translation jobs and other services on the side. Aside from stock and equipment outlay, most of Bilbo's daily income came from lending, with Ori taking most of the gold from the translations, notices, and the four or five commissions they'd gotten (which Dori had protested, a little, on the grounds that it was Bilbo's stall and Bilbo their family was indebted to, but really it was only fair when Ori did most of the work, and they needed gold rather more than Bilbo did. Which none of them ever acknowledged, as such, but Bilbo had been firm, and Dori had not protested as strongly as he otherwise might have).
Which meant, really, that in the past six weeks or so, Bilbo had gone from a bookseller to what was essentially the head librarian of a charging library that did translations on the side. Erestor, had he seen him now, would have somewhere between horrified and intrigued, Bilbo thought. It tickled him, a little, to think of the elven librarian so.
"Aye, I can see that," Bofur said softly, pulling Bilbo rather abruptly back out of his musings, smiling gently down at him. "And it's doing you good, I think? You're looking a mite more cheerful than when last I saw you, perched on your stool with your shoulders hanging from your ears?"
Bilbo blinked, then flushed, ducking his head. Bofur laughed at him a little. It wasn't really mocking, though, more sympathetic, and Bilbo found he didn't mind that so much at all.
However ...
"That's ... that's as may be," he managed, only barely stuttering. "Master Bofur, grateful as I am for your well wishes ... Ah. Did you actually have a request, sir? Only I should probably set up soon ...?"
Bofur grimaced, a little, and straightened up automatically. He pulled the hat off his head, fiddling it between his hands for a moment. Bilbo blinked, a little, wondering if he shouldn't be alarmed at this point. Surely whatever it was couldn't be that onerous?
"You said other services?" Bofur opened, squinting cautiously at Bilbo's nod. "In a translation vein. Ah. So. You wouldn't mind a more ... a more spoken sort of translating? And, maybe a more ... continuous, sort of thing?"
Bilbo stared at him. Really, at this point, there wasn't much else to do. After a moment, Bofur sighed, and rested the hat and his hands on the stall.
"It's my cousin, you see," he said, watching how own fingers fret softly in the fur around the brim, carefully not looking up. "Bifur. He's a toymaker by trade, you know. A good one. Had a stall up the top end of the market. Dale's got a few more kids than Erebor does, at least for right now." A pause, a soft smile. "Always had a talent. Made the most wonderful little things. You know?"
He looked up then, a little challengingly, and Bilbo simply nodded. "I'm sure they're marvelous," he assured. Not even placatingly. He had seen dwarven craftsmanship. He had no doubts.
Bofur seemed to take some encouragement from that, looking back down at his hands with more of his smile than before. "Aye, well. He's good, is Bifur. But he has ... he has a small problem." He shook his head, his expression darkening. Not a simple fading of his smile. Something older, a flash of something genuinely fearsome on that cheerful face. "We had some problems on the route to Erebor. Orcs, in the Misty Mountains."
Bilbo winced, rather visibly, and the dwarf looked ruefully at him. Bilbo shrugged one shoulder uneasily, a hand instinctively coming up to touch his waistcoat pocket, nodding softly. He understood that much. Goblins, in his case. Goblins and ... whatever that creature had been. Had it not be for Gandalf ... well. Had it not been for Gandalf, Dale would be poorer by one bookseller, wouldn't it?
"Your cousin got hurt?" Bilbo asked, softly. Seeing a touch of sympathy in Bofur's face, and a touch of that darker thing too.
"Aye," the dwarf said, grimly. "He took an axe to the head." He smiled, a little, at Bilbo's startled flinch. "He's alright, now. Mostly. More or less. But he has a small problem with Westron. And, well. That's been causing some problems, the past few weeks. Problems ... I was hoping you maybe might be able to help with?"
And really, Bilbo thought, watching Bofur's fingers worrying at his hat, what could one say to that?
---
Ori arrived around ten, rather later than usual, with an armful of leather cases for the loose-leaf manuscripts. Ordinarily, Dori would have been behind him, carrying the heftier tomes (Dori was surprisingly powerful, for such a fussy dwarf). Today, however, it was the middle brother, Nori, that was following Ori up the incline from the river, complaining mightily all the way from the looks of things.
Which was somewhat unfortunate, really, since for the past two minutes Bilbo had been watching Bofur make his way down the incline from the Ereborean gate, waving cheerily and followed by two dwarves. The first of which presumably being his cousin, and the second of which ...
Well. It probably wouldn't end too badly, right? Dwalin couldn't arrest Nori just for carrying some books, could he?
Bilbo sighed, and went to put the kettle on. One of Dori's stronger blends, he thought. He had a suspicion they were going to need it.
The brothers reached him first, not having had to traverse most of the market. Bilbo didn't audibly sigh in relief as Ori bustled in behind him, nattering cheerfully, but Nori caught the slump of his shoulders regardless.
"Something the matter, Master Lightfoot?" the thief asked, leaning insouciantly on the stall with the stack of books beside him. The bloody dwarf had been calling him that since they'd been reacquainted, supposedly in honour of silent feet in Laketown. It was mildly annoying, so it was.
Which was possibly why Bilbo took rather more pleasure than he ought in nodding up-market.
"We've got guests incoming," he said, and watched Nori's eyes widen in instinctive alarm at the sight of Dwalin. And then narrow, with something that was either anticipation or malice, Bilbo wasn't sure which, and yes, oh yes, he was going to need a strong cup of tea, wasn't he?
"So I see," Nori murmured, rolling lightly to his feet. Ori, having caught on and followed their gazes, squeaked lightly in alarm, and Bilbo shook his head.
"Behave, both of you," he admonished, reaching out to tug lightly on Nori's beard and holding up a cup in lieu of whatever it was Nori was holding behind his back. "They're coming to see us on another matter entirely, and it's not like you can be arrested for carrying your brother's books. So have some tea, be polite, and try not to taunt him too much." He sighed. "Please?"
Nori blinked at him for a second, and then chuckled, taking the tea and smiling faintly into its depths. "Whatever you say, Master Baggins," he murmured, and Bilbo wasn't quite sure if the switch in names was acquiescence or a small glimmer of temper. There were times dwarves were worse than hobbits for that.
Not that he had time to decide, though. Not when a cheerful voice cut across anything Bilbo might have thought to say, and a be-hatted figure bumped amiably against the stall counter.
"Mr Baggins!" Bofur greeted, grinning with a mix of relief and what Bilbo was rapidly coming to realise was just his semi-permanent cheer. "Weren't waiting too long, were you?"
"Not at all, Master Bofur." Bilbo bowed across at him, ignoring how both Ori and Nori were staring unabashedly at the other dwarf. And then at the other two behind him, though what Nori directed at Dwalin couldn't really be called a stare. "Master Dwalin," Bilbo nodded, a little desperately. "And this will be Master Bifur, yes?"
"Aye," Bofur answered, though his cousin (who really did have an axe in his skull - being told about it didn't really prepare one for the reality) grumbled something in grudging Khuzdul behind him. At least, Bilbo thought it sounded grudging. Khuzdul was difficult like that.
"Pleased to meet you," Bilbo said anyway, holding out his hand across the counter to the new dwarf. "Welcome to our end of the market, Master Bifur."
Bifur stared down at him for a second, squinting at his hand suspiciously, to the extent that Bilbo was considering being offended. Then, with a blink almost of surprise when Bilbo didn't withdraw it, the dwarf reached down and almost delicately took his hand, murmuring something in Khuzdul with a nod of his head before withdrawing. Bofur, beside him, grinned unabashedly.
"He says pleased to meet you too, Mr Baggins," the miner grinned, looking rather pleased with himself. Almost too pleased, Bilbo would have thought, but Bifur was smiling at him, almost shyly, and he couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed.
"Aye, well," Dwalin rumbled abruptly, glancing somewhat uneasily between Nori, on one side of Bilbo, and Bifur on the other. "Try to stay that way this time, won't you? Master Baggins isn't much for fights. Especially not with men."
Bilbo stiffened a little, drawing himself up before remembering that no, he wasn't supposed to mention the elvish blade under the counter, Gandalf had advised him strongly on that. And besides. More or less every other dwarf there got an answer in before him.
"Fights?" Ori murmured, instinctively leaning across his books to protect them. "What do you mean fights? Bilbo, what's going on?"
"That's not my cousin's fault!" Bofur opened hotly, glaring at Dwalin around Bifur. "They think his injury makes him stupid, insult him to his face, what's he supposed to do, eh?"
Bifur, for his part, was curling forward ashamedly, his gaze downcast. Bilbo felt something twist in his chest, and had opened his mouth to explain, on hand on Ori's arm to calm him, when Nori decided, naturally, that this was a perfect moment to step in and antagonise people further. For the love of Eru.
"You sound almost concerned, Master Dwalin," the thief drawled lightly, leaning on one elbow beside Bilbo and looking very smug about it. "Taken a shine to our hobbit, have you?"
Dwalin glared at him. His hands were braced on the haft of his hammer, going white knuckled for a moment, but that was all, thank Mahal. (Bilbo blinked a little at the thought. He needed to stop hanging around with dwarves).
Then Dwalin's eyes narrowed, a gimlet-eyed expression that Bilbo recognised primarily from Nori himself, and he revised that opinion. Hammers were significantly easier to deal with that whatever that expression usually boded ...
"I've nothing against Master Baggins," the guardsdwarf said calmly, staring hard-eyed at Nori. "He's done a good job keeping your brother out of trouble, to start with. I'm sure Dori's been grateful to him."
Nori's expression went completely, utterly blank, Ori hunching over with a slight gasp beside Bilbo, and ... and no. Just no. That was most certainly not appropriate.
"Thank you, Master Dwalin," Bilbo snapped, with more frost in his tone than he'd had in a long, long time. (Not since Bag End closed its doors to him, not since Lobellia's sweet-sounding opinion that he'd be more at home in Tuckborough anyway, what with his mother, don't you think? Not since then, but Bilbo wasn't thinking about that, he needed to keep hold of his temper). "In the first place, Ori is perfectly capable of making his own decisions. In the second, I think Nori is as concerned about his brother as anyone. And in the third, I owe my friends considerably better than to try and usurp their positions in their family, and I will thank you not to suggest otherwise!"
He glared at Dwalin, fists knotting furiously, almost distantly surprised by the force of anger in his own tone ("Poor dear, he's more Took than Baggins, isn't he?"). Trying not to think too hard about the stunned look Ori was giving him, or the way the blank look in Nori's face had faltered around something else entirely. Or, for that matter, about the way Bofur and Bifur, who were complete strangers uncomfortably present for this little family drama that was taking place in the street, were glancing uneasily at both each other and at him. No. He kept his icy expression fixed on Dwalin.
Otherwise, he was half-sure he'd have lost his composure entirely and bolted behind the stall.
"... My apologies, Master Baggins," Dwalin said at last, stiffly and carefully. With a crinkle around his eyes that looked like genuine remorse, and a careful nod in Ori's direction too. And then, much, much more stiffly, also in Nori's. "You're quite right. That was ... inappropriate of me."
He didn't laugh when Bilbo gaped at him. Which was fortunate, really, all things considered. He didn't do anything beyond wait, calmly and remorsefully, for Bilbo to stop shaking with fury and remember his manners enough to accept the apology.
Which took rather longer than Bilbo expected, and was perhaps all the more worrying for that.
"... Well," Bofur murmured, breaking the tableau, his smile odd and distant as he stared at Bilbo. "I think we may have found the right helper for you after all, cousin of mine." He grinned, soft and cheerful and not at all explicable, while Bifur flashed his hands in a set of gestures that tugged at Bilbo's memory, and Dwalin harumphed in sudden gruff embarrassment.
"... He's not bad at all," Nori murmured, low and a little strange himself, watching Bilbo with eyes that were suddenly a lot sharper and more considering than usual. Bilbo, feeling a flush climbing steadily up his neck, suddenly found the top layer of books on the stall extremely fascinating indeed.
Then Nori shook himself, fixed back on his vague, insouciant smirk, and looked up at the two newcomers. "Though I will say, as strange and alarming as it is for me to agree with Master Dwalin over here ..." He paused, slow and dangerous, while Dwalin actually had the nerve to smirk a little bit, and the flush crept up over Bilbo's ears. "I promise you. Should any harm come to Master Baggins because of you, it will not be the guards you'll be answering to."
Eru preserve him, Bilbo thought faintly. Or rather, no, Eru open the ground right now and swallow him. That would be nice. Except that dwarves were miners, weren't they, that probably wouldn't work either ...
Bifur answered, in a short, succinct burst of Khuzdul. He was smiling faintly, Bilbo saw when he looked up, eyes crinkling in an expression that Bilbo thought was very kind indeed.
"He says he'll do everything in his power to see that doesn't happen," Ori murmured beside him, a quick and rather warm translation, and Bilbo saw the scribe was smiling back up at Bifur. "He's thankful that you've agreed to help him, and hopes ... hopes not to be too much of a bother."
"Aye," Bofur said, smiling warmly at them. "We'll move the stall down here tomorrow. He just needs the odd word here or there, if the menfolk start getting annoyed that he can't answer them. He only ended up fighting them when they ... when they said things they shouldn't have, thinking he couldn't understand them." He grimaced a little, that flash of darkness creeping back over his features. "Me and Bombur tried, but with the reopening of the mines under Erebor, and with more people in the city itself, neither of us have the time we thought we'd have."
Bifur turned to his cousin, hands flashing in a quick series of gestures, his expression soft and forgiving and slightly shamed, and Bilbo shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have interrupted, but the memory snapped abruptly into place, and he realised what he was looking at.
"Ranger sign!" he said, and almost flinched as all five of them turned to look at him. "Oh, oh I'm sorry, it's just that I just realised." He smiled a little sheepishly up at Bifur. "Those gestures ... they're not quite Ranger sign, because if they were you'd just have said that the pine trees are not on fire, and that doesn't make very much sense. But. Um. It's a sign language, isn't it? Those ...?" He flicked his hands in a vague approximation of the sign the dwarf had just made, and Bifur, shockingly, beamed at him.
"Iglishmêk," Dwalin cut in, his eyebrows raised at Bilbo in something that might have been respect. "Not the Ereborean variant. Broadbeam? Blue Mountains?"
"Aye," Bofur agreed, slanting a curious look over at the guard, but his cousin was too busy still staring at Bilbo. Bifur frowned thoughtfully down at him and then, very slowly, made two gestures that Bilbo watched eagerly. Bofur glanced between them, and smiled. "My cousin says: welcome, friend."
Bilbo looked down, watching the twitch of the dwarf's hands for a few more seconds, and then looked back up, his own smile wide and bright, and repeated the sign with a flush of pride.
"Welcome indeed, Master Dwarf," he laughed, grinning up at them. "And I think we'll be able to work together just fine, don't you?"
Well, if two thieves could steal his friendship and make the difference between Bilbo staying and leaving, a toymaker with an axe in his head was hardly going to be a strain, was he?
Say what you like about Dale, Erebor and dwarves, Bilbo thought with a grin, but they certainly weren't boring.
Contd: Ghelekabad Books: Fighting Words
A/N: I wasn't sure what patronymic to give Bofur, but Wikipedia tells me that Tolkien took most of the dwarf names in the Hobbit from the Norse Dvergatal and/or Poetic Edda, which I then browsed through until I found a name ending in roughly the right sound. Hence, Bofur son of Sviur. *grins sheepishly*
There was a dwarf already waiting for Bilbo as he trundled his traveling case down to the stall. Which wasn't as unusual as it ought to be, the past few weeks, especially since Bilbo had let slip that he'd sent an order for more stock down south with the last caravan. They didn't usually arrive before his first cup of tea, though.
And, really, Bilbo couldn't be responsible until after that. It just wasn't civilised, to ask a hobbit to talk business before even his first cup of tea. A hobbit might make allowances on the road. In Dale, at his place of business, he really might not.
The dwarf didn't even budge as Bilbo lugged the case in behind him. Nor did he seem overly offended, just propping his chin in his hands as he leaned on the edge of the stall and smiling cheerily to himself as Bilbo puffed out a breath, straightening up from the case. His expression didn't change even when Bilbo moved to set up the stove and become civilised once again, save for a faint speculative edge to his smile.
He was an odd sort, Bilbo thought privately, absently setting out the second cup (pre-tea might be too early to talk business, but it was certainly not too early to behave properly towards a guest, however uninvited). The dwarf wore an open smile beneath his furry hat, and didn't seem at all disturbed to be ignored, watching Bilbo's hands move over the tea set with placid curiosity.
It might have been alarming, really. Except that it was rather too early for that, too.
"Cream?" he asked his impromptu guest, raising an eyebrow and holding out the jug in one hand, the cup in the other. "There's sugar, too, but I try to save that for Ori. Lad has a sweet tooth."
The dwarf raised an eyebrow, his smile morphing into a full grin, and shook his head. "Touch o' cream'll do me, lad," he said, straightening up and leaning over to accept his cup. "Thanks for that. Been a long mornin'."
Bilbo raised his own eyebrows, looking slowly around the almost deserted marketplace, with only the trundle of early morning carts and cases as people set up shop. "Has it?" he asked, with a small smile as he poured cream into his own tea. "All credit to you then, master dwarf. You're up earlier than I, it seems, and more cheerful with it too."
His guest laughed, bright and casual and easy, and Bilbo smiled into his tea. "Not much for mornings, are you?" the dwarf asked, cheerily. "I've a brother much the same. Mind you, he spends most evenings working the kitchens, so I expect it evens out."
"I'm sure it does," Bilbo agreed, appreciating the casual acceptance. He polished off his first cup in a gulp or two, and set up for the second to savour. He might have skipped some of the meals of the Shire, since leaving, but tea was another matter entirely. "You'll forgive my rudeness, master dwarf. I'm not much good until the first cup." He smiled, shook his head. "So then. What can I do for you?"
The smile slipped a little, not so much vanishing as fading slightly, and his guest put his cup gently down on the still-bare boards of the stall. Reaching up to rub his mouth thoughtfully, the dwarf examined Bilbo for a moment. Bilbo, for his part, looked placidly back, and decided it was too early to be visibly alarmed by anything just yet.
"... Bofur son of Sviur, at your service," the dwarf said at last, holding out an arm and shaking Bilbo's hand rather vigorously. "I'd heard you do translations, these days? To Khuzdul?"
Bilbo blinked, not so much at the request as at the oddly nervous tone of it, but nodded, gesturing with the hand not currently caught in the dwarf's grasp towards their new sign.
"Yes, we offer translations," he said, with perhaps some pride. "Not me personally, you understand. Ori handles the Khuzdul end of things. He'll be along in a few hours or so, commissions tend to keep him up nights." More than could be wished, really, but Ori seemed more excited and proud than anything, and neither Dori nor Nori had complained. "But we offer a few services in that vein these days. Books to sell, books to loan. Translations commissioned. The past week or so, we've been offering a small notice service, for men and dwarves both." He nodded gently towards the new tack board hanging from one side of the stall. "We handle a few more esoteric requests, too, so long as they're in a lingual vein and not too time-consuming."
Bofur blinked slowly, his grin creeping back a little. Bilbo was rapidly getting the impression that that smile was more than a little irrepressible. He rather liked it, actually.
"Do a lot, don't you," the dwarf murmured softly, grinning faintly down at Bilbo. "I seem to remember the last time I was down this end of the market, you were pretty much just a bookseller?"
Bilbo smiled ruefully. "Yes," he agreed. "But that wasn't really serving me very well. When I acquired a partner, things ... Well. They picked up pace, rather."
They'd picked up pace a lot, if Bilbo was honest. Not necessarily the commissions themselves, they were still fairly few and far between. But with the offer of Khuzdul and proper respect for their language and culture, the dwarves had gotten curious. In the first week, after seeing more than a few browse the stock, Bilbo had set up a system where, for a small fee, people could take away books for a time and read them before deciding if they wanted a more permanent translation done. It had become rather the cornerstone of the business, and though many of their customers made noises about commissions, of course, just want to see what's on offer, master hobbit, master scribe, yes sir, it was becoming apparent that the stall made as much money, and as reliable an income, purely from lending.
With that in mind, he and Ori had restructured things a little, focusing on making master copies of popular texts, and offering smaller translation jobs and other services on the side. Aside from stock and equipment outlay, most of Bilbo's daily income came from lending, with Ori taking most of the gold from the translations, notices, and the four or five commissions they'd gotten (which Dori had protested, a little, on the grounds that it was Bilbo's stall and Bilbo their family was indebted to, but really it was only fair when Ori did most of the work, and they needed gold rather more than Bilbo did. Which none of them ever acknowledged, as such, but Bilbo had been firm, and Dori had not protested as strongly as he otherwise might have).
Which meant, really, that in the past six weeks or so, Bilbo had gone from a bookseller to what was essentially the head librarian of a charging library that did translations on the side. Erestor, had he seen him now, would have somewhere between horrified and intrigued, Bilbo thought. It tickled him, a little, to think of the elven librarian so.
"Aye, I can see that," Bofur said softly, pulling Bilbo rather abruptly back out of his musings, smiling gently down at him. "And it's doing you good, I think? You're looking a mite more cheerful than when last I saw you, perched on your stool with your shoulders hanging from your ears?"
Bilbo blinked, then flushed, ducking his head. Bofur laughed at him a little. It wasn't really mocking, though, more sympathetic, and Bilbo found he didn't mind that so much at all.
However ...
"That's ... that's as may be," he managed, only barely stuttering. "Master Bofur, grateful as I am for your well wishes ... Ah. Did you actually have a request, sir? Only I should probably set up soon ...?"
Bofur grimaced, a little, and straightened up automatically. He pulled the hat off his head, fiddling it between his hands for a moment. Bilbo blinked, a little, wondering if he shouldn't be alarmed at this point. Surely whatever it was couldn't be that onerous?
"You said other services?" Bofur opened, squinting cautiously at Bilbo's nod. "In a translation vein. Ah. So. You wouldn't mind a more ... a more spoken sort of translating? And, maybe a more ... continuous, sort of thing?"
Bilbo stared at him. Really, at this point, there wasn't much else to do. After a moment, Bofur sighed, and rested the hat and his hands on the stall.
"It's my cousin, you see," he said, watching how own fingers fret softly in the fur around the brim, carefully not looking up. "Bifur. He's a toymaker by trade, you know. A good one. Had a stall up the top end of the market. Dale's got a few more kids than Erebor does, at least for right now." A pause, a soft smile. "Always had a talent. Made the most wonderful little things. You know?"
He looked up then, a little challengingly, and Bilbo simply nodded. "I'm sure they're marvelous," he assured. Not even placatingly. He had seen dwarven craftsmanship. He had no doubts.
Bofur seemed to take some encouragement from that, looking back down at his hands with more of his smile than before. "Aye, well. He's good, is Bifur. But he has ... he has a small problem." He shook his head, his expression darkening. Not a simple fading of his smile. Something older, a flash of something genuinely fearsome on that cheerful face. "We had some problems on the route to Erebor. Orcs, in the Misty Mountains."
Bilbo winced, rather visibly, and the dwarf looked ruefully at him. Bilbo shrugged one shoulder uneasily, a hand instinctively coming up to touch his waistcoat pocket, nodding softly. He understood that much. Goblins, in his case. Goblins and ... whatever that creature had been. Had it not be for Gandalf ... well. Had it not been for Gandalf, Dale would be poorer by one bookseller, wouldn't it?
"Your cousin got hurt?" Bilbo asked, softly. Seeing a touch of sympathy in Bofur's face, and a touch of that darker thing too.
"Aye," the dwarf said, grimly. "He took an axe to the head." He smiled, a little, at Bilbo's startled flinch. "He's alright, now. Mostly. More or less. But he has a small problem with Westron. And, well. That's been causing some problems, the past few weeks. Problems ... I was hoping you maybe might be able to help with?"
And really, Bilbo thought, watching Bofur's fingers worrying at his hat, what could one say to that?
---
Ori arrived around ten, rather later than usual, with an armful of leather cases for the loose-leaf manuscripts. Ordinarily, Dori would have been behind him, carrying the heftier tomes (Dori was surprisingly powerful, for such a fussy dwarf). Today, however, it was the middle brother, Nori, that was following Ori up the incline from the river, complaining mightily all the way from the looks of things.
Which was somewhat unfortunate, really, since for the past two minutes Bilbo had been watching Bofur make his way down the incline from the Ereborean gate, waving cheerily and followed by two dwarves. The first of which presumably being his cousin, and the second of which ...
Well. It probably wouldn't end too badly, right? Dwalin couldn't arrest Nori just for carrying some books, could he?
Bilbo sighed, and went to put the kettle on. One of Dori's stronger blends, he thought. He had a suspicion they were going to need it.
The brothers reached him first, not having had to traverse most of the market. Bilbo didn't audibly sigh in relief as Ori bustled in behind him, nattering cheerfully, but Nori caught the slump of his shoulders regardless.
"Something the matter, Master Lightfoot?" the thief asked, leaning insouciantly on the stall with the stack of books beside him. The bloody dwarf had been calling him that since they'd been reacquainted, supposedly in honour of silent feet in Laketown. It was mildly annoying, so it was.
Which was possibly why Bilbo took rather more pleasure than he ought in nodding up-market.
"We've got guests incoming," he said, and watched Nori's eyes widen in instinctive alarm at the sight of Dwalin. And then narrow, with something that was either anticipation or malice, Bilbo wasn't sure which, and yes, oh yes, he was going to need a strong cup of tea, wasn't he?
"So I see," Nori murmured, rolling lightly to his feet. Ori, having caught on and followed their gazes, squeaked lightly in alarm, and Bilbo shook his head.
"Behave, both of you," he admonished, reaching out to tug lightly on Nori's beard and holding up a cup in lieu of whatever it was Nori was holding behind his back. "They're coming to see us on another matter entirely, and it's not like you can be arrested for carrying your brother's books. So have some tea, be polite, and try not to taunt him too much." He sighed. "Please?"
Nori blinked at him for a second, and then chuckled, taking the tea and smiling faintly into its depths. "Whatever you say, Master Baggins," he murmured, and Bilbo wasn't quite sure if the switch in names was acquiescence or a small glimmer of temper. There were times dwarves were worse than hobbits for that.
Not that he had time to decide, though. Not when a cheerful voice cut across anything Bilbo might have thought to say, and a be-hatted figure bumped amiably against the stall counter.
"Mr Baggins!" Bofur greeted, grinning with a mix of relief and what Bilbo was rapidly coming to realise was just his semi-permanent cheer. "Weren't waiting too long, were you?"
"Not at all, Master Bofur." Bilbo bowed across at him, ignoring how both Ori and Nori were staring unabashedly at the other dwarf. And then at the other two behind him, though what Nori directed at Dwalin couldn't really be called a stare. "Master Dwalin," Bilbo nodded, a little desperately. "And this will be Master Bifur, yes?"
"Aye," Bofur answered, though his cousin (who really did have an axe in his skull - being told about it didn't really prepare one for the reality) grumbled something in grudging Khuzdul behind him. At least, Bilbo thought it sounded grudging. Khuzdul was difficult like that.
"Pleased to meet you," Bilbo said anyway, holding out his hand across the counter to the new dwarf. "Welcome to our end of the market, Master Bifur."
Bifur stared down at him for a second, squinting at his hand suspiciously, to the extent that Bilbo was considering being offended. Then, with a blink almost of surprise when Bilbo didn't withdraw it, the dwarf reached down and almost delicately took his hand, murmuring something in Khuzdul with a nod of his head before withdrawing. Bofur, beside him, grinned unabashedly.
"He says pleased to meet you too, Mr Baggins," the miner grinned, looking rather pleased with himself. Almost too pleased, Bilbo would have thought, but Bifur was smiling at him, almost shyly, and he couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed.
"Aye, well," Dwalin rumbled abruptly, glancing somewhat uneasily between Nori, on one side of Bilbo, and Bifur on the other. "Try to stay that way this time, won't you? Master Baggins isn't much for fights. Especially not with men."
Bilbo stiffened a little, drawing himself up before remembering that no, he wasn't supposed to mention the elvish blade under the counter, Gandalf had advised him strongly on that. And besides. More or less every other dwarf there got an answer in before him.
"Fights?" Ori murmured, instinctively leaning across his books to protect them. "What do you mean fights? Bilbo, what's going on?"
"That's not my cousin's fault!" Bofur opened hotly, glaring at Dwalin around Bifur. "They think his injury makes him stupid, insult him to his face, what's he supposed to do, eh?"
Bifur, for his part, was curling forward ashamedly, his gaze downcast. Bilbo felt something twist in his chest, and had opened his mouth to explain, on hand on Ori's arm to calm him, when Nori decided, naturally, that this was a perfect moment to step in and antagonise people further. For the love of Eru.
"You sound almost concerned, Master Dwalin," the thief drawled lightly, leaning on one elbow beside Bilbo and looking very smug about it. "Taken a shine to our hobbit, have you?"
Dwalin glared at him. His hands were braced on the haft of his hammer, going white knuckled for a moment, but that was all, thank Mahal. (Bilbo blinked a little at the thought. He needed to stop hanging around with dwarves).
Then Dwalin's eyes narrowed, a gimlet-eyed expression that Bilbo recognised primarily from Nori himself, and he revised that opinion. Hammers were significantly easier to deal with that whatever that expression usually boded ...
"I've nothing against Master Baggins," the guardsdwarf said calmly, staring hard-eyed at Nori. "He's done a good job keeping your brother out of trouble, to start with. I'm sure Dori's been grateful to him."
Nori's expression went completely, utterly blank, Ori hunching over with a slight gasp beside Bilbo, and ... and no. Just no. That was most certainly not appropriate.
"Thank you, Master Dwalin," Bilbo snapped, with more frost in his tone than he'd had in a long, long time. (Not since Bag End closed its doors to him, not since Lobellia's sweet-sounding opinion that he'd be more at home in Tuckborough anyway, what with his mother, don't you think? Not since then, but Bilbo wasn't thinking about that, he needed to keep hold of his temper). "In the first place, Ori is perfectly capable of making his own decisions. In the second, I think Nori is as concerned about his brother as anyone. And in the third, I owe my friends considerably better than to try and usurp their positions in their family, and I will thank you not to suggest otherwise!"
He glared at Dwalin, fists knotting furiously, almost distantly surprised by the force of anger in his own tone ("Poor dear, he's more Took than Baggins, isn't he?"). Trying not to think too hard about the stunned look Ori was giving him, or the way the blank look in Nori's face had faltered around something else entirely. Or, for that matter, about the way Bofur and Bifur, who were complete strangers uncomfortably present for this little family drama that was taking place in the street, were glancing uneasily at both each other and at him. No. He kept his icy expression fixed on Dwalin.
Otherwise, he was half-sure he'd have lost his composure entirely and bolted behind the stall.
"... My apologies, Master Baggins," Dwalin said at last, stiffly and carefully. With a crinkle around his eyes that looked like genuine remorse, and a careful nod in Ori's direction too. And then, much, much more stiffly, also in Nori's. "You're quite right. That was ... inappropriate of me."
He didn't laugh when Bilbo gaped at him. Which was fortunate, really, all things considered. He didn't do anything beyond wait, calmly and remorsefully, for Bilbo to stop shaking with fury and remember his manners enough to accept the apology.
Which took rather longer than Bilbo expected, and was perhaps all the more worrying for that.
"... Well," Bofur murmured, breaking the tableau, his smile odd and distant as he stared at Bilbo. "I think we may have found the right helper for you after all, cousin of mine." He grinned, soft and cheerful and not at all explicable, while Bifur flashed his hands in a set of gestures that tugged at Bilbo's memory, and Dwalin harumphed in sudden gruff embarrassment.
"... He's not bad at all," Nori murmured, low and a little strange himself, watching Bilbo with eyes that were suddenly a lot sharper and more considering than usual. Bilbo, feeling a flush climbing steadily up his neck, suddenly found the top layer of books on the stall extremely fascinating indeed.
Then Nori shook himself, fixed back on his vague, insouciant smirk, and looked up at the two newcomers. "Though I will say, as strange and alarming as it is for me to agree with Master Dwalin over here ..." He paused, slow and dangerous, while Dwalin actually had the nerve to smirk a little bit, and the flush crept up over Bilbo's ears. "I promise you. Should any harm come to Master Baggins because of you, it will not be the guards you'll be answering to."
Eru preserve him, Bilbo thought faintly. Or rather, no, Eru open the ground right now and swallow him. That would be nice. Except that dwarves were miners, weren't they, that probably wouldn't work either ...
Bifur answered, in a short, succinct burst of Khuzdul. He was smiling faintly, Bilbo saw when he looked up, eyes crinkling in an expression that Bilbo thought was very kind indeed.
"He says he'll do everything in his power to see that doesn't happen," Ori murmured beside him, a quick and rather warm translation, and Bilbo saw the scribe was smiling back up at Bifur. "He's thankful that you've agreed to help him, and hopes ... hopes not to be too much of a bother."
"Aye," Bofur said, smiling warmly at them. "We'll move the stall down here tomorrow. He just needs the odd word here or there, if the menfolk start getting annoyed that he can't answer them. He only ended up fighting them when they ... when they said things they shouldn't have, thinking he couldn't understand them." He grimaced a little, that flash of darkness creeping back over his features. "Me and Bombur tried, but with the reopening of the mines under Erebor, and with more people in the city itself, neither of us have the time we thought we'd have."
Bifur turned to his cousin, hands flashing in a quick series of gestures, his expression soft and forgiving and slightly shamed, and Bilbo shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have interrupted, but the memory snapped abruptly into place, and he realised what he was looking at.
"Ranger sign!" he said, and almost flinched as all five of them turned to look at him. "Oh, oh I'm sorry, it's just that I just realised." He smiled a little sheepishly up at Bifur. "Those gestures ... they're not quite Ranger sign, because if they were you'd just have said that the pine trees are not on fire, and that doesn't make very much sense. But. Um. It's a sign language, isn't it? Those ...?" He flicked his hands in a vague approximation of the sign the dwarf had just made, and Bifur, shockingly, beamed at him.
"Iglishmêk," Dwalin cut in, his eyebrows raised at Bilbo in something that might have been respect. "Not the Ereborean variant. Broadbeam? Blue Mountains?"
"Aye," Bofur agreed, slanting a curious look over at the guard, but his cousin was too busy still staring at Bilbo. Bifur frowned thoughtfully down at him and then, very slowly, made two gestures that Bilbo watched eagerly. Bofur glanced between them, and smiled. "My cousin says: welcome, friend."
Bilbo looked down, watching the twitch of the dwarf's hands for a few more seconds, and then looked back up, his own smile wide and bright, and repeated the sign with a flush of pride.
"Welcome indeed, Master Dwarf," he laughed, grinning up at them. "And I think we'll be able to work together just fine, don't you?"
Well, if two thieves could steal his friendship and make the difference between Bilbo staying and leaving, a toymaker with an axe in his head was hardly going to be a strain, was he?
Say what you like about Dale, Erebor and dwarves, Bilbo thought with a grin, but they certainly weren't boring.
Contd: Ghelekabad Books: Fighting Words
A/N: I wasn't sure what patronymic to give Bofur, but Wikipedia tells me that Tolkien took most of the dwarf names in the Hobbit from the Norse Dvergatal and/or Poetic Edda, which I then browsed through until I found a name ending in roughly the right sound. Hence, Bofur son of Sviur. *grins sheepishly*
Tags:
- au,
- fanfic,
- ghelekabad,
- hobbit,
- lotr