Chapter Text
Bofur asked first.
The party had traveled a night or two past Bree and made camp beside the trail as it looped below the marshes. The night was fine, and they sheltered in a small copse of trees. Bilbo tried to find a sleeping place close enough to be immediately alerted should anything go wrong, but distant enough to be away from the smell and snoring and belching of the dwarves. Not that Bilbo smelled very fine himself anymore; almost two weeks on horseback without regular baths or his fine lavender oil had taken a toll on Bilbo and his clothing. By then he knew enough about his companions not to complain, however, because that kind of talk got loud laughter and sniggered remarks about being a sissy.
Dwarven hygiene horrified Bilbo, but as time passed he acknowledged there might be a valid excuse for it. Camping in every kind of inclement weather and hauling one’s belongings around the wilderness did incline one towards frugality and an indifference to the odors of beast and person. And the dwarves had been traveling long before meeting Bilbo.
But Bilbo still tried to give them some distance at night, and so it was in some marginal privacy that Bofur issued his request. Bilbo heard the crunch and thud of dwarf boots approaching his little nest and sat up in his blankets.
Bofur bowed formally, not quite looking Bilbo in the eye, and said, “I humbly request body hospitality.”
“What?” asked Bilbo, baffled.
Bofur’s expression became shuttered, eyes raising to the sky. “Oh! Er, how is that request formally made in the Shire? Is the phrasing different? I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to be rude.”
Bilbo stared for a moment, and then filthy rumors he had heard in the Green Dragon surfaced in his memory.
“They do say that what with all dwarves having beards--both the men and the women if you can believe--that they don’t differentiate properly between the sexes. Especially while traveling, they take no difference between proper relations as what should be, and casual inversion as what shouldn’t.”
How the hobbits had laughed and rolled their eyes at this! Then, it had been just those funny people and their funny foreign customs far away. But now Bilbo felt himself blushing crimson as he realized what Bofur had just asked. Bilbo knew enough by now to be aware that dwarves might not have the social graces one would expect of his fellow Shire inhabitants, but they did adhere to certain formalities of address and introduction. That had not been Bofur’s usual turn of phrase. Which meant that a formal and customary phrasing existed with which to ask that very particular question.
“Usually we just call it fucking,” Bilbo replied a little faintly after a moment’s awkward silence. Bofur, however, smiled in relief, the lines around his mouth deepening in the evening light.
“Oh good, no problems with dialect. I wasn’t sure that word was used in the Shire. So then, you up for a quick go?”
Bofur did not have much in the way of sensitivity, but he seemed to earnestly like Bilbo and often tried to make conversation while they rode. Bilbo thought of this while he stared at Bofur and the nervous crooked grin half-hidden under the drooping mustache. The same blasted Tookish part of Bilbo's brain that had made Bilbo run out of his beautiful hole without a handkerchief (and which the Baggins half of him was really coming to detest) woke up and took interest.
“All right then, why not,” the Tookishness in him said before Bilbo could do anything intelligent like cramming his knuckles into his mouth to keep the words from getting out. Bofur grinned, reached into one of the innumerable pockets that dwarves seemed to have in their clothes, and pulled out a flask of cooking oil.
He had it in his pocket! the Baggins half of Bilbo realized in outrage. Cocky bastard! How dare he presume!
But it has been an awfully long time since anyone touched you properly, said the Tookish half in a sensible voice as he got about unbuttoning his trousers. And you've always wondered.
There had been a few girls in his youth who had let him fumble around their bodies with his mouth and hands, and two who had used oil for this very purpose, the folk solution to pregnancy prevention and maintaining virginity for marriage. Bilbo had enjoyed himself while it lasted, but had never gone out of his way to seek it again. None of the women had pressed the issue either.
Then Bilbo realized that he had no idea how to tell if a dwarf was male or female--possibly Bofur was a lady-dwarf and Bilbo just didn’t know? Bofur peed standing like all the other dwarves, but that didn’t mean anything--perhaps female dwarves were shaped or trained in such a way to make that possible? The other dwarves called him ‘brother’ and ‘he’ but maybe that was customary too no matter the dwarf’s gender? The thoughts arrived with a rush of mixed relief and panic, but then Bofur’s jerkin dropped to the dry leaves to reveal the clear outline of a hardening shape under his trousers.
Before Bilbo had time to talk himself out of it, Bofur’s trousers were off and he was down on Bilbo’s blanket beside the hobbit. One rough-knuckled hand worked up and down on the dwarf’s still-stiffening erection, nestled into curls much deeper, lusher, and more widespread than one usually saw on hobbits anywhere except their feet, calves, and heads. Bilbo found himself wriggling out of his breeches and tossing them carelessly into the undergrowth beside his blanket. Your trousers might get stained, or bugs might crawl into them, or you might not be able to find them again in a hurry if something happens in the night, the Baggins in Bilbo reminded him sternly, but he shoved the thought out of his mind, because the oil bottle had made a delicious glugging noise as it released its contents. Bofur grinned at the hobbit as he spread the oil over himself, then wrapped one slippery hand around Bilbo’s hip to urge him to turn onto his side. The dwarf rolled close behind him and then--
Bilbo bit his lip as it slid in, huffing out his breath through his nose. His erection, which had perked up, withered against his thigh as he cramped around the intrusion.
This will be unpleasant, then, Bilbo thought with resignation and no small amount of disappointment. It couldn’t be much worse than aching thighs and buttocks after a whole day of riding, though, and Bilbo tolerated that for the sake of adventure, so he settled down to bear it. But Bofur held still, moving his still-oily hand around to Bilbo’s front. (Think of the mess, the Baggins half thought viciously. You’ll end up with oil-stains on your shirt, no doubt.) Then the distant memories of those youthful pairings surfaced more clearly, and Bilbo remembered something like this with the girls, too--being told to hold still once he'd gotten in, struggling with the urge to move, not knowing what to do with himself.
The pain faded, Bofur’s hand was callused but welcome between Bilbo’s legs, and when Bofur began to slowly move behind him, Bilbo stared out through the darkening trees and onto the blue-grey plains beyond with his mouth open in a silent Oh of unexpected pleasure. Bofur nuzzled happily into the back of the hobbit’s neck with a delighted “Mmm,” and Bilbo thought, This would not be happening if I were still in Bag End. The whiskery face against his nape felt hopelessly (and excitingly) foreign.
“Tell me when I hit it,” Bofur murmured.
Hit what? Bilbo wondered. He remained silent as Bofur experimented with various angles and speeds--and then Bofur shifted once more, moved a particular way, and--Oh!
“That!” Bilbo gasped, trying to keep his voice low enough to not attract attention. He wished more intensely than ever for the comfortable--and private--bedrooms of Bag End. Instead he hooked one foot behind Bofur’s knee, bit his lip, closed his eyes, and let the Took half take over.
**
Bilbo hadn’t thought much ahead of the moment. When they had finished, Bofur had lain lazily against the hobbit for a few minutes and then risen, wiping himself on his own shirt (to Bilbo’s lasting horror it had been the bottom part of that very shirt Bofur had ripped off for Bilbo as a kerchief--what if Bofur had done this before with others and now Bilbo had wiped his eyes with that fabric?) before leaving with a grin and a “You’re all right, laddie.”
There had been no space or time to talk about anything. Questions like Will this happen again? or Did this mean anything? were so clearly unwelcome that Bilbo knuckled down and remained stoic, trying to imitate the dwarves. About halfway through the next day he realized he didn’t even mind it so much, though he would have liked to ask for a repeat. He wondered if there were formalities dictating how and when to do so.
Bilbo did assume Bofur wouldn’t speak about their encounter to others. No decent person would discuss sexual exploits with other men, just think of their reputations! But word must have gone out or someone must have overheard them, because the next evening, Dwalin invited himself into Bilbo’s sleeping area emanating the same expectant self-confidence with which he had first barged into Bag End.
“I humbly request body hospitality,” Dwalin intoned, giving Bilbo an obvious once-over that displayed no humility whatsoever. Bilbo scowled at the bald tattooed scalp for a minute, going beet red. Bilbo Baggins, son of Bungo Baggins, would rather have died than met the dwarf’s eyes.
But the Tookish half got stronger by the day, and stupidly gave challenge: “All right then, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Where Bofur had been gentle, Dwalin had all the knowledgeable arrogance of a mature dwarf in his prime. Bilbo shortly found himself face down, arse up, biting into his blanket and seeing stars as Dwalin showed that he had no difficulty whatsoever in hitting whatever-it-was hard, repeatedly, and with mind-blowing accuracy. All the Baggins part of Bilbo could think was I’m not in the Shire anymore as he tried desperately not to come too fast.
**
The next day the landscape rolled slowly by under the shaggy ponies, and Bilbo caught Gandalf eyeballing him. The wizard’s eyebrows, beard, and the shade of his wide-brimmed hat hid any expressions which might betray awareness of Bilbo’s evening encounters. Though Bilbo stared at the wizard hard enough to burn holes, Gandalf’s thoughts remained inscrutable.
The Baggins half of Bilbo thought By the love of the Shire, if the wizard tries anything with me, I’m turning around and going home. The blasted Took half thought instead, Fireworks indeed, if you could even make it fit.
Gandalf seemed content to remain high above the earthly affairs of the dwarves, however. If he had noticed the goings-on in Bilbo’s end of the camp, he made no mention of it. Nor did the other dwarves speak of it. Much to Bilbo’s surprise, he did not even become the butt of any dirty jokes. It had to be some dwarven boundary.
Two nights later, both Fili and Kili showed up one after the other. Kili arrived so promptly after his older brother had finished that Fili must have given some signal on his way to the other end of the camp. When the second burly young dwarf arrived, Bilbo still lay spread-eagled, half-naked and wrapped in no more than a blanket from the waist down. Kili nearly got a flat refusal from Bilbo, who wasn’t even sure he could get hard again so soon. But the dratted Took half thought This just means I’m already loose and slippery. Easier to fuck. So to the Baggins-half’s consternation, several minutes after Kili arrived Bilbo found himself on his back for the second time that evening, heels resting on the young dwarf’s buttocks and feeling like a slow sunrise on a warm summer day.
**
Bilbo wondered about the two young brothers the next day--with no siblings himself, Bilbo had no experience with which to judge their relationship. Practically inseparable at all times, and now both of them asking for his favors in sequence? Maybe it’s another dwarfish thing, Bilbo thought, and then shrugged. He had no desire to complain. Perhaps Fili tries everything first and recommends the best to Kili? Bilbo liked the thought of that, smiling at the imagined flattery of it. The easy companionship between the youngest members of the company did not feel like competition or imitation, so it was as good an explanation as any.
The days passed and so did the dwarves, in and out of Bilbo’s bed. Nori, so rough that Bilbo worried he might break, pleasure wrung out of him in a grip like iron and teeth biting into the soft flesh of Bilbo’s shoulder as he came. Nori left Bilbo exhausted and bruised, with spending all down his thighs and head still whirling. The next night came Nori’s awkward younger brother Ori, whose prick reared so large that the Baggins half of Bilbo thought he might as well proposition the wizard. But Ori had long, clever fingers and seemed to feel no rush to do anything with his disproportionately large endowment. By the time Ori rolled them over to lie on top of the hobbit, Bilbo was damn near begging for it. The fact that it fit at all shocked Bilbo, and Ori’s singleminded slow pace surprised him still more.
Never would have thought it, from a gangly awkward kid like him, Bilbo thought. He knew dwarves aged even more slowly than hobbits, which meant that Ori was probably older than Bilbo himself regardless of looks. But all such thoughts drifted away as Bilbo became preoccupied by the thick flesh inside him and the new stains he was about to make on his blankets.
When Oin arrived the next night Bilbo did not even bother to feel surprise, much less sit up in his bedding. Bilbo was surprised, however, when Oin rolled them over so Bilbo lay draped over the dwarf like a tablecloth, and even moreso at how Oin managed to delay their climaxes for nearly an hour. By the end, Bilbo had to bite his own fingers to keep from screaming for mercy or begging to be allowed to come or both. When Oin finally allowed the hobbit to finish, Bilbo was so exhausted that he hardly even noticed the dwarf leaving. When he found himself sore the next day, even the Baggins half of him couldn’t feel any regret.
That would never, ever have happened in the Shire, was all he could think during that day's travels.
Some of the dwarves never approached--either because of age, disinterest, or yet another unspoken social boundary not apparent to Bilbo. He wondered then if offering 'body hospitality' carried a negative connotation among dwarves just as it did among hobbits? Perhaps even now he was considered a slattern and a pervert by the company. But if he was he didn't want to know about it, because the damage was already done. The dwarves did not treat him any differently during daylight hours, at least--which is to say that they continued to regard him as a mildly ridiculous and naive outsider--and Bilbo clung to this fact. He had not expected to find their teasing reassuring, but now he did.
During the long slow days in which they rode into increasingly hilly country, Bilbo thought of the tattered remains of his reputation. What his neighbors in the Shire thought of his disappearing on no notice to have messy uncomfortable adventures, Bilbo did not like to think. In the place of his good reputation in the Shire, Bilbo seemed to have gained an entirely different sort of reputation among the dwarves.
**
Then came the trolls. Having survived the encounter relatively unscathed, that night the dwarves seemed especially willing to reconnect with their burglar.
“‘The secret to cooking dwarves is to skin them,’ what were yeh thinkin’!” Dwalin growled, but the words were belied by a laugh and a good-natured smack on the back that nearly sent Bilbo face-first into the ground. Beside them, Fili chuckled and rolled his eyes in agreement.
Bilbo’s hands still shook and his stomach clenched thinking about the encounter. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched over in his cloak, trying hide the fact that the shivers were coming back. If the dwarves ever felt shaky and nauseated with fear, they hid it better. Perhaps they had survived similar encounters many times and had thus grown immune to the after-effects? The thought both frightened and impressed Bilbo.
Then Dwalin’s hand fell onto Bilbo’s thigh, sliding up till the steel of his knuckle-dusters pressed against the hobbit’s stones.
“Will yeh let us? By way of apology?” Dwalin rumbled out in a low, chesty voice. Bilbo noted that Dwalin did not say who was apologizing to whom or for what. Despite this and his trembling hands, Bilbo still felt himself flushing with the eyes of both dwarves on him at once.
Instead of asking what the dwarf meant, however, as a respectable Baggins would have done, Bilbo snorted, rolled his eyes too, and replied, “Yeah, all right.”
The hobbit could tell that practice helped--when Fili slid into him there was nothing more than a twinge of discomfort, prick twitching in anticipation against his belly. Bilbo expected the dwarves to take turns, as Fili had with his brother, but instead Dwalin moved behind the younger dwarf, bent him over Bilbo’s chest till Fili’s steel mustache-tassels tickled the hobbit’s chest hair, and thrust into the younger dwarf with exactly the same practiced ease Bilbo remembered from a week ago.
Well, that answers my questions about whether they do it with each other, Bilbo thought with some relief. Then even the Took half of him miraculously shut up as the older dwarf began to thrust. Fili cursed under his breath into Bilbo’s neck, the young dwarf's rich stomach hair stroking back and forth over Bilbo as Fili was fucked into him. The movements were just enough to drive Bilbo mad with need without pushing him anywhere close to the edge. He clutched at Fili's arms and hair, trying wordlessly to communicate his desperation.
Dwalin finished, his shape dark and indistinct against the cloudy night sky. In the stillness, Bilbo felt the chilly night air upon his bare legs. Just as he was set to dig his heels into Fili's backside to get him goin gagain, Dwalin hauled the younger dwarf up by the nape of the neck. Fili's prick popped out as the big hands turned him over--Bilbo might have had an enchanting view of the furry blond cleft had there been the light for it.
Dwalin murmured huskily, “All right, burglar, go ahead and have him, you've earned a go on top.”
Bilbo managed to prevent himself from saying “Really?” and spoiling the moment. Instead he got to his knees behind the dwarf, wrapped his only slightly sticky hands around the firm muscles of Fili’s hips, and slid into the well-prepared hole.
Fili muffled a low litany of curses in Bilbo’s increasingly-abused blankets. Fili flexed and grasped around him, the deliciously slick wet heat of him as enchanting as any wizard's spell. As Bilbo began to move, trying to angle properly, Dwalin wrapped one hand into the young dwarf’s hair to hold his head down and reached his other under Fili’s belly to jerk him off. Bilbo could just see the flex of the dwarf’s biceps in the dark, the shine of the moon on his scalp, and the shape of Fili’s arched back below them. Bilbo could certainly feel how Fili tightened around him when Dwalin’s arm moved faster, and then Bilbo came and did not see anything anymore for some time.
**
Wargs and orcs followed the trolls, and after a swift drop into the cool darkness of Gandalf’s unexpected cave, yet again Bilbo shook and sweated his way through the group’s escape. I am much too small and much too soft for this, Bilbo thought helplessly. Fool of a Took that I was to think this a good idea!
But the cave opened out into a gentle waterfall, and then the rock walls fell away and below them lay a vista so stunning that Bilbo forgot the wargs entirely. His first sight of Rivendell took his breath away, and the shakes faded into the past as he stood captivated by the unearthly grace of Elven architecture. The low, earthy houses of his comfortable homeland resembled these soaring homes only insofar as a mouse resembled a deer--both might have hair and teeth and eyes, but were of such vastly different make and scale as to be incomparable.
Here is a place where one might settle happily forever, he thought in awe.
The elves themselves brought back the shaking and sweating but for an entirely different reason than the orcs. Tall, impossibly beautiful, impeccably bred--if Bilbo had believed himself weak and helpless before, now he felt puny, dirty, ugly, and awkward as well.
Privately, Bilbo wondered if the physical difference did not have an impact upon the strained relationship between Elves and Dwarves. Next to Elves, who could ever hope to feel strong or handsome?
**
That evening Bilbo lost himself in the winding hallways of Rivendell and wound up in a hall in which a huge fireplace crackled with flames. Braziers of fragrant pine wood burned all along the walls. Before the fireplace Thorin stood, turning as the shadows shifted on the walls. Bilbo stepped back hurriedly, having no desire to interrupt Thorin’s private time. The king was tetchy enough without having his brooding interrupted--but Thorin beckoned to the hobbit.
With trepidation, Bilbo went. Thorin’s face remained a handsome impassive blank as he scanned the hobbit from head to foot. Then he snorted and turned away toward the fire.
“Have you ever worked a day in your life, little hobbit?” Thorin asked, his voice almost soft. Bilbo's anxiety and dismay grew as he continued, “Have you ever labored to exhaustion for months just to earn food to eat and a bed on which to sleep? Have you ever gone sleepless, worrying about how your people could be fed and housed?” The dark eyes turned on Bilbo again, now narrowed and searching. Bilbo did not even try to meet the piercing gaze, stuffing his soft, uncallused hands into his pockets. “I thought not,” Thorin stated, with quiet disgust. “In Erebor, perhaps some of us were like you. In Erebor we had plenty and to spare, and the least of us had time to spend on leisure, or in the making of beautiful objects just for the joy of it. But not anymore, and not for many years.”
“Balin told me you had made a home for your people in....in the Blue Mountains?” Bilbo stuttered, trying to shift the subject further away from himself. But this jerked Thorin’s gaze from Bilbo’s tattered velvet jacket back up to the hobbit’s face.
“A poor home compared to Erebor, for a poor and dishonored people,” Thorin growled. “Refugees living in the poor districts where we are neither wanted nor welcomed. My nephews were born not knowing that we had ever been anything other than smiths and laborers, not knowing that once they would have been princes receiving gifts from the very folk who now sneer at us as though we were beggars.” The dwarf king curled his lip. “No heir of my body will be born knowing this life. If I cannot retake the mountain, I will die in the attempt. I would rather that Fili and Kili continue the line of Durin than bring forth a child into--” he swung both hands wide, as though to describe a world without Erebor, “this.”
For a moment they both stared into the fire, Bilbo searching desperately for anything to say which would not make him sound a complete arse. Instead, Thorin rounded on him yet again, leaning in close, black eyes gleaming in light of the flames.
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Thorin hissed. “You think if you fuck your way through my people, you can somehow earn a place among them. But you can’t substitute bending over for standing up when trying to earn respect.” His eyes narrowed, and the light reflected in them vanished, leaving nothing but black holes into which Bilbo’s gaze sank. The hobbit's body went cold despite the nearness of the fire, yet he could not make himself look away.
“This is not a pleasure trip. I burdened myself with you so that you could do a job I cannot, and servicing my men is not it, halfling.” Bilbo had never before heard anyone use the word so that it sounded like an insult, but it did now. “If I had intended to bring anyone for that purpose, have no doubt that I’d have brought someone prettier, more experienced, and more discreet.” Thorin moved still closer, so they stood mere inches apart, and glared into Bilbo’s eyes with deep ire. Bilbo felt it like a pressure upon his lungs.
“I told them not to ask for body hospitality from one another,” Thorin hissed. “I told them they’d only become attached, and when facing death as we do, they cannot afford to grow more attached to anyone or anything. Not when so many have already died.” He pulled back, and Bilbo felt the air rush in between them, raising gooseflesh on his arms and legs. “Now not only have they turned to you as a convenient loophole, but you’ve made them disobey my orders. I know you goaded Dwalin and Fili into doing what they did--my own blasted nephew!” Thorin gave a snort of utmost disgust, and Bilbo felt his beardless cheeks flush hot with shame and anger. The hobbit stared at Thorin, stewing at the injustice of this.They came to me! I would never have even thought to ask! he fumed.
The Tookish half of Bilbo foolishly decided to fight back. “I will be sure to stop your loyal subjects from approaching me as soon as there is any dragon in sight, my leige,” Bilbo quipped, giving a mocking bow. “But they are already attached to one another and most especially to you. It is ridiculous to forbid them to feel what they already feel. So I fail to see how or why their pleasure concerns you--unless you wish to take my place?”
Bilbo had meant this as a jab, to make Thorin feel embarrassed. But instead Thorin pulled back, crossing his arms and scrutinizing Bilbo, clearly no more affected than if the hobbit had thrown a rock at a wall and expected the wall to feel hurt.
“Let us say, halfling, that Smaug is dead or we win the mountain some other way. If you continue as you have, sooner or later one of the company will grow infatuated with you--especially the younger ones who don’t know any better. And what then? Erebor is no home for you, and you would run back to your soft, gentle Shire. These are my people and I will protect them, halfling, including from your half-witted explorations.” After a moment of chilly silence, Thorin spat, “Remember that servicing good men doesn’t make you anything like them.” As Bilbo reeled, Thorin walked away, heavy boots thudding on the marble tiles.
For long minutes Bilbo shivered before the fire. Then, hardly seeing where he went, he stumbled out of the room in search of fresh air.
**
Half an hour later Gandalf found the hobbit on a bench overlooking the gorge. The wizard seated himself beside the small figure, sensing the inner turmoil brewing like a storm.
“Why me, Gandalf?” Bilbo asked in a voice thick with feeling. “In the whole world I am possibly the one person least suited to this quest, even among hobbits. You could not have chosen worse.”
Gandalf resisted the urge to turn and look at the hobbit, knowing Bilbo did not want to be seen. Instead he took in the attractive vista of Imladris, lit by the same bright moonlight which had illuminated the hidden runes. But Gandalf could not help but hear the unspoken words, thought as loudly as they were: I left the Shire because my whole life I have done nothing, seen nothing, been nothing. Till you came, I had never known anything else. For years I knew that I faced a life of quiet monotony in which I would die alone and be remembered for nothing. And then you told me I could be something more than that....But now even my very desire for adventure has turned against me. Had I been like most hobbits this would not have come to pass....
Gandalf cogitated on this for a moment, hearing secondhand snatches of Thorin’s words from the hobbit’s open and vulnerable mind. Gandalf had to think of how to start the conversation without revealing too much--his ability to read minds mostly made mortals uncomfortable and frightened.
“Aside from Thorin and perhaps some of the older dwarves, the company does not seem to dislike you, and you've survived well enough so far. So I can only assume Thorin must have had words with you to put you in this state, and I am sure none of those words were very gentle. Is that so?"
Bilbo nodded, so Gandalf continued.
"You upset Thorin because your life has mainly consisted of what he cannot give to his people--innocence and comfort,” Gandalf said gently. “He loses sight of that, and sees only that you were by chance granted what he has worked toward for years yet has not achieved.”
“If you think Thorin is jealous of me, you’re battier than Radagast.”
Gandalf snorted. “There is more to Radagast than you know, and to Thorin as well. Just as there is to you, as I keep saying. Anyway, jealous is not the right word--resentful is more accurate.” When this had no impact whatsoever upon the roiling mind of the hobbit, Gandalf tried a different approach. “How much do you know of Dwarven history, Bilbo?”
The hobbit’s head sagged, and he dropped his face in his hands. Gandalf now allowed his gaze to turn that way. So small, he thought, not for the first time, and so much contained within it.
“Nothing at all,” Bilbo admitted, the answer Gandalf had already known in advance. He smiled to himself.
“Durin, the father of the fathers of the kings of dwarves, slept alone for many years until he found Khazad-dum, the first true home of the stout folk. It was not until that great home of the dwarves was built that he took a spouse and produced heirs. Thorin holds himself to the same standard of his noble ancestor, and is now known for taking no lovers in all the decades since the fall of Erebor.”
Gandalf knew very well that this reputation was not based entirely in fact, but it was true so far as most people knew, including those in the company. And at this mention of taking no lovers Gandalf felt a flicker of understanding in the small figure beside him.
“Nor is Erebor the first great dwarven homeland to be lost. Before it, the grandfathers of Thorin’s grandfather lost Khazad-dûm itself. The weight of the first loss echoes down through the generations and adds yet more weight to the memory of the second loss. And Thorin tries to carry the weight of both, as though he were responsible for either.”
Bilbo sighed. Gandalf knew the hobbit felt little better, but Bilbo's sympathy for Thorin slowly deepened as thoughts of loss and loneliness swirled in his mind. If Bilbo were ever to be convinced of the likeness between Thorin and himself, Gandalf knew it would take time and patience--and no small amount of expert guidance. Seldom had Gandalf ever met so frustrated a dwarf as Thorin, nor so frustrated a hobbit as Bilbo. And just as two pieces of charged iron might resist each other until turned the right way around, so it was with these two. But what to say? He thought sympathy was probably the key.
“Imagine if all the Shire were laid waste, and all your family dead or scattered,” Gandalf murmured at last. “All the young nephews and nieces of whom you are fond--Tooks, Brandybucks, and Bagginses--imagine their bodies burned or eaten so that there could not even be proper burial. Imagine the gruesome task of burying the beloved dead with your own hands, or burning their bodies and smelling their flesh on the wind. Imagine if the last survivors--craftspeople who labored for decades to hone their skills--were often forced to stoop as low as begging, or hard, unending manual labor in coal mines far from the sun, labor that warped their spines, blackened their lungs, and shortenend their lives. And last, imagine that you had already fought long and hard for years and seen yet more friends and kin slain to even reach an age at which you saw your homeland lost.” Gandalf sighed--one could not even speak of such things and remain unaffected. “Thorin has endured much. But as a result he himself now takes a deal of enduring, for which I am sorry.”
Bilbo nodded moreosely. “I would not mind if the Sackville-Bagginses were incinerated,” he muttered, but they both knew he did not really mean it. Bilbo drew in a deep breath then, and they both looked out upon the moonlit rooftops and trees.
“I hate this wandering, Gandalf. Hobbits are not made for this. We are made to settle and grow deep roots, not be blown about like seeds in the wind. I suppose I must be patient with Thorin if he has endured this for decades, but he is blastedly good at getting under one’s skin.”
Gandalf laughed. “Wait and see what shall come of it, my friend. Seeds grow where they fall. And I can see you are growing already, despite being blown about so roughly.”