leupagus:

silentstep:

1.)    The dwarves spar as they journey, in the mornings or evenings, or sometimes when they break for the midday meal.  Sometimes they divide into teams, sometimes it’s a massive free-for-all, and not even the brothers and family units among them will help one another.  Sometimes one dwarf stands on a rock and the goal is to knock him down and take his place and defend it alone, other times they simply pile into each other and all may use the terrain however they please.  Sometimes they all attack Thorin at once, and he holds them off with sword and axe, or sword and the oaken branch that gave him his name, or the sword alone, or barefisted, wrestling and biting and kicking.  Sometimes they have one-on-one spars, or two-on-one or small groups against other small groups.  No one seems to hold back at all.  The company goes around with bruises, groaning as they ride the next day with wrenched muscles, ruefully let each other help staunch a bleeding wound.

          “Someone’s going to get killed,” Bilbo had said with certainty after a week of watching this, but Gandalf only smiled.

          He gained some perspective when, during an unarmed melee, Balin neatly sidestepped a punch from Dori that smashed the tree behind him to splinters.  Because he’s seen dwarves take blows from Dori before, and they always leave bruises that last for days– but never more than that.

          Fili wasn’t sparring that day– he was still recovering from the near-drowning– and thus was sharpening his swords next to Bilbo and keeping one eye on the proceedings, yelling out the occasional encouragement or taunt.

          “What’re you gawping at there, Mister Baggins?”

          “Ori’s never managed to raise a single bruise on any of you,” he said slowly.  “What would happen if he struck me?”

          “Don’t worry, Gandalf warned us all not to.  You Shirelings are a soft little folk, hm?  ‘–but they’ll surprise you, Master Dwarf,’ you know how he is.”

          “Soft is what you call not having a harder skull than a tree, is it?”

          “Couldn’t’ve been a very hard wood,”  Fili snorted.  “Half-dead, too.  Dori’s pulling his punches.  He has to, he’s stronger than Dwalin even.”  He glanced over at Bilbo, who was still wide-eyed.  “You said you’d read a good deal about elves.  That you’d studied them.  How would you describe ’em?”

          “Describe elves?  Well… fair, tall.  Wise, immortal beings, the Firstborn of the Peoples of Middle-Earth–”

          “Well, whether any of that’s true,” interrupted Fili with a bit of a grimace, “we were made by Mahal, not Illuvatar.  And Mahal considered it rather more important than being tall, aye, or fair in the eyes of some, that dwarves be tough.”

          Of all the things to be proud of, Bilbo thought.  But then he supposed they had to be proud of something, if they knew they were not made to be fair or wise or tall or immortal– or given a land like the Shire, with the gifts and the knowledge to till it.

2.)       Occasionally they stay at inns, in villages of Men that are apparently friendlier than others.  Bilbo has no idea what kind of unseen sign marks them apart, but the dwarves recognize something about them as they pass and Gloin takes out his ledger and abacus and talks to Thorin and Balin and Dwalin in low tones before Thorin announces whether they will enter.  Bifur and Bofur bring whatever toys they will have made since the last one, and sometimes a nicely inked scroll by Balin or Ori.  Dori might contribute a knitted scarf or hat or mittens or foot-mittens (at which name Fili and Kili fall about laughing and even Gandalf’s mustache wobbles suspiciously).  Thorin ties back his hair and disappears into the local forge for the evening.  Nori just… disappears.

They share rooms, because there are fifteen of them, and no matter who he rooms with Bilbo has never seen a single dwarf sleep in a bed.  The beds are right there, comfortable and inviting, and yet every single member of the company he has seen sleep— which is everyone except Gandalf— strips the sheets and blankets off their bed and carry them into a corner of the room to pile on the floor like a nest.

“Why do you do that?”

“Bad enough we’re on the second floor,” Gloin grumbled.  "Sleep raised up off it?  No thank you, laddie.  We’re far enough away from stone as it is.”

3.)  The metal pins go right through their ears!  Holes!  In their ears!  That they punched with needles and let scar around bits of metal that were still in there!  And he thought they looked far too regular for birthmarks but they’re self-inflicted, stabbed repeatedly with needles (again!) and stained with dyes that surely cannot be anything other than poisonous, to mark so permanently; what exactly is so wrong with the bodies they were born with?

4.)   Bilbo is perfectly familiar with the practice of breaking apart chicken bones to get at the marrow inside.  Healthy stuff, that, though you must be careful not to swallow bone splinters.  At home, if they had no guests in front of whom good manners must be practiced, his mother would bite down on them rather than bothering to get out the claw crackers.  His father would laugh and call her a barbarian.

But the dwarves crack open the bones of sheep with their teeth, crunch down on the leg bones of deer after the meat has been stripped from it.  There’s “Mahal made us to be tough” and then there’s having the jaw strength of a pack of wolves, and apparently the table manners to match.  It nearly puts him off his dinner.

5.)   In full darkness, the dwarves’ eyes widen and gleam like cats’.  In that first instant when they come into light again, if Bilbo looks quick enough, their eyes are black nearly edge-to-edge.  He strongly dislikes the way it makes him feel like a prey animal among predators.

1.)   SERIOUSLY HOW DOES HE WALK EVERYWHERE WITH BARE FEET.  SHARP ROCKS.  TWIGS.  THORNS.  SNOW.  WHAT IN THE NAME OF MAHAL.  GANDALF EXPLAIN YOUR BURGLAR.

GUYS

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BEST 5 THINGS/1 THING STORY I’VE EVER READ