“I think this wine is taking more on me than I would expect, Father.”
Thranduil tapped his sons’ thigh, much to Legolas disgust, and smiled knowingly.
“Dear son, don’t drink ale like water, don’t drink wine like ale, and don’t drink Dorwinion wine like ordinary wine. You should know it already.”
“Sure, Father.” He smiled back, reaching for a peach in a tray close by, his alibi being set. “I’m going to walk around a bit, to clear my head off the wine, see people…”
“As you wish, youngling. The role tradition expects from you at this party is already fulfilled. Go enjoy yourself with your friends.”
And so, dismissing his son like if he were a kid wanting to play with his comrades, Thranduil set in motion the events that would culminate in the loss of his dungeon’s security reputation.
ooo000ooo
“Hurry!” Said Tauriel is a hushed voice to Ellen, who jumped up from her bed in half a second. “Bilbo is freeing the others, you go with me to take your weapons.”
“Are you sure it will be safe? I would not like to stay a minute more than needed, you’re putting yourself in danger.”
The captain of the guard glanced back at her while they ran down the tunnels as silently as they could.
“They are close to the cellars, it will not take more time than for the hobbit unlocking the dwarves. They are a heavy load, we must find a barrel big enough to keep it from sinking.”
They ran in almost absolute darkness, Tauriel holding an oil lamp half covered so to shed light only in front of them, and then after a sharp turn the Mirkwood elf signaled the other to a halt.
“You will need your Lócënehtar sword if you are supposed to kill a dragon”.
She unlocked a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron. There was no time for much rummaging, and the weight of the whole load was deterrent to take everything that was plundered from the Company, so they focused in the main weaponry and left the garment behind. Tauriel held a burlap sac open while Ellen shove the weapons inside it as fast as she could.
“I know we are in a hurry, but I must thank you nonetheless, as I don’t know if we will ever meet again.”
“There is nothing to be thanked for, on the contrary, Tauriel. You are putting yourself at risk in helping us. It will never be forgotten, and we will never be able to reward you accordingly for this help.”
Ellen put a pair of throwing axes and a mining pick inside the sac. They hauled it out of the cell and Tauriel locked the door again. There was no running with that load between them.
“You already have. This is nothing if compared to the hope of having my land safer and free of evil.” They stopped for a moment, regaining their breath. “And you gave me back someone I missed dearly, you know.”
“It was nothing. I just made Legolas himself find out how much not talking to you was utterly…”
“Stupid!”
Both dark haired elves turned to the smiling blond elf who just arrived from the complete darkness. Legolas kissed Tauriel hurriedly and helped them to carry the weaponry sac to the empty barrel storehouse, with its wooden floor and trap-door from where Thorin Oakenshield and his Company hoped to gain their freedom. Paradoxically, Bilbo was the only one to be seen, having been very efficient in freeing the dwarves and Iris and storing them inside the barrels with the help of Legolas, who went to help the women with the weapons when he saw there was only a couple of dwarves to be stowed and the elves didn’t show.
The three elves hauled the armor sac inside a huge barrel close to the trap-door and Ellen settled herself inside it among a straw pile, hopping dearly that all those blades would not find their way into her while going down the river. She smiled and weaved her hand one last time to her new friends as they closed the lid of the barrel, and in the darkness she waited. She heard Bilbo say goodbye to them and their hurried steps out of the trap-door hall, and then the silence.
ooo000ooo
“Now, you have to get me drunk, I suppose.”
Tauriel smiled cheekily to Legolas, who poured them wine in a small cellar beside to the barrel storehouse. He chuckled, handling her a flagon filed to the brim with the strong Dorwinion wine he feigned to drink at the autumn party.
“No, I am sure it is you who will get me drunk!”
They toasted and drank a good mouthful of wine.
“No, I can’t! If it is me who gets you drunk, then I will be the one to blame. It has to be you who gets me drunk, so I am flawless in my duty.”
“You are right, my sweet guard captain.”
He drunk some more and switched his voice to match his antics of a vicious being. “You are to be found completely drunk and seduced by this horrid arrogant prince!”
Tauriel giggled as a teenager (or centuryager, in elvish terms) and fallowed his game, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I have no word that is naughty enough to describe such an ungentle and insidious elf, who uses his status to harass a colleague!”
They sat on the cellar floor, leaning on the wall.
“So, as we have to get drunk as soon as possible, let us make a game of it. To compensate for the weeks I didn’t talk to you, you can say a nasty word to describe me for every day I skipped to talk to you. Every new word you say to curse me, we drink. I think I deserve it. Dealt?”
Tauriel smiled at Legolas knowingly. They had played similar games before, jut with other prizes than wine.
“Hmm, it seems fair enough. Dealt!”
ooo000ooo
Bilbo had put on his ring, and patiently waited for someone come to the trap-door hall and throw the barrels to the river. He was still thinking how he himself would manage to go along with the Company, as someone should be out of the barrels to help to rescue them at the proper time, and, before anything, to help them to open the barrel lids, so they would not suffocate and have a chance to deal with the barrel ride, even if the hobbit believed they would have not much control over it, without an oar or anything that could be used as a paddle. But that was all he managed to get for them to escape Thranduil’s halls, so they would have to cope with it the way it was. From time to time he heard Tauriel and Legolas arguing about how much stupid he was, but to him it seemed to be beyond measure.
“Stupid. Fool. Idiot. Thick-witted.”
And to every word Tauriel rendered to Legolas, they both drank and laughed as if it was the funniest thing in Middle-Earth.
“Clod. Silly. Stupid.”
“Oops, you repeated this one!”
“Then you drink twice.”
“Why me, if it was you who erred?”
“Because you are the stupid one here!”
Their laughter echoed in the corridor, and the contest went on.
“Beast. Brute. Thick-skulled. Tomfool. Zany.”
“This one I didn’t know.”
“That’s because you are dumb. Mindless. Dull. Imbecile. Slaphappy. Ninny. Droll.”
Legolas brought her closer to him, one arm across her waist, the other hand caressing gently her eyebrows and playing with her ear lobe.
“I didn’t imagine the list would be so long.” His voice was becoming really doughy.
“As long as the nights I spent without you, your moron. Goofy. Fatuous. Obtuse.”
Tauriel hiccuped and both roared in laughter.
“Purblind. Muzzy. Thick-headed. Rough. Slow. Crude. Shaggy. Jerk.”
They heard the sound of footstep and smiled at each other, empty flagons in their hands, the feeling of accomplishment warming their already light heads. Legolas nuzzled her neck and smiled drunkenly and let his head rest on her shoulder, one hand possessively on her left breast, only to hear a final and sleepy “stupid!” from the lips he would never again forsake.
As soon as Bilbo stopped to hear Tauriel’s long list of compliments to Legolas, he saw her sister coming down the corridor with Galion, the butler. Even being a feasty occasion, it was the preset day when the barrels should be sent down the river down to Long Lake, where a human town was built on pillars in the middle of the lake, and with whom Thranduil’s people had dealings and much commerce. If the barrels were not sent at the right day and time, they would be missed by the river men who should gather them at a bend of the river right before entering the lake, and be lost, on the elven-king’s expense.
“I don’t understand, Galion, my sister said she would help us with dispatching and to take another barrel up to the party, because it would be at the same time when her turn would be over, but I cannot find her anywhere.”
The strong elf calmed the kitchen helper down.
“Don’t worry, little one, your sister is grown enough to care for herself. If she is not here to help us yet, she will be soon.”
They begun to rearrange the barrels closer to the trap-door, and Galion noticed several had their lids already closed; Legolas had the idea of closing more of them than just the ones containing people.
“Hey, Finglas, your sister has to have been here and started the job, most of the barrels are already closed.”
“That is a relief, she must only have been interrupted by something and will be back soon.”
She took a small hammer from the wall and put on the remaining lids on the empty barrels. Galion was about to complain for its weight while pushing one of the biggest closer to the trap-door when they heard a scary sound out from a nearby cellar.
“What is this?”
They both stopped what they were doing and went to investigate the sound. It doubled as they approached it. Galion laughed out loud.
“So, so, there is your sister you were so worried about, little one!”
Finglas took a step forward and glanced inside the cellar, not believing in what she saw. Her hundred percent self-controlled sister was seemingly drunk, snoring out loud with a large mug in her hand, while the son of the king himself dribbled on her hair, sound asleep and snoring more than her. Butler and helper laughed merrily.
“Hey, sleepyhead, is this how you will help us with the barrels?”
Finglas teased her sister, shaking her shoulder. The captain of the guard of the king moaned.
“You are late! I was waiting here and you forgot your tasks! The barrels are all over (hiccup!) there.”
Then she bowed her head and slept soundly again.
The butler and the helper laughed at themselves and got back to the trap-door hall, where they opened it and tumbled the barrels and rolled them to the river that passed underneath it. Some of the barrels were really heavy, but questioning Tauriel again did no good at all, as she threatened them to lock them in the dungeons if they didn’t let her sleep. As Finglas had been through some of Tauriel’s worse bad hair days already, they decided in throwing the barrels, open the water-gate and be done with it.
The water-gate was a portcullis made of metal truss that let the waters run but prevented any undesired visitor from coming up the river into the elven king palace. Incoming goods were rafted upriver and kind of fished up the trap-doors, and empty barrels were sent back by the same way. Now, the not-so-empty barrels were dropped to the water and ready to make their way to freedom when Mister Invisible Baggins ran and grabbed the last barrel border before it was sent to the waters, else he would be a rather permanent burglar in the elven kingdom, and his friends would have no one to open the barrel lids and freeing them from the chance of drowning.
When the water-gate was opened, Bilbo ducked for life, as the wall reached close to the river surface level. The barrels bumped one into another, some really low inside the water, most probably the ones with dwarves packed inside. Iris was too lightweighed to make any difference, and Ellen’s barrel was the large one mostly dipped because of the weight of the weaponry. Bilbo felt like riding a fat pony that insisted in rolling in the dirt, just that instead of dirt there was water, and, like most hobbits in the Shire, he could not swim.
The water was freezing cold in the night, and there was nothing to be done save waiting for a chance to open the lids so his friends could at least have a chance of getting out of them if needed. It was dark, but some light could be foretold by the blue-grey shade of what could be seen from the sky. Later that day the river made a turn slightly southwards, several barrels got caught by a hidden root, and Bilbo managed to jump from his own to one of them. He knocked on its lid and luckily heard someone shout. In no moment at all, Sting’s hilt was put to use to break the lid, and up came a completely scared Ori.
“Stay there!” Bilbo warned him.
“It is cold here inside!” Complained the young dwarf.
“You cannot imagine how much it is cold here outside. So, be a good boy and stay right there!”
Bilbo never imagined himself being harsh to so a good soul as Ori, but he was drenched to the bones and still having to free his friends, so he really didn’t have the nerve to comply with his complaints.
The next barrel gave no answer, being empty or with a drowned dwarf inside. As it was floating well, the hobbit decided for being empty and went for the next one. That one not only shouted back but also pushed the lid from inside at one of its borders, making the opening easier. It was Thorin.
“Do you have any more tools to open the lids?” He was fast to asking.
“No, nor have I any clue if I’ll be able to open all stuck barrels before they gain the river again.”
And with this he left the leader of the Company in his own barrel and jumped for the next. He freed Kíli, Bombur, Fíli and Bifur before a larger barrel hit the set caught by the root and made them loose. Almost half of the dwarves had their heads above the brim of the barrels, but there was none of the women to be seen, plus seven dwarves.
It took until the sun shone somewhat close to dusk when another bend of the river got all of them stuck and the ones already free hurried to open the barrels in hope to find their friends alive. They were at the mouth of the river, reaching the Long Lake, where they hoped to find help amongst the men of Lake-Town.
The dwarves were mostly wet and cold, somewhat battered and stiff for being too long time in a small place, but seemingly nothing broken, as they were scattered on the beach, groaning their discomforts. As soon as its lid was broken, a thoroughly soaked Ellen peeped her head out of her barrel looking for her nieces and for Kíli, mainly, but aware of all the dwarves around her.
“There she is, bless my beard! I thought that bloody elven king had done something evil to my Little Sister, but there she is! I’d behead her out of joy if only I had a blade to do it!”
Ellen heard Dwalin shout at her, walking towards her with open arms, ignoring Kíli who was trying to catch up with him. She crawled out of the barrel pulling a heavy sack and looking for something inside it, ignoring the shouting.
“Not for lack of your own one, Little Brother Dwalin!”
She stretched her arm as he came close enough to hold her, handling down one of his war axes to him. “But if you miss my neck, please think kindly of anyone who has not your strength and warfare knowledge, and must fight with what they have.” She tapped Bilbo’s shoulder, who smiled at her.
The mighty dwarf smiled and looked down at his axe; she began to deliver each arm to its owner, including his other axe, under the close and vigilant eyes of Kíli, who thought he needed to protect her, and Thorin, who was still making out what this strange elf really meant to his Company. He put his hand on Dwalin’s shoulder, and explained to himself, thoughtful, in a very low tone that only the tatooed dwarf could hear.
“She used her wits to gain Thranduil’s elves favor and get our weapons back. If she is a betrayer, it is of her own people on behalf of ours. A willing heart should not be denied.”
Dwalin turned to Thorin, smirking.
“How can you possibly say that she is a betrayer of her own people, my lord, if she is my Little Sister? Her people is our people, and her name will be counted among the children of Fundin.”
Thorin nodded, smilingly. Balin was close to them and tapped him on his shoulder.
“Now, laddie, go see your lady, all others greeted her already, she is waiting for you.”
And indeed so it was, Lily had walked a little further from the weaponry barrel after the big fuzz of everybody rejoicing to be together sound and safe, and sat quietly on a log, fingering her scabbard, tracing the lines of its knots. His knots. She looked up at him, smiling, when Thorin took her hand and helped her to stand up, bringing her close to his chest and embracing the trembling dwarf-lass.
“A lily flower should not be frosted like this. Let me warm you.”
“But lily buds can defy the coldest winter when they know there will be a caring gardner to bring them out to the sun again.”
She run her fingers through his hair, then caressed his face, feeling the coarse beard in her palms.
“It was not me who brought us out of the dungeons.” He dismissed the undue praise.
“But you are here with me now, and nothing else matters.”
Thorin held her tighter, and then her shivers were no more from cold, but from quenching the hunger they had for each other in a fierce kiss. After all he feared while imprisoned, that he would never more see his wild lily flower, Thorin was seriously reconsidering his former decision of waiting for settling before treating her like the woman he was sure was eager for him as he was of her, instead of the fancy maiden tradition imposed as proper. Tradition was good for ones settled in safe halls, but not mandatorily for ones who would face danger upon danger for Mahal knew how long.
Almost at this time Ellen handled out the last piece of weaponry, Kíli’s quiver, shaking from cold. He embraced her tight.
“My fancy elf! I have my fancy elf back!”
Then she turned to him and stated in a low voice, fire in her eyes.
“Kiss me now before I go crazy!”
And so he did, more than yearning for her.
“Goodness, isn’t love really beautiful, Little Brother?”
Fíli agreed to Iris, chuckling.
“Yes, it is. But seeing our brother on the tip of his toes to kiss your aunt is utterly embarrassing. Let us look to the other side.”
So they did, turning their backs to the pair, but Iris was in her best philosophic non-sense mode on.
“I really don’t know how they will manage this difference in height in the future, when they are married.”
“For Durin’s sake, Iris, don’t air out these disgusting issues, I’ll have nightmares!”
“But I guess horizontally it will not make such a difference...”
He whacked her neck.
“Mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you, this is not issue for one your age!”
Iris whacked him back.
“Bless my beard, Fíli, how do you think Durin’s heirs are made? Out of the stone? They’ll have to do something sometime if we are to have nephews, if you know what I mean.”
“You don’t have a beard to be blessed!”
He tried desperately to change the subject.
“But then, if they will be my aunt’s kids, they will be our nephews and also my cousins!”
“Too confusing, my head will ache from thinking too much.”
She scratched her head.
“Hey, it is worse than you can think of, for then my sister’s kids, that will be my nephews, being Thorin’s kids, will also be our cousins, and my sister will be aunt to her own aunt, as my aunt will be niece to her own niece!”
“Stupendous!” It was Bilbo who intervened, smiling. “This knack of understanding a family tree like you do is seen very favorable back at the Shire.” He took her hand in his, and reached the other hand to finger her curly red hair. “Everybody there will envy me for having someone like you by my side.”
“Hey, you little burglar, how do you dare to talk this way to my Little Sister?” Iris wasn’t completely sure if Fíli’s anger was feigned or not. “You haven’t even asked us if you could get this close to her, how do you dare to mention her going to the Shire with you?”
“Hmm, let us reason, my friend. Has your brother asked Balin and Dwalin if he could get close to Ellen?”
“Actually, no, but she is grown up already, and…”
“And did your uncle ask someone if he could get close to Lily?”
“Ah, hmm...”
Then a smiling Iris intervened.
“So, Little Brother, keep calm and remember that when you hire a burglar there is always the risk that he steals more than you wished for.”
“What do you mean?”
“My heart was stolen by this burglar, and there is nothing you or our brother can do about it at all!”
Tópico: [Fanfic 4, cap. 23] Loyalty, Honor etc - Barrel Ride (Lida 17529 vezes)