Clarity of Purpose, Chapter 19
Title: Clarity of Purpose, Chap. 19
Chapter Summary: The Fellowship heads across the plains of the Wainriders on their way to Saynshar--until Bilbo is mistaken for a rabbit by a hunter on the steppes.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Denethor, Gimli, Dis, Arwen, Aragorn
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
They traveled East--at first following the shore of the Sea of Rhûn, and then striking off toward the sunrise. The gardens gave way to a sea of golden grass, still dry with the winter--but there were tiny white flowers peeping through the brittle straw, and somehow that gave Bilbo hope. Now and then they saw puffs of dust on the horizon, as if a horse were riding there; or little white specks on a hillside that may have been sheep. But mostly it was a wilderness of grass stretching endlessly out to the sky, and it made Bilbo feel both small and somehow exalted to stand beneath the great blue bowl of the heavens. It was smooth traveling, with no interference.
At least until the day Bilbo was gathering berries for a snack for everyone and found himself suddenly knocked head-over-heels, tumbling down a small slope, and coming to rest with something heavy and solid planted on his chest.
He looked up into the bright golden eyes of some impossibly large cat.
With a squeak of alarm he tried to squirm free, but the cat seemed merely to consider this a challenge and pinned him more firmly with its tawny paws. It was panting down at him, its jaw dropped open in what seemed almost like amusement, ears pricked forward as it considered him--most likely trying to find the right vein to open, Bilbo thought in a panic. Its face was broader than any house cat’s he had ever seen, with a line of dark splotches running down its face that gave it an almost comical look. It was splotched all over, Bilbo realized as its tail lashed lazily from side to side, dark irregular circles covering its body.
The cat sniffed him once, twice. Then it lifted its head and made a questioning ”Prrt?” noise.
Bilbo immediately heard rustling approaching through the grass. “Have you caught us a rabbit, Hatagi?” called a light, high voice. “What is--oh!”
Bilbo found himself looking up at a young woman with dark hair plaited in braids around her head, framing a broad-cheekboned face, tanned and ruddy. She was wearing a beige felt tunic and pants, both of them heavily embroidered with elaborate designs in red and gold.
She also had an unsheathed knife and was looking at him in surprise.
“Um, hello,” said Bilbo with a weak wave. “Would you mind, um, calling off your cat?”
“...and I’m terribly sorry that Hatagi mistook your small friend for a rabbit,” said the girl to Thorin, “but you must admit it was a natural mistake.”
Bilbo gave her an outraged look, and Thorin felt a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “The apologies should be ours, Miss…”
“My name is Chechyegin,” she said, dipping in something like a curtsey but more complex. “Of the Borogin. And this is Hatagi,” she added, indicating the cat sitting next to her with his long tail tucked neatly around his dappled body. “He’s not actually my cat,” she said to Bilbo. “I was borrowing him to go hunting. He’s Bachai’s.” Her face turned solemn. “You should not be wandering these plains, strangers. Not now. It’s too dangerous.” With an imperious gesture, she turned away, and the silver ornaments braided into her hair jangled with the motion. “I shall take you to my father. He’ll know what to do with you.”
Thorin looked back at the rest of his party, who looked uncertain in varying degrees. “Things appear to be unsettled,” Dis said in a low voice. “And it may be unwise to risk meeting up with more hostile people without knowledge of what’s going on. I say we go with her.”
“Unless there are strong objections?” Thorin looked around the group, then nodded. “Then we do so.”
The cat Hatagi trotted by Bilbo’s side with an air of pride as they walked, as if he believed that he had captured him.
Bilbo had expected something more like a city, and was surprised when they topped a low rise and saw a scattering of colorful tents in a rough circle.
“Buildings?” Chechyegin said when he asked. She spat to the side. “Buildings are for those who are willing to live in cages. The Wainriders live with the wind and the grass, and we go where we will, free as the stars.”
The tent she took them to was made of scarlet felt and had blue stitching around the door. “Father,” called Chechyegin, bowing at the door. “I bring guests, strangers I found on the plains.”
“Enter,” said a brusque voice.
The tent was just barely large enough for the whole fellowship, and Arwen had to bend slightly to keep from hitting the roof. The walls were hung with elaborate tapestries in a riot of colors, and there were no chairs, just pillows on the floor.
The inhabitant of the tent rose as they entered: a short, wide man who nevertheless seemed all muscle. His deep-set dark eyes assessed the group, widening at the sight of the dwarves and the elf but otherwise giving little away.
“Strangers, be welcome in the tents of the Borogin,” said Chechyegin formally. “This is my father, Tokujar.”
Tokujar gestured. “Please be seated, guests of the Borogin,” he said. Chechyegin sank into a cross-legged position; the others followed--Arwen gracefully, the dwarves much less so.
“What brings such a group to be traveling across the plains at these troubled times?” Tokujar said without preamble.
“We travel to Saynshar,” said Thorin.
Tokujar grimaced and looked as though he would like to spit as well. “Saynshar! Why do you go to a place of such foulness?”
“My father is the ruler of the city of Gondor,” Denethor said suddenly. “And he has heard that the people of Saynshar wage war upon the west. We wish to learn the reasons.”
Bilbo saw Thorin swallow hard as Tokujar considered Denethor. If they were to decide the son of the Steward would be a good hostage--! But after a moment Tokujar nodded. “The city-dwellers have no good reason,” he said, contempt dripping from his voice. “Once they had wisdom of a sort, and followed the old ways as best they could for a people locked in a golden trap. But now--” He shook his head. “They have deposed their Queen and say that their gods require a male ruler. They have cut the sacred thread that runs from woman to woman. They no longer understand the blood of life, but only the blood of death. We of the plains hold fast to the old ways.” He reached out and touched Chechyegin’s glossy head. “One day my daughter will take her wain and leave, return to her mother’s side to be leader of her clan. It is the way of things.”
“Are you not the leader of this clan?” asked Denethor.
Tokujar looked amused. “I am chief arrow-maker of the Borogin, and that is honor enough for me! I found favor with the leader of one of the richer clans and now I raise her daughter until she is old enough to return for her training. I shall miss her when she leaves, for it has been a happy time for me.”
“I shall find the Borogin wherever you roam! I will visit every moon!” said Chechyegin fiercely, and he smiled before turning his attention back to the fellowship.
“If your road takes you to Saynshar, it is a dark road indeed. We are traveling further east quite soon, to the Nush Argi Bazaar, if you wish to travel with our family." He eyed their weapons. "I must check with the clan leader, but frankly, we are short on warriors this season, and bandits will be less likely to find us easy prey with you along. I am certain she will agree."
Thorin looked at the other members of the party, then nodded. "This seems a good arrangement to us." He bowed. "May we assist you in any way in your preparations?"
Tokujar frowned in thought and turned back to his daughter. "Will Bachai continue on with us, or has her time with the Borogin come to an end?"
"She said she's ‘not tired of us quite yet,’" said Chechyegin, making her voice querulous in clear imitation of someone else, and her father laughed.
"Then guests, please go with my daughter and help Bachai pack up her wain, though she will complain bitterly and say she needs no help."
"Well," said Bilbo as they left the tent, "She sounds remarkably like some people I happen to know."
Thorin and Denethor both glared at him, then at the various other members of the party who were hiding smiles behind their hands.
"Lead on," said Arwen to Chechyegin, and they made their way through the center of the camp, dodging screaming children playing games and vendors with small carts carrying spiced meats on skewers, the sight and smell of which made Bilbo's mouth water. Thorin glanced at him, then quietly handed one of the vendors a few coins and came away with a handful of skewers, passing them around the Fellowship and reserving the last two for Bilbo. Hatagi mewed sharply and went up on his hind legs for a moment--making him almost taller than the hobbit--and Bilbo tossed a piece of meat to him. He snapped it out of the air, sharp teeth gleaming, then fell back alongside Bilbo as the party wove through the crowd.
Chechyegin finally made her way to a tent embroidered in silver and blue, and Hatagi made a happy chirruping noise and ran toward it. At the sound--Bilbo fell back a step in alarm as cats erupted from the tent: cats of all shapes and sizes, from normal-sized marmalade tabbies up to a rangy speckled cat that looked all muscle and was nearly as tall as Thorin. "A chitahr," said Dis, her eyebrows raised, and the lean cat butted its head against her so hard she staggered. "I had heard of the hunting cats of the Easterlings, but I had never seen one," she said as she caressed its head.
"In...deed," Estel said, as he carefully dislodged a large, fluffy lynx that seemed determined to clamber up him as if he were a tree.
Denethor sneezed, then rubbed at his nose, looking rueful.
Chechyegin pulled a rope outside the tent door, causing a cascade of silver bells to chime out. "Bachai! I've brought Hatagi back!"
"Well, don't just stand out there, come in!" called a high-pitched, creaky voice.
Chechyegin grinned at the party and threw open the tent-flap. "He didn't catch me any rabbits this time, but look what he caught us instead, Bachai!" She beckoned to Bilbo, and when he drew close, gave him a push into the tent.
"Well, well, what have we here?" said the inhabitant of the tent, turning toward him. She was tall--nearly as tall as Arwen--and slender to the point of boniness, with a face like beaten bronze, seamed and wrinkled with age. Her straight white hair fell down her back, unadorned, but her tunic and pantaloons were covered with thick sky-blue embroidery. At her feet another five or six cats gamboled and played, batting at the hem of her tunic and each other.
Bachai bent down to look at Bilbo, and her deep-set black eyes crinkled at the corners. "Are you certain this is not a rabbit?" she said.
Bilbo couldn't help huffing a bit. "I don't see why everyone feels the need to compare me to a rabbit," he said. Then he looked beyond her to a shape lying at the far side of the tent and felt his knees turn to water. "Oh," he stammered. "That's--"
"A mountain lion," Thorin said behind him, his voice impressed. The huge, tawny beast raised its heavy head to blink at all of them, then yawned, unrolling a pink tongue and then tucking it back in. The chitahr padded into the tent and curled up next to the lion; an assortment of smaller cats joined them to create a furry heap.
"What an interesting assortment of people," Bachai said, peering at the group at her tent door. "What exactly are humans, dwarves, elves, and a not-rabbit doing traveling together, eh?"
"They travel to Saynshar," Chechyegin said, and Bilbo felt Thorin relax slightly as she saved him from having to answer. "They will go as far as Nush Argi with us. Father said they could earn their way by helping you pack."
Bachai threw back her head and laughed. "Did he, now? I'm sure he thinks I will refuse the help. So, as I am a contrary old woman, I shall accept!" She clapped her hands together and beamed at them all. "Tell me, do you know how to pack a wain?"
Bilbo wheezed under the weight of a heavy box. "See here, don't drop that!" snapped Bachai, shaking her walking stick at him. She was leaning against the side of her wain, watching the fellowship packing her things with great good humor. "You! Pompous One!" She pointed at Denethor, folding tapestries with a sour look on his face. "Fold in thirds, not fourths!"
Denethor nudged an inquisitive cat away with his foot, sneezed again, and started refolding the tapestry with a martyred air.
"What are you storing in here, rocks?" Bilbo asked her as he handed the box over to Arwen to lift into the wain.
"It's no business of yours if I am," snapped Bachai. Then she seemed to soften, looking at his sweat-beaded brow. "Rest a moment," she said, tossing him a skin that sloshed in his hands.
He unstoppered it and took a long drink of water. "Thank you," he said.
He looked around at the bustling camp--everywhere he looked, tents were coming to the ground in billows of cloth, being rolled up and tossed onto wains with brisk efficiency. Soon, beyond the beaten-down grasses, there would be no sign people had been here at all. In the field behind them, a group of young people were driving around in small one- and two-person horse-drawn wains, playing some game that involved tossing a ball from person to person. Bilbo spotted Chechyegin sharing a chariot with another laughing girl, zig-zagging back and forth. She saw him watching and waved to him, and he waved back.
Then his nostrils twitched as a familiar scent reached them. He looked over to see Bachai sprinkling a line of brown leaves onto a piece of paper. "Is that--pipeweed?" he asked, astonished.
Bachai rolled the paper into a tube. Reaching out to a nearby brazier, she ignited one end, then put it to her lips for a puff. Aromatic smoke trailed from her nose. "Perhaps you call it that in the west," she said. "We call it tabaq. Would you like some?"
Bilbo hadn't enjoyed a good smoke in a long time, but he wasn't sure about this strange method. "No thank you," he said politely, and she cackled quietly to herself.
"Here I thought the Borogin were getting boring," she said. "And then you lot land in my lap!"
"You're not of this clan?" Bilbo asked, watching Gimli and Dis struggling to take down the tent without getting lost in its folds.
"Oh, my cats and I come and go," Bachai said vaguely, waving her paper tube. "Wherever things look most interesting." She smiled as Estel waded in to help the flustered dwarves. "And things suddenly look very interesting around here."
Chapter Summary: The Fellowship heads across the plains of the Wainriders on their way to Saynshar--until Bilbo is mistaken for a rabbit by a hunter on the steppes.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Denethor, Gimli, Dis, Arwen, Aragorn
Fandom: Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Begins in 2968, twenty-six years after the events of "Clarity of Vision" and fifty years before the canonical events of "Lord of the Rings." Thus, characters' ages and the geopolitical situation will be different than LoTR canon!
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins have been parted for many years now, despite the love they bear each other. Now Thorin's research has uncovered a dire threat to Middle Earth--the Ring he carried a little while and then gave to Bilbo. Together with a group of companions composed of the different Free Peoples of Middle Earth, they must attempt to destroy the artifact before its Dark Lord can re-capture it.
They traveled East--at first following the shore of the Sea of Rhûn, and then striking off toward the sunrise. The gardens gave way to a sea of golden grass, still dry with the winter--but there were tiny white flowers peeping through the brittle straw, and somehow that gave Bilbo hope. Now and then they saw puffs of dust on the horizon, as if a horse were riding there; or little white specks on a hillside that may have been sheep. But mostly it was a wilderness of grass stretching endlessly out to the sky, and it made Bilbo feel both small and somehow exalted to stand beneath the great blue bowl of the heavens. It was smooth traveling, with no interference.
At least until the day Bilbo was gathering berries for a snack for everyone and found himself suddenly knocked head-over-heels, tumbling down a small slope, and coming to rest with something heavy and solid planted on his chest.
He looked up into the bright golden eyes of some impossibly large cat.
With a squeak of alarm he tried to squirm free, but the cat seemed merely to consider this a challenge and pinned him more firmly with its tawny paws. It was panting down at him, its jaw dropped open in what seemed almost like amusement, ears pricked forward as it considered him--most likely trying to find the right vein to open, Bilbo thought in a panic. Its face was broader than any house cat’s he had ever seen, with a line of dark splotches running down its face that gave it an almost comical look. It was splotched all over, Bilbo realized as its tail lashed lazily from side to side, dark irregular circles covering its body.
The cat sniffed him once, twice. Then it lifted its head and made a questioning ”Prrt?” noise.
Bilbo immediately heard rustling approaching through the grass. “Have you caught us a rabbit, Hatagi?” called a light, high voice. “What is--oh!”
Bilbo found himself looking up at a young woman with dark hair plaited in braids around her head, framing a broad-cheekboned face, tanned and ruddy. She was wearing a beige felt tunic and pants, both of them heavily embroidered with elaborate designs in red and gold.
She also had an unsheathed knife and was looking at him in surprise.
“Um, hello,” said Bilbo with a weak wave. “Would you mind, um, calling off your cat?”
“...and I’m terribly sorry that Hatagi mistook your small friend for a rabbit,” said the girl to Thorin, “but you must admit it was a natural mistake.”
Bilbo gave her an outraged look, and Thorin felt a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “The apologies should be ours, Miss…”
“My name is Chechyegin,” she said, dipping in something like a curtsey but more complex. “Of the Borogin. And this is Hatagi,” she added, indicating the cat sitting next to her with his long tail tucked neatly around his dappled body. “He’s not actually my cat,” she said to Bilbo. “I was borrowing him to go hunting. He’s Bachai’s.” Her face turned solemn. “You should not be wandering these plains, strangers. Not now. It’s too dangerous.” With an imperious gesture, she turned away, and the silver ornaments braided into her hair jangled with the motion. “I shall take you to my father. He’ll know what to do with you.”
Thorin looked back at the rest of his party, who looked uncertain in varying degrees. “Things appear to be unsettled,” Dis said in a low voice. “And it may be unwise to risk meeting up with more hostile people without knowledge of what’s going on. I say we go with her.”
“Unless there are strong objections?” Thorin looked around the group, then nodded. “Then we do so.”
The cat Hatagi trotted by Bilbo’s side with an air of pride as they walked, as if he believed that he had captured him.
Bilbo had expected something more like a city, and was surprised when they topped a low rise and saw a scattering of colorful tents in a rough circle.
“Buildings?” Chechyegin said when he asked. She spat to the side. “Buildings are for those who are willing to live in cages. The Wainriders live with the wind and the grass, and we go where we will, free as the stars.”
The tent she took them to was made of scarlet felt and had blue stitching around the door. “Father,” called Chechyegin, bowing at the door. “I bring guests, strangers I found on the plains.”
“Enter,” said a brusque voice.
The tent was just barely large enough for the whole fellowship, and Arwen had to bend slightly to keep from hitting the roof. The walls were hung with elaborate tapestries in a riot of colors, and there were no chairs, just pillows on the floor.
The inhabitant of the tent rose as they entered: a short, wide man who nevertheless seemed all muscle. His deep-set dark eyes assessed the group, widening at the sight of the dwarves and the elf but otherwise giving little away.
“Strangers, be welcome in the tents of the Borogin,” said Chechyegin formally. “This is my father, Tokujar.”
Tokujar gestured. “Please be seated, guests of the Borogin,” he said. Chechyegin sank into a cross-legged position; the others followed--Arwen gracefully, the dwarves much less so.
“What brings such a group to be traveling across the plains at these troubled times?” Tokujar said without preamble.
“We travel to Saynshar,” said Thorin.
Tokujar grimaced and looked as though he would like to spit as well. “Saynshar! Why do you go to a place of such foulness?”
“My father is the ruler of the city of Gondor,” Denethor said suddenly. “And he has heard that the people of Saynshar wage war upon the west. We wish to learn the reasons.”
Bilbo saw Thorin swallow hard as Tokujar considered Denethor. If they were to decide the son of the Steward would be a good hostage--! But after a moment Tokujar nodded. “The city-dwellers have no good reason,” he said, contempt dripping from his voice. “Once they had wisdom of a sort, and followed the old ways as best they could for a people locked in a golden trap. But now--” He shook his head. “They have deposed their Queen and say that their gods require a male ruler. They have cut the sacred thread that runs from woman to woman. They no longer understand the blood of life, but only the blood of death. We of the plains hold fast to the old ways.” He reached out and touched Chechyegin’s glossy head. “One day my daughter will take her wain and leave, return to her mother’s side to be leader of her clan. It is the way of things.”
“Are you not the leader of this clan?” asked Denethor.
Tokujar looked amused. “I am chief arrow-maker of the Borogin, and that is honor enough for me! I found favor with the leader of one of the richer clans and now I raise her daughter until she is old enough to return for her training. I shall miss her when she leaves, for it has been a happy time for me.”
“I shall find the Borogin wherever you roam! I will visit every moon!” said Chechyegin fiercely, and he smiled before turning his attention back to the fellowship.
“If your road takes you to Saynshar, it is a dark road indeed. We are traveling further east quite soon, to the Nush Argi Bazaar, if you wish to travel with our family." He eyed their weapons. "I must check with the clan leader, but frankly, we are short on warriors this season, and bandits will be less likely to find us easy prey with you along. I am certain she will agree."
Thorin looked at the other members of the party, then nodded. "This seems a good arrangement to us." He bowed. "May we assist you in any way in your preparations?"
Tokujar frowned in thought and turned back to his daughter. "Will Bachai continue on with us, or has her time with the Borogin come to an end?"
"She said she's ‘not tired of us quite yet,’" said Chechyegin, making her voice querulous in clear imitation of someone else, and her father laughed.
"Then guests, please go with my daughter and help Bachai pack up her wain, though she will complain bitterly and say she needs no help."
"Well," said Bilbo as they left the tent, "She sounds remarkably like some people I happen to know."
Thorin and Denethor both glared at him, then at the various other members of the party who were hiding smiles behind their hands.
"Lead on," said Arwen to Chechyegin, and they made their way through the center of the camp, dodging screaming children playing games and vendors with small carts carrying spiced meats on skewers, the sight and smell of which made Bilbo's mouth water. Thorin glanced at him, then quietly handed one of the vendors a few coins and came away with a handful of skewers, passing them around the Fellowship and reserving the last two for Bilbo. Hatagi mewed sharply and went up on his hind legs for a moment--making him almost taller than the hobbit--and Bilbo tossed a piece of meat to him. He snapped it out of the air, sharp teeth gleaming, then fell back alongside Bilbo as the party wove through the crowd.
Chechyegin finally made her way to a tent embroidered in silver and blue, and Hatagi made a happy chirruping noise and ran toward it. At the sound--Bilbo fell back a step in alarm as cats erupted from the tent: cats of all shapes and sizes, from normal-sized marmalade tabbies up to a rangy speckled cat that looked all muscle and was nearly as tall as Thorin. "A chitahr," said Dis, her eyebrows raised, and the lean cat butted its head against her so hard she staggered. "I had heard of the hunting cats of the Easterlings, but I had never seen one," she said as she caressed its head.
"In...deed," Estel said, as he carefully dislodged a large, fluffy lynx that seemed determined to clamber up him as if he were a tree.
Denethor sneezed, then rubbed at his nose, looking rueful.
Chechyegin pulled a rope outside the tent door, causing a cascade of silver bells to chime out. "Bachai! I've brought Hatagi back!"
"Well, don't just stand out there, come in!" called a high-pitched, creaky voice.
Chechyegin grinned at the party and threw open the tent-flap. "He didn't catch me any rabbits this time, but look what he caught us instead, Bachai!" She beckoned to Bilbo, and when he drew close, gave him a push into the tent.
"Well, well, what have we here?" said the inhabitant of the tent, turning toward him. She was tall--nearly as tall as Arwen--and slender to the point of boniness, with a face like beaten bronze, seamed and wrinkled with age. Her straight white hair fell down her back, unadorned, but her tunic and pantaloons were covered with thick sky-blue embroidery. At her feet another five or six cats gamboled and played, batting at the hem of her tunic and each other.
Bachai bent down to look at Bilbo, and her deep-set black eyes crinkled at the corners. "Are you certain this is not a rabbit?" she said.
Bilbo couldn't help huffing a bit. "I don't see why everyone feels the need to compare me to a rabbit," he said. Then he looked beyond her to a shape lying at the far side of the tent and felt his knees turn to water. "Oh," he stammered. "That's--"
"A mountain lion," Thorin said behind him, his voice impressed. The huge, tawny beast raised its heavy head to blink at all of them, then yawned, unrolling a pink tongue and then tucking it back in. The chitahr padded into the tent and curled up next to the lion; an assortment of smaller cats joined them to create a furry heap.
"What an interesting assortment of people," Bachai said, peering at the group at her tent door. "What exactly are humans, dwarves, elves, and a not-rabbit doing traveling together, eh?"
"They travel to Saynshar," Chechyegin said, and Bilbo felt Thorin relax slightly as she saved him from having to answer. "They will go as far as Nush Argi with us. Father said they could earn their way by helping you pack."
Bachai threw back her head and laughed. "Did he, now? I'm sure he thinks I will refuse the help. So, as I am a contrary old woman, I shall accept!" She clapped her hands together and beamed at them all. "Tell me, do you know how to pack a wain?"
Bilbo wheezed under the weight of a heavy box. "See here, don't drop that!" snapped Bachai, shaking her walking stick at him. She was leaning against the side of her wain, watching the fellowship packing her things with great good humor. "You! Pompous One!" She pointed at Denethor, folding tapestries with a sour look on his face. "Fold in thirds, not fourths!"
Denethor nudged an inquisitive cat away with his foot, sneezed again, and started refolding the tapestry with a martyred air.
"What are you storing in here, rocks?" Bilbo asked her as he handed the box over to Arwen to lift into the wain.
"It's no business of yours if I am," snapped Bachai. Then she seemed to soften, looking at his sweat-beaded brow. "Rest a moment," she said, tossing him a skin that sloshed in his hands.
He unstoppered it and took a long drink of water. "Thank you," he said.
He looked around at the bustling camp--everywhere he looked, tents were coming to the ground in billows of cloth, being rolled up and tossed onto wains with brisk efficiency. Soon, beyond the beaten-down grasses, there would be no sign people had been here at all. In the field behind them, a group of young people were driving around in small one- and two-person horse-drawn wains, playing some game that involved tossing a ball from person to person. Bilbo spotted Chechyegin sharing a chariot with another laughing girl, zig-zagging back and forth. She saw him watching and waved to him, and he waved back.
Then his nostrils twitched as a familiar scent reached them. He looked over to see Bachai sprinkling a line of brown leaves onto a piece of paper. "Is that--pipeweed?" he asked, astonished.
Bachai rolled the paper into a tube. Reaching out to a nearby brazier, she ignited one end, then put it to her lips for a puff. Aromatic smoke trailed from her nose. "Perhaps you call it that in the west," she said. "We call it tabaq. Would you like some?"
Bilbo hadn't enjoyed a good smoke in a long time, but he wasn't sure about this strange method. "No thank you," he said politely, and she cackled quietly to herself.
"Here I thought the Borogin were getting boring," she said. "And then you lot land in my lap!"
"You're not of this clan?" Bilbo asked, watching Gimli and Dis struggling to take down the tent without getting lost in its folds.
"Oh, my cats and I come and go," Bachai said vaguely, waving her paper tube. "Wherever things look most interesting." She smiled as Estel waded in to help the flustered dwarves. "And things suddenly look very interesting around here."