Because I watched that scene in BotFA... and Bifur is not just comic relief.
Bifur was carving a kitten, playfully crouching as its tail swished, frozen in the moment before it pounced on a piece of string and immortalized by his clever fingers in a piece of birch wood. If they had been in Ered Luin, Fjelarun would have been the obvious recipient, fond of all animals as she was, but Fjelarun was far away, much farther than Bifur had travelled since before her birth. Around him, birds were singing to each other, invisible among the branches of trees that seemed older than any others he had seen.
Rivendell had a curious beauty, to Bifur, even if it was comprised of very few straight angles - a mark against any piece of construction to a dwarven mind. Thorin was even more ornery than usual, though that might be due to the Elves themselves, rather than their architecture. Bifur's knife removed another sliver of wood, smoothing the kitten's paw. He did not have any files along, of course, and Mahal wept if he'd begin rooting around this place when he was more than capable of removing any rough edges with his knife alone. One ear folded down, the other raised to a point, and the kitten was coming to life between his scarred hands.
Bifur knew the moment he was no longer unobserved, but he made no motion to alert his little watcher - perched in the three a few yards to the left of him - to his knowledge.
The elfling - ears as pointy as any of the adults Bifur had seen - took a while to gather enough courage to approach, but she did approach him, looking raptly at the small animal in his hands. Bifur hummed, keeping his voice gentle, as he showed her the unfinished toy. The elfling's eyes, almost too large for her face, widened impossibly as she watched. It did not matter that he didn't understand a word of her song-like tongue, lilting like the babbling of a brook. It did not matter that she had no way of knowing what he was saying back, all that mattered was the quiet snick as the knife cut off ever tinier slivers, Bifur's thumb feeling for any leftover roughness before making another move with the blade. The girl, who reminded him almost painfully of a young Blidarún, kept up a constant stream of words, requiring little from Bifur but a hum here and there, agreeing with whatever she said.
He also knew the moment someone else arrived among the trees, but the unknown observer did not reveal themselves. Bifur kept shaping the wood he held.
When the kitten was finished, he held it out for the little girl to take, soaking up the brightness of the smile she gave him. He was surprised when she hugged him, clambering onto the bench to reach his shoulders, but he patted her small back fondly. Sitting beside him, the small girl proceeded to tell him a story starring her new toy, and Bifur felt a pang of bittersweet longing for his nieces and nephews. The scene was familiar, even if the story told was not one he could understand the words for, and Bifur simply enjoyed the cloud of happiness that seemed to surround his little friend. Whoever was watching from the trees remained silent.
At the sound of the dinner gong, Bifur's companion vanished amid a torrent of incomprehensible words, waving at Bifur with a happy smile as she darted off. Her disappearance was followed swiftly by the appearance of an adult elf, whose face expressed such heartache that Bifur's own heart gave a lurch in his chest.
"Thank you," the elf gasped, falling to his knees a few yards away from Bifur's bench. Tears were running down his cheeks but his smile was so radiant Bifur had to return it. "She has spoken to no one since her mother...passed," the elf continued, choked with emotion. Bifur nodded. He hummed a few notes, but the elf seemed to have realised that he was unable to answer with understandable words. Rising to his feet, he bowed deeply to Bifur before disappearing among the greenery once more.
When the Company left Rivendell, Bifur left behind a small carved figure; a tiny, pointy-eared girl in a pretty dress. He had borrowed a pair of scissors and a needle from Dori, and the dress was made from the fabric of the curtains, but it was the same colour as the small elfling's on that day in the garden, and Bifur felt confident that her adad would see it reach the right little fingers.
Pockets of silence: Imagine Bifur showing you how to whittle and make filigree carvings for your beloved ones
word count: 742
His fingers held the knife with utter surety. No cut was made, no sliver of wood pared away without his absolute control. It was mesmerizing to see such rough hands create such fine objects. Careful, deliberate, the blade went into the wood at an angle, carved away what its master did not find pleasing and left behind smoothness that suddenly became a feathered bird’s body or the delicate petals of a dew-dotted bloom. The Dwarf was the most silent of the bunch, the one who did not speak in words the others understood, a long-lost dialect of their ancient language; so ancient that Bifur was the only one who spoke it these days.
You thought it must be lonely, but you did not dare comment to that effect. Bifur made his disadvantage work for him; you had seen the way those hands would flutter, making their owner understood by those of his kin who shared the language. The Dwarf had promised – with his cousin as an intermediary – that he would teach the you the art of carving figurines from wood.
That had been at the beginning of your journey, on a night of high spirits where you had remarked that you’d love to be able to make such toys. You had since regretted asking. Not because Bifur was an unkind teacher, even if you could only practice by the last light of day or the flickering of the evening fire, but because you were simply not getting it. You found it difficult to move the small blade you had been given, to make the precise moves required to not cut off too much. Bifur’s first lesson had been a long hour of the danger of ‘too much’. You had seen wondrous birds take shape between his hands, only to end up missing a wing because Bifur deliberately cut off ‘too much’ in demonstration. It had been surprisingly sad to see the one-winged wonders consigned to the fire.
In your second lesson, Bifur was attempting to teach you how to see the piece of wood. He was surprisingly skilled at drawing, you realised, staring at the fish Bifur had drawn, borrowing a piece of paper from Ori. A natural knot in the wood becoming an eye, the resultant curves making for swift scales along the body. Saying something that his gestures made mean “making many will teach” in your mind, Bifur pointed to his eyes, to the wood, and the drawing, and you could only watch in stupefaction as the fish took shape exactly as Bifur had drawn it.
Now, you were sitting in a dark corner while the Laketowners partied around you, feeling stupidly proud of the small deer you had carved, modelled after the white one Thorin had shot at in the forest. For the first time, you were satisfied with a carving you had made, even if it wasn’t as elaborate as the ones Bifur routinely turned out, leaving them behind when you moved on in the morning, like a trail probably leading all the way home to Ered Luin.
Finding Bifur was easy. There was always a small pocket of silence surrounding him, like a one-dwarf island on a small lake. You shook your head at your fanciful imagination. Perhaps you had had more of the swill the Lakemen called beer than you ought?
Poking his shoulder to get his attention – Bifur might be a pocket of silence, but that did not make the party any less raucous behind you – you handed him the small deer. He stared up at you, smiling proudly. Suddenly, that smile was worth every nick and scraped knuckle, every half-finished attempt you had thrown on the fire.
Bifur tried handing the figurine back, but you shook your head, gesturing to him. You wanted him to have it, to keep it, perhaps even to treasure it, as you had treasured the nights he had sat beside you, an endless well of patience as he taught you how to move the blade. He smiled again, saying something surprisingly soft in words you did not understand. When he kissed your hand, pressing his lips against your palm, you gasped in surprise.
A fierce blush stained your cheeks for the rest of the night, though you waved off any inquiries as to its origin. Instead, you watched Bifur covertly, as he sat in his pocket of silence and studied your deer in the light of a small candle.
