Day 16 - Trade
"The things I let them talk me into," Bilbo grumbled as he fought his way down the hallway, swathed in a robe two sizes too big. It was for the children. Of course. Dwarven pebbles were as spoiled as faunts, he had discovered, and the idea of playing dress-up as the Lord of Trade on Durin's Day was something he wouldn't do for any other group.
"The who?" He had asked. Foolishly. This had resulted in a long, rambling, completely impenetrable discourse from Balin, Thorin, Fili, Kili, and Ori about the 'helpers' of Mahal, who were some sort of additional spirits or beings that everyone knew. Everyone, as usual, except Bilbo. Lord of Trade, Lady of Metals, Lord of Caves, Lady of Mushrooms, on and on and on, a baffling array of beings that went some way to explaining all the odd little shrines he kept seeing tucked away in various corners of Erebor and no way at all towards explaining anything relevant to the situation at hand. Finally, after much ado, it was explained that the Lord of Trade was the supposed inventor of commerce, that every Durin's Day he would appear and trade the first crafts of the pebbles for gold coins, and that he was always depicted as beardless (so a child), wearing odd boots, and 'foreign' clothes - which Bilbo imagined meant 'dressed like a merchant'. Here, they had him wearing an old Blacklock robe unearthed from Lady alone knew where, tiny panels of decorative leather sewn all over the heavy felted wool of it. It weighed a ton.
Rather than leaping into the room as he was told he ought, he felt he barely stumbled in, but the pebbles were too excited to notice. Dance, he thought; right. There was a single drum playing a sprightly rhythm so he could do this. There was a silly little dance he had to do. Luckily for both him and the dwarves he had a good memory for dances. Shire upbringing good for something. Mercy, it was hot in here! The lights were awfully bright too. His head was swimming! Perhaps he just... just...
***
Bilbo came to and the immediate astringent smell of herbs and that peculiar cloying incense Oin used told him he was in the infirmary before he even opened his eyes. Memory was very patchy but he had a sense there was something he was supposed to do. The pebbles! His eyes flew open only to see Balin, Thorin, Fili, Kili, and Oin peering down at him like vultures. He jumped and gave a little shriek, which in turn seemed to push them back a bit. "Oh no, the pebbles, Thorin I'm so sorry, I've made a mess of it!" Thorin shook his head with an odd expression.
"No, azyungel, you did... very well," he said, in an even odder tone of voice. "It's all done."
"Done?" Now Bilbo was very confused indeed. Hadn't he passed out before...?
"You were the Lord of Trade," Kili said in an awed tone of voice. "How did you do it?"
"I... what?" Oin shook his head and clucked dramatically, but Bilbo was even more confused than ever. As the story unfolded, Bilbo had apparently fallen on the floor, then leapt up and completed the dance. He had then traded all the toys for coins along with telling Kili to go get the items he was 'owed'. Turns out Kili had made items for the Lord of Trade as a wee pebble in the Blue Mountains. Because the dwarves were so stretched there, those years no one could afford the mummery and ceremony. Even so, he had saved them as mementoes. He never thought they would be delivered; he was far too old to participate in the ceremony. Even in his woozy state, Bilbo saw that the poor lad was tearing up as he produced the handful of gold he had been given before tucking it safely away. As if that weren't enough, according to Thorin, Bilbo had then gone over Gloin's books, corrected the accounting in three places despite it being done in both Longbeard code and Khuzdul, and given advice to all present before leaving. When he exited the main hall the final time, he had collapsed and thus been brought here.
"Advice?" Bilbo said weakly. "I... I don't remember any of that."
"Gloin is scared of you now," Fili said with a grin. Preposterous, Bilbo thought, before feeling that perhaps he was a little scared of himself now. Never again.
"What advice did I give?" He asked. Thorin's flush and determined look away told him that was a topic for another less-crowded room. "Nevermind, perhaps I might get up? I find myself a bit hungry."
