Author's Notes: We are dipping into Hobbit terrictory with this one, folks! On the wings of the last entry, we have more Glorfindel being Glorfindel, and brave little Bilbo later saying what needs to be said. Enjoy. :)

"so there will be no forgetting"

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Tale

Magic, Gandalf had said when they entered the valley, but Bilbo Baggins was quite certain that the Grey Wizard was mistaken. For this had to be more than even that. Magic was fireworks in the night skies and smoke rings taking the shapes of ships with their elegant sails. Magic was bright lights and midsummers eves' and the crossings in the paths. This that he felt around him? This was peace, settling in him soul deep. This was stories made flesh, all the laughter of water and the power music held when it sung of histories true and told, and he . . .

Bilbo was, in a word, quite smitten as he roamed the halls on silent feet while his companions caused a ruckus elsewhere. He touched elegant carvings of vine and stone as he passed, he thumbed throught the pages of ancient tomes even older than he – some were older than the Shire even. And at the realization he had stared, entranced.

Now, he had stopped before a wall, a wall covered in a great mural of a creature, tall and dark, who wore a golden ring on his finger. The small band was a flame in a dark place, blazing with power even when caught in an artist's thrall. Bilbo gazed curiously at the monster with the ring, his own fingers whispering as with a ghost of sensation, even though he himself wore no such adornment.

Curious, he thought, and that too he attributed to the magic of the land.

Next to the mural, there was a pedestal, upon which there was a great sword; laying in two massive pieces, its strong blade rent in a jagged line down the middle. Bilbo paused, wondering how mighty the blow must have been to break such a blade – for he could feel an enchantment in the sword before him, an enchantment of hewn earth and the bite of the forge – a sensation he at times felt amongst his companions, though the aura was often fleeting, as a whisper.

He reached out to touch it, when -

"Be careful, Master-hobbit," came a warm voice from the entrance to the room. The voice was a musical voice, one which Bilbo felt in his bones rather than heard in his ears. "Long has Narsil laid broken, but her edges are still sharp to the touch."

"Narsil," Bilbo rolled the name on the back of his tongue, as he would a particularly fine wine. It was, he thought, a fitting name. Sun and moon, he knew from his growing grasp on the Elven tongue. Now that he looked for it, he could see the light of both - dully glowing, even when the sword was broken and at rest.

"Narsil, wielded last by Elendil, one of the last sons of the starlit-lands and first King of the Dúnedain," the voice continued, coming closer. "In the First Age, it was forged by the great Dwarf-smith Telchar, at the bidding of his Azaghâl his king. The sword was to be a gift for Maedhros Fëanorian, for he saved the life of Azaghâl when he was waylaid by Orcs on the great Dwarf-road. Maedhros in turn, gave the sword to his brother, and Maglor Fëanorian later gifted the sword in parting to his ward, Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King of Númenor, and a great leader of Men. The sword has protected that line ever since, and now waits to be forged again – when the hands waiting to hold it are ready to do so."

The names tickled at the back of Bilbo's mind, tugging on stories his mother had told in days long past. He looked up to see who his companion was, and saw a tall elf – no surprise there, Bilbo thought, for they were all quite tall about him. Instead of the dark hair most in the valley had, this elf seemingly wore the sunlight atop his head. Bilbo thought first of the Wood-elves with the shade, but no . . . there was something different about him. Something that was more.

The elf's eyes were eerily bright, Bilbo thought. As if he had looked on the sun when standing very near to it, and took a bit of that brilliance with him when he turned away.

"It's a great story," Bilbo said, his fingers still resting above Narsil's blade. Carefully, he did not touch it. A part of him knew that the blade was not his to hold, and the sword welcomed him not. "It seems as if every sword we run into has a great tale behind it." Bilbo let his right hand tap his at the hilt of his own 'sword', ever curious as he was by the elegant little blade.

"Ah," the elf said slowly. "The swords of Gondolin."

"Yes," Bilbo inclined his head. "Glamdring? Your lord named the one. And . . . Orist? Ocrast was the other?"

"Orcrist," the stranger rolled the name from his tongue with the ease of long familiarity. A small smile tugged at his face, sad in shape, and Bilbo wondered at it. "The sword's name was Orcrist."

"Ah, yes," Bilbo bounced on the balls of his feet. "Orcrist - that's the one."

The elf shook his head, bemusement touching his face. "How odd, that they should now appear in a troll horde, of all places. Ah, but to see his face when I tell him so . . ." his voice was absent as he said so, as if he spoke to a ghost in the room. Bilbo knew that the other was far from him in that moment, before he blinked, turning back to Bilbo again. "It is against odds," he said carefully, "but I would ask of a dagger which went with the set. A short blade," he held his hands apart to demonstrate, "who was made as a companion to the swords in their forging."

Bilbo's fingers tapped against the hilt of his sword – which an elf very much would call a dagger, he thought. A long knife . . .

Slowly, carefully, he drew the blade free, and watched as the elf's eyes followed it. There was a flickering in the brightness of his eyes. Bilbo looked, and thought that – for that moment, the elf did not breathe.

"Then it's not a letter opener?" Bilbo said with a half smile as he passed it to the elf's reverent hands.

"Indeed not," the elf answered, bemused.

"Then, does it . . ." Bilbo asked, hoping . . .

"No," the elf shook his head. "It has naught of a name, merely memories. When they named Ecthelion's ridiculous blade for slaying a thousand necks, I had wagered that I could slay more with this dagger alone than he could with his curved sword during the Nírnaeth Arnoediad. I came close, even though he would never admit it. But at the end of that battle, there was no jesting between comrades, nor rejoicing in feast and song. Merely tears."

Bilbo blinked, trying to understand the tenses the elf spoke with. He spoke as if . . .

"Then you knew who owned - " he did he math. He adjusted his words. "Forgive me, you owned this blade . . . sometimes it is easy to forget, the agelessness of the Elves."

"Agelessness," the elf turned the word over thoughtfully. He smiled a smile Bilbo could not quite put his finger on. "Yes, you could call it as such."

The elf went to give the blade back, but Bilbo held up a hand. "No," he said. "It was yours, was it not? I would not -"

"It has not been mine for many centuries," the elf said easily. "And swords choose their wielders. This blade will do much in your hands, Master Baggins, and I would not take that away. Even though," he allowed a small smile to touch his mouth, "I do imagine that Ecthelion would have scowled to see his sword in your leader's hands . . . And yet, it is fitting. There is a certain stubbornness about them both, a certain strength of spirit that the sword would answer to."

"Strength of spirit," Bilbo repeated wryly – as if such words could so easily surmise Thorin and his determination. Thorin and his hunger. "And yet . . ." he swallowed. He looked to the west, where he knew the Shire rested in its green cradle of hills and bubbling blue streams. "Sometimes, I do not feel as if I am meant to do such things.

Sometimes, I wonder whether or not I am even meant to be here, or if I had a moment of Took-ishness that I shall forever regret . . ."

The elf too looked west, and the bright light in his gaze seemed to glow then. In a queer way, Bilbo thought that the ancient and ethereal being before him understood his small worries. His unease and fear.

"The Valar choose their vessels wisely," was all he said. "You give yourself too little credit for your path."

Bilbo bit his lip. He took the dagger – his sword – and tried to fight away just how foreign the blade felt in his hands.

The elf noticed, Bilbo thought. He set his jaw thoughtfully as he leaned forward, as if preparing to impart a secret. "You seem to have an ear for stories," the elf said. "If you would, I would tell you a tale now, of a youth who made a very big decision – in the days when there was no light, for the Trees' had been felled and the Sun and Moon had not yet arisen in the sky. A tale of an elf, who wished to serve his kinsman and lord . . ."

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Telling

During their first night away from Rivendell, the terrain leveled out enough for them to camp on a small landing in the mountains. Their location was better than some they had spent the night in before, the clearing being both easy enough to defend, and spacious enough so that they did not need to worry for rolling the wrong way in the night to a long and final drop.

With an ease that would have one time shocked him, Bilbo unpacked his place for the night, and then moved to help prepare the evening meal. Used to dining at full tables with food aplenty for the past two weeks, they were not quite ready to part from the fullness of their bellies, and so, Bilbo was elected to make his stew that night – cooking the hares that the youngest two dwarves caught with the ease of long familiarity. If there was anything a Hobbit was adept at, it was preparing supper, he thought. His neighbors would have been scandalized by how thin and . . . rugged, he had become over the trip thus far, he thought, he having gone so long without second breakfast . . . afternoon tea . . . dinner and supper . . .

His stomach rumbled, and that too Bilbo ignored. The wild was no such place for indulgences, and he had learned to do well without a great many things.

With their quest again underway, the company of Thorin was a merry gathering that night. The dwarves sung, Bofur leading them more often than not with his rowdy tunes and creative lyrics - most of which he improvised on the spot before encouraging others to do the same. After Bofur's songs quieted down, Balin took over, telling tales from Erebor in the mountains days of glory. That night, he told a story of the royal family – mischief that Thorin had got into with his siblings Frerin and Dís, when they had journeyed beyond the mountain halls and stumbled upon children from Dale, and the ensuing chaos that day had then caused. Bilbo smiled mightily at the stories, amused to see their infallible leader as something young and curious and very . . . well, not Thorin. Afterward, Thorin scowled and asked the elderly dwarf why he delighted in shaming him, but there was fondness in his eyes when he did so.

When Balin's tale was over, and they were scraping the last of their supper from their bowls, Bofur turned to him and asked for his stories. Early on in their quest, his talent with lays and tales had gone noticed, and ever since then they had asked him for tales around the campfire. Bilbo answered readily enough, speaking the same stories his mother had once told him, or giving more fanciable anecdotes from the Shire. Though shenanigans with crops and fields did not interest the dwarves so much, Belladonna Took's tales kept them much interested indeed, and yet, tonight . . .

Each night, while his companions had gone their own ways and kept to their own company, Bilbo had sat in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell, listening to the songs and stories told there. The Elves, with their years and forever before them were careful to forget nothing, to remember all through songs and lyric, and Bilbo had listened to their stories, enraptured. There was one particular song – a song that all would pause to listen to when Lindir would pick up his harp, a solemn respect for the characters within that had touched Bilbo, a story of . . .

He was no minstrel. He had no talent with voice or song, but Bilbo could tell stories. And so he whispered the Lay of Lúthien in a solemn voice fit for the epic deeds of old. He told of Beren the mortal-man, who won the heart of the fairest maiden ever born, and the trials and tribulations of their love. He looked, but instead of seeing the same feeling of enraptured sadness the story had first given him, he saw indifferent faces all. Some even turned down in distaste. Óin pointedly took out his ear piece, and smirked when others snickered at his actions.

It was when he was repeating the words Lúthien sang to Death himself that Bofur got up and took over for him – making light of Lúthien's plight, turning the beautiful words into something of jest and parody. The other dwarves laughed and joined in with the refrain, catching up on the rhythm and turning the tale into a mummer's farce. A joke.
When Bofur's lyrics took a turn towards the insinuating, Bilbo stood, insulted for the memory of those the song was supposed to represent.

"For shame!" he exclaimed, jabbing a finger towards the ground and stomping his foot with his pique. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves."

"Oh, sit down Master-Baggins," Bofur was still laughing. He threw the last bit of his bread roll at him – affection, Bilbo knew from his time spent with the Dwarves, and yet he was not appeased. "It was all a bit of fun."

"And a great fun it was," Glóin added, still chortling at the last of the lyrics. "It was the best part of the tale yet."

Bilbo gazed at them, floored. "So, that is the way of it. The Elves remember your ancient tongues when you yourselves have all but forgotten them, and you go to them to read your map. You accept their hospitality - eat their food, steal their trinkets," he rounded on a dwarf who was about to protest. "Oh yes, don't think I didn't notice your souvenirs. You wield their weapons as your own, but you cannot acknowledge that there is even the smallest bit of beauty in Lúthien's tale?"

He waited a moment. No one answered.

"That," he said slowly. "Is unfortunate." He fisted his hands at his sides then, so that no one could tell the way they shook. He felt that queasy feeling in his stomach that said that he would soon feel faint, but he pushed it aside. He was going to be brave. He let the Took in him speak, and the Baggins in him lay aside.

When Thorin rose to his feet, his clear blue eyes were dark. Bilbo thought about shadow beneath the mountain and the stone womb of the world when seeing the would be Dwarf-king as such, and he squared his jaw at the untouchable strength of the earth itself. "You speak," Thorin said lowly – dangerously, Bilbo knew, "Of that which you do not know."

"Don't I?" Bilbo replied. "You were wronged once before, that I know." He saw eyes of stone around him. "Balin told me the tale, and that I do not try to speak against, or cast aside. I understand your anger; I acknowledge your cause for it. I am simply trying to say that this world would be a better place – a happier place - if you did not assign the blame for a few on the whole. It is a failing, too, that those who wronged you place at your own door, is it not?"

For oh, he knew how Lúthien's kin found their end – her father, the Elven-king of Doriath dead by dwarvish hands for the Silmaril set within its necklace of starlit stones, along with so many others before Beren the One-handed found the dwarves of Nogrod and took from them a payment of blood in kind.

Silence met him. Thorin turned, his jaw a hooked line on his face. "I have lost my taste for tales this eve," and he turned away from him.

"What if," he called after him, even though the Baggins within him was telling him to sit down. To sit down, and be silent. "What if I told you that I had a story about the sword at your side? The elf who wielded it – he was a bit like you, you know. He died facing a creature of flame so that his people would live. He sacrificed himself for something that he believed in . . . and when I heard it, I thought that that sounded an awful lot like something you would do. If it ever came between the dragon and the lives of your kin . . . I think I know what decision you would make. Swords choose their owners, you know, and that sword chose you for a reason."

For a moment, Thorin stopped. Bilbo thought that he had reached him, that he had touched something, and yet -

Thorin kept his back turned, and took his place at the farthest edge of the clearing. Near to the edge of the mountainside.

And Bilbo sighed through his mouth, frustrated. He ran a hand through his hair, while the Baggins in him asked if he could simply sit down now. Please.

Kíli, who had been strangely silent throughout the whole of Bofur's impromptu song and the tense exchange of words that had followed, looked at Bilbo. Slowly . . . he nodded. "I would hear the tale of Uncle's sword, if you would tell it," he said. His voice was at first shaped like a question, but it became stronger at the end. A certainty.

Fíli looked at his brother, and then at Bilbo. Very carefully, he did not look in his uncle's direction. "I would too."

A moment passed, and then: "You had me from the beginning, laddie. Carry on," Balin said gently, and Bilbo saw an understanding in his old eyes . . . a sadness as he glanced at the untouchable set of Thorin's shoulders. The finality in his turned back.

"It went," Bilbo gathered his courage, letting his voice rise so that it would carry. So that all would hear. "Something like this . . ."