#geometrical design woo

[muggycuphead]

Reliving something from 2020 because hehehehe-

Though this will mostly just be a thing I do when I need an excuse to draw something fun

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Do you have hcs on which rogues would get tattoos + would like tattoos on a parnter?

"Tattoos" Rogue Party x Reader

We're gonna go short and sweet with this one! I'll go into detail where it's needed, etc etc.

important side note that everyone on the list would be respectful of tattoos that are tied to specific cultural practices such as Tāmoko- no matter what their feelings are about tats in general.

TW: None

Riddler

Wouldn't get a tattoo because A) he feels fairly neutral about body art and B) he'd be struck within intense indecision if he tried to get one.

Doesn't care either way about tattoos on a partner, really. The ones he would really marvel at would be geometric or bio-mechanical styles. And if you were to get a green question mark somewhere on your body, he certainly wouldn't complain...

Penguin

Wouldn't get a tattoo because it doesn't suit him, in his mind. If he had anything it would be from his juvvie days when he was more young and impulsive.

He'd vastly appreciate fine-line work or a particularly intricate design. Something else about you that's beautiful. Pulls you in and... he can lay a kiss on it.

Mad Hatter

No. Just. No.

He wouldn't dislike tattoos on a partner, but it's not his ideal. Considering there's a fair chance an s/o began as an Alice or general fantasy... well. No one's perfect, are they? If it was florals or an alice themed tattoo however... it could be a sign. Don't try making sense of his logic, you'll hurt your head.

Scarecrow

Got one when he was young. Stick and poke that the ink drained out of and now it's just a scar of crow wings on his left back shoulder. A buddy did it, Jonathan doesn't even remember the man's name.

He would really like the tattoo(s) in question if it was horror related or something to his interests. Tracing the design with his fingers during intimate moments.

Music Meister

In the nicest way someone can possibly say this, no, he's too much of a weenie. Plus, he thinks about the fact that if he ever performed a specific character on stage, he'd have to constantly cover it up and that annoys him.

Normally doesn't care a lot. If it's a theater or musical based tattoo like lyrics or elements from a poster- He'll be almost drooling over it.

Victor Zsasz

Would get tattoos. Has tattoos that he's marked over with cuts.

Would like tattoos on a partner.

Would get weird about it if you let him.

Killer Croc

Likes them, physically cannot have them. Tried once. Broke three needles before the tattooist gave up. Which... he really can't blame them on that one.

He thinks they're kind of sexy, actually. Bad-ass, you know? Especially if it's in a place that's known to be painful? Woo, sha, he knew you were tough for him.

Harley Quinn

Yes. I don't know if my Harley would have tattoos yet, but she'd be absolutely down for getting them. They'd definitely need to be color, though. She'd probably really like new school with the cute, exaggerated features.

Tell her all about them! Each one has a story, right? It's all fascinating and more she can learn about one of her favorite people.

Poison Ivy

Only if it was something "tasteful" in her mind. Elegant with perfect body placement. That's where she's at mentally. Physically... Her body will reject all ink if it's not strictly vegan and plant-based. Plus there's the fact that her skin has a green hue. It vastly limits her options and she might just give up on the idea.

If she saw a lace design or a realistic plant/flower on a partner... heart eyes, baby. She wouldn't admit to being impressed by it outright, but you'd know from the way her touch would linger there.

Two-Face

Harv would be down, Harvey would say no. He's not against tattoos themselves or anything, but he was incredibly straight-edge most of his life and that's an aspect from his past that remained. Unprofessional.

Thinks it's neat if his s/o has a tat that's either a blend of styles or deals specifically with the theme of duality. No one would ever have guessed that, I know. Otherwise, it's art on your body. Want Harv to put you in a frame for all to see? He smirks.

Black Mask

No, because of the expectations put upon him from a young age. CEO material. Can't have that. The incredible irony is in some way he still thinks of tattoos as something criminals and convicts have.

That doesn't apply to you, though, because you're his and that makes you special and different. He'd put some bank aside if you wanted another, even. Fancy appointment with the artist of your choice and everything.

Mr. Freeze

Deeply appreciative of tattoos given that his deceased wife, Nora, was an anthropologist who sometimes dabbled in the historical and cultural context of body modification and expression. He doesn't have any himself, however. However, he's read and re-read several of the textbooks she left behind on the subject. He can tell you all about it.

It might seem strange to a partner that he's sharing this interest via the lens of Nora. Understand that he loves you deeply and this is him sharing something Important to him with you. His love for Nora was so much. He insists you would have loved her, too.

Ra's al-Ghul

He does not have tattoos nor would he get them. He may have had real tribal tattoos long ago, but the strange effects of the Lazarus pit long wore them out of his skin.

Boring in that he tends to dislike non-traditional, non-cultural tattoos. Vibrant, pop in your face styles? No, thank you. He wouldn't say anything to a partner or even any particular person because that's rude. But you can tell by small side comments he'll make. The truth is, he would eventually get over himself if a partner had them. He loves you as a person, more than anything else.

Bane

Grew up in a prison, tattoos themselves are part of his culture. It was strange to him when he got out and realized there's a lot of people with no tattoos at all. Meanwhile, he had a full sleeve by the time he was 25. Debatable on the quality for some of it. Some of his older tats you can tell they were done in prison. Has some really gorgeous work on his back, though.

He would actually pay for an s/o to get a tattoo. If they wanted it! It's an art form that expresses a piece of themselves along their bodies. It's beautiful.

[justforbooks]

Sir Kenneth Grange

A giant of 20th-century design whose products – from food mixers to lamps and trains – became staples of British life

Kenneth Grange, who has died aged 95, was the leading British product designer of the second half of the 20th century. Even if unaware of his name, most people in Britain are familiar with his output: the Kenwood Chef food mixer, the Kodak Instamatic camera, the Ronson Rio hairdryer, the Morphy Richards iron. These everyday objects are part of all our histories. Grange was also responsible for the restyling of the InterCity 125 high-speed train and the 1997 TX1 version of the London taxi.

He was a tall, handsome, ebullient man, a joker with that element of inner moral purpose often found in the designers of his postwar generation. He grew up imbued with a determination to make the world a better place visually, his emphasis always on functional efficiency. Grange was a master at reassessing usage, but he also viewed design in terms of sheer enjoyment. He wanted us to share in the surprising grace of the experience as the 125 train comes hurtling down the track.

When he set up his own design consultancy in 1956, Grange was one of just a handful of designers operating in the world of what were then quaintly called consumer goods. Many of his early commissions came via the Council of Industrial Design (now the Design Council), a governmental body set up with the remit of improving national design standards. Grange’s commission to design Britain’s first parking meter, the Venner, introduced in 1958, came via the council. So too did his introduction to Kenneth Wood, proprietor of the firm in Woking whose domestic products were marketed as Kenwood. Grange’s clean-lined and user-friendly Kenwood Chef food mixer became a housewives’ status symbol of its time.

Like his near contemporary Vidal Sassoon, Grange came from a non-artistic background and had a similarly innate sense of visual style. Both men were quintessentially 1960s talents, Sassoon with his geometric haircuts, Grange with a succession of urbane modern products for a new, self-consciously fashionable age. He became a prime designer for the growing market in “portable accessories”: pens for Parker, cigarette lighters for Ronson, the melamine and smoked perspex Milward Courier shaver which, in 1963, won the Duke of Edinburgh’s prize for elegant design (now known as the Prince Philip Designers prize). Did Prince Philip himself use it? Grange insisted that he did.

In 1972 Grange joined four of the rising stars of his profession – Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, Theo Crosby and Mervyn Kurlansky – in founding the ultra-modern design group Pentagram. This was a multidisciplinary consultancy described by Grange as “a one-stop shop” providing specialist services in graphic design and advertising, architecture and – Grange’s own area – product design.

Pentagram became the bee’s knees of design consultancies: ambitious, professional, intelligent and jaunty. It attracted loyal clients, including Reuters, for whom Grange designed the Reuters monitor, a state-of-the-art computer terminal and keyboard, superbly well engineered in heavy silver aluminium sheet.

Through the 70s Grange was occupied with the most high profile of his design commissions: the aerodynamics, interior layout and exterior shaping of the nose cone of British Rail’s High Speed Train (HST). The InterCity 125 was a key element in BR’s strategy to woo passengers away from cars and planes and back on to the trains. However the first HST prototype they came up with was, in Grange’s opinion, “a lumpish, brutish thing”.

He realised he could only improve the appearance by first tackling the aerodynamics. On his own initiative (and at his own expense) he spent a week at night working with a consultant engineer at Imperial College London, where there was a wind tunnel. In the course of these experiments they developed a number of new ideas, getting rid of the buffers, hiding the couplings in the underside of the nose cone, and giving the train a more futuristic look.

It was launched in 1976 with its radical, dynamically angled nose design. Grange was always careful to give credit to the expertise of the engineers he worked with. All the same, it was his major triumph and a lasting symbol of the best of mid-20th-century British design. The HST – still in use today on selected passenger services after almost 50 years – transformed the public experience of travelling by train.

He was born in east London, the son of Hilda (nee Long), a machinist, and Harry Grange, an East End policeman. Kenneth was brought up in what he once vividly described as “a bacon-and-eggs kind of house”, respectably furnished with a three-piece suite and flowery curtains, the dominant colour being brown. Nevertheless his parents supported his chosen career in what was then termed “commercial art”. During the second world war, the family had moved to Wembley in north London, and Kenneth won a scholarship to Willesden School of Art and Crafts where, from the age of 14, he studied drawing and lettering.

These basic skills gave him the entree to a succession of architects’ offices: Arcon; Bronek Katz and R Vaughan; Gordon and Ursula Bowyer; and, from 1952, the remarkably versatile architect and industrial designer Jack Howe – all of these were modernists and prime movers in the postwar campaign to rebuild Britain using newly available materials and techniques.

Grange took part in the 1951 Festival of Britain, working alongside Gordon and Ursula Bowyer on the Sports Pavilion for the South Bank exhibition. For so many of Grange’s generation of designers – including Sir Terence Conran and my husband, David Mellor – the festival would be a lasting inspiration. As Grange later recollected: “You couldn’t walk a step without seeing something unlikely – the cigar-shaped Skylon, the huge Dome of Discovery, extraordinary metal sculptures, waterfalls that twisted and turned. Nothing was like anything I had ever seen before.”

Where much of British design was still craft-based, dominated by ideas that went back to William Morris, Grange felt the fascination of machine production. He was excited by the sleek designs based on new technology beginning to infiltrate Britain from the US, describing the moulded plastic Eames chair for example as “a rocket ship exploding into our narrow world”. I remember being impressed on my first visit to his house in Hampstead, north London, to find him the possessor of not just one Eames lounge chair but three.

Grange’s natural resilience stood him in good stead through the 70s and 80s, those lean years for designers when British manufacturing lost its way and, as he described it, “unbridled accountancy became the new dynamic in British industry”. He was glad of foreign clients, especially enjoying working in Japan where the innate Japanese awareness of design delighted him. An especially successful commission was a sewing machine designed for the Maruzen Sewing Machine Co in Osaka, to be marketed in Europe. On trips to Japan he started what became a considerable collection of beautiful wooden geisha combs.

Pentagram itself was flourishing, moving in 1984 from Paddington to larger and more stylish premises in a renovated dairy in Notting Hill. At this period it employed more than 80 designers and assistants in different disciplines, and the communal dining room became an ever-welcoming talking shop, a gathering point for London’s design world of the time. I remember some marvellous parties at Pentagram, including the celebration of Grange’s marriage in 1984 to Apryl Swift.

For Grange himself the 1980s brought increasing public recognition. In 1983 a solo exhibition of his work was held at the Boilerhouse at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

At this point he was already being lauded as Britain’s most successful product designer. He was made CBE in 1984, and knighted in 2013. In 1985 he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art and in 1986 became master of the elite group of Royal Designers for Industry. Success never spoilt him. He had a streak of self-denigrating humour and retained a kind of boyish innocence, as if he could hardly believe his good luck.

The sheer challenge of the job had always been his driving force. After his retirement from Pentagram in 1997, after 25 years as a partner, he and Apryl embarked on a project of their own, converting an ancient stone-built barn in the remote countryside near Coryton in Devon into a spectacular modern home with a spiral staircase of highly ingenious modular construction. Completion took five years; Grange commuted weekly between London and Devon, travelling on his familiar High Speed Train.

In 2011 the Design Museum held a retrospective, Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern. He continued to design into his 80s. Late commissions included the perfect men’s shirt for the fashion designer Margaret Howell; an updated range of classic lights – the Type 3, Type 75 and, in his 90th year, the Type 80 – for Anglepoise, for whom he had been made design director in 2003; and a really comfortable collection of chairs for elderly people. General levels of design for the aged population made him angry. “Where is the decent modernist care home?” he would ask.

Typical of Grange’s zany 60s humour was his design of a man-shaped timber bookcase that converted to a coffin, the ultimate exercise in recycling. “If I ever pop my clogs, it’s books out and me in, with the lid fixed, up to the great client in the sky.”

Two earlier marriages ended in divorce. Apryl survives him.

🔔 Kenneth Henry Grange, designer, born 17 July 1929; died 21 July 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[goldensunset]

Essay about pufferfish

Tetraodontidae is a family of primarily marine and estuarine fish of the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, toadle, honey toads, sugar toads, and sea squab.[1] They are morphologically similar to the closely related porcupinefish, which have large external spines (unlike the thinner, hidden spines of the Tetraodontidae, which are only visible when the fish have puffed up). The scientific name refers to the four large teeth, fused into an upper and lower plate, which are used for crushing the hard shells of crustaceans and mollusks, their natural prey.

The majority of pufferfish species are toxic and some are among the most poisonous vertebrates in the world. In certain species, the internal organs, such as the liver, and sometimes the skin, contain tetrodotoxin, and are highly toxic to most animals when eaten; nevertheless, the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan (as 河豚, pronounced fugu), Korea (as 복, bok, or 복어, bogeo), and China (as 河豚, hétún) when prepared by specially trained chefs who know which part is safe to eat and in what quantity. Other pufferfish species with nontoxic flesh, such as the northern puffer, Sphoeroides maculatus, of Chesapeake Bay,[2] are considered a delicacy elsewhere.[3]

The species Torquigener albomaculosus was described by David Attenborough as "the greatest artist of the animal kingdom" due to the males' unique habit of wooing females by creating nests in sand composed of complex geometric designs.[4]

[midnightmoontattoo]

The Art of Transformation: Exploring Butterfly Tattoo Artists in the USA

Butterflies have long been a symbol of transformation, freedom, and beauty, making them one of the most popular choices for tattoos. Across the United States, tattoo artists specialize in bringing these delicate creatures to life on the skin, offering designs that range from hyper-realistic depictions to abstract, imaginative interpretations. Butterfly tattoo artist USA not only reflect personal journeys and metamorphosis but also serve as timeless works of art that hold deep emotional significance for their wearers.

The Allure of Butterfly Tattoos

Butterflies hold a universal appeal due to their vibrant colors and symbolic meanings. For many, they represent change, growth, and the ability to emerge stronger after adversity. Others are drawn to their aesthetic charm, with intricate wing patterns that offer limitless possibilities for artistic expression. Butterfly tattoos can be customized to reflect an individual’s personality, incorporating elements like flowers, geometric patterns, or even blending with other motifs like skulls or animals.

Renowned Butterfly Tattoo Artists in the USA

The USA is home to a thriving tattoo industry, with artists specializing in a variety of styles, from minimalist line work to bold traditional designs. Here are some standout tattoo artists known for their expertise in creating stunning butterfly tattoos:

Eva Krbdk (New York City, NY) Renowned for her delicate and intricate tattooing style, Eva Krbdk incorporates a blend of realism and whimsy into her butterfly designs. Her work often features fine line detailing and vibrant watercolor effects, creating pieces that feel as though they might flutter off the skin.

Dr. Woo (Los Angeles, CA) A celebrity tattoo artist known for his meticulous single-needle technique, Dr. Woo’s butterfly tattoos often exude a minimalist elegance. His designs balance intricate details with clean, modern aesthetics, making them highly sought-after.

Kat Von D (Austin, TX) While Kat Von D is famous for her bold black-and-gray work, her butterfly tattoos often incorporate gothic and surreal elements. These designs carry a sense of mystery and drama, appealing to those looking for something unconventional.

Ryan Ashley DiCristina (Scranton, PA) Known for her black-and-gray tattooing style and expertise in ornamental designs, Ryan Ashley often creates butterfly tattoos that incorporate filigree patterns, lace-like textures, and jewel-like accents. Her work is a fusion of femininity and strength.

Jess Chen (Toronto-based but frequently tattooing in the USA) While technically Canadian, Jess Chen���s frequent work in the U.S. makes her a favorite among American clients. Her butterfly tattoos are often characterized by their soft, painterly approach, using muted colors and gentle gradients to create an ethereal quality.

Popular Styles of Butterfly Tattoos

Realism: For those who want lifelike depictions, realistic butterfly tattoos showcase vibrant colors and intricate details. Artists specializing in realism use shading and layering techniques to give these tattoos a three-dimensional effect.

Watercolor: This style mimics the flow and transparency of watercolor paintings. Butterfly tattoos in this style often feature splashes of bright hues, blending seamlessly to create a dreamy, artistic effect.

Traditional: Featuring bold outlines and classic color palettes, traditional butterfly tattoos have a timeless appeal. These designs often include complementary elements like flowers or banners.

Minimalist: For a subtle yet meaningful tattoo, minimalist butterfly designs focus on clean lines and simple shapes. These tattoos are perfect for small, understated pieces.

Choosing the Right Artist

When seeking a butterfly tattoo, selecting the right artist is crucial. Consider the following:

Portfolio Review: Always examine an artist’s previous work to ensure their style aligns with your vision.

Specialization: Choose an artist experienced in the style you prefer, whether it’s realism, watercolor, or traditional.

Reputation: Read reviews and testimonials to ensure the artist is reputable and professional.

Hygiene Standards: Visit the studio to ensure it meets high hygiene and safety standards.

The Transformative Journey of a Butterfly Tattoo

Getting a butterfly tattoo is more than just a visual statement; it’s a celebration of personal growth, resilience, and beauty. With countless talented artists across the USA, you can find someone to bring your unique vision to life, creating a piece that you’ll cherish forever.

Whether you’re honoring a transformative experience or simply drawn to the aesthetic allure of butterflies, these tattoos are a beautiful way to express yourself and carry a symbol of change and freedom wherever you go.

Follow Us:

Tattoo artist portfolio USA

Dragon tattoo designs

[jhon-smith123]

Woo

Wooden Tissue Boxes in Pakistan – Beautiful Designs

In Pakistan, wooden tissue boxes have become a popular decorative item, adding both functionality and style to homes, offices, and other spaces. Known for their elegance and durability, these boxes come in a variety of designs that reflect traditional craftsmanship and modern aesthetics. Let’s explore the beauty and variety of wooden tissue boxes available in Pakistan.

 Why Choose Wooden Tissue Boxes?

Wooden tissue boxes offer several advantages over plastic or metal alternatives:

Aesthetic Appeal: Wooden boxes add warmth and a classic touch to any setting.

Durability: Wood is long-lasting and can withstand wear better than other materials.

Eco-Friendly: Made from renewable resources, wooden tissue boxes are an environmentally friendly choice.

Customization: They can be carved, painted, or varnished, making it easy to match them with any décor style.

 Popular Types of Wood for Tissue Boxes

Pakistan has access to various types of wood, each offering unique characteristics:

Sheesham (Indian Rosewood): Known for its rich color and grain, Sheesham is highly durable and often used for intricate carvings.

Walnut Wood: This wood has a dark, smooth finish, ideal for creating a sophisticated look.

Teak Wood: Teak is highly resistant to damage and has a golden-brown color that brings warmth to the designs.

Each wood type can create a distinct aesthetic, from rustic charm to refined elegance.

 Types of Wooden Tissue Box Designs

Hand-Carved Tissue Boxes

Hand-carved wooden tissue boxes are especially popular in Pakistan, showcasing the skills of local artisans. These designs often feature floral patterns, geometric shapes, or traditional motifs inspired by Mughal architecture. tissue box pakistan Each piece is unique, reflecting the personal touch of the craftsman.

Inlay Work Tissue Boxes

Wooden tissue boxes with inlay work are also sought-after. These designs incorporate materials like brass, copper, or mother of pearl into the wood, creating intricate patterns that add a luxurious feel. The contrast between the wood and inlaid material highlights the design and craftsmanship involved.

Painted Wooden Tissue Boxes

For a colorful touch, painted tissue boxes are a vibrant option. Local artisans use paint to adorn boxes with motifs inspired by Pakistani culture, including truck art, paisleys, and floral patterns. This style is perfect for adding a playful or cultural element to any space.

Minimalist Wooden Tissue Boxes

Minimalist wooden tissue boxes have simple, sleek designs, focusing on the natural beauty of the wood. Often polished with a matte or gloss finish, these boxes fit perfectly into modern and contemporary settings.

 Customizable Wooden Tissue Boxes

Many local artisans offer customization options, allowing buyers to personalize their wooden tissue boxes. Customers can choose the type of wood, finish, size, and design. Some popular customizations include adding names, initials, or custom carvings that hold personal meaning.

Where to Buy Wooden Tissue Boxes in Pakistan

Several markets and online platforms in Pakistan offer a range of wooden tissue boxes:

Local Handicraft Stores: Cities like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad have handicraft stores that sell unique handmade boxes.

Online Marketplaces: Websites like Craft Emporium offer convenient shopping and delivery options.

Cultural Expos and Exhibitions: Exhibitions often feature a wide variety of handmade items, including wooden tissue boxes, allowing buyers to see the quality and variety up close.

 Price Range of Wooden Tissue Boxes in Pakistan

The price of wooden tissue boxes varies based on wood type, design complexity, and size.

 Tips for Maintaining Wooden Tissue Boxes

To keep wooden tissue boxes in good condition:

Keep Away from Moisture: Wood can warp when exposed to moisture, so it’s best to keep it dry.

Polish Regularly: Regular polishing keeps the wood shiny and enhances its durability.

Avoid Direct Sunlight: Sunlight can cause fading, so place wooden boxes in shaded areas to preserve their natural color.

Conclusion

Wooden tissue boxes in Pakistan are more than just functional items; they are works of art that bring culture and elegance to everyday spaces. Handicraft in Pakistan Whether you’re looking for a traditional design, a colorful painted box, or a minimalist style, there’s something to suit every taste and decor style.

den Tissue Boxes in Pakistan – Beautiful Designs

[touchwoodfloorings]

Wooden Flooring Company in India- Find Herringbone Flooring in Delhi

Welcome to Touchwood Floorings, the most trusted wood flooring company in Delhi. With years of experience and expertise, we are dedicated to offering the highest quality of wood, engineered, and designer flooring solutions for homes and commercial spaces. From classic styles to modern trends like Herringbone and solid wood, we specialize in transforming spaces with beautiful and durable flooring options. Frequently Asked Questions About Touchwood Floorings

1. Why Choose Touchwood Floorings?

At Touchwood Floorings, we are passionate about delivering premium wood flooring solutions that enhance any space. As the leading wooden flooring contractors in Delhi, our team ensures that each project is completed with the utmost precision, quality materials, and seamless installations. Our commitment to customer satisfaction sets us apart, making us the preferred choice for all wooden flooring needs.

2. What Types of Flooring Options Do You Offer?

We offer a wide range of flooring options, including:

Solid Wood Flooring: Perfect for a natural, luxurious look and lasting durability.

Laminate Wood Flooring: A stylish yet budget-friendly option.

Engineered Wood Flooring: Combines the beauty of wood with increased resistance to moisture and temperature changes.

Herringbone Flooring: A stylish, geometric pattern that adds elegance to any room.

Artificial Grass Flooring: Ideal for outdoor spaces, adding a green touch without the upkeep.

3. What Makes Solid Wood Flooring Special?

4. How Is Engineered Wood Flooring Different from Solid Wood?

Engineered wood flooring is constructed with multiple layers, providing greater stability and resilience to moisture than traditional solid wood. Our offerings as a trusted engineered wood flooring company in Delhi make it easy for clients to find durable, attractive options that are perfect for Delhi’s climate.

5. Can You Help with Herringbone Flooring?

Absolutely! Our expertise as a leading Herringbone Flooring company Delhi allows us to offer beautiful herringbone patterns that bring a sophisticated and trendy look to any space. Our expert installers ensure that each piece is laid perfectly, providing a flawless finish.

6. What About Laminate Wood Flooring?

7. How Do I Decide Between Solid, Engineered, and Laminate Wood Flooring?

Each flooring type has its unique benefits:

Solid Wood Flooring: Best for those seeking authentic wood with unmatched longevity.

Engineered Wood Flooring: Offers a wood look but with added moisture resistance, perfect for varied climates.

Laminate Flooring: A budget-friendly option with a variety of styles.

Our experts are always ready to help you choose the best fit for your needs and budget.

8. Does Touchwood Floorings Offer Artificial Grass Flooring?

Yes, we do! For those who want a lush, green outdoor space without the hassle of maintenance, our Artificial Grass Flooring in Delhi is the ideal choice. It’s perfect for balconies, terraces, and gardens, providing a natural look all year round.

9. How Do You Determine Wooden Flooring Prices?

Wooden flooring prices depend on several factors, such as the type of wood, finish, and installation complexity. We are transparent about our pricing and are happy to provide customized quotes to fit your budget. For an accurate wooden flooring price Delhi, reach out to us for a consultation.

10. Why Should I Choose Touchwood Floorings Over Other Flooring Companies?

Touchwood Floorings is more than just a hardwood floor company in Delhi. We are committed to quality, expertise, and exceptional customer service. Our team uses only high-quality materials and cutting-edge techniques to ensure your flooring is beautiful, durable, and precisely installed to last for years.

11. What is engineered wood flooring, and why should I choose it? Engineered wood flooring in Delhi is made of multiple layers of wood, providing better stability and resistance to moisture compared to solid wood. It’s an excellent choice for various climates and is available in a variety of finishes, making it both stylish and durable.

Conclusion Our dedication to quality, skilled craftsmanship, and customer satisfaction makes us the go-to choice for wooden flooring in Delhi. Whether you’re looking for traditional solid wood, modern engineered flooring, or the stylish Herringbone pattern, Touchwood Floorings has the perfect solution.

As the best wooden flooring company in India, we pride ourselves on transparency in our pricing. Wooden flooring prices depend on several factors, such as the type of wood, finish, and installation complexity.

We are happy to provide customized quotes to fit your budget. For an accurate wooden flooring price in Delhi, reach out to us for a consultation.

Visit touchwoodfloorings.com to explore our offerings and schedule a consultation with our experts today!

[craftedproducts]

Brighten Up Your Living Room This Diwali with a Stylish 3 Seater Sofa Set

As the festive season of Diwali approaches, many homeowners seek to transform their living spaces into vibrant havens of warmth and joy. Among the various elements that contribute to a welcoming ambiance, the choice of furniture plays a crucial role, with the living room serving as the heart of family gatherings and celebrations. This year, the focus is on enhancing comfort and style with a chic 3 seater sofa set, a versatile addition that marries functionality with aesthetic appeal. Whether hosting friends and family or enjoying a quiet evening, a well-chosen sofa set can elevate the overall decor, providing both a central focal point and a cozy spot for relaxation. In this article, we explore the myriad ways a stylish 3 seater sofa set can brighten up any living room during Diwali, from selecting the right colors and materials to incorporating festive decor that complements the sofa’s design. A thoughtful approach to furniture selection not only reflects personal taste but also enhances the celebratory spirit of the season, making it an ideal time to invest in pieces that bring joy and sophistication to the home. Discover how to create a stunning living space this Diwali that embodies both tradition and modernity.

1. Choose vibrant colors for impact.

Incorporating vibrant colors into a living room can truly transform the space, creating an inviting and energetic atmosphere perfect for festive occasions. When selecting a 3 Seater Sofa Set, opting for bold hues can make a striking statement. For instance, a rich teal or a sunny mustard can complement the warm tones of a teak wood sofa beautifully, enhancing the overall aesthetic. These lively colors not only serve as eye-catching focal points but also evoke a sense of joy and celebration, making them ideal for Diwali gatherings.

Moreover, teak wood, known for its durability and timeless appeal, pairs exquisitely with vibrant upholstery. The contrast between the natural warmth of the teak and the lively colors can elevate the entire room, making it feel both cozy and dynamic. Aakriti.store offers a variety of stylish options that allow individuals to express their unique tastes while embracing the festive spirit. By choosing such elements, they can create a living space that radiates positivity and charm, perfect for hosting friends and family during the celebrations.

2. Opt for contemporary designs and patterns.

Contemporary designs and patterns can infuse a fresh perspective into any living space, especially during festive seasons like Diwali. When selecting a 3 Seater Sofa Set, embracing sleek lines and modern shapes can enhance the overall elegance of the room. For example, a minimalist teak wood sofa with geometric patterns can serve as an eye-catching centerpiece that effortlessly blends style with comfort. This approach not only showcases an individual’s appreciation for design but also allows for versatility in decorating the rest of the space.

In addition, contemporary patterns—whether bold or subtle—can offer a unique visual appeal that elevates the ambiance of the gathering. Complementing a teak wood sofa 3 Seater with cushions featuring abstract designs or trendy motifs can create a harmonious balance between modern aesthetics and classic charm. Aakriti.store features a curated selection that perfectly embodies this fusion of style, ensuring that anyone can create a chic and inviting atmosphere for their Diwali celebrations.

3. Select durable fabrics for longevity.

Choosing durable fabrics for a 3 Seater Sofa Set is essential for ensuring longevity and maintaining a fresh look over time. High-quality materials not only stand up to daily wear and tear but also retain their vibrancy through countless family gatherings and festive celebrations. Fabrics such as microfiber or high-twist polyester are great options that provide both comfort and resilience, making them ideal companions for a teak wood sofa.

Furthermore, opting for stain-resistant finishes can be a game-changer, especially during lively occasions like Diwali when food and drinks are a part of the festivities. By selecting materials that are easy to clean and maintain, one can enjoy peace of mind knowing their investment in a teak wood sofa 3 Seater will last for years to come. Aakriti.store offers an array of fabric choices that are designed not just for aesthetics but also for practicality, allowing individuals to celebrate in style without worrying about their furniture.

4. Consider multifunctional furniture for versatility.

Embracing multifunctional furniture can truly enhance the versatility of any living space, especially during festive seasons like Diwali. A well-designed 3 Seater Sofa Set can serve multiple purposes, transforming a cozy seating area into a relaxing spot for family gatherings or even a makeshift sleeping arrangement for unexpected guests. The clever incorporation of storage solutions, such as hidden compartments within a teak wood sofa, can help keep the living room tidy and organized, making it easier to prepare for celebrations.

Moreover, choosing pieces that blend seamlessly with the design aesthetic while offering practical uses adds to the charm of a home. A teak wood sofa 3 Seater not only elevates the elegance of the space but also stands out as a statement piece that complements various styles. By exploring options at aakriti.store, individuals can find multifunctional furniture that meets their needs without sacrificing style, ensuring that their living area is both beautiful and adaptable for any occasion.

5. Add cushions for extra comfort.

Incorporating cushions into the decor of a 3 Seater Sofa Set can significantly enhance the comfort and visual appeal of the living area. By adding a variety of textures and colors, cushions create a cozy atmosphere that invites relaxation and conversation. Whether it’s oversized bolsters or plush throw pillows, these small additions can transform a teak wood sofa into a welcoming haven for family and friends, making it the perfect spot to unwind during festive gatherings.

Furthermore, the right cushions can also serve as a stylish accent, bringing together the overall color scheme of the room. Pairing bright, festive hues with the natural warmth of a teak wood sofa encourages a cheerful environment, ideal for celebrating special occasions. When browsing options at aakriti.store, individuals can find an array of cushion styles that not only enhance comfort but also reflect personal taste, making the living room a vibrant focal point during Diwali festivities and beyond.

In conclusion, refreshing a living room with a stylish 3-seater sofa set can truly elevate the festive spirit of Diwali. By choosing a design that complements the home’s aesthetic while providing comfort for family and friends, one can create a welcoming atmosphere for celebrations. With vibrant colors, intricate patterns, and plush materials, these sofas not only serve as a focal point but also invite warmth and joy into the space. As the lights twinkle and the laughter fills the air, a beautifully arranged living room with a chic sofa set becomes the perfect backdrop for cherished memories this Diwali.

[ovaldiamondring]

6 Engagement Ring Ideas To Choose From This Wedding Season..!!

Are you planning to woo your sweetheart this wedding season? Yes, then what are you waiting for? The tradition of giving engagement rings to women has a rich history dating back to the 14th century. 

Finding the perfect ring that embodies your relationship story is daunting. However, the best diamond stores offer a diverse range of diamond engagement rings in NYC.

To make your search for the most chic engagement rings easier, here are some popular ring styles you can get inspired by. 

Colored Gemstones Couples increasingly opt for colored gemstones instead of traditional diamonds. Sapphires, emeralds, and rubies add vibrant and unique touches to engagement rings, available at the finest jewelers in New York.

Geometric Shapes Geometric designs have been trending for some time and are popular among couples. Rings with hexagonal, triangular, or kite-shaped stones offer a modern, edgy look. These shapes are eye-catching and modern, perfect for couples who want to add a touch of luxury to their engagement ring.

Vintage-Inspired Designs Vintage-inspired engagement rings have made a comeback in 2023. These rings feature intricate details, floral designs, and settings that exude timeless charm. They can be a precious and emotional gift you can give your sweetheart.

Mixed Metals Combining different metals in a single engagement ring creates a stunning and eye-catching effect. This is it if your girl likes more rings that blend rose gold, yellow gold, white gold, platinum, and palladium. You won't regret choosing a mixed metal engagement ring for women in NYC.

Sustainable Materials

With growing environmental awareness, sustainable materials are gaining prominence in engagement ring choices. Eco-friendly rings made from recycled metals, ethically sourced materials, and lab-created diamonds are in high demand. If your girl is conscientious, a lab diamond engagement ring is the way to go.

Minimalism Minimalist rings emphasize the beauty of the stone and carry deep emotional significance. Clean lines and subtle adornments make them an excellent choice for those seeking an understated look.

When choosing your engagement ring, it's essential to pick something that resonates with you and your partner. While fashion trends may change, the love and commitment symbolized by the ring are timeless. Choose a ring that will hold sentimental value and be cherished forever.

Michael F & Co. is a renowned jewelry store offering various jewelry pieces. From oval diamond engagement rings in NYC and bracelets to necklaces and pendants, we are your one-stop shop for sparkle needs. Explore their jewelry collection by visiting their website.

Original Source: https://michaelfandco.blogspot.com/2023/10/6-engagement-ring-ideas-to-choose-from.html

[exactlysuperpanda]

New Best WordPress Themes for January 2023

WordPress Themes can change the look of your website verify 5 lovely new WordPress.com themes, together with our new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Three. The WordPress.com workforce is all the time engaged in new design concepts to deliver your website to life. Beneath you’ll discover the 4 latest themes that we’ve added to our library, with lovely choices for food-based companies, podcasts, and bloggers. To put in any of the under themes, click on the identity of the theme you want, which brings you properly to the set-up web page. Then merely click on the “Activate this design” button. You can even click on “Open stay demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable model of the theme so that you can preview it.Premium themes are free to make use of for any person on a Premium plan or above or could be bought individually by these with free websites or Private plans.You may discover all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” web page, which is discovered underneath “Look” within the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or, simply click on right here:

Twenty WordPress Theme

Twenty Twenty-Three is designed to reap the benefits of the brand-new design instruments launched in WordPress 6.1. With a clear, clean base as a place to begin, this default WordPress Theme consists of ten numerous fashion variations created by members of the WordPress group. you can use Ytmp4 to covert blogs to videos Whether or not you need to construct a fancy or extremely easy website, you are able to do it shortly and intuitively by means of the bundled types or dive into creation and full customization yourself. Click here to view a demo of this theme.

Tazza Themes are used in digital merchandising sites. It is highlighting your products and Customers with the help of Woo commerce plugin. You can also change the navigation in the main menu. Tazza WordPress Theme which is very easy to use Click here to view a demo of this theme.

Calyx is a minimalist theme designed for single-page web-sites. That includes a coming-soon sample on the homepage, Calyx is an ideal option to unfold the phrase in regards to the upcoming opening of a restaurant, restaurant, or bar. Click here to view a demo of this theme.

Muscat is an easy-running blog theme with grid put-up templates and a centred put-up structure. Its geometric sans-serif typography contributes to a pleasant, comfy, and fashionable studying expertise. Click here to view a demo of this theme.

Loudness is a daring opinionated theme created with music training in thoughts. Use Web site Editor tooling and related patterns to create novel expertise. you can also read 6 best WordPress themes in this blog which can help you to change the look of your site Click here to view a demo of this theme. Keep tuned for extra updates about new themes, patterns, blocks, and different thrilling product updates! And make sure to click on under to try the complete showcase of themes we provide: Technicalwod bring a new article on WordPress themes for your sites Read the full article

[nohashaikh87]

5 celebrities who dazzled 2022 wearing Falguni Shane Peacock's Designer Dresses

Priyanka Chopra Jonas From Priyanka Chopra Jonas to Madhuri Dixit Nene, the Bollywood divas absolutely rocked the year in a style of their own, wearing the phenomenal bespoke creations by Falguni Shane Peacock.

                                                Explore Now

The year's calling for an end and it's time to relish and count the blessings that served the year with joy, excitement and some unmissable fashion inspirations. Taking a look back, our Bollywood celebrities served us with some breathtaking looks this year that stood out in terms of design, detailing and uniqueness. The magnanimous charisma of glamour and grace was lived and flaunted in creations of top Indian luxury designers–Falguni Shane Peacock. 

An occasion as close and intimate as Diwali or as eventful as a finale episode of a reality show, Falguni Shane Peacock had something to delight every proposed occasion. 

Keep scrolling to thorough yourself with the style statements that your favourite celebrities attempted to cast in Falguni Shane Peacock:

1) Madhuri Dixit Nene

                                                       Shop Now

The ensemble was styled with a cropped, cold-shoulder blouse and adorned with tassels. The actor was seen wearing the Falguni Shane Peacock creation for the finale episode of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, season 10–a dance reality show, where she serves as a jury member.

Madhuri Dixit Nene elevated the style and glamour quotient in the custom-made ivory saree by Falguni Shane Peacock looking ethereal, as always. The intricately-detailed ivory saree was replete with chrome appliqué details, making the creation absolutely impeccable and exquisite. 

2)  Priyanka Chopra Jonas

                                                 Shop Now

The Chopra-Jonas family wrapped in the bespoke creations of Falguni Shane Peacock were a delight to witness during the festival of lights, Diwali. Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Nick Jonas and their baby Malti Marie Chopra Jonas donned Falguni Shane Peacock's exemplary creations at their private, intimate yet celebratory affair.

The trio opted for a matching ensemble that was heavily embroidered with traditional motifs. The actor, Priyanka Chopra Jonas sported a Chikankari sharara with a crop top, pairing it with a full sleeve, floor-length jacket. Whereas Nick Jonas was seen wearing an ivory silk kurta with an embroidered collar and neckline, which was similar to the detailing of the ensemble created for baby Malti Marie Chopra Jonas.

3)   Sonakshi Sinha

                                                       Shop Now                                                    

Sonakshi was seen redefining every bit of glamour and elegance in the moss green lehenga and sunshine yellow anarkali by Falguni Shane Peacock. The actor was all dolled up for the shoot of her brand Soezi’s festive collection. 

The moss green, handcrafted lehenga was replete with architectural motifs and was adorned with light gold crystals, sequins and beads. The outfit was styled using a cropped, full-sleeved blouse and a tulle dupatta with traditional motifs. The sunshine yellow anarkali was replete with geometric and architectural motifs in chrome appliqué and was enhanced with feathers on the sleeves. The outfit was styled with a beautiful tulle dupatta.

4)   Nora Fatehi

                                               Shop Now

It's officially the year of Nora Fatehi. Be it a reality show or a happening event, Nora never fails to leave an everlasting impression. And we are witnessing every bit of this closely and glamorously. 

The actor, singer, dancer have seemed to be wooed by the creations of Falguni Shane Peacock. It can be attested by the fact that the artist was seen wearing Falguni Shane Peacock at two of the most important events of the year–Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, where she serves as a jury member and FIFA Fan Festival 2022, where she amazed the audience with her impeccable singing and dancing skills. 

The artist was seen wearing a custom-made light beige-based saree-gown with a short trail at one of the episodes in season 10. The saree-gown was adorned with crystals, sequins and Swarovski stones. The ensemble was paired with a handcrafted, embellished blouse replete with tassels.

Fatehi further dazzled the FIFA Fan Festival 2022 in a custom-made, handcrafted catsuit in the hues of champagne gold and silver. The outfit was embellished with numerous Swarovski crystals, silver stones, tassels and adorned with a waist-belt made of chainstones, crystals and long tassels, along with a harness made of Swarovski crystals. The catsuit was styled with a diva pink enormous trail-jacket with feathers.

5)   Tamannaah Bhatia

                                                 Shop Now

Last but definitely not least, the actor to dazzle 2022 with a fashion statement that's bold and irresistible is Tamannaah Bhatia. The actor was recently seen in Falguni Shane Peacock's blue ombré, light gold chrome appliqué lehenga attending a private do. She looked nothing less than mesmerising and angelic. 

The designer lehenga was replete with intricate foliage and architectural motifs. It was paired with a handcrafted blouse adorned with sequins, beads and tassels, and styled with a tulle dupatta.

Final Words:- 

These celebrities truly dazzled 2022 with their experimental and unique style approaches. The above-shared glimpses are proof of the same. Falguni Shane Peacock marked an equal contribution in making these supremely talented celebrities look their best and thus, the creations by the designers have been some of the most acclaimed ones. To check and explore their exquisite collections, head to the online and offline stores of Falguni Shane Peacock.

[sangwooshusband]

Sangihun Roleplay AU that I wanna do so bad???

Childhood Friends, Florist X Tattoo Artist.

Florist! Gi-hun, starting up another business after his Chicken restaurant and Snack bar failed. He’s cheerful, optimistic, and specializes in producing floral creations for weddings, dates, confessions, proposals, etc….He can also offer some advice; yet his own love life has been failing, ironically. He loves when people come by in a frenzy, anxiously looking for the perfect assortment of frilly plants for their significant other, family member, or friend. Sometimes he takes his own bouquets home to give to his mother. In a way, he can express different emotions or messages through his assortments. Just say the word, and he’s got you. Example: “I need a bouquet that says f*ck you.” He’ll do it. He picked up flower arranging and assortment when he was a teen, but never thought to pursue it in the first place because it was more of a “closet hobby” for him.

Tattoo Artist! Sang-woo, rebelling against his old reputation and pursuing not only something he truly enjoys, but a talent he didn’t know he had. He’s brooding, a bit pessimistic, and specializes in Small tattoos and Geometric tattoos — though he could do anything else as well. What he enjoys most about it is getting to hear the stories of people around him, more so when the client has similar struggles. Being able to visually represent people (as well as himself) gives an odd sense of independence and a nudge at what the life of the “perfect prodigy” has really been like, without him having to say a word. I see Sang-woo having had a sketchbook when he was younger as a way of silently expressing his emotions. He just decided to turn it into something bigger with designs that required a bit more thought to understand. Having a tattoo is also seen as “messy” or “rebellious” which plays into his purpose and his desire to be more imperfect and unkempt.

— The tattoo shop and floral shop are located directly next to each other. Gi-hun had his spot longer and was aware there was gonna be a tattoo shop right beside him. Of course he didn’t know his old bestie was running it. 💁🏽‍♀️✨

— For some reason, I see the salesman being like..an old rival of Sang-woo’s 😭 Of course he’s not a salesman in this AU because the games aren’t a thing. Like imagine him also being super smart and wanting to be better than Sang-woo. I feel that Sang-woo would still literally hate him while Gi-hun gets along so well with him now. I call the name Seok-woo like in Train to Busan. It’s his unofficial name ‘cause he doesn’t have one lmao.

— might come back to add stuff idk ✨ but it could be fun

[yeonjuins]

woo!!! ok 😌i associate you with neutrals (your iconic brown+black+beiges), sharp + strong sensory things ... like cedar wood and dark chocolate, sharp and strong lines and shapes, graphic design in general............. and also now sonic the hedgehog+knuckles the echidna im so sorry <3 ilu KSDFJKFSF

KNUCKLES AHOSDINKMLAWD LITERALLY i didn't even know ugandan knuckles and SONIC'S BESTIE KNUCKLES WERE THE SAME KNUCKLES </3

it's making me so unbelievably happy to hear that people associate me with neutral tones ((": also been a little surprising to hear ppl associate me with stuff like my line usage in my gfxs or geometric shapes because of the editorial style i try to go for (":

what do you associate me with?

[unpeumacabre]

love is blindness: chapter 1

There was a click as Bilbo thrust open his door and glared out on Dwalin’s grave face. “Did Thorin send you?” demanded Bilbo, too incensed to care about propriety. “He wants to see you,” rumbled Dwalin. “He’s sorry.” “I like that!” shouted Bilbo. “Oh, I like that, very much! Well, you can tell the king, he can bloody well come and tell me himself, if he can find the time out of his busy schedule, and if it so pleases him!” and he slammed the door in Dwalin’s face. * Things have changed ever since Thorin's gold-sickness, and Bilbo no longer knows what to think of his relationship with Thorin. When he becomes the object of affections from a new dwarf friend of his, Thorin's seemingly-easy acceptance of their relationship both infuriates and confuses him. or, the one where Bilbo is courted, and Thorin doesn't want to interfere, bc he is NOT a dark fuck prince, and he wants Bilbo to be happy most of all.

there will be an eventual bagginshield happy ending though, don’t worry :)

Rating: General Audiences

Relationships: Bilbo/Thorin, Dwalin/Ori very slightly, at the end

Read on AO3 (bc tumblr messes up the formatting)

Count: 15k

next chapter is already done and will be out next week!

this started out as one sentence in my notes: i must counter dfp thorin somehow

& over the course of conversations w aidan (mistergoblin on ao3, @daddysdevito on tumblr) where we both ranted about our mutual hate for common portrayals of thorin and bilbo in fics, somehow i came up with this monster. so thank you aidan for the beta and for our conversations :) guys check him out, he's amazing

*

It all started with the gifts.

Or rather, Bilbo supposed, it started with Thorin Bloody Oakenshield. Had started with that dinner to celebrate the reclamation of the mountain, with the Ered Nimrais, Ered Luin, Iron Hills, Ered Mithrin and even Orocarni royalty in residence, when Thorin had lifted Bilbo’s hand to his mouth, and named him Khuzdbâha, Dwarf-friend.

Some days Bilbo could still feel a ghostly imprint of Thorin’s lips against the back of his hand. He rather thought Thorin had been drunk at the time, because there hadn’t been any such incidents since then.

So, yes, Bilbo supposed the whole affair started with Thorin’s hand in his, and the warmth of his smile…

*

A pompous knock on the doors of Mr Bilbo Baggins, Ringwinner, Luckwearer, Barrel-rider and Khuzdbâha, woke the hobbit from his slumber one early morning in June. Bilbo looked at the clock on his wall and groaned. Half-past five - a full half hour before he usually rose and took breakfast. What could possibly be so urgent as to demand his attention at so early an hour?

Pulling his dressing-gown tightly around him, he stumped grumpily to the door and yanked it open.

A little beardling of roughly forty years stood before his door, a wilful smile on his face and his hands outstretched. On his palms was placed a large war-helm, intricately decorated with sharp geometric designs and a veritable excess of rubies and diamonds and other unnameable stones.

Bilbo just squinted at it, and thought it was rather too early in the morning to face this sort of nonsense.

When a few seconds had passed with no response forthcoming from Bilbo, the beardling’s mouth twisted into a petulant scowl.

“A delivery for Bilbo Baggins,” he said, shoving the helm at Bilbo insistently. “Are you Bilbo Baggins?”

“Yes, but I fail to see…”

“Then this is for you, Mister Baggins, isn’t it?” the beardling said, rather pointedly this time. Bilbo took the package.

He watched the little dwarrow trot down the hall and disappear somewhere into the gloom. Bilbo wondered if the gift was, perhaps, from one of the members of the Company. Or, dare he hope, from a certain dwarf king?

The thing was, Bilbo had seen neither hide nor hair of that particular dwarf since that dinner with the dwarrows of the other clans. When Thorin had given Bilbo rooms in the royal wing, Bilbo had rather thought it had meant Thorin would be popping around occasionally for a drink or two.

Well, Thorin was busy. It wasn’t an easy task being the ruler of a kingdom rich in coin, but not in resources or people - not yet, at least. And these days it seemed like Thorin was far too busy to afford attention even to his dear friends, the dwarrows of the Company, much less time to spare for an unimportant hobbit like himself.

So Bilbo shut the door behind him, and went to find Balin.

The king’s advisor was always up before the crack of dawn, as was his custom, and so Bilbo’s knock on his door was answered promptly. He looked at the helm in Bilbo’s hand, and his face changed.

“I think you’d best come in, Bilbo,” he said kindly, and relieved Bilbo of the helmet. He set it down on an adjacent table and gestured for Bilbo to sit.

“Did you receive this gift this morning?” Balin asked, sitting down and offering a chair to Bilbo. Bilbo nodded. “It was delivered by a little beardling,” he answered. “Do you have any idea as to its origins? I have to admit, I’m completely stumped as to why anyone would wish to gift me with such a… such a… such an extravagant present. Is it anyone’s birthday today, perhaps? Or,” he continued slowly, his brow furrowing, “a practical joke? I must say, I thought most dwarrows rather above immature tricks like this…”

“It’s no prank, laddie,” Balin said, shaking his head, “neither is it a birthday present. It’s a courting gift. These designs on the helm are of the Ironfists, an eminent clan from the Red Mountains, and this sigil,” here he lifted the headpiece and indicated a small insignia imprinted in the centre of the helmet’s visor, “’tis the sigil of the dwarven prince Zdenek.”

“A courting gift?” Bilbo exclaimed, his mouth falling open in disbelief. “But I hardly even know the dwarf! Why, all I remember of him is that he sat across from me during Thorin’s celebratory dinner, and that he had a rather excessively-flamboyant coat. I spoke barely two words to him the entire evening!”

Balin looked at him. It was a pitying gaze. “One thing you must understand, Bilbo,” he said kindly, “is that for Thorin to name you Khuzdbâha - it was no small feat. Few outside our people are granted this title, and Thorin is a king especially known for his reticence and slowness to trust. As the new leader of Erebor, a kingdom rich in gold, Thorin is vulnerable, and there are many who would seek to take advantage of the trust he gives so rarely.”

“So what you mean by that…” Bilbo said slowly. “I am seen as a useful shortcut to influencing the throne of Erebor? But that’s ridiculous!” He found he suddenly had to sit down, and cover his face with his hands to hide his confusion. “I am hardly as dear a friend to Thorin as that,” he said, his voice forlorn. “There are others - you, Dwalin, the princes… even Óin and Glóin, as relatives to Thorin, would surely be seen as more suitable candidates through whom Thorin can be wooed.”

A hand rested gently on his back, and Bilbo looked up at Balin, whose eyes were as warm and understanding as ever. “I think you are underestimating the value Thorin places in you, Bilbo,” he murmured. “He values your friendship greatly. No less than before your giving of the Arkenstone to Thranduil and Bard.”

Privately Bilbo thought his words to be untrue. If his friendship were treasured by Thorin to such an extent, surely they would have seen more of each other in the past month, instead of the endless meetings and council sessions which had diverted Thorin’s attention. Surely the celebratory dinner would not have been the first time Thorin had gazed upon him with such warmth in his eyes (as it had been). Surely Thorin would have deigned to speak more than the word or two spoken in passing greeting to him over the past few months.

“Talk to him, laddie,” Balin advised. “Let him know of your troubles. For this will not be the last courting gift you receive unsolicited, and Thorin has the power to protect you from further propositions.”

Bilbo nodded, but in his heart he resolved to keep the matter to himself. Perhaps there would not be so many presents as all that. Surely Balin was exaggerating, the old pessimist that he was. And Bilbo felt sufficiently comfortable in the fact that, as a hobbit, his natural physical repugnance and oddities to the dwarrows who knew him not would outweigh any political capital gained with Thorin through his friendship. There would be no more gifts, he was sure.

*

There were more gifts. In copious amounts, and all in bad taste. It was absurdly clear, now that he knew what to look for, that none of these dwarrows sought to court him due to any interest in his personality, or who he was. Bilbo was gifted with necklaces dripping with precious stones that would have hung around his neck like millstones, bracers with intricate designs of which he understood little, and even a multitude of throwing daggers upon which he had almost cut himself. These were presents of an utterly unhobbitly nature, and as such he felt no qualms at all about very firmly telling the messengers who brought the gifts that they could take the presents and shove it right up the senders’ -

Unfortunately, the deluge of gifts did not slow, and in fact, seemed to grow larger by the day. Soon Bilbo began to recognise some of the repeat offenders by name. Prince Zdenek of the Orocarni was one, the dwarf who had sent the initial gift, and who was fond of gifting war implements Bilbo had absolutely no interest in using. Lady Ardris of the Iron Hills was another dwarrow who refused to take no for an answer, and sent increasingly-extravagant jewelleries on a daily basis. And then there was Lord Wili, a distant relative of Dain Ironfoot, who insisted on sending self-composed poems extolling the virtues of his dwarven axe and singing rhapsodies to Bilbo’s ‘jewel-laden caverns’.

At least the last poem had given Bilbo a bit of a laugh. Wili was, if anything, creative about the words he could get to rhyme with ‘mine-shaft’, and as a writer, Bilbo could admit to being entertained by bawdy word-play.

But enough was enough! It had gotten so bad that Bilbo had briefly considered raising the issue to Thorin because, as Balin had so kindly pointed out, if anyone could put a stop to it, Thorin could. When Bilbo and Ori had been discussing the restoration of the library one Tuesday afternoon, they had turned the corner and walked straight into Thorin and his retinue. Bilbo had opened his mouth to speak (because just that afternoon he had received a distinctly phallic-shaped gold fountain, and surely there was no going lower after that).

Then Thorin had noticed them and said, rather distractedly, “Ah - Ori and Master Baggins, good afternoon. Kolmar, if you have the estimates for the weaving guild, you can put those on my desk by tomorrow. And Tryggwi, gather the numbers for the mining expedition, you know how Bofur goes on if they’re not delivered on time - “

And Bilbo had promptly closed his mouth, his cheeks red, and scurried past the group of dwarrows.

Eventually, things came to the point that even Dwalin noticed, and came to speak to Bilbo about it.

“Laddie, ye’ve got to get Thorin to do something about this,” was the first thing he said. Bilbo glared at him.

“I’m not going to involve Thorin in this,” he declared. “I can handle it myself. It’s only a couple of dwarrows, after all.”

“What’re ye going to do?” asked Dwalin, and he sounded genuinely curious.

Bilbo huffed. “I’m going to… I’m going to give them a stern talking-to, that’s what I’ll do!” he exclaimed. “No hobbit should be disrespected like this. Why, if you could only see the awful THINGS people are giving me… oh, right, you tripped over one on your way in. That one’s from Wili. He’s fond of gifts with puerile, penile innuendoes. Perhaps it’s his name. Some sort of unconscious desire to prove himself worthy of such an epithet… but the point is, it’s not right, treating a good gentlemanly hobbit like this. I’m going to talk to them and… and… and tell them off!”

Dwalin nodded seriously. “Aye,” he said, “and when that fails, you’ll talk to Thorin?”

“I am not talking to Thorin Bloody Oakenshield!” fumed Bilbo.

“Why’re ye so opposed to asking Thorin to help ye out?” Dwalin asked. “Ye know he could solve this in a pinch. Be more than happy to, in my opinion.”

“Well, you have your opinion, and I have mine,” Bilbo sniffed. He abruptly wilted, and placed his hand on a nearby chair to steady himself. “And my opinion’s that I’ll not be bothering Thorin about this matter. Not when he’s so busy with the upcoming diplomatic expedition from the elves, and the three-month anniversary dinner for Erebor’s reclamation, and the million other things kings are responsible for. I’m not going to bother him about my problems, not when he has so much to do.”

“Laddie,” Dwalin rumbled, “ye know Thorin would drop everything at the drop of a dwarven war helm to help ye out. Especially if it concerns dwarrows courting ye against your will.”

“That’s not true,” said Bilbo, weakly. “If that were true, then why haven’t I seen - I thought, after the gold-sickness - no. He’s busy, Dwalin. I mustn’t bother him about these unimportant things.”

“He’s a fool,” said Dwalin sternly, disapprovingly.

“I refuse to talk about this anymore,” Bilbo said stubbornly, and stumped off to find elevenses. Honestly! Dwarrows! An empty-headed, dragon-licking, gravel-skinned bunch, the lot of them!

*

In the end Bilbo had no choice in the matter. He supposed it was a cruel twist of fate in recompense for the names he had called Dwalin in his head. Although he had felt rather sorry afterwards, and baked Dwalin a fresh batch of cookies as an apology.

The fact was, Bilbo had been happily going around his normal business, when he realised that his button had come off and fallen to the ground. Being fond of the golden buttons Dori had painstakingly sewn back onto his burgundy waistcoat, he had bent to retrieve the button, and in so doing, became privy to a conversation he would rather have avoided.

It seemed that dwarrows were, as with most other bigger races, not immune from the remarkable ability of hobbits to blend into the furniture. As Bilbo straightened up, he realised that firstly, he had stepped into a small, dark side alley sheltered from the main passageway. And secondly, that Prince Zdenek, of the Ironfist clan, had stopped just outside the entrance to the alley, and was in the middle of a very deep conversation with another dwarf.

“And he won’t accept any of your gifts? Disgraceful!” said the second dwarf, in a loud and rather scandalised voice.

“Yes, well, what can one do?” Zdenek said, with a magnanimous sigh. “It is difficult for a halfling to recognise the great honour heaped upon him when a dwarf of my eminence deigns to court him. Then again, it must be the prolonged exposure to those dwarrows of the house of Durin. A magnificent bloodline, that’s to be sure, but…” he leaned his head closer to the other dwarf’s, and, with a smug smile, made a circling motion with his finger round his head. “Recently a little touched in the head, no? Such a pity that so exalted a line should fall prey to the vagaries of illness.”

“They’ve always been a queer lot, the Longbeards,” said the other voice. Bilbo thought it rather a nasty voice, grasping and eager to please. “When they sought our help, I think you were right to turn them away. Your father was far too weak to do so. After all, what could they have offered us? They did not bring much of the mithril from Erebor with them, and even so, they are a jealous people. They would have kept the best of the lot, and saved us their meagre leftovers. Best that you sent them away before they could drag the rest of us down with them.”

Best that they left before they found themselves in a nest of vipers like yours! Bilbo snarled in his head. So Zdenek had been one of those responsible for refusing aid to the Ereborean refugees when they had been rendered homeless by Smaug. He was about to step out of the alley and challenge them to take their words back, when, suddenly, he felt a warm hand at his back.

Thorin stood behind him, accompanied by Dwalin and another guard, and dressed in his usual finery. His eyes were cold with fury, and his hand shook. Bilbo could feel the heat from his hand radiating through even the thick fabrics of his clothes, and he found that he could not move.

The conversation continued, Zdenek and his companion clearly unaware of the unseen listeners.

“But surely the gifts you gave the halfling were not crafted of your own hand?” asked the other unknown dwarf. “I do not recall seeing you in the forges of Erebor. Nor did you bring any of your crafts with you from Halrubínu.”

Zdenek scoffed, his tone derisive. “As if I would grace the palm of a queer-looking creature as that with the honoured works of my hands! What you speak of is errant foolishness, Stráhek. No, the halfling likely knows little of our most sacred customs, and will be happy enough with works bartered from other smiths.”

“Your marriage will bring great sadness to many of the dams and dwarrows who court you, my prince. And yet there are many also who strive to win the hand of the halfling. The gifts - ”

Zdenek waved his hand dismissively, and sneered down at Stráhek. “’Tis impossible for any dwarf to best Zdenek Keen-eye, prince of the Ironhills, slayer of the Orocarni. Once the halfling recognises my virtues he will all but grovel at my feet to earn my hand in marriage.” He sighed, and turned his attention to one of the many gemstone-encrusted rings that encircled his thick, stubby fingers. “The only thing I regret is that I should have to stoop to such heights to elevate the repute of our great house. To marry a halfling? And such odd, queer looking creatures they are too.”

Well, that was a little bit hurtful. Bilbo blinked, and unconsciously his hand clutched at his chest.   

But the dwarf was not done with his tirade. “Those tales of the halfling’s bravery, and of how they earned him his place beside Thorin Oakenshield - I believe them not,” he scoffed. “It is plain he bought his way to eminence, not with gold, for he has none, but by the spreading of his loins. Why else would such an unworthy, unimportant, effably witless - “

Bilbo was bowled over. The hand burning a hole through his back abruptly disappeared, and Thorin swept past him in a flash of opulent purple robes. Zdenek was suddenly and quickly elevated above the ground, with Thorin holding his collar in a very firm, and unyielding, grasp. Stráhek let out a shriek and attempted to scuttle off, but was soon waylaid by Dwalin’s war-axes placed threateningly in his way.

“Lord Zdenek,” he said, and his eyes were as chips of ice. “I urge you to consider your next words very, very carefully. You speak of a hero of Erebor, one who carries the favour of the heirs of Durin, dwarrows who happen to be your liege.”

Zdenek spluttered. His face was turning a curious mottled colour, and his mouth moved shapelessly as if he were trying to form words. Heedless of his discomfort, Thorin yanked the dwarf closer, till they were nose to nose, and stared into his eyes.

“And what did you mean,” he said very softly, “when you said you were courting him?”

Bilbo stumbled to his feet and placed a hand on Thorin’s arm. Thorin started, abruptly, looking at Bilbo as if he had forgotten the hobbit was there, then almost unconsciously, his hand relaxed and Zdenek fell to the floor with an unceremonious thump. He coughed violently, clutching at his throat and staring with wide, fear-filled eyes at Thorin.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty!” he cried, scrambling hastily backwards on his bum as Thorin prowled towards him. “I - I knew not of which I spoke - I meant no disrespect to the halfling - “

“Dwalin,” Thorin said. There was a curious inflection in his voice that made Bilbo turn towards him, but Thorin was not looking at him. “Kindly return Lord Zdenek to his quarters. And please inform King Zdenka that the terms of our trade agreement may need to be renegotiated, and that I will meet him tomorrow in the council chamber to discuss our new terms.”

“But - you can’t do that!” screeched Zdenek. His gaudy robes had fallen off his shoulder in the scuffle. As a result he looked rather smaller, and strangely diminished, in Bilbo’s eyes, crouching ignobly at Thorin’s feet like a creeping loathsome worm. “The terms have already been negotiated! You cannot change your terms because - because of a halfling!” he spat.

“Your vitriol has no place in these halls, Master Dwarf,” Thorin said coldly. “I believe your father is the king, not you. I deal with dwarrows of calibre and nobility, Zdenek, qualities I am afraid you sorely lack, and I have not the time for spoiled princelings who seek to slander and defame one of my - one of this kingdom’s dearest friends. Dwalin?” he turned to the guard.

“With pleasure,” Dwalin growled. He gripped Zdenek’s shoulder, lifting him to his feet bodily and dragging him down the hall, along with a screeching and wailing Stráhek.

Only then did Thorin turn to Bilbo.

“You are unhurt?” he said, gently. Bilbo blinked, then looked down at himself in puzzlement.

“He did not touch me,” Bilbo answered, confused. Thorin let out a gravelly chuckle, tinged with surprise, as if the sudden moment of levity had startled even him.

“No, Master Baggins - I meant, did his words do you harm?”

“Oh! Well,” Bilbo paused and considered the question. The twinge that had appeared in his chest at Zdenek’s words had quite passed, soothed in the face of Thorin’s obvious ire on his behalf. He shook his head. “No, I’m quite alright. It would take rather more than Master Zdenek’s unkind words to irk me.”

“Good,” Thorin said quietly. “I am glad of that.”

There was a slow, sure warmth in Thorin’s eyes as he gazed upon Bilbo, a kind of curious tenderness which did funny things to Bilbo’s insides. It inspired some strange deep ache in Bilbo’s chest, for he had not seen that expression on Thorin’s face for quite some time, not since - not since -

It was quite a discomfiting feeling, so he cleared his throat and tried for a reassuring smile. “I assure you I’m quite alright. You don’t need to fuss over me so, Thor - Your Majesty.” He made the correction rather hastily, having always referred to Thorin by name in his head, but he suddenly thought the epithet more appropriate.

Immediately Bilbo regretted the change, for it was as if a wall had suddenly descended over Thorin’s eyes. Thorin stepped back, inclining his head formally, and Bilbo found himself fiercely missing the heat of his body.

There was a moment of awkward silence, as Thorin tried to recompose himself, and Bilbo called himself some rather rude names in his head.

“You did not tell me there were dwarrows courting you,” Thorin said at last. Bilbo started.

“Oh! Well - yes, I suppose I didn’t. To be honest, I thought I could manage the situation on my own, but just declining the gifts didn’t work. I don’t know why these confounded dwarrows insist on being so bloody stubborn - a no is a no, and repeatedly heaping me with gifts won’t change my answer! And to learn that dwarrows were courting me to earn favour with the throne of Erebor - why, it made me furious, it did, thinking that there were dwarrows out there trying to use you in such an underhanded way - well, Dwalin said - “ Bilbo realised he was wringing his hands in nervousness, and forced himself to tuck them back into the pockets of his waistcoat.

Thorin’s brows descended like a black cloud down upon his blue eyes. “Dwalin knew?” he growled, almost incredulously. “He did not tell me. Mahal, when I get my hands on that tree-humping, dung-eating - “

“Oh, no, no,” Bilbo was quick to reassure him, “it wasn’t Dwalin’s fault. I expressly forbade him from telling you.”

Thorin stopped moving, and just looked at him. It was a hurt expression, and Bilbo did not like the way it looked on Thorin’s face. He rushed to explain.

“I didn’t want to bother you - ” He stumbled over his words. “You were so busy and everything - with the elvish expedition, and the upcoming celebration, and what seemed like a thousand different things - you know, I barely even see you anymore! Well, that’s not your fault, I suppose. You’re off doing kinging things. I understand. I didn’t want to bother you with my tiny problem. I thought I’d be able to resolve it on my own, you see. Except, well, I couldn’t.” Bilbo thought it rather for the best that he left out of the explanation the awful feeling which had swept over him when Thorin had so casually brushed past he and Ori in the halls. After all, on later reflection, he had decided that the feeling was likely guilt at even having thought of bothering Thorin at this inconvenient time, and had dismissed the thought accordingly.

“Bilbo,” Thorin said softly, “I will always have time for you. I am truly sorry that I gave you cause to doubt this.” He looked rather forlorn and tragically regal at the same time, with his great shoulders drooping and his mouth twisted angrily.

Bilbo forced a smile, and patted his shoulder where he could reach. “It’s not your fault, Thorin,” he said, deciding it would be best to address Thorin as such before it resulted in more incidents of the sulking nature. “Now cheer up! This matter’s come to an end now, and we’ll not see any more of these rascally suitors, I hope. I do appreciate your help, Thorin,” he said earnestly, slipping his hand back into Thorin’s, and trying to ignore how right the sensation felt. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the incidents before.”

Thorin was looking down at their hands clasped together. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to meet Bilbo’s, and this time they were hard and unyielding as rock.

“No,” he promised, “they will certainly not bother you again.”

*

“No,” Bilbo said firmly. “One dwarf is quite enough.”

Thorin glared at him from under stormy brows. “Master Baggins,” he growled, drawing himself up to his full height, and around Bilbo, the guards cowered back instinctively. Thorin made an impressive figure when angered and fully roused. “You do not know these dwarrows like I do. For them to have pressed their suit on you so insistently, and completely unsolicited - they are clearly careless of your feelings, and might potentially do you harm. Although we cannot detain them - “ (though we certainly tried, his tone implied) “we can try our best to stave off any attack they might make on your person.”

“With four dwarf guards I’ll certainly stave off most dwarrows!” spluttered Bilbo, refusing to be cowed. He drew himself to his full height also - though admittedly far less intimidating - and crossed his arms, forcing himself to stare straight into Thorin’s eyes. “I most certainly refuse to be saddled with four guards. Firstly, I hardly believe any dwarf, even the ones who have shown me such discourtesy, would resort to physical force to convince me to accept their suit. No, I am far from important enough to warrant such measures.” He held up a hand to silence Thorin as the king tried to interrupt, and Thorin shut his mouth with a mutinous expression. “Second, there are far better things for the guards to be doing - we’re shorthanded when it comes to repairs and restorations as it is already! And lastly,” he added pointedly, “I can take care of myself, Thorin. You of all people should know that.”

Thorin ran his hand through his hair in frustration, having evidently given up on intimidating Bilbo into submission. “I know that!” he snarled. His voice abruptly became softer, quieter, and he stopped pacing around the room, to look at Bilbo. “And well do I know that, Master Burglar. But I can assure you that, while giving you four guards may seem a tad excessive to you, it would certainly make me -” he caught himself, coughed - “make us feel better. The dwarrows of the Company, I meant. It would make us feel better, to know that you were adequately protected against any threats.”

“ One guard, Thorin,” Bilbo said sternly. “You may pick the guard, if you like. But know that if you try to have me subtly followed by more guards I will not have it, and I will tell Dís that you expressly and knowingly disobeyed my request.”

“Dís would take my side,” Thorin muttered petulantly, but it was a moot point - both of them knew Dís would likely side with Bilbo in any argument, largely because she felt he was the only one in Erebor with any semblance of good sense.

“Fine,” Thorin said at last. “One guard it is then.” He leveled Bilbo with a narrow glare that said he was far from satisfied with the conclusion of the argument. Bilbo ignored it. The exhilaration and adrenaline thrumming through his veins from his discourse with Thorin were, at the same time, both strange and painfully familiar. He had had many such arguments with Thorin on their journey, of course, petty tiffs over pipeweed and dinner and who was to have first watch, but these interactions had been distinctly lacking since Thorin had assumed the mantle of King Under The Mountain. It had not occurred to Bilbo until now how much he had severely missed these little seemingly-insignificant moments.

Bilbo met Thorin’s eyes. They looked at each other for a moment, and suddenly Bilbo felt an ache in chest. Where did we go wrong , he wanted to ask. When I stole the Arkenstone from you? When you held me over the ramparts and threatened my life? When I looked in your eyes and realised I didn’t recognise the dwarf I saw standing in front of me?

The gentle light in Thorin’s eyes from the dying embers of the fire flickered and danced, and for a moment Bilbo’s eyes went to Thorin’s lips - he thought, no, he so dearly wanted -

“Your Majesty,” coughed one of the guards, and Bilbo had never wanted to kill someone so dearly in his life.

Thorin withdrew abruptly and turned away. “Yes?” he said, sounding completely unaffected, and Bilbo quietly lifted a hand to his chest to still the thundering of his heart.

“Lady Dís is here,” said the offending guard. Bilbo had some rather uncharitable thoughts about, say, picking up the poker from the dying fire, and perhaps, thrusting it straight through the blasted dwarf’s heart. That would teach him to interrupt when Bilbo and Thorin were -

Were what? Having a moment?

Bilbo suddenly realised he was being rather silly. He and Thorin did not have moments, goodness no. Thorin was a lovely heroic king with a regal birthright stretching all the way back to the first dwarf sent by Mahal, and a most attractive mien, and Bilbo was…

Well, he was a foolish old hobbit, that was all, and foolish old hobbits did not have moments with tragically beautiful kings.

Besides, the look in Thorin’s eyes had likely been exasperation at his stubbornness. Oh dear, Bilbo fretted, he did so hope he hadn’t offended Thorin. He never knew what to say to Thorin nowadays, and sometimes he did let his temper get the better of him, forgetting that things were not as they once were.

While he had known of Thorin’s blue blood and his exalted status while on the journey, it had never really sunk in, and he had been as insolent as he wished with Thorin, with few consequences. Now the reality of Thorin’s birth was far clearer, with that awful crown and his awful kingly robes and how his attention was split between Bilbo and what seemed like every Yavanna-damned dwarf in Erebor!

But Bilbo was being selfish, he realised. He could not expect to have as much of Thorin’s attention as before. Thorin had a responsibility to his people - he had always had - and it was simply the responsibility of a king to treat all his subjects equally. Bilbo ignored the sharp pain in his heart at the thought. Yes, he would simply have to accept the fact that he was no longer as important to Thorin as he had been before.

Perhaps it was all for the best, he told himself, and tried to surreptitiously wipe at the edges of his eyes. His betrayal had rather shaken Thorin, had shaken him deeply, made him doubt who he could and couldn’t trust. It was one of the few things Bilbo had regretted about the whole affair - causing Thorin pain, that was. He remembered Thorin’s expression as he had held him off the ramparts all too clearly.

Perhaps he should really try to stop calling Thorin by his name and start addressing him by his proper epithet. He did not know why it irked Thorin so - perhaps some strange fancy of his - but it was the proper thing to do, after all. Yes, he would have to stop thinking of Thorin by his name in his head as well. It was only proper to start calling Thorin the King Under the Mountain. Only it was such an awfully long name…

Oh, bother! Bilbo had to wipe at his eyes again. Thorin’s - the king’s - rooms really were uncommonly dusty. He should have a word with the chambermaids, to tell them to dust more often - or rather, he should tell Balin to tell the chambermaids. It was not proper for one of his status to comment on the state of the royal rooms, not proper at all…

Oh, Bilbo thought furiously, how he absolutely despised that word!

*

Bilbo was having his breakfast in his rooms when there was a knock at the door. He opened the door to find a stranger on his doorstep.

“Hello!” said the stranger. He was a very funny-looking dwarf indeed. He had on the uniform of the palace guard, but he wore a large blue scarf that covered his neck and most of his chin. His hair was bright yellow, like flax fibre, and hung in an elegant halo around his head. His beard was one of the simplest Bilbo had ever seen - barring the king’s, of course - with the hairs of his beard gathered in a loose knot with an iron clasp and peeking out the bottom of his scarf. He had a fair face, for a dwarf, with ruddy cheeks, a clever mouth, and warm brown eyes.

He smiled at Bilbo. It was a merry smile, and Bilbo found himself inexplicably smiling in return.

A beat of silence passed, and Bilbo was suddenly aware that he was wearing only his dressing gown, having been unprepared for company. He hastily pulled close the edges of the gown, feeling an uncanny sense of déjà vu, and cleared his throat.

“And you are…?” he asked politely, when it seemed there would be no name forthcoming.

Immediately the dwarf swept down into a merry bow, revealing a large hefty mattock strapped to his back. He stood upright again with much jingling of his armour and scraping of his leather garb.

“Oddvar, son of Virdar, at your service!” he said smartly. “I am to be your new guard, Lord Baggins.”

“Goodness!” Bilbo said uncomfortably. “Lord Baggins? Why, I am not so esteemed as that. You must call me Bilbo, since it appears we will soon be spending much time together. I am afraid I am not dressed for company, but if you don’t mind my rudeness, you might want to come inside for a cup of tea?”

“Well, strictly speaking, Master Bilbo,” Oddvar said, a very stern expression on his face, “us guards aren’t allowed into the royal quarters. We’re supposed to stay outside and watch for intruders and ruffians and the like, you see. But,” he said, and his face suddenly split into another of those likeable grins as he leaned forward with a conspiratorial air, “I certainly won’t say no to a strong cup of tea. Only if it is to stay strictly between us, Master Baggins. I’m sure you won’t go telling on me now, would you?”

Bilbo’s eyebrows shot up. Then he burst out laughing.

“You insolent dwarf,” he said, unable to hide his smile, “I hardly know you, and yet you presume to put on airs? Well, I suppose you simply must come in now.” He opened the door a little wider and Oddvar strode in, ducking to avoid the ceiling, as he was rather a tall dwarf.

He sat down at the low table where Bilbo had been taking his meal. Bilbo prepared another plate heaped high with scones and slathered with fresh butter and jam from Dale.

Oddvar was an uncommonly polite dwarf, for he thanked Bilbo for the meal, and ate neatly with little mess. Bilbo squinted at him.

“Are you sure you’re a dwarf?” he said skeptically. “I have never met a dwarf who didn’t have half of his food in his beard by the time he finished his meal.”

“I am indeed an uncommonly unusual dwarf,” said Oddvar solemnly, as he carried his plate to the kitchen and washed it up. Bilbo poured them both a cup of tea, and they sat at the table again.

“You are from Ered Luin?” asked Bilbo, watching Oddvar over the rim of his cup, and observing the way he fiddled absently at the clasp at the end of his beard as he drank his tea.

“I was one of the refugees from Erebor who settled in Ered Luin, yes,” Oddvar replied. “I would have joined the Company on their journey, for I was eager to reclaim our home, but for my mother. She was sick with consumption when the king sought my help, and I could not in good conscience leave her sick and helpless while I went gallivanting halfway across Middle Earth.”

“How awful,” Bilbo said, feeling the statement rather inadequate. “How is your mother now? Did she travel here with you?”

“She passed two months ago,” Oddvar murmured quietly.

“Ah.”

They sat together in quiet silence for a few moments, then Oddvar made a visible effort to perk himself up.

“Well, Master Bilbo,” he said, with a smile, “what will your schedule be like today? I imagine an important personage like yourself would have many responsibilities in and around the mountain?”

Bilbo shook his head, suddenly feeling self-conscious, and wrapped his hands tightly around the cup I his hands. “I don’t have many responsibilities in Erebor. Just a few visits to friends today, I’m afraid. I’m not a very important person, you see.” Then, to stave off the platitudes which often followed such statements when he made them to his friends, he hurriedly added, “I suppose you know the reason why you’ve been employed as my guard?”

Oddvar nodded vigorously. “Overeager dwarrows hoping to cement their position and gather favour with our esteemed king through gaining your hand,” he growled. “You mustn’t fear, Master Bilbo. I will take good care to protect you from any unwanted solicitations.”

Bilbo waved his hands around in the air eloquently. “Nonsense!” he said, in a dismissive tone. “I’m quite sure it will amount to nothing, and that I’ll have wasted a large part of your time. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that any dwarrows would be driven to take action against me simply because I spurned their suit.”

“I think you quite underestimate your own attractiveness, Master Bilbo,” replied Oddvar, cocking his head and smiling. “We of Ered Luin have heard the tales of the role you played in the reclamation of Erebor, and many were present when King Thorin named you Khuzdbâha. ‘Tis a great honour none have been given since the time of Durin the Third, for we dwarrows are a fiercely private race who hold our secrets close within our kin and our peoples, and your title is surely an indication of the high esteem you are held in by our king.”

Bilbo felt rather pleased by the praise, although he rather thought Oddvar’s estimation of his importance in Thorin’s eyes rather exaggerated.

“Be that as it may,” he said primly, “most of my time is now spent in idleness.”

He averted his eyes and stared into the fire. “I wish I had my garden again. When first the dwarrows came to Bag End it was the height of spring, and the snapdragons were but freshly-bloomed. I wonder how my gardenias are doing,” he murmured, now mostly to himself. “Quite a fuss my mother made, when my father planted those fickle plants. Difficult to care for, and as capricious as the worst hobbit lass, and yet when they bloomed the fall my parents passed they were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” His memories of that autumn were clear as crystal - the snowy blossoms of the gardenias blooming hesitantly from the thick green shrubs at the edge of his father’s plot, the cold crisp air of the nights, the tears he had shed sitting on the bench in front of Bag End and remembering the sound of Belladonna’s laughter.

He hadn’t thought about his parents for a while. Hadn’t thought about his garden and his father’s beautiful gardenias, hadn’t thought about his lovely empty smial all dusty and quiet without his care, hadn’t thought about his soft armchair and his plush carpets and the old musty map of Rivendell hanging in his father’s study.

Perhaps he ought to start a garden. Certainly Erebor needed more greenery and growing things. He was going to go mad one of these days, surrounded with nothing but cold, silent rock and the artificial bright light of the crystal lamps. He needed the sun, the birdsong, the feeling of soil sifting under his bare feet; for he was a hobbit, and hobbits were not made to spend their lives in mountains and under stone.

He would ask Thorin - no, no, he would ask Balin. He would not trouble the king with this. He already felt somewhat of a burden, what with the whole courting debacle, and was now rather furious at himself for making a fuss out of what would surely have tided over in a few weeks if he’d just kept a level head and not blurted everything out to the king the moment he’d been questioned on the matter -

“You have worked with plants?” Oddvar said, and Bilbo’s head snapped around. He had completely forgotten about the other dwarf’s existence, and the question startled him.

It took him a few seconds to compose himself, before he could answer.

“I had a garden back - back in Bag End. In Hobbiton,” Bilbo answered, politely.

Oddvar leaned forward with a quick movement, propping himself on his knees and with a sparkle in his brown eyes which, now that Bilbo thought about it, contained a hint of a very familiar mischief. “You don’t say!” he exclaimed. “Master Bilbo, I must admit, I accepted this post partly out of curiosity, for halflings are such strange creatures - never before have I met a halfling, and I dearly wish to know more about you and your curious folk. Would you tell me more about yourself? That is,” he added with a grin, “if I’m not being too insolent. I wouldn’t like to offend you, after all, Master Bilbo.”

His excitement was contagious, and Bilbo found his mood unexpectedly bolstered. He smiled, glad of the distraction from his strange maudlin mood, and the unexpected interest in his species, for not many dwarrows outside the Company had expressed such attentiveness to him, and even deigned to speak to him. So it was thus that he began his lecture.

“Well, Master Oddvar, for a start, we do not like being called halflings, for we are not half of anything, much less men, who coined the derogatory term. It is far more polite to refer to us Shire-folk as hobbits, supposedly from the old Westron word Holbytlan…”

*

Unexpectedly, the king sought Bilbo three days later, and invited him for a meal in his quarters.

“I feel that I have been remiss in my treatment of you,” Thorin told him, in a rather intense sort of way, having cornered him in his chambers as Bilbo prepared to set out to meet Balin for luncheon. “You are a friend of mine, and yet I have not spoken to you proper since - well, since - “

“Yes, quite,” said Bilbo hastily, as he sensed that Thorin was about to say something maudlin, involving a topic which both were quite determined to avoid. “Tomorrow? I will be there.”

“Tomorrow, yes,” agreed Thorin. “And perhaps we could make it a weekly feature?” he murmured quietly, almost shyly. Bilbo blinked in surprise at the unexpected invitation.

“Oh - well, of course,” he said, and ventured a smile at Thorin. “I would love to have dinner with you tonight, Your Majesty.”

Thorin returned his smile, but it looked brittle and strangely sad. “Good,” he said, and took an abortive step forward, as if he had wished to come closer, but had ultimately thought better of him. Bilbo hovered awkwardly at the door, unsure if Thorin had more to say to him, or if they were done.

“If that’s all - “

“Bilbo - “

They spoke at the same time, and cut off their sentences abruptly. Bilbo stared at Thorin, feeling sweat bead on his brow. Thorin made a strange gesture with his hand, somewhere between a gesture forward and an exasperated wave of his hands, and Bilbo took it as his cue to speak.

“Balin’s expecting me,” he said, feeling his fingers tighten where they held onto the edge of the door. “I’ll just - I mean, we’ll see each other tonight, won’t we?”

“Yes. Yes, we will,” Thorin said, his smile looking more like a grimace now. He stood and edged his way out past Bilbo, where Oddvar stood, looking curiously at the both of them. “Good morning, Master Baggins. I look forward to seeing you tonight.”

When he had shut the door behind Thorin, he suddenly turned to Oddvar, who had followed him back into his rooms.

“When I’ve finished luncheon with Balin,” he said, realising his tone was unusually brusque, and making an effort to soften its edge, “won’t you show me round Erebor? I haven’t actually seen most of it, you know. I’d like to see some of the rooms which have been restored.”

Oddvar’s raised eyebrows registered his surprise, although he nodded. “But, Master Bilbo…” he ventured. “There are far more qualified dwarrows to be your guide. Lord Balin, perhaps, or one of the dwarrows from the Company. Or King Thorin himself. For him to visit you personally and invite you to dinner…”

Bilbo frowned. “I know not why I received such an invite,” he admitted, “although I must say it is both welcome, and extremely confusing! Why, I haven’t received such overtures of friendship from the king since we had - since we had our argument.”

“You mean, during his gold sickness, when he found out you gave the Arkenstone to King Bard?” asked Oddvar.

Bilbo looked sharply at him. “How did you know that?” he said, leveling him with a suspicious gaze. Surely there were few who knew of the events on the battlements that day. Where could Oddvar, a simple guard from Ered Luin, have heard about the incident?

“Oh - er, I’ve heard things here and there,” Oddvar said quickly, although he wasn’t quite quick enough to hide the startled flash in his eyes. Bilbo side-eyed him dubiously, but he met Bilbo’s gaze with an all-too-innocent smile.

“Hmm,” Bilbo said at last. He had too little time to ponder on this mystery, for Balin awaited him in his chambers, but he would certainly think on this further. What an interesting dwarf Oddvar, son of Vidar, was turning out to be…

*

Dinner with Thorin was a quiet and peaceful affair. Bombur, now the head chef of Erebor, served them dishes of dwarf-make but with hobbit-y touches, such as a delicious seed cake baked from Bilbo’s own recipe, and a lovely vegetable stew which Thorin made a valiant effort to get through. While their conversation had started out stilted and awkward, Bilbo was delighted that, over the course of the meal, their words flowed more easily, and a semblance of their past relationship began to return.

After the meal they retired to the armchairs by the fire. Bilbo began to stuff the barrel of his pipe and peeked at Thorin, sitting opposite him, from under his lashes. Thorin was puffing quietly at his pipe, his eyes closed, and humming in contentment.

“I hear you’ve spoken to Balin about setting up a garden in Erebor,” Thorin said, suddenly. Bilbo nodded.

“Yes, he said I could set it up on the eastern side of the mountain. There’s a little alcove there which isn’t being put to use, so he gave it to me. You… You don’t have any objections, do you?” Bilbo asked hesitantly.

Thorin shook his head and exhaled, the smoke pouring from his lips in a rather decadent fashion. Bilbo felt himself starting to sweat under his waistcoat. The fire was burning low, the flickering flames casting shadows along Thorin’s ruddy skin.

“It will be difficult to set up a garden in a mountain,” he said at length, “though it is not without precedent.”

“Yes, Balin told me,” Bilbo replied eagerly. He had been so enthused by the notion of his very own garden that he had practically bombarded Balin and Ori with questions as to how it might be arranged. “There was a garden in Moria, supplied with light by strategically placed mirrors and crystals, and rather elaborate, by all accounts. I thought I might take inspiration from there as to the finer logistics of the matter.”

Thorin nodded, his gaze fixed intently on the fire. “The gardens of Tharâkh Bazân, the jewel of Khazad-dûm,” he said, his voice quiet and far away. The Khuzdul words sent a shiver down Bilbo’s spine, said as they were in the deep guttural rumble of Thorin’s voice. “Though I know little of plants and trees, even I have heard of these gardens. ’Tis named Durin’s Garden in Westron, for Durin in his first incarnation built it deep within the passages of Durin’s Way. Although dwarrows may happily live their whole lives under the depths of a mountains, even the hardiest of us sometimes long for the touch of the sun on our faces, and the sight of the green things that grow on this earth. Thus Durin constructed this most magnificent of gardens, with help from the elves of Eregion - or Hollin, as it was then known.’

‘He filled it with the rarest and most exotic of trees and blossoms, and throughout all corners of the garden he installed great pools with water clear and cold, taken from the springs that feed naturally into the base of Zirakzigil. Over the years, the walls were etched with tales of the dwarven heroes who had made their mark in the battles of the Second and Third Ages against the Orcs of Gundabad and Angmar. In the centre of the garden was there placed the statue of my ancestor, the last king of Moria - Náin the First, who fell by the hand of the Balrog that slaughtered his father. Before we lost our kingdom, it was many a lore-master and academic who visited Khazad-dûm to look upon the many beautiful and rare plants that were so arranged in Tharâkh Bazân. It was the envy of many races, and one of the prides of our people - that, even deep underground, the masterful craftsmanship of the dwarrows could bring forth green things to grow, and that they could survive under our untutored hands.”

By this time, his eyes were half-closed, the tone of his voice dreamy and reverent. It was as if in his mind’s eye he saw the great halls of Moria once more before him, those soaring ceilings and the weathered carvings on the walls of his ancestral home, which he knew and loved purely from the stories of his scholars alone. As Thorin spoke, Bilbo had a sudden vision of this named underground garden.

Although he had never looked upon it in his life, and never would, he could picture its magnificence now, in his mind, and more. He could imagine the beautiful plants and flowers which had once blessed those hallowed grounds, and which had surely fallen into disrepair and neglect. But although the image was inspiring, he rather thought for his garden -

Thorin suddenly opened his eyes as if he had heard Bilbo’s thoughts, and his eyes were very blue indeed as they gazed intensely into Bilbo’s own.

“But of course,” he murmured, “your garden will be a hobbit garden. Simple, and useful, and beautiful in its simplicity. Without dwarven splendour and flamboyance. I think that is altogether a good thing.”

Bilbo cleared his throat. “Well, yes - of course, my own endeavour would not be so ambitious. I hardly see my little hobbit garden filled with statues of dwarven kings and heroes and all. Just a simple affair, as you said - some herbs, flowers if I can find any, plants I had in Bag End, that’s all.”

“The resources of Erebor are at your disposal,” Thorin said formally. “Gold will be no object. You have a hard-won obligation to our treasure, after all.”

“Yes, I had thought of asking Bard for some transplants from Dale, and perhaps even the elves. Say what you will about them, they do have a way with plants, and I do need all the help I can get. As for the irrigation and lighting and all, Balin has been more than helpful in offering the aid of Erebor’s architects and smiths.”

“Hmm,” Thorin said. It was a pleased hum that reverberated around the room. “You must show me the garden once it is complete. While I am no connoisseur of plants or other growing things, I would be honoured if you were to show me the fruits of your labours.”

“Of course,” Bilbo said, suddenly finding himself rather breathless.

“It is good that you are finding something to do,” Thorin said softly. His eyes glinted in the firelight. “I had worried that you would be bored in Erebor, for I know you find little interest in our dwarvish hobbies and ways.”

There wasn’t really anything Bilbo could say to that, so he hummed in reply and blew out a smoke ring of a diameter he was rather proud of.

“And how is Oddvar?” Thorin asked, tapping his pipe against the arm of his armchair to get rid of the ash.

The thought of that strange dwarf brought an involuntary smile to Bilbo’s face. “He really is a most curious dwarf indeed!” Bilbo exclaimed. “I asked him to guide me about Erebor this afternoon, after I took my luncheon with Balin, and he brought me to the auction halls, of all places. Although it is only half-restored, already it is bustling with merchants and vendors from the dwarf settlements. It was a pleasant change to see the halls so filled with life, when previously it was laid waste to by Smaug. He took me to the food stalls to sample dwarven cuisine. I did not know Erebor specialised in ham, although it was an enlightening experience to try ham cured in the halls of the Lonely Mountain, certainly one no other hobbit can boast! And there was a quite strange dish, I think brought from as far as Dorwinion - some sort of pickled bat organ - I shudder to think what it could have been, though Oddvar assured me it was an exotic delicacy craved by many.’

‘He really was awfully kind, you know. He gave me this - “ Bilbo took out a package from his pocket and unfolded it, revealing a brooch worked with intricate designs of a purple gardenia. “He says he was quite inspired by my speech the other day on the beauty of my father’s gardenias, and was moved to craft this brooch for me last night! Although how he found the time to craft it I will never guess. Look, isn’t it beautiful?” he said excitedly, brandishing the brooch towards Thorin.

Although Thorin had been regarding him with a rather indulgent smile up until this point, as Bilbo proffered the brooch towards him, the smile fell from his face and his eyes seemed to harden.

“A fine piece of work indeed,” he said, with a blank expression on his face, and made no move to take the brooch.

Bilbo frowned at him. “You don’t want to take a closer look?” he pressed. “Why, I met Dori on the way here and showed him it, and he said it was marvellous indeed - in fact, I could hardly get him to part with it and return it to me, so taken was he with its beautiful craftsmanship! I did not know Oddvar was such a masterful craftsman. Perhaps I should commission him to make a gardening pail for my new garden. Something not too ostentatious, something simple and robust, that I could use…”

“I will make the pail for you,” Thorin said firmly. He dropped his pipe carelessly onto the floor and leaned closer.

“Master Baggins,” he said earnestly, his hands closing over Bilbo’s and hiding the brooch from view, as if he could not bear to look upon it, “I beg you to remember, you must be careful. Remember that there are many dwarrows who seek to win your favour and take advantage of you.”

Bilbo blinked up at him, and decided the appropriate reaction would be to give a nervous laugh. “That’s absurd,” he said. “Oddvar’s not - he’s not like the other dwarrows. He’s not trying to gain my favour in an underhanded way. Although I’ve only known him for three days now, I consider myself a good judge of character, you know. He’s - I’m sure he’s just being friendly and trying to get me to feel comfortable here, that’s all.”

Yavanna knows he’s done more towards that quarter than some I might name , he thought, although he immediately regretted his spiteful thoughts.

Thorin’s eyes darkened, but he didn’t say anything in reply, and leaned back into his chair. Bilbo felt the mood rather spoiled by this, and he stared into the fire, the earlier ease of his words lost. There was a silence for a good long while after that, not the comfortable silences of dinner, but a heavy one, heavy with words unspoken and unwilling.

As a result, Bilbo excused himself rather earlier than he would have liked. As he rose to leave, and stood by the door to say goodnight, Thorin abruptly came round the table and laid a hand on his arm.

“I apologise, Master Baggins,” he rumbled, and Bilbo felt a little dizzy from his proximity. “I must admit, my concern for you sometimes manifests in unpleasant ways. I am sorry if I caused you any discomfort.”

He had a contrite expression on his face, and Bilbo found himself softening. He patted Thorin’s arm rather awkwardly. “Well, no harm done, I suppose,” he said, shaking his head. “Just, I think you’re completely wrong about Oddvar, you know. He’s a good dwarf. Or I assume you know so, seeing as you’re the one who employed him to guard me, after all.”

“Dís was the one who recommended him to me,” Thorin said, looking still unhappy about the whole affair. “If it were up to me…”

“Yes, yes, I know, if it were up to you I’d be surrounded by four dwarrows watching over my every movement, every hour of the day,” Bilbo replied, smiling and meaning it as a joke, but he sighed as Thorin’s expression became even more forlorn and crestfallen. Wishing to end their evening not on so dour a note, he patted Thorin’s arm again - a rather patronising gesture, he now thought - and gazed up at him.

“I’ll see you next week then, Thorin?” he said quietly, deciding that perhaps, just this once, he could ignore his inner resolution to refer to Thorin by his kingly epithet. True to form, as Thorin’s name left his lips, the eyes of the king in question became warm and liquid as he looked intently down upon Bilbo. Thorin opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then he seemed to think the better of it, and smiled at Bilbo again. It was one of his genuine smiles, Bilbo had learned. Thorin’s smiles were few and hard-won, and once - long ago - before the whole gold-sickness debacle - Bilbo had made it a secret project of his to chronicle all of Thorin’s smiles.

Not many people noticed, but Thorin had crow’s feet lining the edge of his eyes, despite his relatively younger age, but perhaps not so unexpected if one considered that he had been orphaned young and left to fend for his people with few of his family left beside him. When Thorin smiled, the lines by his eyes would crinkle, ever so slightly, so while his mouth barely moved, one could tell he was smiling, if one knew him well, just by looking at his eyes.

It kindled all sorts of funny feelings inside Bilbo, deeply-buried feelings he had no desire to explore, so he quickly dismissed them and left the rooms with a hurried goodnight to Thorin.

Oddvar was standing outside Thorin’s rooms, chatting amiably with another of the guards. They both snapped to attention and looked rather guilty as Bilbo opened the door and stepped out, but although Thorin looked rather severely at the two of them, Bilbo simply laughed and gestured to Oddvar to follow him. He had learnt by now that Oddvar had a cheerful and voluble personality which was difficult to extinguish.

As they walked slowly down the passageway towards Bilbo’s rooms, Bilbo turned his head slightly to look back, an almost unconscious motion. The last he saw of Thorin was that large, regal figure, standing outside the doors to his rooms, one hand braced on the door frame, and his eyes hooded as he stared after Bilbo’s retreating back.

He was lit from behind by the firelight, and Bilbo had to suppress an involuntary shiver. Perhaps those feelings he had spoken of before were not so deeply-buried, after all.

*

As Bilbo had told Thorin, the location where his garden would be was in a small unused room which had previously been used for storage, and as such was located near the edge of the mountain to keep the temperature of the room low. There was a window situated quite high up on the wall, but Balin had told him that with the right angling of mirrors and the like, the chamber would be sufficiently well-lit for plants to grow.

Right now, the room was empty of any sort of equipment needed to set up his garden. The floor was paved with stone, so when he had first inspected the room the day after his dinner with Thorin, he had decided that the first order of business would be to lay down a deep layer of soil after stripping away the stone. With some careful planning, he was sure that the room could be turned into a nice little hobbit garden indeed.

When the materials arrived from Dale and the Elvenking’s Halls, Bilbo set to work arranging the garden. Although he had insisted that the builders take Erebor’s reconstruction as their priority, Balin had told him in no uncertain terms that Thorin himself had ordered them to focus on fulfilling Bilbo’s demands. After all, Balin had said reasonably, there were plenty of other builders to work on the restoration, and a few bodies would hardly be missed.

Thus it was that the architects and workers had toiled hard the past few days to deliver on Bilbo’s vision, and as a result the previously-dark and dank room was now filled with a warm, soft light filtering in from the window up high and reflecting off mirrors placed strategically on the walls. A path had been clearly paved based on Bilbo’s blueprint, and was surrounded on all sides by a deep, thick layer of soil suitable even for planting trees.

Bilbo smiled a pleased smile as he felt the sensation of the cracks in the paving stones under his feet. It was a welcome feeling, reminiscent of his own garden. Although he had not yet been born when Bag End was being built, the house having been a gift from Bungo to Belladonna to mark their wedding, he did remember how the garden had evolved over time. He remembered how, with each birthday of Bilbo’s, Bungo had laid down new paving stones to newer areas of the garden, and encouraged Bilbo to arrange the new plot of land as suited his imagination and his whims.

A few days ago Bilbo had written to Hamfast and told him of his decision to stay at Erebor permanently, where he belonged. He had added that he was leaving Bag End to his cousins Drogo and Primula Baggins, who had been newlyweds ere his abrupt evacuation from the Shire, and that Belladonna’s set of silver spoons and china set were to be given to the Gamgees as thanks for their years of loyal service.

It had also given Bilbo great pleasure to write that he wished to, in all sincerity and with all his love, donate to his favourite cousin Lobelia Sackville-Baggins that lovely figurine of a female wolfhound which had sat atop his mantelpiece next to his silver spoons for twenty years ever since it had been given him for his thirty-first birthday by his grandmother Laura Baggins, as he had found the resemblance between dearest Lobelia and that majestic figurine most uncanny. She had been admiring it most assiduously, after all, the twenty times she had invited herself to his humble abode to gently remonstrate with him about his life choices and his besmirchment of the Baggins name, and he was sure that she would make far better use of it than he!

The one thing he would truly regret the most about not returning to Bag End was that he would never get to see Lobelia’s reaction. Oh, perhaps she would keel over in shock, and that would be one problem solved for the rest of the inhabitants of the Shire. Well, a hobbit could certainly dream, couldn’t he.

He had also written to Hamfast and asked for some seeds from his garden, specifically seeds from Bungo’s gardenias, the barberry bushes around the edge of his garden, and some from the artichokes which had won him the Hobbiton village prize three years in a row. The missive had been delivered by raven, a large black bird named Linouac, who had side-eyed him most alarmingly at first before bending her head and snatching the message from him with her large claws. Bilbo hoped she wouldn’t give Hamfast too severe a shock when she delivered his letter, and hopefully he would receive his seeds from Hamfast in a month or so.

In the meantime, he had obtained several seeds from Bard and Thranduil. From Dale he had received simpler plants, broad beans and figs and sweet peas, which had been taken from Dale’s budding farmlands. Being the contrary arse that he was, Thranduil had sent simple herbs like parsley, sage and thyme, but coupled with exotic flowers completely unsuited to growing in limited sunlight. Bilbo sighed, and set those aside for a future project.

Oddvar had wandered into the garden after him, and was watching him curiously as he rooted around in the ground, placing the parsley seeds on top of the soil and sprinkling with a light dash of water from his pail. It was a beautiful shiny new watering pail, which had been delivered by Dwalin a day ago, and shaped, apparently, by Thorin. Although Bilbo feigned distress and concern that he had been an unnecessary diversion of Thorin’s valuable time, secretly he had felt rather happy at the gift. Evidently, when Thorin made a promise, he kept it, and Bilbo had carefully tucked the pail away in his closet for use when the seeds arrived.

“This is an odd-looking garden indeed,” Oddvar said mildly, after watching Bilbo trundle happily around his garden for a while.

“Odd-looking in what way?” Bilbo asked, making a mark on his blueprint where he intended to set up a crystal light.

Oddvar looked around with a faintly puzzled look on his face. “Well… It is not a dwarven garden, that is all. Nor is it an elven one, or a garden after the fashion of men. In our travels here from Ered Luin we saw many gardens along the way, many decorated with statues of stone and elaborate fountains, and in the case of men, strange deformed carvings which were intended to resemble goblins - or g-nomes, as they were called. Although you have had dwarven builders working on this day and night for the past few days, I see that you do not intend to place any of such decorations in your garden.”

“Well, Master Oddvar,” Bilbo said merrily, “this is a hobbit garden, might I remind you, not a dwarf garden, or an elf garden, or indeed one built by men. We hobbits are simple folk, and we see no need to augment the natural beauty brought by our fruits and vegetables and flowers, with artificial ornaments. No, keep it plain and keep it simple, is what my father always told me, and I intend to follow his advice.”

Oddvar still seemed ill at ease with the garden, and poked suspiciously at one of the plain walls. “Are you sure you would not like a carving done into the walls?” he pressed. “Perhaps one telling of your riddles with Smaug, or your forays against the spiders of the Mirkwood, or your prowess upon the battlefield of Erebor? You know I am a smith myself, and I am myself loath to leave so bare and valuable a canvas empty.”

“Well, my garden won’t appeal to many a dwarf, I’ll wager,” said Bilbo loftily, “but all the same I think I’ll keep it as it is. There were no gaudy stone statues or self-aggrandising carvings in my garden in Bag End, and I rather think I’ll keep it that way.”

Oddvar shrugged, and leant against the wall next to the entranceway. “It is your garden, after all, Master Bilbo,” he said, smiling, “and while I confess I do not understand the charm an unadorned chamber holds, if it holds value to you, then it is yours to do with as you please. Only - do not expect many a dwarf to seek this garden out at their leisure, is all.”

“You might be surprised,” Bilbo sniffed, and turned back to planting his begonias. Privately he agreed with Oddvar as to his last point - many of the dwarrows he had spoken to regarding his project had been skeptical, and often over-solicitous, regarding his decision to keep his garden to more of a hobbit style. Even Ori had tried to subtly suggest placing a small effigy of himself or his parents on a pedestal in his garden, an alarming notion Bilbo had immediately dismissed.

Well, many of the dwarrows, except for Thorin. Thorin’s easy acceptance of his decision, and indeed his broaching of the subject, had surprised Bilbo greatly. He had not expected Thorin to take his side in the matter, and it had been a pleasant surprise when he had done so.

Bilbo frowned to himself. It was a mystery, that was for sure, and one he found difficult to penetrate.

Oh, well. There was work to do on his garden, and Thorin was a mysterious, implacable, absolutely frustrating creature, as he always had been. Bilbo resolved to turn his attention to other matters, and indeed spent the rest of his afternoon quietly and happily tending to his burgeoning garden.

*

The next time Oddvar joined Bilbo in his garden, he had a gift for Bilbo.

“Oh, Oddvar! This is absolutely lovely!” Bilbo exclaimed, holding up the bracelet to the light. Privately he thought it a tad cumbersome and heavy to wear, but the roses carved out of amethyst on its clasp were truly a thing of wonder. He squinted at the intricate designs on the bracelet, which was fashioned after a twisting vine with red blossoms of roses and other fanciful, imagined plants (Oddvar was clearly no connoisseur of growing things). Then he realised that, like the brooch of gardenias, there were the cirth runes for ‘o’ and ‘w’ carved minutely into the gold.

“Oddvar,” he said sternly, “how have you had time to make yet another present for me? You barely leave my sight! Have you been shirking your duties? Or, perhaps, exerting yourself while you were supposed to be asleep? I cannot decide which is the lesser sin.” For Oddvar only left Bilbo’s side with another silent, sombre guard in his place during the night and early hours of the morning.

The dwarf shuffled his feet awkwardly, suddenly refusing to make eye contact with him. His normally ruddy cheeks flushed even further, and he tightened his jaw, as if unwilling to speak.

“It was no great trouble,” he said at last, through gritted teeth. “I… I already had the mould for the bracelet ready. It was a simple matter to pour the gold into the mould and add the roses. I hope you like it.” He glared fiercely at the ground, and suddenly Bilbo was reminded of Kíli when he had been caught trying to sneak his ‘pets’ into Bilbo’s room for safekeeping. He could not help but laugh at the image.

“I forgive you, Oddvar, though there was no great offence to forgive,” he said playfully, and dared to rest his hand on Oddvar’s arm. “’Tis a beautiful and fine piece of work. I appreciate it very much. Thank you.” To show just how much he appreciated it, he lifted his hand and slipped the bracelet over his fingers and onto his wrist, where the metal lay cool against his skin.

Oddvar looked up sharply. Bilbo started, wondering if something was wrong, but suddenly Oddvar’s face smoothed over, a mischievous smile formed on his face.

“Don’t I get a reward, then?” he asked cheekily. “For my hard work?”

The twinkle in his eye was so reminiscent of Bofur’s that Bilbo had to stifle another laugh. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and shook his head with a smile.

“Alright then, you insolent dwarf,” he said, “I wonder what reward you demand?”

“A hug,” Oddvar replied, after a short deliberation. “I have heard from those in the know that your hugs are a great treasure, given few and far between, and I would consider it a fine payment for my hard work indeed!”

Bilbo raised his eyebrows at the audacious request. A hug? Why, the gall of this dwarf, to ask for such intimacies! But, then again, it was such a beautiful piece of work, and he did very much like Oddvar and his cheer and the idiosyncrasies of his odd personality… Surely a hug would be no great imposition. A hug between friends, that was all, nothing harmless at all.

“Alright,” he said, with a put-upon sigh. “Come here, you big lummock.” He lifted his arms and wrapped them around Oddvar, who smelled, oddly enough, of smoked ham and a little bit of camembert cheese.

There was a sudden thud from behind him, and Bilbo startled, but Oddvar’s grasp was tight around him.

“What was that?” he said sharply, when he had successfully wriggled out from Oddvar’s hold. “Did you hear that? It sounded like someone - ” He turned around, fully intent on marching into the corridor, where the sound had originated.

“MUSHROOMS!”

Bilbo jumped about a foot in the air, and spun around to face Oddvar again, who had uttered the proclamation. He had a slightly panicked look on his face.

“What?” Bilbo exclaimed.

Appearing to compose himself, Oddvar offered him a quick smile. “Mushrooms,” he said in a more reasonable tone. “I was craving mushrooms. Shall we stop by the marketplace and see if Fathi is selling those marvellous mushrooms we sampled the other day?”

Bilbo frowned, and moved towards the corridor. “Just a moment,” he said, “I thought I heard - “

“No!” Oddvar shouted, grabbing his shoulder and stopping him where he stood. “I - I want mushrooms now. I am urgently craving Fathi’s mushrooms. Please, Master Bilbo, I am almost fainting from hunger. Shall we go to the marketplace? It might have just been a cave crawler, or one of those awful gredbyg, after all.”

Bilbo looked at him dubiously. Perhaps he was a trifle daft, a few peas short of a pod - or perhaps he did simply have a sudden craving for mushrooms. Bilbo himself did occasionally experience sudden desires for food, especially when the dish was as good as Fathi’s Fried Frostcaps…

“Very well,” Bilbo said at last, although he cast one last suspicious look at the corridor. The journey with the Company had taught him to ever be on his guard, and to always trust his instincts, but he supposed that if Oddvar, a trained guard of Erebor, hand-selected by Dís and Thorin to guard him, had dismissed any danger from that quarter… He might be making a mountain out of a molehill if he insisted on finding danger where there was none. It was probably some beastly denizen of the mountain, as Oddvar had mentioned, against which the dwarrows had been fighting a desperate battle recently.

Well, now he was craving mushrooms. Oh dear, he hoped there was still time for a visit to the marketplace before he was due at Thorin’s for their dinner that night…

*

“Ereborean smoked ham, as requested!” Bombur exclaimed with a flourish, setting the silver-plated dish down onto Thorin’s table.

“However did you manage to find smoked ham, Bombur?” Bilbo said, with a delighted smile. “Bofur was complaining earlier that there was none to be found in the marketplace earlier!”

Bombur laughed, a deep, booming sound which send tremors through the table. “I’m afraid that was all me, Bilbo,” he admitted merrily. “I bought the last of the smoked hams this morning - the lady Dís was craving sandwiches of ham and cheese for breakfast, and would not be put off by the knowledge that she would be depriving the rest of the citizens of such a necessity for the rest of the day! Besides,” he added with a wink, “I have heard from a funny little dwarf of your propensity for our hams. I thought it would be a nice treat for you, Bilbo.”

“Yes, Dís often has these strange whims and fancies of her. A mighty troublesome thing they are sometimes, too,” grumbled Thorin, as he poked half-heartedly on the salad Bilbo had pointedly piled on his plate.

“Don’t think I don’t see you trying to shove the cucumbers into your pockets, Your Majesty,” Bilbo said sternly, pointing at Thorin with an accusatory fork. Thorin looked up guiltily, and slid the cucumbers back onto his plate, frowning unhappily at having been thwarted. He had been grumpy ever since he had opened the door to admit Bilbo. However, he had gently rebuffed any attempts on Bilbo’s part to inquire as to the cause of his chagrin, and had also made a clear effort to pull himself out of his black mood. Bilbo decided it must have been a difficult day on the throne tending to the requests of the people - a malady which could only be cured by good food and good company, both of which Bilbo was determined he would provide this evening.

As Bombur bustled off to the kitchen to fetch the last dish, Bilbo assiduously shovelled more of Thorin’s favourite foods onto his plate and made sure to include plenty of mutton to make up for the salad Thorin had finally consented to eating. The affectionate smile granted him by Thorin in return more than made up for his bad mood earlier, although he still seemed perturbed, a frown creasing his thick brows and casting a shadow over his eyes.

“How is your work on the garden proceeding, Master Baggins?” Thorin said, and Bilbo swallowed to dismiss the twinge in his chest at being addressed in so formal a manner. He supposed it was only right, since he was now referring to Thorin by his kingly title, that Thorin utilise a more distant manner of naming him. But just because he knew it to be right hardly made it feel right to him, if he was being completely honest with himself…

And now Thorin was staring at him in confusion, having received no answer to his question while Bilbo had been brooding on inconsequential matters. Yavanna, Bilbo really was going senile, and at the tender age of sixty-two-or-something years.

“Things proceed apace,” he answered quickly. “Your dwarven builders are certainly efficient - we had the lighting system up and the soil laid down in a matter of days! I was really quite impressed with your workers’ productivity. I have begun work on the planting. Did you know Thranduil sent me orchids? Orchids, I ask you! What a ridiculous notion!”

At Thorin’s blank look of incomprehension, Bilbo sighed exasperatedly and clucked his tongue. “Orchids,” he explained patiently, “are most pernickety and finicky plants when grown outside their natural habitat. They require much careful adjustment of their surroundings, and I have little expertise in the growing of orchids, so the seeds were practically useless to me! … Sit down, Your Highness, this is not a matter meriting your intervention, although I know you’re practically raring for an excuse to tussle with Thranduil,” Bilbo said peevishly, interrupting Thorin’s attempt to stand and leave the table.

Thorin growled and seized his fork and knife. He carved brutally into the mutton steak on his plate, as if imagining the cut of meat to be Thranduil’s thin, beautiful, vicious face, and chomped ferociously on a piece of the mutton he brought to his mouth. Bilbo winced.

“That blasted elf,” he grumbled, once he had satisfied his need for catharsis. “He probably intended insult through it. You know he never does anything without considering the consequences and every inference that can possibly be drawn from his actions.”

Bilbo sighed to hide his grin at having successfully diverted Thorin’s attention from whatever had been troubling him that day - Thranduil was always a safe target to divert Thorin’s anger onto, since it was a visceral, satisfying hatred the dwarven king had for him.

“Well, you know what he’s like,” Bilbo remarked casually in reply. “Once I have settled the main part of my garden, I will plant his orchids in the centre and perhaps invite him to my garden to see for himself precisely how they are flourishing. I think I will write to Elrond to ask if he has lore-masters familiar in the art of orchid-growing whose expertise he is willing to lend to me…”

At that moment, Bombur trotted back into the room.

“And Fathi’s Fried Frostcaps, as requested,” he declared with a triumphant smile, placing the plate of the most exquisite mushrooms Bilbo had ever seen in front of him. Bilbo hurriedly placed his hand over his mouth to keep himself from drooling, although it was a very near thing.

“Bombur!” he cried, in awe. “You are a magician. How did you possibly know that I was craving Fathi’s mushrooms?”

Bombur winked mischievously at him. “No magic, I’m afraid,” he said, “just a very well-informed little spy.”

Thorin smiled obligingly. “Then we must know the name of this spy, so we know who to thank for satisfying Master Bagginses’ palate this evening,” he said, laying his hand on Bombur’s arm. “Or is that to stay a secret?”

“No secret, Your Majesty,” said Bombur, with a twinkle. “Oddvar, son of Vidar, is his name - he has been most diligently giving his attention to Bilbo’s needs, and indeed it was he who informed me that, due to an excess of time spent in his garden this afternoon, he and Bilbo were unfortunately unable to procure some of Fathi’s famed mushrooms for their consumption before Bilbo was due here for dinner. In fact,” he remarked, whipping out another plate from behind him, “I am to take this plate of mushrooms to him as well, to thank him for his information. Enjoy your meal, Bilbo, Your Majesty.” With that, he swept off with the same unnatural speed and litheness which had so surprised Bilbo upon initial acquaintance with the rotund cook.

“Oddvar,” Thorin muttered, and Bilbo was surprised to see that the dispirited frown had returned to his face.

Then Bilbo remembered that Thorin had been suspicious of Oddvar their previous dinner - inordinately suspicious, in Bilbo’s opinion - and he sought to hastily divert Thorin’s attention, to avoid further distress on Thorin’s part.

“Won’t you try a mushroom?” he said quickly, and scooped up a large spoonful of the aforementioned fungi, gesturing in a rather frantic way towards Thorin’s mouth. “They’re really quite good! I spoke to Fathi yesterday evening, and he said he was doing a roaring business. He picked up the technique in the Shire, you see, and actually, now that I come to think of it, I remember old Bodo Proudfoot’s family recipe for fried mushrooms being rather the same sort of thing - “

A swift touch to his wrist stayed his movement suddenly, and stopped him in his ramble. Bilbo looked at the thick hand on his wrist with a growing sense of foreboding, and indeed Thorin’s hand lay on the bracelet forged by Oddvar that now ringed his wrist.

“How came you by this?” Thorin said, and his voice was curiously soft, devoid of emotion. Bilbo looked warily at him.

“A gift from a friend,” he hedged. “Look, Thorin - “

“The maker’s mark is unfamiliar to me,” Thorin continued, his hand on Bilbo’s wrist gentle, but stern, “but I recognise the runes. This is another gift from Oddvar, is it not?”

“Well, yes,” Bilbo admitted, seeing that the cat was out of the hobbit hole. “He gave it to me earlier this afternoon.”

“I see.”

Thorin’s expression was blank, and he removed his hand from Bilbo’s wrist. The motion left Bilbo feeling strangely bereft.

There was a silence for a few moments, another of those tense silences that seemed to punctuate all of their recent interactions. Thorin ate quietly, keeping his eyes on his plate, the clinking of his cutlery inordinately loud in the quiet of the room.

At last he spoke, and he seemed to find the words difficult to shape. “Master Baggins,” he said, his tone steady and very, very calm, “Oddvar is a good dwarf, as far as Dís and Dwalin were aware. But I must warn you still to be careful. There might be others you know not of - some other plot - “ He seemed to lose his eloquence and his courage then, and his mouth set in an unhappy line.

Bilbo tried a carefree laugh, although it came out sounding twisted and odd. “You need not worry,” he said, and his voice was strangely brittle. “As you said, Oddvar is a good dwarf. He means me no harm - why, he is just a friend to me! He is not cut from the same cloth as Zdenka, or Ardris, or Wili. Why are you so concerned, Your Majesty? Are you worried he is trying to court me? What an absurd idea!” he added, meaning it as a joke to defuse the tension.

A heavy silence, and Thorin averted his eyes.

Bilbo laughed again, but this time it was a shrill laugh. “You cannot mean that!” he said incredulously. He stood from the table and put his hands on his hips, suddenly feeling unaccountably angry with Thorin, this contrary, insufferable king who saw enemies at every corner and sought to warn him off one of the few friends he had in Erebor - no, Bilbo would not have it, no he would most certainly not!

“Oddvar is my friend, and no more,” he said severely. “Any carnal aspect to our relationship is, I quite assure you, quite out of the question! And further to the point, Master Dwarf - “ here he quite expected guards to charge into the room and clap him in irons for his insolence, but when no such guards were forthcoming, he forged on: “ - you have no right to control who I can and cannot befriend! You may be King Under the Mountain, Thorin, but I can assure you, I am a grown hobbit and can choose my company as I please. Even if it be to eschew your company in favour of that of Oddvar, son of Vidar!”

Thorin stood, towering over Bilbo, his face now a mask of anger and wroth. “I can assure you, Master Hobbit,” he thundered, “that I have every right, as your king, and the leader of the Company with whom you travelled to Erebor, my kingdom!”

They stood, toe to toe, staring furiously into each others’ eyes, but Bilbo refused to submit, and suddenly it was as if something broke inside Thorin, for he turned and lifted one hand to cover his face. Bilbo could no longer see his eyes.

“If - If that’s who you want, what you want - I want the best for you,” he said, softly, forlornly. “I want you to be safe.”

And I want you to be mine, Bilbo thought, with a sudden, bitter, agonising passion, but we can’t all get what we want, can we?

Completely incensed, and utterly finished with Thorin, Bilbo stomped angrily from the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Dull-witted, brainless, fucking dwarrows!” he screamed, as soon as he had reached his quarters and shut the door firmly in a very bewildered Oddvar’s face. Futilely he slammed his fists against the wall of his chamber, but as they were made of solid rock, there was no satisfying feeling of the wall giving way under his fists afforded to him. When pounding against the wall brought him no comfort, he flopped down on his bed and tore at his sheets, almost crying in frustration.

Finally, when thrashing about and screaming his throat raw had exhausted him, he lay silently on his bed and thought. He thought, mainly of Thorin, and how Thorin’s hand had trembled as he had held it over his face.

What an unutterably complex, and completely frustrating dwarf! More intensely than ever Bilbo longed for a return to their relationship before it had been destroyed by the gold sickness. More deeply than ever Bilbo regretted his betrayal and his use of the Arkenstone, for it seemed to have formed some unassailable rift between the two of them. Bilbo did not know if Thorin could ever bring himself to trust Bilbo again.

Quietly, and almost unconsciously, his hand crept to his old robes, which he kept on his dresser beside his bed. The cold touch of metal on his fingers soothed him, and on a sudden impulse, he grasped the set of rags which had doubled as his clothes and wrested them to lay across his lap.

The little gold ring lay in the tangle of brown cloth between his legs. Suddenly he very much wished to put it on, to turn invisible and escape from Erebor, to escape from the net of anger and pain which had drawn itself close around Thorin and he. To leave for the green hills of the Shire where he belonged. Because, try as he might, he would never be a dwarf, and Thorin would never be a hobbit, and if he remained in Erebor, surely he would wither away. It would a simple matter indeed, to put on the ring and disappear - he could pack his things in a jiffy, they were laid out neatly in his room after all - put on his pack and run to Dale, where he could surely sneak onto one of the myriad boats sailing to the Brandywine -

It would be simpler even, to put on the ring and creep into Thorin’s chambers, where he surely was, still, to approach that broad, strong back and place his clever hobbit fingers around the hilt of Sting - one thrust, and he would be rid of the source of his unhappiness in one fell swoop -

Bilbo slammed his fist against his head, and tasted blood in his mouth. The copper tang helped him recover his senses, and remembering the thoughts that had been running through his head, he almost fell over himself scrambling backwards and away from - what? Himself? He knew not. How such vile thoughts had entered his head -

His hand closed unwittingly over a small, inconspicuous lump in the pile of brown rags, and he blinked.

Slowly, hesitantly, Bilbo drew the acorn out of the pocket of the robe, and stared at it.

Why, he remembered this well - an acorn from Beorn’s garden, was it not? Was it not the acorn he had presented to Thorin, in the midst of the king’s gold sickness - the acorn he had told Thorin would find its place in the garden of Bag End?

Slowly the fog of anger and confusion began to clear from his mind. His fingers gripped tightly around the small round seed in his hands, and suddenly it was clear to him what he must do.

Leaping out of bed, he went to the door and peered out. True to form, Oddvar had been replaced by Bilbo’s nighttime guard, a surly, unspeaking dwarf who had not deigned to give his name. This dwarf preferred to position himself facing the corridor that ran outside the royal rooms. As such, he did not notice as the door of Bilbo’s room swung slightly outwards, leaving a gap just big enough for a small-bodied hobbit, and then swung close silently.

Bilbo knew from experience how to avoid attention from others when sneaking around under the cloak of invisibility accorded him by his ring. Thus it was with little difficulty that he reached the small, inconspicuous door that marked the entrance to his hobbit garden.

Hurrying to the centre of the room, where the moonlight from the window reflected directly onto a large, deep plot of soil, Bilbo squatted and pulled the acorn from his pocket. Here was where he had intended for the orchids sent by Thranduil to grow, as the gaudy centrepiece of his garden, a sort of subtle triumphant ‘fuck you’ gesture to the Elvenking, but now he had a different plan.

With trembling fingers he laid the acorn in the ground and covered it with soil. Beside the plot of land was neatly placed his lovely little golden pail, carved by Thorin, and greatly treasured by him. In it still was water taken from the springs that fed into the depths of Erebor. Bilbo sprinkled the spot where the acorn had been planted with water from the pail, and smoothed his fingers gently over the soil.

There , he thought, feeling a lump form in his throat. At least I will have something of mine, and Thorin’s, to treasure. For the acorn had been as much a part of Thorin as it had been a part of Bilbo, a shared trinket that had represented their friendship and fondness for each other.

Bilbo slipped back into his bed that night, and dreamt of Thorin’s smile.

visit this on ao3 to see the author’s notes if you want, and to leave a comment or kudo (much appreciated) <3 and check out my other bagginshield work here

[reflexletterpress]

Sloan is back at preschool! 🎉🥳 On a completely different subject, feast your eyes on this eBay find! While teaching at the @bowarrowpress it was fascinating to watch people gravitate toward our nice collection of Futura Light. It's a pretty hard-core geometric sans-serif, but on the page it has a surprising delicacy and lyricism to it. There *are* some WTFs I'd like to ask Paul Renner, like what was he thinking with the cap eye / lc ell design, or the i/j/! trio, but those are somewhat endemic to that whole style of type design. When I opened Reflex I missed its presence in the collection, but I figured I'd keep my eyes open for that million-to-one chance of obtaining some. And here we are! A decent set of 24pt for not a lot of money. Bonus: unlike the Bow & Arrow fonts, this one has lowercase numbers! Woo-hoo! I know, I've set my foot in the top of the slippery slope, but I think we all know this is merely the latest of many many slopes I've already skidded down. 🤣 #letterpress #bostonprinter #printing #bostonpress #popmembers #crankclickyankback #type #lead #tin #antimony #vandercook #stovefactory #Charlestown #ink #paper #inkonpaper #futuralight #24pt #lyricsanserif #icanstopanytime https://www.instagram.com/p/CYZGVmKL9b5/?utm_medium=tumblr

[architectnews]

House II, Cambridge Massachusetts

House II, Cambridge Modern Residence, Massachusetts Real Estate, American Architecture, Design Images

House II in Cambridge Massachusetts

Nov 20, 2021

Design: Kyu Sung Woo Architects

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

House II, Cambridge MA

Architect Kyu Sung Woo designed House II for his wife, a concert pianist, and himself: a couple in their late seventies who are still active, but starting to think about their changing needs. It is located on a small street in West Cambridge, next door to the home they built 30 years ago (House I) where they raised their two children.

House I was built behind a small, existing house to retain the character and scale of the street. The interior was organized vertically around an atrium, reflecting a courtyard typology prevalent in the architect’s native Korea. It is by nature an introverted building, situated behind the original farmhouse, and nestled into the property with privacy in mind.

House II has a narrow volume on the street side, which widens in the back, presenting a sleek, public facade while still maintaining a slim profile. The angle of the roof reflects the sloping topography of the site and the diagonal wooden truss in its framing introduces triangular geometry that is echoed repeatedly throughout the house.

It is designed to create a connection with nature, with full walls of glass on the ground floor, a large patio, and siting that maximizes garden space. Exterior materials were chosen for ease of maintenance as well as freedom of composition: large, fiber cement panels on the public-facing sides create shingles that form geometric patterns and provide depth and shadows; corrugated metal is used for utility on the back sides; and wood on the deck, fence and lower level of the house provides warmth and durability.

The core of the interior is an open staircase and elevator to ensure accessibility in case of problems with mobility as the couple ages. This core creates three fully distinct levels; local areas that are connected spatially by high, skylit volumes.

The first floor living space is organized with a work/dining area in the central space opening up to the garden and deck with expansive glass walls. The piano sits in the corner to allow for performances accommodating up to 30 guests. Sliding pocket doors near the kitchen and entryway allow the space to transform for different occasions and ambiance.

The upper level features a work/living area in the front of the house, marked by a large corner window which provides a connection to the street. The master suite is located in the back, connected by an accessible bathroom to the front area, allowing for flexibility in case they need to rearrange sleeping arrangements.

The lower level features a guest bedroom, living area and expansive studio space connected spatially by triangular skylights to the main level and opening directly onto the garden.

The garden is designed by Michael van Valkenburg, with planting focused on maximizing seasonal effects, with leaves and blooms providing color year-round. There is access from both the ground floor and lower levels, with sloping steps and a circular path connecting them, punctuated by a 10’x12’ schist panel landing terrace.

House II in Cambridge Massachusetts – Building Information

Project Name: House II Owner: Private Location: Cambridge, MA Project Site Area: 5,000 sf Building Gross Area: 3,687 sf Schedule: Design 01/2016 – 01/2017 Construction 02/2017 – 12/2019 Building Materials: Fiber cement for siding; Corrugated metal for siding; Ipe wood for decking and siding; Ash wood for flooring and core siding

Architect: Kyu Sung Woo Architects, Inc. Watertown, MA, USA Principal: Kyu Sung Woo Project Architect/Project Manager: Seth Hoffman Design Team: Jae Young Jo Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Cambridge, MA, USA Structural Engineer: RSE Associates, Inc. Watertown, MA, USA MEP/FP Engineer: Sun Engineering Danvers, MA, USA Civil Engineer: Sherwood Consulting & Design, LLC Cambridge, MA, USA Lighting Designer: Nathalie Faubert New York, NY, USA General Contractor: Stack + Co. Boston, MA, USA Landscaping: J.M. King Millis, MA, USA

Photographer: Jane Messinger Somerville, MA, USA

House II, Cambridge Massachusetts images / information received 201121

Location: Massachusetts, USA

Massachusetts Buildings

Massachusetts Architecture

Massachusetts Architecture

Franklin County Justice Center, Greenfield, MA Design: Leers Weinzapfel Associates photograph © Brad Feinknopf Franklin County Justice Center Building in Massachusetts

Perles Family Studio, Jacob’s Pillow Dance, Becket Design: David Croteau of Flansburgh Architects photo : Robert Benson Photography Jacob’s Pillow Dance Building in Becket

Massachusetts College of Art and Design – Design and Media Center Design: Ennead Architects photograph © Peter Vanderwarker Massachusetts College of Art and Design Building

New York State Buildings

New York State Architecture – NY State

Olnick Spanu House, Garrison Design: Alberto Campo Baeza Contemporary New York House

HSU House, Ithaca Design:EPIPHYTE Lab, Architects

Holley House, Garrison Design:hanrahanMeyers architects

A classic Modern US house:

Farnsworth House

Comments / photos for the House II, Cambridge by Makethinkdesign page welcome

Massachusetts

The post House II, Cambridge Massachusetts appeared first on e-architect.