The Perils of Innovation (II)

His hasty departure finally brought him within hearing distance of the main table, so he took to slowly skulking and hovering in the background, doing his best to look as if he belonged there. Which, given substantial life experience in going where he wasn't supposed to, was easy.

"-keep telling him that ebony would be the perfect option!" Isengar blustered passionately to Arathorn, generously not wincing at the vise-like grip that Isumbras Took had on his hand. Thorin and Balin were there too, but seemed to be involved in a deep conversation with the Mayor and Master hobbits instead, one that seemed to be testing their… credulity?

Yep, their credulity. Rather badly too, at that. Poor uncle, what could possibly-

"And I continue and will continue to retort with the simple truth that there is and there never will be enough ebony," Cirdan said mildly, seated next to Isengar whom he glanced at with long-suffering fondness. By Mahal, was his beard capable of arresting the attention of any dwarrow! "Ebony trees barely grow quickly enough to provide a steady supply of nails, let alone the lumber you would need for full vessels."

Wait, elves made even their nails out of wood?

"And I will keep retorting right back with the simple fact that you'd only have to use enough for one!" Isengar insisted. "And a small one at that! Big enough for an elf is not the same as big enough for a hobbit! Why, if you'd only listen to-"

Kili tuned him out and focused on whatever talk his uncle and Balin were in. Whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be more outlandish than a hobbit trying to teach Cirdan the Shipwright how to make ships. And it was also a good idea to find out just why Uncle Thorin was so incredulous-

"-so that's our problem, if you get my meaning," Robin Whitfoot said, gesticulating with his puffing pipe from across the table. "We need to come up with something afore this fall's harvest, or we won't have enough storage space even if we do finish rustling up all the new storeholes, and that's a fact."

"We've been building them as many and as quick as we can but there won't be enough until at least four years hence if harvests keep doing as well as they do, and there ain't no hobbit that'll countenance letting their fields fall fallow after the Fell Winter," Gorbadoc Brandybuck added. "And that's if we keep digging and digging new holes each year, not even touching on the shortage of pots and crockery! That's why we were hoping that with you here, we can just sign off on unloading most of these last years' surplus with your lot. That way we'll at least get a year's respite."

"We've already set up what arrangements we could with the Breefolk, and we've even gotten the rangers to loosen their belts a bit, a mighty feat and no mistake, but even with that and the extra parties, it ain't been enough to lighten things any."

Gorbadoc scoffed into his mug and took a long drink. "Oh, go ahead and say it like it is. We've still got stores from the last two years just sitting there. Hells, I've still got stores from four years ago. Buckland was the most bountiful area of the Shire that year, well, barring Hobbiton of course." Then the hobbit grinned wolfishly. "I can't begin to tell you what beautiful colors the Sackville-Baggins and Bracegirdle folk turned all through the following spring."

"Eyes on the now, old chum," the Mayor flicked the Master's shoulder with his pipe stem. "Still some persuasion left to do, seeing as dwarves are such a suspicious lot, no offense yer lordship."

"No indeed," Balin said faintly while Thorin just looked from one hobbit to another in blank-faced disbelief. "I… forgive me if it seems a mite… surprising."

It was at that point that Thorin couldn't take it anymore. "Do we look like fools to you?" Kili's uncle growled. "You all claim this whole gathering to have been a spur of the moment thing, and now you turn around and… and…" Offer to all but hand all that surplus away, if Kili was understanding right? Maybe to the caravan that may, possibly travel this way later this year if Erebor is retaken successfully, and wow, that secret sure didn't last long, did it? "You expect us to believe much on good faith!"

"What he's saying," Balin cut in hastily, "Is that what your preliminary deal seems rather, well, unbalanced."

"Well, as just goes to show what a lack of good Hobbit sense does to people, if you don't mind me saying," the Mayor sniffed. "And if you don't take it off our hands, then what? Are we s'posed to use perfectly fine grain and preserves to feed the pigs? That'd be a right pile of noodles and ninnyhammers, beggin' your pardon."

"Would it?" Arathorn threw in seemingly randomly. "You've had no qualms about feeding Athelas to your pigs for the past four hundred years."

"Well excuse me! That ain't been no fault of ours! How were we supposed to know it was magic?"

Thorin and Balin just stared at the hobbits. Kili didn't blame them, he felt kind of poleaxed himself.

"I know!" Gorbadoc groaned at their stares, slumping on the bench. "It's ridiculous! If Bilbo hadn't gone and basically shanghaied us into humoring him about that soil, we wouldn't be in these ridiculous straits!"

"Or you could set up a proper export system," Arathorn cut in remorselessly.

"Don't you get cheeky with me lad!" snapped the Master of Buckland. Snapped as if to a ridiculous dwarfling! "You're lucky old Isumbras is too busy rapaciously mooning over his vagrant of a brother to give that smart comment what it deserves! You try being knocked on the head with the sudden need to redesign your whole country's system of governance and see how you like it!"

Arathorn graciously didn't call him out on how badly those words could be taken by what was essentially a king dispossessed, but Kili tuned out that conversation before it was too late. Hobbits were experiencing times so bountiful that they were seeing their productivity multiply several times over every year, and their reaction was to look for the best opportunity to wholesale everything at the price most advantageous to the buyers? What?

Unable to withstand any more absurdities on an empty stomach, Kili decided to listen in on the other conversation again while he finished his mug of ale, lest he feel compelled to stage an intervention.

He caught the tail-ends of Isumbras Took's latest reply to his brother. "-really can't understand how you can still be so gun-go about this… this sub-mary-"

"Submarine, it's not that hard a word to spell out, thanking you kindly!"

"Sub-mary, over-mary, who cares what's it called! How can you still be so obsessed about it?!" The Thain snapped. "You've been going about it for decades, and what progress have you made? None whatsoever!"

"Excuse me!" Isengar balked, affronted.

"Excuse you!? Excuse you for running off and making us sick with worry and grief all these decades, and now to find out it was all for exactly nothing? No you're not excused, you-you-… you damned wastrel!"

"Nothing!? Wastrel!? How dare you?!"

"Well it's not like I'm wrong, is it?" Isumbras said snidely. "You have gotten exactly nowhere. That's what your whole lover's spat of the past half hour with the Master Elf has been about, hasn't it, begging your pardon Master Elf."

"The nerve! If only I had my notes and sketches at hand, you'd be eating your words six ways to Sunday and no mistake!"

"So you've been gone for decades and all you've got to show for it, after decades, are some alleged notes and sketches you can't even produce as proof?"

"Just because you don't have anything approaching a vision-"

"Vision, hah! Mighty clear yours is going to be if you ever do make this submarine. What are you going to do, squint until you magically develop the ability to see through wood?"

"Windows, brother, or has your mind left you enough that you don't even know what those are?"

"Windows, pah!" Isumbras scoffed and furiously emptied a mug of beer that Bilbo had just slipped into his hand after popping up from nowhere. "So you've been badgering elvish lords for decades and decades hoping the elves would drop their livelihoods so they'd build you a wooden box with windows just so you could look at water from underwater without getting wet! Of all the harebrained, pointless ideas-"

"It's called exploration, you narrow-minded simpleton!" Isengar Took roared, flailing angrily and drawing the startled attention of everyone within twenty yards. "No one's ever managed to study underwater sea life beyond what can be guessed from crabs and seashells and algae washed up on the beach! Unless you have a way for someone to breathe underwater, the submarine is the only way! Which you would realize if you just took one bloody second-"

Kili's stomach growled violently, and so the dwarf sunk his face in his hands and despaired.

He couldn't have dinner because Isengar Took was too busy pontificating about his desire to stare at fish.

Taking a deep breath, Kili, son of Dis, lifted his head and carefully inspected his surroundings, giving utter focus to every single detail that crossed his view as he slowly looked from side to side, then all around him as he walked away from the source of his aggravation. There was always a solution for every problem, Uncle always said, and the odds of it being within easy reach increased the more varied the assets available within appreciable distance. That was a truth he'd been taught as well as had to learn through experience as he grew up, especially in those mercifully few years of his early life before Thorin's Hall reached a level of living that could be deemed sufficient. All he needed to do was to have a clear view of his problem, his goal, and how to go from problem to solution in a time frame conductive to accomplishing said goal. Which in this case was to finally get everyone to the feast table so he could finally eat some of the sausages and steaks and bread and pies and-.

Kili wiped his mouth and mentally slapped himself. Problem, solution, goal. Goal, problem, solution.

Goal: feed.

Problem: He couldn't have dinner because Isengar Took was too busy pontificating about his desire to stare at fish.

Mmm, fish –no, stop that!

Solution: …

Kili was just about ready to despair – it had been almost a full minute since he realized his dreadful predicament! – but then he saw it.

Moments later, he was out of the drinking tent and already a fair part of the way across the wide open space where the dancing had been going on. Gandalf was just ahead of him, putting together some of the last, larger fireworks he had scrounged up out of nowhere over the past few days, but he wasn't Kili's goal.

The dwarf instead rushed over to the hobbit several yards away. "Excuse me." The hobbit didn't seem to hear him, busy as he was biting at the… strip of whatever it was. "Excuse me!"

"In a mo'," the hobbit bit out as he, well, bit the sheet loose. "Be righ' with ya."

Kili watched in fascination as the hobbit wrapped the broken ladle handle back together.

"Well, what's yer damage, master dwarf? Broken walkin' stick? Oilskin got torn maybe? Need a spoon taped together? Loose book binding?"

"What's this?" Kili asked hurriedly, picking up a second roll of whatever it was from the cart next to the handyhobbit. "Some kind of… sticky cloth?"

The hobbit – and this time he wasn't proud of not knowing his name – blinked. "Whatcha mean what's this? Don't ye be tellin' old Spencer Hornblower there's summat as bewilderin' in the world as dwarves not knowin' what duct tape is!"

"You got us, dwarves are just so backwater that I've never seen such a thing in my life" Kili said flatly, scratching at the roll to try and find the end of the strip of… whatever it was.. "What does it work on? What is it even? Is this cloth or animal skin? Actually never mind that, is it waterproof?"

"Bless me, ye're a sheltered little'un, ain't ya!" Old Spencer exclaimed, spitting out a loose chunk and snatching the roll and giving Kili his own, used one to vandalize. "To think, ye actually be needin' to ask such silly things! Why, it works on damn near everything o'course! And waterproof? How else is it 'posed to handle the rain? As if any hobbit would stand for the patch job on their rakes shafts coming apart at the first drizzle! The very idea! I barely be believin' them men wouldnae be knowin' 'bout the proper tools of life, but this be a right shock to this old hobbit and no mistake! Asking if good Horblower Duct Tape would ever be coming apart in the rain! Well I'm glad ye asked what it is, lad! Although to properly be understandin' what it is, ye need to know 'bout my Great Uncle Dustin and how he didn't feel logging was a proper way to make a fortune. He inherited the large plot of Shire Pine forest me family own up in North Farthing, he did, and so decided to see what else he could do to stack his fortunes. O'course, he first tried to mix logging with food-making – he's where the whole system came from to cultivate honey fungus on old trees slated for chopping, terribly clever man my great uncle was – but he wasn't right satisfied with that, and eventually it was the resin that tilled the marvelous pastures of 'is imagination. 'Course, he wasn't able to actually make anything of it until he married my Great Aunt, who was a Cotton lass through and through. She was the daughter of old Frederick Cotton who was third son of the Cotton patriarch at the time, who also had two daughters named-"

Kili tuned out the sudden genealogy lecture in favor of nodding periodically while testing the 'duct tape' on every available item and surface within reach. It proved to be shockingly handy for fixing… pretty much anything, even though the glue got useless if he pulled it off more than twice, but if he got it where he wanted the first time and made a proper wrap-up of things…

Kili quickly spread several inches' worth on the top of a nearby cart base and poured water all over it from a bucket located conveniently within reach.

It was as waterproof as the hobbit claimed, which was actually impressive considering that the tape was actually made of cotton cloth.

This... this would work, Kili decided. Now for the rest of what he wanted.

Whatever it was.

It came to him from just a little more wandering, and if it got him back to just the outside of the drinking tent again, well, more power to him. Two clear glass cups taped together at the mouth, the resulting tube put inside two other clear glass mugs, the sort that Hobbits made for beer despite how expensive glassblowing was. Although he supposed it was only the better-off hobbits that had them.

Kili beheld his taped-together monstrosity and decided to replace one of the outer mugs with a metal one. He even found one made of actual steel. It had the Durin mark on the bottom, which made it all the sweeter. Now, just one last thing and he would finally see his goal fulfilled, something which his growling stomach agreed with wholeheartedly. Wholestomachedly… wholleguttedly? No, that sounded like someone had just skewered him open with a rusted spork, and why hobbits felt the need to invent those things Kili still hadn't the foggiest and oh look, his mind was wandering again.

Kili took his invention with him, headed for the last of his necessities, made a detour to a ranger that had been avidly watching him from nearby, took the cattail stem he was chewing on, then had to re-do everything in order to get his final vision to work, but finally, finally he had what he needed.

Now to go back to the beast's den.

"-to step away from you self-righteous posturing and actually listen to what I'm saying but oh, Eru, what's the use?" Isengar Took bemoaned dramatically. "If there was any chance of you being in any way reasonable, it would have actually occurred to you from the start that us leaving the Shire was at least as much because of your constant badgering and condescending 'but thou must' attitude as it was because Gandalf couldn't keep his nose to himself."

"How dare you-!"

The square-bottomed pot was half as tall as a hobbit and was made of tin two inches thick. It made a very satisfying smash against the gravel as Kili dumped it on the ground right behind where Isengar Took and Cirdan the Shipwright were seated.

The drinking tent suddenly became extraordinarily chatter-free.

It was almost enough to make the young dwarf quail in his boots, especially when everyone there including the chief hobbits, Thorin, Balin, Bilbo and the Elf Lord himself leaned, craned or turned in their seats to see what had just caused that loud racket, but Kili was quite frankly too hungry to give a damn.

The dwarf dropped his "creation" in the water – the pot had been filled for dish washing, but was perfect for what he needed – then he took a wooden cone and proceeded to empty through the cattail stem the nearest container of liquid, which happened to be a mug of Took's Finest.

Mannish, dwarvish, elvish and hobbit eyes all watched as the thing slowly sunk the more the outside of the inner thing filled with beer. And kept watching as the thing sunk beneath the surface and kept sinking up to the point where the dwarf ceased pouring.

The object floated languidly half-way up from the bottom. Not a single drop made it within the inner object's confines, while barely half of the outer air pocket had been displaced by the ale.

"There," Kili said flatly, dumping the ale mug back on the table with more force than was perhaps necessary, but he really didn't have any mood left to suffer more of these food-delaying dramatics. "One submarine proof of concept, free of charge. And you don't use wood if you want things to sink, you use metal. Honestly!" Then, because the stares were getting to him, Kili crossed his arms and decided to end the situation as painlessly as possible. "Can we eat now?"

He'd whined. Mahal, he'd whined. How embarrassing!

And why was everyone still staring at him like that?

"Ladies and gentlemen," Bilbo Baggins slowly spoke in the wide-eyed, stunned silence, looking as if someone had clubbed him over the face with a nesting squirrel. "The greatest treasure in the line of Durin. He drops revolutionary concepts during regular conversation and still knows better than to be late for dinner."

Kili blushed to the tips of his ears – especially after he saw that even Uncle Thorin was gaping(!) at him – then the next thing he knew they were all at the feast table with him right between Isengar Took and CIrdan the Shipright.

Mahal's beard, what-?

"Lad," the bearded elvish lord told him as he and Isengar Took worked to pile his plate full of dish after dish, even as their eyes were intensely and immovably fixed on him. "Give us details."