Another request from the Acorns and Oak Leaves community! This time it’s Bilbo in Dwarrow clothing wear! And his courtship braid. Still slowly going through my list!

Bilbo: Are you sure this isn’t too much, Thorin?

Thorin: you look radiant Bilbo

Bilbo: Cheeky

—Bonus!!

Bilbo: You think I look good in anything dear

Thorin: you look ravishing with nothing on—

I JUST DID MY FIRST DIGITAL DRAWING....ON MY PHONE WITH JUST MY FINGERTIP...yes flex🤙🤙🤙...JUST KIDDING

OBVIOUSLY I'M LIKE THE NOOBEST OF ALL NOOBS BUT HEY STILL I DID WHAT I THOUGHT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TILL NOW HEHEHEHEHEHE

It is absolutely not just a moment.

It’s a whole cascading avalanche of moments. Hours, really. She’s done everything short of starting a one-woman interpretive dance routine to keep busy, and she is so done. It’s cold. It’s dark. Everyone here is approximately seventeen ancient tomes smarter than she is and smug about it. She’s not even sure they breathe oxygen.

She wants to go back to the Lighthouse, curl up on her unfortunate green settee and pretend the only dead things in her life are the flowers she keeps forgetting to water.

Eventually, she finds Vorgoth.

"Hey, Vorgoth," she says. "Do you think you could, I don't know, send Emmrich a heads up that I'll be heading back soon? I really can't keep waiting for him."

"HE ENTWINES THE FLOWS OF UNSPEAKABLE RESONANCE BENEATH THE SEVENTH STRATA OF THE CHARNAL PYRAMIDS."

"All right," she says, not even listening, "that’s great, I’m thrilled for him, truly, but I am also incredibly hungry, so like I said I’ll be—"

"IT IS DISAGREEABLY CURSED. THE GATES OF BONE MUST NOT GAPE IN THE PRESENCE OF UNVERIFIED WILL. THE SIGILS REMEMBER WHAT THE LIVING HAVE FORGOTTEN."

She takes a moment to stare at Vorgoth, at the tendrils of smoke, or shadows, or possibly some kind of sentient ennui, spilling from beneath their hood.

“Amazing. Well. I don’t plan on poking around in any cursed pyramids, disagreeable or otherwise. I do, however, plan on returning to the Lighthouse and collapsing onto something soft, vaguely clean, and deeply un-haunted. So could you please—"

She’s already turning away. She knows exactly how many steps it takes to reach the eluvian; has counted them, loathed them, prayed over them. Maybe the Caretaker will be in a talkative mood, or at least let her loiter without judgment while she waits for it to ferry her back to the Vi’Revas. She really wants to gossip about that horrendously attractive Antaam stomping around the Crossroads.

Vorgoth catches her off guard.

"THE VESSEL OF FLESH REBELS. HIS BODY PURGES THE RESIDUE OF THE INNER ROT. HE MUST NOT BE DISTURBED."

She falters.

"...What the fuck? Is he—are you saying he’s on a toilet?"

"THE THRONE OF AGONY KNOWS MANY FORMS."

She takes a full step back. “All right. All right, but you’re saying a throne. Like, metaphorical? Or are we talking a literal, haunted latrine situation? Does he need tea? A compress? A medic? A priest? A bucket?"

Should she get Lucanis? Wait, why Lucanis? What is he going to do? Sneak up on the diarrhea and assassinate it? Whisper menacingly to Emmrich’s lower intestine until it falls in line?

Maybe Davrin, then. Maybe he could lend her Assan, and the griffon could majestically swoop through the Necropolis to deliver Emmrich a roll of paper and a heartfelt “get well soon” screech. She could even pack a snack basket. Some dried fruit. A scented candle. A handwritten note that says “please stop being like this.”

Why is she thinking about this? Why is she building an entire rescue operation in her head? Why is this the hill she has chosen to die on today?

"THE STENCH OF PURIFICATION IS UNYIELDING."

"Oh my Maker, he is on a toilet," Rook whines. "He's been gone for hours, Vorgoth. Hours. What did he eat? Was it cursed?"

"THE SACRED INTESTINES OF KORTH’S FALLEN BEASTS—"

"NO. Nope. I don’t want to know. Take it back. I un-ask the question."

There’s a pause. A long one. The kind of pause that suggests even the shadows are contemplating whether to kill themselves rather than continue existing in a reality where this conversation is happening.

"...HE PERFORMS THE RITE OF BINDING. THERE IS NO TOILET."

Her eye twitches so violently she briefly wonders if she’s about to have an aneurysm. She thinks she might be about to throw up. Right into Vorgoth’s hood.

“Why... Why would you say all that other stuff first, then?”

"THE MORTAL TONGUE LACKS PRECISION."

She feels something rupture in her brain.

"I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU, VORGOTH!" she yells, just as Emmrich materializes from thin air and wraps his arms around her middle to start dragging her away from the robed figure.

"Ah, you found Vorgoth," he says. "Did they help?"