disclaimer: as always, not mine. if you don't know about the original chinese version-- 向西 in this forum, drop everything, go read it, and you'll be thankful as being alive in this world to breathe in such aesthetic beauty.

To the West (1.1-1.2)

I had a secret.
I loved the color of green.
And I thought listening to birds singing, smelling the flowers, bathing in the sun-warmed stream, or taking a nap in the shade of trees was quite pleasant too.
Then I must have had lots of secrets.
Because I was a dwarf.

You might encounter me on the road, and you would see a sturdy fellow who couldn’t even reach your shoulder with a helmet on the head—of course, you must be big people or an elf in the first place. Frankly I had never seen an elf, neither did I have any curiosity to meet them, because they were all wicked and very ugly. My cousin babbled all these to me. He wandered a lot, only back to Lonely Mountain once or twice a year. I didn’t like his loudness much, but it had nothing to do with what he told me. It was wise to heed him as everyone observed. All dwarves disliked elves, especially my cousin, who called them ghosts and rats, since they could live long and had pointed ears. Having pointed ears as rats did was truly painful, but living long seemed not bad at all—perhaps Cousin was jealous of them. I knew there were people who were even shorter than we in the west. My father had dealings with them before, and was helped by one of them to slay the evil dragon of the Lonely Mountain to get back our cherished Arkenstone. Uncle Thorin died during that time, hence Father would never willingly mention the battle. I was uncomfortable to think about a fellow shorter than myself beating a dragon, and I always wanted to visit them. I heard they didn’t like to live in the caves, which was not sensible at all. Halflings ought to stay in the caves, though I pondered it was not bad either to sleep at a place where you could see the stars upon opening your eyes—oh, this was my secret too. You know, in our caves there were no windows except jewelry and metal. Dwarves were not fond of other shiny things. Oh, let me talk more about myself. I had the thickest beard in the Lonely Mountain. It might triple me if I forgot to wrap it around my waist belt one day. Cousin prated that elves never grew beards. That was horrific. I felt less disgusted whenever it occurred to me that they would never have beautiful beards. How sad they would be!

It was autumn again.
Autumn in the Lonely Mountain was very beautiful. But none of my friends noticed it, because they were all holed up in the caves and competed with each other hard to see who would carve out the most natural-looking leaves to decorate the hallway. In the end Nori beat all others. He could finally drink roots beer as much as he liked—paid by those who lost in the contest. Frankly the leaves engraved by him were really nice. You could sense they were stirring when you passed by, as though they were caught in the wind roused by your movement. None the less I couldn’t understand why they would rather stay inside the pitch-dark caves and carve an oaken leaf out of a rock, instead of gazing at the real oak leaves in the sun. The oaks were green all the year. They were like green clouds shrouding the Lonely Mountain when you looked down from the top of it. Oh, you know, singing or writing poetry was not our cup of tea. Once I chattered with Cousin that the forest was like a green-haired beast, lying in Dale for many years, quiet and tamed. The trees and flowers were its hair. It was jolly to lie under the trees and tickle its hair from time to time. But Cousin grumbled tree was tree, beast was beast, how come the forest was like a beast or trees were like hair, moreover he should tickle my head with an axe.
“Gimli! This is horrid! You jabbered like an elf!” cried Cousin, “Only those damned elves prattle about such gibberish. They even make up songs to sing and there’s never an end to their noise. They are more troublesome than crows. Even the crows can’t stand them.”
I talked like an elf? Elves also thought the forest was like a green beast?
I wanted to ask Cousin more about it. But he poked his ears and scuttled off, muttering he was going to get some water to wash them.
This was long time ago, when Nori was not wedded yet, and I didn’t see Cousin again until Yalai agreed to marry Nori.

To the West (1.3)

Cousin was very excited, and it was not because of Nori’s wedding as I could see clearly. He almost ate nothing and kept trying to sneak away as if he was in a hurry to meet someone. He had brought back a large bag. There must be something precious inside for no one was allowed to touch it. Eventually he didn't manage to skulk away and ended up dead drunk. He slept for quite a few days. During that period the dwarves’ snore was so loud in Dale that even elves could hear it in Mirkwood and they had the most sensitive ears. After waking up Cousin blasted all the dwarves who had been in the wedding ceremony, spitting they had spoilt an important plan of his, then he shouldered that big bag and ran off.

Half a month later many order forms came unceasingly. They all asked for some queer toys, like a bamboo bird that could fly for a long while with its spring coiled, or a box that had a grinning face jumping out upon being opened. Some designs had never been seen, but they were a piece of cake to dwarves. All orders were handled by Cousin. The person who paid them was that great hobbit. It was said that he was going to be 111 years old and all these toys were prepared for his birthday party—111 years old might be very important to a hobbit, since the cost for these was not little.

Later on Cousin sent me a message and asked whether I wanted to attend Bilbo’s (I finally remembered his name was Bilbo) birthday party in Shire. My father didn’t accord, saying that it was different presently though the dragon was dead but orcs were still rambling around, besides – he didn’t go on, but I knew he was thinking about Sauron in Modor, the dark lord of Middle-earth. I could sense the world outside our caves was changing. It was rumored that Sauron was regaining his power slowly. Sometimes Father’s face was wrinkled with concern after he was back from talking with Uncle Dain. I didn’t worry much though. We could beat an army of orcs in the last battle of Dale, why not this time again? But I didn’t manage to visit Shire. The messenger was busy loading goods and left before I was able to figure out a way. I regretted for a long time. Cousin used to comment I was wonky and making a decision was harder than anything for me. Seems he had a point.

These had happened in autumn. When the rain season came to the Lonely Mountain, Cousin was back covered with mud all over. At that time all dwarves were busy provoking fire to drive away moist in the caves. Usually no one stepped out of the caves during the whole winter. I wanted to hear his story about Bilbo’s birthday party. I knew the respectable Gandalf was there too and brought forth lots of fireworks (I came to know it afterwards and was rueful for a long time because we dwarves could make anything except those stuff flicking fire and light in the sky.) Some fellows who often journeyed to Bag End said that the folks in Shire were all gossiping about Bilbo’s trick during the ceremony. They said the trick was not clever at all but no one could figure it out. Cousin must have known about it. And very possibly it was his idea. He was wicked as a kid and I was tricked by him many times. But he always snorted it was because I was too foolish. Frankly I didn’t understand how it got to do with foolishness. Wasn’t it the wicked one that ought to repent?

This time Cousin stayed long in the Lonely Mountain. In fact he was still in the caves. He said it was not safe outside, strangers roved on the road and someone once saw a queer person shielded under a black cloak and riding on a black horse sauntering about. But one thing cheering him a lot was more and more elves were leaving for Grey Havens in the west, which meant they would sail away in the sea and never be back to Middle-earth. He bragged there was nothing better than living in a world without any elves around, thus he always treated himself a mug of roots beer gleefully whenever anyone else picked up this topic. But I didn’t feel this way. Mirkwood must be very solitary when all elves departed – I had no idea where I learned this word of “solitary”, but I never mentioned it in front of other dwarves. A dwarf only needed an axe in hand to be happy with himself. They just had such high spirits. In dwarves' eyes I never found the thing that even existed in an eagle’s eyes—as if he missed something deeply though he didn't know where it was or even what it was.      

I thought it was solitude.