A Good and Respectable Hobbit
Bilbo stretched slightly, pulling his pillow closer. It was quiet and comforting, and he wanted to fall back asleep with the silence.
... The silence...
Bilbo opened his eyes, freezing.
The silence. It had not been silent last night. It had definitely not been silent. There had been far too much noise, far too many dwarves, and far too much... incineration talk.
Bilbo loved the silence. It was calm and quiet and comforting. Hearing the fire crackle in the bedroom hearth or the pops and sizzles of fish frying over the stove... That was nice. That was home. That was his life...
... and then, last night, suddenly, it hadn't been.
It had been hectic and surprising and frightening, really, a flurry of movement and action that had had Bilbo scrambling throughout his hobbit-hole, chasing down dwarves and collecting the objects that he didn't want broken. His pantry had been raided, for goodness' sake!
But it was silent now. Could have all of that been a dream?
Bilbo pushed himself out of bed, hesitantly creeping out of his bedroom.
No dwarves.
"... Hello!" he called out, peering into the dining room.
No mess.
Letting out a sigh of relief, feeling rather chuffed that it all seemed to have been a terrible dream (except he knew that it hadn't been, he could feel the bruises from fainting last night).
No unexpected journeys.
Bilbo stopped in the doorway of his sitting room, staring idly at his furniture, his personal effects, his life...
It was almost anti-climatic, Bilbo realized with a start, to wake up and find the dwarves missing.
How could he think that?
Bilbo started to turn but his eye caught something that was lying nearby.
The contract.
It hadn't been a dream.
Bilbo looked at the folded up contract, at the empty space next to the Burglar: line.
By writing two simple words, a signature that he had been writing his whole life, he could leave this life. His hearth and his bed and his clothes, his handkerchiefs and his pantry and his books, his maps, doilies, and most of all, his home. Hobbiton. The Shire. Bag-End.
He could leave it all behind by simply picking up a pen and signing his name, by running after the dwarves that had so rudely interrupted his routine dinner-time.
He could change his life.
A good, respectable hobbit would never dream of doing such things...
"I'm going on an adventure!"
But he had been good and respectable all his life.
It was time for a new chapter.
Bilbo's feet couldn't carry him fast enough as he ran hurriedly after the dwarves.
I do not own The Hobbit.
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