Darkest Before Black
By Jezie Lin
Summay: Unexpected visitors will upset the quiet of Hobbiton.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize and will not profit in any way from this work of fiction.
The wind howled through the last of the autumn leaves, buffeting the forest with a wave of dying brown and orange, ripped from their home high above in the trees. Sam though he knew how they felt as he plodded along behind Mr. Frodo. It had just been earlier in the day that they had been chased out of Hobbiton by an angry mob, a mob that Sam had grown up with, considered friends. Now he and Mr. Frodo were outcasts with nothing but what they had in their pockets to survive the cold winter ahead.
It had started that spring with the arrival of a troop of Dwarves. Quite unexpected, too, with all the rain they had been receiving and most of Shire bogged down in mud. Sam had been mixing up some eggs for their second breakfast when he heard the pounding at the front door of Bagend.
"Bother," Sam muttered to himself as he removed the eggs from the stove and headed for the front parlor and the door. He'd been spending most of his time taking care of the smial and its master since Bilbo had left the previous year. Mr. Frodo was wonderful at many things, but cooking and housekeeping tended to slip to the bottom of his priorities. If Sam wasn't there to remind him to eat, Sam was sure that Mr. Frodo would starve away to nothingness surround by his book.
The pounding continued and Sam hurried to the door thinking that he'd have to repaint the door if whoever was out there pounded any harder. He thought it had to be the Sackville-Baggins, them being rude enough to pound someone's door down, but what they'd be doing out in the rain was beyond Sam. So, imagine his surprise when he opened the door to five very wet, muddy Dwarves.
And the Dwarves didn't wait to be invited in, either. Pushing Sam and the door to the side, they walked into the parlor as if they owned it, taking off their cloaks and hanging them up, dripping muddy water all over the floor.
"And would you be the young master Baggins?" a Dwarf with a blue hood inquired.
"N..no," Sam said, caught between indignation over his nice clean floor and awe of meeting real live dwarves. "I'll get him for you. Who has come calling?"
"Gláin, son of Dáil II, Under-chieftain of Moria, and my sons, Greil, Groim, Deren, and Dáin"