Author's note:
Based on a prompt from the Hobbit kink meme:
I loved the scene in Rivendell where they're all in their undergarments and laughing and joking (and Bifur is roasting a lettuce leaf on the fire). So... what if that was like one big dwarf pajama party?
Make it as cracky as you like. Braiding each other's hair, talking about who they have a crush on, bitching about the elves, that sort of thing. Just make us laugh!
Although Lord Elrond often entertained guests - his home was called the Last Homely House for a good reason - there weren't enough guest bedrooms for each member of the Company to have his own room. He informed them about this apologetically, and he offered to give Thorin and Gandalf their own rooms, since they were the most distinguished guests, and to have the others share rooms with three or four beds in them.
The dwarves unexpectedly made this much easier for him, telling him they would actually prefer to share a large room, with thirteen beds for the remaining twelve dwarves and Bilbo. The reason, which they were too polite to explain to Lord Elrond, was that his house made them feel a little uneasy: it was so typically Elvish, with large windows and arches letting in air and light from the outside, that the dwarves didn't even feel as if they were inside a house. For them it was just like spending another night out in the open, and they would fall asleep much more easily knowing that they could keep an eye on each other.
After supper, Gandalf stayed with Lord Elrond, because they had many things to talk about. Thorin soon excused himself, thanked their host, found a bench in a secluded part of the garden, sat there and lit his pipe. His heart felt heavy. He knew now that they had to reach Erebor before Durin's Day, and he wasn't sure how they were going to do that. And even once they reach the mountain and enter it their task would be far from finished, he thought while watching the smoke from his pipe form sinister patterns against the starry sky.
The bedroom for the remaining thirteen members of the Company was pleasant and large, with an arched doorway leading into a small secluded garden where a pleasant fire was lit. Some of the dwarves slumped down on their beds immediately, feeling exhausted; others huddled around the fire.
Bifur stood by the carved door frame, tracing the intricate woodwork with his fingers. It was made with great skill, he thought; the frame was a maze of interwowen branches and vines, bearing fruit, blossoms and leaves of many plants at once, but none of the branches and vines had a beginning or an end: they were all rendered as one continous line, passing over and under itself hundreds of times. He had to admit that the elves had great skill, but he still prefered the stonework of the dwarves, with its bold geometric patterns, its strong and dependable vertical and horizontal lines that stood for the unchangeable qualities of the earth and the sky, as opposed to the fragility and passing beauty of growing things.
Oin, who was sitting on his bed on the other end of the room and watching him, touched his forehead and then raised his hands and looked upwards - iglishmêk for "What are you thinking about?"
Bifur sighed - this wasn't going to be easy - and responded with a long string of signs: "window-frame-good-web-branch-fruit-flower-leaf-no-begin-no-stop-over-under-elves-good-work-dwarves-good-stone-strong-up-down-line-earth-sky-plant-weak-die."
Oin nodded encouragingly, but he thought to himself: "Poor old Bifur, he'll never be the same again".
Bifur was aware that a part of his thoughts might have been lost in the translation, but iglishmêk was a very basic and simple language, best suited for sentences like "Throw that large hammer over to me and mind my head," and he had done his best to express himself. He shrugged and went outside to join the dwarves sitting around the fire. He had saved a small head of lettuce from supper, and, suddenly inspired, he went over to toast it.
"Actually, you have a beard too," Fili said to Bilbo. "It just happens to be on your feet, not on your face." He smiled encouragingly at Bilbo, who was sitting on his bed and smoking his pipe.
Several of the dwarves had taken hairbrushes and small mirrors of polished obsidian out of their pockets, and were now carefully grooming their beards and hair. Fili had apparently expected Bilbo to feel bad because of his beardless state and felt the need to comfort him. Bilbo hadn't been feeling bad at all, but appreciated the intention anyway.
"I don't really think of the hair on my feet as a beard," he said. "I see it more as a pair of socks I was born with."
"Still, you could occasionaly braid it and wear some jewellery in it," Fili said. "It would be a nice change."
"It isn't long enough for braiding!" Bilbo protested.
"What about beads, then?" said Gloin, who had been listening to the conversation. He took a leather pouch out of his pocket, took a pair of carved stone beads out of it and handed them to Bilbo. "I have some spare ones. Go ahead, try them on!"
Bilbo put away his pipe and took the beads. They were really beautiful, intricatelly ornamented. Feeling slightly ridiculous but wishing to humour the dwarves, Bilbo threaded the tuft of hair on his left big toe through one of the beads. He did the same with the hair on his right big toe and eyed the results thoughtfully.
"See? Your feet look dignified!" Fili said.
Bilbo wasn't sure "dignified" was the right word. He thought they looked amusing, but to his surprise wearing dwarvish jewellery had a certain appeal. He got up and started pacing around the room, and for some reason the beads made him walk more solemnly and hold his head up high. Gloin watched him and beamed.
"Keep the beads! I have plenty of them, and they really do suit you."
"Thank you!" Bilbo said. "But it would be a waste to wear them on our journey. They would get lost or damaged."
"Of course," Gloin said. "You should save them for special occasions."
"Like the Mayor's Midsummer feast in Michel Delving," Bilbo thought and smiled. "I'll be the talk of the Shire. My feet will be mentioned in the Shire Chronicles, and by next year's feast every hobbit will wear beads on their feet. Especially the Proudfoots!" The thought made him ridiculously happy, and he strutted across the room with adorned feet a few more times, to the dwarves' great delight.
Ori was sitting on his bed and writing in his book, his ink bottle and a lit candle resting on the wooden frame of the bed. When he finished writing, he went outside carrying the book, ink and quill, sat on a bench in the bright moonlight, and started working on a sketch of everything he could see from that viewpoint: the small enclosed garden with the dwarves sitting and laughing around the fire, the buildings of Rivendell with their arches and steep roofs, the waterfalls and cliffs, the full moon in the sky. He didn't think his sketch was very good, but it would have to do; it was still better than trying to commit every detail to memory. After filling in a dark section of the sketch with tiny crisscrossed lines, he looked up to see Kili standing by the garden fence, covering up a good portion of his view. Kili was grinning happily.
"I'd like to be in your picture!" he said.
"Sorry, Kili," Ori said, "but I'm working on sketch of the view from here and you're standing in the way. Besides, you're already in my drawing - look!"
He held up the book for Kili to see and showed him the one of the small silhouettes he had drawn huddled around the fire.
"I'm tiny!" Kili protested. "Draw a larger portrait of me! Looking like this!" He straightened his shoulders, tilted up his chin and placed his right hand on the knife sheath on his belt, attempting a heroic pose.
Ori sighed. Both Fili and Kili had been like that ever since the three of them were children : bright and funny and excellent company, but they would sometimes get away too easily with being a little obnoxious, because the other children were always aware that they were Thorin's nephews. Well, Ori wasn't going to take it any more. They were adults now, he was in charge of writing the chronicle and he wasn't going to let anyone else interfere.
"All right, Kili," he said, working quickly on the shading of his sketch until the quill was out of ink. "I'll draw a portrait of you". Tilting the book upwards so that Kili couldn't see what he was doing, he pretended to write on the next page with the empty quill. Seemingly immersed in his work, he told Kili: "Only, you know, the pictures in my chronicle have to match the words. So, if I'm going to make a portrait of you, I have to write a whole chapter about you to go with it." He went on pretending to write, glancing at Kili only occasionally to watch his heroic expression turn gradually into a worried one.
"Um... Ori, what are you writing about me?" Kili asked.
"You know, just something about your personality and about your great deeds on this journey."
Kili's eyes widened in panic. "But I haven't done any great deeds... yet! May I see what you're writing?"
Ori shook his head and tried to keep his face as serious as possible.
"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly let you see it. This chronicle is for the future, for a time when we'll have our kingdom again and we'll all be legendary warriors. It will be read out loud at great feasts."
Kili closed his eyes for a few moments, and then opened them again and said: "You know what, Ori, I appreciate it very much, but I would rather if you didn't write about me or draw me. Not yet, at least."
"That's fine with me," Ori said. Kili went back to sit by the fire. Balin, who was sitting by the fire and scraping mud off his boots, smiled at Ori and winked, as if he were saying: "Well done!" Bifur, who was sitting beside him, was still toasting his lettuce with a serene expression.
Bofur was the one who started the musical part of the evening. Sitting by the fire, he took his flute out of his leather pouch and started improvising a tune almost absent-mindedly. After a while Dwalin put away the axes he had been polishing, took his fiddle and joined in. One by one the dwarves went to fetch their instruments and gathered outside by the fire. The hobbit followed them and marvelled at the way the improvised tune turned into something that sounded like a real song. After they had finished, they decided to play another one, this time an actual song they could sing along to.
As it sometimes happens, the first song that came to mind was the least appropriate one in the circumstances.
"Hey, do you remember that one about the elf? There was an elf, a silly old elf..." Nori asked.
Dori gave him a reproachful look and said: "We can't sing that one here, Nori."
Everyone agreed with him. It was a rude song, and as little as they liked the elves, they respected the ancient rules of hospitality which demanded respect between the guests and the host. Bofur was the one who suggested a solution to the problem.
"We could just sing orc instead of elf!" He said. "Everyone hates orcs, don't they? Except for their own mothers, I suppose."
The suggestion was accepted with enthusiasm, and the dwarves began to play and sing:
"There was an orc, a silly old orc,
Who lived in the forest so green,
And early one morning he went for a stroll..."
One by one, the dwarves stopped singing as they became aware of a figure that stood in the doorway between the bedroom and the garden, watching them sternly. After a few moments of complete silence, Balin said:
"Hello, Thorin!"
Thorin said in a quiet but dangerous voice, adressing everyone and not just Balin:
"Have you been singing a song about orcs?"
After a few moments of guilty silence, Fili said:
"Oh, no, uncle. Not orcs. Forks! Yes, that's it, we were singing about forks."
"Forks! That's right!" Eleven heads nodded eagerly.
"You were singing a song about a fork that lived in the forest and went for a stroll?" Thorin asked in an incredulous voice.
"Come on, Thorin, can't you see we were just being silly and having a bit of fun?" Dwalin said.
Thorin muttered quietly, more to himself than to Dwalin: "How would I know? Songs and laughter always somehow seem to stop when I arrive." Now he sounded sad rather than angry.
"Oh, my dear boy, don't be ridiculous! Come here and join us!" Balin said, and he and Dwalin moved to make a place by the fire for Thorin between the two of them. Thorin accepted the offer, grudgingly - or at least that was what he wanted everyone else to think, because when he settled down among them his eyes seemed to be smiling. Balin asked him to choose the next song, and Thorin asked if they knew any songs about spoons. Of course he wasn't serious, because he had never for a moment believed the previous song was about forks, but Bilbo surprised everyone by revealing that he actually knew a song about a spoon.
"It's about a spoon, a dish, a cat, a dog, a cow, and the Man in the Moon," he said. "It isn't easy to explain. Actually, I don't think anyone knows what it's about. But the tune is very similar to your song about, um, forks. So if you could just play it again, I will sing it for you."
And so he did, and when they all fell asleep in the early morning hours, tired but happy, each one of the dwarves knew at least a part of the words for "The Man In The Moon Came Down Too Soon".