The 16th Companion

Disclaimer: I do not own middle-earth or any of the characters besides the mysterious elven one, and I probably never will. Sob sob.

This is my first fanfiction, and English is not my first language, so try not to flame without much cause: Yes, I know that the canon characters are OOC, yadayadayada, but still. I would appreciate constructive criticism, though.

Enjoy and review!

Chapter 1: Unwanted Company

Bilbo Baggins of Bag End was feeling rather disgruntled. More than 'rather disgruntled', in fact. 'Absolutely furious' might've been more accurate. Bilbo couldn't remember being angrier in his life. Well, except for the time when the old hag Lobelia snitched his mother's gilded jewelry box. And when she … No. Enough. This was not the time to be indignant about greedy, rude, insulting, &%£*$! Sackville Bagginses, no matter how furious they made him. The fact remained that an entire troop of unknown, uninvited, unwanted dwarves had invaded his poor hole, defiled his furniture and were now trying to make him become a burglar in their suicidal little adventure.

But all of Bilbo's misgivings made way for curiosity at the mention of a quest and at the unrolling of an old map… And returned, full force, at yet another knock at the door.

"How many of you are there?!", he demanded crossly.

But the dwarves did not seem too sure either: They were frozen, shooting wary glances at the door and muttering amongst themselves.

"I never get any visitors at this time: If it isn't one of you, I have no idea who it is," Bilbo clarified.

Gandalf, unfrozen now, directed the full force of his stare to Thorin. "Who did you tell of this quest, beyond your kin?"

"No one."

Gandalf got to his feet, looming over Thorin and asked again, more forcefully, "Who did you tell?!"

"No one, I swear!"

"Just open the bloody door and see who it is!" Exclaimed Ori, the increasingly insistent rapping grating on his nerves… and his wits, evidently. "We can take them!" triggering a burst of forlorn headshaking, exasperated sighs and mutters of "naïve", "headstrong" and "idiot".

"Well, we can," he protested, seeking to stem this tirade. "What do you think's there?! Orcs? Elves?!"

Thorin stood up, in full King Under The Mountain mode. "Yes. Yes," he growled. "We are not going to a picnic with sunshine and berries and fluffy pink bunnies: We are out to reclaim Erebor, to face the dragon Smaug, and we will encounter who knows what on the way. It is no time to jest, and no time to be careless, to be unassuming, to be the naïve fool you were just now, Ori. An orc or an elf might be exactly what's knocking on our burglar's door. Just shut up, all of you, and whatever's hammering outside might just give up and go away."

Bilbo was too busy being awed to object that leaving someone waiting outside a door was extremely poor manners… It was just as well; such a suggestion would've earned him a round of withering glares and mutterings much more condescending that what Ori had received.

After a few moments of (relative) silence, the rapping stopped.

"You know, if it's really elves out there, they would've known we were here already," Balin remarked.

"I never thought I'd agree with a Naugrim," a silky voice purred, reverberating with a dangerous, icy cold undertone that gave even the great Thorin Oakenshield shivers along his spine, "But that one's right."

Naugrim: A not very nice Sindarin term for dwarves: Means stunted ones. (I think.)

Thanks for reading and review!