.
So much for a quiet evening at home!
The hobbit could only fathom that his day, which had begun rather awkwardly with that visit from the gray-clad Gandalf who had shown up at his gate door earlier on, had gone from odd to extremely odd by this evening.
Of course the fact that two dwarves now stood in his home talking animatedly between each other and rifling through his pantry's contents –Balin the white-haired dwarf and Dwalin the tattooed dwarf, he had to recall—was just another element to add to his truly odd day's events.
And for the third time this evening, his doorbell rang again, pulling the confused halfling from his thoughts rather brusquely. Wryly wondering if this night would ever end, he left the doorway of his pantry to answer the door, pulling it open to have –how lucky he was—two more dwarves standing on his doorstep.
These two looked to be moreso like brothers than the other two already in his home, and were younger by a good amount of years, as well; for the brief moment that they surveyed him, the hobbit felt rather conscious of the fact that he still wore his patched red sleeping robe.
The blonde dwarf spoke first, breaking the moment of awkwardness, "Fili!" He said.
"And Kili!" The dark-haired dwarf chimed, before both brothers bowed politely and said in chorus, "at your service!" Both dwarves straightened with matching smiles on their scruffy faces, and the hobbit had a mild sensation that they could (and would) have brought mischief when they were children.
"You must be Mr. Boggins!" Kili said cheerily, acknowledging the mild twitch of the hobbit's brow at his mispronunciation.
Panic started to race through him, and he spoke as he tried to close the door on the two new dwarves (what on earth kind of company was this, he thought), "Nope, can't come in; you've got the wrong house!" Only to be stopped by the dark-haired dwarf; he was momentarily confused if this was Fili or Kili…
"Has it been cancelled?" Kili asked alertly, a frown beginning to draw his young face down.
Fili piped up with an inquisitive look, "Noone told us…"
"No, nothing's been cancelled!" Bilbo Baggins shook his head, still at a loss as to why there were now four dwarves in his house.
A wide smile lit up Kili's face, "that's a relief!" He said as he pushed his way into the foyer past the hobbit.
Fili gave a bob of his head to their host as if apologizing for his brother's brashness, shouldering his dual swords from his shoulders to then toss them to the hobbit, saying, "Careful with these, I just had them sharpened!"
Kili was surveying the wide halls of the home as his brother was taking his knives from his person to give to the hobbit. "It's nice, this place; did you do it yourself?" He asked lightly, turning to scrape the mud off the soles of his boots on a nearby chest's squared edge.
"No, it's been in the family for years… That's my mother's glory box, could you please not do that?" Bilbo called, daring not move too fast, as he still held the menagerie of knives in his arms.
Dwalin emerged from the pantry area and slung an arm around the dark-haired dwarf's shoulders, "Fili, Kili, come on give us a hand!" He said.
"Mister Dwalin!" Kili grinned happily, seeming as if in awe for a moment as he hadn't seen the tattooed warrior in a while, being ushered to help Balin with moving things.
Fili shortly followed his brother and the older dwarf, leaving a thoroughly confused and knife-holding Bilbo in the foyer as he heard Balin say they would never fit everyone in the dining room.
"H-hang on, what! How many more of you are there?" Bilbo squeaked, turning in the direction of the dining room, only to hear the doorbell ring a fourth time. He groaned and then dropped the swords and knives, not minding the collective clattering of steel on the floor, as he yelled at the foyer, "there's nobody home!" Whoever had chosen to play a game with him was going to get a piece of his mind, as he strode to answer the bloody door. "Go away and bother somebody else; there's far too many dwarves in my dining room as is! I-if this is some clothead's idea of a joke…" He laughed a little at the joke, and briefly wondered if he was beginning to lose his sanity in less than two hours' time, stopping short of opening the door, "It is in highly poor taste!" He proceeded to yank the door open wide.
Instead of another dwarf or dwarves, however, there was a woman on his doorstep; Bilbo blinked once at the abrupt change in guest, first of all noting the woman was rather tall for a human or hobbit, secondly noticing just how fair-faced and beautiful the woman was.
Scarcely had he come across the 'Fair Folk', so to have one standing on his doorstep took his mind for a spin.
"Eäriel the Wanderer, at your service!" The brunette elf introduced with a polite smile and slight bow, straightening to add meekly, "please forgive me for being late, Master Baggins, I have not visited the Shire in so long that I got a bit lost."
"Ah-um, it's quite alright indeed! Please come in, my lady!" Bilbo stammered out, his cheeks coloring in embarrassment and awe at actually meeting an elleth as lovely as she, shuffling aside as she stepped into his foyer.
Eäriel chuckled a little and slightly bobbed her head in thanks, being mindful of his chandelier that hovered a bit too close to her head, shrugging off her green cloak. "Thank the stars for that mark on your door, elsewise I would've still been out there in the night!" She said as she removed her quiver and knives from their place at her back, hanging the cloak on his nearby coat rack and hanging her quiver and knives' straps on the same hook.
A thought struck the hobbit and he glanced at the door, "odd, I don't remember there being a mark on the door… Was only painted nearly a week ago…" He muttered with a scritch of his head of curly brown locks.
"Lass!" Balin's voice came from the other end of the foyer where the dining room led to, making both elf and halfling look to see the four dwarves had emerged when hearing her enter the house. The wise dwarf smiled at the bright twinkle in the she-elf's blue eyes as she recognized them immediately.
"Eäriel!" Fili and Kili exclaimed in chorus as they rushed her only to be met with a tight embrace from the she-elf as they eagerly returned the embrace.
Eäriel laughed at being received so warmly by her friends, letting the princes down to the floor, grinning from ear to ear at the quartet. "Evening, boys!" She greeted.
"We didn't expect you'd join us, lass!" Dwalin said with a small smirk intended towards seeing the younger dwarves so happy to be reunited with the elleth.
"I could hear the ruckus you lot were making from as far as Bree, Dwalin." Eäriel smirked back; an exchange of smirks in greeting was enough to say she and the tattooed dwarf had come to an understanding in years past.
"Always assuming the worst of us, I'm hurt, Eäri!" Kili pouted up at her.
"I visited you two enough times, and your dear mum, to expect the worst!" Eäriel remarked with a sisterly tousle of his dark locks, stepping away to see if she could be of help to Dwalin and Balin.
"We're not dwarflings anymore…" Fili chimed in with his brother as they followed her.
"Oh aye, elsewise you could still charm me into siding with you two like on that instance with the chickens…" The elleth rolled her eyes with a fond smile extended to the princes.
"I told you that wasn't gonna work, Fee!" The younger dwarf jabbed his brother on habit.
"It was your idea in the first place, Kee!" The older dwarf returned the jab with a slightly hurt look on his bearded face.
"The point is that your mum had your hides for it, and your uncle was worse about the consequences." The elleth reasoned as she carried a chair to place it on the left side of the long table, imagining the brothers had flinched at the memory (to which they did when she wasn't looking).
Once again Bilbo was left in the foyer, both baffled and rather entranced with the new face to his unofficial guest list, at a loss as to how a she-elf could have struck a friendship with dwarves of all creatures; he jumped in place as the doorbell rang a fifth time, and groaned under his breath as he moved to answer it, only to jump back nearly a foot as a pile of dwarves fell over onto his threshold. Blinking once and then twice as he counted there were eight groaning and annoyed dwarves on his floor, he looked past them at the gray-clad man who had most likely shoved them in, the former looking in on the remaining party members and then extending a small smile of greeting to the baffled hobbit.
"Gandalf." Bilbo said in exasperation with a tired look on his face.
|} x {|
Before the poor halfling knew just who was doing what and putting what where, there was a total of twelve dwarves bustling about his house, frequenting between the pantry and his dining room where the noise was most congestive.
Bilbo only looked in once on his pantry, thinking there was some food or drink the dwarves had missed, only to see crumbs and what appeared to be spoiled food had been left. He exhaled wearily and deemed that his life must be over, that there couldn't be another thing to enter his home elsewise the whole place would implode.
Looking over at their host who had now taken to trying to tell the dwarves to 'put this or that back where you found it' as they moved past and around him to congregate in his dining room, the elleth smiled a little in a measure of guilt from her place leaning against the doorway of said room, slightly shaking her head.
Locating the second taller member of the party, the wizard followed her stare and chuckled slightly. "It seems our host is rather overwhelmed, isn't he?" He asked as he looked on the female.
She nodded slightly, taking a sip from the mug of ale she had been given by the princes minutes ago, "the preparations have been made ready for tomorrow, I saw to them this afternoon before coming here." She said.
"Good, good; your silver tongue has not lost its edge yet, my dear." Gandalf smiled at the elleth, looking away as he took a headcount of the dwarves still bustling about, counting them off. "Fili, Kili… Oín, Glóin… Dwalin, Balin… Bifur, Bofur, Bombur… Dori, Nori, and Ori…!" He trailed off on the last and youngest dwarf's name as the halfling had chosen at that moment to retrieve a small basket of red tomatoes from the dwarf, counting again on his fingers and frowning slightly as he found their numbers were not complete. "We're short one dwarf, I'm afraid…" He mused.
"He is late, that's all, he traveled north to a meeting of our kin; he will come." Dwalin informed the wizard and elf as he passed by, taking a swig from his mug.
Eäriel nodded slightly and her lips quirked up in a fond smile as Dori returned to give the small glass of red wine to the wizard, watching the dwarf walk away and she looked at her friend, "no doubt he got lost again…" If he wasn't so bullheaded she would have drawn a map for him or something… but alas, no.
"Eäri, come on," Kili called from the dining room, making both wizard and elf perk up.
Gandalf smiled knowingly at her sheepish look and he patted her back as she turned to join the dwarves for dinner, watching her nearly brighten up being among her friends again, and his smile remained. Between running errands for him within the last thirty or so years, she had constantly frequented the mountains to visit the dwarves she had struck a rather odd alliance with, though the more he looked he recalled she had taken a liking to the young princes she now sat with.
Eäriel laughed slightly as Fili was busy handing out mugs of ale to the dwarves around the table, who happily accepted the drinks offered, before he plonked down in his chair at her right as she was seated between the brothers and she took a swig of her own ale. It felt like centuries since she had felt such warmth as she felt now with the dwarves, and she vainly wanted this to last for another century, as the last warm memory she had might as well have been a whisper of a dream… She was pulled from her thoughts as a loud and simultaneous belching chain came from the twelve dwarves who had all guzzled their ale in overall-quietness moments prior, laughing loudly as the one belcher that stood out from the rest was shy Ori, and she had to laugh with them at the oddity.
As dinner had begun to wind down, the majority of the dwarves vacated the dining room in exchange for refilling their mugs or chatting amongst each other in various niches of the warm house.
Skirting her way out of the small kitchen after refilling her mug, Eäriel blinked when hearing the evident frustration in Bilbo's voice as he had shot after Nori –who was about to wipe his bearded face with a small doily—into the kitchen she had just left. She slightly shook her head and slipped out into the hall to join Kili.
Poor lad, she thought, doesn't know what Gandalf has in store for him… The elleth exhaled and took another sip of ale.
Kili looked up at the she-elf standing near him at seeing her pensive look, raising a dark brow. "You're doing it again." He said, distinctly seeing her pointed ears twitch from amidst the locks of brown she had partially braided back.
"Hm?" Eäriel caught his observant expression which made her mildly confused look soften into a gentle half-smile, "what do you mean?" She asked dubiously.
"Thinking too much; you sigh a lot and have that look in your eyes." Kili answered matter-of-factly, catching the beginnings of a pout on her fair face and he smirked cheekily at finding he didn't imagine it.
Eäriel knew she couldn't dismiss him as she could once do when he was a dwarfling, he was a realized prince now she had to remember, and so she exhaled in defeat. "If you must know, I was wondering just when it was that you and your brother had gotten to be so strong. You're not the dwarflings that would try to braid my hair as you were before, Kili." She tilted her head slightly with a wry smile tugging at her lips.
It seemed just yesterday she were meeting the then-dwarfling princes, and now here they were, strong and groomed to follow their uncle into whatever would come of their impending journey.
Kili's ears partially hidden by his dark hair turned red in a measure of humbleness, but his smile turned into a light grin that fell on his stubble-ridden face. "Pretty sure I'd be better at it now, Eäri." He shrugged, before he recalled something, and his face lit up like a lantern, "oh right, almost forgot!" He then trotted away from their spot in the hall to where he left his things, causing her to raise both brows in slight confusion, and he returned shortly with something hidden behind his back. "Right, then, close your eyes." He looked up at her with a cheery smile on his face.
Eäriel slightly frowned, knowing that cheery smile of his too well by now. "Fine, fine…" She complied and closed her eyes, beginning to wonder what he was playing at, when feeling his stubbier fingers gently lift her free hand and extend it before depositing something wrapped in cloth into her open hand. She opened her eyes and looked down at the navy-colored parcel and set her mug down for a moment to unwrap it, finding much to her surprise, the small knife he had given her. It didn't look like it would be noticeable when concealed, and she took note of the brown color of the wooden handle along with the geometric design etched into the handle, signifying its make was dwarvish at best. "It's lovely, Kili…" She smiled slowly at her gift before looking at the young dwarf and adding, "thank you."
"Don't thank me, thank my mum; she said she wanted to give it to you the last time you were in Ered Luin, but she didn't get to because you left so soon." Kili shrugged, a thoughtful smile on his face at the mention of his mother, also looking at the concealable knife she held in hand.
Eäriel chuckled softly and shrugged as well, rewrapping the knife and reminding herself to put it in a place where she would find it again, "I will have to thank her, when I see her again." Bless her heart, she thought; along with the odd alliance she had made with the dwarves of Erebor, she had made a fast friend in the Lady Dis, who had the compassion and warmth that her older brother kept hidden behind his defensive walls…
"…I'm sorry to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?" Ori's meek voice asked of their host who had been venting to the wizard nearby, making both elf and dwarf perk up.
Fili passed by him and said, "here y'go, Ori, hand it to me." He took the plate from his hands and nonchalantly tossed it down the hall, not minding Bilbo's blanched expression that seemed for naught as Kili caught the plate with ease and chucked it into the kitchen for Bifur to catch it over his shoulder.
Eäriel smirked at the boys as they proceeded to chuck one piece of dishware after the other in Kili's direction only for the items to end up in Bifur's care, and she looked at the dining room when hearing the dwarves still seated began pounding their fists on the table and scraped their silverware together to create a rhythmic beat that was sweet-sounding to her ears, sipping her ale. Oh gods here we go, she thought, her smirk threatening to stretch into a smile.
"C-can you not do that, you'll blunt them!" Bilbo protested to the dwarves scraping the silverware together.
Bofur sang cheerily, "ooh, d'ya hear that lads! He says we'll blunt the knives!" The dwarves continued stomping their feet against the floor to cause the rhythm to escalate.
"Blunt the knives, bend the forks!" Kili started the song with a cheery grin on his face as he continued chucking dishes into the kitchen.
Fili quickly picked up after him, "Smash the bottles and burn the corks!" It wasn't long before the remaining ten dwarves chimed with him as he continued, "chip the glasses and crack the plates… that's what Bilbo Baggins hates!"
Tapping her own foot to the beat as the song continued, Eäriel grinned at the merriment the dwarves caused and she laughed as she was pulled into a small jig by Fili, both elleth and prince dancing about in a circular manner as the others continued singing and she nearly forgot the probably distraught look on Bilbo's face.
"That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!" The dwarves plus Eäriel crowed the last line of the song before breaking into laughs again, moving aside for the irritable and huffing hobbit as he marched himself into the kitchen to see all of his dishes were stacked and cleaned in a neat pile.
Eäriel released Fili's hand with a warm smile and bobbed her head to him respectfully as Fili followed suit, and her smile fell an inch as her sharp ears heard something his did not; she quickly lifted her head to look in the direction of the front door, making both brothers near her sport a mutual look of confusion, before three hard knocks sounded and caused the laughter to die down instantly as the other dwarves seemed to recognize the same conclusion the lone elf had come to.
Gandalf lowered his pipe and looked from the confused Bilbo to the expectant dwarves to the smile on Eäriel's face, and he did not miss the she-elf's brightened pale blue eyes, as he said quietly, "he is here."
an: huh seems I'm still good at cliffhangers... anywho, the next installment is coming up soon, so fret not; regular updates will be posted on tumblr! feel free to review and such, and thank you so much for the two favs and follows, everyone :)
