Chapter Two
It turns out I had interrupted Bilbo just when he was finishing his dinner. Fish, by the smell coming in through the kitchen doorway. He quickly rushed out bringing two plates of, indeed, fish. I wasn't to be honest expecting any food. I mean, I'd already basically barged my way into his house; there was no reason at all for him to give me any food. None the less, I was very grateful. My stomach had been rumbling for hours.
"Thanks." I said, sitting down opposite.
"You're welcome." Bilbo replied, giving me a small smile. I could tell he was just as comfortable with this situation as I was. i.e. not very. 'Oh well', I thought, digging into my food. "So," he started. "You said you didn't know where you were. Where are you from?" Thankfully, I was saved giving an answer by the doorbell ringing. Bilbo excused himself and went to answer the door. Phew, I thought. What was I supposed to tell him? That I was from this strange world that he probably knew nothing about and was magically transported to this place.
I'd come to the realization when I was outside that this place ('Middle Earth', as Thorin had called it), was vaguely familiar to me. Unfortunately, I could not for the life of me, remember where it was familiar from, so I was back to ground zero. I took small bites of my dinner, trying to make it last.
"Which way, laddie?" I heard a rough voice ask Bilbo. Obviously the person who had rung the doorbell. "Is it down here?"
"I…is what down where?"
"Supper. He said there'd be food, and lots of it."
"H…he said? Who said?"
I turned around to see a large man walk into the room. He had a huge beard, a bald head, and he definitely looked like someone I didn't want to cross. I saw him give a small smirk at the way he was making Bilbo uncomfortable, and proceeded to sit in Bilbo's seat. Giving him a small, polite smile, I went back to my own dinner as the man helped himself to Bilbo's. I looked up to see him eating all of Bilbo's fish, and I don't use the word 'all' lightly. I mean all, head and everything. It wasn't that nice to watch if I'm honest.
"Mmmmm…very good this. Any more?" Quickly loosing my appetite (God only knows why!), I slid the plate across the table, receiving a mumbled 'cheers lass' in response through the fish that was being devoured again. Bilbo meanwhile had scurried off to retrieve more food, and had now appeared with a plate full of biscuits that he quickly placed on the table.
"Help yourself." He said, stepping back quickly as though he would be wounded by just being near this man. "It's just that…um…I wasn't expecting company." I stifled a laugh. That much was obvious. He was about to point something else out (which I assumed would be something equally as obvious) when the bell rang again.
"That'll be the door." Bilbo huffed and shuffled off to see who else had disturbed him this day. "So, lass, what brings you here?" I paused. Partly due to the fact that I hadn't expected him to talk to me, and also because of the fact that I had no idea what to say. What was I supposed to say? I settled with the truth, or as much as I could say without sounding completely mad.
"Well, I got lost in the woods, I think…anyway, I met this guy, and he helped me and told me to wait here until he came back." I thought back on what I said. Yep, completely mad.
"Ah, I see." He chuckled.
"What! Don't judge me. If anything, you owe me. I gave you my dinner." I internally winced.
"You didn't have to." He pointed out. He had me there.
"Yeah, well…shut up." He chuckled (again! I was beginning to think I was brought here to be the amusement of this guy), and walked away to get more food.
"Evening, brother dear." I heard a new voice say. Since when did someone else arrive?
"Oh, by my beard. You are shorter and wider than last we met."
"Wider, not shorter. Sharp enough for both of us." I walked around the corner to see who was talking. I came face to face with someone who was indeed shorter than the first man, although he had a full hair of white hair with a huge beard to match. And he definitely seemed a lot cheerier than his brother. "Ah!" he said, catching sight of me. "And who would this be?"
"Me? Oh, I'm Amaya." I smiled.
"Pleasure to meet you, lass." He smiled back. "I'm Balin, and I'm sure you've already been introduced to my brother, Dwalin." So that was the other man's name! But I went along with it and nodded anyway.
"Uh, excuse me; sorry, I hate to interrupt." Butted in Bilbo. "Ah, but the thing us, I'm not entirely sure you're in the right house." Not surprisingly, he was ignored and the two, I was later informed dwarves, walked into his pantry to search for more food. "It's not that I don't like visitors; I…I like visitors as much as the next Hobbit (So that's what Bilbo was!), but I do like to know them before they come visiting."
"What's this?" asked Dwalin, picking up a huge lump of moldy cheese.
"I don't know…cheese? It's gone blue."
"It's riddled with mold."
"The thing is…" continued Bilbo. "I…I don't know any of you, not in the slightest. I don't mean to be blunt, but I uh…but I had to speak my mind. I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted!" grinned Balin. I walked over to them.
"The cheese is meant to be moldy, you know."
"Really?" they asked. "I find that hard to believe." Snorted Dwalin. "Why would you eat that?"
"Don't ask me. I've never liked it." I shrugged.
"Right. Come on, lass. Let's get some food down ya. You're as thin as a twig!" I rolled my eyes and followed them to the table. I sat down and watched as they brought more and more food onto the table and gathered more chairs for others who I guessed were coming. I was so busy watching these two, I never noticed that two more dwarves had arrived until I noticed that Dwalin and Balin had stopped to greet them. I really needed to start paying more attention.
"Fili, Kili, come on, give us a hand." Dwalin said. I remained seated, not bothering to move from my spot. By this point in the day, I really couldn't be bothered.
"Now hang on a minute, Mister Dwalin, you must introduce us to this lovely young lady." Said one of the new dwarves. I looked up to see the two new additions staring down at me. The darker haired one had a mischievous grin on his face, probably the one who spoke, whereas his brother (I was assuming they were brothers by their very similar sounding names) was staring at me with this weird expression. He had a golden blonde head of hair and was slightly shorter than his brother with more of a beard and a braided moustache. (Which I found strange, but oddly attractive) He was nudged in the ribs by his brother and he quickly snapped out of whatever he was in. "I apologise for my brother, miss. I am Kili and this is my brother Fili."
"Hey." I replied. "I'm Amaya."
"That is a beautiful name, Miss Amaya." Said Fili, walking up and placing a kiss on my hand. I was sure that my face was a dark shade of red by this point.
"Thanks." I mumbled. This was beyond awkward. I wasn't used to that kind of attention, no matter what it was, and I had no idea on how to react. I decided the best course of action was to see what all the noise was in the hallway, and turned to realize there was now a lot more dwarves in Bilbo's house. A lot more. And it was very amusing to watch, partly due to the fact that they were in a massive pile in the front porch. Standing up mumbling, they wasted no time in scattering all over the house, carrying chairs, food, drink, literally anything they could get their hands on, and carrying it into the dining room as if they owned the place.
"How about we introduce you to everyone?" came a voice from behind me. I turned to find that Kili had followed me, a smirk still spread across his face.
"Yeah…that would be…good." I stuttered, a little overwhelmed with all the new company.
"Ok, well, that over there is Oin, there's Gloin, you know Dwalin and Balin I'm assuming, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, and the wizard over there is Gandalf." My mouth dropped.
"Wizard? Like, Harry Potter wizard? You know, expecto patronum…that kind of wizard?" By the bewildered look from Kili, and everyone else seated in the dining room which we were back in, I quickly remembered that the people here would have absolutely no idea who or what any or those things were, so I quickly explained myself. "I'm sorry, I mean like, a magic wizard? He can do magic?"
"Of course he can do magic, lass!" said the dwarf with the funny hat. Bofur, I think he was called. "He's a wizard!"
"Right…of course." Duh.
"Come sit over here, Miss Amaya. We got you some food." Baffled, I maneuvered myself over the chairs and dwarves surrounding the table and sat down between Fili and Kili. Looking down at the plate that was pushed in front of me, my eyes widened. The plate was piled sky high full of food. Bread, meat, cheese, you name it, it was probably there. There was no way in hell I was going to eat all this. But, never one to back down from a challenge, I dove right in, causing some of the dwarves around me to chuckle. I could vaguely overhear Bilbo over all the noise.
"No, no, that's Grandpa Mungo's chair! No, I'm sorry; you'll have to take it back please. Take it back…it's antique. Not for sitting on! Thank you. That's a book, not a coaster. Put that map down, thank you."
"I cannot hear what you're saying!" yelled Oin. For most of this part of the night, I was quiet, partly due to the fact that I had no idea what to say, and partly because I was too busy eating. I was also fascinated by the fact that Bombur could catch a bit of food thrown from the other side of the room in his mouth. Yep, I thought, dwarves are cool.
"Who wants an ale?" asked Fili, who had apparently left to make several cups. I really need to pay more attention.
"Let him have another drink!" shouted Dwalin.
"Here you go." I was wondering what Dwalin was talking about until I watched him pour the ale down poor Oin's hearing trumpet, making him splutter in anger. Although I had to laugh along with the others. "And one for the lady." Added Fili, gently putting a cup of ale on the table in front of me.
"On the count of three!" Shouted one of the dwarves. I furrowed my eyebrows. What was going on now? "One, two, three!" As soon as the number three was said, all the dwarves sat around the table were immediately quiet and literally poured the ale into their mouths, making it drip all down their beards. Nice… Not to mention that once they'd all finished a competition seemed to start as to who had the loudest burp. Ori, sweet little Ori who had been asking me questions for most of the night, surprisingly won. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bilbo walk away in disgust. I compromised to just sipping my ale.
"So, Miss Amelia, where are you from?" asked Bofur. I looked around to see I had got all of the dwarves' attention.
"Oh! Urm…well…York." As if they knew where that was.
"York? Never heard of it. Is it down south?"
"Uh…not really…it's not really anywhere around here, I don't think." What the hell did that even mean? This answer only peaked the dwarves' interest, and soon I was being bombarded with questions.
"What did you do there?" asked Ori, who was writing everything down in his journal.
"I went to university. And worked as a waitress in my spare time." I chuckled at the confused expressions on their faces.
"What's university?"
"It's somewhere that you go to learn something. For example, I went to study psychology, which is the study of other people- how they behave, interact, think…" The dwarves gave a collective "Ohhhhhh!"
-8-
"Excuse me, that is a doily, not a dishcloth!" shouted Bilbo to Bofur once the meal had finished. Well, once the dwarves had stopped eating anyway. Knowing them, they would probably be back for more food if there was even some left.
"But it's full of holes!"
"It's supposed to look like that, it's crochet."
"Oh, and a wonderful game it is too, if you for the balls for it."
"Bebother and confusticate these dwarves!" I smiled at Bilbo (honestly, it was quite funny watching him argue with these dwarves considering they were both as stubborn as each other), but decided on letting Gandalf handle him. I'd probably end up making him madder, and I'd already learnt that a partially mad Hobbit was scary enough.
"So what do you think of dwarves so far, Miss Amelia?" came a voice from behind me, making me jump.
"Fili! You scared me." His grin didn't falter. "Well… you are certainly…different."
"Good different, though?"
"Of course." I smiled. Jesus, a full conversation with this guy without sounding like a complete prat! One point to me.
"I have to admit though, when I first saw you, I thought you were a dwarf. I mean, you're definitely the size of one."
"So why don't you now?"
He chuckled. Did anything this dwarf did not sound amazing? I was beginning to think not. "Well, besides the fact that you have no idea about anything from around here, you are far to hairless to be a dwarf." His hand skimmed my chin. "Not that that's a bad thing of course."
"Wait. Women dwarves have beards?"
"Yes." He laughed at the shocked expression on my face.
"And you like that?"
"Well, each to their own. Most dwarves don't court anyway, too engrossed in their work to think of that sort of thing. And a dwarf only loves once. When you see the right person, you know it." His eyes softened when he said that. I wondered if he had met someone back home, and wondered about the disappointed feeling I had at the thought. "But there are barely any dwarf women. Only about a third of our population are female. It's sometimes hard to tell who are women and who are men, they look so alike!" We both laughed at that. "What's it like where you're from?"
"Oh! Very different to what you're used to, I'm sure. People don't really get together because they love each other, I guess. I'm not really sure how it all works; I was never one for relationships." Fili nodded as if he was in deep thought, and then the grin returned.
"Well, I'm sure that they were not good enough for you. Come, sanâzyung." He led me to the doorway of the dining room, before stepping over to Ori, Bilbo and Gandalf. I was confused as to what he called me. Was it in some sort of Dwarf language? And what did it mean?
"Excuse me." Said Ori to Bilbo. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?"
"Here you go, Ori, give it to me." Fili took the plate from Ori and threw it across the room to Kili, shooting me a wink. I cursed myself when I blushed. Kili then threw the plate behind his back to Bifur who was standing by the sink, and caught it without even looking. Will dwarves ever cease to amaze me tonight? Suddenly, there were plates and utensils flying everywhere, and the dwarves sitting at the table started creating a beat with their fists and spare utensils.
"Excuse me!" shouted Bilbo, over all the noise. "That's my mother's West Farthing crockery; it's over a hundred years old! And can-can you not do that? You'll blunt them!"
"Ooh, d'hear that, lads?" teased Bofur. "He says we'll blunt the knives!" Then, suddenly, I felt as if I was in some messed up version of High School Musical involving dwarves, as they all began to sing:
Blunt the knives, bend the forks
Smash the bottles and burn the corks
Chip the glasses and crack the plates
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
Cut the cloth and tread on the fat
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat
Pour the milk on the pantry floor
Splash the wine on every door
Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl
Pound them up with a thumping pole
When you've finished, if any are whole
Send then down the hall to roll
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
By the end of the song, my cheeks were hurting from grinning so much, and I was clapping along with everyone else. Well, everyone but Bilbo, who still did not look very impressed. Looking into the kitchen, I saw that all of the dishes were clean and neatly piled by the sink. That was so cool. I walked over to Fili and Kili.
"Nice song. You should start a band." They laughed and we walked into the hallway, when suddenly, there were three loud knocks on the door making everyone fall silent.
"He is here." Said Gandalf. That better be Thorin, I thought to myself.
-8-
A/N: All right! So, the company has arrived! And a nice big update! The next one shouldn't be too long!
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