Disclaimer: As usual, I do not own The Hobbit, or any associated characters.

Summary: An interlude, showing scenes from the Canon Characters POV

A/N: Gift-chapter for Star Fata, whose review left a plot-bunny behind.


INTERLUDE

Bilbo was thoroughly unhappy when still more people turned up at his door.

Not only had thirteen dwarves disrupted his quiet evening without warning and eaten all of his foot, but they had turned Bag End upside down, and showed absolutely no respect for either him or his mother's dishes!Ordering him about or ignoring him as though Bilbo were a servant, rather than the master of this hole!

By the time Thorin arrived and insulted Bilbo in his own front room, Politeness had gone on holiday, and it was a struggle to keep Civility from following it out the door.

When the doorbell rang yet again, Bilbo gave up. All of Hobbiton could denounce him as the rudest Hobbit in the history of ever, and he didn't care.

He yanked the door open in a horrible temper, glaring at the elf-maiden and a dwarf that he assumed was female, since it was wearing a dress. Both looked surprised when he slammed the door in their faces as soon as Thorin and Dwalin confirmed that the two weren't with them.

For a moment, when he glanced out a window to make sure they were gone, he thought he saw the spirit of his mother, though younger and much taller than he remembered, with her arms folded as they were every time she faced off against the Sackville-Baggins lot, her cousins by marriage.

Bilbo couldn't help smiling at the thought that Belladonna Took, Mrs Bungo Baggins, with eight older brothers, would have thrown every one of the dwarves out on their ear by now, and Gandalf after them, citing bad manners as a perfectly acceptable justification for the action.

Hewould not go quite that far, but he would not go alomg with whatever mad scheme Gandalf had cooked up, either. Doiliesand china might not seem like much, but they, and Bag End, were what he had to remember Bungo and Belladona by.

Bilbo had inherited his fathers loveof mapsand stories, and his mothers sense of adventure and desire to see new things, but even Tooks slept on a proposal like this before they made a decision, and maybe he would wake in the morning to discover it was all a bad dream.


Kili didn't know how this had happened.

He had gone to sleep a normal young dwarf, and woken next morning to screams of dismay from Ori and Mr Baggins. When he leaped to his feet and nearly fell over from a lot of extra weight pulling him off balance, he felt he could be forgiven for joining in.

Somehow, he was several months pregnant.

As in, what happened to female dwarves during the nine months before they had a baby.

Not only that, but he was suddenly feeling a strange sexual attraction to Mr Baggins, Mr Dwalin, and even his own (also suddenly pregnant) brother! Sure, Mr Baggins was amusing, but Kili barely knew him, and had never been interested in his own gender before! Dwalin was practically a third uncle, and Fili was his brother, that was the love of family, not romance!

Kili was considered a lively, cheerful young fellow, not easily angered or upset, but now he didn't have the energy for liveliness, and couldn't seem to settle on a single emotion for more than ten minutes at a time.

Worst of all, his… er, condition… had completely blown all hope of secrecy out of the water. People pointed and whispered, either shunning them or running away as if the afflicted company members were somehow contagious, and gossip moved faster than light. Kili was sure that even a few of the animals they encountered had been laughing at him, since there had been nothing like enough wind to make an entire family of birds fall off their branch and lie on the ground, flailing their little wings.

Then there was that group of young humans who kept following them around, staring at them like some kind of sideshow attraction.

When four older humans showed up out of nowhere and started shouting at the gawkers, Kili blamed relief at having someone sensible around as a reason for practically throwing himself at the tall woman.

It had nothing to do with the hope that he was contagious, and might be able to transfer his condition to the woman, who was actually designed for this sort of thing, and who had two male companions, at least one of whom would do the honourable thing by her.

Really.


Thranduil, the Elvenking of Greenwood the Great, also known as Mirkwood, was already very fed up of the people who had suddenly appeared in his throne room, and they hadn't been there even five minutes.

From the sound of grinding teeth beside and behind him, his wife and sons were nearly as displeased as he was.

Sindar and Silvan elves were used to being considered as not quite as good as the Noldar elves, but the accusations that this group were hurling were, by and large, unthinkable, and the rest taken very much out of context.

He was even more annoyed when another group of four people, to women and two men, all older than most of the first group, appeared out of nowhere, but at least they appeared to have arrived not of their own will, and didn't start shouting nonsense.

Quite the opposite, in fact. The older woman curtsied with the respect due to royalty, and spoke his reasoning of detaining Thorin's annoying group as if it should be obvious. Despite her gender, it was obvious that the rest of the group looked to her for leadership, and she bore it well.

That was unusual, but perhaps she was a Lady who had taken command of her father or husband's land in their absence.

None of that explained why they were here, however, any more that the first lot had given a reason for their presence before launching their verbal assault.

As if sensing his thoughts, the Elvenqueen inclined her head in his direction, her voice too low to be heard by mortal ears, suggesting that the quartet had come in persuit of the first group. There was certainly an air of hostile familiarity between the two parties, and soon Thranduil didn't even need to speak.

Then the first group accused him of deliberately harming his children, and he put the unusual four out of mind.

.

.

.

.


A/N: Sorry for the delay in writing, but the next chapter is up, and suggestions on what to write next are appreciated.

thanks,

Nat