A/N: And now we are ever closer to the last chapters I have written - only two more ready-written chapters to go before I have to start writing them again. Hope you enjoy this little early Christmas present. I'm going to be busy tomorrow and Thursday, so I'll give you this chapter now to tide you over until after Christmas. Happy holidays everyone, whatever you celebrate at this time of year :) Hope you enjoy!
"Kili!" Bilbo groaned, though it was a little hard to breathe with a dwarf as heavy as a giant boulder lying on his chest. "get- get your fat arse off-"There was a yelp as Thorin yanked his nephew off of Bilbo by the collar of his coat, looking thoroughly grumpy as he did so.
"Try not to break our burglar before the first day of the quest is done, nephew." He admonished, but Kili was grinning broadly, with bow in-hand, and Bilbo understood what he wanted all too well.
"Fine, fine, I'll go hunting with you, you overgrown scruffy fauntling."
Kili frowned, not understanding the word.
"What's a fauntling?"
"It's what hobbits call their youngsters when they are very small." Bilbo explained. "And what we call adults who are behaving like children, too." he added with a grin. "Now I believe we should go and get to it before you're all stuck with eating vegetables" he teased the young prince, who was too excited about his new hunting partner to do anything but grin.
"Alright" Thorin sighed, "but don't stray too far!" He called after his nephew, who was already heading off towards the thicket to the side of their camp.
"I'll keep an eye on him. Wouldn't want to have to deal with Fili's reaction if the idiot tripped in a rabbit hole or something." Bilbo assured him, before setting off after the young dwarf.
The trees were thick and provided good cover – though many pine needles and branches were scattered on the floor of the forest, so that even the most sure-footed hobbit had to be careful where they trod, for fear of startling the game.
They searched the ground for tracks, two sets of eyes intent on locating their prey. Bilbo found some first, and they appeared to be that of a wild hog, which would make a meal enough for the lot of them. The tracks were uneven though, as if it either had only three legs, or were limping. He knelt down to brush his hand gently over them, and signalled to Kili to come and take a look.
"Still fresh" the dwarf agreed in a low whisper. "Come on." Briefly, Bilbo wondered if Kili was used to giving orders on hunts. He was the only one with a practical weapon for it, at any rate, except perhaps for Fili's knives. If dwarves didn't favour archery, then how on earth did they hunt their food?
They came upon their prey not ten minutes later. Kili cleared space on the ground so that he could get into position and kneel. They had decided that Kili's shot would be first, and if that didn't kill it, Bilbo would finish it off. The young dwarf notched an arrow, and drew the bowstring so that the fletching kissed his cheek – and then he let it fly. The arrow sliced through the air and embedded itself into the hog's flank, nestling in deep.
But not quite deep enough.
There was an indignant squeal of pained outrage from the creature, as if it couldn't understand the audacity of anyone who dared try to fell it (and Bilbo wanted to laugh because oh how it reminded him of Thorin for that – for its sheer pigheadedness. Though he supposed it did have the excuse of actually being a pig.) and it turned on them.
"Kili, the tree!" Bilbo hissed as he took aim himself, not wanting to get a prince gored on his first day with the company. He'd never be able to look Thorin in the eye again if he let his nephew be felled by dinner. Kili, used to listening to and obeying that tone of voice, quickly clambered up into a nearby pine.
The pig was charging towards Kili's tree, but just before it got there, Bilbo whistled. It turned, and he loosed his arrow.
It struck true, right between the eyes. The hog dropped dead on the spot, and Bilbo couldn't quite help but feel a little pleased with himself. Kili hopped down from his tree, and grinning, retrieved their arrows from its flesh.
"You're good, Mister Boggins. We're going to be great friends, I just know it." he decided, with all the precociousness of a fauntling of eight. "This is going to be a pain to carry back, though." He fretted, and Bilbo rolled his eyes.
"Yes, yes, quite. Have you some twine? There's a branch we might tie the legs to, and then carry it evenly between us" he suggested, slinging his bow once more over his shoulder. Kili did the same with his, and frowned thoughtfully.
"That should work, aye – I have some here..." He rummaged through his pockets and found some twine. He collected the branch and let Bilbo tie the knots, which he ended up being rather good at.
They made their way back to the camp, and both of them took joy in the shocked expressions of the dwarves around them, Thorin's especially.
"Well then, lads" Bilbo began, and he looked to Kili to finish the sentence.
"Dinner is served!" Bilbo might have been imagining it, but Fili looked a little... jealous of their quick friendship? He'd have to sort that out quite soon.
"Well, bless me!" Bofur exclaimed. "Lucky number indeed, Master Baggins. This will feed us all handsomely, and we can salt some besides." He looked thoughful. "Here, Bombur, get me filleting knife. Wouldn't want to make our weary hunters do the skinning, now, would we?" Bilbo almost flinched at the words that mirrored the trolls, but he managed not to react, though it made him thoughtful – just how would he deal with the trolls this time around? He certainly wasn't going in alone and unprepared, ready to have his arms ripped off, oh no.
"Thank you, Bofur" he managed. "I'm going to go and clean my arrow."
"Wait – you shot it?" Fili asked incredulously. Bilbo managed to look thoroughly unimpressed.
"Kili shot it angry, and I shot it dead, yes." he replied in a deadpan voice. Kili seemed to notice that his brother was being grumpy, so he shot Bilbo an apologetic smile before running after his brother.
"Fili seems to think you want to steal Kili away from him, laddie." A quiet and kindly voice chuckled from behind him. Balin.
"No fear of that – hunting with him is one thing, listening to his chatter for hours on end? Why, that much talking might make my poor ears fall off." he laughed in return and was rewarded with an easy smile from the old dwarf.
"Aye, well, better prepare for mischief of some kind, laddie. Those two are worse than their uncl-than Thorin ever was."
"Oh, was he a mischievous youth, then, Master Balin?" Bilbo prodded, and Balin snorted.
"Before the dragon? Oh aye. But I'll not embarrass him with such stories as I remember." The old dwarf replied with a melancholy smile.
Bilbo smiled at Balin, and watched as the other dwarves cooked their meal (it smelled divine, and really, he would need to get some recipe pointers from Bombur. No one talked much, too intent on their dinners, and Fili was glaring at him (once upon a time that would have been Thorin, he reminded himself. A grumpy Fili would easier to reason with than a grumpy Thorin, he was sure.)
"Not half bad." Bofur noted. "Big catch for yer first hunt of the quest, Master Baggins." Bilbo blushed, not at all used to that sort of praise, and then gave the toymaker a wry smile.
"Hobbits generally wouldn't think so. They prefer tamer meat, reared and fattened in the fields of the Shire. Nice and soft and fat – like most hobbits I know, actually." He had a little quiet smile to himself at that – what would most of Hobbiton have to say to that, he wondered.
"My dear Bilbo." Interjected Gandalf, a frown worrying at his bushy grey brows, "You speak of hobbits as if you are not one of them." in his excitement of getting along with most of the dwarves, he had almost forgotten that Gandalf was there. Bebother the wizard.
"Hardly, Gandalf, dear old fellow. I'm merely a different sort of hobbit to most, which people seem to have no end of vindictive fun reminding me of – you no doubt remember Lobelia from last night. I suspect I shall ever be known as that Mad Baggins who went on an adventure, if she has her way. Not a done thing for a Baggins, you see, all this adventuring. I suspect that the Tookishness I inherited from my mother will be blamed. Ah well, at least I'll have good stories to tell the fauntlings at parties if I come back." Gandalf raised a bushy eyebrow, but said nothing further. Bilbo was distinctly aware that the camp had somewhat quieted in listening to his exchange with the wizard, and so he cleared his throat.
"Alright then, whilst we wait, if I'm not going to be regaled with embarrassing dwarven childhood stories, how about I share one or two of mine to pass the time?" he suggested, and the younger dwarves, that is, Kili and Ori, nodded vigorously in assent. Fili was trying his best not to look interested, but it was plain to all who knew him that he was curious.
"We would be much obliged of happy tales, Master Baggins." Balin assured him kindly. Bilbo looked to Thorin for approval, and the king nodded, the barest hint of a smile playing at his lips.
"Go ahead, Master Baggins, and perhaps we shall trade some of our own tales, if yours proves interesting."
"I hope you know that you are talking to the best story-teller in the Shire, your Majesty." Bilbo smirked – he would have Thorin's stories by the end of the week. He cleared his throat and began his tale.
"I was a fauntling of but five years when I first saw one of the Big Folk. He seemed to me a Giant, and that was when Ma and Da seemed Big to me. I was so afraid of him that I ran underneath my Ma's skirts and I hid there-" Here he paused, and the dwarves laughed, and he waited for them to quiet before he continued, "but Ma would have none of that. There was a party to be going on, you see. And she had a dreadful lot of work to do to be ready for it. I was determined to hide there all day or until the Man went away, so I told her that. And do you know what she did?" Fili shook his head whilst he listened with rapt attention. Bilbo smiled. It seemed that his interest in the story had outweighed his earlier jealousy.
"Well, I'll tell you what she did. She lifted up her skirts and she kicked me off her leg, right into the arms of this stranger!"
"What happened then?" Ori asked, as the others shushed him and told him just to listen.
"I was getting to that, Ori lad. Now, I told you I thought this Man a giant, and he was so big and I was so little that I thought he was going to eat me, but all he did was plop his hat on my head – it went right over it so I couldn't see a thing – and asked me if I wanted to go on a little adventure with him. Of course, all I ended up doing was tagging along with him and his fireworks for the day. I'm not sure that Ma hadn't planned it just to keep me out of her way for the day." He looked up to meet Gandalf's gaze across the campfire, and saw that the old wizard was smiling now. "And I do remember that night at the party he gave me a pretty little wooden sword to play with. Mother took it off me after I nearly poked a Brandybuck lad's eye out with it. But the fireworks that night – I don't think I'll see anything as pretty as those should I live to eleventy one. There's nothing quite like a party under the midsummer stars with a wizard's whizzpoppers to enjoy." Gandalf chuckled warmly at the memory, before coughing a little on his pipe and answering.
"My dear Bilbo. I had no idea you still remembered that night." he exclaimed, a little surprised, but sounding very pleased, too. Bilbo was a little surprised too, since it had been oh, perhaps a century and a quarter since that day – it was strange, the things he recalled with clarity, whilst other memories were cast vaguely into the mists of his mind. The dwarves let out exclamations of delighted surprise at this new revelation.
"You knew Tharkun when you were a child?" Thorin asked, immensely surprised. Bilbo blushed and nodded.
"I'm assuming that's what dwarves call Gandalf? Since I know elves call him Mithrandir. My – how many names you have, dear wizard! How do you ever remember them all?"
"Oh, I'm an old man, dear fellow. I am prone to forgetfulness now and again." Gandalf answered without actually really answering properly at all. Confound the wizard, Bilbo thought fondly.
"Oh yes, I met Gandalf as a fauntling, but we'd all heard stories besides." Bilbo answered with a smile. "he shows up and whisks off some foolhardy Took for an adventure, or else he's there with his fireworks. The fauntlings adore him, but most respectable hobbits, except Tooks of course, but then, they're not respectable to start with, avoid him if he wants any other sort of business than a few firecrackers. Brings nothing but trouble, does the Grey Wizard, if the stories told to young hobbits to make sure they don't go a-wandering are true."
"There was no "whisking off" muttered Gandalf, somewhat indignant. "All they needed was a nudge out of the front door." Bilbo, who was well-aware of what Gandalf's "nudges" consisted of, believed none of it, but did not argue beyond a disbelieving snort.
Dinner was served in short order, and though the dwarves had their fill of fine hobbitish hospitality, for Bilbo, nothing quite made him as happy as food prepared on the road. He felt, having taken these first steps out of the Shire once more, that he, as much as any of the dwarves, was finally heading towards home. His belly full, and his ears filled with stories and songs that his companions shared amongst themselves as they ate, he drifted off to sleep right where he sat.