AN: I don't own any of these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Tolkien.
Advent Day 15.
Christmas Cookies.
Bombur looked around him with a tired smile. How he'd been roped into helping that day he couldn't figure out, but it had been fun. Twin pair of sleepy green eyes stared at him from across the kitchen and he grinned at where Bilbo and Nori had flopped.
The hobbit and the thief had been whispering in corners for weeks, and when a delivery of goods had turned up from the Shire Bombur had found himself swept up in the whirlwind of baking. Today was the last day and they'd somehow ended up with dwarflings ranging from toddlers to sulky teens in the great kitchens to help make cookies.
He now had green icing in his beard, while Nori had a dark blue streak running across his eyebrow and into his hair line. The benches were covered in flour and the kitchen smelt of warming spices and apple. Their hobbit seemed remarkably clean and tidy in his little apron and was happily eating the last of the unbaked dough.
The dwarflings had left the kitchen with a box of iced cookies each and chattering happily to each other. He'd expected tantrums and strops when the idea of shaping the cookies had been broached by Bilbo, but the clever hobbit had pulled shaped cutters from his magic sack and there had been only a little squabbling over the shapes. Stars and houses had been the favourites to use, but the reindeer and trees had seen use as well.
Bombur had never seen a group of dwarflings so well behaved as the Company hobbit had shown them how to mix their own batter, roll the dough and how to use the cutters. He'd watched in awe as the older ones helped the younger ones with the ovens and big trays. There had been flour all over then, and yet when bilbo had shown the little ones how to mix up batches of colourful icing to decorate the cooling biscuits he'd joined in merrily. Nori had happily followed directions from little ones asking for help, even going as far to draw more complicated patterns for the older ones.
Bombur narrowed his eyes at Bilbo's laughter at his confusion of how clean the hobbit still was.
"Oh Bombur!" The hobbit declared, flopping across Nori's knees and getting a smudge of red icing on his cheek in retaliation, "I'm used to doing this with hobbit fauntlings." The last was declared with aplomb, as if it explained everything. Remembering their adult hobbit's antics Bombur decided it did and added his own splash of colour onto the hobbit's cheek as he sank down next to them.
"Fair enough," he huffed accepting his own bowl of dough, "Who do we trick into cleaning this up though?"
AN: What do you think then? I love to hear your thoughts.