AN: I don't own any of these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Tolkien.
Advent Day 16
Toys and things.
The bright eyed fauntling stared up at the dwarf behind the market stall. It had salt and pepper coloured braids, along with something in its forehead. When the other dwarf, the cheerful one with funny hair, had been on the stall his fellow fauntlings had flocked to the fancy toys on display. His little face puckered in a frown. It wasn't fair, he was sure this dwarf was as nice as the other one. His age-mates were just being rude.
Mind made up, the fauntling offered the dwarf a gap-toothed smile and offered the paper bag in its hands up to the large male. Brown eyes blinked at him in confusion before the knarled hands carefully placed down the toy it was working on and cautiously took a brightly coloured, boiled candy from the bag. As the dwarf nodded solemnly back at him the fauntling decided he'd done his part in showing hobbit hospitality and rushed into the dwarf's space.
The small hobbit spent a good half a bell tugging gently at the work worn hands and pointing at toys. It didn't take him long to figure while the dwarf could speak in a tongue of towering mountains and glittering stones, he struggled with the common tongue. So, he took to rattling on about how magical the toys were, and how fascinating he found the mechanics of them. He loved their pretty colours, and how his baby cousins would simply love the dollies and pull along boats. His missing tooth made him lisp and he still struggled with big words, but the dwarf came alive as he talked. Nodding along and showing how some of the more complicated toys worked.
Soon they had gathered a small crowd of hobbits, adults and children alike. Money exchanged hands and the fauntling stubbornly frowned at those he thought were trying to cheat his new friend. In hobbit fashion goods were exchanged as well as money.
Word spread and by the weeks end the dwarven toymakers had sold every item of their stock. Their whitling caught the eye of many a fauntling, and they spent many an hour alternating between staffing their stall or sitting with a crowd of faunts carving for them.
The weather turned and it was with heavy hearts the dwarves left the markets of the Shire and headed back to the Blue Mountains. Yule would be warmer for their visit though. And as a small fauntling chased after them to bestow a large, and somewhat watery, hug on them, their hearts were touched. The fauntling waved them off with a new bead in his hair and a carved bowl in his hands. They clutched messily, but lovingly embroidered handkerchiefs in their hands, and stowed paper bags of rich, sweet fudge in their packs.
They would meet many years down the line. The hobbit with a carven wooden bead in his copper curls, the dwarves with handkerchiefs sewn into the lining of their patchwork cloaks.
AN: What do you think then? I love to hear your thoughts.