"I'm a bit baffled."
Bilbo looked at his younger self. They had been traveling with very little much to say, indeed for quite some time. Bilbo himself found little bother with it. He had become quite occupied with drinking in all the voices that he never thought he would hear again. The sudden intrusion from his younger self surprised him.
"Baffled?" He parroted. "How so...Bilbo, was it?" Oh, that felt weird. He certainly knew his own name but hobbits, for all their traits, often took some time to attach name to face. He remembered all too well confusing the dwarves' names quite frequently! It did not help that most of them rhymed!
"Yes, Bilbo." The younger hobbit dropped his voice so the dwarves up ahead would not be privy to their conversation. He need not have; Dwarves, of all people, had a healthy respect for the desire of privacy and secrecy. "I am baffled why you are involved with this. Myself to, for that matter."
Smiling, Bilbo replied, "Oh, I think you know more than you imagine. Why did you run after them at such speed?"
Frowning, the younger one remarked, "As of late, I am unsure! Adventure! Only good for fairy tales, I say. The stories certainly are quite untruthful about the monotony of it and the inconveniences at that! My stomach is quite unaccustomed."
By Yavanna, had he truly been this short-sighted?
"It has its downfalls, that much is certain," he offered. "However, there is much goodness and enlightenment to be found."
"Here?" Younger Bilbo looked upward at the gloomy clouds. "I must say, my good Hobbit, I do not possess your vision then."
"Oh, that much is very untrue." Bilbo remarked. "You are unsure what to make of what you are seeing but you know a great deal more than you think. If you were as blind as you claim, why did you strike out after them? It was surely not a spur of the moment decision?"
His younger self went quiet, contemplative. "I...suppose in some ways, no. I got little sleep, thinking over it. I suppose that my sleep would have been haunted with fears of incineration in any event."
Bilbo just was silent, waiting.
"Their song." The younger hobbit finally said. "There was a weight to it, a gravity, a realness. It was as if all the stories and dreams and tales I were told my whole life were suddenly before me, beckoning me onward—out into the wild, to places untold."
"The Took blood in you runs strong, my friend." Bilbo kept his tone level despite how much he wished to shake his younger self into comprehension. "But a Took is no less worthy than a Baggins. You fret so much over what people will think that I wonder if you ever stop to consider if it has any meaning."
Turning to look at him, rather baffled, the younger one inquired, "You mean to tell that I ought not to consider how this must look? Why I must be the talk of the Shire by now!"
"And if you are, take pride in it." Bilbo advised. "You've been brave enough time leave everything you know to help a group of homeless dwarves take back what is theirs! What shame is there in putting a roof above heads still bent in grief?"
The hobbit considered this. "Well, I do wish to help them." He looked ahead, at the laughing and chattering bunch, tossing ale and bread between them while another played a makeshift tune on a flute or lyre. "Though I don't understand them."
Bilbo shook his head. "You don't understand them yet."
"Well, you must admit—though it seems you have more experience with dwarves than I—that they are quite a different lot. Hardly the most dignified at times though I can not fault their kindness."
Bilbo found an odd anger in his heart and no small amount of shame. Gandalf had not been wrong when he had said he had changed and not for the better between his childhood and when the old wizard came to set him on this path. All the same, Bilbo knew that to succeed in this mission meant to win over his younger self. So after much consideration, he said, "It would appear you are more Sackville Baggins than I took you for."
Oh, that got a reaction. Eyes full of fire, Gus younger self shifted, at least as well as position on the pony would allow, to set him with a poisonous glance. "I beg your pardon?"
"Are you not doing what they do all the while? Judging and pushing your own view of what is right and proper and should be above all else, despite anything you hear to the contrary?"
"Now see here—"
"Remember, as I recall, the wisdom of your mother, Belladonna?"
His younger self stopped. "You...were known to my mother?"
"In a manner of speaking," Bilbo replied. "Her sharp tongue and wit made it hard for any to forget her."
A warmth took the younger Hobbit's face. "Yes. Yes, I do suppose that is true. But what wisdom are you referring to? She had little limit."
Bilbo smiled himself in memory. "Judge it for what it is, not what it is not." Leaning forward a bit, Bilbo gestured ahead, capturing his younger self's attention. "If we were to judge a rose for falling short because it did not possess the size of a sunflower or the posture of a tulip, we would miss out on much indeed. Or to dismiss stew for not having the sweetness of cake while ignoring the lovely savoriness it does have. Oh, it would a right tragedy, would it not?"
To his credit, his younger self considered and pondered his words. "Yes. So much we would miss out on." He looked ahead, then remarked, "I do suppose judging a dwarf by hobbit standards is just as egregious."
"Indeed, indeed." Bilbo nodded. "Better for all to learn and listen. How can one judge the value of something or someone if they do not know them?"
Taking a moment, the two hobbits rode in silence until younger Bilbo gently nudged the beast slightly more forward so that he fell into step just behind Glóin.
"Glóin, my good fellow, did I not hear you mention a family of your own?"
"Oh, you certainly did, my lad! Blessed be my luck you see for you'll not find a lovelier maid than my dear wife..."