Welcome back to Chapter Two! I own nothing except my lack of ideas on how to make these notes interesting. Enjoy!
"Oh, you needn't do that," Kili protested. "Just point it out, it can't be too far—can it?"
"No, not too far, but there are several of those confusing crossroads in the way, and turning left at all of them would leave you wandering straight the opposite direction." Amaranth smiled what she hoped was her most convincing smile, the one that always got Posco off her back, and turned back toward the door. "Stay right there and don't touch the flowers, and I'll be back in two blinks."
Leaving them standing gingerly on the path, she darted inside and down the hall to the kitchen. Uncle Polo was just putting the last of the new pies into the oven to bake. "Is everything all right, child?" he asked. "You look rather flushed."
She was about to spill everything, but—if he knew she'd volunteered to go traipsing through the near-dark with two strange dwarves, he'd never let her leave the kitchen. "Yes, perfectly all right, nothing at all the matter. There's just been some tweens larking about outside and I had to chase them off the peonies, but some are quite crushed as it is. I think I'm going to run up the way to cousin Bilbo's and see if he'd let us use any of his flowers."
"At this hour?" Uncle Polo blinked. "He's probably just enjoying his nice quiet supper. I'm sure you could go see him tomorrow, couldn't you?"
He wouldn't be enjoying a nice quiet supper once the two dwarves showed up, but there wasn't much she could do about that now, was there. She shrugged. "I'm sure we'll have a whole host of other errands to run tomorrow, and I don't want to forget! Besides, you know we haven't seen each other in ages, and it's about time I popped over." She glanced around the kitchen and remembered the four pies baked earlier, resting in the cupboard. "In fact," she continued, heading that direction, "in case I do interrupt his supper, I'll just take him one of these pies. That shouldn't be too hard to replace tomorrow, now, will it?"
"Well, no, I suppose not, but—"
"Oh good! I'll be back as soon as I can." Amaranth wrapped the pie in a clean dishcloth and tucked it away in her market basket. Maybe that would help give her an entrance into Bag End once she dropped off the dwarves. Whatever did they and Gandalf want with Bilbo? Besides the ridiculous burglar thing, of course. "Thank you ever so much for doing the other pies! I promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow." And with that, she escaped out the door.
Fili and Kili were still standing just where she'd left them, looking as if they'd literally not moved a muscle. When they saw her, though, they instantly relaxed. "So, which way to Mr. Boggins's place then, mistress?" Fili asked.
"Please, Amaranth is fine. And it's just up this way." She swung the gate shut behind them with a creak and a click of the latch—no more blossom-crushing bumblers would stray into that flowerbed tonight! "Also, it's Baggins. Not Boggins. Bilbo Baggins."
Fili nodded. "Right, sorry."
Kili grinned. "Right, Bilbo Boggins. That's what I said."
Why on earth Bilbo was having these two over for supper, she could not imagine. Though they did say Gandalf was part of the matter. Maybe he'd be able to keep Bilbo from having a conniption when they crushed his flowers or knocked his books off the shelves with all those pointy things bristling off them. Well, might as well ask. "So if I might be so bold, what brings the two of you out to see Bilbo, anyway?"
They were walking behind her, so she couldn't see their reaction, but they didn't immediately answer, and the silence felt oddly stiff for a moment. Then Fili answered, "We were looking for a certain kind of person to help us out on a job, and master Gandalf suggested him. We're meeting with him tonight to settle the arrangements."
"What sort of a job? You mentioned burglaring earlier, what sort of job do dwarves need a burglar for?"
"Now, mistress Amaranth, we can't go spilling all our secrets!" There was laughter in Fili's voice, but it didn't quite ring true. But it might be rude to press at this point, so she laughed back and let it go.
"I suppose you're right. Nothing like an air of mystery when it comes to visiting people after dark."
The silence was less stiff then, but she broke it again anyway. "What do you do when you're not getting lost in the Shire or trampling people's flowers?"
"Oh, anything, really," Kili replied. "We've done a lot of guard work, merchant caravans and the like. Fili and me, we've been all over the Blue Mountains, the Iron Hills, and even as far west as Dunland."
Amaranth felt a funny ache settle in her chest at his words. Such far-off places, and he spoke like they were as familiar as the tops of his feet. "It must be wonderful, getting to wander all over like that. Climb mountains, ford rivers, see new places that used to be only stories..."
"Do you like to travel too?" Kili again.
"I haven't been far beyond the Shire," she had to admit, "but I've been all over Hobbiton and Buckland and between, and I want to visit across the Brandywine to Bree someday. Mostly I've just been around Buckland, though. My family's there, see. I'm only here on the odd occasion like this one—another cousin is getting married and I'm helping with all the preparations."
"Bree's not bad," Kili said. "Good ale at the Prancing Pony, that's the truth. Does Mister Boggins keep a good cellar? Getting lost is thirsty work, especially with all these hills."
As if any Baggins would be anything but a perfect host. "I'm sure Mister Baggins will have everything you could wish for, master Dwarf. He's likely been cooking all day for you two, and here you are making him wait."
"Well, it's not just the two of us," Fili put in. "The others will have already begun to arrive."
"The—the others?" Bilbo consorting with Gandalf and two dwarves was quite odd enough, but there were more? Just what was going on in Bag End tonight, anyway?
"Aye, the others. Your cousin will have a fine chance to show off his larder tonight, mistress Amaranth."
Curiouser and curiouser. Good thing she'd brought that pie. That'd get her in the door for sure. "And soon you'll have the chance to enjoy it. He's just at the top of this hill."
They climbed the winding path up the Hill and reached Bilbo's glossy green door in record time. Sure enough, just as Kili had said, there was a rune glowing faintly silvery blue near the bottom, though whether it truly was the sign for "expert burglar" she certainly couldn't tell. "Here we are," she began to announce, but they had already moved in front of her, and Kili was pounding on the door with a heavy fist.
The first they heard of Bilbo was his voice pitched high and tight, though the words were indistinct. Then he swung open the door—and he did not look at all like the poised and polished host Amaranth remembered from her last visit. This Bilbo Baggins was in his evening gown, his hair rumpled, his eyes wild, his face lined with what was certainly not welcome.
What?
The brothers swept identical bows as they introduced themselves. And Kili added, with a grin far too broad to be merely polite, "You must be Mister Boggins!"
"Kili!" Amaranth hissed from beside him. But he just flashed the grin in her direction before focusing back on Bilbo, who was trying to—was he trying to shut the door on them?
"No, you can't come in, you've come to the wrong house!"
He was definitely trying to shut the door on them. Amaranth started forward to let him know she was there, but Kili beat her to it, shouldering the door back open.
"What? Has it been cancelled?" he asked, all signs of his grin gone.
"No one told us," Fili added.
Bilbo blinked in bewilderment. "Ca—no, nothing's been cancelled."
"Well, that's a relief." And the grin was back. And then the brothers were strolling into Bag End as if they owned the place. Something was very wrong here. Amaranth trailed in after them with a bit less bravado, peering around to see if any of "the others" had shown up (though based on Bilbo's reaction, it was highly likely they had).
"Careful with these, just had them sharpened." She snapped her attention back to the dwarves in time to see Fili unload far too many pointy warlike objects into Bilbo's unwilling arms. Then Kili started scraping his boots on Aunt Belladonna's beautiful old glory box, and Amaranth was about ready to give both of them another piece of her mind, but then "the others" made themselves plain.
A taller, greybearded dwarf with a thick accent—Mister Dwalin, according to Kili—summoned the brothers into the dining room, where another dwarf with a creaky sort of matter-of-factness was moving furniture around to "fit everyone in." That did not bode well.
"Bilbo?" She moved forward from her spot in the middle of the entryway and tapped him on the shoulder as he stood gazing wildly between the four (four!) dwarves in his dining room, and the pile of Fili's knives and Kili's arrows in his arms.
"Ah!" He jumped, and nearly dropped it all. "Cousin Amaranth? What are you doing here? Are you part of this—this plot?"
"What plot? No, I was just—Fili and Kili were lost, and I showed them the way here."
"You did what? Why—why would you—what?" Bilbo's voice was rising higher and higher with every question.
Then the doorbell jangled. And jangled again. "Pardon me, cousin," Bilbo huffed, tossing the weapons down and very nearly shearing the hair off Amaranth's feet. She jumped out of his way as he stalked toward the door and called out, "Go away and bother somebody else, there's far too many dwarves in my dining room as it is! If this is some clodhead's idea of a joke, I can only say, it is in very—poor—taste!"
He grabbed the doorknob and jerked it open.
And was nearly bowled over by what looked to Amaranth like a mountain of squirming cloaks, but was in fact, indubitably, and without a doubt even more dwarves.
Bilbo just stared at them, squirming and groaning on his mat. He looked to Amaranth and made a gesture along the lines of "This is the worst night that I have ever experienced and I am personally going to stab with my best carving knife the person responsible for all this," then peered over the even-more-dwarves to the giant figure standing tall and grey in the shadows outside his door.
"Gandalf."
So the stabbing wasn't going to happen after all. Hopefully, at least. It was probably some sort of bad luck to stab a wizard, especially when he was standing at your front door clearly expecting to be given entrance.
The dwarves sorted themselves out with remarkable ease, and Amaranth watched fascinated as they bowed one after another and spouted off name after outlandishly rhyming name. Fili and Kili hadn't been too hard, but now there was Oin and Gloin, and Bifur and Bofur, not to mention Dori, Nori, and Ori. How did dwarves ever remember who was who? And more importantly, why on earth was Bilbo not expecting them, when they clearly expected him?
All twelve dwarves were now crowding into the dining room, scuffing chairs around with a carelessness that made her wince for the fine carved legs and backs. She was about to go help, as Bilbo was clearly not in a state to offer hospitality, when she remembered her basket. She tapped her cousin on the shoulder as he stood staring at the ruckus. "Here, this is for you."
He stared blankly at the colorful dishcloth. "Something to block out this racket, that's just what I was looking for. Amaranth, why are you here?"
"As I said, I showed Kili and Fili the way, and I was just going to leave this pie and pop back to Uncle Polo's—" eventually—"but I can't just up and abandon you in this state." She shoved the cloth-wrapped pie into his hands, then swung the basket up over her shoulder. "Just leave the door unlocked, I'll be right back."
"Where—where are you going?" he asked as she headed for the door. To his credit, only a mild note of panic rang in his voice.
Uncle Polo, Prisca, forgive her for what she was about to do. "We're going to need some more pies."