Bilbo Baggins was having the most awful time.
He had been enjoying a, relatively, peaceful and most Hobbit-worthy lifestyle. Sedentary, calm, unhurried by the world swirling around him, until that wizard had started to make waves in a puddle where waves should not rightfully be, waving. And so, now he sat, one hand cradling his one head as a company of raucous dwarves made a mightily dreadful and frightful noise a cross between a song and his late great-uncle Merrythorpe's renowned morning throat-singing rituals, at least till he'd choked on a piece of sausage whilst trying to have breakfast and sing at the same time.
It was then, that as the dwarves were a-tapping at the table, that at the door there came a-rapping, a sound which drew the warm and homely halls of bag-end to a swift and sudden quiet. Three long, heavy pounding booms that shook the door and shuddered the halls. Eyes moved towards the door, and then to Bilbo. A clearing of a throat caused those double dozens worth of eyes to swivel towards a grey clad wizard by the name of Gandalf the, grey. Said wizard, stood and awkwardly shuffled out of the claustrophobic and crowded cloister that was the current dining area of the dwarves and a wizard, and a Hobbit.
"Just a moment my dear fellow, I'll let you in soon enough."
Bilbo raised an eye, he had thought that no one else was coming, and by the surprised looks on the dwarves faces, they had thought the same. Gandalf stretched tall, ducking a little, before he made the oft-made mistake of knocking his head upon the roofs, and walls, and many low hanging objects of bag-end.
"I have made, one last recruitment for this task of ours. I must ask you all to hear me out when I say that this, fellow, I have made privy to our enterprise here is perhaps the most crucial part of this entire endeavour. It was a most difficult search to find him, a less difficult undertaking to bring him here, but he is rather far from home, and having come all this way, I must ask you all to be most understanding towards him."
Balin, sequestered among his brethren, made a grunt.
"Enough with the weasel-words Gandalf, be quick and direct if you forgive me for saying so."
Gandalf let out a small smile.
"I do Balin, and if that is your request, then I shall bring forth our dragon slayer. A most mighty fellow, he has wrestled with many of the beasts and prevailed, there is a city in his homeland, a city hewn from rock and the seat of an unbroken line of a thousand kings and recently, of a traitor, a rebel, who would have undone an empire and cast an entire continent into an age of anarchy and slaughter by his petty desires. By the blade of our dragon-slayer was his head removed and mounted atop a spike at the heart of the empire as a warning to those who would rebel. The lieutenants of this traitor were made to kneel and swear fealty, kissing the bloodied blade and swearing a deathly oath never again to raise their weapons ever again."
Bilbo noted, with distinct worry, the fervent and passionate nodding of the dwarves as if this act was something, they, most likely, approved heartily of.
"As a warning to the people of the city and the towns around the region, with each dragon slain, atop the walls a stake would be erected and atop the spike would head of the dragon be mounted and their scale-skin be hammered onto it, to make a macabre pennant to warn the people below, and the dragons above of the fate of those to oppose him. He would with rope and his own hands drag the bodies of the dragons to be butchered and have their bones wrought into armour and weapons to be sent to his emperor as tribute and proof of fealty. His hands have slain thousands, rivers run red with the blood of his foes, armies desert and melt away back to whence they came at the whispers of his approach. He is God-Slayer, Doom-Bringer, the-voice-the-shakes-the-void, Champion of Cyrodiil, Dragon-Born, standard bearer of the Emperor of Tamriel, Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold and a hundred lesser titles more. He has wrought such destruction that I must warn you not to anger him, lest you die, and I will be unable to protect you from his wrath should he mark you for such a fate."
By that time, Bilbo felt distinctly queasy at the thought of what such a man would be like, such a fearsome tyrant was surely a dozen feet tall with arms the size of tree trunks, the figure outside his door would be a monster, not a man. With eyes that never slept and teeth like daggers, yes, a monster in the form of man who could bring down mountains and raise up empires and make gods afraid and mortals weep and-
As Bilbo's imagination ran wild, Gandalf moved and opened the door, and as the dwarves and a hobbit shrank back, they quickly leaned forwards at the sight and sounds that greeted them. A portly golden skinned elf bent double and panting with reddened cheeks and a lack of breath, who gargled and wretched, before spewing up sick on the doormat of Bag-End and down his mud and blood-stained armour. The elf staggered in, collapsing into a seat, eyes wide and delirious, a shaking hand moving up to point and waver in the air at the startled face of Gandalf the Grey, who now looked like he was severly regretting his words, and attempting to seemingly force himself into a shadow into the corner of the room, as if realising all credibility had gone and he had best make his escape.
"You, you bastard! A small hill! That was a fucking mountain you rotten old piss-flaps for a mouth swine of a wizard! How the hell are the people so fat round here, they seem to do nothing but climb mountains every divine-saken day as a lifestyle."
If flies had flown in at that moment, they would have found a breadth of choice of open gaped mouths from which to fly into, courtesy of the company of the dwarves, and a hobbit, who were wondering just where the hell Gandalf had found this foul-mouthed swearing fat and balding figure of an elf. Said figure, now lay collapsed in a chair, a puddle of sick from an evidently overly-exerting climb up a small mound that was too taxing for a middle-aged figure such as the one replete in the chair before them all at the door. Although said elf was just entering his stride it would seem, when it came to ranting.
"And a little exercise! A fucking mountain full of goblins and orcs is hardly a fucking little exercise! Oh, drop me in why don't you! An old settlement in need of clearing of a few squatters! A few squatters?! A few?! I don't know what the hell Fornost or whatever it's called is worth to whoever the fuck owns it but I expect a big fucking payment you rat-faced cunt of a treacherous shit-stacking fuck-wad! And whoever the fuck wants a mountain is in serious need of their head checking! I've lived on one for a while, they're cold, snowy and the fucking wind gets everywhere no matter what the shitting hells you try to stop it getting in!"
"A mountain? That can't be right, you should have arrived near a lake."
Gandalf spoke more to himself than to the elf, a little confused at that, something, evidently, hadn't gone to plan. His words, however, served only to enrage the elf in the chair, whose eyes seemed to be more out of his skull than in them in anger at the sight of the surprise on the wizards features.
"Yes! A fucking mountain. M for motherfucker, which is what you are, O for officially retarded, like you, U for unbelievably fucked, which is what you will be in a moment, N for no-good lout of a bastard, T for troublesome arsehole of a face, A for ass-worthy excuse of a living thing, I for incredibly moronic moron of a moron, and N for not going to be shown any fucking ounce of mercy once I'm through with you, you, you, y-"
At this point, the elf seemed to have stopped working, his hand trembling, finger still outstretched and pointing at Gandalf, face twitching as if suffering from a stroke. Bilbo glanced between the two figures, then at the dwarves, who were still sat in silence, as if quite unbelieving of the sight before them, which was truly not really something that could have been thought of in their wildest imaginations as possible. It was surprising therefore, perhaps to some, that it was the hobbit who broke the silence. If only to try and figure out what was happening.
"Um, pardon me, mister elf, but could you perhaps calm down, and maybe we could discuss this in a more civilised fashion over a drink maybe. I have tea, milk, milk, fruit juices, beer-"
At this point, the elf's head turned towards the hobbit and let out a strained keening noise, his lips opening and closing as a garbled word struggled to make itself heard.
"Bu- Beh- B-B Beeee, Beeuuurrreerrr, Baaarrr."
Bilbo wasn't quite sure what the elf was trying to say, and so, brow furrowed and stepping forwards, cautiously and ever so tepidly, held out the flask he was holding, pointing at it and wafting the smell of the ale towards the elf.
"Beer?"
A/N: All rights reserved to the Tolkien Estate etc.
I have to say, a bottle of cider and re-reading the hobbit and watching "The Thick of It" again made me come up with this strange creation of a chapter.
Enjoy, or not, successive chapters will be less sweary, well, maybe not. Either way, Alecor will be more serious, he just needs, as Gandalf would say, a little push.
- Sir Winter