Chaos followed the arrival of the great tumbling band of dwarves, who were also introduced so quickly one after another by Gandalf that I wasn't sure if I actually remembered any of their names at all. Maybe the red headed one was Oin? Or was that Gloin? Was the dwarf with the axe in his forehead Bombur?
Regardless of how badly I was at keeping their names straight, all of them were at my service as they all explained happily enough, though their voices were completely disrupting in various ways that I couldn't quite easily describe with them crashing over one another. Much like how Dwalin did, I was made to take cloaks and hoods in a rush of tossed fabric and barely had enough time to accept their packs one after another before I realized that nearly all my pegs were taken up by someone's coat or cloak. I became so flustered from my activities that on my way back, I had to shuck my colorful dressing robe. While it was fine to wear clothing and a robe when one was hardly doing anything strenuous, having to be at a dwarves' service so thoroughly was exhausting! Sweaty from all my efforts, I went back to where all their voices echoed in the hopes that everything had calmed a little but that hope was short lived.
In my absence the Fili and Kili had placed my kitchen table inside one of the sitting rooms, across the hallway from the pantry. In a rush of activity that made the hallway connecting the two rooms particularly treacherous, the newcomers were raiding my larder! Each of them had a handful of my plates, bowls, cutlery, and they were going back for the food even as I watched on in horror!
"Put that back!"
I shouted as I sprinted into the hallway where I saw Dwalin with a giant plate of scones. I was intent on taking back what was my food! A proper host would demand that they ask or have it offered! They couldn't just take it!
Just as I was about to grab the plate from him though, I was almost trampled by two more dwarves and had to push into Dwalin to avoid them. The hard press of him at my front made me blush as he looked down at me sharply, his eyes taking in my little form before he grinned at me, "Not a laddie, then."
His voice stroked my cheek suggestively and I turned redder at the thought of what softness he undoubtedly now felt being so closely pressed to him. His new discovery did little to hinder his original plan of carrying back the plate of scones; he merely stepped back away from me and moved out of my path, raising the plate high above me so that I couldn't even dare to reach for it!
"Those are my plates!"
One of them walked passed me carrying a load of my plates while another brushed by with a bowl of fruit in arm. "Put that down!" I shouted but he just moseyed on by as if he hadn't even heard me at all! How utterly rude! I couldn't even believe any of this was happening to me! "That's my knife!"
I was stuck in the middle of the frenzy, forced to look on as they hustled around me taking whatever it was they wanted from my larder and I helpless to really try and stop them. I only won little battles by physically grabbing back bowls or plates but as soon as I placed them back where they belonged, I would turn and see them being carried off by another dwarf!
"Not my jam, please!"
I saw one with a strange star shaped hairstyle taking a few of my jars of homemade jam from the shelves and I hurried back to try and stop him. Before I could reach him or even get his attention, I was unceremoniously shoved aside by a bushy bearded red headed dwarf! As light on my feet as I could be, he managed to catch me off balance and I stumbled back unbecomingly until I accidentally bumped into someone else.
It was quite a bit of a surprise, really, how easily all the dwarves could make one feel so little in such a large hobbit hole but it seemed like I was bumping into everyone!
I tried to turn around to apologize to whoever it was I bumped into but I was caught between the door and what seemed to be one of my ale barrels...and a soft head? I was instantly horrified by the very thought that I stumbled back into someone enough to push them over! How utterly improper of me not to watch where I was going even as I was stumbling! As I turned around to apologize, I saw that it was Fili, who seemed to have already been kneeling down to inspect the nozzle of the ale barrel; upon seeing me and my hip only inches from him, his surprised look spread into a cheeky grin.
"Miss Hobbit, I hardly know you."
His voice rolled over me in such a dulcet flow, silky and teasingly rich, the sensation of such velvety tones cupping at me underneath my skirts. I groaned before I even knew what I was doing, pressing into the barrel of ale without wanting to, my hands gripping the edge even as I rocked against the hard surface. The grin on his face instantly fell, his surprise betraying him before Kili distracted him with a light tease that quickly stole his attention.
Needing some space between the blonde dwarf and his voice, I turned away from the two young brothers but almost smacked into an immensely fat dwarf! The fact that he carried some my cheese wheels stacked on top of another was probably another point that stopped me from just moving out of the way from instinct alone.
Instantly thoughts of Fili and how his voice affected me were gone, replaced with the need to save my pantry and the contents inside.
"A tad excessive, don't you think?!"
I tried to be forceful like a mother would and how my own Mum had been when she caught me making mischief but the dwarf just flat out ignored me! Flat out ignored me as if I hadn't spoken at all!
"Have you even got a cheese knife?!"
I tried because I knew a losing battle when I saw one and this was just another one that I would lose when it came to the war of the food pantry. "A cheese knife? He eats it by the block!"
Absolutely nothing at all about this night was going the way I originally planned for it and no joking from any dwarf was going to change that very important fact. Despite my mood and how I bristled with the anger I felt for constantly being ignored and pushed aside, I couldn't stop the laughter that came from my mouth when the dwarf behind me teased playfully. I stood there in shock as he smiled at me, moving out of my way so that he could step pass me with some cutlery atop a pile of plates.
His voice. It was. It was... heartbreakingly playful.
In just that short sentence, that happy and teasing tone of his accented voice brushed along the tops of my feet and tickled me so skillfully that I was at once reminded of my Mum and how her voice did much of the same thing on the soles of my feet.
I was pulled from my thoughts by the sight of the red headed dwarf (was that Gloin or his brother Oin?) and the dwarf from before who didn't hear me bringing some of my old furniture into the room where they were still assembling their great feast. Instantly I recognized it as some of my Grandpa's furniture, pouncing on the white haired dwarf and shoving back on the antique chair, "No! That's Grandpa Mungo's chair!"
"I can't hear ya, laddie!"
My right ear twitched from the feeling of something inside my ear and I tried to bat it away even as I attempted to keep him from the dining room. His statement also explained why he so easily dismissed me before before but that didn't change anything about the fact that these chairs (and where did the other get off to?) just weren't made for sitting on anymore! They were antiques and heirlooms now! They were fragile and if these dwarves had shown me nothing else so far, I knew that they were unable to understand the concept of fragility! I tried again to push back on the chair but the dwarf just insisted on not understanding, pointing to his ear and all the while the sensation against my own ear continued until I just gave up and let him have the chair in a whispered curse of frustration.
"That is a book, not a coaster!"
Finally done fiddling with the barrel of ale, Fili and Kili seemed to be testing the contents of it but they were awful about where they put their tankards! They sloshed them around and set them on my precious books, not even taking a care when one of them overturned and spilled all over one of my tabletops!
Between cleaning that mess up under the grinning eyes of Fili and Kili and having to stop another dwarf from moving my maps around because they apparently wanted the stool they sat on, I was exhausted and huffing and strained with the need to try and not shout out how frustrated I was at having my home invaded by such awful guests. These guests seriously made Lobelia appear quite civil!
Not one person uttered a thank you or an apology for running me down in my own home and– I jumped from the shock of it -the dual pinch on both butt cheeks- from the combined effect of Fili and Kili's voices laughing at what a sight I must have made flitting from one room to the other like a fussed squirrel.
I was leaning against the wall just for a moment of rest when I opened my eyes and caught the sight of one of the dwarves, a shorter one and young looking carrying a bowl of something from the larder. His hands covered in fuzzy knit mittens gripped the bowl gently and he moved out of the way when others rushed passed him, excusing himself politely. I was about to just let him go on hi sway (because I couldn't have stopped him anyway) until I saw exactly what was in the bowl.
NO!
NO! That was going too far!
I pushed off the wall and grabbed the bowl of tomatoes picked specifically from my garden and yanked it back from the small dwarf's hands, his grip coming loose easily.
"Not my prize winners, thank you!"
I pulled the bowl closer and red faced and stammering, he apologized to me for his rudeness and hurried back into the dining room to help with setting up the table beside Gandalf. As soon as he was gone, I felt terrible for practically yelling at the poor thing! The sensation his voice invoked was just so gentle and pure, a slight tickle against my hands that reminded me of squeezing a pile of fur or something as equally soft. He also seemed to be the only one in my house that understood the value of true manners and there I had gone and soiled that with such a show of thoughtlessness.
I almost wanted to give him the bowl back just to apologize for my rude behavior!
Feeling defeated by such a polite little dwarf, I crossed the hallway to put the tomatoes back into the pantry -easily sidestepping dwarves and Gandalf- but only got so far as the door frame before I was throwing up my arms and splattering tomatoes everywhere! Helpless to control it, I laughed desperately and squirmed away from absolutely nothing at all and tripped into the nearby wall. I smacked against the hardened surface and looked frantically for the source of the tickle that harassed my armpits.
Speaking with Gandalf in a rather strange way with hand gestures and a gruff muttering of speech that I could not identify, a dwarf with an axe in his head motioned and hit his arm before Gandalf seemed to agree with a nod of his head, "Yes, you're quite right, Bifur. We appear to be one dwarf short."
Bifur went off back into the dining room and I was thankfully left with his voice's departure to deal with the stares of the nearby dwarves who probably thought I had gone crazy since their arrival. I would think I went mad too if my recent display was anything to go by, rushing about from room to room trying to save food before being reduced into bouts of laughter from nothing at all.
I set what remained of the bowl of tomatoes down on the nearby tabletop and just stood there for a moment, watching Gandalf and Dwalin speak with one another about one more who was running late. I sighed in frustration and ran my hands through my hair just because I felt so defeated inside my own home, watching as dwarves just helped themselves to things that I should be getting them.
I was a terrible host.
I was simply a terrible host just from watching everyone go about their business. I should have been right alongside them offering things as I went and rolling with the punches as well as I could. What would my Mum or Dad said if I told them about how improper I was being?!
" ? a little glass of red wine as requested-"
My lips smacked and my tongue rolled in my mouth at the strange sensation of the dwarf's voice, a sort of warm feeling brushing against my tongue and settling there not unlike the red wine that he currently was offering to Gandalf.
"Make yourself useful, laddie ."
Dwalin's voice poked at my cheek playfully, his mouth grinning down at me in a jeer that made me blink in confusion before he motioned to his own tankard. Before I even knew what I was doing, my body moved, familiar with motions of being a proper host than really knowing what else to do. I took the tankard from him quickly and filled it up with one of the nearby barrels of ale in the pantry before bringing it back over to him, nodding when he started to drink from it without so much as a nod returned.
I went to the room beyond him and poked my head in, asking if anyone else needed anything more and hearing a few shouts for jams, or cookies, or even an ale. I went back to the pantry and gathered up what items they requested and carefully balanced it all back to the dining room where I was quickly relieved of them. Gandalf caught my eye as I came back over to take his tiny glass, replacing it with a filled cup actually fit for someone his size. His eyes gleamed at me, happy that I was finally taken with the idea of having guests over before he settled into the adjoining room.
Where the entirety of my larder now was happily being tossed back and forth in great handfuls between dwarves, who shouted and cheered whenever one landed in someone's mouth or right in the face.
I stood there, surprised and shocked and horrified at the sound of their voices rolling around me - poke in my belly, a slide along my cheek and ear- until I looked away and it all muddled down into a constant sensation around me. My eyes found the larder easily but inside were only bare pickings at best...
I had lost the battle of the larder and what made it worse was than at the end, I surrendered to it.