The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings belongs to JRR Tolkien and the movies belong to Peter Jackson. I'm just a devoted fan.

Happy Holidays~! This chapter is Bilbo-centric, a little holiday treat for all you awesome story readers. It won't be too often but I have planned a couple chapters where they will be Bilbo-centric or in his POV.

Has He Gone Mad?

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

The birds chirped outside for sleepyhead Bilbo Baggins. Every muscle in his body urged him not to move, to stay asleep and for five minutes longer avoid the truth that thirteen dwarves, a wizard and a thief had been inside his home, ate all his food and utterly destroyed the plumbing in the bathroom. The sunlight brushed his face as he stirred awake, his eyelids a little heavy with sleep. He roused awake and decided to walk to his bedroom, only to find a mess of shirts, tunics, pants and suspenders on the floor.

Someone stole my clothes! Bilbo shrieked inside his mind as he frantically packed away all the discarded outfits back into his ransacked dresser drawer. There was only one culprit: Relly. He clutched his breeches as he hastily folded them into the pants drawer. How did she manage to sneak into his house in the night? Well, other than the obvious answer that she probably picked a window lock open and crawled right back in. Most importantly, that thief stole his favorite green tunic shirt, the one he wore to the Midsummer's Eve festival last year. He frowned, mad that a bony little burglar made off with some of his nicest articles of clothing.

And then it finally hit him. He remembered Relly Crillynook, or rather her mother. Bilbo slid the palm of his hand down his face as the mental image of the cloaked thief appeared inside his head, shaking it away as he tried to remember an earlier time, when he was a wee age of ten or so years old (which is very young in term of Hobbit years). He was too young to understand it at the time, but he recalled the day Relly Crillynook's mother returned to Hobbiton, a little over four decades ago.

He was about ten or so years old, playing outside while his mother drank tea on the stone bench outside Bag End. It was very bright, very sunny and a good day altogether. The merchant Odard Crillynook's daughter had just arrived back into town after a long absence and he, as a tyke, faintly remembered his mother being shocked by the sudden appearance. The Hobbit woman was short, her hair in golden blonde curls and had very big and bright blue eyes. Her tummy was enlarged, like she were hiding a watermelon under her skirts. A half-smile crossed the older Bilbo's face; he still remembered that watermelon thought after all those years.

As he got older, Bilbo often heard his mother talk about how Hecaterina's own child looked nothing like her. It was a source of gossip and discontent among the other Hobbit women about Hecaterina's return to Hobbiton barefoot and on the verge of giving birth. The local midwife delivered the babe and found it odd how even as an infant, she looked nothing like most of the other Hobbit babies born.

Bilbo Baggins never learned much more after that. He vaguely recalled two decades earlier when a young black haired Hobbit ventured past the Shire to seek out her own fortune. Of course, he did not pay much attention to that.

But back to the subject: his stolen clothes. And of course, he knew Relly had slipped a fork of his in that ratty cloak of hers. As he cleaned up his bedroom, he walked into the other rooms of Bag End. Everything was clean. Perhaps the dwarves hadn't been such horrible house guests. Messy, raucous and loud indeed but everything was spic and span. The other part of him wanted to believe that Relly had picked the place clean but other than the fork and clothes she nabbed, every little trinket and jar was in its rightful place. His mother's jewelry box no longer edged with mud, the bathrooms clean and water running. Even the pantry, although very empty, was organized.

He stared into the window for a long time, sliding his fingers up and down his suspenders out of a fidgety habit as he thought about last night. Something stirred in him, a faint hunger that Gandalf had awoken after all these years of living mildly as a well to do bachelor. His eyes slowly travelled to the contract Thorin had given him and Relly the night before, idly resting on the small table near the window. The black ink of her signature glittered in the soft morning sunlight, Relly Crillynook's horrible handwriting looking slightly prettier than usual. She had just signed her life away to a company of dwarves and Gandalf without a second thought, excited about an adventure she hardly asked about.

And without his signature, the thief would not be able to go. Bilbo stamped out the guilt with a more forced, reasonable emotion. The contract was calling out to him. Most of all, the Took blood in his veins urged him to go on this adventure.

Bilbo hesitated. Without a second thought, he grabbed a quill and neatly but hurriedly signed Bilbo Baggins under Relly Crillynook's signature. He was going on an adventure! And he needed to pack everything!

As he excitedly ran down the winding path that led him away from Bag End and towards the entrance of Hobbiton, many of his neighbors looked on with curious judgment and under-breath utterances of 'Has he gone mad?'. The usually quiet and respectable Bilbo Baggins was now hopping about with a large backpack and a heavy coat, running down hills and backyards of other Hobbit-holes as he kept yelling: "I'm going on an adventure!"

They can't have gone too far ahead, Bilbo hoped as he picked up the pace on his heavy, furry feet. Granted, it was mid-morning now and Gandalf, Thorin and the other dwarves probably left at the crack of dawn but Bilbo was actually determined to catch up with his new adventuring group.

After what felt like an hour (more like twenty minutes), Bilbo saw a long train of ponies. However, the ponies had already stopped and he saw the faint outline of a cloaked figure talking to Balin and Thorin.

"I'm beginning to believe you are stalling us, Miss Relly," Balin sounded annoyed although polite as Relly was about to say something until Bilbo yelled out,

"Wait! Wait! I'm coming along! I signed it!"

Relly turned on her heel, a wide grin on her face as she was more excited about seeing the contract signed rather than Bilbo actually showing up. "See, I told you Bilbo was coming. He was just a bit late. You know, Hobbits and their second breakfasts."

Bilbo was taken aback, looking at Relly and then the dwarves. She had gotten there first? And judging by what she just said, basically assumed he was going to show up anyway? He hmphed a bit as the feeling faded and approached Balin with the signed parchment, a proud look on his face as Balin read the signatures.

Then Bilbo noticed the tunic Relly was wearing. His eyes froze as Relly pulled a bit of her cloak over her chest, offended. "You're wearing my shirt! And those are my nice winter breeches!"

Relly faked a jaw drop, her hazel eyes filled with mischief. "What? I thought this outfit was a present. You wouldn't force a poor lady to take the very shirt off her back, would you?"

"I'd certainly like to see that," Bofur nudged the mane of his pony, Ori and Dori shushing him as the other dwarves watched Bilbo accuse Relly of stealing his clothes. It was quite humorous to watch.

Bilbo's frown twitched and curved a few times until he realized he couldn't really ask her to remove her clothing. Relly was part of the company now, whether he liked it or not (and frankly, he wasn't). Also, to suggest to remove her clothing was highly inappropriate. However, she was literally wearing everything she stole from his dresser drawer, including those brand new suspenders of his which did not sit well with Mr. Baggins.

"Ahem, well, everything appears to be in order," Balin cut through the drama as he cleared his throat and granted acceptance of Relly and Bilbo as their burglars. Of course, only one of them was the real burglar. 'Welcome Master Baggins and Miss Crillynook to the company of Thorin Oakenshield."

Bilbo smiled, a little grin on his cheeks as Relly walked over to where Ori's pony was. "See, told you he'd show up."

"Give them ponies," Thorin commanded as Relly's face lit up. Bilbo's smile quickly went sour. Oh no. Not a pony. Even as a tyke, he never cared for the pony. Sure, Hobbits used them from time to time but that did not mean he was going to ride one. Plus, he was allergic to horse hair.

"Relly! There's a pony beside mine, if you like," Ori offered the riderless pony beside him as Relly clamored to the adorable brown and white pony, already sitting on top of the creature as she adjusted her cloak and gripped the reigns. Bilbo felt shorter suddenly, now that even Relly Crillynook towered above him. Bilbo also felt a fleeting emotion of jealously for some odd reason; maybe because Relly was already settled in as a friend of a dwarf so soon and not afraid of a pony.

"No no, that's not necessary. I am fine on foot, walking on the ground as I should be."

Relly raised a black brow at him, snorting at how silly Bilbo was being. Even Gandalf gave a light chuckle at Bilbo's refusal to ride a pony. "What, are you afraid of a pony, Master Boggins?" and she purposefully said his name wrong just to annoy him. He was not afraid. He just did not like riding. It was a weird sensation and Bilbo Baggins was not fond of weird sensation as well as sneezing from horse hair.

Thorin Oakenshield was not the dwarf to ask something twice and Bilbo was lifted up by the arms and slammed on top of a pony. Relly, already ahead of Bilbo in the train of ponies, turned to look over her shoulder to watch Bilbo basically pout on top of riding a pony.

"Having fun?" she yelled out to him as coins were being tossed to the back of the line, due to the wager of whether Bilbo Baggins would actually come along. Relly wasn't part of the bet though considering she actually showed interest in going way before Bilbo did. He began to sneeze violently as he asked everyone to stop riding and wait for him to fish out a handkerchief.

Bofur ripped a piece of his own cloth and tossed it to the back of the line, Relly trying to suppress a laugh. She of course was used to not having homely comforts but Bilbo? No. He held it up by the very ends using as little of his fingers as possible to touch it and reluctantly accepted the so-called gift.

This was going to be a long journey, a long one even by lack of a handkerchief standards.

Hope you guys loved this chapter! I did for sure. It's short, yeah, but I can't always crank out a whopping 5k, haha.