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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. She had nothing to complain about about, truly, for it was a very nice hole. While all hobbit-holes meant comfort, hobbits for miles around The Hill and beyond would have agreed that this particular hobbit-hole was one of the nicest, largest, and most comfortable holes in Hobbiton, if not the whole Shire. 

The hobbit had it all to herself too. 

Everyone could be sure that the hobbit was appreciative of what she had, because she could often be seen putting great effort into maintaining the niceness of her hobbit-hole. She had painted its perfectly circular door a new, even shade of emerald green just last week; she regularly polished the yellow brass knob and door-knocker until they shined; and every morning she surveyed the plentiful flowers and wily vegetables of the surrounding gardens just to make sure that they were behaving themselves for her gardeners. 

The inside of this grand hobbit-hole was just as nice as the outside, if not nicer. One could see it from the front hall alone, which had richly panelled walls free of smoke stains, tiled and carpeted floors, and a lovely hanging chandelier, and many an admiring visitor had at least once had the opportunity to hang their hats, coats, shawls, bags, and baskets from the long line of pegs along the round tunnel of the front hall. The hobbit was quite fond of company and no distinguished entertainer was without a marvellous stage. Her particular stage was kept nice and orderly so that no one, guest or hostess, could trip over anything unexpected or make sly comments about how the standards of living were clearly different when one lived alone. 

The tunnels of the hobbit-hole wound on and on through the hill upon which this home was the shining crown - The Hill, many people for miles round called it, for it was the tallest point in all of Hobbiton - and the tunnels veered off into many round-doored rooms for every purpose and occasion. There were no stairs in this home, for hobbits often didn’t have more than one floor if they could help it, just a long, sloping line of cosy bedrooms, tidy bathrooms, dry cellars, plentiful pantries, devoted wardrobes, trim kitchens, long dining-rooms, and more, all for one lucky hobbit. How fortunate she was, the hobbit’s visitors told her, to have so much space for herself. 

The hobbit’s favourite rooms (not that anyone ever asked), however, were the ones on the left-hand side going in, which had deep-set round windows which overlooked her bright gardens, the soft meadows beyond, and the slope of the winding river through the green hills. The hobbit spent many a pensive day in these offices with her furry feet up, with no company save for a book or the pen in her hand, looking off towards places known only to her. 

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, as you may have already guessed, such that she could have such a place to herself, spend her time as she pleased, and host so many nosy visitors. Her name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind. They were proud of their roots, referring at once to their historical respectability and their well-known immovability, for adventurousness was not considered deserving of admiration or reward in these parts. Though often glad to be bothered for their opinions, which they personally held in great esteem, Bagginses hobbits tended to give predictable answers, for they considered venturing into any sort of unexpectedness both frightening and unnecessary. 

However, in the case of this particular Baggins, this story is about an unexpected adventure, during which she found herself doing and saying increasingly surprising things, and was rewarded in a similarly unpredictable manner. She lost all respect that her neighbours had once held for her as the hobbit who lived in the hole at the crown of The Hill, of course, but she gained… 

Well, we shall see exactly how she was rewarded at the end of all things. 

First, my dear, before we go any further, please do let me describe to you what exactly is a hobbit, for they are not widely known nowadays and the few left keep to themselves rather than bother with correcting our misconceptions. You must know going forward that they are a little people - not rabbit-like creatures, as some would have you believe, but very like us, only they never grow taller than children. They are both shorter and less broad than the bearded dwarves, though sometimes as wide or even wider around the belly. If you aren’t familiar with dwarves either, this means that hobbits are on average perhaps three feet tall, and unlike the bearded dwarves, they are rarely hairy around the jaw. Hobbits are best known for having sunny brown faces and large, leathery bare feet, and thick brown curls on head and toes both. 

Hobbits also tend to be sharp-eared and quick-footed, which is all the magic they need to disappear quietly into the brush when they hear the Big People (one of their kinder names for the likes of you and me) crashing about nearby, which is perhaps the origin of any insulting comparisons to rabbits. A Big Person who is so fortunate to be invited to spend time among hobbits will never forget it, because the hobbits are at large an enviously happy and fat folk, and they are very good to visitors and even better to their friends. 

In terms of personality, the average hobbit likes to dress in bright, earthy colours, to laugh often and deeply with their loved ones, and to partake in as many good meals in a day as they are able. And so, hobbits are always seeking to gather their friends and family to enjoy all of their favourite things at once with all their favourite people, as often as possible, at the slightest excuse. 

This Baggins hobbit - Belladonna Baggins, she was named, though everyone called her Bilbo - was the daughter of the fabulous Belladonna Took and the sweet spitting image of her. Short, brown-skinned, dark-haired, and round about the waist and the face. People often remarked that Bilbo Baggins was if Belladonna Took had been a respectable and proper lady from the beginning. Not a wise remark to make to Bilbo’s freckled face, of course, for this received her sourest frown rather than her deep, fruity laughter, and the hobbit had a very good memory for slights to her beloved mother. 

Secondly, my dear, before we go any further, I must tell you about the history of the hobbit’s family, if only because it mattered very deeply to our hobbit. Belladonna Took is a name you must remember, because her daughter wouldn’t have been permitted to forget it even if she had wanted to do so. 

The hobbit’s mother had been one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, the late but much-respected leader among the hobbits who had lived down and across The Water (which was the small river seen from Bilbo’s lovely windows). It was often said (not among the Tooks and not wisely to the Tooks’ faces) that there was a fairy spouse hidden in the branches of their family tree. There had to be, some deeply rooted hobbits (like the Bagginses) insisted, as absurd as the notion of a fairy spouse seemed, because even more absurd to the well-rooted hobbits was the notion that there was anything naturally hobbit-like - anything respectable - about adventures. 

The Tooks were considered to be as adventurous as the Bagginses were not, and therefore held to be less respectable in Hobbiton, despite the fact that not all Tooks were adventurous, much less adventurers, and perhaps because of the fact that they were generally (much to the Bagginses displeasure) much richer (as though they were being rewarded for their disrespectable ventures). Tooks were not as a whole overly concerned with predictableness. Though they had the decency to hush up such things as best they could, every generation or so, a peculiar Took or two would vanish for a time for a time and come back months later nigh unrecognizable to the neighbours, doing and saying some very strange things without any shame. 

The fabulous and late Belladonna had been one such Took. 

Marrying Belladonna Took, it was widely agreed, had been the most surprising thing a bland Baggins had done in living memory - and becoming Mrs. Bungo Baggins had been perhaps the most surprising thing any Took had done in living memory as well. Bungo (Bilbo’s father) had built for his wife (partly with her money and entirely with her blessing) this grand hobbit-hole that crowned the Hill, where Bilbo now lived, which was widely agreed to be if not the nicest, largest, and most comfortable hobbit-hole there ever was, then temptation enough for any hobbit to stop running off into the Blue and stay put. This agreement, however, did not stop the Bagginses’ neighbours on the Hill from watching Bungo Baggins’ Took wife with wariness until the end of the couple’s days. 

Then the neighbours’ eyes turned fully to Bilbo Baggins, Belladonna’s only child who looked almost exactly like her, but who reassuringly behaved almost exactly like a second edition of her solid and comfortable father. It didn’t seem unreasonable to the hobbits of The Hill to presume that something queer might have made its way into Bilbo Baggins. Nor did it seem unreasonable to them to expect that any rational, respectable hobbit, who was truly responsible and grateful for all her good fortune in life, to wish and strive to prove their judgement of potential queerness wrong. 

The neighbours’ eyes stayed on Bilbo Baggins long after she was all grown-up. Even when she was about fifty years old and had time and time again proven herself to them a distinguished hostess, a respectable neighbour, and more than capable of looking after her late mother and father’s business and home, her nosy neighbours watched her in the way of the steady Shire and harrumphing Hobbiton. She had remained unmarried and childless, her neighbours reasoned, which could be considered odd and was generally concerning, given that family was what had kept her adventurous mother settled down. 

For all The Hill knew, there was that queerness still in Bilbo Baggins from her Took side, only waiting for a chance to come out. 

This chance arrived one morning long ago - when hobbits were plenty and prosperous, the world much greener and slightly quieter, and Bilbo Baggins was (as I have just said) about fifty comfortable years old - when the hobbit was sitting on her front garden bench, by the path that meandered down The Hill. The hobbit was not expecting any adventures today and she looked it. She had a short pipe in her mouth (she had picked the habit up from her mother), her embroidery in her hands, and a furrow to her brow. 

Bilbo had also had a terrific dream in mind when she had first stepped outside, but it appeared to have rudely deserted her and no amount of firm handling had brought the vibrant picture back. The hobbit sighed and set her embroidery down on its bag beside her, thinking that she ought to have known better than to try and create something out of fancies instead of proper planning. It brought on nothing but an awful mess. She was just thinking that it was very lucky no one was out to have witnessed her stitch herself into an ugly hole - it wasn’t a crime to waste thread, at least so long as her frivolity wasn’t caught - when a long shadow fell over her bench. 

Bilbo stopped frustratedly puffing her pipe and looked up in alarm, then up farther still. Hobbit shadows could be very wide indeed, but they were not typically tall, unless pairs of youngsters took it upon themselves to stand on each other’s shoulders in an attempt to break their little fool necks. 

It was not, to Bilbo’s mild relief, a pair of young hobbits looking to show off. It was, however, to Bilbo’s greater alarm, not a hobbit at all. It was an old woman, who was so tall that she would have stood higher than even two tall adult hobbits stacked on top of each other. This old woman was long-faced and silver-haired, with two thick braids hanging down past her belted waist, and she was dressed in a worn slate dress, dark leggings, a thick grey cloak, and immense, dusty black boots. She loomed even taller with her wide-brimmed, pointy-tipped blue hat, and the long gnarled staff held in one of her wrinkled, long-fingered hands. 

This woman was, unbeknownst to the startled hobbit, the chance she and her neighbours had been waiting for all her life. The tall chance’s name was Gandalf and, my dear, if you had heard only a little of what I am privileged to know about her (and I have heard very little of all the long and strange stories there are to hear about such a figure), you couldn’t have been even remotely surprised that adventures were soon to be afoot. Wild stories sprouted in this old woman’s wake like flowers, wherever she so decidedly went, and grew into even taller and wilder tales after she had gone. 

Gandalf was not a stranger to the Shire, but she had not been in the area of The Hill or even the area of The Water since her friend, the Old Took, had passed away. So, even those who had heard some of the many stories that were out there (like our unsuspecting hobbit puffing on the garden bench), had been too small at the time to well remember her strange appearance and immediately make the necessary connections. 

“Good morning!” Bilbo said, for she couldn’t forget her good manners, and she was sure enough that she meant it. The air was sweet and the sights were bright, which had tempted her to step outside of her cosy offices and chase silly fancies with her needle. 

The old woman, however, didn’t seem to share this opinion, as she raised her bushy grey brows and fixed the hobbit in her sharp grey eyes. “What do you mean?” she mused. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or that you simply feel good this morning? Or that it is a morning to be good on?” 

“...All of them at once, I suppose?” Bilbo answered, after chewing her pipe some, taken aback by her well-wishes being met with such open suspicion. “It is a fine morning to be out of doors is all, and if you have a pipe or a needle of your own, you are welcome to sit down and join me in appreciating the day! You may even borrow a pipe or a needle from me, if you are without and wish to have a seat regardless!” 

“How generous,” the old woman said, and tilted her head in such a way that there could be no doubt that she was eyeing Bilbo’s messy embroidery hoop. 

Bilbo felt her face heat slightly and she tossed a fold of her skirt over the colourful, misshapen mountains she had been making out of thread. She puffed her pipe and then blew a smoke ring, a perfect circle which floated quite far into the wind before falling apart, in the hopes of distracting the old woman with her skill (which was considered quite decent among hobbits). 

The old woman, however, didn’t even seem to take notice of Bilbo’s lovely smoke ring beyond some mild amusement. 

“I’m afraid that I have no time to sit and share smoke-rings and sewing hoops,” the old woman replied. “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging on behalf of an acquaintance, and I haven’t had much luck in finding anyone appreciative of the idea.” 

Bilbo almost squeaked in surprise. “I should think so, in these parts, mistress! The folk here hate to be late for their dinner and few things disturb and discomfort one’s days like adventures!” Because it was ingrained in her to be helpful, even when she felt disturbed and discomforted herself, the hobbit added very generously, “I would suggest trying across The Water, or perhaps out by the Brandywine or the Sea. Perhaps there you might have better luck finding a hobbit interested in your adventure.” 

“Hmm,” the old woman said, and didn’t so much as thank her. 

Bilbo’s cheeks grew even warmer and she fished out her embroidery again, pretending that there might be something to salvage out of her earlier excitement. She felt herself growing hotter in the face still, even a little cross, when the old woman didn’t seem to get the hint to move along. The old woman only leaned on her stick and kept staring expectantly down her long nose at Bilbo. 

“I’m afraid that I cannot help you any further, mistress, but I do wish you a good morning regardless,” Bilbo said at last to her. 

“Good morning?” the old woman repeated, greatly affronted. “A phrase you use for every purpose and occasion, it seems, Bilbo Baggins! Mistress, you say, though you very well know my name, because you don’t remember that I belong to it. To think that I have lived to see myself so dismissively good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s daughter - and not even by name!” 

“Oh, well, my apologies, my dear m- I didn’t mean to-” 

“I am Gandalf! Which means… me… and I expected to be good-morninged as such.” 

Here, Bilbo did squeak in surprise, and leaped to her feet. “Gandalf? Gandalf! Good gracious me! Really? Really! Not the wandering witch who gave Old Took, my dearest grandmother, the most marvellous magic diamond hair-clips, which fastened themselves and never came undone until ordered!” 

Bilbo’s dear aunts had bickered like magpies over those magic hair-clips when their old mother had passed away. 

“Perhaps,” Gandalf said. 

“Not the old woman who used to tell such wonderful, wild tales at parties?” Bilbo prompted, leaning on her fence now, like she was a little hobbit-girl again. “About dragons and goblins and giants? And the rescue of princesses? And farmers’ daughters setting off from home and becoming grand ladies?” 

“Hmm. That does sound like me,” Gandalf agreed. 

“Not the witch who used to make such wonderful fireworks for Grandmother’s famous Midsummer’s Eve parties? Oh, I remember those! Those bright begonias and great daisies and bursting azaleas of fire, lingering among the stars all evening like a garden of light!” Bilbo said enthusiastically, before she realized that she was being prosy again, and quickly coughed away her fondness for flowers and fancy. “I beg your pardon! I should not have forgotten.” 

“Indeed, you should not have, but at least now you have finally remembered, so perhaps you are not entirely without hope,” Gandalf said, though she still sounded displeased. “I should give you what you have asked for, out of friendship with you old grandmother and dear mother if nothing else, and yet…” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Exactly, I should give you my pardon,” Gandalf agreed shrewdly. “However, I find myself most reluctant to do so, and far more inclined to give you something else instead for your forgetfulness and complacency. Hmm. Yes, yes, I think I’ll give you something else altogether. It will be very amusing for me, very good for you, and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it.” 

Bilbo peered up at the disgruntled old woman in horror, thinking of all sorts of terrible curses that could be laid upon her for her rudeness to a witch. “Oh, please don’t! I beg your pardon most sincerely! As an old friend of the family – my dear mother spoke so highly of you and you were one of my grandmother’s dearest friends – you know that you are always welcome to come by and visit in any weather!”

“Do I?” Gandalf said. 

“Oh, you must come by so that I can make this terrible rudeness up to you – any time you like – and host for you a fine meal!” 

“Must I?” Gandalf said. 

The old witch hemmed and hawed, but Bilbo insisted most stridently, and they came away with an agreement that Gandalf would come by for tea tomorrow, for that fine meal that Bilbo had promised to host. Bilbo sighed in relief when she finally scurried off and shut her front door behind her, thinking that she had just very deftly avoided being turned into a rabbit or some other poor, thumbless, voiceless creature. Such an anxious encounter had left her very hungry, so she went to the pantry, knowing that a cake or two and a drink of something would do her good after her fright, before she put her meeting with an offended witch down on her Engagement Tablet.

In doing so, the little hobbit missed the old witch’s disgruntlement break to a cough, which turned into a snicker, which morphed into quiet cackling. Bilbo didn’t see Gandalf’s wide, mischievous grin as the old witch used her staff to carve a queer sign into the hobbit-hole’s beautiful green door. When the old witch strode away down The Hill with a suspicious skip in her step, the hobbit was busy shoving her second cake into her other cheek. 

It was only while chewing this second cake that it finally occurred to Bilbo that this had been the same Gandalf who was responsible for so many otherwise well-behaved lads and lasses going off into the Blue on wild adventures. In the stories of hobbits climbing trees the size of towers, visiting the great cities of the elves and humans, or even sailing in ships to far off shores, there was often a tall grey figure lurking at the edges of the tale. 

Bilbo put a hand on her chest, thinking how perilously close she had just come to getting involved in something very interesting. She reminded herself that adventures were not well-regarded or to be rewarded in these parts, and that a respectable, responsible hobbit like herself had no time for such sour things. 

Thankfully, she had been quite clear to Gandalf that she was not available for any such nonsense. She was sure that this much must have been well understood by the witch. There was no possible way Gandalf could have mistaken her for interested in adventures! 

Good hostesses weren’t permitted to forget engagements unless they had very good reason and Bilbo was determined to earn her pardon for the embarrassing reunion of earlier, so she spent all evening and most of the next day in a great fluster. Any good friendship could hardly begin or survive without a good meal. She wasn’t familiar with Gandalf’s favourite foods. Would the disgruntled witch transform her for serving the wrong tea or cakes? The old woman seemed reasonable enough, but Bilbo couldn’t help worrying. She paced the long tunnel of her home endlessly, attacking gleaming panels and floors and furniture with cleaning rags; she plated the tea trays in over a dozen different arrangements; and changed her dress and her hair twice as many times.

It was either fluster in circles or twitch on the sofa until Gandalf came around, feeling not unlike a kettle on the boil all the while. It shouldn’t have made such a difference to bury her embroidery bag at the back of a wardrobe, but the little hobbit couldn’t rest until all similar fancies (all her distant books and dreamy sketches and prosy pages) had been well hidden from the adventure-arranging witch who was coming to tea.

When the doorbell finally rang, Bilbo squeaked, and ran to get this over with.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting!” she planned to say, but didn’t, because it was not the expected witch on her doorstep at all. 

It was a dwarf. 

So instead Bilbo Baggins said, “Eep?”

The dwarf was broad-shouldered and loomed fiercely over Bilbo whether they meant to or not in their armour, looking down their twice-broken nose with very bright eyes at the little hobbit. One side of their head was shaven, the rest of their long dark hair and dark beard was braided aside with metal beads and clips, and they had sharp blue tattoos with strong lines on their head and hairy forearms. The dwarf stepped inside, as though invited, and Bilbo could do nothing but step out of the way of their heavy boots and gape as they swept off their dark-green hood and bowed deeply.

“Dwalin at your service,” the dwarf said, in quite a low voice.

Bilbo’s eyes went even wider at the assortment of weapons this revealed. It was only her good manners that had her squeaking back, “Bilbo Baggins at yours! May I take your hood?”

“Thank you,” the dwarf said agreeably.

Bilbo quickly took up the offered hood and hung it neatly on the nearest peg, and despaired of how this dwarf warrior offered no explanation for their presence in Bilbo’s front hall. Visitors had dropped in unannounced on Bilbo before, to indulge their curiosity and their hunger, but never a stranger and certainly none so strange as the uninvited dwarf closing Bilbo’s round door behind them.

“Are you, perhaps, here to meet with Gandalf?” Bilbo asked, as the idea occurred to her. When the dwarf inclined their head, she added with stiff but decided welcome, “I am just about to take tea; pray come and share some with me.”

The hobbit led the way to the tea trays in the dining-room, feeling very shrewd. This dwarf must have heard that the adventure-arranging witch was coming to this hobbit-hole for tea, or else Gandalf must have decided to take advantage of Bilbo’s offered hospitality and told Dwalin to meet her here. The latter option left Bilbo feeling a bit cross; she preferred to believe that she had just found the old witch a proper person for her adventure. By the time it had occurred to Bilbo to compose a list of potential folk for Gandalf – which wouldn’t have been easy, because Bilbo didn’t know many adventurous hobbits, and would have felt like offering someone else up to be terribly uncomfortable besides – it had been much too late to do so.

Bilbo had only just finished naming the offered cakes for the dwarf - and done her best not to scarf down three out of nervousness (she had only eaten one, for she had no desire for her first impression to be that of a squirrel) while the dwarf curiously bit into one that looked terribly dainty in their enormous fingers - when came another, even louder ring of the doorbell.

Bilbo excused herself to answer it, prepared to declare, “So you have got here at last! You will never guess the surprise I have in store for you!” 

But it was still not Gandalf, so instead Bilbo said, “Ahhh?”

It was another dwarf. This dwarf looked much like a new grandmother, if grandmothers wore armour, had blue tattoos at their temples, carried many weapons, and smiled down their once-broken nose with very bright eyes at grown hobbits. This dwarf’s hair and fluffy beard were snow-white and also braided with metal beads and clips, and they swept off a scarlet hood and bowed deeply, a hand on their breast.

“Balin at your service!” they said.

“Thank you!” Bilbo said, flustered, suddenly very glad that she had over-prepared for tea. “Oh, I mean: Bilbo Baggins at yours! Let me take your hood and show you to tea!”

“A little beer would suit me better, if you have any, little lass,” old Balin said, as they stepped inside and shut the door behind them. “But I have had a lifelong weakness for a little seed-cake, if you have any of that.”

“Oh, lots!” Bilbo assured her new guest, though she thought that they might run out very quickly at this rate. 

How many adventuring dwarves had heard that an adventuring-arranging witch was coming by her hobbit-hole? The little hobbit’s hungry nerves didn’t at all like the idea that she might have to go without if they ran short on cakes, as would be her duty as hostess.

Bilbo led Balin to the dining-room, where Dwalin had indeed begun making short work of her offerings. The hobbit worried, for a moment, that the two dwarves might not get along, but they embraced each other like brothers and both cried, “Dear sister!” 

Neither dwarf cared to notice Bilbo’s faint squeak of surprise. Bilbo didn’t know enough about dwarves to recognize the differences between their men, their women, and those who weren’t either (if dwarves had those folks as well), but she had presumed both Balin and Dwalin were probably male. It was almost always the men who grew the very rare beard among hobbits. Feeling very embarrassed over her assumptions, Bilbo lifted her skirts and scurried off to fetch the grandmotherly yet fierce Balin her beer and seed-cake. 

The doorbell sounded again just as Bilbo plumped the new tray down, ringing twice this time, and Bilbo left the two dwarves at the table chatting like sisters did. Gandalf for certain this time, Bilbo thought, for everyone knew that the third time was the charm. 

However, it was again proven that what everyone knew was wrong when Bilbo found two more dwarves on her doorstep.

These two were clearly much younger than Balin and Dwalin, though just as tall and nearly as broad, and they both smiled at her with even brighter eyes. One was very fair, with a blue tattoo by their eye, a handsome crown of braids, and a golden beard with silver beads; while the other was tawny-haired with no visible tattoos, barely a beard at all, and a crown braid that seemed to have come mostly undone. They swept off blue hoods and bowed deeply together.

“Fili-” said the golden one.

“-and Kili-” said the tawny-haired one.

“-at your service!” they finished together, almost musical.

“At yours and your family’s!” answered Bilbo, firmly remembering her good manners this time. At least, until Kili caught her hand and kissed it, which prompted yet another surprised squeak, for Bilbo had rarely been kissed on the hand before and certainly never by a pretty, adventuring dwarf.

Kili winked at her and hung up their blue hood beside Fili’s, who was rolling their eyes. “Dwalin and Balin here already, I see!” Kili said. “Let us join the throng, dear sister!”

Throng, thought Bilbo Baggins, with her heart over her chest. There is a throng of dwarves in my home! What will the neighbours say? Surely only the best of things when they find out I sent the wandering witch on her way! Well, Gandalf will certainly not need me for her adventure with these four willing dwarf warriors who have come to meet with her! She will have no need for hobbits!

Bilbo hurried back and forth between the dining-room and the kitchen, serving more drinks and trays to her guests, and stuffing cakes and crackers into her cheeks when they weren’t looking. This snacking became increasingly difficult, when Balin bid “the girls” (Fili and Kili) assist their “little hostess”, as though Bilbo couldn’t do the job by herself! Misses Fili and Kili didn’t take direction well, preferring to speak of mines and gold and trouble with goblins, and the depredations of dragons, and lots of other things which she didn’t understand with Misses Balin and Dwalin in the other room. Bilbo soon gave up on keeping their greedy hands out of her pantries, even though they seemed to be gathering a great waste of food even for a party of six.

Then the doorbell rang again and Bilbo said unnecessarily, “Someone at the door!” She hoped it was the old witch finally come to whisk all these dwarves away, but then the door rang again, and then twice more as though this was some bit of mischief.

“Some four, I should say by the sound,” Miss Fili said, and took a cup out of her hands and then three more down from the cupboard. She winked at Bilbo as well. “We also saw them coming along behind us in the distance.”

“…Four?” Bilbo repeated meekly, to Miss Fili’s back. “Four!” 

Then the bell rang again, louder than ever, and she hurried to answer the door, because sitting down in the middle of the hall with her head in her hands and ignoring everything was generally considered quite rude.

Only, it wasn’t four after all, it was five more dwarves. One by one, they swept off their hood, bowed deeply, and introduced themselves, before marching past a gaping Bilbo to hang up their hoods and join the others in the dining-room. 

“Dori at your service,” declared a very broad, very neat, silver-bearded dwarf, with tattoos on their hands that disappeared under their sleeves.

“Nori at your service,” tipped a tall, brown-bearded dwarf with very elaborate braids and more hand and forearm tattoos.

“Ori at your service,” murmured another tall and brown-bearded but very nervous-looking dwarf, who greatly resembled the previous two, but was too wrapped up in layers to see any matching ink on their skin.

“Oin at your service,” panted a grey-bearded dwarf, who must have come up after the others, for they had collected a fistful of weeds that Bilbo knew they couldn’t have gotten from her garden.

“Gloin at your service,” finished a copper-bearded dwarf proudly, as they shut the door firmly behind them. This last visitor added their white hood to the two purple, the grey, and the brown now hanging from the pegs, and didn’t seem to mind that Bilbo could only stammer her good manners after them.

Bilbo fetched ale, porter, and coffee for her new company, while they helped themselves to all the cakes, all the food that Misses Fili and Kili had gathered (all the scones, half her cheese-and-meat board, and most of the good mince-pies), and let themselves into Bilbo’s pantries (as they had her home) for more. She wished that she had done more to prepare herself, though she knew that nothing could have prepared her for nine new dwarves for acquaintances. At least she was being kept busy, waiting for the witch who was now running quite late for tea!

She had just put the coffee over the hearth when came a loud and insistent knocking! Oh, someone was banging a stick against her paint job! Bilbo rushed away from the throng, prepared to give Gandalf (for it had to be the witch by now) a piece of her mind (the doorbell wasn’t at all hard to miss), and flung the door open wide before too much damage could be done to the beautiful door she’d so recently and painstakingly repainted. She squeaked when four more dwarves suddenly fell in at her feet, with Gandalf leaning on her staff and cackling behind them.

The old witch had indeed made a great dent on the beautiful door and, in doing so, had gotten rid of the mark she had carved there on yesterday’s good morning. Bilbo was too taken aback by dwarves to notice. 

“Is it now the fashion for hostesses to keep their guests waiting on the mat and then leap out in surprise on them?” Gandalf said, before waving her long hand over the pile of dwarves struggling at the hobbit’s hairy feet, pointing at them one by one. “Bilbo Baggins, my good hostess, let me introduce to you Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and especially Thorin Oakenshield!”

Bifur was a wide and salt-and-pepper-bearded dwarf with tattoos and heavy scarring on the face; while Bofur was a broad and chestnut-bearded dwarf with twisty braids and striking dimples; and Bombur was a ginger-bearded and very fat dwarf with a magnificently braided moustache. Together, once on their feet again, they bowed deeply and declared themselves at Bilbo’s service, before hanging two yellow hoods and a pale green one among the others.

The last dwarf, who had the misfortune of suffering at the bottom of the pile, pulled themselves to their feet with only a deep frown and said nothing to her about service. Proud Thorin Oakenshield looked down a long, once-broken nose at the hobbit with very bright but distant eyes, and Bilbo felt quite small all of a sudden. Unlike the others’ very neat styles, save perhaps young Miss Kili, Thorin’s brown and silver-streaked hair was loose and beadless, and their beard was cropped quite short. Yet this dwarf appeared extremely haughty nevertheless in their dark-furred coat and silvery armour. 

Bilbo apologized so profusely for the door-opening, however, while hanging Thorin’s sky-blue, silver-tasselled hood, that the dwarf finally grunted “pray don’t mention it” and at last stopped frowning so fiercely.

“Now we are all here!” Gandalf declared, rubbing her head where she had hit it on the chandelier, as she hung her hat on the fourteenth peg and tossed her braids back over the shoulder like scarves. “What a merry gathering you host, Bilbo Baggins, though I cannot yet speak for the fineness of the meal you promised!”

No hobbit could have missed such a blatant hint for food to be put in front of them. Bilbo’s spine went straight at the challenge to her hospitality, and with aplomb she took orders for raspberry jam and apple-tart (Bifur), mince-pies and cheese (Bofur), pork-pie and salad (Bombur), and a little red wine (Gandalf and Thorin). As well as for more cakes, ale, and coffee, and for a few eggs and chicken and pickles from the others still in the dining-room. It didn’t occur to her to wonder how they knew so much about the inside of her larders as she determinedly went about emptying them – and all her cupboards and drawers of enough crockery and cutlery for fifteen – this time very glad for Misses Fili and Kili’s helping hands, and for Misses Balin and Dwalin’s strong arms for moving all the tables, chairs, and trays into place. 

 Once seated, Gandalf was at the head of the party (in deference to her size), with Thorin beside her, and the twelve other dwarves all round. Bilbo sat on a stool near the old witch, not quite at the table, where she was doing her best to pretend that she was no amateur at facilitating adventures, and also nibbling tiredly on the plate of biscuits in her lap that the dwarves had silently decided were best left entirely to their little hostess. More than one hobbit meal passed them by like this, as the dwarves ate and ate, and talked and talked about things Bilbo still didn’t understand and didn’t particularly wish to understand.

One thing that Bilbo did come to understand was that all of these dwarves were women. There wasn’t just Misses Balin and Dwalin, and Misses Fili and Kili, but also Miss Dori, Miss Nori, Miss Ori, Miss Oin, Miss Gloin, Miss Bifur, Miss Bofur, Miss Bombur, and proud Miss Thorin Oakenshield - and all except Thorin came in groups of sisters. Though no stranger to very capable women and also considered to be a very capable woman herself (and not only by herself, she might add), the hobbit had never met women like these dwarf adventurers at her table. They were all so tall and broad! So fierce and deep-voiced and heavy with metal weapons and armor (which they slowly came to discard in her front hall course by course)! 

Another thing that Bilbo came to understand was that Gandalf was apparently well-acquainted with all these dwarves, and Bilbo bit most sullenly into her biscuits over how the witch had decided to take up her offer of a fine meal in this way. Bilbo felt a bit silly feeling shrewd earlier. She would have been able to better tolerate accommodating this business, she thought, if she could credit herself with “finding” all these dwarves for the old witch’s adventure. 

When the dwarves at last pushed their chairs back, Bilbo had collected herself enough to collect some of the many dishes they had left behind. “I suppose you will all stay to supper?” she said, in the tones of someone politely trying to impress upon guests they had overstayed their welcome.

“Of course,” Miss Thorin agreed, giving no hint that she understood Bilbo’s. “And after, as we shan’t get through the business till late, and we must have some music first, as is traditional with these sorts of affairs. Let us clear up for you, Mistress Baggins.”

“Oh, please, don’t trouble! I can manage!” Bilbo insisted.

However, while Miss Thorin didn’t trouble herself personally (she was too important), she waved her hand and the other twelve dwarves jumped to their feet and began tossing together tall piles of all the assorted dishes. Bilbo soon felt like she was running in helpless circles, squeaking with fright, “Carefully! Carefully! You’ll crack something!” and, “Please use the trays before you chip something!” But that only seemed to spur the dwarves to balance even taller columns of plates and cups, and they began to sing:

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!

Blunt the knives and bend the forks!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates-

Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!

Pour the milk on the pantry floor!

Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!

Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;

Pound them up with a thumping pole;

And when you've finished, if any are whole,

Send them down the hall to roll!

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!

So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

Of course, the dwarves didn’t do any of these dreadful things, for dwarves are quite well-mannered and most appreciative of a fine meal. Though they teased the poor hobbit by throwing her things about and singing their mischievous song, they filled the sink with soap and set up a line, and as they sang, their deft hands cleaned, dried, and put everything away safely in the exact spots from which they had been taken. 

At the end of it, Bilbo stood in her kitchen feeling like she had been caught in a tidy whirlwind, while the dwarves all left laughing highly for her parlour. Old, grandmotherly Miss Balin even patted the little hobbit’s head as she left.

In the parlour, Miss Thorin and Gandalf (who had not participated in the throwing or cleaning of the plates) had settled in and were smoking their pipes. Miss Thorin could send her enormous smoke-rings anywhere she pleased, whether it be up the chimney, behind the mantelpiece cloak, under a table, or around the ceiling, and Gandalf’s skill was greater still. Pop! The witch sent a smaller smoke-ring through each of Miss Thorin’s and burst them, before the rings turned green and curled back to hover over her head. In the dim light, this emerald cloud made Gandalf appear particularly witchy and otherworldly.

Some of the other dwarves eagerly joined in this little competition, though their skill wasn’t nearly so great, as they digested their excellent meal. Bilbo lingered in the doorway of her own parlour and watched with awe and embarrassment, thinking of the comparably simple smoke-ring she had shown off to Gandalf yesterday morning.

When they had finished with their pipes, Miss Thorin declared (deciding for all that she was done with smoke-rings), “Now for that music! We cannot begin an adventure without it! We must set the mood properly for our quest! Bring out the instruments!”

“Oh, dear, no more music, please!” Bilbo could have begged of them. However, she was still so accommodating a hostess that she only squeaked very quietly in distress. 

Thorin’s order roused Misses Fili and Kili immediately. The young dwarves rushed into the front hall, where so many belongings had slowly been shed over the hours and trusted next to the hoods, and returned with little fiddles which they eagerly began tuning. Misses Dori, Nori, and Ori brought out different flutes from inside the coats they had hung. Miss Bombur produced a drum from the hall, while Misses Bifur and Bofur came back with clarinets that had been hidden among the walking sticks. Lastly, Misses Dwalin and Balin brought in enormous viols for themselves from the porch, and a beautiful golden harp for Miss Thorin. When Miss Thorin brushed her hand against the strings, the sound so sudden and sweet made Bilbo forget to wonder where in the world all these instruments had come from. 

In fact, Miss Thorin’s elegant fingers playing a scale made Bilbo lose her thoughts entirely. She didn’t come back to herself until it was suddenly dead silent in her parlour, for all the dwarves had finished tuning their instruments. 

At a nod from Miss Thorin, fair Misses Fili and Kili stomped a beat and then began a lively music on their fiddles, to shed room of the gloom and any after-meal sleepiness. Gandalf kept puffing on her pipe and only tapped her foot, but all the dwarves clapped along happily, even proud Miss Thorin. The young dwarves’ bright smiles were so infectious and their skill so sharp that Bilbo wasn’t even annoyed when she realized this was yet another rendition of “That’s What Bilbo Baggins Hates”. She applauded as loud as anyone else when the fair sisters finished and bowed with a flourish. 

Miss Bombur took up the beat from there on her drum, with her sisters Misses Bifur and Bofur soon accompanying on their clarinets, and the fat dwarf began a cheerful walking song that Bilbo had never heard before, in a beautiful bellow that surely could have been heard all the way down The Hill. The song was long and involved a lot of call and answer, entirely about the locations to which the dwarves were headed. It became nearly as silly as, or perhaps sillier than, the plate-throwing song, as each of the dwarves laughingly gave different and increasingly nonsensical answers. 

Misses Dori, Nori, and Ori promptly raised their flutes next. The three dwarf sisters each played what would have made lovely whistling songs on their own, especially on long walks by The Water, but their songs layered together as lovingly as a perfectly folded pastry. The music was wonderfully light and sweet, yet also fiendishly complicated, and a mystery to recreate without the recipe and years of practice. 

Misses Oin and Gloin went next, which was when Bilbo realized that neither of them had instruments. No one plucked a single string as Misses Oin and Gloin recited a piece that was between song and poetry; in perfect synchronization, on a loyal beat, they spoke in clever turns of phrase about travel and trade. Bilbo was so caught up in the click of their alliterative rhyming that she barely heard the actual words of their well-spoken story. She had a feeling that something was going over her head that she could not hope to catch, yet she still felt unmoored as she clapped politely. 

When the music returned, it had changed, and as the dwarves played on, the music changed further still. Already unmoored, Bilbo felt herself being drawn deeper into their journey. To beg of them to stop and release her would have been terribly rude, Bilbo thought, and they were such skilled musicians that she would be a fool to flee their private performance, wherever they were taking her, even though she was also beginning to feel the interloper in her own home. 

Misses Dwalin and Balin played a lower and longer tune, asking for the wisdom and the blessing of their ancestors for the journey ahead - in doing so naming a line of mothers and aunts which ran back to the very first dwarf. Bilbo felt deeply awed to hear all of history laid out like this, name by name and woman by woman. When Misses Dwalin and Balin finished, after asking their ancestors if they would be welcomed with open arms, Bilbo was the only one who clapped. She stopped clapping quickly, uncertain in the face of the seriousness that had surrounded the room, and she sat in embarrassed silence as the dwarves all recited something in a language she did not know. 

The sun had now long since set outside and the spring darkness seemed to be peering in at them. At Miss Thorin’s direction, Miss Bofur closed the curtains of the little window which opened out onto the side of The Hill, so that the only light in the room belonged to the flickering fireplace, which cast tall, dancing shadows all around the room. 

Bilbo looked to solemn Miss Thorin next, whose long-fingered hands had occasionally brushed the lovely strings of her harp between songs, but Miss Thorin still did not play. Misses Fili and Kili played took their turn again: the young women’s sweet voices raised above their music in the role of little girls asking after the beauty of the world below. 

Then Misses Bofur, Bifur, and Bombur played: a song in which a miner spoke lovingly of the deepness and the darkness that was to swallow her ahead, with a drumbeat that rolled through the room like thunder. 

Then Misses Dori, Nori, and Ori played a song which cast the sky above in the most frightening way Bilbo had ever heard the mere weather described - a villain in the story of some poor, lost dwarven woman. 

Then Misses Oin and Gloin recited another spoken piece, but slowly, in such a way that Bilbo did not know if the sisters’ strange words or their stranger silences made her more uncomfortable. 

Then the sisters Misses Dwalin and Balin played again, even lower and longer than before, about ancient homes carved into deep places, while grey Miss Bifur beside them tended the fire without feeding it so that it sank deeper and deeper into its grate. 

And then, finally, it was Miss Thorin who broke the heavy silence that fell between songs. The fire was so low now that the shadows had been lost in the darkness that had filled the room, and Bilbo could barely make out the edges of the severe dwarf woman’s face and lines of her graceful hands against her beautiful harp. Miss Thorin’s voice was deep-throated and lovely, and as she sang, the other dwarf women slowly began to join her. 

Here is a fragment of their song, as much as it can be called such without the haunting music which accompanied it that night: 

Far over the misty mountains cold 

To dungeons deep and caverns old 

We must away ere break of day, 

To seek the pale enchanted gold.  

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, 

While hammers fell like ringing bells 

In places deep, where dark things sleep, 

In hollow halls beneath the fells.  

For ancient king and elvish lord 

There many a gleaming golden hoard 

They shaped and wrought, and light they caught 

To hide in gems on hilt of sword. 

On silver necklaces they strung 

The flowering stars, on crowns they hung 

The dragon-fire, in twisted wire 

They meshed the light of moon and sun. 

Far over the misty mountains cold 

To dungeons deep and caverns old 

We must away ere break of day, 

To claim our long-forgotten gold. 

Goblets they carved there for themselves 

And harps of gold; where no man delves 

There lay they long, and many a song 

Was sung unheard by men or elves. 

The pines were roaring on the height, 

The winds were moaning in the night. 

The fire was red, it flaming spread; 

The trees like torches blazed with light. 

The bells were ringing in the dale 

And men looked up with faces pale; 

Then dragon’s ire more fierce than fire 

Laid low their towers and houses frail. 

The mountains smoked beneath the moon; 

The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom. 

They fled their hall to dying fall 

Beneath his feet, beneath the moon. 

Far over the misty mountains grim 

To dungeons deep and caverns dim 

We must away ere break of day, 

In hope, our harps and gold to win! 

This last song was too much for the little hobbit, who had already been unmoored and uprooted and had too much feeling moving through her, summoned by their earlier music. She felt their love of beautiful things that were made by hands and by cunning and by magic, and their love for the making of them. She felt their fierce love for deep and dark places, and their love for the spaces they had dug out for themselves from the stone of the earth. She felt the desperate desires of the hearts of dwarves and she did not understand them. 

What Bilbo did understand was the old desires of her own that had woken up inside her breast, which had begun stirring from young Misses Fili and Kili’s very first song. She longed to see the great mountains on more than the maps of her books. She longed first to see their soaring peaks distant on the horizon, then up close hear the tall pines in the wind and the roar of their taller waterfalls that cloaked their sides. She wished to feel new smells in her nose and new dirt between her wiggling toes. In place of the tight grip she had on her chair, she imagined herself with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, marching off into dark caverns lined with shining jewels and carved smooth by lovely hands- 

 A final crackle from the fireplace interrupted her thoughts - the death rattle of the flames - and her dreams were consumed in a flash of plundering, fiery teeth. Just like that, she was Miss Belladonna Baggins again, hungry and tired and far too soft for such ridiculous thoughts, a person who kept a quiet home and had never done anything close to worthy of such heartfelt songs in all her silly little life. Bilbo shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, as though to ward off the chill of her wild imagination. 

She was Belladonna Baggins, not Belladonna Took, she told herself. 

This was not nearly enough, however. Bilbo carefully stood up to fetch a lamp or candles or anything that would give off the littlest bit of light, unable to bear a moment longer of this heavy, silent darkness. She was of half a mind to come back and shoo the dwarves off, claiming an early morning tomorrow, and half a mind to crawl back to her bedroom, light every candle she owned, and sit under her blankets like a small child until all the dwarves and their music were long gone from her life. 

 “Where are you going, Mistress Baggins?” said Miss Thorin, in a tone that froze Bilbo’s hairy feet to the floor. Suddenly, the hobbit realized that the music and the singing had stopped. All the dwarves were looking at her, their eyes shining in the dark. 

 “To fetch a little light,” Bilbo squeaked. 

 A murmur of amusement came from all around her. 

 “We prefer the dark,” said Miss Thorin, and her long fingers closed, gentle and inescapable, around Bilbo’s small wrist, which made the hobbit squeak again unintentionally. “Dark for dark business! There are many hours before dawn and much to be said in them.” 

 “Oh, of course,” Bilbo said weakly. 

 Miss Thorin guided Bilbo back to her seat, where the little hobbit sat with her hands folded in her lap. Even after Miss Thorin let go, Bilbo could still feel her touch. She peered with wide, uncertain eyes as the dwarf woman stood in the middle of the dark room, which seemed to be pressing down on the little hobbit even heavier than before. 

 “Are you sure that not even a little-?” 

 “Hush,” came Gandalf’s voice in a low, witchy warning. “Let Thorin speak.” 

  This is how Thorin began: 

  “My good dwarrows, Gandalf, and Mistress Baggins! We are now gathered in the halls of our new friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious of halflings, to begin our long expected quest for home. Our highest compliments to the fine and gracious table she sets. May good fortune be with her as may it continue to be with us.” 

 Here the dwarf woman paused for breath, for agreeable clapping from the other guests (which the dwarves gave readily in exchange for the fine meal), for some polite remark from the host, as was customary with this sort of speech. Unfortunately, the host in question hadn’t the faintest idea that she was expected to say anything here. The darkness of the room was closing in around the little hobbit and she had never before been accused of being a conspirator in her life. 

 “Audacious,” Bilbo mouthed to herself, horrified. 

 With a frown, Thorin continued lowly: 

 “I do not believe I need to say what we stand to gain, nor what we stand to lose, on this long journey which we shall begin ere break of day, which long has needed to be set into motion. Some of us, or perhaps all of us - save of course our friend and counsellor, the wisest of witches, Gandalf - may never return from quest. But we have agreed unanimously that the reward is well worth the risk and, if the rumors we all have heard are true, then we cannot allow our enemies or mere treasure-hunters to steal what is rightfully ours from us once again. My most estimable companions, we are met tonight to discuss our plans... our ways... our means, policy, and devices-” 

 This was Thorin’s style of speaking. She was an important dwarf. When she spoke, it was often to make an important remark or to take the lead on matters of great importance. This matter of great importance was particularly important to Thorin and she felt it necessary to impress the matter with all the importance she could lend it. She also wanted to be clearly understood, however, she unfortunately sometimes overcomplicated a matter in her determination to be clear. 

 At this point, Bilbo was convinced that there had been a terrible mistake and she really ought not be in the room, no matter what anyone said. So she slid silently to her feet to leave, certain that whatever special dwarf business this was that would surely not need her input in the slightest. 

 “-for our quest to take back Lonely Mountain, home of our most honored ancestors, from the clutches of the terrible dragon Smaug.” Here, the dwarves all hissed or booed under their breath. “We must be appreciative to the grey witch, Gandalf, for joining us as a guide and for finding the fourteenth member of our company, our esteemed host Mistress Baggins, willing to brave the creature’s fiery breath-” 

 Thorin’s second attempt at complimenting their host, said sincerely enough for an obligatory gesture, went even worse than the first, though Thorin didn’t notice this anymore than she had the fact that their esteemed host was trying to sneak out again. Bilbo froze when she heard what Miss Thorin had just said - and fear bubbled in her breast like a kettle about to whistle. While Thorin probably would have gone on like this until she ran out of breath, the dwarf was rudely interrupted by the deafening shriek that burst out of Bilbo Baggins, like a dozen shrieking kettles, as the poor hobbit finally understood what she had heard. 

 At the little hobbit’s shriek, most the dwarves sprang up in alarm, knocking over two little tables, pulling knives off their belts and out of their boots. Those who didn’t, flung themselves over the back of their furniture, expecting an attack. Gandalf struck her staff on the ground and summoned a bright blue light at the end to better see by. The light filled the room just in time for everyone - all thirteen dwarves and one witch - to see their esteemed hostess topple backwards flat onto the floor, the poor little hobbit having fainted dead away. 

 There was talk of running for smelling salts or their instruments at first, with which to revive their hostess, but at Gandalf’s suggestion, Miss Dwalin took Bilbo and laid her out of the way on the drawing-room sofa instead. Miss Balin put a warm drink at her elbow and a blanket over her lap, then the dwarves went back to their dark business in the parlour, where Gandalf was chewing on her pipe again.  

 “Excitable little lady,” the witch explained to them. “Gets funny queer fits occasionally, but she’s one of the best, really. As fierce as a dragon in a pinch.” 

 Dear reader, a note if you will: if you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch - which for your sake I sincerely hope you haven’t - you will realize that the witch’s words were poetical exaggeration applied to any of the round, jolly hobbits of the Shire. Even in the extraordinary case of Old Took’s great-grandmother, Nanny Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that she could ride a horse, and who had charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, this was exaggeration. With a single swing of her wooden club, Nanny Bullroarer had knocked Queen Golfirnbul’s head clean off and sent it sailing a hundred yards through the air - right into a rabbit hole. In this way, the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment, and yet… the inspirational story of Nanny Bullroarer was unfortunately nothing compared to a dragon in a pinch. 

 This was why her much gentler descendant was, meanwhile, reviving in the drawing-room after a mere mention of one - though poor, woozy Bilbo had never seen a dragon at all, much less one in a pinch. Their ferocity was not to be trifled with. After a while and a sip of the warm drink laid out for her, Bilbo was feeling enough herself again to return to the parlor, prepared to explain that there had been a horrible misunderstanding. However, she paused at the distinctly displeased sound of the conversation inside. 

 “I don’t mean to be rude, but that shriek did not sound very fierce to me,” one of the dwarves was saying - Miss Gloin, with the proud look and the copper beard, to agreeable-sounding muttering. “I think that cry sounded far more like fright than excitement, personally! Wouldn’t you agree?” 

 “One shriek like that in a moment of excitement would be enough to wake the dragon,” grumbled Miss Dwalin, she of the partially shaved head and twice-broken nose.  

 “And all the dragon’s distant relatives,” young Miss Kili piped up, to some chuckles. 

 “If it hadn’t been for the sign on the door, I should have been sure that we had all been directed to the wrong place of residence,” Miss Thorin Oakenshield herself said, sounding cross, perhaps still upset at her grand speech being ignored twice and then interrupted. “As soon as I clapped eyes on the little creature squeaking and bouncing on the mat, I had my doubts, Gandalf, and I have only had more of them since then. Who is this Baggins whom you have found for this most important expedition? She looks more like a grocer than a burglar!” 

 The handle of the parlour door turned and it might as well have been Miss Belladonna Took the Second who entered. Suddenly, Bilbo would have valiantly gone without bed and breakfasts to prove herself fierce. The phrase “little creature squeaking and bouncing” alone almost made her fierce. Many a time after this moment, the Baggins part of her would look back and think, “Bilbo, you were a ninny; you walked right in and put your foot in it,” but in this moment, the Baggins part of her was several steps behind, left unexpectedly in the other room. 

 “Pardon me if I have overheard some of your conversation just now,” Bilbo said, with the greatest dignity she could summon for these dwarves who kept speaking in such important circles around her. “While I don’t pretend to understand your business, nor all your references to burglars, I think I am right in believing that you have decided I am no good, despite having no proof one way or the other. If you had only asked or directly stated your business from the beginning, I could have shown you. Though, personally, I am also quite sure you have come to the wrong house - as soon as I saw your funny faces on the doorstep, I thought so, and especially now since my door is newly painted and hasn’t any sign - you may treat it as the right one. Tell me what you want done and I will see if I can manage, even if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert.” 

 Bilbo took a deep breath and continued, “My great-great-great-grandmother, Nanny Bullroarer Took, who-” 

 “Yes, yes, but that was last millenium, wasn't it?” Miss Thorin interrupted, looking even more cross than before and not in the least bit embarrassed about talking behind the hobbit’s back. “We are not here to discuss whose ancestors did what - at least not in this particular moment - we were talking about you.”  

 “There is a mark on the door, actually,” one of the dwarves piped up helpfully. It was Miss Ori, with the brown beard and the gangly limbs, who had removed her layers over the meal to reveal similar hand and forearm tattoos to her sisters. “We all checked to make sure we had the house with the right mark.” 

 “It’s the usual one in the trade,” agreed Miss Nori, scratching at the elaborate braids of her beard with a tattooed finger, “or used to be. A bit outdated nowadays, honestly, but still not a mark easily mistaken, especially when there weren’t any others. ‘Burglar wants a good job, plenty of Excitement and reasonable Reward’, that’s how it’s usually read in the business.” 

 “You could say ‘Expert Treasure-hunter’ instead of Burglar if you like,” suggested Miss Dori of the silver beard, who was sitting between them. “Some of them do. If you have a particular title you’d prefer, Mistress Baggins, then we’re all ears to hear it.” 

 “It’s all the same to us, so long as the work is done, and hopefully done well,” Miss Balin declared. The white-bearded dwarf fixed the flustered hobbit with sharp eyes and said, “Gandalf told us that there was a woman of the sort we were looking for in these parts, looking to begin a new job at once, and that she had arranged for a meeting here this Wednesday tea-time to start the adventure immediately-” 

 Bilbo opened her mouth to say what she thought of that, but Gandalf beat her to it. 

 “Of course there is a mark on the door!” the witch said. “I put the advertisement up myself - if I used outdated terms, then it is because I have been arranging these sorts of quests much longer than any of you have been alive - and I assure you that I placed it quite precisely! Your company may set out as an expedition of thirteen, with all the bad luck such a number entails, or go back to digging coal in the Blue Mountains for the rest of your lives, if you have already come to the conclusion I have chosen the wrong woman and marked the wrong house. You tasked me with finding your fourteenth and here I have found her!” 

 Gandalf pointed at Bilbo and all the dwarves looked at her as though they had never seen her before. Bilbo realized here that her mouth was still hanging open and she snapped it shut quickly, despite having many not-so-polite questions for the witch. 

 Gandalf nodded and stuck her pipe back in her mouth.  “Let us all agree to stop this silly arguing and finger-pointing. It is getting us nowhere. I have decided that Miss Baggins will be joining your company and that ought to be enough for all of you, who trusted me with the task in the first place, instead of doing the hard work of finding a fourteenth on your own. If I say that she is a Burglar, then a Burglar she is! ...Or a Burglar she will be when the time comes, at least. There is more in this hobbit than you think, a deal more than she has any idea of herself, and you may - hopefully - all live to thank me yet for it.” 

The witch frowned around the room, but no one dared to start up again. “That’s right,” she said. “Let us move on and forget these accusations. Now, Bilbo, my good woman, fetch a lamp! I have something to share with you all and these old eyes could use a little light.”

 After everything the witch had just said in inarguable tones about her character and her role in things, Bilbo took the excuse to flee the room gladly, and then a couple minutes later the little hobbit begrudgingly came back with a red-shaded lamp, mostly out of fear of what the old witch might do if she didn’t. Under the light, Gandalf spread a piece of parchment out over the parlour table, and murmuring broke out among the dwarves. Bilbo craned her neck to make sense of the colourful markings upon it. 

 “This was made by Thror, your grandmother, Thorin,” Gandalf explained, above the excited whispering. “It is a plan for a return to the Lonely Mountain.” 

 Miss Thorin frowned as she looked over the map. “We have collected our own maps in preparation for our expeditions, Gandalf, and I remember the Mountain and the lands about it well enough without any of them. I know where Mirkwood is, unless it has moved. I know where the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred is. What is different about this one?” 

 “There is a dragon marked in red on the Mountain there, Aunt Thorin, which is not on any of our other maps,” young Miss Fili pointed out with a grin, “but I think it will be easy enough to find the dragon without that, when we arrive there.” 

“You wouldn’t want to forget that there is a dragon in the Mountain,” Miss Kili replied, with a similar grin. “I hear that memories become quite unreliable in the winter of one’s years.” 

 “If you would deign to look at this map for more than a few seconds before casting ungrateful judgement, you young rascals, you may notice that there is a secret entrance to the Mountain marked on this map,” Gandalf said. “See here? This rune on the West side and the hand pointing to it from the other runes? This marks a hidden passage to the Lower Halls, which I think should interest you all quite a lot if you have any sense..” 

 “How do we know it has stayed secret?” Miss Thorin demanded. 

 “Old Smaug has lived there long enough now to sniff out everything there is to know about the mountain,” Miss Bombur agreed, nervously tugging her ginger beard. 

 “What if a previous expedition’s used it already and given it away?” Miss Gloin added. 

 “They cannot, though for different reasons as to why the dragon can’t have used it,” Gandalf replied. “Have patience and let me explain. Firstly, the door is much too small for Smaug - ‘five feet high the door and three may walk abreast’ say these runes - and Smaug couldn’t have crept into a hole that size even when she was a very young dragon.” 

“She certainly cannot fit after devouring so many of the dwarves of the Mountain and the men of Dale,” Miss Bofur muttered, also nervously twirling one of her chestnut beard-braids. Miss Bifur, with the salt-and-pepper beard, elbowed her in the ribs for this morbid, highly inappropriate comment. 

“That seems quite a large tunnel to me,” squeaked Bilbo. She was only a little hobbit, you must remember, not much more than three feet tall, and she had no experience of dwarven halls or dragons. 

She had also forgotten to try and sneak silently back out of the room, immediately arrested by her great love of cartography and calligraphy. She had a large map in her hall of the Country Road, where she had painstakingly marked all her favourite walks in red ink. This map of the Lonely Mountain had been made with an especially fine hand, in a particularly dwarfish style, illustrating a place Bilbo had never been, and it was making her feel excited and interested again, against all her good sense. 

“I mean,” Bilbo hurriedly corrected herself, when the dwarves’ gleaming eyes all turned to her again. “Even if it is much too small for the dragon, how could such a large door be kept secret from everybody else? Surely you’d be able to see it from the outside, wouldn’t you?” 

There was some quiet scoffing around the room. 

“Not a secret passage made by a dwarf,” Miss Thorin declared. 

“There are many ways of keeping secret passages hidden, and dwarves know nearly all of them,” Gandalf explained. “In which special way this particular door has been hidden, it is impossible to know without going to see. From what it says here on this map, I suspect this door has been made to look exactly like the side of the Mountain. That is the traditional method of hiding important tunnels and doors among dwarves, I believe - isn’t it?” 

“Quite right,” Miss Thorin agreed. 

“Now, secondly, in answer to the earlier question about earlier expeditions, with this map came a key… a small and curious key. Ah, here it is!” The old witch reached into one of her many pockets and offered Miss Thorin a silver key, with a long barrel and intricate wards. “Keep it safe! Else your expedition won’t be able to use this door either!” 

“Indeed, I will,” Miss Thorin promised, and fastened the key upon a fine golden chain that hung about her neck, before tucking it under her jacket and her beard. “Already things begin to look more hopeful. Originally, we had planned on going East, as quietly as carefully as we could, and to take the plan up again to figure out the details and perhaps a new direction once we reached the Long Lake.” 

“If I know anything about the roads East, I think the details of your plan would have come up again much sooner than that,” Gandalf interrupted. 

“We thought we might from there travel up along the River Running,” Miss Thorin went on, pretending she had not heard the witch, “which would take us into the shadow of the Mountain, where lie the ruins of Dale in the valley there. However, none of us liked the idea of walking in through the front.” 

“The dragon comes out of the Mountain far less often nowadays,” Miss Balin said. “Some even whisper that Smaug may be dead and the treasure is free for the taking, but more surely it is known that even in the deepest slumber, a dragon’s senses sleep shallowly. Smaug sleeps with her head turned towards the smashed Front Gates, listening for footsteps in the halls.” 

“Many expeditions have ended badly that way,” Miss Gloin informed them knowingly.  

“And so would have yours,” Gandalf said, “without a mighty Warrior or even a Hero to face the dragon. I had a passing look for one - however, here, swords are rare and mostly blunt, axes are used only for trees, and shields find their use repurposed as dish-covers and rather charming side tables - and warriors are mostly busy fighting one another over something or another in distant lands. Good heroes are always scarce on the ground. And frankly, I am not sure why you would want heroics when burglary will suit you much better.” 

“Will it now?” Miss Thorin said, unimpressed. 

The old witch nodded. “Yes, it will. I thought so immediately when I remembered the existence of this side door. ‘A burglar will do perfectly,’ I thought, before beginning my search. ‘If I cannot find a Warrior or a Hero, I shall keep an eye out for a Burglar.’ And here is our little Bilbo Baggins - our chosen and selected burglar - who will serve excellently in the role if you would give her a chance. Now, let us get on with it and make some proper plans.” 

“Very well then,” Miss Thorin said, “supposing that our newfound expert gives us some ideas or suggestions for how to proceed, as I understand burglary to be very different to heroics.” She turned with mock-politeness to Bilbo, and the gazes of the dwarves all followed suit. 

Bilbo felt confused and a bit shaky inside, but also strangely determined to go on with things. “First, I should like to know a bit more about things, before I make any sort of proposal,,” she told them. “I mean about the gold and the dragon, and all that, and how it got there, and who it belongs to, and so on and further. Oh, and about this Mountain, of course.” 

The dwarves’ stares all turned a bit wide-eyed. 

“Haven’t you got a map?” Miss Thorin demanded. 

“Didn’t you hear our song?” Miss Bofur wondered. 

“Haven’t we been talking about all this for hours now?” Miss Gloin cried. 

“And explained none of it to someone who has been on her feet half the night making sure you have all been well fed,” Bilbo answered curtly, in the same tone she usually reserved for cousins who tried to borrow money off her. “We have only just met and, unlike certain people I have known, I do not want to make any assumptions here about my guests. If I am going to make any important business decisions, I should like the situation made plain and clear first.” 

Several of the dwarves nodded approvingly and, encouraged by this, Bilbo did her best to appear wise, prudent, and thoroughly professional. She wanted to live up to Gandalf’s recommendation, rather than keep disappointing everyone here, though she did not know how a professional burglar conducted themselves or how precisely the witch had recommended her. A general, slightly obstinate business manner seemed like the right direction. 

“Also, I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth.” By which, Bilbo really meant: “What am I going to get out of this? And am I going to come back alive?” 

“Oh, very well,” Miss Thorin said. “Be seated once more, Mistress Baggins, and for your sake, we will plainly and clearly lay out the history of the Lonely Mountain, the Queendom of Erebor, and the terrible dragon Smaug.” 

Bilbo nodded in agreement, her heart thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings, and primly took a seat beside Miss Bifur. In the dark of the parlour, illuminated only by the red shade of the lantern Bilbo had brought, Miss Thorin looked quite ominous again, and the room seemed to get blacker still despite the light. She cleared her throat and all the dwarves seemed to lean forward eagerly. 

“Long ago, in the time of my grandmother, our family was driven out of the far North and so they returned to this Mountain on the map, which had been discovered by my far ancestor, Thrain the Old. My cunning grandmother, Thror, had a vision of the great wealth that could be drawn and crafted there, and under her direction, the dwarves set their tools to this Mountain. They mined deeply and they tunneled carefully - and they found a great deal of gold and a great many jewels - and so they made greater workshops, in which to craft great masterworks, and huger halls, in which to house the excellent treasures they made. Under Thror’s guidance, they all grew immensely rich and famous, and my grandmother was Queen Under the Mountain again.” 

“Kings used to send for our smiths,” Miss Gloin agreed. “They rewarded even the least skillful most richly. Parents would beg us to take their children as apprentices, and pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies.” 

Miss Bombur leaned past Miss Bifur to whisper to Bilbo. “Dwarves don’t have much interest in growing or foraging for themselves,” she explained, and Bilbo nodded, though the statement thoroughly baffled her. Hobbits had a longstanding relationship with the things that grow and she could not fathom a life without farms and gardens. 

“Altogether, those were good days for us,” Miss Dori said wistfully. “The poorest of us had money to spend and to lend, and the time to make beautiful things just for the fun of it. Great works of art were made for no other purpose but to be viewed and then to be discussed at length.” 

“Not to speak of the most marvellous and magical toys that were made in those days,” Miss Bofur added, with a similar faraway look to her eyes. “The likes of which are not easily found in the world nowadays, without the master toymakers and their wonderful workshops and the secrets they had passed down from master to apprentice. The great toy market of Dale was one of the wonders of the North!” 

“Queen Thror and her crafters were treated with great reverence by the mortal men,” Miss Balin explained to Bilbo, “who lived to South, and were gradually spreading up the Running River as far as the valley overshadowed by the Mountain. In this time of plenty, they came to the doorstep of the Mountain and built the merry town of Dale, where they frequently held great markets, which brought merchants together, dwarves and men alike, from all four corners of the world.” 

Miss Thorin cleared her throat again. “The wealth of Erebor became famous and was measured in far more than gold,” she agreed, “though many watched in envy as my grandmother’s halls became full of armour and jewels and carvings and cups. Undoubtedly, these material riches were what brought the dragon to the Mountain. It does not matter to a dragon whose tools pulled gold and jewels from a mountain, nor whose tools shaped it, they will steal away treasure wherever they can find it and jealously guard their plunder for as long as they live.” 

“Which is practically forever unless they’re killed,” Miss Bombur whispered to Bilbo. 

“They’ll never enjoy a brass ring of it either,” Miss Gloin complained. “They’ll steal from men and elves as well as dwarves. Indeed, they hardly know a good bit of work from bad - and they hardly care, unless they think someone else has more or better plunder, which they cannot bear anymore than they can bear the loss of a single silver button.” 

“And they can’t make a thing for themselves,” Miss Dori added with a sniff. “Not even to mend a little loose scale of their armor. All that matters is the having - the making of anything is far beneath them.” 

“There were lots of dragons in the North in those days,” Gandalf mused, “even the desolation of one of them is too many for any place to sustain, and gold was probably getting quite scarce up there, with the dwarves flying south or getting killed. With all the general waste and destruction that dragons make going from bad to worse, it is no surprise that Smaug took to the air and came south on the scent of new wealth to plunder.” 

“The first we heard of her coming was a noise like a hurricane,” Miss Thorin said lowly, with a fierce expression, her eyes bright with memory, “and the pine trees on the Mountain suddenly creaking and cracking in the wind, on an otherwise perfectly sunny day. From a good way off, the dwarves who happened to be outside could see the red dragon settle on the mountain in a spout of flame, as though to claim it for her own. I was one of the dwarves gone from the Mountain for the day. It saved my life.” 

“We were in the market of Dale, the three of us,” Miss Bofur piped up, gesturing to Miss Bifur and Miss Bombur. “We saw the dragon go down the slopes of the Mountain, the woods all going up in fire as she went.” 

“My sister and I were returning to the Mountain,” Miss Dori offered. “We fled to the nearest river to escape the flames. We had little idea of what was happening, for the world seemed to turn to nothing but steam and smoke.” 

“I was in the Great Hall of Dale with my sister, awaiting an audience with Queen Girion of Dale,” Miss Gloin said. “We heard the wind which carried the dragon, but suspected nothing, perhaps because the weather had looked so nice, and then it seemed as though every bell in Dale started ringing all at once. You couldn’t hear yourself think in the chaos. The warriors armed themselves at once, but none could fly back to the Mountain faster than the dragon’s wings could dive.”  

“I was with Thorin,” Miss Dwalin said. “My sister was with us also at the time. From a distance, we saw the great gates try to close - even a dragon would have trouble breaking down gates built by dwarves, if they had been closed properly - but the dragon smashed through them.” 

“None escaped that way until Smaug moved deeper into the Mountain,” Miss Thorin confirmed. “We have heard from the lucky minority who escaped that the dragon sacked every hall; she peered down every tunnel, every alley, every passage; she tore apart every cellar and mansion and workshop. As is the way of dragons, she killed every unfortunate dwarf she encountered and took every possession with even a thread of gold for herself. All those who went to the Mountain to fight the dragon did not return. After there were no dwarves left alive inside, Smaug then turned her greedy eyes on the surviving dwarves and the men of Dale.” 

“Very little could be seen due to the lingering smoke, when the dragon fell on Dale, so it seemed she appeared from thin air,” Miss Bofur said. “She destroyed most of the warriors there - common enough story with dragons - and Dale burned next. We had to leave everything behind to the flames.” 

“Smaug took all the treasures of Dale back to the Mountain,” Miss Balin said. “We heard that she used to crawl out of the great gates by night and carry away people to eat too, in the early days, and so soon even the ruins of Dale emptied and no one tried to rebuild the city. What goes on there now, we don’t know for certain, but I don’t suppose anyone dares to live nearer to the Mountain than the far edge of the Long Lake nowadays.” 

“The few dwarves that were left - those who had been well outside or had barely escaped the Mountain - sat and wept in hiding, and cursed Smaug,” Miss Thorin said. “My siblings and my father had been smuggled out in the chaos by loyal guards, but everyone had seen my mother and grandmother go even deeper into the Mountain, and we assumed they had been killed by Smaug. It was a great surprise and a relief when my mother and grandmother appeared with little more than singed beards. They looked very grim and said very little. When I asked how they had gotten away, when they had been seen running away from the exit, they told me to hold my tongue, and said that in the proper time I should know. 

“After that, we left the Mountain behind us. We could not stay homeless under the open sky. The survivors of the sacking have spread thin across the four corners of the world - some of them did not survive the journey - and we have had to find shelter where we could, begging the generosity of kin and strangers alike, earning our livings as best we could up and down the lands. Great architects, who had designed dozens of mines or bridges or aqueducts in their lifetime, were reduced to digging coal from the mines of men. Master smiths who had spent hundreds of years perfecting their specialities were forced to work with any metal they were given. Expert magicians, who had crafted lights that lasted a hundred years and fires which burned without wood even in the dead of winter, were sentenced to odd jobs and selling simple charms. We have not stayed so low, of course, I will allow that we are not so badly off as some, but…” 

Miss Thorin trailed off, her hand resting on her neck, where Bilbo could see the golden chain upon which she had strung the silver key. “...Even now, we cannot forget our stolen treasures. We still mean to get some pieces of our Mountain back… and to bring our curses home to Smaug someday, if we are able.” 

She looked to Gandalf next, her eyes narrowed. “I have often wondered about my mother’s and my grandmother’s escape from the depths of the Mountain. I have always figured that they must have had a private side-door which only they knew about, which I see must be this one here on the map, which was apparently made by my grandmother’s own hand. I should like to know how you got a hold of it, Gandalf, and why it did not come down to me, the rightful heir, before now.” 

The witch chewed her pipe for several seconds, before she said: “I did not ‘get hold of it’ like some sticky-fingered relation who helps themselves to loose heirlooms. I was given this map for safe-keeping. Your grandmother, Thror, must have given it to your mother - sometime before she was killed in the mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin-” 

“Curse her name, yes,” Miss Thorin said, dismissively. “So, you got the map from my mother, Thrain, before she vanished a hundred years ago last Thursday, on the twenty-first of April? For she has never been seen by anyone since. A hundred years seems quite long enough a time, I think, to deliver a map and a key.” 

Bilbo thought so as well, but the witch harrumphed. 

“If I have chosen my own time and way of handing this over, you can hardly blame me,” Gandalf insisted, “considering the trouble I went through just to find you! Your mother could not remember her own name when she gave me this paper, and she never told me yours, so on the whole I think I ought to be praised and thanked for managing to find you at all. It is yours now, just in time for your expedition, and there’s no changing things now.” 

“...I don’t understand,” Miss Thorin said. 

“Are you saying that you saw our grandmother, Thrain, after everyone thought she had vanished?” Miss Fili said. The blue tattoo by her eye made her wide eyes look even brighter. “How did your paths cross?” 

“As far I have been able to piece together, your grandmother, young Fili, went away to try her luck with the map after your great-grandmother was killed in the mines of Moria. She had lots of adventures of a most unpleasant sort, I presume, for she never got near the Mountain. How she got so lost I do not know and I shudder to contemplate, but I found her a prisoner in the dungeons of the Necromancer.” 

“Whatever were you doing in a place like that?” Miss Kili asked. 

“I was finding things out, as I do, and never you mind the details,” the witch replied. “All I will say is that it was a nasty, dangerous business. Even I, Gandalf, only just escaped. I tried to save Thrain, but it was too late, for she was witless and wandering and would not come, and had forgotten almost everything except the map and the key. The idea of escape slipped out of her mind every time I tried to give it to her, like sand falls between fingers.” 

The witch’s voice turned apologetic at the end and all the dwarves looked sorrowful. Miss Thorin’s face had turned expressionless in the way where one could be sure there was quite a lot going on inside, underneath distant eyes and a fixed mouth, and Bilbo felt quite badly for her. This was an awful way to discover how one’s mother had died. 

“We have long ago paid the goblins of Moria,” Thorin said finally. “Perhaps we must give a thought to this Necromancer as well.” There were agreeable murmurs around the dwarves and some of them (with no mind to Bilbo’s poor floors) even stomped their boots to concur. 

“Thorin Oakenshield, don’t be absurd!” Gandalf snapped, slamming her staff into the floor to get their attention. “The Necromancer is an enemy quite beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together, even if they could all be collected again from the four corners of the world! The one thing your mother wished was for her daughter to read the map and use the key. The dragon and the Mountain are more than big enough tasks for you! Leave that other business to me!” 

“Hear, hear!” Bilbo thought, and also accidentally said aloud. 

The dwarves all turned to look at her.  

“Hear what?” Miss Oin demanded. 

Never before asked to elaborate on this expression, the flustered Bilbo ended up replying, “Hear what I have got to say!” 

“...What’s that, then?” Miss Bombur asked. 

“Well,” Bilbo cleared her throat nervously, trying to think of something to say besides to beg them to leave her poor floors alone already. “For starters... I think Gandalf is right that you’ve got rather enough on your plates as it is! You have a great many plans to still make for your original business. Already, you’ve talked and sung through a good part of the night...” 

“It’s traditional, when a company is fully assembled,” Miss Balin said. 

“There must always be singing before a quest!” Miss Gloin argued. 

“You asked for an explanation,” Miss Dori added. 

“Anyway,” Bilbo continued desperately, ignoring these interjections, “it’s a long way East and if you don’t figure it all out on the way there, I daresay you will think of something if you sit on the doorstep of your Mountain for long enough. After all, you have this marvelous, secret side door here and the only key for it. You may consider other quests only after you have finished the one you have already taken on, else nothing will get done at all. And speaking of nothing getting done, if you talk any longer tonight, I think that you shall hardly be able to get up in the morning! How about bed and an early start, and all that? You will need time for a good breakfast before you go.” 

“Before we go, I suppose you must mean,” Miss Thorin answered. “Aren’t you the burglar? Won’t you be sitting on the doorstep with us? Won’t stepping through the door be your job? Have you not yet still to share your ideas for how to proceed with burglary?” 

Here, Bilbo fiercely regretted all early convictions about proving her fierceness. 

“I agree, however, about bed and breakfast,” Miss Thorin went on. “We will adjourn for the night and continue this discussion on the road in the mourning. For breakfast, Mistress Baggins, I like eggs with my harm, when starting on a long journey - fried, not poached, and mind that you do not break them.” 

Bilbo might have accidentally agreed to showing that she could be good at anything she put her mind to, but she was quite certain she had not agreed to serve breakfast to order. Providing breakfast was implied, of course, in her duty as a hostess, but she didn’t appreciate how all the other dwarves then ordered their own breakfasts without so much as a please, following Miss Thorin’s awful example. Then they all got up and Bilbo’s objections fell away, for suddenly the little hobbit had to find room for them all to get their good night’s rest. 

The hobbit filled up all her spare rooms with dwarves, and then yanked all her spare linens and blankets and pillows out of cupboards, so she could put together cozy beds on chairs and sofas. There were thirteen of them, after all! Bilbo was quite grateful that so many of them were sisters and quite used to sharing, though the dwarves were altogether a bit too tall and broad to easily share furniture built for hobbits, otherwise it would have been unmanageable. 

By the time everyone was safely stowed away and Bilbo wobbled back towards her own little bed, she was feeling very tired and not particularly pleased with herself for how she had handled things tonight. She did not think she would be going on any journey in the morning. She was quite sure that she would not be getting up very early to cook everyone a special breakfast either. Any Tookishness that had bobbed to the surface in her was settling back down again; she was not really anything like her mother, she told herself, and she would make her sorriest excuses about this fact to these strange dwarves in the morning. She had bit off more than she could chew with this one. 

Since it was quite late and dark now, and Bilbo was very tired, she did not see the dwarf in front of her until they ran into each other. For Bilbo, it was much like walking into a stone wall and she nearly toppled backwards. Thankfully, the dwarf shot out a hand - for dwarves see quite well in the dark indeed - and caught her arm. They steadied her, making sure she was back on her hairy toes, before letting go again.  

Bilbo had to squint to make out who it was, because hobbits did not see nearly as well in the dark as dwarves. “Oh, Miss Thorin!” she finally squeaked in a hushed voice, thoroughly embarrassed, her face felt like it was burning and her wrist felt hot where Thorin’s long fingers had wrapped around it. “Thank you! I am so very sorry I did not see you there... out of bed. You’re out of bed! Is something wrong? Can I help you?” 

“No, I simply went to collect the map that had been left in the parlour,” Miss Thorin said. 

“Oh,” Bilbo said. “Of course.” 

When the hobbit would back on this moment, she would think of all the things she could have said to the dwarf. She could have expressed her condolences about the loss of Thorin’s childhood home and all the dwarves who had been killed by the dragon Smaug, which had sounded quite awful. She could have expressed her sympathy at the tragic deaths of Thorin’s mother and grandmother, which had also sounded quite awful. She could have expressed her confusion over what exactly this quest was supposed to accomplish and why it was worth the very real risk, if things were not so bad for the dwarves these days as they once had been. 

Instead, Bilbo said: “Well, I shan’t keep you from getting your good night’s sleep! Please let me know if you need anything else.” Even though Bilbo sincerely hoped none of the dwarves bothered her for anything, and would be very cross and perhaps even inhospitable if they did. 

“Of course,” Miss Thorin agreed. “Sleep well, Mistress Baggins.” 

Bilbo intended to sleep well, she honestly did, imagining quite vindictively what it would be like to sleep so well that she would sleep straight through breakfast and perhaps even the dwarves leaving. Even though this would mark her as quite a poor hostess and she would be mortified if this happened, the hobbit thought it would serve them right. However, as she lay in bed, she could hear Miss Thorin still humming to herself in the bedroom next to her own (it was the best bedroom in the hobbit’s home, once belonging to her dear parents). She recognized the tune: 

“Far over the misty mountains cold 

To dungeons deep and caverns old 

We must away, ere break of day, 

To find our long-forgotten gold.” 

Bilbo Baggins went to sleep with that song in her ears - with every song the dwarves had sung playing over and over again in her head - and it gave her strange and miserable dreams. She woke up several times and remembered very little of what had pushed her out of sleep. It was long after the break of day when Bilbo finally woke up properly and even then, from the moment she pulled herself from her pillow, though she had trouble immediately remembering what had happened, she found her head was still aching with Thorin’s song.