The Free Peoples (III)

Each day after the first, Bilbo Baggins' music would be heard across the Shire, rousing them from sleep at dawn and coaxing them ever southward on and off as they traveled.

Then there was everything else that happened.

The day after the unexpected spectacle at the market, the company of Thorin Oakenshield found itself going south instead of east, set on being part of whatever celebration Bilbo Baggins had spontaneously decided would happen in the Ranger outpost at Sarn Ford. Ori had seen from afar the heated discussions between King Thorin, Master Balin and Tharkûn, but the Wizard unsurprisingly got his way as he always did. Ori had drawn a sketch of the scene with what he thought was most likely to have been said that ended the debate: "If I say that the company of Thorin Oakenshield will be attending Bilbo Baggins' pre-adventure party, then Bilbo Baggins' pre-adventure party they shall attend!" Little wonder that it barely even mollified Thorin when Gandalf tried to assure him that Bilbo or the rangers would know how to help them shave the extra days off their journey, later.

Much later.

Maybe.

For Ori himself, the days were actually quite enjoyable. The hobbits they were traveling with (there was a whole caravan of them and it constantly grew with every town and village they passed through) were more than willing to answer his questions. Ori didn't even mind their tendency to go on tangents, which were mainly about genealogies and suspiciously detailed and consistent "gossip." It made for a great cultural study actually! Already he could see some vast but very meaningful cultural differences between them and dwarrow. The notion of schools for instance, as unlike dwarves who had few children by nature, there where large groups of hobbit children that needed to be taught letters or other things, while also giving their parents some free time during the day to do whatever work they needed. Yet despite that, hobbits still had a primarily oral tradition. Their areas of focus – family lines and histories – received about as much attention and care as dwarves afforded the teaching of Khuzdul, if Ori dared say so. The trip through the Shire also revealed what trades and talents hobbits nurtured. Hobbits favored weaving but also operated tanneries, even had smithies of their own, if focused on farming, building and cooking tools instead of weapons or mining anything else of the sort. They also had at least three carefully isolated quarries from which they got the stone for their buildings, marble for their fireplaces, and the lime they needed for tanning leather.

From the changes in attitudes that the other dwarves showed, it hadn't dawned on them until then just what it meant for a society to be truly self-contained. It was only when they saw the Gamwich quarry in the distance that they realized it, that it was certainly no easy thing, no commodity for hobbits to be able to keep entirely to themselves. Especially not while also being able to lead lives of comfort and plenty.

When asked, Fortinbras Took admitted that the only reason there was exterior trade in Longbottom leaf was because Gandalf had bribed the Old Took with foreign stories, party fireworks and wardrobe accessories until he agreed. It turned out that the silver cufflinks his father Isumbras had put on for the current party-to-be was the gift that finally convinced the Thain to cajole the hobbits into setting up the export business. And even then their personal dealings were restricted to Bree and the rangers themselves. Everyone else had to go through them.

Hobbits were also quite inventive when they needed to make life easier for themselves, which translated into a desire for comfort as often as it did into a desire for efficiency. The latter was the reason for the contraption known as the clock: as Hobbits lacked the dwarves' innate ability to know time, they'd had to come with an alternative way to do it. This resulted in the aforementioned, impressively intricate mechanical contraption based on a mixture of cogs and sprockets moved by a wind-up spring. The best master toymakers among dwarves could probably do a lot with the design, which spoke quite a bit in favor of hobbit creativity. According to Fortinbras Took, it was even possible to miniaturize the design, but that only Bilbo possessed something like that so far. The small, round item he'd looked in when Thorin arrived perhaps? It was called a "pocket watch" apparently. According to the prince ("Not a prince!"), Master Baggins had managed to put one together after having the components made by Blue Mountain dwarves!

Hearing that snapped Nori out of the quiet mood he'd been in since he'd returned from Tookborough, save for a very short and terse exchange with Balin (which left the latter visibly aggravated and disbelieving about something). Nori asked Fortinbras Took if Bilbo Baggins had really been to the Blue Mountains and looked borderline bewildered for hours afterwards, and he almost didn't hear Ori talking to him on more than one occasion during that time. Ori eventually gave it up as a bad job and instead watched and listened to Fortinbras Took as he planned something or other with the other hobbits every evening when making camp. Something about some singing and dancing routines, and how he knew they didn't have any tambourines but they could time the flour sifting just so and fill in for those if they sift the flour by this beat right here, pay attention. Various hobbits, and not all of them female, were seen shaking the sifters in a specific beat at various times after that, sometimes with others trying to string a tune or beat nearby. It never failed to leave him and the other dwarves completely confounded. Ori decided to focus on other things, such as gathering more background information. He would have to ask the others when he could if they'd ever heard about something like clock parts being ordered anywhere in Ered Luin, or about hobbits visiting any settlements there. Perhaps in Kheledul? It had the biggest traffic of foreigners among all settlements in the Blue Mountains, so at least there it wouldn't be unbelievable that even a hobbit would go unremarked. If not there, perhaps Duillond.

Then there was the architecture. The bounders had quickly sussed out the various occupations of the company, and one of them offered Ori indoor housing the night they stopped in Gamwich, to help him with the cultural study he'd spontaneously started. Dori hadn't wanted to leave him out of his sight, but Nori surprised both of them by arguing in favor of it. So Ori got to see what a normal, average hobbit-hole was like, and while it wasn't as elegantly appointed as Bag End had been, it was still warm and comfortable, with good air circulation, excellent draw in every hearth and fireplace, and a generally good, delightful atmosphere. And that was just at night. Daylight revealed the qualities of smials that the dark of night concealed. While smials lacked the sort of timeless endurance or right angles of dwarven masonry and metalwork, the load-bearing walls and stonework were carved, built and finished with obvious love and dedication. Floors were made of surprisingly fancy brickwork in some rooms, and laid planks in others. The walls were done with paneling and wainscoting, with woodwork that was both precise and able to keep warmth in, even as it was designed to be possible to remove and replace entire. Plaster work, too, was marvelously finished, and the walls warmly painted and the woodwork polished. All in all, it was a most comfortable place, and while Ori still preferred good, solid stone and high ceilings, he suspected that hobbits were at least as good as dwarves at designing ventilation systems, seeing as even the furthest and smallest rooms felt airy. Hobbit-holes did need to have their shutters replaced every other year, and the paint jobs on their window frames and doors redone yearly, but that was more a matter of aesthetics than need. And Ori hadn't found any craftsmen even among the oldest and best of dwarrow who could design hinges that didn't need to be oiled every once in a while. In all, hobbit homes were a testament to the way hobbits lived: dedicated to the comforts of home and whatever daily routine allowed them to get the most enjoyment and self-satisfaction from the least outward effort.

Another benefit Ori enjoyed came from being under guide by Fortinbras and Adalgrim Took. They were taking turns it seemed, for some reason, with the other always unseen somewhere or other every other day. Bounder matters no doubt. The two knew all relevant facts about the administration and legalities of the Shire, as well as the general custom and institutions. The postal service sounded much more reliable and useful than having to put hopes in randomly conscripted messengers. Moreover, the system of double-entry bookkeeping could probably spare dwarven coin counters and tradesmen a lot of grief, though Ori wasn't entirely sure about the rule to file everything in triplicate.

Then, six days after leaving Hobbiton, their cart train (already long all on its own) met up with not just the one coming from the West Farthing that Bilbo led, but also one coming from the east and which had the Master of Buckland himself at the helm. Gorbadoc Brandybuck was his name, apparently, and it wasn't long before he was boisterously talking with the much quieter and imperturbable Thain Isumbras Took, Fourth of His Name. He'd apparently been in the main passenger of the lone, canvassed passenger wagon in their convoy the whole time. Ori had been absolutely embarrassed for not having made the necessary inquiries as to what dignitaries were accompanying them, though he wagered Balin felt even more mortified than he did considering how quickly he seemed to alternate between red and white at the revelation. Which wasn't improved at all when it was revealed that Robin Whitfoot, the Mayor of Michel Delving, had also arrived, with Bilbo's group of relatives and acquaintances. Gandalf had found much entertainment in the situation even if he tried to pretend to be attempting to hide it, and Ori thought it was all rather callous and self-absorbed of him, but it wasn't his place to judge a Wizard.

After that, hobbits met, talked, planned and, by the next day, the unified convoy – closer to the size of a trade caravan than a party trip by that point – was ready for the final stretch and expected to reach Sarn Ford by late afternoon. The perfect time to set things up according to those hobbits who felt their opinion should be heard on the matter, which was almost all of them. The only worry on the part of the hobbits in authority was whether or not the Rangers had been properly informed and prepared for their coming, but Master Baggins assured them there were no worries on that front and to just be ready to make a good entrance, which Fortinbras would have handled the planning for, there we go, let me show you where and who to talk to.

Ori watched in something akin to horrified fascination as Bilbo Baggins herded the king Hobbit and his apparent peers around and got them to do what they were told on the simple grounds of no one knowing more about parties than he did. Only the Thain seemed to show any resistance to Bilbo's good-natured cajoling, halfhearted as it was, but later comments by Fortinbras implied there was some other matter that he, Bilbo and Isumbras were in disagreement over, one Ori wasn't given any details on.

It was about two hours from their final destination when Balin's slowly simmering mood of the past few days finally reached a tipping point, causing the elderly dwarf – who was actually younger than Thorin, not that he looked it – to spur his pony further up the line where Bilbo had deigned to fall behind and, in his words, reconnect with his guests, finally. The topic Balin raised made Ori's neck hairs stand on end and explained why Balin hadn't made a move before: this was the first time when the majority of hobbits, and more importantly the Thain, Master and Mayor, were not within hearing distance. "Master Baggins, there is something I would like to ask."