Shire Dawn (III)

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The song played in this chapter is Beltain - Sunrise

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Bilbo Baggins had offered each of them their own sleeping quarters, but left it up to them to choose if they wanted to sit alone or with others, so Dori requested, as politely as possible, that he and his brothers get a room to themselves. He knew it would frustrate Ori, and he also knew that Nori could very well become annoyed enough to go crash in the parlor, but after that scene with Thorin getting almost… he wasn't even sure what would have happened, he wasn't about to let Ori out of his sight, or sleep too far from him. Not in that place.

He would have dragged his brothers off, but with their luck, chances were that all hobbit-holes, and The Green Dragon Inn and every other Hobbit establishment could be as alive as this one was.

Besides, as pessimistic as he was, he really believed this hobbit's home would treat them well (and didn't that sound odd?). Besides, the food had been so fine, the drink so good, and don't even get him started on the tea, and the wine. He actually mourned the illusion of normality of before the contract disaster. He'd finally found a food and drink connoisseur he could relate with in Bilbo Baggins. There was someone who appreciated good manners, someone who knew the value of sophistication.

Steak knife driven in between his fingers aside.

Well, Dori had insulted the gods of sophisticated composure after all, when he made to abuse their host's prized mementos from his late mother.

Nevertheless, Dori really, really mourned the loss of the illusion of normalcy. But it figured something would happen to totally ruin their night, so he wasn't ultimately too surprised that their evening feast ended on a sour note.

Not that the Hobbit let the awkwardness last for long, Mahal bless him. He treated them all to individual baths in fresh hot water and set up their rooms tidily and thoughtfully. If nothing else, Hobbits could be admired for their thoroughness.

Bilbo Baggins had acquiesced with his request for shared quarters easily. In fact, he even had a guest room with three beds in it. Somehow. Dori was starting to believe that bit about hobbits having a fixation with being good hosts. Why else would they build their homes large enough to have guest rooms ready to meet all possible expectations and types of guests? The room right next to theirs was man-sized for Mahal's sake.

By the time Dori finished bathing, Ori had already drifted off. Dori waited for Nori to turn up for as long as it took to polish his earrings and hair beads, oil his hair, braid it, braid his beard, tie the beads in his braids and affix his silver beard case. But Nori didn't come, living down to his expectations (as always). Hopefully Master Baggins would come across him, wherever he'd gone off too, and drag him off to a room of his own, if nothing else.

Dori sprawled over his bed with a snort of disbelief. To think he would actually come to believe that such a small and slight creature could impose his will upon a dwarf, haunted house or no.

Before he knew it, he was asleep.

He was awakened by the strangest sound, like a whistle singing all around him, and he felt totally rested and relaxed. A far cry from how he expected his sleep to be, uneasy at best and troubled at worst. Looking around far less blearily than he expected, he saw the room as it was when he fell under, except for one thing: Ori was standing and looking out the open window at the darkness outside.

So dawn still hadn't broken, yet he felt fully recharged regardless.

The dwarf pushed himself up on his elbows. "Ori. What are you doing?"

"Do you hear that?" His brother asked, just as the note tapered off. "Aww… It's gone already."

Dori shook himself and swung his legs off the side of the bed. "What time is it anyway? Did you even get enough sleep?"

Ori was about to say something, but Dori never got to know what because the whistle tune came again, only on a different note, slightly higher.

And he found he could do nothing but listen to it until it finished, one minute later.

Ori nodded resolutely to himself. "Right then. This demands investigation!"

"Huh?" Dori snapped out of his daze, but too late. Ori had already jumped out the window.

There was a pause.

Wait, what?

Dori jumped to his feet and tripped on the boots he'd left next to the bed last night, falling nose-first all over the other bed. After fumbling with the sheets and putting on his shoes haphazardly, Dori made for the window, only to swear in his mother tongue when he found it to be too narrow for his girth. Curse these smials and their too-tight, low-height windows!

Cursing some more when he almost got stuck pulling himself back in, Dori rushed out the room, running past a bleary-eyed Gloin and a suspiciously alert Bofur (did he sleep with that hat of his on?) on his way to the front door. As soon as he reached said entrance, it swung outward, allowing him free exit.

Alas, Fili and Kili lacked the situational awareness of the house, and so did Dori himself. The crash was particularly groan-inducing, but they were dwarves, so such impacts were a minor inconvenience. In a matter of moments, the elder Ri brother was back on his feet, looking around and internally cursing the thick fog. "Ori!" He shouted, heedless of everyone and everything. "Ori! Answer or so help me I'll-"

"Over here!" Came the answer at last, so Dori made his way in that direction as fast as he could without running. Which was fortunate because if he had broken into a run again, he would no doubt have crashed into or tripped over that bench and the fence on the way to the path circling the hill. Good thing there was a gate to pass through.

Only when he finally saw his brother through the mist did he allow himself to wonder what the others were doing up and about, or even outside the door.

Through it all, a low whistle played 'Ti.' Dori felt as if the sound was coming from everywhere and right next to him, all at once, and the air itself seemed to shiver the longer the tune went on.

"What do you think you were doing-" Dori abruptly stopped when he realized that Ori wasn't even paying attention. It seemed like he didn't even hear him anymore. Concerned, he followed where he was looking, and his eyes only saw black. Only the darkness above the top of the hill that Bag End was built into.

But when 'Do' finally came, Dori didn't have trouble pinpointing the source anymore. Even if he didn't see it, he could now tell it was right at the spot where his brother was looking. The last, seventh minute passed, and just like that the fog began to part, and despite that the moon and starlight barely made it through it, an almost invisible mound made itself seen on top of the Hill, silhouetted against the sky.

The dew glittered on it and the grass around it, like diamonds in the firelight, and glimmered when it moved.

It cascaded off the cloak as Bilbo Baggins slowly but smoothly stood, his back turned to them. He faced the east, brought the whistle to his mouth and played for the entirety of The Shire to hear.

The dwarf shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill. He'd never heard it before, a slow, haunting but uplifting song, but he didn't care to do anything but listen. Listen and feel grateful. For Ori had shown mostly irritation at Dori's fussing for a long time, but now, as they were both standing in the middle of a muddy road with two wooden fences in front and behind, his younger brother was leaning against him. Mahal, it was the best gift he'd been granted in years.

Bilbo Baggins played, dew drops glinting on his brown cloak and curly hair with his every move, and the string of notes resonated all the way into his bones. A set, then another, slightly different but the same. And just as Dori though the opening was about to end, the tune was picked up by a fiddle, the hum washing over them from somewhere both close and far.

Dori would have stiffened if the tune allowed for any sort of worry. As it was, he turned to look for the source, only for his eyes to land on the shape of a hobbit, featureless in the now fading dark of the night. He was sitting on top of the seven-foot-tall streetlight across the path from Bag End's front gate, like there was nothing odd about that location at all. His hands handled the strings and guided the bow over them as if he'd been born for it, and his bare feet swung idly in the empty space beneath his perch.

Then the whistle came again, joining the violin, and Ori's grip on his arm tightened. Dori turned to see why, and got his answer just as fast. His brother pointed up Bagshot Row, where a third hobbit had come out of nowhere, sitting on the fence surrounding the Bag End front flower garden.

It should have been worrying, but the dwarf found that he didn't mind as much as he should when he finally realized that the lute he was holding had been backing up the flute ever since the very beginning.

The tune changed but still stayed true to itself, swooning but never faltering. Dori looked up at Bilbo Baggins just as the final note of the intro tapered off. It was slow and lingering. Not at all like what the hobbit did right after. Bilbo suddenly, carelessly, tossed his whistle away, sending it soaring through the air above and behind them.

The dwarf almost cried out and would have made to jump for it, even though he didn't know why he was so emotionally invested. His eyes barely registered the path as the whistle flew and looped, though. Dori would have turned on his heel to see where it would land, but he could not tear his eyes away from the sight of the sky beyond their host turning red and orange, and Bilbo Baggins reaching down to pick up a violin of his own.

The sunrays parted the fog and landed on him. The hobbit settled the instrument on his shoulder, breathed in, then out, then in again and played.

And so did his kinsmen, the sound coming together, resurgent and harmonious. The song was fast like a stream now, livelier, and with each beat the fog lifted higher, and the rays, orange and lavender, poured forth, streaming over and around the hobbit, like ribbons amidst clouds, until it seemed like he was hallowed by the sun at his front. Colors added to the picture, one after another and another, gold from the sun, and the green of nature mixed with the white of the morning glories scattered throughout every stretch of grass.

Then the whistle finally returned, from right behind the two of them.

Dori voicelessly yelped and spun around, then jumped in front of Ori by reflex when he saw the instrument, and the Hobbit using it, sitting on the fence right behind the two of them. A hobbit that had not been there scant seconds before, but definitely was now and didn't seem to care at all that they even existed.

It was as mystifying as it was terrifying, for the tune sounded divine, but with each second more light came down, their sight got clearer and mists parted and dispersed, bringing into view the hobbits, and another, and another and still more. All wearing feather caps of the exact same sort. All with a part in the song. All appearing as though they sprung from the underbrush, or the grass, or the earth itself. All with no attention to spare for them, or for anything other than what they could add to the Song of Sunrise with their fiddles, lutes, whistles and flutes of three different kinds.

Although that wasn't quite true, Dori realized when Ori again pointed at the top of the hill. The Master of Bag End definitely commanded their attention, leading the tune with every stroke of his bow. And the dawn itself seemed to unravel according to his rhythm, the halo around him getting brighter and stronger with every moment. It was a song of awakening that worked nature into it, completely. It was the song of the strangest of hobbits, and 10 of his kinsmen that seemed content to simply be there with him for as long as he was there to guide their music forward.

Dori didn't really know how long he and his brother stood there when Bilbo Baggins finally abandoned the violin – the song never wavering in the least, such was the focus of his fellow players – and picked up a whistle again. Even then, it seemed like they lingered there for hours, just listening and watching.

It surprised him when the bells from far off Bywater melded with the end of the song, eventually replacing it altogether, that when tune finally ended he wished it would just go on. That he didn't mind if their journey was delayed for an hour, or a day, or a week.

Dwarves fancied themselves good musicians, and they were. They lived for two centuries on average so they had time to learn an instrument or two, or four.

But this…

Dori could only stare, open-mouthed, and shake his head in disbelief. It wasn't just the music, but the imagery. Mahal knew dwarves were fond of stone and caves, but Dori doubted anyone other than Orcs and their ilk could possibly react poorly to what he'd just watched come to pass.

Ori was going to spend days sketching it all out, he just knew it.

After a couple of minutes of just standing there, with his face aimed at the sky and basking in the sun, Bilbo Baggins came back to himself. He put the whistle in a pocket somewhere and hung the fiddle next to his hip with the tied-in strip of cloth. Then he finally turned away from the east and towards the crowd of dwarves in his front yard. Because they were all there. Everyone had come out to see and listen to what was going on.

Wait… dwarves? What about the hobbits?

Dori looked around, growing more and more astonished with each second. They were gone! Had he imagined it? Impossible! He was many things, but delusional was not it!

"Fili, Kili… Thorin and Dwalin left last night…" Dori's attention snapped back to the hobbit standing on the hill high above, or the roof of his home as the case was. "Balin, Oin, Gloin…" His eyes roamed over them all as he counted them out like stray dwarflings. The nerve of him. "Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Ori…" He stopped and frowned, then looked around. When he didn't seem to find what he was looking for, he closed his eyes and pressed a finger against his forehead in thought.

Then his eyes snapped open. "Where's Nori? Because he's not inside!"

Dori jerked and looked around for himself. Where was Nori? He should have gone to bed separately last night… unless he hadn't… Oh, stone preserve the house of Ri. He'd better not have gone on a stealing spree.

And what in Mahal was wrong with him, thinking in rhymes? It was the hobbit's song, it had to be.

Bilbo Baggins slid down the hill-wall like he'd done it hundreds of times before (which he probably had) and ignored most of the looks that the members of Thorin's Company were sending him.

Then, against all logic, his eyes zoomed unerringly on the streetlight right across from his front gate. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then his whole expression brightened with the widest, most carefree grin Dori had seen him make yet. "Fortinbras!" He strode down the path, ignoring his houseguests. "Cousin, I know you're there!"

There was nothing for a moment, but then a hobbit somehow… sprung from the tall grass beyond the fence and used a hand to push himself over it in a single leap. It was the one that had played the fiddle from the top of the streetlight. It had to be. But where was the instrument. Maybe left behind in the spot where he was hiding?

"Fortinbras Took!" Bilbo called brightly, throwing his arms out wide as he reached the slightly taller hobbit, who didn't lack the slight pot belly of his kind. "You old dog, come here!"

The other hobbit rolled his eyes but let Bilbo hug him. He seemed a bit awkward at first, but the other whispered something in his ear and made him laugh. Fortinbras returned the hug then, with all his heart, heedless of the audience. It was endearing really. Enough that it made Dori put an arm around his brother, who didn't protest. Instead, he leaned into the move for once.

Dori suspected he would be grateful for witnessing this "ushering the dawn" for a long while to come.

Bilbo finally pulled away, though he kept his hands on the other's shoulders. "What are you doing here all the way from Tookland at this hour? And why are you still in the Bounders? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, in the middle of steadily assuming the mantle of Thain from your old man?"

Fortinbras Took had curly hair of a darker shade of brown then Bilbo, a round face and brown eyes. He also looked rather sheepish. "Well, you know, there's that matter we're still divided on."

"Ah. Yes… The Matter. Old Isumbras is still not convinced how bad an idea that is?"

"Nope," the normal hobbit said flatly. "Figured I'd go away for a while until things cooled down, you know? And the Bounders are as good a pastime as any."

Bilbo laughed, dropping his hands from his relative. "Only you, cousin, would consider patrolling The Shire as a vacation." Then he crossed his arms. "Or I would say that, but I wasn't born yesterday. So tell me, what are the odds that you learned about dwarves coming into the Shire soon after the wizard came by my home? What are the odds that you connected the two occurrences? That you picked up your Bounder chief cap just so you could pull rank and take over the patrols here?"

Fortinbras reached up to tug his two-feather cap lower over his forehead. "Can't I drop by before you leave on another one of your haunts and I have to spend the next few months worrying about whether or not you'll ever be coming back?" Surprisingly, he sounded totally serious. "You are getting ready to leave again, aren't you?" He picked up the cap and waved with it in the direction of Bywater, from where the sound of bells still came. "After all, you just got the Party Bells to ring without any prior notice. We both know the only reason that ever happens."

From where he was, Dori could see Bilbo's profile, so he saw the diminishing cheer. "You know I always come by when I do."

"Yes, for an hour or two," was the dry response as the brown-dressed hobbit settled his green cap back on his head. "And then you barely give anyone time to talk to you at the ensuing gathering. Then you go off into the Old Forest and leave us hanging for months and our parties lackluster."

"Now you're just parroting the Clayhangers who were annoyed that I wasn't around to entertain at Lalia's birthday."

"Well it did happen."

"That was one time!"

"Yes, the most recent, and I am the one that has to suffer through their grumbling when they invite themselves over for tea in order to once again push forward The Matter."

"Eru, they're your very own Sackville-Bagginses. My condolences."

"How considerate of you," the Bounder deadpanned.

There was a long silence, then both hobbits broke into peals of side-splitting laughter.

Dori could only watch and wonder if he'll ever make sense of that whole conversation.

After a minute, the Hobbits calmed down. "Right!" Bilbo breathed in to steady his lungs. "Since you're here, I seem to have misplaced one of my houseguests. Know anything about that?"

"So he was one of yours after all."

"Because the fact he came out of my house last night was not enough indication of that."

Dori was starting to get worried. Were they talking about Nori?

Fortinbras looked over Bilbo's shoulder to the crowd of dwarves that were shamelessly watching their conversation. The crowd of dwarves in various states of undress.

Then back at Bilbo, pointedly.

Bilbo nodded, getting the message. Whatever it was. "I get your point. Hold just a moment." Then he turned on his heel and walked up his path. The dwarves parted ahead of him like waves upon a cliff as he made his way towards his door, which opened inward as soon as he was within 10 feet of it. He lifted his hand just in time to catch a flying scroll (it settled it, Bag End was surreal), then the right hand caught two more rolls of parchment of similar size and design.

Putting two of them under his arm, he untied the third and let it unfurl. It was roughly the same length as the contract they'd given him the night before. "Master Balin? This calls for you I believe."

Balin, who had been sitting on the bench next to the front gate hedges until that point (and who was also the only dwarf fully dressed, if not armored), got up and went over there to accept the parchment. Dori (who was determined to keep an arm over Ori for as long as his brother let him) finally went back within the front yard as well, pulling Ori along.

Balin had started reading and his eyebrows were already rising higher and higher. "Non-Disclosure Agreement?" Okay, that sounded pretty official. "I, the undersigned, vow never to share, in written, drawn, spoken or sign-based form of communication, any information disclosed to me regarding the Hobbit Organization known as the Bounders." Balin gave Bilbo a baffled but measuring look, if it was even possible. "I, the undersigned, also vow never to disclose any information which should I be informed that hobbits would consider as potentially dangerous towards the security of the inhabitants of The Shire, as applies to the following people, situations and locations."

Dori and Ori hadn't been close enough to crowd around the dwarf, but Fili and Kili had managed to snag the spots at each of his shoulders. "Whoa! There're, like, a hundred entries here!"

"In the event that I break the terms of this contract, I forfeit my beard…" Fili's eyes boggled and stared at the hobbit in shock. "You have contracts made specifically for dwarves just lying around?"

Bilbo shrugged. "Luck favors the prepared."

"Is this really necessary, laddie?"

Bilbo nodded to Balin. "I'm afraid so. Unless you don't want any of your false assumptions about us Hobbits to be dispelled, in which case feel free not to sign it."

Balin looked like he was about to read through the whole thing, but Kili snatched the thing from his grasp and bounced away. "I'll sign it!"

"Kili, get back here!" Fili called after him, following. "I know you don't have a beard now but what about later? Besides, you don't even have ink and quill!" Which was when Bilbo snatched said objects from the air as they came flying out of the house. "Oh. Well, that's fine then!"

Dori was sure Thorin would facepalm if he were present for this.

"Lads!" Balin scolded. "How many times have I told you never to rush into signing anything? Who knows what conditions there are in there!" A beat, then he addressed Bilbo. "No offense, Master Baggins."

"None taken. Especially after last night."

"Who cares!" Kili protested. "It's basically don't talk about Bounders unless you're talking to a hobbit or someone who's signed this agreement too, right Mister Baggins?"

"That's right."

"Well, I believe him! Besides, who's going to ask us about The Shire?"

Dori wanted to ask why Kili was even interested if he thought the topic was so irrelevant. Oh well, this was Kili after all.

After Kili signed the contract with the proffered tools, Fili did the same, then everyone took their turns. Dori signed it mostly because everyone had already done it (which was probably Balin's reason too) and because he thought that maybe these Bounders could help track down his brother before he caused too many problems. Or at least guided them along the Shire faster. Not that he held very high hopes. Nori could be really slippery if he wanted, and it was doubtful that these simple, peaceful folk could get a pin on him if he didn't want them to.

"There! All done I suppose," Balin said with resignation.

"Actually no," Bilbo said blithely. "There's two more where that came from!" And, sure enough, he passed around the other two scrolls.

"Three?" Balin asked. Dori thought his voice had gone rather faint. "Why so many?"

Bilbo blinked at him. "What do you mean? One for me, one for you and one for the Thain, obviously."

"… yes, obviously," Balin sighed.

After the three non-disclosure agreements were signed, Bilbo tossed two of them back into Bag End and made his way to his cousin, who'd settled himself on the bench that Balin had vacated earlier. It was across the yard path from Dori and Ori. "Here. For whenever you meet your old man again."

Fortinbras checked the long list of signatures at the bottom, nodded in satisfaction and rolled up the scroll, getting to his feet. After he put it in his pocket, he called out. "Rory! Drogo!" Dori jerked in surprise when two hobbits jumped out form… somewhere… and landed on either side of him and his brother without making even the barest sound. The sight of eight dwarves gaping at the occurrence would have been hilarious if the fact that the hobbits had stayed completely undetected by them was not so frightening. "Take Dudo and Odo and bring Bilbo's… guest."

Dori clamped his mouth shut when the hobbits on both his sides bounded off to do as they were told. What in Middle Earth… did they mean that… Had Nori… what had they…

Five minutes later, the four hobbits emerged from the turn that Bagshot Row took at the base of the hill, carrying the completely unconscious form of Nori son of Bori by one limb each. Dori didn't even have it in him to drop his jaw anymore, even when Ori huddled closer and tightened his grip on his nightshirt.

The world had made so much more sense up until the previous day.

The company of dwarves watched the proceedings as one would a funeral march, and the four hobbits would probably have laughed at them if they weren't so busy puffing and sweating from the effort. Still, they managed to carry the starfish-haired dwarf all the way to Bag End, at which point they unceremoniously dropped the dwarf in the middle of the front yard.

The part of Dori's brain that hadn't shut down was glad that the path was made of cobblestone. At last that way Nori wouldn't be totally covered in mud after this.

Then again, maybe it would have been better if he did end up that way, the dwarf thought. As it was, his brother looked as though he'd wrestled with a bunch of pigs in the middle of a sty and lost.

Bilbo slipped through his shell-shocked guests and stopped next to the filth-covered spymaster of the Blue Mountains. Just in time for the latter to snort, roll to his side and start snoring.

Loudly.

Dori's face met palm.

A motion mirrored by the Master of Bag End himself. "Was this really necessary, cousin?"

Fortinbras was totally unrepentant. "He was spying on you through the window. You know full well we Hobbits don't stand for such nonsense!"

"I know," Bilbo groaned and sunk his face in his hands. "But operation 'I Frolicked with the Pigs on My Night Out?' Wasn't that a bit extreme?"

Dori still wasn't sure what he was witnessing. Maybe he was dreaming. Yes, that had to be it, because what was in front of him was impossible.

Wait. Where had the other hobbits disappeared to again? Damn those slippery bastards.

"I don't think so, no," Fortinbras said, waving the issue away.

"Cousin, he's one of my guests!"

"No," there was no persuading him otherwise. "He was your guest until he left your house last night. Then he became just a stranger poking his nose where it don't belong."

"You still went too far."

"He won't remember it anyway."

"You shot him with mind-blankers?"

"Right in the nose. And don't give me that look, there wasn't much else we could aim for on a dwarf! Look at all that hair on them!"

"Cousin-"

"NOW WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE!"

The argument was cut apart and Dori blinked, then shook his head and squinted to the side. No, he really hadn't imagined it. Ori, of all people, was the one that finally snapped out of the trance that everyone had fallen into after being faced with a situation that just did not compute. "What in Mahal's beard did you do to my brother!?" He yelled again, breaking away from his eldest sibling to run and kneel at the side of the other one.

Bilbo sighed and his shoulders slumped.

"What…" Ori fussed over his brother. Dori realized with a detached air that it was very much how he himself fussed over Ori whenever mood struck. "How rude!" The youngest dwarf then glared up at the hobbit bearing the feathered hat. "Who are you? What are you people?"

The Master of Bag End sighed again and gave a wry smile to the scribe. "You really don't know anything about hobbits do you. You never even heard about Bounders…"

"I did!" Gloin, of all people, piped up. "They're the border patrol right? Only I thought they were mostly for show because the Rangers actually defended the Shire."

"Well, you are correct that that is the image the outside world has of us," Bilbo said. "But you forget that Rangers only defend The Shire from creatures of the dark, like orcs and wargs. If traders or travelers or well enough dressed ruffians decide to stroll into our lands, they can't really do anything. That's where Bounders come in."

"But I thought Shirriffs maintained the order," Ori said from where he was still kneeling next to the snoring Nori.

Dori shook his head in amazement. It figured that the Ori the super-curious scribe would push aside Ori the angry brother at a time like this.

Bilbo chuckled. "Please. Three per Farthing? They only have to deal with Hobbits, which means they barely have anything to do because we're Hobbits. We know what is and what isn't proper. No, the actual peace-keeping falls to the Bounders. Their primary role is to patrol the borders, certainly, but it's not like they can just turn away anyone who looks remotely suspicious. That's basically everyone to us after all. So there's always someone assigned to ensure that strangers, queer folk as it were, do not disturb the peace."

Well, at least Bilbo Baggins wasn't going to deny that Hobbits were just as prejudiced as everyone else out there, Dori thought perhaps a touch too harshly. But Mahal damn it, thief or not that was his brother that had been thrown in a pig sty and left there all night!

"So what are you saying, exactly?" Gloin asked, his eyes shifting all around the place as if he was afraid some some horrible beast would jump out and eat him.

Bilbo gave Fortinbras a look, and the latter shrugged and snapped his fingers.

Two hobbits jumped soundlessly from behind Bilbo's flower hedge and landed in a crouch, then stood to flank their leader, their single-feather caps in stark contrast with the Took's two. Three more Bounders jumped out from across Bagshot Row and stood at ease, sitting on the fence or leaning against support posts. And not a second later, the grass covering the hilltop right on both sides of Bag End's canopy was thrown aside like a pair of blankets.

No, wait. They were blankets. Grass blankets that had been concealing four more hobbits. Hobbit lasses to be precise, all with the same hats as the others.

There was the sound of more than one dwarf choking on air. The scene would have qualified, hands-down, as the single, most shocking event in Dori's whole life if not for what happened right afterwards. "Good Bounders of the Shire!" Bilbo called grandly. "May I introduce to you the Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield's Company." Of course he would even bow with a flourish.

The hobbits and hobitettes waved and called out greetings, and Bilbo took pity on his stupefied guests and moved things along. "Members of Thorin Oakenshield's company!" The shout made half of them jump and all of them get a hold of their senses again, frayed as they were. "May I introduce your Bounder keepers!" And again, he bowed with a flourish, but none of the dwarves had the strength of mind to even wave back.

Not that the hobbits looked all that insulted. They seemed absurdly pleased with themselves because of the reactions they caused, if nothing else. And Bilbo was not fazed in the least. "I'm afraid you'll have to meet the other ten, and the four assigned to Dwalin and Thorin, at a later date."

Dori felt as if a big boulder had fallen on his head.

Bilbo rubbed his chin and turned towards his cousin again. "Wait. Weren't there supposed to be one or two more here? Nori's watchers?"

"They're keeping an eye on the Bywater road a hundred yards from here."

"Ah, that explains it then."

Because, clearly, there was nothing absurd about this entire situation so it was normal and expected for them to speak so casually about this.

"But…" Ori floundered. "But there was never any sign of them! And we've been in the Shire for days!"

Bilbo smiled at the youngest Ri brother. "Well, they wouldn't be doing their job properly if you could spot them, would they?"

Dori noticed from the corner of his eye that the princes were holding each other up.

"Don't feel too bad though," Bilbo tried to reassure them. "We can usually stay out of the sight of even elves." Naturally, the attempt failed.

It was Balin, of course, that asked the pertinent question. "Wait! Did you say… say these are just half of the ones assigned to tail us?"

Bilbo looked at him as if he was surprised he had to ask. "Well of course! We'd love to only assign one bounder per stranger, but even us Hobbits have to sleep!"

There was a noise like a squealing teapot, only weaker, and at the end of it Bombur fainted right on the spot. Bofur and Bifur stared down at their brother, then Bifur said something in Khuzdul along the lines of Clearly, there had to be someone in the Ur brothers to match Nori's fainting spell.

Bifur's sarcasm always came at the worst times ever since that axe got stuck in his forehead.

There was an awkward silence, then one of the Hobbit lasses from on top of Bag End couldn't help but say what Dori assumed was probably on the minds of all the hobbits in the area. "Oh, they are hopeless, aren't they?"

Fili and Kili fell on their backsides.