The Perils of Innovation (I)

"Thus did speak the Prince of Durin to the ones all gathered. And none did among his audience find word or thought to speak in answer, not the lowest of the lowborn small, nor yet the Wisest or Mightiest of the High. Thus did speak the Prince of Durin his damning words of revolution. For who indeed, if not the highest of the Lords of the Free Peoples, could dare hope to muster thought in opposition? For his voice was guileless, his speech was of but truth, and his mind held but ideas born of acumen-"

"-unstoppered ere the Singing of the Dawn. Really Ori?"

The scribe squeaked and almost choked on air as his writing pad all but lost all its contents. The second it took to miss several times in a row and only barely catch his upended stationery pad on the fifth try left him gasping in fright, heart hammering in his chest like a drum.

Behind him, his brother snickered.

"Nori!" Ori whined weakly, hugging his writing supplies to his chest and scrambling to his feet. "I told you to stop doing that!" He then froze at the sight of five mini hobbits gathered around his elder sibling, holding sticks and looking either at him or the sixth fauntling in that tableau, who gleefully mimed flying high above everyone else, held above Nori's head one-handed. "…How long have you been there?"

"That's some wheeze you've got going there, brother small."

Ori flushed and was torn between the usual reaction to Nori calling him that, and scolding him for using their secret tongue in the presence of outsiders as Master Balin would have. "S-stop reading over my shoulder!" Ultimately he didn't have the nerve for more than what he knew would meet dismissal, as usual.

"But it's so much fun!" Nori spun around, making Paladin Took giggle as he 'flew' through the night. "'Specially when you don't even notice!" The older dwarf stopped and gasped at him dramatically. "Don't tell me I've finally perfectly imitated your inner voice!?"

This and every other time in the past 20 years. "That's not funny!" Ori whimpered. "'S'not!"

"Snot?" Nori echoed, then suddenly glared down at his strange retinue. "Where? I knew at least one of you hangers-on was a snot-nosed brat-!"

"That's not what I said!" Ori moaned piteously. "Oh Creator, why do I even bother? I didn't sign up to deal with just more of the same that I deal with at home, never mind that I've had to keep up with my sketching, make records of everything day and night and survive your feud with Dori and still somehow cope with magic houses and crazy hobbits, and I didn't even get enough time to process Master Balin's contract before there's suddenly a party and mayors and thains and kings everywhere and the Lords of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth are just one tent away and I'M NOT READY FOR THIS!"

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Nori hastily deposited Paladin Took on his head and rushed to hug Ori before he collapsed, as he belatedly realized he was about to. "Easy, easy little brother, take deep and slow breaths, like this." Nori took a deep, exaggerated breath and let it go just as noisily. "Like that, there we go little brother, just like that." Then did the same again, and again a third time, and Ori somehow managed to do as he was told amidst soft sniffling, as he belatedly realized to his horror that he was too panicked to do more than fleetingly make note of and move on to the next set of breath exercises. "That's right, in and out, in and out." In an out, in and out, never mind that this was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him in public since that time with the noodles, but that was then and this was now and the Lords of the Free Peoples of Middle Earth were just one tent away so the mortification could go suck it-

Gasp. Wheeze.

Oh Stone, he was having a nervous meltdown. He was melting down like that scented jar candle when Dori tried to nail Nori with it and it ended up in the hearth when he dodged it and-

Gasp. Wheeze.

The house had smelled of the nice, fruity fragrance for weeks afterwards, something that never failed to bring a tear of anguished loss to their eldest sibling's eye and Mahal, he wanted to laugh and that was just terrible of him, he was a horrible brother-

Gasp. Wheeze.

The worst, ahahaha.

Eight random mental tangents and a minute of Fortinbras Took hiding from Lalia Clayhanger behind Nori later – the arranged marriage between the two being the Contentious Matter of Great Importance between the Thain and his son, which the latter had loudly and rudely put an end to right after the terrible harpy rushed to kiss him after the traditional folk dance the hobbits put on two hours prior, to 'teach them big folk what to do with their loud, stomping footfalls seeing as they really can't help themselves' – Ori was finally able to pull away from Nori and succumb to the seizure of mortification that inevitably followed such a shameful display.

His sibling, bless him, had different ideas.

"A fit of the breaths!" Nori balked, outraged. Paladin Took swayed dangerously on his shoulders but grabbed onto his hair for stability. "This is an outrage! Clearly you're not using the proper way to tell a story, little brother dear! Ah! No interruptions!" But he wasn't going to say anything! "Let big brother make it all better!"

Right.

Where was Dori in all this anyway? He would have been all over Ori and fussing enough for the three of them a long time ago.

Seemingly unconcerned by this yawning void in their family unit, Nori swept the mini-hobbit off his head and deposited him amidst the others who were already seated and giving him their full attention. Someone had trained them to recognize impending story time.

Nori, of course, took advantage of that as he did everything else he came across.

"Ahem!" His brother started. "It was a dark and stormy night-"

"Wrong story," piped up Puny Hobbit the Minuscule.

"Hush!" Nori mock glared.

The hobbits hushed and Ori long-sufferingly sat next to them.

Nori cleared his throat again. "It was a shady, spooky twilight; the dark was fast approaching – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by the fireworks that went up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums that hung in the sky all evening (for this story is one that has Gandalf in it, which I'll get to in a moment, perhaps, if you prove attentive and patient enough) – but this was no normal shady, spooky twilight. For t'was the night of a party, and all through the camp, not a creature was sleeping, not even a scamp. The tables were laid on the roadside with care, in hopes that great piles of food would soon would be there. The little and big folk, though, weren't there, instead they'd been chivvied to the large drinking shelter. Not yet was the feast ready for the stampede, see, so host and guest both had to sit and be merry."

It was times like this that Ori thought his elder brother had missed his calling. With how easily he improvised lyrics and rhymes, he would have made a great poet and song writer, and everything else Ori tried but kept failing to be, as he'd just shown.

"But all big folk, see, too much sun in their heads, it wasn't long 'fore all talked stuff and nonsense. All news and tiding and notions in piles, all grim and grave about dark things and hassles. The little merry people said 'enough with that, yeah? These ain't no party topics, why the very idea!' But then even best dances weren't 'nough to oust gloom, So the Grey Wizard made night sky go…!"

"BOOM!" The mini-hobbits crowed in unison, making Ori's brother grin down at them in fond satisfaction.

Oh Nori.

"'Tis amidst all this ruckus our story begins, a story 'bout boats and half of two princelings! See, 't'were one dwarrow who weren't much merry -

"-. because of all gathered there, he was right- .-"

"Hungry," Kili groaned as he slumped over the table feeling like a particularly bereaved, newly-turned-40 dwarf after a drinking binge on an empty stomach. "I'm hungryyy…" Kind of like that drinking binge when he finally attained the lofty age of majority in question and needed Fili to hold him back from falling face-first into that ditch next to… whichever pub he'd drunk himself stupid in because he never remembered which it had been afterwards. "So hungryyyyyy…"

"Oh stuff it," Fili scoffed as he sat back next to him and plonked a new ale mug next to Kili's empty one.

"But I'm just so hungryyyyyyyyy," Kili moaned as he toilsomely sniffed at his ale. It was the Green Dragon Emerald, he noted with relief. Not the hobbit-exclusive Bywater Black which was made of soporific mushrooms that only hobbits had a built-in immunity to. Something which Dori refused to heed, in his attempt to "teach hobbits a lesson about true dwarvish ale-bellies" and get himself some sort of elegant revenge for what had been done to Nori the week before. With how he refused to let that go, you wouldn't think he and Nori were on such ill terms. Then again, you wouldn't think Dori had any alcohol tolerance either, given the sight of him sprawled unconscious under than table over in yonder corner.

"It's not like the rest of us ate anything since lunch either." Fili said with an eyeroll. Kili didn't look at him to see it, but he was sure it had happened.

"Bombur did."

"Because he's been helping with the cooking."

"Well so did I!" Kili groused mulishly.

"Give it a rest," Fili sighed as his own stomach growled. He took a long chug of his Buckland's Best in an attempt to stave off starvation. And he had just told Kili to let it go, the nerve of it all!

"I can't," Kili growled.

"So do something else!" Fili snapped back, then looked around furtively to make sure no one was paying attention.

"What, like imitate Dori's magnificent feat of ignorance and act like dwarves are the only race with hearty bodies?" Honestly, you'd think it would be obvious that if dwarves were strong, enduring and beyond mannish diseases, then maybe other folk had their own knacks, like hobbits and their herbs and mushrooms. "Or maybe I should try a round of stress writing," he motioned with his mug towards the large, main table where Ori was frantically scribbling in his travel journal. Probably transcribing whatever the kings and lords were all afret over. Well, Isengar Took certainly was riled up if nothing else, and... huh. "Any idea why Thorin's looking like when Gimli came and told us about his new alloy recipe only for us to find out he'd accidentally rediscovered Durin's Spring Steel?"

Fili blinked a couple of times. "Huh. Whatever the Mayor and Master are talking to him and the Ranger chief about must be really something. That settles it," Fili nodded decisively. "I'll wait here while you go scout out the situation."

"What?" Kili balked. "Why should I be the one leaving my nice, comfy chair just after breaking it in!?"

"Because you're just so restless and unhappy with your current situation, lord grumpypants," Fili said blithely. "Why, I dare say a bit of a walkabout is just what the healer ordered." Fili then used his mug to supposedly muffle his ever so helpful commentary about how "it'll give me a moment's peace, finally" as if Kili wasn't well-versed in booze-speech by now.

The dwarf scoffed, grabbed his mug and rose to stretch his legs.

But of course it wasn't that easy. He had to dodge around a couple of hobbit couples, hop over two wrestling mini-hobbits, then go all the way round back to his table when a deluge of hobbits and even rangers suddenly came through the tent's entry flap after having spent the past half an hour dancing outside. His intended path ruined, he decided to go around the other side of the massive pavilion.

"No second breakfast!? What are they heathens?!" squawked Bilbo's odious relative by marriage as Kili sauntered by. Lobelia. Kili actually knew her name, and that accomplishment was one that only filled him with shame. "My word, I knew their lot was untoward, no offence, and maybe a bit crass, certainly crude, perhaps even a bit obscene, but I'd not thought them so primitive as to deny themselves basic needs!"

"And handkerchiefs, they hardly know the notion!" Bilbo commiserated. Bilbo – and why was their hobbit there with the relatives he so hated instead of at the central table with the bigwigs? Insofar as Bilbo seemed capable of hating anyone, which admittedly wasn't much to speak of as far as Kili could figure – he actually nodded in concert with her and her husband, Bilbo's cousin what's-his-name (Kili didn't know this one, praise Mahal!). Kili would have sworn Bilbo was genuinely agreeing if he didn't know about his stance on this particular pair. "I dare say I've managed to at least introduce them to some of the uses for the things, cousin-in-law, but almost none of them seem eager to consider them as anything besides a rag meant to run ones nose through! Honestly!"

So cruel, Bilbo! So cruel!

"Why, I wouldn't know why you're surprised, Bilbo, dressed in ragged leathers and furs and lugging around axes and swords as they are," the odious woman's husband added while Lobelia looked at Bilbo like he wasn't worth last week's table scraps. "A scruffier group of ruffians you aren't likely to find, mark my words."

Well good riddance to you too, you-

"Then again I suppose they would be your type…" the harpy sneered snootily. "Unkempt, boorish, homeless too apparently, wouldn't be surprised if they're the loutish type also, who like to take and steal what they can without paying good barter in exchange." She looked triumphant and almost cruel all of a sudden and oh, if only Kili were just a bit closer he- "No different from what you've decided to turn like, Bilbo, if I may say so. To hear that you've gone about, swindling everyone in the Shire into parting with their hard-earned goods for nothing, why just the thought of it! Cheating good hobbits out of their livelihood! And all to throw a party for men and now dwarves. Your poor parents, what would they say if they were still alive to see you now?"

Kili's mind ignited with a fury so sudden that for an instant he wanted to grab Lobelia Sackville-Baggins by her scrawny little-

"I know!" Bilbo agreed with a tragic slouch, and it was so wholehearted that Kili had to sit down on the nearest free chair, his sudden fit of hot, aberrant rage punctured and seeping out. "No matter what I said or did or how far away from home I got, I got treated to the exact same thing all week! Every one of the Shire folk with anything to offer to the party refused to barter with me properly! 'No need to pay, Master Baggins. You jus' be there to entertain and we won' be needn' nothin' else sure enough, Master Baggins. No worries about coin now, Master Baggins. You expect us to take your money after what happened last time Master Baggins? Why the very idea, and please have this seedcake, my niece made them and they're just divine, they'll serve well for first desert don't you think, here won't you have another, and you'll come to our anniversary next year, won't you?' It's as if the whole Shire is determined to plant me on this high, lofty pedestal you and yours have always wished had been built for you instead. It's unconscionable!"

Someone choked. No, not just the unfamiliar hobbit next to him, the other… No, wait, that was just him.

Kili hastily stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep from laughing and then stood and scurried off as fast as he could before he burst.

Oh, the looks on their faces!