Master of Hill (II)

Nori woke up slowly, and the first sign of alarm that got set off was the fact that his "I was drugged" alarm didn't go off as it should have. For some reason, he hadn't immediately assumed he'd been drugged, even though the slow crawl into consciousness was a blatantly clear sign he'd been put through that. He'd gotten used to instantly (and undetectably) going from asleep to awake back when he was sixty, not even an adult. And that had been decades ago. Yet he'd just spent at least five minutes trying to figure out why the hell he was in a bed and staring up at what was obviously the ceiling of a hobbit-hole room. Somehow, he was able to deduce the nature of the dwelling he was in just from how low the ceiling was, yet he didn't get around to the "alarm" part until a fair bit later.

Though he could barely see it in the dark. Was it still night?

Unfortunately, his body lacked the responsiveness he was used to, so he couldn't jump out of bed and take cover while scanning for threats. Or even listen for movements and voices. He couldn't process much of anything. Instead, he managed to lift his head some degrees before dropping it with a groan as it started pounding.

Dori was to blame for this somehow. He had to be.

Damn, what the hell had happened?

Nori's eyes pried open. Ignoring the headache this time, he pushed himself up by the elbows (failing to notice how suspiciously unbound and comfortable he was) and blearily looked around, trying to remember if the situation called for rolling off the far side of the bed or jumping towards the door… wherever it was. He could barely see anything beyond a foot away from the bed, and his sluggish mind told him he should be a lot more concerned about that than he was. He couldn't really listen to it that well though. Not after bringing a hand to the side of his head and being informed by the feel on his fingertips that his starfish hair arrangement had been… ruffled would be putting it mildly.

Right. Heads would roll for that.

"I assume you remember at least some of what happened?"

Nori jerked and sat upright, not quite masking a sharp intake of air. He decided to blame it on the stabbing pain that shot through his head at the sudden movement. He stubbornly kept his eyes open though. The unnatural darkness (he could tell it was unnatural now) slipped, ghosted really, a bit farther away, revealing the armchair next to his bed, just a couple of feet away from him. The chair which Bilbo Baggins was lounging in.

"Where am I?" Nori demanded, trying to sound menacing while casting his eyes around for possible weapons. This was, sadly, not the first time he awoke in someone else's "care." Although he wasn't tied up… which was a surprise.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. Nori noticed that his eyes… didn't shine but were perfectly visible in the darkness. "In Bag End of course," the hobbit drawled. "The room you'd have slept in if you didn't venture outside to perform acts that could so easily be misinterpreted." The gaze sharpened. "Or not be at all misinterpreted, as the case may be."

The dwarf tensed and a fist curled around the blanket that still covered his legs (the oddity of having been tucked in at some point escaped his still somewhat addled mind). If he could distract the hobbit by throwing it in his face, maybe he could stumble blindly and find the door, assuming it wasn't locked. If it was any other Hobbit, his first thought would have been physical assault, but Nori had been present at the "cooking" display earlier (or of the previous night? How much time had passed?), and he wasn't stupid enough to risk assaulting the knife-loving man, especially not in his condition, and not knowing how the weird, living hill would react…

The hill that probably knew to keep the door shut tight. Damn. Right, he needed a new plan. Maybe-

"Stop that," Bilbo suddenly said, and the near-command threw Nori's thoughts off the rails. "Relax, will you? You look like you're plotting our mutual destruction or something."

"Hopefully not mutual," Nori quipped reflexively.

Bilbo snorted. "I'm not the one that put you here," Bilbo headed off any further commends. "That was Dori." Huh, imagine that. He really was to blame, the bastard. "And he made no secret of how peeved he was of you being 'assaulted' by my kinsmen."

Assaulted by hobbits? Was he supposed to believe that? At least the idea of Dori putting him to bed wasn't entirely unlikely. Huh. Surprises never ceased. "Did he now?" Nori hadn't relaxed, exactly, but he figured that it did look more like he'd been tucked into bed instead of abducted and imprisoned for whatever reason. "Why was I attacked?" Alas, his brain still wasn't working properly, so he only realized the stupidity of that query after it was already out. "Wait, how on earth was I overpowered?" Last thing he remembered was that Dwalin had dragged Thorin off somewhere and he went out to try and eavesdrop on the wizard and weird Hobbit…

The shadows! He'd barely seen them in the dark, and it had been too late by the time he noticed them. There had been two or three of them and before he could do anything something had hit him on the nose and now he was waking up… in Bag End presumably?

Bilbo gazed at him, bringing his fingertips together in front of his face while his elbows sat on the armrests. It all looked quite eerie, with that total blackness around him. Around the both of them really. Nori could give him points for style if nothing else. Or was it Bag End's style? "Tell me something, Master Nori." Bilbo's voice was deliberately casual. "If this was Erebor and you had unknowns dropping by, allowed access to the city for whatever reason, what would you do? I would imagine something along the lines of an escort that would, officially, be a tour guide but would, in fact, also have the task of 'keeping an eye' on the new visitors. Maybe with one or two, not necessarily obvious, extra 'helpers.' How close is my assumption?"

Nori stayed silent, but not for long. "Reasonably."

"And how reasonable would it be to assume that the one receiving the 'escort' would have enough experience or education to recognize the tactic? And that you, knowing they would recognize it, would proceed with it regardless, as an unspoken but obvious warning to be on their best behavior?"

"… Reasonable enough."

"Now, question three, and I urge you to be honest with me." Nori felt the tension shift. Not rise but shift, somehow. "How would you view the situation if hobbits tried to approach the arrival of your company this way?"

"… If this was yesterday I would say… Unexpected?" Nori hedged.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. Nori saw it because the hobbit wasn't wearing a hood, or even a cloak. And because now the entirety of him looked like he was standing in the midday sun despite the gloom in the rest of the room. "You mean laughable." It was a statement. They both knew it, and Nori didn't reply in any way. "I can understand where you would be coming from. But here's another thing." Bilbo let his arms fall on the armrests and leaned a bit forward. "Do you really think we Hobbits are so simple as to not know that such an approach would be considered laughable coming from us?"

Nori blinked and frowned. His mind flashed back to the last thing he remembered and he suddenly had a feeling of where the discussion was going.

"Here is, then, my last question: do you really think that your opinion would mean we'd let you all roam about unsupervised? Spy on us and eavesdrop from outside windows?"

Nori winced. "Er… woops?"

Bilbo smoothly slipped out of his seat as the dark began to lift. "We are small. We know that. We also know our size ensures everyone other than the rangers will never take us seriously if we show our intent to enforce any sort of rule upon outsiders." Bilbo smiled then, but it was a cold thing. "But just because we don't show our intent to keep 'visitors' from disturbing the peace doesn't mean we don't do it."

A weight seemed to settle in the dwarf's gut as the Halfling made for the now visible door. "From your look I assume the antidote to the agent you were shot with worked as intended," Bilbo told him as he left. He paused in the door, still not looking back. "Otherwise you would have no memory of last night and much of the day before." His head turned just enough for a one-eyed glance to make it through. "The Bounders have been notified as to your change in status from 'suspicious snooper' to 'vouched-for guest.' It would have been great if I there wasn't an actual need for me to vouch for you though."

Nori stared at the empty doorway, one line repeating itself in his mind. You would have no memory of last night and much of the day before.

What the Stone had the halflings done to him? What… how could he not have seen them close by? Did Bilbo Baggins have guards on his property? Invisible guards? Given how much of the hilltop couldn't be seen from the path, it was possible they could have hidden there…

Then the last words crashed into him. It would have been great if I there wasn't an actual need for me to vouch for you. Nori brought a palm to his forehead.

He owed Bilbo Baggins a favor now.

Lovely.

Maybe he could try to shirk it somehow… but no, Ori would give him that look and…

Damn.

He ruminated on his status for a time, until his mind finally realized that he couldn't hear any noises and he was, in fact, alone in a room instead of being in the same chamber as his brothers.

Nori jumped out of bed and, after making sure he didn't lack his pants or anything. Dori had stripped him naked once and hidden all his clothes in order to keep him from going out to steal things, back before he'd completely given up on him. Of course, Nori took that as a challenge and went out in his birthday suit and proceeded to filch new clothing from wherever he found it. Fortunately, this time he was dressed in an acceptable shirt and slacks, so ran out the door in search of the others.

Mahal, with his luck anything could have happened, from being set up for a scathing Thorin shouting session- er, lecture- to having been left behind. He banished that last idea out of his mind, not willing to dwell on how sad it was that he even considered it possible that his two brothers would abandon him for screwing up. That Ori would-

He took in the sight of all the travel packs with an absurd burst of relief. They were all prepared and neatly lined up in the hallway. Come to think of it, he could finally hear some of the others from a couple of rooms away too. And there didn't seem to be any sign of the Hobbit anywhere.

He considered his options. He could go and face the music as it were. He'd have to be sharp in order to fast-talk his way out of the shame of being snuck up on. Not too hard a thing to pull off…

Oh who was he kidding? He'd been made a fool of. By Halflings! He had been snuck up on. Him! By hobbits no less. Durin's mole, how embarrassing.

His eyes settled on a certain part of his immediate surroundings and gave him an idea. Maybe a strategic delay was in order. Good thing there was something right in front of him that could prove a distraction. Besides, it would be a nice way to find out if Baggins really was aware of all that went on in Bag End. Nori doubted he'd leave things alone if the dwarf started to perform "crimes" in his dwelling. Besides, he could multitask just fine, so he'd be mulling over their host's foreboding "revelation" all the while.

Right. Onwards then. For the sake of his pride, such as it was…

Alas, it proved to be a wholly unnecessary delaying tactic. Once he finally built up the courage to sneak a peek in the room where the voices were coming from, he realized why there was so little noise. Dwalin was sprawled over an armchair and seemed to be … snoozing and smiling like a baby. Nori could barely believe his eyes. He had to tear them away from the sight just to avoid a logic hiccup. He looked at Kili and Fili. They had their heads together, whispering and plotting something. As always.

Other than Balin, who was writing at a desk near a wall under the light of an oil lamp, no one else was present. It made Nori glance out the window and see that it was night. Right, time to figure out what had happened while he was under.

20 minutes later, he left the room, head almost spinning at the realization that he had missed a whole day, not just a few hours of the night. Everyone other than himself and those three he'd just left were sleeping somewhere in the smial. Even Thorin, whose all-nighter had finally caught up with him. Kili and Fili had quite flamboyantly given Nori the rundown of the past day's events, but they didn't answer any of his questions about the Hobbit Bounders, saying they'd signed an NDA of all things. Balin filled in some things, but he'd signed the same contract, and dwarves took contracts seriously.

Fortunately, the middle Ri brother was good at deducing information from vague hints and even silence. He worked through them while redoing his hair and braids in the bathroom. Well, one of the bathrooms. The worst realization was that, apparently, there had been a lot more than three people trailing their steps. Clearly, being dismissive of Hobbits (on their own turf no less) had not worked out for any of them.

Oh, and Bilbo Baggins was royalty. Imagine that!

It at least made him feel a bit better about the whole "getting instantly put under" thing. If Bilbo was that high up, the guards around him would be the best available. Maybe not on Nori's level but close, given Hobbits' natural advantages in regards to snooping. He could live with being overcome if he could rationalize it as being owed solely to the Halflings' home field advantage and veneer of harmlessness, the latter of which would not work on him again. Besides, there had been three of them, and one of him.

And the one who shot him may have been the actual Hobbit prince (no matter that the Shire supposedly wasn't a monarchy). And there was evidence that he was a perfect shot with incredibly keen eyesight. It stroked Nori's ego somewhat.

… for all of one minute. Then Nori sighed and decided to face the fact that he'd essentially shot himself in the foot with his actions, then put that foot in his mouth for good measure. At least he still had the consolation that Thorin and the Wizard had screwed things up worse than he had.

It took a while to finish his hair and beard. It had to be near midnight, by his reckoning, but not feeling nearly tired enough to sleep after being unconscious for a day, Nori took to wandering the round corridors of Bag End. Even the princes and Balin had turned in and Dwalin was just standing near a window and staring distractedly at nothing instead of checking in on the others as he should. Why stay up at all if he wasn't going to keep watch? Nori stifled a sigh and went from room to room, carefully prying open the door to each and peeking in, to make sure that everything was as it should be.

Not that he was worried or anything.

Soon enough he was finished and, once again, he was left without a task. Damn. An idle Nori was a fidgety Nori, and a fidgety Nori was a twitchy-handed Nori. Which generally meant that the belongings of everyone else weren't safe. Even if Bag End's sentience was enough of a deterrent to keep him from actually stealing things, Nori doubted he'd be able to stop himself from at least picking up every curiosity and fiddling with it until something dastardly happened. He needed some kind of distraction… a-ha!

Peckishness! Something to dwell on. Very dwarvish too.

Onwards to the kitchen it was then.

Unfortunately, when he got there he found a nice meal already waiting for him. Drat, he was hoping to at least occupy himself for an hour just preparing something. Now what was he going to do all night? He supposed he could go out for a walk. Presumably he wouldn't get assaulted again. Though he did relish the challenge of pitting his skills against someone of similar profession, if not necessarily the same side of the law as himself.

He mulled on the dilemma while he ate. A part of his mind noted that the kitchen was perfectly lit despite there being a single oil lamp burning above. The food was more important though. Ah, broth, mashed potatoes with marinated meatballs and even some beef steak in case the first course wouldn't be enough. Either Bombur or Bilbo Baggins himself had prepared it for him. Probably the hobbit. Bombur was more liable to eat everything in sight.

Actually, that gave him an idea. He had the night to kill anyway, so why not spend it cooking? Contrary to what others thought, he was a decent hand at it. And it would be hilarious to see everyone else look at the food suspiciously in the morning, not sure they should risk eating it in case it was poisoned. Maybe he could persuade Bilbo to claim the cooking as his, then reveal who'd really prepared everything when they were half-way through it.

With a grin, the dwarf inhaled the last of the roast and cleaned after himself in the blink of an eye. Then he made a beeline towards the pantry.

Only to realize, upon passing the threshold, that Bag End had been doing its sound isolating thing all along. There were noises coming out from the basement cellar. Cautiously, Nori traipsed down the stairs as silently as he could.

And there was the hobbit, piling things up, mostly perishables, as though he was preparing to go on a journey, or to send a care package. Or a whole wagon of care packages. Which made sense, considering that he was preparing to go host a party outside the Shire borders.

That had been a hilarious revelation. That their burglar (who still hadn't said he was actually coming along to the Lonely Mountain) had roped a large part of the Shire populace into throwing a party for the rangers. Pro bono. A party they would be leaving for the next morning, like a caravan of some sort. A party which they all were, apparently, going to, or at least accompanying the Hobbit to, even if it did add a few days to the time it would take to reach Bree.

Thorin, of course, had been against it. Until Gandalf said he was going and if they wanted to head off without a wizard OR the fourteenth member of the company, then they were welcome to. The king had eventually (and grudgingly) agreed only when Gandalf told him that Bilbo knew how to shear off the same amount of time from the journey.

"Well don't just stand there," Bilbo suddenly said from below. "You came here for something, did you not?" The hobbit crossed the large store room and began to undo the locks on a large, thick, cast iron door. Nori descended further into the semi-dark, earth-dug room just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. What did the hobbit have down there?

He got his answer when Bilbo finished the third lock and pushed the door in (not without some difficulty, it should be said). It opened with a groan of metal and a blast of cold air that made Nori shudder, in spite of how far he was from it. "Since you're here anyway," Bilbo said, not looking at him, "You can help me put these away." He indicated a couple of large strips of raw meat. The meat that wasn't likely to last for more than a day or two without spoiling. Nori remembered something about Bilbo having ordered them just the day before they descended upon his home. Apparently, the Hobbit wasn't one to go back on his word even for small things like that.

It turned out that the room Bilbo had just opened was a large freezer, with pigs and even cow chops hanging from hooks affixed with chains to the horizontal beams above.

Now that sure was useful. Nori didn't think he'd see a cold room outside Dwarven settlements. Well, not counting the homes of the knife-ears. And there were no runes anywhere either. Nori could only assume that Bag End was able to just turn a room into an oversized icebox somehow.

After an hour of putting things in order, Bilbo stretched his arms and headed over to the wall bearing the dry vegetable and fruit shelves. No sooner was he within a few paces of it that it gave a creak and sunk into the wall itself, several inches, then began to slide to the right. 10 seconds later, there was a dark passage there.

Nori blinked. Well waddaya know.

Then he looked at the hobbit incredulously.

Bilbo shot him a brilliant grin. "So!" Bilbo looked at him over his shoulder. "I'm going to visit someone. Care to join me?"

"… er… You're just inviting me along? Just like that."

"Why not?"

Nori wondered if he'll ever stop wondering if the Halfling was sane or not. "Weren't secret passages supposed to be, I don't know, secret?"

"Only when there's danger of them being accessible to others." The Halfling picked up a pouch from a barrel next to the dark tunnel entrance and hung it off his belt. He'd discarded his long coat earlier in the evening. "Which there isn't, because Bag End is great like that!" The light of the lone oil lamp brightened for a moment at the praise.

Freakin' smial.

Nori debated the merits of going with his original plan of cooking versus accompanying Bilbo to… wherever. Eventually, he decided to go with him, if only because he figured he'd be less likely to try and steal everything in sight and bring the wrath of the Hill down upon his head. "Fine. I suppose it couldn't hurt."

Ten minutes later, he began to wonder if he'd spoken too soon, for the simple reason that he felt as if the earth was closing in on him. He was a dwarf, living underground was in his blood, but despite all that he felt like he was about to be buried at any moment. The tunnel was barely large enough to let him through, his solid dwarvish build being almost too wide. And to make matters worse, there was no source of light, so he was all but blind despite the natural night vision of his race. It didn't help that he didn't feel anything reinforcing the soft tunnel, despite using a palm to feel his way forward.

Ahead of him, Bilbo Baggins walked without a care in the world, and Nori could do nothing but watch him, because unlike everything else he was visible, not glowing but still almost clear, colors and all, if somewhat indistinct and with a tint or dark orange, as if bathed in the new light of sunrise. If ever there was any sort of confirmation that it wasn't just Bag End that was unusual, this was it. The dwarf wondered if Bilbo actually saw ahead of his steps, or if he came down this tunnel so often that he didn't need it anymore.

"So," Bilbo broke the silence, almost making Nori jump. "Bag End informed me that you were quite industrious in the short time between your awakening and you washroom ablutions." Well, that answered the question of whether or not he'd found out about him going through everyone's bags earlier. "That said," the hobbit continued, "which things on my property did you ever so valiantly restrain yourself from appropriating?"

"… Huh?"

Bilbo rolled his eyes. "Anything you feel might be needed on the trip? Things you didn't have on hand or forgot about? And which you may or may not have filched in the absence of an all-seeing house spirit?"

Nori looked at the hobbit askance, because they were shoulder to shoulder now. Bilbo had lagged back a bit since, apparently, the tunnel was wide enough for that now. "I assure you, we are quite capable of packing for an extended enterprise, Mister Baggins."

The hobbit clucked his tongue. "Come now, there are thirteen of you, and at least one of your company is at least mildly absentminded. At the very least I can't imagine someone like Fili or Kili not forgetting something important at home."

Nori scowled, though he was somewhat surprised that his companion didn't make a quip about Bifur's axe. "And why are you asking?"

Now it was the hobbit's turn to look incredulous. "Did you seriously just ask me that?" After holding the disapproval on his face for a while, Bilbo Baggins produced a piece of charcoal and some paper from inside a pocket. "So?"

"… Fine. Fili and Kili did manage to forget their oilskin cloaks, if you must know."

"Now we're getting somewhere!" The Master of the Hill happily scribbled down the information. "What else? And what are their sizes? Actually, give me a rundown of potentially useful supplies, plus the whole measurements of everybody for the sake of thoroughness, and we'll go from there!"

What made the hobbit think he even knew those things? Sure, he did know those things, and he wasn't about to explain how, but still! Then he caught Bilbo's expectant look and his resolve crumbled… What the hell, it couldn't hurt more than everything else that had happened during the past two days.

It took around 20 minutes to get everything written down. The remaining hour was spent alternatively in silence and Nori's answers to whatever random questions Bilbo posed.