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Honestly, it was anyone’s guess just who was most shocked, the dwarrow at Bilbo’s revelation or Bilbo at the sudden absolute lack of sound from her companions. There hadn’t been a moment of true quiet with these creatures since the beginning of this quest; Bilbo was almost convinced they weren’t actually capable of silence. Between the snoring, the belching, their heavy feet, the loud songs and voices and laughter, the screaming and war cries she was momentarily concerned she’d actually been struck deaf and found herself glancing at Gandalf in concern, only to see the blasted wizard had apparently choked on some pipeweed and was trying to stifle his coughing where he stood near the hearth in the center of Beorn’s front room.
“You’re how old?!” Thorin finally broke the silence. Though it hardly reassured her seeing as his voice had a strangled note to it. Apparently Óin hadn’t been as thorough in his check up as she’d originally supposed, he obviously needed some sort of salve or tonic for the smoke inhalation from their fight with Azog. Which surprised her seeing as she hadn’t noticed anything wrong with his voice the past few nights.
After her defense of their felled lord Bilbo had been fully accepted into the company with open arms, having proven herself a loyal willing heart. Since their sudden escape and Thorin’s apology atop the Carrack the prince and hobbit had grown closer. On the way to Beorn’s house, with the sudden lack of animosity, the pair had been allowed to explore other nascent emotions that had been hiding under the previous enmity. Bilbo had been previously aware of Thorin’s attractive physique and qualities. He was beyond brave and his strong support for his people was admirable. He maintained a noble bearing even through the most degrading moments in their travels (remembering a certain sacking). But tempering all of this majesty was a caring that was both natural and subtle. His caring for his dwarrow and the patience he exhibited with his nephews was tempered with gratitude and caring. Even when he was at his worst where she was concerned Thorin had still ensured her safety to the best of his ability, surrendering himself and his company to a troll hoard for her or throwing himself over a precipice to save her from that fall in the mountains. Now that he wasn’t scowling at her the entire time she was allowed to relax and explore her previous appreciation for his virtues and found it expanding into something far more and deeper.
Thorin seemed to be finding something similar in his regard for her as he started walking near her, sharing stories of Erebor and asking her for stories of The Shire in turn. He seemed to be going out of his way to ensure her comfort and health as they neared Beorns, offering her a hand all the way down the Carrack, brushing dust from her face and hair, laying her bedroll out near the fire at night. And since they’d been partaking of the skin-changers hospitality, pausing in their travels to recuperate, had invited her out on walks about the fields and sat near her at dinner and the after dinner repose the company had taken to having. Tonight was just another example as he sat very close to her right as they’d been sharing stories of childhood antics, subtly supporting some of her weight as she’d been leaning into his side as she grew drowsy, a warm hearth and hearty meal doing wonders for her state of mind and comfort. It had started with Fíli telling them about a time when Kíli had spent an entire day wandering around in one of his mother’s old shawls, insisting he was now a dwarrowdam. Kíli, not one to be outdone, countered with an amusing recounting of Fíli’s fiftieth birthday when the lad had gotten himself stuck in a mineshaft for half the day, determined as he was to prove he was old enough to be considered grown and start earning a living. Apparently it was Bofur who had to save the little princeling and that is how the house of Ur had come to be on this outlandish quest.
It was when Bilbo had laughingly mentioned her own fiasco of a fiftieth birthday party the year before, when her cousin Rory had had a few too many pints and tried to dive into a tankard of ale, that things had gone so terribly silent. Turning to Thorin after his croaked question she saw he’d begun to place space between them that hadn’t been there before and was looking a little ashen as he raised his hand towards her, only to snatch it back as though he’d been burned. Bewildered she answered, “Fifty. Thorin, are you all right? Óin I think you may need to check his chest again…”
Óin wasn’t paying any attention to her statement. He was watching her in something akin to panic as he glanced to his brother. Glóin seemed to be firmly on his way to anger as his face began reddening and he glared harshly at Gandalf, “MY OWN GIMLI’S OLDER THAN THE WEE LASS! WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING SUGGESTING A WEE BAIRN FOR A BURGLAR WIZARD!?” and with that they were off.
Gandalf, to his benefit, didn’t outright curse the overwrought dwarrow into toads. He actually seemed closer to suffocating as he continued to stifle his mirth as they all began to express their concern. Thorin, Dwalin, Óin and Fíli remained silently flabbergasted, staring blankly at the hobbit; Glóin, Bombur, Bifur, and surprisingly Nori were all converging on the hapless wizard, roaring in outrage that he would fool them into taking a child with them on such a dangerous quest, apparently Bombur and Glóin were both fathers and Bifur had raised his younger cousins since their parents had passed so their paternal instincts were in outrage, Nori was just blatantly disturbed that once again the wizard had led them apparently astray; Dori and Ori had ran to the hobbit’s side and were clucking over her like mother hens, Ori taking away the cup of mead she’d been nursing and trying to ply her with more bread and honey while Dori asked her where her parents were and what they had been thinking leaving her alone in that smial all alone that night months ago. The only dwarrow not completely lost of their senses was Bofur who was similarly incapacitated as the thrice damned wizard, trying to breathe through his mirth, Balin who was just rubbing his temples at the nonsense his fellow dwarrow had deteriorated into, and, shockingly, Kíli, who had merely sidled up to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders proclaiming how glad he was to not be the youngest anymore.
It wasn’t seeing Nori threateningly unsheathing one of his myriad knives as he motioned at the bloody useless old man, or Ori’s scolding Kíli for his lack of concern, but Thorin’s sudden soft exclamation of, “Durin forgive me, I have managed to become a lecher before a king!” that had Bilbo jumping to her feet, face in hand, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “Oh hell…” as she stomped out of the room, growling at the yelps from the over protective twits.
Seeing her obvious distress Balin, having decided he was apparently the last sane dwarrow in the entire East, crossed over to Thorin who had not made any move to follow the little lass he’d been quite blatantly courting these past weeks, and did what any loyal dwarf would do when watching his King making an ass of himself. He cuffed him on the back of the head like the dwarfling he was behaving as and glared back into the surprised blue eyes he’d first tutored then advised. “Well lad, go after the lass! She’s beyond upset right now. As her suitor you should be comforting her, not adding to her distress!”
“Fifty Balin!”
At this the older dwarf grabbed the lad by the ear and yanked him to his feet calling him five kinds of fool in every language he knew and threw the royal idiot towards the hall the lass had retreated to. He made his way quickly down the hall, walking further and further away from the din that had managed to erupt into an even larger mess the moment the lass had stomped off.
It didn’t take long to find the hobbit, as there weren’t all that many places to go seeing she couldn’t leave the house otherwise risk being mauled by bears. She also wasn’t too keen on the sentient sheep, thus tended to avoid the kitchen. So she was obviously going to be in the sectioned off area Beorn had designated for their sleeping purposes. Each of the company was allotted a curtained off cubby in the large room and Bilbo was pacing hers, growling like a caged warg.
Child or not, Thorin wasn’t fool enough to get so close to a snarling female without some form of announcement and attempt at conciliation. He had a little sister after all, and he’d rather face a full horde of orc then Dís when she was worked into a true lather. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it since he had absolutely no idea how to approach this situation) Bilbo whirled on Thorin the moment she heard the ridiculous clomp of his bulky boots on the floor behind her. He was caught in those liquid amber eyes he’d been falling deeper and deeper into every time he let his own meet them. Feeling his previous self loathing and revulsion easing as he began to sink into their enamoring warmth, he swiftly looked away and growled lowly, in no way whining (he’s a King damnit, Kings do not whine), “You should have told me, after these past weeks I deserved to –”
“Deserved what!? To know what!? Your Burglar was a fully grown Hobbit!?” They stared/glared at each other for a long moment before the hobbit all of a sudden collapsed into herself. Moaning into her hands she stated in as deadpanned a tone as had ever existed, “I’m middle aged. I haven’t been a child for seventeen years! By Hobbit standards I am well within my middle age.” She dropped her hands from her face and her smile had a certain bite to it as she mirthlessly announced, “So, no, Master Oakenshield, you’re no letch. Not that you’ve done anything even remotely forward in that regard in any event. We’re barely friends how can you even bemoan such – ”
“I have been courting you these past three weeks! Do not deny our –”
“Our what!? What am I denying? My regard for you? What I had perceived was yours for me? How can I disregard something that apparently was so weak and starved it fell at the first sign of racial discordance?! Perhaps that’s what this is all about in the first place, not my age but my race. Is it a species thing? Can't be cavorting with a hobbit or some such?” she demanded as she stomped closer to the subject of her ire. Glaring up into the darkening eyes of the King without a Mountain.
“No! That is, it isn't common, but it's hardly unheard of for dwarves to couple outside of their race,” Thorin began, gravel in his voice as he tried to reel himself back into control. It was becoming harder and harder to remember his honorable standing as he watched the fire in her eyes and the fight in her small body as she came almost flush to him. “You… are very… petite.”
Bilbo’s head reared at this as he nostrils flared and her cheeks flushed further with righteous fury as this old argument came back, “So I am once again found soft and lacking?! Is there no proving myself in the eyes of the all mighty Thorin Oakensheild? Mayhap I should have let the Pale One end me there and then, perhaps in my death you’d find a worthy mmph– ” She was stopped abruptly by large hands grabbing her glowing face and rough lips falling, demanding, onto her own. Passion met rage and rose into a confused mess of teeth and tongue as she responded to Thorin’s embrace, throwing her own hands deep into his black mane, pulling him as close to her as she could as they continued to savage each other’s breathe from one another.
When they finally pulled away for air, they stood, foreheads braced against one another, Bilbo calming and running hands through hair apologetically, Thorin caressing the apples of her flushed cheeks and her kiss-swollen lip with his thumbs. She was looking up at him with a soft smile when he grumbled, “And your face is possibly smoother than even a dwarven babe's.”
Crooking a narrow brow, turning her face to hide her smirk in his palm for a moment, her eyes lighting with soft mischief, “Now just because I can't become a furry badger like you all –”
His own smile was slow and growing, turning his handsome face into something breathtaking, “You could pass for a tween if you hid your ears.”
“A tween? When I'm just past fifty? Hardly!” her voice turned squeaky towards the end of her exclamation, turning her face swiftly back to look him in the eye. Amber eyes flashing with ire once more.
He chuckled as he continued, “Oh gods! You practically are a dwarven babe!”
“What are you – ?!” her exclamation was once again stomped out by his mouth as he began to pull the two down into his Burglar’s mattress.
…
…
…
The next morning found Bofur, Kíli, Fíli and Gandalf off to the side of the front porch eating their honey and bread breakfast as they listened to Dori roaring his outrage at finding a very inappropriately tangled Burglar and King. This of course was followed by an even larger row between the rest of the dwarrow and their King. It varied from Dori, Glóin, Óin, and Bombur’s outrage at the child abuse, to Bifur and Dwalin swearing vengeance in the name of their tiny hobbit, and surprisingly Balin’s voice ringing loudest as he reprimanded his King on the proper courting rituals and that when he’d sent him to appease the lass it hadn’t been his blessing to skirt ritual and propriety! Five minutes into the roaring within, crashes could be heard as everything began to escalate into a full fledge brawl.
It only took a moment more for a disheveled and drowsy Bilbo to be escorted by Nori and Ori out to sit with the rest of the drowsily amused company members. Nori petted the little burglar’s rumpled curls and went back into the fray to rustle up some breakfast for the hobbit and his younger brother. Ori sat next to his little friend, patting her hand reassuringly every now and again.
Bilbo barely found it in her to smile wanly at the little scribe. But she managed to rustle up the energy necessary to level a deeply aggrieved glare at Bofur and Gandalf when they began chuckling madly after Kíli asked excitedly, “Does this mean you’re my new baby Cousin?”