The Dragon Witch: A Hobbit x Reader

July 10, 3008: Lodging With A "Beast"

Gandalf looks at me "We must be getting near, we are on the edge of his bee-pastures." After a while of walking again we make our way to a line of tall, ancient, oaks. Beyond the trees you can see a high hedge wall made of thorns. Gandalf turns to the group of Dwarves.

"You'd best stay put for now. When I give a call or a whistle, begin to come in after me. You shall see the way I go, but only move in pairs, mind, about five minutes between each pair of you. Bombur will make for two, so he better come alone and last. Come with me Mr. Baggins and Ms. Yinlar! There should be a gate somewhere round this way."

Off we go around the corner with Gandalf. We soon come to a wooden gate which is high and broad. Behind it I can see gardens with a cluster of small wooden buildings. Some of which were made of unshaped logs, others were thatched. They look to be barns, stables, sheds, and a long low wooden house. I can also see several rows of hives with bell shaped tops made from straw. The bees are just filling the air and buzzing to and fro.

The wizard and the hobbit pushed open the heavy creaking gate and went down a wide track towards the house. Some horses, very sleek and well-groomed, trotted up across the grass and looked at them intently with very intelligent faces; then off they galloped to the buildings.
"They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers," said Gandalf.

Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle there was lying a great oak-trunk with many lopped branches beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles.

He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was leaning on a large ax. The horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder. "Ugh! here they are!" he said to the horses. "They don't look dangerous. You can be off!" He laughed a great rolling laugh, put down his ax and came forward.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked gruffly, standing in front of them and towering tall above Gandalf. As for Bilbo he could easily have trotted through his legs without ducking his head to miss the fringe of the man's brown tunic. "I am Gandalf," said the wizard.

"Never heard of him," growled the man. "And what's this little fellow?" he said, stooping down to frown at the hobbit with his bushy black eyebrows.

"That is Mr. Baggins, a hobbit of good family and unimpeachable reputation," said Gandalf. Bilbo bowed. He had no hat to take off, and was painfully conscious of his many missing buttons. "I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. "I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?"

"Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again," said Beorn. "Well, now I know who you are, or who you say you are. What do you want?"

"To tell you the truth, we have lost our luggage and nearly lost our way, and are rather in need of help, or at least of advice. I may say we have had rather a bad time with goblins in the mountains."

"Goblins?" said the big man less gruffly. "O ho, so you've been having trouble with them have you? What did you go near them for?"

"We did not mean to. They surprised us at night in a pass which we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West into these countries--it is a long tale."

"Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won't take all day," said the man leading the way through a dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house.

Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle.
Though it was summer there was a wood-fire burning and the smoke was rising to the blackened rafters in search of the way out through an opening in the roof. They passed through this dim hall, lit only by the fire and the hole above it, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda propped on wooden posts made of single tree-trunks. It faced south and was still warm and filled with the light of the westering sun which slanted into it, and fell golden on the garden full of flowers that came right up to the steps.