Once Upon A Contract

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 6: 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕬𝖑𝖜𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝕾𝖊𝖊𝖒𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝕳𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖓 𝖆𝖙 𝕺𝖓𝖈𝖊

There was a dwarf in Bilbo's dining room and apparently there were twelve more on the way. Leaning against the wall of his study with white knuckled fingers clenching onto his pipe, Bilbo had to wonder how everything had just seemed to happen all at once.

Otho. Lobelia. Gandalf's visit. Grandfather's lies coming to the fore. And of all things, a small company of dwarrow was now supposed to be invading his home.

Thank Yavanna Bilbo had been brought up by Belladonna and was used to a semblance of chaos, or he would have been utterly overwhelmed. As it was, Bilbo was fighting the urge to poke his head out of the doorway and verify Master Dwalin was still standing in his smial and was not, in fact, some wild hallucination brought on by stress.

Yavanna knew Bilbo had enough shocks throughout the day.

Sinking down into his smoking chair, Bilbo fought the urge to rub his temples. He hadn't lied to Master Dwalin. Bilbo did not deal with dwarrow often. Typically, Bilbo dealt with Men. Foolish Men who thought swindling their clients was a reasonable response to a higher pay out than expected. Dwarrow, in Bilbo's experience, had the right idea with guilds and scribes. Most Dwarrow kept their contracts and dealings in house as far as Bilbo could tell. As such, reaching out to deal with a Baggins rarely happened unless a Man wanted a guarantee in their dealings. There were pockets of other circumstances and situations that drove dwarrow to make contract in the Shire, but those were rare and few enough to make dwarrow an odd occurrence in the Shire without a Man accompanying them.

And of those few circumstances that did occur, Bilbo was too far away from the border of the Shire to be idlely contacted. Bilbo had only ever been referred for an amendment and that had been soon after he took up the Mastership of Underhill and The Hill.

As such, it was considered a miracle Bungo managed not one, but two contracts with a dwarf a few years before Bilbo was born. The negotiations that came out of those drafts had practically written the primer for Bilbo's generation on how to interact and make contract with Dwarrow. Bilbo himself had grown up reading copies of the two apprenticeship contracts, memorizing the clauses and making notes alongside Bungo on cultural differences between Yavanna and Mahal's children.

However, Bilbo had never expected to put Bungo's lessons into application face to face with a dwarf, let alone twelve more in one evening.

Still, it was too late to back out now.

Putting his head in his hands, Bilbo groaned. In retrospect, maybe he should have taken up Bell Gamnee's offer of a fresh mince pie when she has stopped in that afternoon. Bilbo had cooked for the appetites of Men. Dwarrow were so much smaller than men and much closer to Hobbits, it wasn't likely they ate any less then the customary seven meals a day. Bilbo hadn't thought to cook for that type of bottomless pit.

Gandalf was going to shame him as a host!

Bilbo's mother would have been disappointed in Bilbo's lack of forethought.

A knock sounded from the front door, drawing Bilbo from his fretting. Grabbing the contract off his desk just in case Lobelia had decided to come back instead of staying at Tookbrough, Bilbo practically ran to the front door. It could have been anything on his front stoop; from twelve dwarrow to a late-night visit from the Bounders. With how Bilbo's day had been going, he didn't expect anything less.

So really, opening the door to see what appeared to be a beaming white beard twisting the ears of one wall of blond and another cloak bristling with arrows, should not have been surprising. Honestly, Bilbo was used the Gamnee children bursting through his door as furious mud monsters, waving about sticks and piercing screams. The appearance of two dwarrow being treated like naughty faunts, however, threw him for a loop.