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friendlyneighborhoodcrow · 11 months

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An Axe Of Kindness

Hello, there folks! I’m back from a busy couple of weeks though my return is somewhat delayed as I have just recovered from being rather ill. I wanted to give ya’ll something quick while I work on some longer pieces. So here we are and thank you for your patience! And yes, the title is a pun. I feel no shame.

-Crow

So my dear readers, imagine you are a Hobbit, a Hobbit who is no stranger to some hard work on their farm and has been chopping wood for your family for quite some time. You have some skill with the axe, though not battle oriented, and the dwarfs have no idea. How will they respond when they realize you wield a popular dwarven weapon?

Gender neutral!reader (No use of y/n)

Relationships: All platonic

Warnings include:

Canon typical use of weapons

Canon typical violence (some orcs)

Word count:

1.6k

Camp was, as usual, full of laughter and conversation. The night was in its infancy, and you were happily settled beside dear Mr. Bilbo and young Ori who worked fervently on a knitted pair of gloves. The day had been long and hard and the weight of your legs seemed nigh unbearable.

“I think my legs might fall off,” you said to no one in particular, “they feel heavier than one of old mister Proudfeet’s pumpkins!”

You reached down to weakly rub at the tender muscles when you heard Kili chuckle boisterously, you looked up to see him staring at you with a toothy grin.

“You’ll have to get used to all the activity my dear companion!” He mused.

“I am used to activity!” You insisted rather bluntly, “You know I am a farmer, and I’m no stranger to a long day!” You saw some of the dwarves quirk their brows, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the synced action.

“Well, I’m not used to walking all day I suppose, but during harvest season I’m outside all day! Don’t even get me started on chopping wood for the winter months!”

You sighed dramatically as though to prove your point and stretched your legs out in front of yourself. With a few more chuckles from your travelling companions, you all continued preparing camp for the coming dark.

As the night settled in and the sun shrunk away behind the horizon, the company sat close to the fire and like most nights, began their shifts of either sleeping or watch duty. It was quiet, the lack of animal calls and even crickets unsettled you as you laid down upon your thin bedroll. The moon was new, and the skies were black as a raven, the only light came from the glow of the dying fire and the shining stars. One would think it was all quite pretty were it not for your mounting concern over the lack of forest sounds. You fought with your woollen blanket and turned until you found yourself comfortable enough to forget about the extended day and the silent night. But then you heard a shriek, close by.

Bolting upright, you looked around. Dwalin, who was dutifully sitting on a fallen log, gripped his battle axe tight as he also swivelled his head. Thorin and Gloin leaned forwards and looked at each other. Another call sounded, and you slowly moved to grab your short dagger when something burst through the trees.

An orc now stood on the edge of the company’s camp and looked around wildly. It gripped twin hatchets and let out a shrill and unpleasant cry. All of the dwarves and two disgruntled hobbits suddenly sprang to life grabbing for their weapons. You now gripped your dagger tight as the beast charged toward the closet dwarf, Bifur. The dark orc raised a hatchet and prepared to deliver a fatal blow but before it could, Bifur jumped back as Gloin charged from the orc’s side, his own axe raised and he struck suddenly. The creature stumbled to the side shrieking and releasing its weapon. The cries it let out were horrifying, to say the least, they fluctuated from a high-pitched scream to a guttural vocalization.

As its cries came to an end, more orcs jumped from seemingly nowhere and you heard Thorin’s booming voice roaring for everyone to assume a defensive position. You were pushed back toward the fire by Bofur, and he gave you a sympathetic look before turning back to the oncoming danger. While you understood his concern, you wanted to be helpful, and that’s when you noticed the hatchets laying on the ground near the first downed orc. Gradually, you inched back and to your side to scoop both of them up. While one was easy to seize from the clearing floor, the other was tightly gripped by the orc. It seemed that he didn’t want to lose his weapon, even in death. Realizing the hold the orc had on the axe, as well as the size of it in your hand. You chose to forsake it and quickly dart back to the safety of your previous position by the fire.

No one seemed to notice your movements as the pack of orcs moved in close and attempted to circle everyone. Without another moment, every dwarf sprang nimbly to life.

The forest was no longer quiet, instead, it was filled with the battle cries of both orcs and dwarves as they charged one another with axes and swords at the ready. You stood with your new hatchet, though it was more like a battle axe in your small grip. The fight was carrying along swiftly and for a moment you thought you might not need to use your newfound weapon when an orc managed to push its way past Dori and raise its sword at Ori. The unfortunate dwarf held tight to his slingshot as it cried and before you could properly register your own movements, you darted over to him.

“It’s exactly like a log of wood,” you whispered under your breath as you promptly raised the orcish axe.

Hastily, you brought it down, striking the orc's lower back. It crumpled in pain before your eyes and you brought the axe down once more to ensure its end as it lay in the middle of the clearing. Breathing hard, you looked up and met Ori’s startled eyes. He smiled gratefully at you before catching sight of something behind you and flinging a jagged rock from his slingshot over your head. At the same moment, you wheeled around and took a quick swipe at a tall orc's gangly legs leaping out of the way as it fell. Panicked, you wheeled around, afraid to see more orcs encroaching on your newfound friends but it seemed that you had efficiently managed to finish off the last of them. You let out a surprised chuckle that sounded more like a hoarse gasp as you caught your breath and the adrenaline began to wear off.

“You did it!” Fili cheered enthusiastically as he looked between you and the fallen orc.

“You undoubtedly saved me!” Ori said rather breathlessly, still clutching his slingshot.

“And you, me!” you answered back.

“Where did you learn to wield an axe like that?” Dwalin seamlessly stepped to stand beside you looking at you incredulously.

“Well I told you I chopped wood for my family, didn’t I?” you tried to joke but as Dwalin continued to stare at you like you grew another head you shrank into yourself. Suddenly his hardened face broke into a smile, “Aye, ya’ did.” he chuckled. A sense of welcome relief flushed through you as your dear companions gathered closer.

Bilbo seemed to emerge from the shadows to pat you on the back telling you that you would have to give him a demonstration. And most of the group seemed to heartily agree to the extra training for the hobbit. Thorin broke into the gathered circle barking for the group to pack up quickly and snuff the fire. As he walked by, he nodded at you and you couldn't help but flash a wide grin back. After carefully packing up camp, the entire company moved quickly through the night, trying to get to safer ground while the forest lurked with orcs. Thorin promised that you would stop during the day for needed rest which earned sighs of welcome relief from everyone.

The following day, the sun beat down on the area where the dwarves had made camp, but the heat did not reach you as you lay in the shade near a stream filled with cool running water. The afternoon had been spent resting and napping so that you could cover more ground before nightfall. And you welcomed the rest with excited arms. The dwarves seemed to have changed their tone when speaking to you. An air of respect for your “skill” with an axe had taken hold and you were not going to complain. The orc axe, which was really no more than a hatchet rested comfortably on your belt opposite from your dagger, you felt a sense of growing pride for your arsenal though the orc axe was an ugly thing. It was a crude thing made for a bloody function rather than to have any noteworthy aesthetics.

Gloin’s boots appeared in front of your view and you swiftly looked up to meet his gaze. He held himself with his normal prideful stance but he seemed to waver as he rubbed his hands together carefully.

“So I and the others have been talkin’, and we think that you should have a proper axe.” He said rather matter-of-factly. Your face softened immediately and you grinned up at him.

“Really? Oh, that’s sweet of you to think so!” you said happily but respectfully. You knew that a dwarve’s weapons were something special and they wouldn’t say such a thing unless they truly thought you deserved one.

Balin stepped to stand beside Gloin and you rose to your feet. He pulled out a lovely-looking axe and carefully handed it to you. It was well-forged and the metal was imprinted with swirling geometric designs that marked it as a dwarven axe. It was polished to a shine and sharpened with care. It was clearly made for battle. Your face broke into a sentimental smile as you thanked the dwarves.

“But don’t you go chopping wood with that one!” Dwalin called out from his comfortable spot under a nearby tree. You laughed merrily and agreed as you removed the orcish axe to replace it with the fine dwarvish one.

I hope you enjoyed reading this! I really appreciate comments and reblogs!

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amtrax · 3 months

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"Ladies and Gentlemen." Boring, excludes the other genders.

"My dear Bagginses, and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks. Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots..." Inclusive of all Hobbits, leaves the door open for somebody to shout "Proudfeet!"

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ticcitavvi · 4 months

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i can’t stop thinking about lotr so I made a new oc!

her name is paeonia proudfoot! I imagine the proudfeet to be stoor hobbits, which tbf doesn’t have much bearing on how I typically draw hobbits but I did make paeonia a bit hairier than others, as well as make her feet and hands slightly larger than usual.

And here she is with Elladan! Cause I think they’re cute togethor <3

#digital art #ticcitavvi artwork #art #artwork #digital artwork #fanart #lotr #Lotr oc #hobbit oc #hobbit #halfling #halfling oc #elf #half elf #fan oc #fan character #elladan #Paeonia proudfoot

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mischieffoal · 8 months

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Rosie, Frodo and Sam, Now and for Always

Here it comes: Cici’s chaotic “review” of Lord of the Rings: a Musical Tale

(Spoilers for the musical: go and see it (it's running until mid-October 2023) and then read this)

“My emotions are a wreck, and now we must obviously discuss all of the musical’s shortcomings and its adaptational choices and the costumes, when I really want to stand in a field and yell. After a few hours on the train of actually very good discussions, I cycle home and yell in the park.

5 stars.”

Nothing like a bracing sprint through Reading station to forge fine friendships over somehow managing to get to Newbury and the Windmill Theatre in time. We unite with our friends, get a group photo in the designated Instagram spot and, most importantly, confirm that there will be ice cream in the interval.

It’s Mr. Bilbo’s eleventy-oneth birthday, didn’t you know? The hobbits make sure we are well informed, and someone on our picnic table is accosted by Fatty Bolger and made to play whack the rat. They all look lovely, waistcoats and sandals abounding, and some watching fauntlings are very gently introduced to hoopla. In general, if you are LARP-positive, sit at the left hand end - we were in the prime spot. Bilbo complimented my cloak and I derided my companions once again for being the only cloaked representative of our smial. Then, someone else approaches - she asks us if Mr. Bilbo said anything odd. Nothing odd at all, we reply, all a perfectly normal party. I think he’s planning something, she says. I’m worried about my spoons. I gasp. “Madam, may I ask, are you perhaps Lobelia Sackville-Baggins?” “I am!” “Madam it is an honour! I am honoured to be in your presence!” She shakes my hand. My life is complete.

Soon enough, the actual musical begins, narrated by partying Hobbits. Now and for Always had stuck in my head just from the soundtrack on YouTube, and it’s a worthy start to the show as Mr. Bilbo tells the same old stories that he always does. Hobbits sing and dance and every one of them plays an instrument. Someone has a piccolo, someone else has a lute. Bilbo has a harmonica and an accordion. Every single Hobbit has an unspecified country accent. The Brandybucks are loud, the Proudfoots are Proudfeet and Fatty Bolger moans at me about it. R says he knows who’s playing Gollum, because he’s bald. Frodo is very sweet, but I catch Lobelia’s eye across the garden and commiserate with her at her ill fortune. Sam asks Rosie to dance, and I fall in love with them (Sam is Sri Lankan, and sounds it, and Rosie has Afro hair, and they make me very happy). Bilbo gives his speech, “magically disappears”, and 17 years pass as we all get up and troop into the theatre proper.

We’re on the side of the balcony, in a wonderful wooden interior that J guesses might have been a church at some point. We return to the action with Frodo, Sam and Rosie, greeting each other with a little two step jump that I want to do with all my friends. Frodo sends them off to the Ivy Bush, because there seems to be some kind of trade mark problem with the Green Dragon. Gandalf enters bombastically, and Frodo and Sam leave as soon as they know their task, because they know that the show is only three hours long, including an interval.

The singing begins! Walking fast, singing and playing as they go - The Road does indeed Go On, the centre stage rotates as they dance-walk around it. Merry and Pippin assail them in a projected cornfield, because they’re his cousins and they’re not letting him do anything dangerous alone. Frodo is very put upon. Merry plays the cello, hanging round his neck, Pippin has a fiddle, and Sam a guitar. Also, Pippin is a girl, not just played by one. Good for you, Pippin Galadriel Moonchild. She’s also terrified of trees (Merry knows a less Tree-ish route and the Old Forest is resoundingly ignored.)

(Photo Pamela Raith)

And then! Elves! Gildor and Earendil sung with a Y! All the elves are wearing lovely blue tabards. Dark is the road ahead for Frodo, and danger follows their path. That’s nice and cheery.

(Speaking of costume, Gandalf and Saruman have very nice robes. Saruman is played by the bald one R assures me will be playing Gollum. They have a fun little stand off across the rotating stage, and Saruman isn’t hiding any of his schemes - army included. Uh oh.)

In the Prancing Pony, K says she’s going to play “spot the Strider” but Strider is in fact very very bad at being inconspicuous, as the only one wearing a hoody.

Strider makes himself known, and so does Pippin, and Frodo’s brilliant distraction plan is to sing a song. He’s not at all prepared for this and walks like a puppet, but the Brandybuck and Took contingent are raring to go with the Cat and the Moon, and soon Frodo is having a lovely time dancing on tables and all. Let’s pretend that Frodo’s smile will never fade.

The Ring goes on. Mari Lwyd black riders appear. Frodo looks like he’s underwater and it’s very funny. Stabbing ensues (no time for Weathertop today). Run! Run for Rivendell! (Costuming side note: Strider has a banging undercut and goatee situation going on). Arwen enters playing a harp, singing a Song of Hope in a bunch of elvish with no subtitles. Tolkien would approve. “The weary traveller returning… home.” It’s Strider, and we learn that this is the first time he’s returned since disappearing to be a ranger. He’s grown a lot, Arwen says. Strider mumbles something about not wanting any bigger destiny than her. Then Frodo wakes up and it turns out they’ve been having this lovely romantic discussion is his hospital wing. Ah, good, says Frodo, we successfully completed our adventure! Merry is very excited at the amount of books and maps, also did you know that Arwen is a half-elf, technically, and did you see the way she looked at Aragorn, and did you know that she’s thousands of years older than him?

(Photo Pamela Raith)

The council is called, Saruman the bald is also playing Elrond the bald, and is generally an old wise man. All of the elves are obsessed with hand gestures, and their hands are never below their waists. Everyone has so many problems, but Boromir (with another very cool undercut) wastes no time telling everyone Gondor has it worst. The steward is asleep, you say? And you had a dream and followed it here? But the sword that was broken is as lost as the One Ring. (Boromir has great dramatic timing.) Frodo will take the Ring to Mordor, though he don’t know the way. Gimli will go with him, and so will Legolas and Gandalf and Strider. (The Elf and Dwarf are Iranian and Black, and it really stands out amongst the otherwise white Men - I like it a lot). Strider asks Boromir nicely and Boromir says fine, he’ll come too. The fellowship of the ring! A rousing ensemble number with Earendil with a Y! Boromir is playing the trombone and singing at the same time and it’s the best!

Saruman learns of the Fellowship from his useless gas-mask orc minions. He deals with it himself - with menacing flute music. He flutes up a storm on Caradhras, and the Fellowship must go through Moria. Gimli reverently takes a guitar, and sings them a song of his people, as the fellowship and the audience have a chance for a rest. Then drums start in the deep, a balrog is come, and Gandalf is gone. They must continue - to Lothlorien. That horn player is a different elf now, you can tell because their tabard is gold this time!

They arrive blindfolded as Legolas waxes lyrical about the elves of the golden wood, and it turns out he’s not in love with Galadriel he’s just really patriotic. Galadriel tells Frodo they will both share a great loss, and also sings a power ballad.

(Photo Pamela Raith)

Everything falls apart after Lorien, as we all know. Boromir dances with the hobbits before the orcs get him - Strider appears seconds too late, and Boromir tells him he’s failed, the Fellowship and his people. Strider shows him his broken sword (he’ll show you his if you show him yours) and finally claims his birthright. Boromir begs him to save “our people” and Aragorn really can’t deal with that, especially when Boromir dies in his arms. Aragorn is the best actor in all of this and it’s mainly in degrees of how much he cannot deal with this. The three hunters reunite, honour Boromir, and finally pick themselves up for the road ahead - Aragorn can see the hobbits’ footprints…

In the interval we theorise on how they’re going to fit two whole books into a second act shorter than the first one. Are they just going to cut the entirety of Rohan? That’s the bit of the book I can never understand. The ice cream is very nice.

As the lights go up, Sam races after Frodo and berates his idiot upper-class master who thought he could do anything without him. They set out on their long journey, and from the other side of the stage, Pippin and Merry come charging in. They’ve already escaped from the orcs, as we really don’t have time for that. Pippin is confronted with her fear of trees. Entish is a very musical language which was beautiful to experience, and I think a far better rendition of trees talking than any realism could give. Musicians stood around the auditorium and plucked and strummed their discussion (Gimli was behind us drumming the plumbing).

(Photo Pamela Raith)

Saruman, meanwhile, directs a cool break dance number from the orcs. They’re going to crush Minas Tirith, and then Sauron will surely think Saruman is an ally, a massive victory for the Light.

The rest of the cliffhangers from act one get resolved in the next ten minutes. The three hunters can tell from the footprints that the hobbits are safe, so they race the breakdancing orcs to Minas Tirith. (No Rohan, I whisper to K). Aragorn demands an entrance to see the Steward (played by Bilbo, this company has one old wise man and one old father figure). The Steward is under Saruman’s spell! They call him Denethor but he’s serving Theoden’s role, with considerably less drama as it only takes Aragorn revealing himself as King to wake him up from the curse.

They agree to fight together to defeat Saruman! It’s another ensemble song and dance! Gandalf the White returns, and doesn’t come alone! The trees are marching! And Boromir’s actor is playing the trombone behind Denethor as he fights to defend their people, and that made me very emotional.

It’s Gollum time. Nearly naked bald man with full body dirt makeup scrambles around theatre and balcony, more news at 7. R seems unable to comprehend a theatre company having two bald men in it. This actor was so physical, my director brain was terrified of the risk assessments that must have been required for him to run along the balcony barrier.

Victory at the Pelennor Fields! TheoDenethor is slain, but the free peoples have won. They ride to Isengard. Saruman enters, and in a very dramatic and tense moment, I thought he greeted them with “Sup”. (Sadly it was actually “So”). Gandalf is sure that this will not be the end of Saruman’s mischief…

Frodo and Sam (and Gollum) are carrying on, but it’s hard going. They reminisce on the stories they used to listen to, and Sam gets out his guitar as they wonder what kind of story they’re in. Sam sings to Frodo, a reprise of Now and for Always from Mr. Bilbo, and his master tiredly joins in. He hasn’t smiled for days. “Tell us a story, of Frodo and the Ring”. Sam falls asleep, and it’s Frodo turn to sing about him - “no finer friend, now and for always”. Frodo doesn’t quite manage to finish the chorus before he falls asleep beside his Sam - but Gollum takes over in a horrifying corruption of their duet. It took me a while to realise it, but this Gollum’s voice reminds me of Voldemort from A Very Potter Musical - not at all a bad thing, but a specific niche of “very creepy and also pathetic”.

(Photo Pamela Raith)

Aragorn is crowned, and receives the reforged sword. Together, the representatives of the free peoples plan to storm the Black Gates, in a hopeless battle - for Frodo. Smeagol/Gollum finally decides to lead them to Shelob, and Frodo trusts him. “Well,” Sam says, “let’s walk into Mordor.” Cackles from very small pockets of the audience.

Shelob is a REALLY COOL PUPPET. Sam manages to stab her with the LED Sting as he is seconds away from his doom. Galadriel empowers them with ballads from afar, but Frodo can barely walk. Sam takes the ring to try and relieve his burden, and Frodo doesn’t even notice. Gollum returns and swears he knew nothing about the giant spider, what giant spider? She wasn’t there last week!

Aragorn, in the B-plot of the musical (we realised afterwards that in the books, destroying the Ring and saving the world is the B-plot), gives a rousing speech to get everyone gearing up for a battle they’re all going to lose. Arwen (I think, or is it Galadriel, I’m writing this the day after and I’ve slightly lost the plot) calls to Aragorn and starts off the ensemble number "out of grief, joy".

Meanwhile, tension is rising in the Frodo-Sam-Gollum-Smeagol polycule. Everything will change, when they destroy the ring. “The elves, Sam, they’ll disappear - all of the magic will be gone out of the world. But if I take the ring!” No one can resist the ring. Gollum and Frodo speak and move as one as they condemn Sam as a traitor and a thief. At some point in all of this Frodo gets the Ring back, Sam runs away, Gollum attacks Frodo, Sam protects him, and Frodo wakes up enough to cast Gollum out instead. I’m very tired and can’t remember when this all happens, but it was all very emotional.

The free peoples fight, and they all dance and stand so differently you can tell which peoples they all are even without the height differences. Legolas shoots from on high, Gimli is rooted to the ground with wheeling axes, Aragorn just stabs so many orcs. Merry has his cello and uses the bow to attack, and Pippin has her accordion. We love Pippin. She’s here for moral support.

(Photo Pamela Raith)

Sam and Frodo reach the top of Mount Doom and wrench open the backdrop doors. Sam can’t take another step and collapses behind Frodo as he tries once more to take it for himself - before Gollum appears. Gollum’s fall was beautiful and slow - he’s caught by black clad actors on a darkened stage and they gently let him down into the fire. And then it’s done.

The ensemble sings as Gandalf the White comes to save the two hobbits, and they reunite with their friends as Aragorn bows to the Shirefolk (and holds Frodo’s head so close that he re-awakened my inner Frodo/Aragorn shipper). Gandalf inexplicably says he’s off to have a chat with Tom Bombadil, who we had been ignoring, but that he’ll see Frodo again.

The hobbits return to the Shire, and Lobelia tells us Saruman has been there. We all have to work together to restore the Shire, including the audience - up you get, get outside and get LARPing again. We help the hobbits restore the battered garden to its former glory, and Rosie and Sam are married! Frodo never can return to the cheer he had at the beginning of this adventure. The actor had literally added eye bag makeup, I winced in sympathy when I saw him. Gandalf and the many elves of Middle Earth reach the Shire. They are going into the West. Frodo gives Sam the book in which to write their story. The hobbits do a very sad little dance jump greeting and Frodo hugs Sam tight, before he goes on his way towards the sails of the Grey Havens.

(Photo Watermill Theatre)

Rapturous applause! Everybody’s back on stage for a rousing final Cat and the Moon! Don’t worry about Frodo’s depression, we’ve got to sing a musical number for us all to go home to! My emotions are a wreck, and now we must obviously discuss all of the musical’s shortcomings and its adaptational choices and the costumes, when I really want to stand in a field and yell. After a few hours on the train of actually very good discussions, I cycle home and yell on my way through the park.

5 stars.

#lotr #lotr musical #lord of the rings #lord of the rings musical #watermill theatre #lotr fanart #tolkien #tolkien fanart

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thranduilofsmirkwood · 1 year

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Harfoots

RINGS OF POWER

Amazon LOTR:TROP

I'm trying to imagine the Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks, Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots {PROUDFEET, lol} leaving their kin to die, taking the wheels off the wagons.

Maybe Lobelia Sackville-Baggins... but never an Underhill, Cotton, or Gamgee.

#Harfoots #amazon is bullshit #amazon rings of power #amazon lotr

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porphyriosao3 · 1 year

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#27 Haunted House

"You should come with me," Frodo said in a just-so voice. The dwarf in front of him eyed him with dark eyes, glancing over and Bilbo and his uncle.

"Yes, go ahead," Bilbo said, smiling at them both. "Frodo, you can show Kili the haunted house, and he can protect you, so you don't get scared." Bilbo's eyes flicked to Kili's; he clearly was saying more than the words he was using, but after a few years of wrangling the nobles in Erebor the young dwarf finally felt like he was beginning to understand the adult subtexts of conversations like these. Mostly.

"Yayyyy," Frodo cheered loudly, waving his arms and practically climbing Kili like a tree. "It won't be scary with you there, Cousin Keekee!" The name Frodo had decided to call Kili never failed to make Thorin snort in amusement... a sound which was clearly audible coming from the kitchen, despite him not being visible. Bilbo rolled his eyes.

"Well, go along, you two. I expect you back in time for dinner, now! No dawdling around, and certainly no diversions." A stern glance from the hobbit told Kili that the time early in the visit when he and Frodo had visited the Green Dragon had not been forgotten, and he nodded meekly. Taking Frodo and swinging the laughing boy upside down, he went out the front door to the sound of Bilbo's scolding.

"That was boring," Frodo grumbled when they returned. Bilbo glanced over in surprise.

"Boring?" He said. "But the Proudfeet always put on a good show, or so I remembered. Why was it boring?" He arched an eyebrow at Kili, who shrugged innocently enough that his eyes narrowed.

"It just was," Frodo sighed heavily. "Every time they jumped out or came near me, they forgot what they were doing. It was silly." With this final pronouncement, he wandered into the kitchen, voice floating behind him. "I'm hungry."

"Of course you are," Bilbo huffed in exasperation. "You were born hungry. Forgot what they were doing, eh?" He glanced over again at the young dwarf who was examining his fingernails with every sign of fascination. He could just imagine Trilby Proudfoot leaping out at what he thought was a faunt only to be confronted by a young dwarven warrior. And him the boldest of the lot! Well, he supposed, no harm done; nobody said the faunts had to be the only ones who got a fright in the haunted houses. "I'm sure you're hungry too, my handsome little prince, so come along." With a cheeky grin, Kili bounded through the door to Frodo's cheering again. Honestly, the hobbit thought, I suppose I see how boring we are! Thorin and I entertain the little scamp all day every day, but immediately lose his heart to his cousin from Erebor within a day. Grinning, he went into the kitchen after them; this sort of thing called for pie.

#frodo #bilbo #thorin #kili #the cuteness of the Durins #fotfics #fotfictober

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hollers-and-holmes · 2 years

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Oooh do please tell about the serial killer mystery with Arwen?

Here’s a longish excerpt…

She required an escort, something difficult to come by honestly these days, but both the father and the betrothed had mentioned the sound judgment of such a thing and so she supposed she could scrape one up somewhere. Or two, as chance would have it, if her bright idea panned out. At least the conversation would be engaging.

She rolled up in front of the greenhouse cottage and halted the sleek little pony she had traded off some Proudfeet for six reams of winter woolen and a case of canned preserves. Foxes was the name the staunch hobbit master had disclosed upon the close of their transaction. In the plural. He had the color and the ears to fit it. Looked like someone had buffed him newly-minted and then chased him through a puddle of white paint. Her tall grey mare was out among the household herd as well, but a cart had proved more useful for the kind of errands she busied herself upon these days, and an unflappable pony to pull it.

She stepped down, hiking up her sturdy wool skirt to keep it off the muddy wheel, and hollered (for the window stood cracked open), “Anybody home in there?”

“We are!” sang out the answer, which was invitation enough to bustle into the kitchen, puffing briskly on her cold fingers. The entry and adjacent kitchen were so small she could keep her dripping boots firmly on the rug and still lean over to chafe her hands in the heat-shimmered air above the iron cookstove.

She could smell bread on that same air. She called back toward the bedrooms, swiping off her cap to stuff beneath her arm, “You had better be decent, I let myself in!”

The boy that emerged was mostly so. He had pants on, at least, and stockings rumpled down around his ankles, which he plopped down in the kitchen chair to hike up to his knees. A harder thing with one hand than one would think. He said, tugging at intervals around the upper edge, “Ada’s getting dressed, he’ll be out in a minute.”

“Good, I’ve come to kidnap him, too. Want to go for a ride?”

Those mercurial eyes, blue-toned in the cool light of the kitchen, grew about three sizes. “Of course I do!”

“Well, it’s cold as a dwarf’s behind in brass long underwear, so you better go get yours on, and the thickest ones you’ve got.” She added to his back as he hared away, for she saw the broadcloth sling was still in place, “Need help with the buttons?”

“No!”

“Thought so,” she said, mostly to herself, and smiling. She scraped her boots and stepped into the kitchen proper and peeked into the oven, at four fat loaves gone gloriously golden. She called again, toward the main bedroom this time, “Want me to take the bread out? They’ve got the smell.”

He did not shout his reply, but came out lacing up the throat of his green jerkin, his cloak hung over the crook of his arm, already booted for riding. He said, the corner of his mouth doing the thing it did, “What smell.”

“You know, the smell. The done smell. I tried to explain it to the girls the other day but they all had stuffy noses, there’s been a cold going around.” She cast about for oven mitts—she knew Brenioniel kept them somewh— “Thank you, that was the next drawer I was going for. You’re the one who pointed it out to me, you know.”

“And now you’re kidnapping me for it?”

“And your son, if he’s feeling well enough.” Anxiety at her own audacity—a thing that was sometimes somewhat delayed in its arrival; it followed her like a too-long tail that caught up long after her mouth had done its ready work—struck her then. She pulled out the breadpans and set them on the stovetop and bumped the oven door shut with her hip and turned to face him, the mitts still sheathed over both hands. She held them up entreatingly. “But only if he’s feeling okay, I don’t mean to barge if he’s having another bad—”

Glorfindel brushed a dust of dry hay off her shoulder. He said, merry in the eyes, “Give us five minutes.”

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