Golden Eyes

Chapter 5: The Shire

Gandalf and Smaug travelled from Bree across fields of grain and grass. They kept a steady pace and where not in a hurry. They knew Thorin would need time to gather the other dwarf kingdoms and therefore they paid their respects to old friends of Gandalf along the way. Many were pleased to see the wizard but they would often look at Smaug with suspicion, but Gandalf always had an explanation ready. His favourite was to call her his apprentice, which gave reason to amusement on Smaug's behalf. They had just left one of those homes and had been on their way for a few days without paying any visits. Smaug had to ask, "Why did you choose not to visit anymore friends of yours Mithrandír? I know you not as a man who choose some friends above others" The wizard smiled, "we have visited many and not all I wish for it to stay this way. It will then be much easier not to give away our whereabouts, you may have noticed that the housed we have guested have ceased the closer we have come to the place I have told you about yes?" Smaug understood, "yes I have. It gladdens me though, that a lack of friends on these parts does not held the reason to our solitary travel" Gandalf smiled. They travelled for two days more before they came to a small town. They had recently heard word that Thorin had been successful to gather a small party of dwarves who would stand by his side. Smaug looked at the buildings in the hills and the peculiar townsfolk. Gandalf noticed her confusion and assured her the small folk were in fact adult beings. Gandalf then told her it was delicate matter to venture into this town, which was also the place they would find the burglar, since the folk did not have any insight in the world outside their borders or paid it little mind. She understood that these people did need to know about what was happening in the wide world and there was no need in telling them. She followed Gandalf down a narrow path through gardens and pastures, just like all the others they had passed on their travels in the neighbouring lands, but these where... smaller. Gandalf could not help but be amused by her quizzical look and laughed to himself, " I never knew dragons could find the lives of other beings so questionable in an in understandable way" Smaug looked at him and understood his amusement, " In all my travels I never seen a species so unaware of the world outside their borders. I find them perculiar" Gandalf nodded. He himself had been rather amused when he encountered the hobbits for the first time. Gandalf let them from pastures and the market to taller hill, which, as many of the other hills, held a small round door in size that would be ideal for a child but rather unpractical in the eyes of an adult man. The door surely let to hole, which made up the home of the resident. It was a hobbit hole and a hobbit home and it was therefore no surprise that the resident was in fact a hobbit. Gandalf stopped by the gate and gestured to the home, "This is Bag End" the woman took it all in. every little wooden plank and tot of grass on the hill which rose above much of the rest of the little town. She looked at Gandalf and waited for him to continue, "and it is here I have found our burglar" He said with gleaming in his eyes. On a bench outside the garden sat one of those hobbits Smaug had seen scatter around in the town. Not this particular one though. He sat with his eyes closed, smoking on his fife and made a ring of smoke. Gandalf turned the ring into a small butterfly with fluttering wings that danced through the air before it flew into the hobbits face and brought him out of his trance. When he had regained some awareness, he greeted Gandalf with a "Good morning", He had yet to see that Gandalf was not alone and had no chance to do so before Gandalf asked him what he meant with this "good morning". At first Smaug was unsure where this conversation would go but did nothing to interfere and settled with just watching the scene in front of her unfold in the way it though best. The hobbit was rather confused but polite in the beginning and asked if he could help with anything. Gandalf looked at him, considering his next move, "that remains to be seen" Now the hobbit looked even more confused. Gandalf continued, " I am looking for someone to share in an adventure". The hobbit looked rather uncomfortable now and stated that he did not believe that anyone west of Bree would be willing to go on such a nasty thing as an adventure. One might be late for dinner and he rose from his seat at took some letters addressed for him before he began to walk away, when Gandalf spoke, "To think that I should have lived to be "Goodmorninged" by Belladonna Tooke's son as if I was selling buttons at the door?" This made the hobbit, which Gandalf obviously knew, pause and look at him. The hobbit was doubtful and very uncertain as Gandalf spoke of him and addressed him as Bilbo Baggins. The hobbit obviously tried to cooperate with the fact that this unfamiliar man knew his name. Gandalf presented himself but Bilbo only remembered him for something as dull as fireworks. Gandalf tried not to be offended by this, but could not help but show a hint of disappointment but then he said "well that's decided, it will be very good for you and most amusing for me. I shall inform the others". The hobbit looked bewildered and said Gandalf should try to find someone else to share in his adventure since such a thing was not welcome here. Only then, he noticed the woman behind Gandalf and seemed rather awkward. His mother must of course have teached him how to consider his words when talking til others especially women and as an apology for his actions, he said a polite "Good morning" before he vanished through the round door in the hill. Smaug could hear the lock on the door being switched and faced Gandalf with an amused expression. Gandalf nodded and before they left Bag End Gandalf had made a carving in the door's wood. They left the town to make camp on a hill not too far away and waited for the party to come.