A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Twenty-Two - Interests of Others

He half-shrugged. "Eh, fair enough. I suppose I just don't see how anyone who knows how bright you are can think you'd do something as foolish as try to tamper with information they can readily check."

"That's the whole problem though isn't it—foolish people can only be careless, but smart people know exactly what they're capable of."

Bofur sighed. "Maybe it's for the best you were just a little sprout when you came to us then. You're grown up now though."

Something in his expression caught my amusement. "Freda talked to you, then?"

"Well of course she did, it's a relevant thing for a father to know." He was blushing heavily and avoiding my eye.

"Well if it's any comfort to you, where I come from it isn't a signifier of adulthood, so I'm in no hurry to settle down with any other man but you."

"You could if you wanted to."

"I may poke my nose out a bit to see what's out there, but honestly I don't want to be married just yet. I'm having too much fun the way I am now. And I still like you better than all the other fools."

He snorted over his drink and eyed me sidelong, smiling. "All the other fools, eh?"

I popped up from the table with a grin and my plate. "You bet. What color should I wear?"

"Why are you asking me? I thought you and Runi determined I was colorblind."

"Not colorblind, just not necessarily colorsavvy."

He harrumphed. "All right. Whatever that is. What about that yellow dress with the white and pink trimmings? Makes you look like a flower."

"Flower it is!" I declared, chucking a handful of dish powder in the sink as though throwing fairy dandruff into a cauldron.

After supper I had to go through the fuss of taking my hair all down—I usually kept at least the front half securely braided up and out of my face—then putting the bare minimum back up again, but at least I was pretty still. I may about to be getting my toes all stomped over and paint everywhere but I'll be pretty dammit.

"Are you taking Villy?" Bofur called from the other room as I pulled up my floofy bustle and adjusted how all the skirts and bodice and apron laid against each other. This was one of my newer dresses, with the bodice cut to accommodate for the shallow shapes that were beginning to develop slightly south of my collarbones and a little more north of my waist. I wasn't really sure how I felt about those just yet, but at least they didn't get in my way. I didn't know how some women managed, honestly.

"You betcha. She keeps my toes in all the right orientations."

He chortled. "Good thing she's stopped stepping on them herself."

"Hey now, she hasn't done that in ages. Not since I was double her weight at least."

"All the better for you."

"I think Bofur thinks I can handle myself but at the same time he expects me to come back missing pieces," I said to Villy, rubbing her ears as we proceeded out of the pasture and down to Dale. My hair was down as promised. I was glad it wasn't terribly breezy. Wind was torture for long-haired girls. Long-haired anybody, really. I was sure beards got feisty too.

I led Villy to a safe spot in Bard's stables as usual and let myself in. "Oy! Who's here? I don't know what I'm doing."

"Aren't you here to celebrate?" Tilda shouted down from a higher floor. "Come up and help me with my hair."

I flew up the steps. "What've you got stuck in it this time? No don't tell me." I opened her door and stepped through with my eyes closed. "Honey?" I found my way to her shoulders—she sat on the stool before her mirror—and clapped them down. "No? Tell me it's not another frog. No? Oh thank goodness."