An Unexpected Addition (Thilbo - Bagginshield)

Rafting

"Where you gonna put it?"

Dwalin glanced down, shocked to see Frodo and three of the other dwarflings at his feet. "Well, ummm..."

"They've got awful warts," interrupted Bilbo, "All over their faces and arms and even on their behinds. Terrible business. I've never seen anything like it before. So, as a goodbye...present, Dwalin's gonna skin their warts off. Very painful, skinning all those giant, tuberous warts off. Very stinky, too."

"Wouldn't killing them just be easier?" asked Donel.

Bilbo blinked in surprise, taken aback at the bluntness of the little boy. "Well, you see, that's just not..." No one came to his rescue. "Ugh, dwarves..."

"I'm just saying," said Donel, "It makes sense. Gets rid of the problem."

"And everything else makes perfect sense now," said Bilbo, giving the King a glance that did not bode well for his future. "Chop the problem's head off with an axe and then raid a pantry for dinner. Absolutely no negotiating whatsoever. Typical."

"I never said I wasn't willing to negotiate," argued Thorin. "But only on certain...subjects. And not with elves. Ever."

"Oh, I can think of something Uncle would like to negotiate about," snorted Kíli, his brother smacking him upside the head not a second later. "Owww! Seriously, how don't they know about...owww! Stop it!"

"No smacking your brother, Fíli," scolded the hobbit. He just smirked when the younger stuck his tongue out. "His brain's damaged enough as it is."

"Hey! That's Uncle's fault," accused Kíli. "He dropped me when I was a babe. It got him pummeled by our mother, too."

Fíli nodded. "Sadly, he speaks the truth."

"I'm liking this sister of yours more and more every time I hear about her," stated Bilbo, smiling teasingly at the grimacing King. "Keeping Thorin Oakenshield scared and on his toes is no easy feat."

Fíli and Kíli puffed up with pride for their mother.

"And that's about as good as it's gonna get, my friends," grumbled Dori from where he'd been patching up a hole in the raft. "We're out of supplies and this is our only hope of a quick escape."

"We've no other choice with the children and no food," admitted Thorin, looking at the raft with no small amount of trepidation. "Alright, let's put this damned thing in the water. Ready the children."

"Fishy, fishy, fishy, fishies..."

"Bofur!"

"Terribly sorry. Forgot myself again."

The dwarves lowered the large wooden raft into the calmest section of the water, slowly assuming the positions that Dori assigned them on it. Each of the children were placed with an adult towards the center or the back, Bilbo being assigned to Fíli because of his hobbit-y proclivity for drowning. Not even Bilbo's protests that he did know how to swim reasonably well assuaged Thorin's worries. The deaths of Frodo's parents were more than enough to make the King obstinate on the matter, his glare soon silencing the hobbit's complaints about the Shire's distaste for water.

"But I thought you couldn't swim?" groused Kíli.

"Just because I can swim doesn't mean I like to swim," said Bilbo. "Hobbits are still much more prone to drowning than other species, but I've always been very strange by hobbit standards, haven't I?"

"Everybody secured and ready?" called Dori.

"Aye, aye, Captain Dori, sir," answered Bofur, little Dwina tucked partially inside his shirt and strapped to his front with some rope. "Ready to launch, sir!"