A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Thirty - Ambassador

As the half-dozen other dwarves attending the meeting filed in and settled into their seats one glanced over his shoulder at me straightening my stack of papers and frowned. "I would not suggest that these reports be heard by gentle ears."

Dain dropped heavily into his seat at the head of the table and shoved his papers aside to take up his filled wine goblet. "She stays."

"I'm sure the lass—"

My only guess was that this dwarf had riled Dain's irritation on previous occasions, judging by the swiftness of Dain's retort upon said dwarf. "I am confident in my assumption that our Mabyn is tougher than you."

The dwarf dignitary's ruddy face turned a vile shade of puce as he snarled. "I have fought in wars, my good king, I highly doubt—"

Dain interrupted. "But have you ever been beaten to within a gulp of your life? I thought not, so sit down. Mabyn has, more than once, and managed to both hold her tongue and not back down, so if you'll forgive me I'll continue letting her stand in on our little chats."

I sat at my desk with my eyes wide, then hastily looked back down into my papers as six sets of eyes rolled around toward me. I made myself as unobtrusive and inoffensive as possible as Dain took another quaff from his goblet and the meeting commenced.

Several hours later as I was cleaning up I said, "Was that really necessary?"

Dain snorted. "Vorund is a high-minded bastard who too much enjoys making decisions for other people without their input. It may or may not have been necessary but it was fun."

I shook my head. "That was a wide interpretation of my past infirmities."

He shrugged. "I suppose they're open for interpretation." He swallowed the last mouthful of his wine and slid the goblet down the table to me when I beckoned for it. "I half expected you to jump down my throat for defending you."

One half of my mouth twitched up. "I'm getting better at not doing absolutely everything by myself. Astonishingly enough I appreciate it. Probably because I still don't think I have the tact to have handled that well."

He guffawed. "Lass, if you think that was tact you've got another think coming! That was a smack on the back of the head, just in words and not deeds. Tact had nothing to do with it." He nodded firmly to himself. "Everything has its time and place."

I snorted, balancing over my shoulder the tray of goblets, empty wine bottles and pink-blotched napkins. "I suppose that's true. Remind me not to get too saucy with you in the future then. Your hands are far too large for me to look forward to a smack from them."

"Well now that you're not being a nitwit on a daily basis I doubt you'll ever have to."

"Praise be!" I rebalanced the tray and sauntered off with it, down to the nearest kitchen to have everything cleaned and sent to wherever it was meant to go.

"I never regret the decision to make my birthday a potluck if other people are coming over," I said as Gimli showed me up yet another flight of stairs. "I hate cooking for parties. There's not enough damn room for all those dishes and pots."

"And knowing you they'd all be on the floor by the time we arrived because you'd already set the table and didn't want to disturb it."

"Most assuredly. Are you sure you know where this lookout is?"

"Ah, she doubts me! Of course I do."

"When's the last time you were up there?"

"Last year."