Written as a treat for ChillinbytheFire as part of the Trick or Treat Exchange 2016 on AO3

It was quite nice to visit Mirkwood again, Bilbo thought—especially as an invited guest, this time! Not least because he didn't have to sneak around invisibly all the time, eating only whatever he could snatch when the Elves weren't looking. This time around he was a guest of honor at every feast, and there was a feast nearly every night.

He even got to taste that Dorwinion wine, although one sip was quite enough even for an adventurous hobbit, thank you very much.

A few days after he and Gandalf arrived, however, Bilbo was walking alone down a corridor when a sudden draft blew down it, startlingly cold, and accompanied by a faint wailing sound from somewhere deeper in the caves. It could have been a person, or just wind blowing through an opening somewhere—but it was still rather unsettling.

And it kept happening. Three times in as many days, when he happened to be alone in some lone corridor, strange noises assailed him, and once he thought he felt fingers clutching at his sleeve—but of course when he turned there was nothing there, except a strand of long, pale hair caught on a rough portion of the stone wall.

When he finally asked some of the Elvenking's servants about it, their eyes grew almost comically wide, and they gasped before telling him all kinds of things about Houseless Elven spirits, who had not heeded the Doomsman's call upon their death, and remained in Middle-earth, unwilling to leave the places where they had dwelled in life, or where they had died. There were some, the Elves told him, that were rumored to haunt the less-traveled halls and corridors here in Mirkwood's caves. "You should be careful, Master Hobbit, when you go about alone," they told him. "Such spirits are not always friendly, especially to strangers."

If he had been told all this years before, when he'd first come to Mirkwood with Thorin and Company, Bilbo might have believed it all without question—it seemed the sort of incredible thing that happened in such wild lands. But he was older now, and better acquainted with Elves—enough to know when he was probably being teased. The tales of Elven ghosts sounded more like something young hobbits would tell around a campfire than something Elves themselves would believe. All the same, though, he went to Gandalf, thinking it best to make sure. If there really were unfriendly Elven ghosts haunting the caverns, he certainly did not wish to run afoul of them.

But Gandalf guffawed and then nearly choked on his pipe smoke. "That's what I thought," Bilbo said, once he was done patting the wizard's back. "But you can't blame me for wanting to be sure, all things considered."

"No, I can't," Gandalf said, a bit hoarsely, still chuckling. "No, Thranduil's halls are not haunted, any more than Thingol's were of old. All the dangers of Mirkwood lay outside and off the path." He puffed on his pipe and blew a few smoke rings, eying Bilbo with amusement. "You have that look in your eye, Bilbo. What are you thinking?"

"What look?"

"The burgling one."

"I don't have a burgling look," Bilbo said, drawing himself up primly. He paused. "Do I?" Gandalf laughed.

Whether he had a look or not, it wasn't burgling that Bilbo was thinking of. That would be terribly rude, as a guest in the Elvenking's halls. But that evening he did put on his ring before he went out, and spent an amusing few hours watching the Elves lie in wait for him, laughing together of the scare they intended to give him. They had been so intent upon their prank that they had apparently forgotten that not only had Bilbo explored their halls for days invisible an unnoticed, he'd managed to slip thirteen dwarves out from under their very noses! In fact, Bilbo was almost certain at least one of these Elves was one who had been working the barrels that day. He slipped on silent hobbit feet up behind the Elves, and, during a lull in their conversation, whispered, "Boo!"

He'd never seen anyone jump so high from a standing position before—or heard anyone shriek so loudly. He very nearly got trampled, too, when they saw no one there and hastened to flee to better-lit and better-traveled halls.

When Gandalf heard about it, he laughed until he very nearly cried.