Dwarves were everywhere, underfoot, destroying his bathroom, tromping on his furniture. Bag-End was one of the biggest smials in Hobbiton and could easily entertain dozens of hobbits, but dwarves, though not all that much bigger than hobbits, somehow managed to take up twice as much space. Everywhere he turned, there was another dwarf touching things he oughtn't, looking places he shouldn't, and being a general nuisance. Bilbo stomped out of his dining room and into his bedroom, infuriated.

Yet the confounded dwarves had had the nerve to breach even the sanctum of his bedroom! No hobbit — not even Lobelia — would ever dare to do such a thing! But it appeared that dwarves even on their best behavior (as Gandalf claimed they were) were markedly more ill-mannered than even the most ill-mannered hobbit, and they apparently saw no discourtesy in commandeering Bilbo's personal refuge for a secret conversation. "We're but thirteen dwarves," he overheard the oldest one — Balin, he thought — saying quietly to Thorin. "And not thirteen of the best and brightest."

"Erm," Bilbo said. He would not ordinarily interrupt a private conversation – and this was clearly a private conversation — but on the other hand, it was his bedroom. "Hello. I'm a hobbit."

Thorin glared at him (Bilbo could already tell that Thorin spent a good portion of his day glaring) but Balin just stared at him, bemused. "Aye, laddie, so you are."

Bilbo was not accustomed to being called "laddie." On balance, he didn't think he cared for it, but that was entirely beside the point. "It's just," he said tentatively, "you said thirteen dwarves. And I'm a hobbit, you see, so that's twelve dwarves and a hobbit. Unless by signing the contract I would become an honorary dwarf." If so, he could not have said whether that would make the offer more or less attractive.

Balin eyes twinkled. "A hobbit you were born, and a hobbit you'll stay."

"Oh," Bilbo said. He blinked, coming all of a sudden to an inescapable conclusion. "You are expecting another dwarf." Though he kept his voice level, inside he was fuming. The nerve! As if a dozen dwarves destroying his house wasn't enough!

"The thirteenth is already here," Thorin said gruffly. "He is tending to the ponies outside."

Bilbo blinked again. "He has been here for all this time? But — he's quite missed supper!" Now he was very upset. He did not really understand what all the fuss was about lost mountains and gold and — ha! — dragons, but he understood dinner, and it was distressing to think that he had a guest — of a sort — who was outside and who had missed an entire meal while on his property, if not quite in his house.

Thorin frowned, though Bilbo suspected that perhaps it was his ordinary expression. Certainly nothing resembling a smile had yet made an appearance. "He has hard tack and jerky. You needn't concern yourself with his supper."

"Hard tack and jerky," Bilbo gasped, properly horrified. "That will never do! Not in my house!" He shuffled quickly out, bowing awkwardly because he rather assumed bowing was expected, and hurried to the small laundry alcove, where he had secreted a heaping plate of food when it had become obvious that the dwarves intended to leave no crumb from his pantry behind. The plate had survived miraculously untouched by the dwarves (perhaps because he'd taken no chances and had hidden it behind a mound of dirty towels) and Bilbo eyed it regretfully. It was hardly enough for a proper meal for one, certainly not for two, but there was no help for it. Hard tack and jerky indeed! At Bag-End! He shuddered in horror and no small amount of indignation.

Bilbo retrieved a plate from the extra set — they had been his grandmother's, but he didn't like them and only ever took them out when the Sackville-Bagginses came around — and carefully served up a generous half of the food from his own plate. After a moment's indecision, he kept the entire seedcake to himself, though he then felt so guilty about it that he placed an extra link of sausage onto the other plate to compensate.

Carefully, he crept out the back door of the house. He was, as Gandalf had noted, quite quiet when he needed to be, and anyway, it didn't seem like the dwarves were paying him the slightest bit of attention. The ponies were easy to find, tied up neatly to the fence, and there was indeed a dwarf standing next to them, carefully brushing them down.

"Good evening, Master Dwarf," Bilbo said brightly. "I've brought you some supper."

The dwarf turned, apparently startled, and stared at him for a moment, brow creased in confusion. "Supper?"

Bilbo frowned, wondering if perhaps this dwarf was a little slow. "Yes," he said carefully. "Supper. At least, what of it I could salvage. I'm afraid your brethren have eaten most of the best already, and no one thought to tell me you were here, or I would have made sure to save you some of the deviled eggs. But that's neither here nor there, really, as I'm sure you'll find this quite to your liking. The rest of your company seemed to enjoy it all well enough." And he shoved the plate of food at the thirteenth dwarf, who took hold cautiously, peering down at it.

"You're very kind," the dwarf said, depositing the plate carefully to the side, away from the horses. He was tall, with wild dark hair that held not a single braid or bead, and his beard was so short Bilbo assumed he shaved it with some regularity, which seemed odd in comparison with the somewhat elaborate facial hair the other dwarves sported. His clothing was rough and worn, though not falling apart, but still very plain and simply functional. He wore only a single dagger at his side, which was one dagger more than Bilbo had ever worn in all his life, but was considerably less weaponry than the other dwarves toted about.

The dwarf bowed low — very low, nearly in half — and said, "Kili, at your service."

"Bilbo Baggins at yours," Bilbo said, with a small neat bow of his own. He eyed the dwarf curiously. "Kili, you said. I suppose, by your name, you are kin to Fili?" He was quite proud of this deduction, having just met his very first dwarf a scant few hours earlier, but the pattern of dwarvish rhyming names indicating kinship seemed quite clear to him, even though he concluded that Kili must have lesser status than the others, else he would surely have been inside with them.

But Kili frowned just a bit and shook his head. "No. I have no kin."

"Oh," Bilbo said, frowning himself for being proved not quite so clever as he had thought. "I'm sorry, your names are so similar, I just assumed ... well, anyway, I had probably best get back indoors before they decide to use the furniture for kindling. I'll prepare a bed for you along with the others, and you can bring the plate in when you're done with the ponies."

Kili shook his head again. "No thank you, Mr. Baggins, that won't be necessary. I'll stay out here with the ponies."

"But–" Bilbo spluttered, "they will be quite safe tied up, and there is nowhere to sleep out here. I don't even have a barn." There was a small shed, of course, but it was filled with potting soil and gardening implements, and smelled dreadfully of fertilizer.

"The ground is soft," Kili said. "And it does not seem like it will rain. I have slept in many worse places." He bowed again. "I thank you again for the food."

"You are most sincerely welcome," Bilbo said with a touch of resignation, for there seemed little chance of changing Kili's mind, and Bilbo suspected it might be rude to try. He bowed again — goodness, he thought, he'd certainly done a lot of bowing today; it was almost impossible to not to, what with the dwarves doing it every other minute — and crept back into the house just in time to rescue a small snack table from becoming kindling in Bofur's grimy hands.