Hobbit Feet

This one isn't actually part of the challenge list, but since I mentioned Bofur going to take Aster to see Bombur's family too fav.me/d85722g , I got impatient and couldn't resist.

~~~

Aster was enjoying her first visit to Bombur's home. Bombur Broadbeam had a large, cheerful family: a dwarf wife almost as large as he, and a dozen chubby little "dwarrows," as dwarf children were called. There was also Bifur, Bofur and Bombur's injured elder cousin, whom Bombur's family took care of. Bifur spent most of his days sleeping near the fire now, or making little woodcarvings, and patting the heads of the dwarrows. And of course, there was "Uncle Bofur," who lived in his own cabin but visited them nearly every day. And who today, had taken his new little adopted hobbit "niece," Aster, along for the visit.

The whole Broadbeam house smelled like soups, cakes, and bread. Bombur's cooking had quickly become a minor legend in the Shire, along with Bofur's amazing toys, ever since the Broadbeams had decided to settle down there after the battle of Erebor. Aster had followed her hungry little hobbit nose to a fresh batch of cookies, and one of the dwarrows, a fuzzy-haired boy named Junty, had reached for the plate and offered her some before she even had to ask (and stuffed three into his own mouth at the same time, beaming innocently).

After Aster had been twirled around down the line of all Bombur's children (most of them whooping or giggling excitedly, as they apparently always did when finding a new hobbit child to play with), Bofur picked her back up into his lap, and introduced her, officially, to his tubby younger brother.

Aster and Bombur got along perfectly almost from the start. A hesitant wave, and tiny smile, from one to the other. Both were friendly yet timid souls, it turned out, much less talkative than the garrulous Bofur (Bombur even less likely to speak than Aster, in fact, mostly just smiling and nodding and nibbling his way through the day), but both immensely fond of him, of course. As much as Aster loved Bofur's hugs now, though, she couldn't resist trying out Bombur's too. When the hobbit lass saw two of Bombur's little ones--including one of the rare girls, Tota--begin climbing into his lap, she blinked up at him, smiling hopefully. The gentle ginger dwarf understood his and Aster's unspoken language almost immediately, and smiled in return, lifting her up with one strong hand. Aster giggled happily, sandwiched between the two dwarrows against Bombur's large, soft belly. Everything felt so cozy and nice. Aster would have to bring her mother to meet Bombur's Broadbeams soon, as she already had "Uncle Bofur" now. For so long it had only been the two of them, a hobbit widow and her little child. Now Aster had a whole houseful of unofficial, dwarven additions to her family.

After the four of them had had a slight nap (and Bofur had watched over them all fondly--his brother and the three tiny figures, which all managed to fit on the red-haired dwarf's giant tummy), Aster eventually found herself examining toys on the floor, with Tota and the smallest dwarrow, Bota. They started questioning the differences between dwarves and hobbits. Tota was really several years older than Aster, but because dwarves aged slower than hobbits, the two seemed almost at the same stage of childhood. Aster did find Bota's infant beard and Tota's female sideburns unusual, not realizing until that day that even the dwarf women and children grew facial hair. But she thought the way Tota wore her sideburns in ribbon-tied braids was pretty, and told her so, in her quiet little smiling stammer. Tota took this (correctly) as a compliment and grinned. Then she became curious about Aster's fuzzy feet. "Why does hobbits ha' beards ov'r their toes?" she queried, sucking on her index finger.

Aster blinked, looking down at her feet. She couldn't explain why hobbits grew hair on their feet, any more than she could explain why dwarves grew it on their lower faces. "Because..." she wiggled her toes pensively and whispered; "...because it keeps our feet warm, I guess."

"Aye," Bofur leaned over the scene and chuckled, "that's prob'ly why hobbits don't wear shoes--they don't need 'em!"

Aster grinned up at Bofur. Given her hesitancy to talk sometimes, she often seemed to change subjects in midair whenever anything did come out of her mouth. Really, though, it was that one thought had reminded her of another, and she just didn't bother explaining it. So it was at this moment, when she suddenly decided to recite a little Shire children's chant for the dwarrows.

"One, two, three, four, furry feet upon the floor! Five, six, seven, eight, line up here an' give us cake!" she laughed, suddenly hopping up and doing a dance with her own proud little hobbit feet.

Bofur grinned back and caught on immediately, whipping out his tin whistle. In addition to toymaking, another talent of his was music, and he only had to hear Aster's tune once to pick it up. He started a simple little hornpipe for his nieces and nephews (dwarf and hobbit alike), and it wasn't long before his brother was giving one of his simple, gentle chuckles and joining in too. The floor shook slightly as the fat dwarf and some of his children all took their socks off (revealing their quite bare dwarf feet) and stamped out the jig with Aster.

"One, two, three, four, furry feet upon the floor! Five, six, seven, eight, line up here an' give us cake!"

And, furry feet or no, they all then indeed lined up to have cake.

~~~

I had the idea for this one before I finally got to buy and watch the extended edition of "Desolation of Smaug," but I actually wrote this story and did most of this drawing afterward. The experience was sort of hard to describe. Unlike "An Unexpected Journey," which I absolutely couldn't wait for and ended up buying both editions of, my mother and I had agreed to just wait and buy the extended version of DOS, so until a few nights ago, we hadn't watched it since the actual trip to the theater last year. Watching the movie again made me all excited and enthusiastic at first, especially getting to see the cute/funny new scene at Beorn's house. *Warning: Rant starting now.* But then we watched all the behind-the-scenes bonuses--which were also interesting and fun, but in doing so, we discovered more scenes that got axed even from this extended edition. One of which was that absolutely adorable moment, which James Nesbitt (Bofur's actor) and his family (his real-life daughters played Bard's daughters in the story) had talked about before and obviously had a blast acting in, where Bofur faints during Kili's surgery and one of Bard's daughters revives him with a bucket of water. I literally started screaming when I saw that (my mother is a witness, she tried to calm me down), since it seemed to have been filmed perfectly and everything, was a delightful moment (of my favorite dwarf to boot), and got trashed for no explicable reason. Also, there was more footage (just hidden away in the behind-the-scenes, again) of the dwarves in the elven jail, including a cute moment of Bifur trying to encourage Bombur (my second-favorite dwarf), who was, possibly for the first time in his life, too upset to eat. And I started screaming again, since that was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Just... EEEERRRRGGGHHH!!! WHY OH WHY WERE THOSE SCENES LEFT OUT, EVEN IN THE EXTENDED VERSION??!!! IN A MUCH DARKER MOVIE THAN THE FIRST ONE, I MIGHT ADD, WHICH DESPERATELY NEEDED MORE CUTE/FUNNY MOMENTS LIKE THAT?!! (And if the excuse was that there simply wasn't enough time, then I'd like to point out that the LOTR extended editions were longer than the Hobbit ones, and nobody complained about them. Plus, these two scenes I mentioned couldn't have added more than five or six extra minutes, tops.) *deep breath, end of rant*

Sooooooo anyways. This picture and story therefore became a weird mixture of both "DOS enthusiasm work" and "DOS therapy work." Anyways, hope you guys liked. Our dwarvies deserve more happy, cozy scenes after that big rough adventure!

PS: Designing hybrid "dwarven-hobbit" clothes for dwarves who (in my head-canon now) decided to live in the Shire is a bit challenging, but fun. Hope I pulled it off okay!