Bilbo Baggins: Frying Pan Wielder

Just a quick one-shot. Couldn't help myself, Biology was just so boring today...

Thorin Oakenshield had, up until relatively recently, doubted the the reliability of Bilbo Baggins.

In his defence the hobbit had been rather useless: he could not fight and all he seemed to care about was keeping mud off his waistcoat. At the beginning of their journey Bilbo knew nothing of the world outside his doorstep, having lived his life of comfort with his tea cups and his mothers plates for company.

However, Bilbo had since proved his worth many times over. He had saved Thorin's life during the fight against Azog the Defiler, but perhaps more importantly in Thorin's eyes, he had come back to them. Bilbo had the chance to sneak away, he could have left and gone back to his hobbit-hole if he had wished. Instead, he had returned. Loyalty - that was something the dwarf king valued above all else.

Bilbo had definitely improved in confidence over the past weeks since the fight. He joined in conversation more often, and barely flinched when the howls of wargs and the cries of orcs cut through the silence of the night. The hobbit was still gentle and quiet though, and about as threatening as a baby rabbit: he was the last person in the company that the leader thought he could ever be scared of.

Thorin had often found himself wrong of late...

It was one evening as they had made camp that it had happened. They had travelled quite a way from the mountains where they had encountered the goblins, but had not yet drawn close to Mirkwood.

Since Azog they had faced no enemies, and maybe this had lulled them too deeply into a sense of security. They had been foolish. The group had sat together around the fire, Bofur and Bilbo assisting Bombur with the cooking. Their weapons had been left scattered about the camp with their packs. They had been unarmed.

None of them had seen the attack coming, the first they knew of it was when four orcs had rushed from the bushes, baring down on Bilbo and a defenseless Ori, who was closest to the direction from which they had come. They had no time to act, just to shout out in horror.

Ori had raised his arms above his head in a futile attempt to protect himself from the swing of sharp metal...but the pain had never come. When he had looked up the orc that had been about to deal the death blow was unconscious, and Bilbo was no longer holding a ladle.

That night Thorin Oakenshield had felt fear, not because of the orcs, but due to the sheer brutality by which the hobbit took down the remaining beasts with the frying pan that he had been holding in this other hand. The heir of Durin could only stare in morbid fascination as Bilbo had proceed to beat the last of the vile creatures rather viciously over the head, and had, when he was absolutely sure the thing was not getting up again, given his unconventional weapon an inspecting look. The sort of look you would give a fork that had not been washed properly.

"Orc blood, bet it tastes disgusting." The halfing had muttered as he wiped the black substance off onto the grass.

As it turned out, Bilbo took up his frying pan rather regularly from that day on when they ran into trouble. Thorin did his utmost to keep in Bilbo's good books for fear of being on the wrong end of it.

The hobbit actually became quite famous for his use of his frying pan in the battle for Erebor, going down in dwarven history books as 'The Wielder of the Steel Pan'. Stories where told to little dwarf children for many generations about the hobbit-warrior's skills in battle, and he was often used as a way of ensuring best behaviour. 'If you're not good, Mr Baggins will come and hit you with his frying pan, you mark my words, young sir.' It was a great shame that none of these tales ever reached the Shire.

As chance would have it, however, many years after Bilbo had first taken up arms, another hobbit picked up the pan. His name was Samwise Gamgee: the second Great Frying Pan Wielder to come from the little forgotten town of Hobbiton.

"Hey! I think I'm getting the hang of this! Useful things, frying pans!"

Gimli son of Gloin would watch as this new warrior took up Bilbo's legacy, and recall the words spoken to him when he had been young and disobedient.

By Aule, his father had been telling the truth! Oh, how he regretted now tripping the elf into that river when no one else had been watching!

"Bless my soul, get me out of here!"

Ah well, its not proof read or at all worked on – I wanted to get it down but also not take too much time away from writing my other story :) Excuse any mistakes!