Work Text:
She knew it wasn’t going to be easy once the Company found out about her shift. Even her father had rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breathe about “that’s our Bilbo” when she’d first turned, having given up years ago any hope of having a daughter who wouldn’t cause scandal. Not that he loved her any less, in most ways it endeared her to him further as he found her spiritedness the quality that had attracted him to his Belladonna in the first place. But it was rather obvious that his hair had started to turn a little white at the temples the moment his precious progeny had started walking (understandable seeing as she’d learned how to escape her cradle at the same time and he’d found her perched rather precariously on the mantle in the front room reaching into the bloody biscuit jar). Her mother had laughed and said, “Yes indeed, our little Bilbo. One of a kind and now all will know it to be true.” Bungo had laughed at his wife and picked up his squealing daughter from where she’d been running around the smial in circles, so excited for her first shift she was all but bursting into the walls. He’d been the first person to receive one of her curled hugs as he poked his precocious one in her fluffy underbelly.
The rest of the hobbits hadn’t taken her form quite so cheerily, being concerned with how she had such an odd one that looked rather fierce for a thing so tiny. This was only exasperated the first time one of the Bracegirdle lads had tried to steel a kiss from the wild little Baggins girl. She’d punched him then she’d shifted and chased the little snot around the market, stabbing his feet with her prickly little body. When one of the older lads had tried to break up their chase by picking her up she’d shown just how sharp her little shift’s teeth were and had chased him off in a similar fashion. When the boys’ mother came by Bagend later that day demanding retribution for the slight both her boys had taken at the demented hedgepig’s paws she’d been saved from some serious maiming by a shocked, and rather impressed (read turned on), Belladonna. Bungo had turned a rather alarming red before shifting into his white horned ram and began to bleat and try to run the obnoxious woman through. Once he calmed enough to turn back he’d marched right into Bilbo’s room and cuddled his daughter as he gave her very explicit directions on exactly how to do the most damage to any other lads who tried to get more out of her than she was willing to give. (That night the Baggins’ of Bagend did their damndest to make Bilbo a big sister.)
And though the Shire had prepared her somewhat for the odd reactions she was to forever receive over her unique little shift she should have known her dwarrow would outdo her homeland. Honestly, the only one that took her in stride was Óin, and that was arguably because the older dwarf had gone through similar reactions to his own shift, porcupine being extremely rare. Óin also wasn’t one to normally allow things to unsettle him, he’d been a healer for too long and had seen stranger things than a ‘hedgepig’ he could tell you (and he had told her, something she could never erase from her mind’s eye).
The rest had as varied reactions as they had shifts. Ori was by far the least offensive, though the most suffocating. He wanted to know everything about her little hedgepig and took every opportunity to barrage her with questions or sketching her from every which angle he could find. When they were both shifted, his little fox would come up on her and paddle her about with his paws, jumping back every now and again to observe her reactions and impulses. By the end of every interaction she was only grateful the little Scribe was in no way interested in the medical field or he may have attempted a dissection.
Thorin was initially curious and snuffled her a bit before finding her acceptable and attempting to pat her with his giant paw in friendship. Unfortunately that ended rather horribly with her balled up position rolling at an alarming rate down a hill. And that prompted a new form of ever lasting hell as his nephews thought this the funniest game ever and tried to compete with each other at what they’d dubbed ‘footpig’. They paddled her around for hours before Dwalin and Glóin chased the two impertinent princelings away, Dori and Balin coming up behind them to nuzzle and lap at the cringing creature.
These four friends had not gotten it out of their heads that a hedgepig was not, in fact, a baby anything. Dwalin and Glóin had both spent an inordinate amount of time demanding her age from both her and Gandalf. When it was revealed she was fifty the pair had been so enraged at the wizard’s inclusion of a child on this dangerous quest they’d attacked the wizard in their bear forms. But a wizard wasn’t a wizard for nothing and after revealing his own form (a half horse half eagle he called a hippogriff), he sufficiently subdued the pair enough they reduced their outrage to merely grumbling and becoming her self appointed bodyguards. Balin had always been rather paternal to the hobbit, so seeing her miniscule form only made his already caring disposition stronger, and Dori’s gray fox could often be seen grooming and fussing over both her and Ori. It didn’t help matters that Nori had decided the hedgepig made for good stealth practice and went around most days pouncing on the squealing creature and chasing her across all of Arda. This normally ended with her in the paws of Balin with an enraged Dori sitting and nipping at his brother’s ears (she wished she could come up with a polite way to inform Nori there were easier ways to engage his elder brothers attentions and maybe he could stop being such a bloody prat about his daddy issues).
But as annoying, confusing, and terrifying as the others were, the reactions she received from the Ur family were the most boggling. The three seemed to take on a sense of proprietary possessiveness over Bilbo that seemed subsequent to the first night she’d allowed Bofur to cradle her little hedgepig after the grand reveal. Bifur damn near ate Nori when his harassment had ended in her tumbling through a thicket of nettles. The resulting hour of slowly sorting out what was puncture and what were her natural pins was long and embarrassing for her, but dangerous for the rest of the company as a balefully glaring grey wolf spent the entire time circling Óin and the hobbit protectively. Even Bombur and Bofur’s cheery little creatures were hissing and spitting as their hair stood on end and they watched the healer from an overhanging bough.
Bombur’s raccoon had also taken to scavenging for her, extra nuts and berries. He’d lay them out for Bofur who’d fiddle with them in his panda form and then playfully nip at her heals to bring her to their foraged treasures. Balin later explained this behavior to her, “It’s a dwarrow instinct, deeply imbedded lass. As females are so rare when one is born or accepted into a family the males become even more protective or courteous.”
She frowned and asked exasperatedly, “What in the name of the Lady is wrong with Nori and the twins then?!” Balin merely chuckled as he shook his head and wandered away and she didn’t see Bofur’s blushing face as he beat a hasty retreat into a tree not three seconds later.
They were well ensconced in Beorn’s cabin when the cheerful toymaker came up to her where she was napping under a large apple tree in the skin changer’s gardens with a rather nervous expression on his normally joyful face. Concerned for her dear friend Bilbo opened her arms in the gesture Bofur’d designated as an invitation to slip his little panda self into her lap for cuddles. He stood there looking at her intensely for a moment before plopping into her offered embrace, though he was far from shifted when he did so. Before she could do more than blink she found herself perched in the toymaker’s lap, strong arms wrapped around her, vibrating with restrained strength, and his face burrowing into her neck.
Her heart all but stopped, and as he explained that, in his culture, one of the first steps towards a courtship was allowing his intended to handle his shifted form it began to pump at an alarming pace that resembled a nest of hornets tapping a jig against the walls of her rib cage. She recalled the first time she’d found herself with a lapful of red panda and her continued cuddling with said creature since Rivendell. Oblivious to her distressed body Bofur continued to explain that if the intended permitted, encouraged, or initiated further contact, they were seen to be contemplating the suit. When the trust was reciprocated the intended had acknowledged the worth of the suitor and their official wooing could begin with the families of both parties required to make their approval known by their consideration of the fiancé. He’d only just realized she might not understand all that much about dwarrow traditions, being a hobbit, when she’d been asking Balin about their odd behavior.
To say she was gob smacked would have been similar to saying Thorin had the cheerful temperament of a puppy. Her mouth performed a rather charming imitation of a landed fish for a while until she felt Bofur’s arms begin to unwind as he muttered a final, “Sorry fur the causin’ ya such distress lass. It wasn’ me intent.”
Quicker than he’d plopped her in his lap Bofur was suddenly being straddled between some rather fierce thighs as his wee hobbit latched onto his braids and kissed the breath from him. When they finally parted to replenish their lungs Bilbo rolled her eyes and lightly thunked her forehead to his own, “That’s how we initiate a claim in the Shire. I find it much more direct, perhaps leaving less to the imagination but –” And it was Bilbo’s turn to have her mouth ravaged by her amorous lover as Bofur reclaimed her wait and wrapped one arm up her back, using her neck to tilt her mouth at just the right angle to accept his far more salacious claiming.
The next morning found a fluffy red panda curled into a tight little knot, his masked face hidden by his curled tail as he nuzzled the little wet nose of his very own hedgepig where she had furled her white tummy over one of his paws in the middle of his curl during the night. The only movement the two made was when a larger raccoon and a massive grey wolf came sniffing around the two’s little blanket den on their shared pallet. The hedgepig squeaked at her new family as she touched noses with the raccoon and was snuffled by the wolf before returning to the circle of her panda. Bofur held his little black socked front paws out to Bilbo and she coiled around his left one as the right came down around the back of her neck and his face returned to nuzzling her nose, receiving small licks from a tiny pink tongue for his troubles. Bombur curled himself around the front of his brother, effectively hemming in his little sister and Bifur huffed as he laid himself around the curve of Bofur’s back, adopting his traditional watchful position as he laid his head in his paws, guarding his tiny family.