Title: Snug
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Length: 300
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking. I think this belongs in with my Making of Dwarves 'verse, though I'm not entirely certain it will end up actually part of the series.
Summary: A dwelling snug against the cold and the bitter winds of winter.





The snow drove against the walls of the house, the wind battered at the stout shutters, the low, deep-sodded roof. Not easily would the weather enter in, not easily would the inhabitants be rousted out. Thorin, who had endured weather like this under thin canvas, in shallow hollows not worthy of the term cave, had seen to the sodding, the glazing, the plumbing and the ventilation of cook-stove and hearth-fire and all the reaches of the place. No need to venture out for water or wood or food. Coal and wood and even a store of peat were neatly stacked in storerooms. Several pantries (Bilbo's happy organizing) saw them stocked with smoked and salted meats, edibles pickled and dried, savories and sweets, all manner of preserved comestibles. In another, deeper pantry, root vegetables and nuts, fruits and grains kept still and cool. And at the very end of the delving (for it was not quite a Dwarven dwelling-under-stone, nor a Hobbit-hole, nor a Mannish house of turves, though it had elements of all three) there was a chicken-pen, where clever ventilation kept them warm, but not too warm, and gave them both light and fresh air. With only a little luck, there would be eggs over the winter. There was a clever door as well, that would let the pair of Erebor ravens that had chosen to come with them shelter inside in the very worst of the weather.

It wasn't Bag End, nor Erebor, Rivendell or Ered Luin or the Iron Hills. But it was home for this season and the next and as many as need be. And all those places, and those friends, could be reached by raven with little trouble, and in person with somewhat more effort. Truly, what more could one ask for of life?