Bilbo adjusted his spectacles. “Eleven minutes of troll-sleep, twelve minutes of travel. You need one minute of borrowed time.”
Piper took the watch, crossed the pass in ten minutes, and spent the remaining two eating a stolen scone on the troll’s snoring belly. She returned the watch the next day, slightly singed, slightly smug. hobbit runtime
“This is the There and Back Again ,” he said. “Wind it once. For exactly the runtime of a hobbit’s unexpected journey—no more, no less.” Bilbo adjusted his spectacles
The old clockmaker, Bilbo Baggins by name (though no relation to the famous one, he’d insist), had a dusty shop at the end of a crooked lane. His specialty was not ordinary time. He built runtimes —tiny, humming devices that could compress a long journey into a single pocket-watch’s tick, or stretch a moment of courage into a small, quiet eternity. She returned the watch the next day, slightly
“How long is that?” Piper asked.
Bilbo smiled. “Long enough to lose your handkerchief, find your courage, and still be home for second breakfast.”
He led her to the back room, where a shelf held a single, unassuming timepiece. Its face was engraved with a hobbit-hole door, round and green. The hands were made of two tiny, hairy feet.