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Episode One - Shirefall

July 24^th, 2942, Third Age – The Kingdom of Erebor

Freedom.

It was a marvelous, wondrous thing – a gift that Thorin had taken for granted nearly all of his life. If it had not been for his mind becoming enslaved by the seas of glittering gold in the Treasury, if he had not experienced the shackles of sickness and avarice being fastened around his heart and soul by the Arkenstone, that beautiful, dangerous, damned stone, then Thorin may never have realized how precious his freedom was.

The Arkenstone was gone now, destroyed. Thorin had shattered it beneath the Baruk Bavonaz Dohyaraz Ra Gimlaz with extreme prejudice and then Dwalin had collected each and every shard and ground them all into a fine, glitzy white powder. The dust had been carefully swept into a chest of cold iron, which was, subsequently, buried so deep within the Vaults under the Treasury and behind so many Dwarven seals that, Thorin was utterly certain, no part of the cursed stone would ever see the light of day again.

The very next day, it was proved that the obliteration of the Arkenstone had the approval of Mahal – Mithril, the most precious of metals and the Maker’s greatest gift to his children, was discovered in a old mine that was long thought to have run dry of precious minerals. Never before had Mithril been discovered in any mountain save Moria and Thorin’s people took it as a sign of immense hope for the future. Thorin had been pleased as well, for every good king hoped and wished for the prosperity of his people, but not even a blessing from the Adadel could wash away the burning shame and noxious guilt which had plagued him from the moment that the shroud of gold lust had fallen away as the land of Mordor erupted into flame.

The gold sickness was gone, but so was Bilbo Baggins.

The travesties that Thorin and, on a lesser scale, Dwalin had committed against their little husband were beyond reckoning. Thorin, especially, had been little better than a monster in the days directly preceding and following the Battle of the Five Armies. Almost worse than nearly casting Bilbo to the rocks below the ramparts, was the emotional injury that Thorin had dealt to the Hobbit. His vile words and malicious actions had been undeniably despicable – and Thorin regretted them all, more than he could say.

He, Dwalin, and the rest of the Company had immediately begun making preparations to journey to the Shire and even planned to stop in Rivendell on the way, because there was the distinct possibility that their Lucky Number could be visiting his favorite uncle, the Lord Elrond. The Princess Dís would be arriving on the thirtieth of July and, once Thorin had declared her as his temporary Regent, because Fíli and Kíli refused to stay behind – even though they were the only ones who had not behaved disgracefully toward Bilbo – the Company could then depart from Erebor on a most sacrosanct mission to beg Bilbo’s forgiveness and convince him to return to the Mountain.

Never again would Bilbo be made to feel as if he was anything less than absolutely perfect. Thorin would see Bilbo happy for the rest of their days – that was his solemn oath.

But then Gandalf had arrived, without warning, in Erebor just that morning, looking tired and sad and greyer than usual and Thorin’s insides had frozen over even before the Wizard had spoken a single word.

‘I felt that it was… for the best that I inform you, in person, before the rumors could reach you, Thorin, Dwalin. Sauron is, indeed, no more and never again shall Arda be plagued by the threat of his reign. His Ring was discovered by chance, taken to Mordor, and then destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, thus killing him. The one who accomplished all this, as witnessed by the White Council and every Elf of Lothlórien, was the Prince Consort Bilbo Baggins of the Shire. I’m terribly sorry, but he perished mere minutes after destroying the Ring, the poison in the land and air of Mordor overwhelmed him before any could reach him to offer aide.’

Bilbo, their sweet, cunning, beautiful, beloved Hobbit was dead. He had died, alone and afraid and believing that the husbands who had sworn to protect, honor, and cherish him for all time had cared nothing for him in the end. He had drawn his last breath in a land of fire and hate and darkness, sacrificing his life to destroy Sauron and free the Dwarves whom he loved beyond measure from the Dark Lord’s spell.

Thorin Oakenshield and his people were free from the dark curse that had plagued them for so long, but the price demanded for that sovereignty had hardly been worth it.

‘He sacrificed his life to give you back your minds and to protect the kingdom that you worked so hard to reclaim,’ Gandalf had huffed at them, reading their broken hearts skillfully. ‘Don’t you dare belittle that sacrifice by throwing away your lives or by abandoning your duties.’

No, the Company of Thorin Oakenshield would never disgrace their Burglar, their husband, their brother in such a manner – not ever again. If Bilbo had been so desperate to give them the chance to live, to rule, to be free, then they would, for him. They would honor him in this, in all things for the rest of their lives in this world and maybe, maybe, they would have the privilege of begging his forgiveness in the next.

Dwalin had fled the Throne Room before Gandalf had been able to speak anything else and Thorin had barely managed to croak out a formal dismissal of the Court before he was running out too. He had gone to the Forges, to an out of the way, little used workroom, and had collapsed to his knees, weeping bitterly. Only when the hour was much too late, did Thorin find the strength to rise again and stumble toward the Royal Wing.

Thorin found Dwalin sitting on their bed, a scrap of bright green cloth cradled in his palms – Bilbo had sprained his wrist during their escape from Mirkwood and Óin had bandaged it. Bilbo had been upset, not because of the injury itself, but because of the white bandage Óin used, as Hobbits only ever wore white at funerals and to do so at any other time was considered to be dreadfully unlucky. Though amused by their beloved’s petulance regarding something as simple as color – and Thorin could freely admit now that they had been stupidly and almost callously dismissive of an important aspect of their husband’s culture – Thorin and Dwalin had bought green and aquamarine ribbons so that Bilbo could cover up the white with them.

His wrist healed by then, Bilbo had removed the ribbons and bandages on the night that he was first shown to the Apartments of Carven Stone, the suite of the King and his spouse or spouses. The bandages he had tossed, but the ribbons Bilbo had laid out reverently on one of the dressers, treating even these inexpensive gifts from his husbands with the utmost care. Even in the midst of their madness, neither Thorin nor Dwalin had considered throwing them away.

Heart laden with grief, Thorin picked up the aquamarine silk still resting on the dresser and rubbed it between his thumb and index finger.

“What have we done?” Dwalin entreated mournfully and Thorin turned to see his husband looking up at him with bloodshot eyes and an expression of utter devastation marring his features. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks and his entire body quivered in anguish, “Oh, Thorin, what have we done?”

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April 2^nd, 3, Fourth Age – The Shire

The Shire was, without a doubt, at its most beautiful during the spring.

The rolling hills were cloaked in the brightest of greens and the little rivers sparkled in the sunlight as they babbled and danced through the peaceful and prosperous land. Flowers bloomed everywhere, painting the horizon in a rainbow of color and wafting their sweet perfumes generously for the gentle breezes to catch and spread, while vibrantly shaded butterflies and bright yellow bumblebees flitted to and fro from patch to patch. The berry bushes were heavy with the fat, jewel-toned fruits that grew liberally from them and red clover and mustard shot up wild and abundant across the fields.

The sky was nearly always blue and the sun’s rays were like a warm blanket, what rain came was sure to fall softly, nothing like the rain of the summer storms. The shades of dawn and dusk were flamboyant and the stars were utterly dazzling each and every night during the spring, as if they too were celebrating the end of winter, like the Hobbits who lived and loved in the lands of the Shire.

Bilbo Baggins, certainly, saw the end of this winter as a cause for celebration.

Winters in the Shire were, typically, fairly mild. What little snow fell at night was sure to be melted by midday during a normal winter season, the rivers and streams would stay thawed, and one really only had to bundle up a bit to keep oneself warm. But, this past winter had been different from most others – it was not nearly as bad as the Fell Winter, though, and thank Eru for that – with snow piling up high against the doors and windows almost every night and large chunks of ice forming in the still lakes. There had even been a blizzard one night!

Had such a winter come five years earlier, Bilbo would have hardly paid it any attention. Extra snow would have meant that he had a plausible excuse to tuck himself inside Bag End for days on end, weaving and painting and writing and reading his favorite books by the lit hearth. He would not even have to emerge to restock his larders because Bilbo knew better than to have an insufficient stock of food and drink when winter came knocking. Only a fool would have bare cupboards or empty pantries or unfilled cold cellars when the last of the leaves turned red or orange or gold, because winter always came swiftly after that.

But, being a bachelor during an unusually strong winter was much different that being a parent during such a season. It changed, well, everything.

Nine months earlier, Bilbo’s favorite cousin, Drogo, and his wife, Primula, had left their fauntlings, Bella Rose and Frodo, in Bilbo’s care while they went out boating. It was not the first time that they had done such a thing; they usually went out on the river three or four times a month while Bilbo watched his niece and nephew for an afternoon. But, on that particular cursed day, a summer storm had unleashed itself upon the Shire, beating down against the earth in a manner ferocious and unyielding and devastating.

Bilbo had been in the middle of preparing some gooseberry pies for Tea, as Bella Rose drew a garden of flowers on paper with hunks of colored wax and Frodo banged out a discordant rhythm on a pot with a spoon and sang the first line of a nursery rhyme over and over, when he felt his Kin Ties to Drogo and Primula being ripped away, one after the other, without warning.

A wounded gasp had escaped his lips and he had sunk to his knees as the fauntlings in his care began to sob in horror and pain. The death of their parents and the loss of their Nurture Bonds had left them with a gaping darkness in their hearts that threatened to swallow their souls and steal them from Arda – no fauntling could survive without a parent and only rarely could tweens.

Acting on sheer instinct, Bilbo had done what any Hobbit worth the earth and flowers and green that their Mother had used to fashion them would do in order to save them.

There were a few – Lobelia, who had long desired Bag End to pass to her own son, and her ilk – who had murmured in discontent when they learned that Bilbo had claimed Bella Rose and Frodo as his children with his heart and soul and that the fauntlings had claimed him as their papa in return, because it had been expected that the children would choose Primula’s sister and her husband should anything happen to Prim and Drogo, but those few were altogether ignored by anyone and everyone of importance. It was no secret that Drogo and Bilbo had become as close as brothers since Bilbo’s return from the East, or that Bilbo was Bella Rose and Frodo’s favorite uncle, and, besides all of that, the Nurture Bonds between Bilbo and the fauntlings were healthy and hale, with absolutely no sign of bond rot, and such a thing held far more weight than anything else.

So, in the course of a single rainy July afternoon, Bilbo became a father to a then three year-old girl and an almost two year-old boy whom he swiftly came to treasure, and worry over, above all else.

The first month of parenthood had been almost ridiculously easy on Bilbo. The fauntlets were still adjusting to their new Nurture Bond and so needed more sleep and food than other faunts their age would. Those first few weeks had mostly consisted of lots and lots of cuddling, Bella Rose and Frodo needing their papa’s touch, and the devoted love that came with it, on a near-constant basis. After that first month, though… well, things had changed.

Bella Rose and Frodo were sweet, clever, and well-behaved fauntlings, really, and nothing at all like the terror that Bilbo had been as a faunt. They had never thrown a temper tantrum – at least not in Bilbo’s experience – they loved stories and singing and dancing, rarely disobeyed him, and were always eager to “help” their papa in the kitchen or in the garden. It was just… they were curious, overly curious about, well, everything and seemed to have no concept of fear whatsoever.

Being hunted across the Wildes by Orcs and the Nazgûl, riddling with Smaug, stealing into Mordor to destroy the One Ring – none of those things had been nearly as terrifying as being a parent was. Bilbo could testify to that.

Dragons and Dark Lords were nothing compared to watching your daughter decide to hop across chunks of ice from one end of the lake to another, sick with the knowledge that she could slip and fall in at any moment and there would be nothing you could do to save her because you cannot bloody swim. Or having to dive across your snow covered lawn to prevent your son from sticking an extremely poisonous winter flower into his mouth because he loves everything purple. Plus, you can not even soothe yourself after these kinds of things happen because drinking liberally doctored tea, or wine, or honey mead, or ale on a regular basis is not what any responsible single parent of two precocious fauntlings, that are completely dependent on you, should be doing.

Or so Bilbo’s grandmother, the formidable Laura Baggins, had insisted, as she accentuated every other word of her fierce and lengthy lecture – she had caught Bilbo pouring brandy into a half-empty teacup during the Giuli feast at her smial – by smacking Bilbo on the head with her cane. Bilbo had not dared to touch a drop of alcohol since.

All of this meant that Bilbo was quite relieved when spring arrived, a bit later than it usually did, because spring meant that every respectable Hobbit in the Shire would be planning to have a garden party, such as the one he was currently attending. And the most wonderful thing about garden parties were that they were held in gardens, which were nearly always large areas – full of safe flowers and fruits and vegetables and herbs – that were surrounded by sturdy stone walls designed to keep out unwanted animals. These walls also kept fauntlings who liked to wander in.

Before he had dashed off on his mad, heartbreaking adventure, Bilbo had loathed garden parties. It was great fun for the children, they got to roll around in the dirt and chase each other round the flower beds and swing from the fruit trees, but for Bilbo, who was expected to sit in ornate chairs at ornate tables and make quiet, polite small talk with the other adult Hobbits present, well, they were a rather dull way to pass the time. Bilbo would have much preferred to be sitting quietly in Bag End reading or studying his maps or cultivating his own garden or doing just about anything else, really. Especially since the favorite topic of conversation at these parties, before Bilbo had up and vanished for a year and a half, would inevitably be when Bilbo was finally going find himself a nice husband or wife – and the general consensus was that it should be the latter, so that Bilbo could gain himself a ‘proper’ heir to Bag End. Bilbo had hosted a party or two every year, because it was expected of him, and then accepted as few invitations to other garden parties as he possibly could get away with.

After he had returned to the Shire and everyone had discovered – because Gandalf had told his Took relatives, the meddling old coot, and they had spread the news so quickly that it had reached Hobbiton before Bilbo even had, both proud of Bilbo and incensed on his behalf – what he had been up to, no one had dared speak of spouses or heirs to him again, as it was an incontrovertible truth that Hobbits loved only once. Still, he had avoided garden parties, because he had found, while in the Wildes with his Dwarves, that he much preferred deep, loving, and sometimes blunt to the point of rude conversation about important things over seasonal gossip and idle chatter.

Then, he had discovered how handy it was to be able to keep Bella Rose and Frodo corralled inside a garden, tumbling with the other faunts their age, for several hours and he had promptly accepted every single invitation for a garden party that had arrived at Bag End – he had even accepted the invite to Lobelia’s party, something he had deeply regretted within minutes of his arrival at her home – and since Hobbits were very good at scheduling around each other, that meant that Bilbo could take his fauntlings to garden parties almost every single day and sometimes twice, once in the late morning and once in the late afternoon. His shocked relatives and acquaintances had come to the conclusion that parenthood had settled him and had made him a much more sociable person that he had been before and Bilbo, who had no desire whatsoever to experience shot nerves again or to find any more grey hairs amongst his red-gold curls, did not dare correct them, lest the invitations stop coming.

(Though, admittedly, it had only been one grey hair and Bilbo was mostly certain that its discoloration had been caused by Bella Rose upending a bag of flour in an attempt to help him make first breakfast. Bilbo was only fifty-four, after all, and much too young to be getting grey hairs.)

Most garden parties were relatively intimate affairs, but, occasionally, they could be quite grand, especially when hosted in one of the larger gardens. Bag End’s garden, for instance, was the largest in all of Hobbiton and was only smaller than two gardens in all of the Shire – the garden of the Thain in Tuckborough and Esmeralda Brandybuck’s garden in Buckland, which had been a wedding present from her husband, Saradoc. Also quite large was the garden of Rufus Burrows and his wife, Asphodel, one of Bilbo’s Brandybuck cousins.

Asphodel, who was certainly not known for having more than a modicum of restraint, had invited quite a lot of people to her afternoon garden party that day. More than she should have, really, as a number of her guests could not actually fit into her sizable garden and were milling about inside her smial and atop of it. Among her guests were several of Bilbo’s Took and Brandybuck cousins, who had flocked to him quite eagerly upon spotting him.

“Aren’t they adorable, all playing together like that?” Esmeralda gushed happily from her seat on Bilbo’s left side, speaking about the fauntlings.

Frodo was tottering around the begonias at a near run while Samwise Gamgee, the youngest son of Bilbo’s gardener, chased him. Every minute or so the two older boys would stop their game of tag to hug Meriadoc, Esmeralda and Saradoc’s only child, and Peregrin, Paladin and Eglantine’s son, both of whom were still too young to properly walk and who were occupying themselves by crafting mud pies.

Bella Rose was playing hide-and-seek amongst the tall sunflowers with Celandine, the third child of Seredic and Hilda Brandybuck, Melilot, Marmadas Brandybuck’s daughter, and the twin Took boys, Isengrim and Isumbras, who were the youngest of Hildigard II’s brood. Bella Rose laughed and spun around, her ebony curls bouncing and her emerald eyes sparkling.

“I think that perhaps I need to visit Tuckborough and Buckland more often,” Bilbo admitted as he watched his daughter and son ramble with their cousins. A series of sudden warm waves washed over him and he inhaled sharply, “Yes, we definitely should.”

“We’ll be thrilled to have you,” Marmadas promised through a mouthful of blueberry tart, merriment dancing his purple eyes. “It wouldn’t do to keep fauntlings who are companion-tethered apart.”

The forming of a new Companion Tether, the precursor to the Kindred Bonds that a faunt could begin to form once they entered their tweens, was always something to be joyful about. Kin Ties, the links between relations, a faunt inherited from their parents, settling at first touch, and existed whether they wished for them to or not, but Kindred Bonds were of their choosing and were, often, so much stronger, as a result.

“Certainly not,” Hilda, whose dark red curls her daughter had inherited, agreed emphatically.

“I’m so very glad that Bella Rose has finally formed tethers,” Bilbo told them. “She turned four in January and we’ve been to so many parties, she’s been around every other child in Hobbiton, but, until today, she had no tethers to speak of. I was beginning to worry about it.”

“Some faunts are just picky,” Eglantine assured him. “Drogo certainly was and it seems like she inherited his shyness too.”

“You should come back with us to Tuckborough and spend a week or three in the Great Smials,” Paladin suggested. “Uncle Hildigrim will be more than happy to have his favorite sister’s only child close by again – you know how he frets. The faunts can spend more time together, play with the older ones that we left back in Brandybuck Hall, and you’ll get a break from Lobelia Sackville-Baggins trying to swipe your silver on her daily visits to Bag End.”

“Are you heading back tonight? It’s rather late in the day,” Bilbo pointed out. “There’s no place safer than the Shire, of course, but accidents do happen more regularly at night.”

“We’re leaving in the morning, Mr. Fuss,” Esmeralda told him, laughter in her eyes. “We’re staying at the Green Dragon tonight.”

The Green Dragon was a lovely little inn, of course, but it was really meant for the merchants who came to Hobbiton from other parts of the Shire to sell their wares. Visiting family members should not have to stay there when they could just as easily stay with her kin.

“Oh, I do wish you wouldn’t,” Bilbo frowned. “There’s plenty of room at Bag End for all of you.”

“Next time, cousin,” Seredic replied. “We’ve already paid for the night and it wouldn’t do to go demanding refunds. Besides, we, er, already turned down Asphodel, you see. I’d never hear the end of it if she learned that we agreed to stay in Bad End tonight.”

“Why don’t the little ones stay at Bag End tonight then?” Bilbo suggested. “Bella Rose will adore having friends over and Frodo will be ever so upset if his friends can’t stay over too.”

Bilbo would invite little Samwise, as well, because if ever there was a person whom Frodo would create a Companion Tether with as soon as the time came, it was Sam. Hamfast and Bell were sure to agree – they were good friends of Bilbo’s and were quite pleased that their son and his were so close.

“If you insist,” Eglantine smiled warmly. “I would hardly say ‘no’ to a quiet night with my husband.”

“Or, you know,” Paladin drawled slyly, “A not so quiet night.”

“Hush you,” Eglantine laughed, blushing as Paladin winked saucily at her.

“So, will you?” Hildigard II questioned Bilbo then, “Come stay in Tuckborough for a bit?”

“I would like that very much, yes,” Bilbo responded.

“Abandoning Bag End again are you?” a loud, irksome voice rang out and why Asphodel had felt the need to invite the owner of said voice, Bilbo simply could not fathom.

“Good afternoon, Lobelia,” Bilbo sighed, pouring himself another cup of the sweet rose and vanilla tea that Asphodel had provided for her guests. “My cousins and I were just talking about my taking a holiday to see the rest of my family in Tuckborough tomorrow.”

“Perhaps you should stay there,” Lobelia proposed snidely. “That way you won’t be disgracing Hobbiton with your presence. Your good father would have been so very disappointed in the way you turned out – wild and so very unHobbitish.”

“My father married a Took,” Bilbo returned wryly. “I think it’s rather safe for all of us to assume that he was rather fond of wild, Lobelia.”

“But he would be rolling over in his grave to know that his son was so worthless that even his Melodies cast him away,” Lobelia spat, causing Bilbo to stiffen perceptibly. Lobelia caught the action and she smirked in satisfaction as her barb hit home, “That the only thing his son was good for in their eyes was a quick tumble in the sheets as if he were a three-copper whore.”

“How dare you!” Esmeralda hissed through her teeth.

“Bilbo is a hero,” Paladin growled out. “We all owe him our lives, you bitter harpy.”

“You and your husband can not have Bag End, Lobelia,” Bilbo’s voice was quiet and firm. “Your son will never inherit it, either. My Will is quite ironclad in that respect, so you had best turn your attentions elsewhere.”

“My husband has a right to that smial,” Lobelia retorted. “He’s the closest Baggins cousin that you have, closer in relation to you than the birth father of those unworthy brats of yours was.”

Bilbo stood abruptly, furious, and it must have showed, because Lobelia took a step back in alarm, “If you ever speak about my children again with anything less than absolute respect, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, I will go to my grandmother and insist, as the Head of the Baggins Family, that she stop providing your no-good, freeloading husband with his monthly allowance. Do you understand?”

Mortification blossomed on Lobelia’s face – it was well-known that Otho was fairly useless at, well, anything, but that Laura Baggins was providing her grandson with funds out of her own pocket was something that very few knew. Except, quite a number of people knew now, Bilbo realized with a slight twinge of guilt, registering then that he had not exactly kept his voice down while articulating his threat.

Without another word, Lobelia all but ran away, her hands fists at her side.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Seredic intoned, sounding far more gleeful than, perhaps, he should have.

Bilbo sat back down and picked up his tea, draining it, “Blast and confusticate that wretched woman.”

Hilda refilled his teacup for him, “Are you alright?”

“Fine, thank you,” Bilbo replied a bit too quickly.

“Bilbo,” Eglantine began hesitantly, “Maybe, now that time has passed enough for tempers to have cooled, your Dwarves might-”

“No,” Bilbo said shortly. “Sorry, but no they’ll… they’ll not have forgiven me. Dwarrow ever bear grudges and what I did… well, there’s no point in hoping that they ever shall.”

“I’m so sorry,” Esmeralda put her hand on Bilbo’s arm gently, and Bilbo felt gentle rushes of sisterly affection touch his heart.

It hurt, being separated against his will from his husbands, to have their Melodies missing and knowing that he would never feel his Heart-harmony again, of course it did. Less painful, but still distressing, was being apart from the eleven Dwarves whom Bilbo had claimed as Kindred. It had hurt far more before he had claimed his children with his heart and soul.

Instinctually, Bilbo lifted a hand to his heart, to feel the folded paper that he had carefully tucked into the inner pocket of his waistcoat, as he did every morning. It had been his final act of burglary, an unintentional one, leaving Erebor with the Dwarven map in his pocket. He had forgotten that he still had it – Thorin had shoved it at him on Durin’s Day, when he thought the chance to enter Erebor had been lost, and Bilbo had slipped it into his coat without thought – until he was already rushing toward Mordor to rid Arda of the Ring. The map had been a comfort during the long, arduous trek to Mount Doom – it had been his only tangible reminder of the Dwarrow whom he was risking his life for.

Thorin and Dwalin had made their choice, had chosen gold and a shiny rock over Bilbo without blinking. The love that they had claimed to have for Bilbo had been tested and found lacking – neither Fíli nor Kíli had been touched by the madness that took the rest of the Company, protected by their love for the women that the Valar had decreed were their Ones.

Bilbo shrugged then, dropping his hand to his lap and burying his grief and longing as deeply as he was capable of, “It is what it is. I may not have them, but I am content, here, in the peace of the Shire, surrounded by my kin. Besides, Yavanna has see fit to gift me with my sweet Bella Rose and my dear Frodo and I would not give them up for all green in Arda.”

Or for all of the gold and jewels in Erebor.

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July 10^th, 2942, Third Age – Caras Galadhon in Lothlórien

“I want to go home,” Bilbo announced steadily, interrupting the Very Important Debate – a heated conversation, read argument, about what Bilbo’s next move should be – between the male members of the Very Important White Council. Saruman wanted Bilbo to be tucked away in Isengard, Gandalf wanted Bilbo to wander the Wildes with him, and Elrond thought that Gandalf was a terrible Godfather – what with having dragged Bilbo into facing both a dragon and the bloody Dark Lord – and, clearly, Bilbo should live with his uncle and cousins in Rivendell. So far, none of the self-important dunderheads had bothered to ask Bilbo where he wished to go.

To the seven hells with that.

“I am going home,” Bilbo decreed as they turned to look at him, blinking in surprise as if they had forgotten that Bilbo was there. Which, considering that they were standing not five feet away from the bed Bilbo was convalescing in, in the room that the Lady Galadriel had graciously provided, was rather irritating.

“Now, Bilbo-” Gandalf began.

“Don’t you ‘now, Bilbo’ me, Gandalf Greyhame,” Bilbo snapped rudely. “I am going home, back to the Shire. Back to Bag End. And see if I ever leave it again. I am quite done with adventures, thank you very much.”

“I am not certain that such a course of action would be wise,” Saruman argued arrogantly. “Every Orc in Middle Earth will know the name of the one who destroyed their Master by the end of the month. The price on your head will be worth a fortune. You must come to Isengard, where you will be protected.”

“No Orcs can enter the Shire,” Bilbo countered dismissively, waving off the Wizard’s annoyingly persistent offer. “The Green Magic of my people is much too strong to allow such dark creatures to cross our borders and no Orc in Arda has the means to dull our magic’s potency with another Fell Winter that would allow their Wargs in.”

“Orcs may not be capable of passing into the Shire,” Elrond spoke, his voice gentle but sorrowful, “But Men and Dwarves are, Gwathelion. The promise of such gold as the Orcs are sure to offer for your head will be more than enough to tempt bandits from all regions to try their luck against the Dúnedain Rangers in order to get to you. You’ll be putting the Rangers and your own people in grave danger should you return to your homeland.”

Bilbo frowned as he considered that, “Then… then tell them all that I’m dead. The men and the dwarves, tell them that I died in Mordor. Neither the Elves of Lothlórien or Rivendell will breathe a word of my survival if I do not wish it and my people would never confide in strangers anything to do with a fellow Hobbit.”

“That is the most ridiculous-”

“The sickness plaguing the minds of those in Erebor has passed,” Galadriel cut Saruman off from her place at Bilbo’s side. The Lady of Lothlórien had been silent up until that point, content to sit on the edge of Bilbo’s bed, sending strength and light into Bilbo’s weakened body through the connection of their clasped hands, and watch the heated debate between her fellow Council members. She turned to Bilbo then, “When you destroyed the Ring, and Sauron with it, every bit of Sauron’s power faded from Arda, including that which the Arkenstone contained.”

“It was evil, then,” Bilbo murmured mournfully. “I thought it was, but I could not be sure if what I was sensing was the stone itself or remnants of the dragon’s power.”

“We could send word to Erebor, if you wish it,” Galadriel suggested, prompting Saruman to mutter something unsavory under his breath about her consuming mushrooms, which resulted in both Gandalf and Elrond glaring fiercely at the White Wizard.

“There would be no point. Whether it was cursed or not, I committed high treason when I took the stone. Dwarves do not forgive such things,” Bilbo swallowed the desire to weep. “I am glad that they are free, that they are safe, finally, but my going to Erebor is completely out of the question.”

Bilbo did not say that, even if his husbands had found it within their power to forgive him, he was not sure that he could forgive Thorin and Dwalin for the hurt they had dealt him. He did not believe that he could ever trust them again or would ever fully lose the fear that they had placed in his heart because of their actions. He loved them, would die for them without hesitation – would march into the very heart of Mordor for them – but the greater the distance between his husbands and he, the better.

‘Do not abandon hope, Ernil uin Glaur,’ Galadriel’s voice echoed in Bilbo’s mind, ‘For love can conquer all dark things.’

‘Hope is a very dangerous thing to have… and they never loved me, not as I love them,’ Bilbo replied before speaking aloud, “Please, I want to go home.”

“If home is where you wish to be, then home you shall go,” Galadriel promised. “We shall perpetuate the myth of your death to safeguard you.”

Elrond and Gandalf nodded in acquiescence, albeit reluctantly, and Saruman huffed and crossed his arms, but did not argue as he was clearly outnumbered.

“Thank you,” Bilbo relaxed back against the pillows behind him.

“I’ll go to Erebor myself,” Gandalf decided. “I’m heading in that direction already, to clear out Dol Guldur of the Mewlips that have infested it. It shouldn’t take long and then I’ll return here to escort you back to the Shire. You’ll be healed enough for the trip by then.”

“The two of you can winter in Rivendell,” Elrond offered. “I don’t like the idea of him traveling in the snow and across the ice.”

“Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” Gandalf agreed. “And then we can cut through the Trollshaws on our way from Rivendell to the Shire, maybe enjoy a spot of excitement or two.”

“Gandalf!” Elrond protested.

“Oh, do calm down, I’m only joking,” Gandalf rejoined, unconvincingly.

Bilbo sighed.

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April 2^nd, 3, Fourth Age – The Shire

“…And the whole time they were arguing… arguing about how they were going to cook us! Whether it be turned on a spit or minced in a pie or whether they were going to sit on us one by one and squash us into jelly!”

Cela squeaked in alarm and buried her face in Bella Rose’s arm.

“But they spent so long arguing the whether-to's and why-for's that the sun's first light crept over the top of the trees without them realizing it and turned them all to stone!”

The children whom were gathered around Bilbo giggled and cheered in delight and amusement.

“Trolls are stupid,” Bras decided, standing up in one of Bilbo’s armchairs with his tiny hands on his hips. “When I’m big, I’m gonna turn all of ‘em into stone!”

“We can go Troll hunting,” Meli clapped her hands.

“And get our own special glow swords!” Grim bounced in his seat.

“And then go to Rivendell,” Bella Rose added, turning her big emerald eyes on Bilbo, “Papa, can we please go see the Elves?”

“Elves,” Frodo echoed. He, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were curled up on the floor in a thick nest of blankets, the younger two already drifting.

“Perhaps, when you’re much older than you are now, little one,” Bilbo replied mildly. “The Wildes are no place for fauntlings, no matter how brave and clever they may be.”

Bilbo had not left the Shire since his return, not even for a quick jaunt to Bree, and he had very little intention of ever doing so again. He’d had enough misery, terror, and heartache pressed upon him during his last expedition, thank you very much. Maybe, one day, he would find the heart to visit Rivendell again, but he could content himself with penning frequent letters to his uncle and cousins who lived in the Valley and reading their letters in return, until that day came – if it came.

“What happened to you and your Dwarves next, Uncle Bilbo?” Cela asked eagerly.

“Well, we knew that the Trolls must have had a cave where they could hide from the sun and that meant… a Troll Hoard,” Bilbo relayed dramatically, making the faunts’ eyes light up. “Now, Troll Hoards are nasty, smelly, damp places that one does not wish to spend any amount of time in if you help it, but Trolls have an eye for shiny things and if you can locate a Troll Hoard, you will find yourself with quite a bit of wealth. My companions and I found just such a cave and inside was a nice bit of treasure. There was gold, to be sure, plenty of it, though most of it was covered in Troll slime and oozing sludge, but there was also, hidden in the corner, a collection of beautiful swords of Elven make.”

“Like Sting!” Bella Rose interjected, pointing to the mantle, upon which Bilbo had mounted the Elven Dagger that had served him so well.

There had been quite a lot of raised eyebrows and muttered comments regarding the sword being out in the open, but Bilbo had ignored them. At least he was no longer sleeping with it in his bedroom, propped up against his side table – as he had those first few months after returning to the Shire – anymore. The idea of Bella Rose or Frodo accidentally harming themselves or each other because the sword was within their reach had been the catalyst for his decision to mount it. Mounted, too, was Amdir – Elrond had decided that if Bilbo was going to foolishly follow Gandalf into a dragon’s den, then he was at least going to have access to more than one weapon, and had so the Elf had commissioned the black cherry recurve bow inlaid with hundreds of tiny sunstones while the Company had been in Rivendell – over Bilbo’s desk, while the matching quiver and sunstone-capped arrows were tucked away behind some of Bilbo’s books, where little fingers could not easily reach.

“Yes,” Bilbo agreed, “Like Sting. There was Glamdring, the Foe-hammer, which dark creatures called Beater and feared, upon which was etched many runes and had dozens of gemstones attached to its hilt. Gandalf claimed this sword, and a good thing too, for the Lord Elrond insisted that only in Gandalf’s hand would Glamdring fulfill its purpose in Middle Earth.”

“What purpose?” Grim inquired curiously.

“Well… no one really knows,” Bilbo admitted, “The runes on it are vague, but what is known is that the sword shall glow only once.”

“Not like Sting, right, Uncle?” Meli asked.

“That’s right, Meli. Sting, like Orcrist, glows blue whenever Orcs or Goblins are near. Both were made by the same Elven Lord at the same time, to be companions to one another, and so bear identical markings and have an identical purpose – to fight the foulest of creatures which walk Middle Earth.”

“Does Amdir have a purpose too, Papa?” Bella Rose questioned.

“All Elven weapons do,” Bilbo answered. “For Elves consider nothing more dishonorable than taking up arms without a clearly stated reason and so all Elven weapons are etched in runes which speak of their purpose. Amdir was given to me for the purpose of providing hope even in the darkest of times – Amdir does not glow blue, for it is not fashioned out of Elven steel, but the stones set into it glow brightest in the dark.”

“Did you use Sting and Amdir during your adventures, Uncle?” Bras wanted to know.

“Many times,” Bilbo told the faunt, “Far more often than I would have liked, to be honest.”

“But wasn’t it fun?” Bras asked. “To be a hero like in all the fairytales?”

“Weapons are tools, not toys, Bras,” Bilbo corrected gently. “Swords, spears, axes, bows, these things are meant to protect you. They are not meant to play with.”

“Oh,” Bras pouted, “But-”

Bras cut himself off, his honey gold eyes widening in shock, and in nearly the same breath Bella Rose cried out in alarm, pointing once more toward the mantle, “Papa!”

Bilbo turned and stiffened in mystified horror, his blood turning to ice in his veins and his heart freezing over, because the utterly impossible was happening – Sting was glowing blue.

“Uncle?” Cela whispered in fright, “Why’s that happening? You said…”

Bilbo rose and scooped Merry and Pippin into his arms immediately, blankets and all, “Listen to me, Fauntlets, everything will be fine, I promise, but you need to follow me quickly and quietly, right now. Bella Rose, take Frodo’s hand, and Grim, take Sam’s. We’re going to the wine cellar.”

They followed after him, pressing close, as he led them to the lowest part of Bag End. Bag End’s wine cellar was large and stocked with many bottles of the finest Shire vintages, but this was not what made it remarkable. No, what made it truly special was the addition that Bungo had added to it at the behest of his well-traveled wife – a secret room, hidden behind a shelf of wine bottles and accessed by pressing on the center of one specific flower carved into the shelf’s side.

Bilbo opened the room and ushered the little ones inside. He set Merry and Pippin back down on the blankets, “Stay in here and keep as quiet as you can.”

“Papa, don’t go,” Bella Rose begged, gripping Bilbo’s hand.

“I must, I have to go help the others, sweetling, your aunts and uncles and our neighbors,” Bilbo told her. “I promise you, I am coming back. Keep quiet, now.”

Bilbo rushed out, sealing the hidden room behind him, and sprinted back up to the main floor of Bag End, his heart pounding wildly. Back in the study, Sting was still glowing ominously and Bilbo could hear the screams of his friends and neighbors coming from outside. How, in Yavanna’s name, could this be happening?

Bilbo grabbed Sting from over the mantle, drawing her from her ornate silver sheath, which he threw to the floor in haste. He spared a moment to contemplate grabbing Amdir as well, but decided against it, because, by the sounds of things, what battle Bilbo would be forced into was going to be much too close range for the bow to be truly effective.

That moment of indecision would prove to save his life. For, if he had not paused then, he would have reached the door of Bag End just as it was blown apart without warning by a wicked, bloodstained axe and been impaled and killed by the thick splinters of wood that went flying through the air and embedded themselves deep into the walls of Bag End’s foyer.

As it was, Bilbo was still safely in his study when the door was broken down with such excessive force and was, therefore, able to press himself close to the wall, concealed by a bookshelf, as something large stomped into Bag End. Bilbo would have a much better chance of killing whatever foul creature had invaded his home if he could catch it by surprise.

“Ringbearer!” the creature roared, his voice sharp and grating, “Come out and play. My Master wishes to see you.”

Bilbo’s breath caught in his throat as self loathing stabbed at him, like a hundred knives piercing his chest at once, and thick, noxious guilt threatened to choke him as it crept over his heart and up his gullet. The creatures were here for him. Hobbiton was under attack and his people were being slaughtered – and it was Bilbo’s fault.

Bilbo swallowed, forcing the bile that had been rising up back down, and lifted Sting into the air, swiftly and silently, transmuting his shame into rage, into a weapon that he could wield as easily and with as much efficiency as his sword. Warrior’s Fury, Dwalin had named it during those few lovely, languid days at Beorn’s house as the Company rested and healed, when Bilbo had been trying to explain both to the others and to himself why he had not been afraid to step between Thorin and Azog, why he had not hesitated to kill.

‘Let it aide you,’ the memory of Thorin’s voice echoed in Bilbo’s head, ‘But do not let it control you, Khajmel. That can be just as dangerous as fighting without hope that you can win.’

‘No matter how bleak things seem, there is always hope,’ Dwalin had insisted.

Bilbo waited until the creature’s shadow was almost upon him before springing out, using one of his armchairs to gain enough height that he was able to swing Sting down in a single, sharp motion that severed the creature’s head from its body before it ever realized that it needed to raise its own strangely shaped weapon. The body slumped to the floor, black blood spurting out from the severed neck – and Bilbo barely avoided being sprayed by it – as the head rolled for a few feet before coming to rest by the base of Bilbo’s writing desk, the expression on it forever fixed in shock.

By the Green Lady’s Mercy, the creature Bilbo had felled was as big as Azog had been and a strange white handprint marked half of its face. This was no Orc, at least no kind of Orc that Bilbo had ever seen or heard of before.

A piercing, agonized scream from outside caught Bilbo’s attention and he began to run toward the front of Bag End. A loud, worrying groaning sound coming from directly above him made him pause in the foyer. Something snapped suddenly and then the roof of the entrance hall gave way, sending Bilbo skittering backward. But not quickly enough, as the brass chandelier that Gandalf had always found so irksome came down and struck him in his left temple.

Bilbo lost his grip on Sting, and she clattered to the floor as Bilbo collapsed to his knees and then onto his front. As muffled shrieks continued to filter into Bag End, Bilbo’s world went dark.

************************************************************************

October 25^th, 2941, Third Age – The Kingdom of Erebor

The Dwarves who had seized him from the encampment and had roughly dragged him inside of the Mountain shoved Bilbo to his knees before the throne, before Thorin and Dwalin, with far more force than could have possibly been necessary. He hit the stone flooring hard, hard enough that he would certainly have brilliant purple-black bruises on his hands and arms in a matter of mere minutes.

Bilbo looked up to see the faces of his husbands contorted in sharp loathing and deep scorn – their odium directed solely at him. Their eyes glittered in a way that they should not have, they were almost black instead of the beautiful shades of blue that they should have been, and the gleam was proof that they were still deep under the thrall of the gold that had stolen them from Bilbo.

“Fy Alawon,” Bilbo tried, only to be brutally cut off.

“Silence,” Thorin hissed furiously. “You are not permitted to speak, traitor.”

Bilbo stood defiantly, “I don’t care one whit about having your permission, Thorin Oak-”

The sound of flesh sharply meeting flesh sounded as Thorin slapped his face hard enough to knock him back down, “Speak again and your life is forfeit!”

Bilbo stared at his husband, too shocked to find his voice, his cheek stinging terribly. Maybe he should not have been, after what had happened on the ramparts, but he was. He had dared to believe that Thorin had only behaved so despicably in the heat of the moment, in his enraged astonishment of learning what Bilbo had done with the Arkenstone. Learning that this was not so was… heart shattering.

“You have committed an act of High Treason against the Kingdom of Erebor, against all of Durinsfolk, and against your King,” Thorin growled out. “Were you anyone but my husband, I would have already signed the warrant for your execution. I nearly did anyway – you have the Princes to thank for getting to keep your miserable life, Burglar, for they begged me to spare you from facing the sharp end of an executioner’s axe.”

Fíli and Kíli, those precious, rambunctious, wonderful boys. Their minds and hearts had never once wavered, no matter how much gold they were presented with. And now Bilbo owed them his life.

“Henceforth, you are to be known as an enemy of the Khazâd and are banished evermore from the Kingdom of Erebor,” Thorin decreed mercilessly. “We cannot legally divorce you, but I can and do revoke your right to call me and my Consort your husbands. I revoke your right to wear our beads and braids. I revoke your right to touch Mithril and should you ever in the presence of a Dwarf after this day, know that you will lose your hands. I revoke your right to speak Khuzdûl and should you ever in the presence of a Dwarf after this day, know that you will lose your tongue.”

“You will return the marriage beads and gifts immediately,” Dwalin ordered, as impervious to Bilbo’s obvious heartbreak as Thorin was.

It was with shaking hands that Bilbo unstrapped the Mithril and Everbright Steel knives that he had secured to his belt and stripped off the coat of Mithril that he had been wearing over his shirt and under his jacket. Dwalin snatched the items, which had been his and Thorin’s marriage gifts to Bilbo, away violently, eliciting a flinch from Bilbo.

“The beads,” Dwalin snapped, when Bilbo hesitated.

Bilbo opened his mouth, but stopped himself before he articulated that he could not remove the two dozen Mithril, red, blue, and purple diamond beads even if he had wanted to do so. The complex braids had strange knots at the ends that he simply had no idea how to undo. Unable to speak, he gestured helplessly at the three slim and ornate braids on either side of his face.

“Fine,” Dwalin told him. “I’ll do it myself.”

Before Bilbo realized what was happening, Dwalin had slipped one of the knives of its sheath and was slicing through the hair that framed the right side of Bilbo’s face. A choked gasp escaped Bilbo’s lips as Dwalin did the same to the hair on the left. Six reddish gold braids adorned with shining beads were clenched in Dwalin’s fist when Bilbo dared to look.

Hair was sacred to the children of Mahal and Bilbo could vividly recall how fiercely the Company had opposed Bilbo even trimming his own on the one – and only, because Bilbo was not the kind of person who attempted stupid things more than once – occasion that he had tried in their presence. Several of them had burst into tears when they saw Bilbo holding a knife to his unruly curls. That Dwalin could now so easily shear clumps of Bilbo’s hair off was proof, absolute proof, that the love which Dwalin and Thorin had declared to hold for him had faded away.

“Should you ever dare return to this kingdom, you shall die in that very hour,” Thorin swore viciously. “Is there anything you wish to say before I have you thrown out of my kingdom?”

“Just this,” Bilbo replied, as steadily as he could. “The danger that I warned you of several weeks ago has not passed and… I love you both.”

For a moment, just a moment, the darkness in his husbands’ eyes seemed to lighten. But then it was back, as horrible as ever.

“Get him out of our sight,” Thorin ordered coldly.

Bilbo spun on his heel and marched out before the Dwarven guards could grip his arms again, leaving his heart in tatters in the Throne Room. He walked and kept walking until he found Gandalf, or perhaps Gandalf had found him, and then he let his sorrow drown out everything else.

************************************************************************

April 3^rd, 3, Fourth Age – The Shire

Bilbo woke in considerable pain, every inch of his person aching right through to his heart. His head was pounding, but the cut from the chandelier was a minor thing compared to the deep wounds that his soul had sustained while he slept.

The Orcish creatures had departed, Sting was no longer glowing, but Bilbo had been dealt a severe blow.

They were gone, his Hobbit kin, almost all of them. Nearly every single one of the Kin Ties that Bilbo had possessed just a few hours earlier had been severed. The majority of his relatives – his aunts, uncles, grandmother, cousins, nieces, and nephews – they were devastatingly gone.

All that remained were…

Bilbo’s eyes widened and he forced himself to his feet. He rushed, staggering in pain and residual dizziness, to his cellar and into the secret room. His nieces and nephews and Sam were all whimpering in agony, writhing on the floor, as Bella Rose and Frodo desperately tried to soothe them.

Bilbo fell to his knees and pulled them all close to him infusing his words with the most instinctual of Green Magic, “Gwyrdd Mam, Fi Daliai Rhain Plant Fel Fy Feddais Efo Fy Galon Ac Fy Enaid Hyd-ddyn Yr Diwedd o Amser.”

Seven new Nurture Bonds blossomed to life as he finished speaking, green and purple and gold light dancing around them all in the shapes of vines and flowers, connecting Bilbo irrevocably to the trembling faunts before him. Their pain faded as he flooded them with love and safety by touching each one of their frightened faces in turn.

“There, there, little loves, everything is alright now,” Bilbo pacified them. “I’m here and nothing can harm you.”

“Papa,” Celandine whispered, “What’s happened?”

“There were Orcs… weren’t there, Papa?” Bras asked sleepily.

“Yes,” Bilbo replied, “But they’re all gone now. Let’s go upstairs and get you all tucked into bed.”

“Can we have biscuits first?” Grim tried, perking up a bit.

“Certainly not.”

“Aw,” Grim whined, deflating.

“Will you sing us a lullaby?” Meli requested, “Please, Papa?”

“Lul-by,” Sam repeated, nodding vigorously.

“As you wish, fauntlings.”

Only once Bilbo had settled all the fauntlings into the largest bed in Bag End – which his mother, and Bilbo after her, had always maintained for Gandalf – and only after the others were all asleep did Bella Rose turn to Bilbo and say, “They’re all my brothers and sisters now, but they weren’t during story time, Papa.”

In time, Bilbo knew, Bella Rose would not be able to remember that her new siblings had not always been such. It was how Green Magic worked, to safeguard the minds and hearts and souls of those too young to fully comprehend it. Already, Bilbo had proof that Cela, Meli, Grim, and Bras could not recall their birth parents and he suspected that Sam, Merry, and Pippin could not either.

“Fate has gifted them to us,” Bilbo told her, because he really had no better way to explain what had happened. He could not, would not, tell her the full truth. How did one explain to a child what had happened that night, or the night before, rather, as it was just after midnight, how?

“And we get to keep them?” Bella Rose inquired.

“We do,” Bilbo confirmed. “For now and for always.”

“Good, I’m glad we get to keep them. I love them. Sweet dreams, Papa,” Bella Rose yawned, wiggling further

“Sweet dreams, dear heart,” Bilbo returned.

Bilbo wished that he could go to sleep as well, could pretend that everything was as it had been the day before for just a few hours, but there were things that he had to do first.

The Orcish creature’s body, and blood, and head were no longer fouling Bilbo’s study. In their places were vibrant purple flowers with bright green stalks and leaves – a side effect of Bilbo’s magic. They were rather beautiful and Bilbo almost enjoyed looking at them, would have, in fact, had he not known what they had been before.

Bilbo gathered them all up and carried them outside, through the back door that led into his garden, dumping them into a sack he pulled from his shed, which he then tossed to the far end of the shed to rot. Sting attached to his hip, just in case, Bilbo steeled himself to hunt for any Hobbits who might have survived the massacre. He exited his garden and rounded the bend that would lead him to the caved-in front of his smial… and then had to vomit into the nearby bushes.

There were corpses littered in every direction that he looked. Not one of the Hobbits lying in heaps, their eyes gouged from their sockets or glassy, had died painlessly. Entrails were strewn everywhere and many of the bodies, especially the younger bodies, had large chunks missing from them in the shape of ravenous mouths.

Carefully, painstakingly, he moved through them, checking for any sign of life, no matter how small. He found his cousins, terror etched into their inert faces, not far from his smial – they must have tried to fight their way to Bag End, to their children. It was like losing his parents all over again, seeing his exuberant relations so utterly lifeless.

“I’m so sorry,” Bilbo whispered, closing their eyes for them. “I will take care of your babes, I swear it. I’m sorry, so terribly sorry.”

He located the Gamgees in their smial, gratified that, at least, none of them had been eaten alive. The Orcish creatures must have been in a rush by the time that they had reached the Gamgees, or full.

Bilbo threw up again.

The dawn was not far off by the time that he trudged back to Bag End, having checked every corner of Hobbiton and concluded the worst – he and the fauntlings that were slumbering in his smial were, almost certainly, the only Hobbits who had survived the night. Hobbiton had not been the only part of the Shire attacked, the loss of his kin in Tuckborough and Buckland was proof of that.

By Yavanna, had it really only been yesterday afternoon that Bilbo had stood amongst far too many Hobbits at Asphodel’s garden party? How could there now be none? How had the shield, after standing the test of time for centuries, have failed?

Bilbo climbed to the highest part of Bag End and looked out over the carnage before him. He could leave them all like this and so, as the first rays of sunlight broke over the eastern horizon, Bilbo began to sing.

“Gan Yr Briddellau Chi Dardda’, Gwyrdd Ac Newydd,

Yna Roedd Felly Llawer I Cheisia Ac Felly Llawer I Gweithredu.

Efo Chwerthin Ac Caru, Chi Dwyn Gwawl,

Cymera Gobeithio Byth Mewn Yr Tywyllaf O Nos.

Fyth Rhy Buan Yn Yr Cannwyll Llosgi,

I Yr Briddellau Chi Rhaid Rŵan Dychwelyd.

Ond Ofna Ni, Amdani Yr Gwyrdd Mam Aros Am Chi,

Mewn Caeau Fyth Gwyrdd, Odani Nennau Fyth Glas.

Erioed Anghofiedig, Fyth Chara’ Chi Bydd Fod

Mewn ‘R Byd O Mherffaith Harmonïau.”

As he sang, the Hobbits around him began to transform, white light bathing each and every single one of them. Each became a stunning white and gold lily, which caught Bilbo off-guard, because when other Hobbits sang the Funeral Song, a mass of small white flowers was always the result. An unseasonal wind whipped through Bilbo’s hair and caused the lilies to spiral up into the air and drift westward – in a matter of minutes, there was no trace of any of the other Hobbits whom had called Hobbiton home.

Bilbo took a deep breath and then began to climb back down into his garden. He and his faunts could not remain in the Shire – he had to, somehow, get them to Rivendell, to the safety that could be found in the Valley of Imladris, in his uncle’s house – and Bilbo had work to do.

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October 11^th, 2941, Third Age – Esgaroth

Juzrur gandi uh ana zu, akhùthuzh ul.

I solemnly swear myself to you, for all eternity.

Nê  zirikh izu uh agrîf, gandi zu âzyunguh, ra yânj i furkhuh ni furkhizu akhùthuzh.

If you would have me, I vow you my love, and fold my life into your life eternally.

Zatabalhi Ana Zu.

I belong with you.

Mâ Akhùthuzhur Zurkur Ze.

We will forever be as One.

Bilbo had never believed that he would marry, but here he was with husbands, two of them, in fact. Two proud, strong, wonderful Dwarven husbands who loved him just as desperately as he loved them. Their Melodies fused with his to form the most perfect Galon-harmonïau that had ever existed – and they were his, as he was theirs, for evermore.

Typically, Dwarves carefully heeded to the complex courting rituals of their clan – and the courting rituals, Bilbo knew, because it had taken Balin five and a half hours to explain them, of the Longbeards were convoluted indeed – and then had lavish, elaborate bonding ceremonies with as many witnesses as possible. Thorin and Dwalin almost certainly would have observed every single one of these rituals with supreme care had Bilbo not fallen ill their first night in Lake-town. Apparently, he had terrified them out of their wits when he had collapsed in the entrance hall of the house that the Master of Esgaroth had provided for the Company during their stay.

It had been no more than a bad cold, brought on by his being forced to stay half-submerged in the cold water of the river that flowed out of Mirkwood for hours on end, but it had served to induce Dwalin to suggest an elopement and had been enough to convince Thorin to agree to such. The two Dwarves had reasoned that they could not risk Bilbo being denied entrance into the Halls of Mahal should they neglect to secure his place at their side, especially since they were all about to face a blasted Dragon. Since Bilbo had, in all honestly, not cared one whit about how he was to wed his darling Melodies, he had eagerly conceded to the scheme.

The proof of Bilbo’s marriage hung in his hair – the two dozen small beads of Mithril and diamond, though in colors that Bilbo had not realized diamond could be, red, blue, and purple, all fixed with the Royal Mark of Erebor, that were evenly divided between the six ornate braids that framed his face – and could be found sprawled, naked, on either side of an equally unclothed Bilbo, curled around him protectively.

The beads had been woven into Bilbo’s hair in private after the vows had been spoken before all of the Company. Two dozen of them, to denote that Bilbo was part of a triad, which were rare and revered. Commissioned by Thorin’s father, Thrain, long before the fall of Erebor, because Thorin and Dwalin had always known that one day they would find Bilbo, the beads were to be worn at all times in public – it was considered a grave dishonor to your spouse or spouses to go out without your beads. If it meant that Dwalin and Thorin would braid his hair every day, then Bilbo would be more than happy to always wear them amongst his curls.

All three of their bodies were glistening with sweat from their earlier lovemaking when Thorin placed what had to have been his hundredth kiss on Bilbo’s skin, even as Dwalin rubbed gentle circles into his stomach with his clever, clever fingers, “I am sorry that we can not, yet, provide you with a marriage ceremony that you deserve, Ghivashel.”

“I don’t mind, Thorin, truly,” Bilbo replied, nuzzling at Thorin’s palm when the Dwarf reached to stroke Bilbo’s face.

“Nevertheless,” Thorin declared adamantly, “As soon as our people have once more settled in Erebor, you shall be celebrated in the grandest wedding rite that the Mountain has ever borne witness to. You will be draped in Mithril and adorned with a hundred golden roses.”

Something strange flashed through Thorin’s eyes then, something that left Bilbo feeling oddly disconcerted.

“That might make it a bit difficult to walk, darling,” Bilbo said lightly.

Thorin smiled and Bilbo’s unaccountable anxiety bled away, “That’s what the throne is for, Madtithbirzul, so you do not have to.”

“It’ll have to be redesigned,” Dwalin muttered sleepily, “T’was not made for more than one.”

“It shall be,” Thorin assured him. “I never liked the throne my grandfather used after my grandmother’s passing anyway. A new throne for three people, a triad throne, and new crowns for us, as well.”

“You shan’t wear the Raven Crown?” Dwalin sounded moderately surprised.

“It would not suit me,” Thorin explained with a slight shrug. “It, too, was designed for my grandfather. I rather thought polished obsidian and Mithril, cut in the frame of the Emùlhekh pattern, and set with blue diamonds.”

“Aye, that’ll make be a crown fit fer a king,” Dwalin agreed.

“Do I have to wear a crown?” Bilbo asked plaintively, wrinkling his nose a bit because he was almost certain what the answer was going to be.

Thorin chuckled lightly and kissed his nose, “I’m afraid so, Lukhudel. As a Prince Consort, it would be inappropriate for you to go bare-headed in public once Erebor has been reclaimed.”

“Something not too heavy, then?” Bilbo requested. “I’m afraid my neck is not quite as sturdy as Dwarven ones.”

“Of course,” Thorin replied magnanimously. “I would not dare dream of allowing harm to befall any part of you, least of all your fragile neck.”

“I’m not fragile,” Bilbo huffed.

“No, but you are infinitely precious,” Dwalin breathed against Bilbo’s skin, the heat sending shivers down the entire length of Bilbo’s body. “Our beautiful husband.”

“And one of the two most loved beings in all of Arda,” Thorin said, hugging Bilbo and Dwalin close, and Bilbo marveled at how safe and happy he felt in that moment, as if nothing could ever cause him harm or grief again. “Melhekhaz Ughvashâ.”

************************************************************************

April 4^th, 3, Fourth Age – Bree

Bree, Bilbo discovered when they reached it at dusk, had been just as desolated as the Shire had been.

It seemed like the Orcish creatures had been dreadfully thorough in their mission to rid Arda of Yavanna’s sons and daughters. Hobbits and Men were stacked in great, reeking piles of flesh and bone in every direction that Bilbo looked. He thanked the Green Lady that he had possessed the foresight to close the shutters of the wagon, which the faunts were riding inside of, as they had approached the small town.

Bilbo had left Bag End with his faunts just before dawn that morning, having located a merchant’s wagon in what remained of Hobbiton’s marketplace, after coaxing a quintet of skittish ponies and one stubborn goat into Bag End’s garden, the day before. He had loaded it down with travel supplies, crates of food and drink – Bilbo had cooked up a storm while the faunts slumbered, preparing his special version of Lembas Bread, to which he had added honey and either blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or lemon and poppy seed to increase its potency, cheese and bacon oatcakes, smoked meats, and honeycakes, which all kept well – cases of flower powders, trunks of clothing, bags of medicines, and chests of money. Books that could not be replaced, worn wooden toys that Bilbo had owned as a faunt, and the most precious of heirlooms were packed as well and Bilbo had crammed a goose-down mattress inside of the wagon at the front for the fauntlings to sit or lounge on as they traveled as well as a large stack of brightly colored, mallard-down, patchwork quilts to keep them warm, into which Bilbo had sewn as much gold as he could stuff in without it being noticeable.

Bilbo had basically emptied all of the money niches in Bag End; for he was no freeloader and he would be able to pay for himself and his children, even if they were living in his uncle’s home. He had the gold from the Troll Hoard, as well, and several tapestries and paintings of his own make that he had been meaning to sell, but had not gotten around to doing, which the Rangers that visited Rivendell’s markets would almost certainly purchase, as many of them had been fond of his work for years.

Leaving Bag End for what he knew would be the last time had been much too easy. Perhaps, this was because, in his heart, it had stopped being home five years earlier or, maybe, because he was still in shock from the attack. Either way, he was gladder than he had any right to be, to be back on the road, and after everything he had said about never leaving the Shire again, too.

The short trip out of the Shire and through the outer edges of Breeland had been uneventful – if one discounted Bryony, the goat, refusing to follow behind the wagon for a solid half-hour, before finally trotting along in a sulk, the silly creature. Bilbo had kept Sting by his side as he drove the wagon and had tucked Amdir in the cubby beneath his seat, but he’d had no cause to use either of the weapons, as he had half-expected to. All had been quiet and peaceful, too much so, really, and as the walls of Bree had gradually materialized in the distance and Bilbo had passed not a single soul he knew… knew that his hope that Bree had been spared the rampage which the Shire had suffered was misplaced. Because, there should have been Rangers, and traveling merchants, and river fishermen crossing Bilbo’s path, but there were none to be found.

With a laden heart, Bilbo sang the Funeral Song once more, to give light to the poor souls who had been unjustly cut down, so that they might find the paths to their respective afterlives in Valinor with greater ease. White and gold poppies were mixed with the lilies this time, dancing all together in the wind.

Bilbo clicked his tongue against his teeth and steered Diamond and Emerald in the direction of a nearby stable. As much as Bilbo would have liked to keep going, straight into the Old Forest where no Hobbit could be tracked unless they wished to be, he knew that the ponies needed rest and the faunts, especially Bella Rose and Frodo who did not need as much recuperative sleep as their new siblings, would surely desire a chance to stretch their legs after being cooped up in the wagon nearly all day. So they would take shelter in the small stable for the night – there was less chance of bandits raiding a supposedly empty stable than them doing the same to a well-stocked inn – and would, hopefully, reach the Old Forest by mid-afternoon on the following day.

If luck was on their side, they could be safely ensconced within Rivendell in just over a month.

Bilbo drew the wagon to a halt inside of the stable and then opened the shutters to the sight of nine curious faces peering up at him, “Who’s hungry?”

As the faunts ate – the older five consuming oatcakes and fried potatoes and the last of the milk while the younger four sucked down rose nectar out of bottles, Merry and Pip were still much too young for any kind of solid food and Frodo and Sam needed such only sparingly until they turned four – Bilbo fed and watered the ponies and the goat, tucking them inside a few of the cleanest stalls. Attached to the stable, was a set of rooms that must have belonged to the stable’s master and in the cold box Bilbo found two dozen eggs, a slab of bacon, and, though they were hardly Bilbo Baggins quality, what was still a nice batch of tomatoes. He could cook it all up in the morning and it would serve as a pleasant, hearty breakfast.

After supper had been consumed, Bilbo chased the fauntlings around the sweet bales of hay in a backwards version of tag. His new sons and daughters tired out quickly and so the game did not last very long. Bella Rose dragged from the wagon a large tome of illustrated Elven fairy tales – a book that had been a gift from Bilbo’s favorite uncle on his eleventh birthday – and asked ever so sweetly for Bilbo to read aloud from it, something he was only too happy to do. His relatives had been rather scandalized by the book, as Hobbits were supposed to give presents on their birthdays, or their parents for them if they were not yet tweens, not receive them from any but their mothers and fathers.

One by one, the faunts drifted off to sleep in the nests of blankets that Bilbo had fashioned for them atop the loose hay, soothed by the gentle timbre of Bilbo’s voice. Bilbo returned the book to the wagon once Grim, who had fought through his exhaustion valiantly for longer than Bilbo thought he could, had surrendered to his need for rest. He moved silently through the stable, ensuring that the doors were properly secured and the windows were all bolted and covered.

These tasks finished, Bilbo took a deep, shuddering breath and felt some of his numbness ebb away. As his precious little ones dreamed not a dozen feet away from him, something profound within Bilbo finally cracked. Losing the strength to stand, he sank to his hands and knees and wept bitterly into the hard earth below his fists.

His people were gone; the Hobbit race was no more and Bilbo was to blame. By defying the Dark Lord, Bilbo had brought the worst kind of attention to his kind. He had loaded the crossbow and aimed it – all that the master of the Orcish creatures, whomever he was, had to do was pull the trigger. And pull it with extreme prejudice they had.

“Yavanna,” Bilbo sobbed a prayer, his heart and soul fraught with guilt and anxiety, “Yavanna, please. Please, help me. I’ve ruined everything but I must keep them safe, please, help me, Mother.”

He was not truly expecting anything to come of his entreaty, he hardly deserved the Green Lady’s favor, so when a green, glowing sprout sprang up from the damp earth under his hands it elicited a soundless cry of fright and made him scramble back a few feet. As he watched in awe, the sprout grew and grew, so much faster than any plant had ever grown before, taking the form of a full-grown, blossoming cherry tree in the span of ten minutes. It was a good thing that he had backed up, for strong roots rippled through the earth in all directions by the time the tree had reached its full width and height.

Twenty-eight dark red cherries appeared next, budding fat and heavy on the branches. The fruit fell when they became too heavy for the branches to hold them, hitting the ground and splitting open to reveal what was inside of them. Nine tiny mail coats of green metal leaves, nine bows of the same strange metal embossed with hundreds of runes, nine quivers full of sharp, bright arrows, and a walking stick of cherry wood shot through with green veins, the wooden parts covered in more green runes.

“Thank you, Mother,” Bilbo’s fingers curled around the walking stick, stroking the glossy staff reverently. Protective Green Magic seemed to emanate from it – Yavanna had not abandoned him after all – and, suddenly, Bilbo knew that they would make it to the Valley of Imladris, that they would survive.

There was hope even the darkest of times.

************************************************************************

September 15^th, 2941, Third Age – The Elvenking’s Halls in Mirkwood

“You do not look well,” Thorin stated, looking extremely displeased by this state of affairs.

Dwalin cupped Bilbo’s cheek in worry, “Mahal, Gayadê, when did you last sleep?”

Warmth flooded Bilbo for the first time since the Company had entered the wretched forest that the Elves in Thranduil’s Court were haughty enough to still call the Greenwood. He wondered if the sensation of knowing that these two Dwarves cared about him so deeply would ever cease being so completely wonderful and hoped, in his heart of hearts, that it would not.

“What does that mean?” Bilbo dared to ask. “You both keep calling me things and they sound nice but I don’t understand them.”

Dwalin opened his mouth, froze, and then side-eyed Thorin, as if seeking his permission to explain.

“It is called Khuzdûl,” Thorin announced, as if he had made some great decision. “It is the sacred language of the Khazâd, the ‘Dwarrow’, given to us by our Adadel, the ‘Father of all Fathers’, Mahal. It is not permitted for outsiders to know it.”

Bilbo blinked, “Oh, I’m sorry, I-”

“But you are no outsider,” Thorin continued, stroking a hand through Bilbo’s curls, which Bilbo suspected were in desperate need of a good wash at that point. “You told us that you have claimed the Company as your Kindred in the ways of your people and they named you Nadad, ‘brother’, and Idad, ‘uncle’, in the ways of our people in return. This alone would make you as good as a Dwarf according to Dwarven law. You are also our Umùrad’akar, our ‘One’. For these reasons, you are permitted to learn it, if you wish, Ghivashel.”

“I do,” Bilbo all but whispered.

“Gayadê means ‘my joy’,” Dwalin told him, his inky indigo eyes fiercely passionate as they stared at Bilbo even as his voice was achingly gentle. “Laslel, ‘rose of all roses’, Ukradel, ‘greatest heart of all hearts’.”

“Ghivashel, ‘beloved’, Lukhudel, ‘light of all lights’,” Thorin continued, his words like silk running over Bilbo’s skin, “Khajmel, ‘gift of all gifts’, and Madtithbirzul, ‘little golden heart’.”

Tears slipped from the corners of Bilbo’s eyes, unbidden, “You… I love you both rather desperately.”

Watching them smile was like watching the sun rise on the first day of spring, miraculous and inspiring of the most profound awe.

“We always knew that we’d find you,” Dwalin said joyfully, “But we’d begun to lose hope after so long of waitin’… you are worth every moment of that uncertain time, Bilbo, every single one.”

“Mâzyung Zu,” Thorin spoke tenderly, and Bilbo did not need him to translate to understand.

“Yothur Nidif Furkh,” Dwalin added.

Bilbo smiled at them brightly for a moment, before his smile faded.

“Bilbo?” Thorin questioned, “What’s wrong?”

“I would rather like to go punch Thranduil for locking you up in here,” Bilbo huffed, “I can’t hug you properly with bars between us. If I thought it would help, I would go to him as the Lord Elrond’s nephew and try and demand that he release all of you, but that might only make things worse.”

“Oh?” Dwalin raised an eyebrow, “Don’t yer uncle and the treeshagging, poncy bastard who calls himself a king like each other?”

“Seven hells, no,” Bilbo muttered. “Thranduil’s racism knows few boundaries and, for all that my uncle has embraced his Grace, he was born half-Man. Plus, well, my uncle’s wife chose him over the Elvenking long before Elrond was hailed as a Lord, which Thranduil took great insult from. My uncle would not care one way or another, except, when my aunt was kidnapped by Orcs, Thranduil allowed the creatures to pass through his lands unhindered to punish her for not marrying him, and so both Elrond and the Lady Galadriel despise the Elvenking now. I don’t believe that Thranduil would kill me if I went to him – Elves, on the whole, look at Hobbits and see walking, talking flowers that they need to cherish because we’re Yavanna’s children – but he could use me against my uncle and I don’t want that.”

“Bilbo,” Thorin instructed with startling solemnity, gripping the fingers of Bilbo left hand tightly, “You will not reveal yourself to the Elvenking for any reason, promise me this.”

“I promise,” Bilbo replied earnestly. “I won’t have to. I will find a way to free you, I swear that too.”

“We know ya will,” Dwalin said, faith infused in the words. “Our Hobbit has never let us down, even when we insulted ‘im terribly and gave ‘im every reason to.”

“I’ve found that I’m quite capable of forgiving that,” Bilbo assured them both.

“We deserve it not,” Thorin commented in self-reproach.

“I do believe that I have the right to decide that, not either of you, my darlings,” Bilbo remarked lightly. “Fíli and Kíli have been calling me something that’s not quite Idad, almost since the day that we departed Hobbiton.”

“Idadith,” Dwalin clarified. “It’s to differentiate between the three of us. They call Thorin ‘Idad’ and me ‘Murkhidad’, which means ‘Shield Uncle’. Idadith means ‘Little Uncle’ in Khuzdûl.”

“I’m not little,” Bilbo scrunched his nose in mild consternation, because a part of him actually thought that the term was rather sweet, even if he would never admit to it. “I’m actually quite tall, for a Hobbit.”

“You’re quite adorable when you twitch your nose like that,” Thorin told him, almost teasing, “Just like a bunny.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes, “Leaving the Shire was the best decision of my life, you know.”

“You called us something, at Beorn’s house,” Dwalin said then, “What did it mean?”

“You mean Fy Alawon?” Bilbo returned. “It means ‘My Melodies’ in Greentongue. Hobbits don’t use the term ‘One’ like other races to refer to their soulmates; we use the word ‘Melody’ or ‘Melodies’, because together the pair or triad forms a Heart-harmony. Hobbits have a lesser form of empathy, you see, and it’s not so that we hear a song when near our Melodies, but rather that we feel it moving through our souls like the most perfect music. That’s how I recognized the two of you, the night we met. Honestly, I didn’t think that I was part of a Heart-harmony before you invaded Bag End, as not all Hobbits are.”

“You didn’t know that we were out there?” Dwalin sounded astonished.

“If I’d known, then I would have gone looking for you as soon as I came of age,” Bilbo informed them. “Out of all of the gifts that Yavanna gave Hobbits, our Melodies are the most sacred. It never occurred to me that mine might be Dwarves, because, well, such a thing hasn’t happened since Yavanna grew the Heartbridge in the Beginning.”

“Heartbridge?” Thorin repeated in question.

“In the Beginning,” Bilbo recited with care, “Yavanna planted a seed of light and hope and love and laughter and, most importantly, Green deep in the heart of what is today called the Fangorn Forest. From that seed sprung forth the Mawr Coeden o Gwyrdd Fywyd, the Great Tree of Green Life. Nurtured in its roots were the first Hobbits, seven pairs and four triads, who were the start of the eleven original families: The Tooks, the Brandybucks, the Bagginses, the Proudfoots, the Bolgers, the Underhills, the Hornblowers, the Burrows, the Chubbs, the Whitfoots, and the Rumbles. From the heart of the Great Tree, Yavanna willed a Hobbit with hair like fire and eyes the color of the sea to emerge. She was called Briallan, which in Westron would be ‘Primrose’, and she found her Melody in a son of Mahal, though his name was lost to time,” Bilbo finished, shrugging a bit, “As the Hobbits in that age did not keep written records.”

“Briallan,” Thorin echoed, his eyes wide in shock.

“Durin’s wife,” Dwalin breathed out. “No wonder he could never find ‘er in any of ‘is other lives followin’ the first one. If she was waitin’ for ‘im in the Shire…”

“We knew that Durin’s wife had been taken from the earth,” Thorin explained to Bilbo, who must have looked as bewildered as he felt, “But we assumed, wrongly so, that she was carved from stone, as our people had the ability to do so in that time.”

“Er, right,” Bilbo bit his lip, “Who, exactly, is Durin?”

Thorin blinked, “He was Mahal’s firstborn, the greatest of the Seven Kings. Me, my sister, and my nephews, are the last of his direct descendents. Dwalin, Balin, Dori, Nori, Ori, Glóin, and Óin are also descendents of Durin, though not directly, and thus are considered members of the Royal Family of Durin by birth as well. All those who consider Erebor to be their homeland and me to be their King are known as Durinsfolk.”

“What do you know of the creation of the Dwarrow?” Dwalin asked.

“I know that the Stone King, the Smith of the Ainur, desired children of his own so desperately that he forged the Dwarven race in secret. When Eru Ilúvatar threatened to destroy your people, Eru’s three exalted daughters – Varda Elentári, the Queen of the Stars and wife of Manwë, Yavanna Kementári, the Giver of Fruits, the Green Lady, and the wife of Mahal, and Nienna, the Lady of Mercy – stepped in and begged their Father to spare them.” Bilbo answered, casting his mind back to the one very brief lesson regarding this topic that he had been given as a small faunt, “Eru was so touched by their pleas that he granted each of Mahal’s children a fëa, a soul, from the Secret Fire. Eru instructed Mahal to also form the Stone Fae as recompense for his clemency in the matter. That’s about all I know about it, actually. I know much more about Elves than I do Dwarves, I’m afraid, but, then, I did spend half of my childhood in Rivendell.”

“We’ll rectify that,” Thorin promised resolutely. “Mahal forged his Dwarrow in secrecy, yes, and he did it deep within the Lonely Mountain. That is something that even the great Elven scholars have always gotten wrong, for they believe that the Dwarrow were crafted in Moria.”

“They think that ‘cause we told ‘em that,” Dwalin revealed. “They bought it, ‘cause Moria is the only place where Mithril has ever been found.”

“Mithril?” Bilbo remarked.

“It is a metal as light as a butterfly’s wings and stronger than even diamond,” Thorin explained. “It was a gift from our Adadel when Durin founded Moria, a blessing upon the kingdom. It is as sacred to us as our language. There is more for you to know, but, I’m afraid that we cannot tell you until you have officially been crowned as a Prince Consort of Erebor. There are laws that even I cannot bend.”

“Prince Consort,” Bilbo’s voice went weak as he came to the realization that, yes, he was in fact the fated of an actual, real-life king. He had known this for weeks and weeks, but he had not really let in sink in. But, damn, was it sinking in now. “Oh… I… Hobbits don’t actually have royalty.”

“Gandalf said that yer kind have a Thain, ain’t he kinda like a King?” Dwalin asked.

“I suppose, in the most technical sense possible, yes,” Bilbo tilted his head thoughtfully, “But we don’t bow to him or anything like that. We don’t even really have to listen to him unless the majority agrees with a particular order he makes. Things are a bit different during war times or in times of great danger, like during the Fell Winter, but those times are few and far-between.”

“Hobbits are incredibly odd creatures,” Thorin tweaked one of Bilbo’s curls affectionately.

“At least we don’t get lost while wandering through a town that is all of four square miles,” Bilbo retorted quickly, “Twice.”

Dwalin guffawed in amusement and Thorin made a show of glaring for about five seconds before he was chuckling as well, the sound coursing to the core of Bilbo just as rolling thunder always did, “Your hometown is a ruddy labyrinth, Bilbo.”

“Can you feel our emotions as we have them?” Dwalin inquired a few moments later.

Bilbo shook his head in the negative, “I can send you love and other pleasant things through my touch, but, no, my empathy is nowhere near strong enough for that. I can feel you, your souls I mean, just as I can feel the souls of all of the Company. The bonds between us formed in the instant that we met – Hobbits call such bonds the Bonds of Song. The bonds that I have with the Company are called Kindred Bonds and were formed through conscious choice; though stronger than any of my Kin Ties, they are not as strong as the bonds that I have with the two of you. I can sense that every member of the Company is alive and healthy, I can feel the same from the two of you… and also that you’re in danger.”

“From the Elvenking?” Dwalin guessed.

“No, the two of you have been in danger from the moment that you left Bag End,” Bilbo sighed. “I’m not sure if it’s because of Azog or the dratted Dragon, but you are. That’s why I ran after you, I woke up that morning after you lot had left and felt that. I was still cross with you over what you had said, but in that moment I was more terrified than I ever had been.”

“You came after us to protect us, those who had insulted and degraded you in your home,” Thorin said softly. “Oh, Ghivashel, you are a wonder.”

“If I had full access to my Green Magic, my empathy would be stronger,” Bilbo confessed, blushing. “But my grandfather forbid that.”

“Yer magic is a part of you,” Dwalin sounded endearingly offended on Bilbo’s behalf, “He had no right to forbid such a thing!”

Bilbo patted Dwalin’s enormous hand gently, “It wasn’t just me, darling. He decided, and the majority agreed with him, that it had become too dangerous for any Hobbit to unearth their full magic. This happened before I was born, when both my mother and father were still in their tweens, actually. From what I’ve been told, unearthing your magic was something that very few still did, even at that time, as only direct descendents of first three families, the Tooks, the Brandybucks, and the Bagginses, even could and, in the peace of the Shire, there was not a need to.”

“Why was it too dangerous?” Thorin wondered.

“There were Men who coveted what High Green Magic can do when used to its greatest extent and they kidnapped several Hobbits, murdering them when those Hobbits refused to use their magic for dark purposes. Unless it is done in the defensive of one's self or others, Hobbits cannot kill with their magic, you see, not unless we wish to suffer a fate far worse than death, no matter how brutal. One of those Hobbits was my Uncle Hildifons, my mother’s brother. His death nearly destroyed my grandfather,” Bilbo told them. “In the aftermath, unearthing your magic was declared unlawful, for the safety of all, and every artifact and remnant of High Green Magic was destroyed, as well as nearly all the Unearthing Spells. Only the most instinctual of our magic is permitted, now, like the bonds, and the way we give light and love to the earth that we walk, and the funeral song.”

“Your grandfather was the Thain,” Thorin realized.

“My mother was his favorite daughter,” Bilbo said by way of confirmation. “My Uncle Hildigrim is the Thain now.”

“Nearly all?” Dwalin questioned.

“My mother was opposed to the law and so secreted away one of the Unearthing Spells to Rivendell and gave it to Elrond for safekeeping,” Bilbo relayed. “As far as I know, it’s the only one left.”

Thorin frowned in consideration, “Is the magical protection around the Shire not High Green Magic?”

“Oh, it is, but the spell cannot be undone unless every Baggins in the Shire were to be lost. The shield was rooted in the Baggins bloodline when it was placed, you see, that is why Hobbiton, where the Baggins family is seated, is in the exact center of the Shire,” Bilbo said. “The Baggins line was chosen because those of that line excelled with Defensive High Green Magic, whereas none surpassed the Brandybucks when it came to Offensive High Green Magic.”

“And the Tooks?” Dwalin wished to know.

“Wild Magic,” Bilbo responded, “Which was… I’m not entirely sure how to describe it, actually. It was the closest kind of magic to that which Yavanna used to make us. Tooks used to be able to grow children in their gardens, if they desired to.”

“How… how long do Hobbits live?” Thorin asked quietly after a minute, almost as if he were afraid of the answer.

“Between three hundred and three hundred and fifty years,” Bilbo related, “Sometimes longer if you have Took blood, like I do. I know Dwarves live longer, but you don’t come of age until you’re sixty, yes?”

“That’s correct,” Thorin agreed.

“When are Hobbits considered adults?” Dwalin questioned.

“When we turn thirty-three – we celebrate all birthdays, but every eleventh birthday is especially important, because of the original eleven families,” Bilbo answered sleepily.

“And how old are you?” Thorin’s voice was still tentative.

“Fifty-one, well, almost fifty-one,” Bilbo admitted, before yawning. “How old are the two of you?”

“Thorin’s a hundred and ninety and I’m one eighty-seven,” Dwalin replied. “You need to sleep, Laslel.”

“I can’t, not for another hour. That’s when the shift changes and I can slip into the alcove that I’ve been using without anyone seeing the heavy curtains in front of it moving,” Bilbo blinked rapidly to wake himself back up. “Our life spans will just about match.”

Not perfectly, even if the Valar graced them with full, long lives, then Bilbo would still be called into the next world by Yavanna before either of his Dwarves was called by Mahal. He was okay with that, though, because now that he had them, the idea of living without them for any length of time seemed like the worst kind of torment.

“Tell me about Erebor?” Bilbo requested, in a bid to keep himself awake, “About what the Mountain was like before the Dragon came?”

Thorin’s eyes seemed to light up from within, his irises sparkling sapphires flecked at the edges with silver and so light around the pupils that they were almost ice, “There was no kingdom grander or more beautiful than that which called the Zesulul Abad home.”

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April 5^th, 3, Fourth Age – Breeland

“Papa,” Bras asked a variation of a question that he had posed nine times already that day, “Why can’t I just hold my bow? I promise not to play with it.”

“You may have your bow once we reach Rivendell and once my uncle approves you being trained,” Bilbo replied patiently. “For, though I am skilled enough with Amdir, I would not make a good archery teacher for faunts. You may not touch it until the Lord Elrond shows you the proper way to do so.”

Bras heaved a great sigh and sat back, discontented with his lot in life. Bilbo had shown the faunts Yavanna’s gifts for them, dressing them in the green metal coats but tucking the bows and arrows away.

“Will we get to see your Stone Trolls, Papa?” Melilot questioned, climbing out of the wagon’s window to perch beside Bilbo on the padded driver’s bench.

“Do sit on your bottom, sweetling, not on your knees,” Bilbo instructed gently. “And, no, I’m afraid that we shall not. We’ll be traveling through the Old Forest on the Green Path, which does not cut through the Trollshaws.”

Meli pouted, “But I wanted to see them.”

“Perhaps when you’re older,” Bilbo returned. “But there are a great many beautiful things to see in the Old Forest; maybe we’ll even spot a Faerie or two.”

“Oh, Faeries,” Celandine sighed dreamily. “I would so love to see one of the Green Fae, Papa.”

“Or a Stone Fae,” Grim suggested. “Are there any Stone Fae in the Old Forest?”

“Stone Fae live deep within mountains,” Bilbo told him regretfully, “Not forests.”

“Can we go to a mountain to find one?” Bella Rose wondered.

“Maybe, one day,” Bilbo kept the words vague. He was not permitted inside any of the Dwarven kingdoms that he knew sheltered the Stone Fae. Possibly, his little ones would get the opportunity to seek them out in the future, the far, far future, but he could never. “Look, there, my dear ones. You can see the Old Forest now, isn’t it lovely?”

A flash of ebony moving through the trees to Bilbo’s right caught his eye, but when he looked, there was nothing there.

“Those are big trees,” Meli announced gleefully, snagging the cuff of Bilbo’s sleeve and tugging on it excitedly, recapturing Bilbo’s attention. “I wanna climb one.”

Bilbo chuckled lightly, “They’re Golden and Black Oaks and you may climb them all you wish when we camp for the night, little love.”

“And we get to sleep under a blanket of stars?” Bella inquired, throwing her arms around Bilbo’s neck and resting her chin on his shoulder.

“Yes, little one, we shall get to sleep under a blanket of stars.”

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April 7^th, 3, Fourth Age – Eastern Edge of the Misty Mountains

“You should, perhaps, smile a bit more,” Balin chided gently. “He dearly loved it when you and Thorin smiled and the both of you are rather out of practice, Nadadith.”

“I’ll smile when I see for me own eyes that he is alive, is healthy and hale,” Dwalin countered quietly. “When… if he can forgive us for what we did to ‘im. There is every chance that he’ll have no desire to see us at all, Balin. Gandalf never would’ve lied to us about ‘is death without Bilbo’s knowledge and consent.”

How desperately afraid must Bilbo have been of his husbands to request that his Godfather do such a thing? Dwalin hated to think on the answer.

“Everything will turn out alright, you’ll see,” Balin responded. “You may have to give him some time to come around, but he will forgive you, eventually, if you beg him to do so for long enough. Hobbits don’t have it in them to hold grudges forever as Dwarves do.”

Dís had been instructed to hold regency over Erebor until the following summer, when Thorin and Dwalin would have no choice but to return to the Mountain to serve their people. Dwalin prayed that this would be enough time to prove to Bilbo that he and Thorin would never harm him, in any way, ever again, enough time to convince their beloved to return with them to Erebor. If not… well, Dwalin was not sure that either he or Thorin would survive losing Bilbo for a second time.

Traditionally, Fíli should have been the one to hold regency, along with his newly wedded bride, Sigrid, but he had flat out refused, insisting on traveling with his uncles to insure that they did not muck up their reunion with Bilbo in any way. Kíli and Tauriel had repudiated their claim to the regency as well, which Dwalin privately thought was a very good thing because both were still far too young and rash to rule.

Their elopement was proof of that.

Unable to stand the thought of having to go through everything Fíli and Sigrid had before they were wed, and wanting to secure Tauriel’s position as his wife so that the young Ladies in the kingdom would leave him alone, Kíli had convinced Tauriel to marry him according to High Elven Law. Because of the ancient treaties, the Dwarven people had no choice but to accept the marriage as valid – Thorin had been more irritated with the pair than even Dís had been, though he had admitted to Dwalin that this was because he had wished to see their nephew marry when the day came.

But then the impossible had happened and Thorin’s aggravation had vanished like smoke in the wind. Tauriel’s soul bond to Kíli had settled and with her magic she had detected something that had left the entire kingdom reeling – Bilbo’s Kindred Bond to Kíli still existed and, therefore, he had to still be alive.

Dwalin had feared the absolute worst in the beginning, thought that Gandalf and the rest of the White Council had presumed Bilbo dead because they could not find him after Mount Doom exploded and that Bilbo had been captured by Orcs or the Pirates who had long been Sauron’s allies. Had Bilbo been a prisoner all that time, trapped and afraid and believing that his husbands hated him?

Dís had been the one to suggest sending a Raven to the Shire. Thorin had agreed, even as he made plans to storm into Mordor, and sent the fastest of the birds, Coroní, west. The Raven had returned a few weeks later with news that brought great relief – Bilbo was alive and, though not as round as the rest of his people, seemed healthy enough to Coroní.

Óin had harrumphed at that and declared that he would decide whether or not Bilbo was well or not, thank you very much. With that, the rest of the Company had decided that they too would be traveling to the Shire, whether they had Thorin’s permission to appoint temporary Guild Chiefs for their respective Guilds or not. They had packed and were prepared for the long journey to the Shire within two days – some of the Lords and Ladies of the Silver Council had grumbled about it, but the great joy of the commonfolk when they learned that their missing Prince Consort, the Company’s Burglar and Lucky Number, the one that the Men called Sauronsbane and the Elves called Ernil uin Glaur would be returning to them, as long as Dwalin and Thorin did not muck things up, had forced the Silver Council to accept it.

The Company, the Princesses Sigrid and Tauriel, Glóin’s son, and a host of fifty of the best Dwarven guards – handpicked by Dwalin himself – were a little more than two months away from the Hobbit homeland, a span of time that seemed impossibly long to Dwalin in that moment.

Dwalin rubbed at the bright green fabric wound around his right wrist, “Bilbo can be more stubborn than even most Dwarves, when he puts ‘is mind to it. You remember how he was in Lake-town, refusin’ to stay abed despite bein’ so ill, cause he was certain that the danger to us had increased. Fee and Kee had to all but sit atop of ‘im.”

“Yes, well, I did say ‘eventually’,” Balin reminded.

“I will not blame ‘im if he cannot forgive us,” Dwalin said lowly, his heart twisting in his chest. Unconsciously, he gripped at the silken pouch that hung around his neck, feeling the beads inside of it through the soft material and hearing them clink together softly as Dwalin’s hand shifted them. Thorin wore the pouch’s mate around his own throat and had aquamarine fabric twisted around his wrist. “We treated ‘im despicably, forsook nearly every oath we made ‘im. And for what? The shine of gold that cannot love us back and a cursed stone.”

Dwalin wished that he could have said being under the thrall of the gold had been a torment, that it had been something else controlling his body as he looked on, helplessly trapped in his own mind – as horrible as that would have been, it would have far less shameful and disgusting as the truth of the matter. Dwalin had liked the rush of power that had flooded him while the gold madness lasted, he had enjoyed, in the moment of it, hurting Bilbo, punishing him. It made him want to vomit when he thought about what he had done, what they had done to his little husband, and made him sicker still when he remembered the pleasure that he had derived from his malicious actions.

“His love for you never wavered, not even in those final moments of seeing you,” Balin rejoined. “I doubt that a few years’ time will have destroyed that love.”

But it had been a few years during which Bilbo had marched, all on his own, to bloody Mordor to destroy the One Ring. Who knew what kind of emotional and mental damage the Ring could have wrought upon the Hobbit, or how deeply the poison of Sauron’s land had affected Bilbo’s physical person and spirit?

Thunder rolled fiercely in the distance, seeming to echo Dwalin’s dark, brooding thoughts.

“Do you think we can reach the hidden pass before the storm arrives?” Kíli, riding a few feet away, asked his brother, his sharp archer’s eyes fixed upon the mass of dark clouds on the southern horizon, which were growing ever larger and nearer to the travelers with every passing minute.

“Idad said that we’re less than half a mile away from the gateway,” Fíli assured. “We’ll be safely inside the mountains in plenty of time.”

Dwalin agreed with his nephew’s assessment of the situation, which was a very good thing – Dwarves were not overly fond of even light rains, and, as a whole, they fairly despised storms deep down to their bones. Mahal had not forged his children to enjoy things like weather and they only ventured out into rain, sleet, and snow when they absolutely had to; the sight of lightning made their skin prickle in discomfort and thunder made their bones ache.

Bilbo liked to watch storms, as long as he was safe and dry inside while they were raging, and had been especially fascinated by lightning storms. Several times during the course of the Quest, Dwalin’s Hobbit had stripped to his underwear and allowed himself to get drenched by the lighter rainfalls, enjoying the feeling of water washing over him – and the feeling of being cleaner.

‘Every kind of weather has a purpose,’ he had told them all with a soft smile when pressed. ‘Even if it seems terrifying and devastating, it is a part of the cycle that keeps Yavanna’s green earth flourishing. Hobbits cannot help but appreciate such things – though, admittedly, we like to do such from a safe distance away.’

A sharp caw rang out and Dwalin looked up to see a black streak hurtling toward Thorin. His hands automatically went to Grasper and Keeper, before he recognized that the streak was a Raven of Erebor – Coroní was approaching them. Dwalin frowned at the sight, the Raven was supposed to be keeping an eye on Bilbo in the Shire until the Dwarves got there. That he was here now did not bode well.

“Coroní,” Thorin lifted an arm for the Raven to land on, drawing his ram to a halt. “Why have you come here?”

“The Shire has been attacked, Your Majesty,” Coroní barked out in urgency. “Strange Orcs crossed the boundaries and decimated it. Your Prince Consort survived, through sheer luck, but he was the only grown Hobbit to do so. He is leading a band of children to Rivendell through the Old Forest and will reach the Valley in just over a month, if he keeps his current pace.”

Blood drained from Dwalin’s face as the news sunk in.

“How can that be?” Bofur demanded. “The Green Magic has never once wavered before.”

“It should have been impossible for Orcs to touch the Shire!” Glóin cried.

“They were, each one of them, as large as the Pale Orc was,” Coroní admitted. “And they were marked by a white hand. They left the Shire and headed northeast, probably to avoid detection. They did not seek shelter when the sun rose; the sunlight did not seem to affect them.”

That was… that was not good.

“Was he injured?” Thorin questioned intently, his face just a shade away from ashen.

Coroní hesitated, just a bit, “He was hit in the head during the… I cannot call it a battle, but he seemed to be just fine the next day as he made the preparations to depart from his homeland. The children he travels with are unharmed and emerged from what was left of the Prince Consort’s burrow-house, so I believe that he sustained the injury defending them.”

“Why did you leave His Highness in the Old Forest?” Gimli asked, discontented. “There are many dangers to be found on the paths that weave through it.”

“Not on the Green Path,” Coroní explained, ruffling his feathers, “Which is the path he took. Also, I lost sight of him almost as soon as he entered the Old Forest – the magic of the Green Fae is strong and the Green Fae have ever protected Hobbits on Yavanna’s order.”

“Shall we alter our course for Rivendell, then?” Sigrid asked Thorin.

“Yes,” Thorin decided without more than a second’s deliberation. “We’ll intercept Bilbo there. Move on!”

The group resumed their travel, their pace quicker than before.

‘Hang on, Gayadê,’ Dwalin willed silently, urging his ram to move even faster. ‘Stay safe and stay alive. We’re coming.’

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Translations (Khuzdûl)

• Barufel – The Greatest of Families
• Baruk Bavonaz Dohyaraz Ra Gimlaz – Axe of the Crown, Anvil, and Stars; Alternatively, it is referred to as the King’s Divine Axe
• Adadel – Great Father; Father of All Fathers
• Khazâd – Dwarrow
• Juzrur gandi uh ana zu, akhùthuzhul. – I solemnly swear myself to you, for all eternity
• Nê zirikhizu uh agrîf, gandi zu âzyunguh, ra yânji furkhuh ni furkhizu akhùthuzh. – If you would have me, I vow you my love, and fold my life into your life eternally
• Zatabalhi Ana Zu – I belong with you
• Mâ Akhùthuzhur Zurkur Ze – We will forever be as One
• Emùlhekh – Majesty
• Nadad – Brother
• Idad – Uncle
• Idadith – Little Uncle
• Murkhidad – Shield Uncle
• Umùrad’akar – Soulmate, a Dwarrow(s) One
• Gayadê – My Joy
• Laslel – Rose of all Roses
• Ukradel – Greatest Heart of all Hearts
• Ghivashel – Beloved
• Lukhudel – Light of all Lights
• Khajmel – Gift of all Gifts
• Madtithbirzul – Little Golden Heart
• Mâzyung Zu – We Love You
• Yothur Nidif Furkh – More Than Life
• Zesulul Abad – Lonely Mountain
• Melhekhaz Ughvashâ – The King’s Greatest Treasure

Translations (Sindarin)

• Gwathelion – Sister-Son, (Nephew)
• Ernil uin Glaur – Prince of Golden Light
• Amdir – Hope (The name of the bow that Elrond gives Bilbo)

Translations (Greentongue – Based on Welsh)

• Fy Alawon – My Melodies
• Mawr Coeden o Gwyrdd Fywyd – Great Tree of Green Life
• Gwyrdd Mam, Fi Daliai Rhain Plant Fel Fy Feddais Efo Fy Galon Ac Fy Enaid Hyd-ddyn Yr Diwedd O Amser – Green Mother, I claim these children as my own with my heart and my soul until the end of time.
• Galon-harmonïau – Heart-harmony

Funeral Song Translation

From the earth you sprang, green and new,

There was so much to try and so much to do.

With laughter and love, you brought light,

Held hope even in the darkest of night.

Ever too fast does the candle burn,

To the earth you must now return.

But fear not, for the Green Mother awaits you,

In fields ever green, under skies ever blue.

Never forgotten, ever loved you will be,

In a world of perfect harmony.

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The End