Chapter Text
PROLOGUE: Fell Winter
Bilbo scratched at his feet as he waited, tucking his knees underneath his chin and sighing loudly, earning him a scolding look from his Ma. He watched as she tucked another strand of sweat-damp hair behind her pointed ear and knelt down, muttering curse words as she tried to pull out a nail. Bilbo’s Pa looked worriedly back at his son, nudging his wife with one elbow, quickly putting a finger to his lips before his fingers strained around the plank of wood that was slowly coming lose. Bilbo heard his stomach rumble loudly, tightening his arms around his skinny legs and looking guiltily up at his parents as they continued to work, his Ma wiping a hand across her face as her husband carefully set the wood on the plush carpet. Bilbo looked down at the small, furry lump curled on his chest underneath his shirt, big golden eyes staring back up at him.
“Little ones?” Bilbo jerked his gaze up to the gaunt owl that came skittering softly towards him, feeling blunt claws on his skin as his own daemon crawled up to poke her head over his collar. “Remember, as soon as the door opens, you have to keep very quiet and very still.”
Bilbo felt Damia shift into a shrew underneath his cupped hands, squeezing her nose through a gap in his fingers to nod at their mother's daemon.
“We will Royce.”
The owl bit affectionately at Bilbo's little finger and pressed his beak to Damia's forehead, pausing to look around the little hobbit hole, eyes appearing uncharacteristically sad. Bilbo looked to the bird daemon and back to his parents, watching as a scrawny cat wove its way around his mother's legs as the two adults gripped at each other's shoulders and hissed half-whispered words. The white breath curling around their heads reminded him of the dragons in some of Ma's stories.
Bilbo shuddered from a sudden draft and stumbled to his feet, Damia crawling up onto his shoulder and pressing up against the curls of his hair. They watched as his Pa helped his Mother into a cloak, bundling her up in multiple layers. The two stopped for a moment, staring at the scene, Bilbo's fingers finding the knot in his own mustard-yellow scarf and slowly undoing it, Damia scuttling into the baggy sleeve of his jumper.
“Ma.” They said in unison, Bilbo ducking his head down as his parents and their respective daemons turned to face them. “You can have this if you want. It'll keep you warm.”
Belladona looked down at her son and the bright eyes peeking over the cuff of his shirt and smiled slightly, wrapping them up in a hug, grabbing at her husband to drag him in as well. “Thank you my little 'Bo, I'm sure it will do its job brilliantly.” Bilbo looked up through his Ma's curls to watch his Papa press a kiss to her forehead, his grip getting too tight around them. “You've got to look after your father and Parva while I'm out.”
“We're perfectly fine managing for a few minutes in your absence.” said the cat daemon, now watching imperiously from Ma's glory box in the way she only did when she didn't want Bilbo or Damia to know that she was sad.
“You bloody Tooks will be the end of me my dear.” Pa muttered instead, curling his palm around the back of Ma's head to flatten the unruly ringlets. He could feel something wet on the bare skin of his neck and hoped it wasn't his mother crying again.
“I better be off now, little hobbits need their food.” Ma sounded like she had a cold and Bilbo frowned up at her, hugging her once more tightly around the waist as she fumbled to take her knife and a sack from her husband. Bilbo was ushered back into the sitting room by Parva, but Damia's sharp eyes still caught a glimpse of the swirling snow, a flash of a yellow scarf and chipped green paint as their mother left. Bilbo curled up in the shared mountain of bedding on the floor and scowled up at the dark shape of his Papa in the arched doorway.
“Will Ma and Royce be okay?” That was Damia, her voice muffled in the many folds of fabric.
Bungo Baggins slumped heavily onto the door frame, rubbing his temples and gritting his teeth against tears, looking up to see two pairs of identical golden eyes. They almost made the fear worthwhile. Almost.
“She'll be fine, the emergency food storage is just around the corner, she'll be back in no time.” Bilbo's frown deepened if anything, his arm emerging from a blanket to gesture his Pa closer, gripping onto his waistcoat and pulling him down under the covers. The elder hobbit went willingly, his daemon following close behind, both of them dragging the children closer. Bilbo could smell tobacco and ice on his Papa's skin and winced, burrowing further down into the bedding to smell Ma's perfume as well.
“What if the Orcs get her?” It was whispered, but in the dark, silent room with only the wind to disturb them, it was heard loud and clear. Pa hugged Bilbo closer for a moment, Damia feeling a rasp of a cat tongue on her back and the two relaxed into the hold, Bilbo burying his face in his Papa's shoulder.
“They wouldn't dare, anyone who gets between your mother and her food better start running now.” Bilbo smiled and Damia giggled, shifting into a cat and curling up closer to Parva, almost swamped by the amount of fur.
The group lay there for a while, Bilbo watching the slow rise and fall of his Pa's chest in the candlelight, hearing the odd rasp of the cough that wouldn't go away. The other hobbit fidgeted after a short time, gently pushing a drowsy Bilbo off of him and moving toward the door, Parva pacing nervously behind him.
As the key turned in the lock and the wind scattered loose papers around the corridor, a wolf howl curled through the air, the hair standing up straight along Damia's back, her claws cutting into Bilbo's side. All the two could see was their Pa's silhouette against the white light of the snow, painfully still in the quiet smial.
“I smell blood.” Pa didn't even look back at his daemon, just reaching for the hat stand, carefully placing the lone cap on the nearby cabinet and tightening his hold on the strong wood. His face wore the same expression that, until now, had only been reserved for dirty dishes and muddy carpets.
“Papa?” His father twitched violently. “Is Ma and Royce going to be okay still?”
“'Are' Ma and Royce going to be safe still.” He said mildly, pulling his pocket watch out of his pocket and flipping it open. “And yes, if I've got anything to do with it.”
“So you're going to help Mama bring back food then?”
“Yes, among other things.” Bungo turned to face his son, slipping the watch back into his waistcoat and pulling his cravat tight up to his throat, Parva licking down any tufts of ruffled fur by his feet. “Now little ones. Stay here and stay quiet and, whatever happens, don't let the Sackville-Baggins' get their grubby mitts on the best silver.”
Bilbo stood up, pulling a duvet up with him like a cape and watching as his Pa swept out of the door with the hat stand seeming like a staff in his hands. A paw stopped the door from fully closing, golden eyes looking up at Bilbo.
“Lets go on an adventure.” Damia's voice was small and gentle, her tail twitching excitedly as Bilbo thought of elves and wizards and his mother's bedtime stories. He didn't even remember curling his fingers around the door handle and pulling it open against the wind, just Damia snuffling against his neck and the collection of silver cutlery he shoved down his shirt. Bilbo's toes were now going slowly purple as he sunk knee deep into the drifts, a butter knife held in his numb fingers and the wind stinging his eyes and face.
He couldn't open his mouth to speak to Damia but the cat just curled tighter around his shoulders to replace the missing scarf, burying her face in Bilbo's collar. Even though they’d left just minutes after their Papa and his daemon, the two were no where in sight, just the swirling snow and his own quickly disappearing footprints.
The sound that he heard next, Bilbo only recognized from when the wargs had almost got into Bag End. His Ma had screamed a scared battle cry that woke both his Pa and Bilbo, the wood almost buckling against the massive wolves' combined weight. Damia went deathly still, her pulse jumping on Bilbo's neck as the two stared at each other for a moment, both wishing for their bed and above all, their Mama and Papa. Bilbo whimpered and pulled Damia down to hug her to his chest, his arms cradling her tawny fur as he stumbled to run to the sound, the silver still clinking against his chest.
“Mama?” Bilbo saw a flash of black against the white and flinched backwards. Adventures weren't supposed to be like this. “Mama!”
The breath was forced painfully out of him as a strong arm wrapped around his waist, fingers leaving bruises on his ribs. Bilbo twisted his head frantically around, kicking his short legs and trying to scream, only to see a familiar waistcoat.
“Pa?”
“Yes you stupid, stupid children. I told you to stay insi-” A loud howl pierced the air, followed by a chorus of replies. “Sweet Yavanna, they're coming closer.”
“What's happening?” Damia whispered, wide-eyed and struggling in Bilbo's arms.
“My sweet Bilbo, lovely Damia please, I'm begging you, stay quiet and still this time. I swear it will be only for a while.” Bungo placed the two children behind a large bank of snow, shaking at his only child's shoulders before pushing their eyes closed with one soft palm. “The orcs are coming my dear ones, you must be silent whatever happens. And please don't look.”
Bilbo felt his Papa's arms gather him up into a hug one last time before the the older hobbit was gone, the soft pad of his running feet swallowed up by another roar from a warg and its rider. Bilbo twisted around to put his palms against the wall of snow, tentatively peering over it to see a large shape towering above a decidedly hobbit-shaped silhouette. His Mama.
Belladona was shouting something indistinguishable at her enemies, wielding a sword that she thought Bilbo hadn't know about and slowly advancing forward, a sack full of food still in her hand. It was so quick Bilbo almost missed it, but as the warg pounced, half of a hat stand was pushed into the side of its muscle bound shoulder, a splattering of bright red on the snow as a scrawny cat leapt for its eyes, quick paws coming away bloody.
Bilbo watched, spellbound, as the warg's jaws snapped down, closing around the skinny chest of Bungo Baggins, his cravat still neatly tied around his pale throat. His mother was screaming louder now, this time audible above the howling wind and wolves. Something twisted in Bilbo's gut, the scene almost dream-like as his daemon changed for the final time.
A golden blur tore through the snow, Damia's body echoing the one still shaking their Pa's corpse in its jaws and fur reflecting the golden dust that hung in the air. Bilbo's heart pounded in his chest as his daemon jumped at the orc, a fierce Tookish pride running through him as the sound of bones snapping cut his Ma's screams short in her disbelief.
The black warg disappeared into the same gold dust as Parva as her Orc died, Belladonna Baggins crawling through the swirling white, gold and red to her fallen husband. More Orcs were swarming the area now, calling out in the absence of their brother's voice and wargs howling as another of their own kind appeared in the Shire. Belladonna collapsed at her Bungo's side, unaware of her child that still sat frozen among a pile of snow only feet away.
The hobbit ignored the cries of the wargs, and the golden one that was yelping and biting at her new, unfamiliar form. Instead she unwound the yellow scarf from around her neck and pressed it against the puncture wounds riddling the body underneath her hands, tears dragging down her face as they froze slightly on cheeks.
“Bungo? Bungo no. You can't have been heroic now, not for me. You're my Baggins, my sensible Baggins. You're not allowed to be a martyr.” She whispered as the blood stained her hands and the yellow wool, wargs starting to circle the couple where they lay crumpled in the snow. Bilbo was just about to stand up, to shout at her or to throw the butter knife in his hands or anything, when a man strode through the dip between two buried smials, wielding a staff that was nothing like the hat stand that lay splintered on the ground.
“GET AWAY!” he roared, a row of archers appearing over the mounds of snow, faces covered but still unmistakably Rangers. Bilbo scrambled back, a paw curling around him, Damia shielding him from view with her massive new body, lip curling back at the newcomer. The man, his grey robes beaded with chunks of ice, didn't spare her a look, charging forward to where Belladonna still sat cradling the cooling corpse.
“Gandalf...” The man, who was the wizard from all his mother's best stories, looked down at the woman, his whole posture radiating rage. The Orcs and their daemons fled under his gaze, sensing the power that surrounded him and the horse by his side, the daemon's voice joining the gruff shouts of the men chasing down the fleeing Orcs.
“Bella. We have to get you inside, they'll be back.” Ma groaned low and pitifully in her throat, Royce echoing the noise as the wizard wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to her feet.
“But Parva. My Bungo. Love...” She was staring between her hands and the prone form already being covered by the snow that still fell.
“We will deal with him later my poor hobbit. For now, we must get you home before you freeze.” The horse was speaking now, her voice calm and sad, herding Royce away like a mother with a chick.
“Home.” Mama said dazedly, gripping tightly to the wizard's sleeve. “Home. Bilbo. Oh Yavanna, my little ones are alone.”
Bilbo sat up at the mention, pushing Damia away slightly to try and stand up, his legs weighed down by snow. He tried to speak but all he could do was wheeze, breath croaky and not at all how it should be. The two adults froze and turned to face him. Well, not him, more the rather thin, golden warg that stood behind him, thick shoulders hunched protectively and still growling low in her throat.
“Step away.” It was directed at Damia, who stumbled backwards at the wizard's snarl, looking to Belladonna for reassurance as her own hobbit stared at her, frightened and confused and numb. “Get away from that child!"
Bilbo stared at the man who stood so his body was angled to protect his Mama and bit back a sob, the staff still being pointed at his daemon.
“No!” Bilbo held up a shaking hand and buried the other one in her fur, using her to help him stand straight. “It's Damia. Mama, she saved you, make the wizard stop it, you're scaring her.”
Gandalf the Grey looked down at one of his truest friends, face ruddy with tears and the cold, still clutching a scarf that was dripping with the slowly freezing blood of her husband, and croaked out a broken laugh.
“A hobbit with a warg daemon.” he relaxed the arm holding the staff and sighed, Shadowfax moving slowly toward the tiny form of the hobbit child, who stood sheltered from the snow by the whimpering creature above him. “I shouldn't be surprised.”
