Work Text:
i.
The Old Took was blessed with more children than he had fingers, all but one of whom had survived to adulthood. Old Gerontius (well, not so old now as he would be in later years, but he certainly wasn’t a young Hobbit anymore) and Adamanta Chubb had, to date, eleven lads and lasses between the two of them. Poor Hildigard had been little more than a babe in arms when she passed, but her ten brothers and sisters all lived to be bright, adventurous, less-than-respectable Hobbits. When one spoke of all that the Tooks were, they thought of these ten brothers and sisters.
Of the children of Gerontius and Adamanta’s who had survived to adulthood, their daughters were most remarkable. Indeed, ‘remarkable’ was the word that fell from everyone’s lips when they discussed the Old Took’s three daughters. They were lovely, all of them, and kinder lasses you’d never find, but they were, well, remarked upon often.
(Whispered about. You know the stories, don’t you? You must have heard them; there isn’t a living soul from here to Bree who hasn’t. Old Hobbits deep in their cups will mull over those old stories about the Tooks, how queer they can be. You’ve heard, of course, that a Took of old married a fairy, that all of our Took friends and cousins must have at least a drop of fairy blood in them. In our three remarkable Took daughters there is, perhaps, more than a drop.)
ii.
Belladonna Took was the archetypal Fallohide, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She stood head and shoulders taller than most ladies her age—and she just past thirty-three, and her contemporaries thus unlikely to grow any taller, any more than it was likely for her to shrink. Miss Belladonna Took was not the sort of person who could hide in a crowd, not with any degree of ease. But indeed, she scarcely ever set about to hiding in a crowd, and gave no indication that she cared to try.
She was lovely, even if she was rather too tall. Her hair shone like sunlight painted on silk thread, her eyes alight with a welcoming sparkle for anyone she called her friend. Oh, and clever, too. The young lady had a better head for riddles and sums than any gray-headed elder you would ever meet. Belladonna had been begged more than once by children to have a riddle contest, entreated more than once by adults to have a discreet look at bungled ledgers, and she had always acquiesced gracefully to both.
(Belladonna Took was entirely too adventurous for her own good. Oh, to a certain point, that was a Took trait, something that could be tolerated in the face of wealth and largesse, in the face of a sweet temper and easy hospitality—generosity and good nature were plasters for many faults. The Tooks weren’t entirely proper, you know. Some thought their wealth must have gone to their heads, while other said sagely that it was the fairy blood breeding true. Tooks were adventurous, and thus not entirely proper. Tooks weren’t entirely proper, and thus were adventurous.
But most Tooks at least understood the necessity of being discreet about their adventures. They slipped out of Great Smials for their little jaunts in the middle of the night, or feigned illness in the day leading up to their departure, or left during a time when most Hobbits’ attention would be directed elsewhere. Anything that would make it easier for the family to explain away their absence; even the Tooks, most of them, anyways, understood the need for this pretense. Not so with Miss Belladonna Took—she was thoroughly lacking of even the basic level of discretion required to keep from telling people what she was doing when she set out on her little adventures.
Oh, Tooks. Most of them were alright, in their way. Generosity and good nature really were a plaster for many faults. But some of them, like Miss Belladonna, just couldn’t be content with everything they already had. They just had to have more.)
iii.
Donnamira Took was the sweetest lass you would ever meet. Children could be such messy, noisy creatures, creating their own brand of chaos (Not helped by a certain wizard’s tendency towards encouragement rather than discouragement). Children were a blessing, of course, an opinion shared even by those who would also admit that they had rather too many of them—my cup runneth over, and the beer has stained my clothes. What children everywhere also happened to be was the bane of freshly cleaned floors and the murderer of your great-grandmother’s finest dishes which you keep on display in a cabinet since they’re too fine to actually eat off of. Most children introduced at least a little destruction into their parents’ lives.
Not so with Donnamira. Her siblings and cousins, of which there were enough to serve as militia of the Westfarthing if you only gave them sticks and badges, were inevitably found at play if found outside, and their play… Well, there were a great many of them. Donnamira, on the other hand, was far more likely to be found helping someone hang up their laundry to dry in the sun, or carrying a basket full of tomatoes back inside for an aunt. The one time she wandered off away from home, it wasn’t wandering, not properly—someone’s wagon wheel had snapped on the road, and they needed help getting everything they’d bought at market back home. Even close to adulthood, Donnamira was still that sweet, helpful lass, giving aid without complaint.
(She was daft, poor thing. Oh, not the kindest thing to say in mixed company, and you’d best take care to never say it to one of her kin—they closed ranks around Donnamira the moment they realized it themselves. It wasn’t kind to say, and it wouldn’t have been any kinder if Donnamira had been the child of a laborer, rather than the daughter of the Thain. But if you’ve been in Donnamira’s presence for more than a few minutes, you could scarcely deny it—she was daft, poor thing.
No visitor to Great Smials, nor any Hobbit who had ever hosted Donnamira Took in their home, had ever heard her utter more than five words in any one sitting. The child froze whenever anyone outside of a few select members of her close family addressed her, ducking her head and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She didn’t respond to things as she ought—no one had ever heard her laugh nor seen her cry, her face instead a smooth, blunted mask.
The child trailed after whoever she had attached herself to that day. There’s your answer, if you wonder why she is always so eager to be of help. When you’re always trailing after someone, there’s only so many ways you can keep from being underfoot.)
iv.
Mirabella Took had a wondrous green thumb. Oh, fair, you would have to look more than a little past the surface to find a Hobbit of the Shire, as lush and verdant a place as it was, who didn’t possess at least a little talent for nurturing things that grow. It was a well-accepted truth that Hobbits harbor great love for things that grow.
Hobbits far and wide share a love for things that grow, but another well-accepted truth is that there is a difference between loving things that grow, and having the capacity to nurture them properly. We all have that one cousin who loves their garden, but whose garden most definitely does not love them back. Mirabella could not be further from that. She scarcely had to delve her hands into the soil for the plants in the section of the Took’s gardens set aside for her to burst into riotous bloom. She could work wonders with vegetables, but her true talent was for flowers. When spring came to the Shire, Mirabella’s eglantine bushes bloomed first and brightest, and lingered the longest before wilting. The effect was less strong on gardens she did not personally tend to every day, but whenever she helped one of her kin with their gardens, it was difficult to ignore how their plots were more fruitful and more beautiful for a long time afterwards.
(Mirabella was also entirely too fond of the water.
The folly of this should be self-evident. No sensible Hobbit of Mirabella’s ancestry—Fallohide and Harfoot, but very little Stoor—should be drawn to the water as Mirabella was. But she had learned to swim as a child, much to the despair of her poor mother, and as a tween had pestered Gorbadoc Brandybuck until he finally taught her how to use a rowboat.
Most agreed that Mirabella was likely going to drown on the Brandywine someday. It seemed the only reasonable outcome of her fixation. What no one could agree on was where this fixation had come from. Was it some throwback to a Brandybuck ancestor? Was it the drop of fairy blood breeding true, and the water calling to her?
No one could say where it began. They all knew where it would end.)
v.
Belladonna knew that she was loved. Her parents, Gerontius more sedate than most Tooks (though not as stolid as you might think), Adamanta the most respectable lady you would ever encounter south of Hobbiton, could not always claim to understand her, but they had always loved her, and always ensured that she would know of their love. There were plenty of others among her family who loved her and made sure she knew that, even if they did not understand her.
But Belladonna was ruled by desires that she did not always understand herself, and she saw little reason to ignore them. She was a Took. Everyone expected her to be rather less than respectable.
(The gossipmongers of the Shire, they who were legion, had one thing right. This place was far too small for Miss Belladonna Took. The Shire was lovely, but even loveliness could grow dull and ashen if you saw it too many times, with nothing new to see.)
Belladonna strode out her front door, pack slung over her back, with the confidence of one who knew that she was going to be gossiped about no matter what she did—might as well make the gossip a little interesting. A soft mist had rolled in from the west; a sea mist, Hildifons had called it, with a sort of calf-eyed wistfulness that spoke of an adventure of his own germinating in his mind. The mist was of little confidence to Belladonna, though, so long as it did not obscure the road, nor anything just off of it.
Speaking of…
Belladonna spied two familiar faces waiting down by the bank of one of the brooks that crisscrossed the Green Hills of the Westfarthing. A smile on her face, she strode down the hillside to meet them. “Did you remember everything, you two? Did you go over the list I gave you as I asked?”
“We didn’t forget, Bella,” Donnamira told her. Donnamira had a voice like a rusty door hinge trying to whisper, but her eyes were shining today, and she patted her own pack so confidently that those who did not know her would not have recognized her.
“Do they have to be so heavy?” Mirabella asked, faintly whining, though if her face was flushed, Belladonna rather doubted it was with exertion.
“It will seem less heavy to you as time goes on,” Belladonna replied airily. “Now, ladies, let’s be off!”