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All things were well when the sun rose over Hobbiton on the Day of Bilbo Baggins' 16th Birthday.
The 16th was an important birthday in the life of any hobbit, for it was the day their string of fate revealed itself. Precisely sixteen years after a Hobbit was born, a string in one of three colors appeared on their finger: Blue for the most profound of friendships, green for a horrible nemesis, and bright red for true love.
Naturally, since the Hobbits of Hobbiton lived so very secluded and withdrawn from any non-Hobbit civilization, most of them never had any trouble finding the person their string led to. Their soulmate.
More often than not that person was someone they had already met many times before, which led to a lot of best friends, married couples, and archenemies profusely claiming they had "always known". For better or for worse.
Big, extravagant birthday parties weren't uncommon for neither the Baggins nor the Tooks, so of course an important birthday for a son of both families would be met with a most grandiose feast.
Bag End was buzzing with activity. Since the earliest hours of the day people were rushing in and out, bringing and taking away party supplies, adhering to a very specific schedule.
Meanwhile the birthday boy and moody teen, was being groomed (fussed over) and dressed (forced into ridiculous clothing) by his mother when it happened.
Bilbo, a proper hobbit in appearance and nature, could act as aloof and unaffected as he wanted, though deep inside his heart was beating loudly with an excitement he had never known before.
While Belladonna was combing his hair with that usual firm motherly tug, Bilbo closed his eyes.
A friend, he thought, would be nice. Someone to stick with him through thin and thick, luck and misfortune, now wouldn't that be neat.
He certainly didn't want an arch-nemesis, even though the green string was quite rare for hobbits. But in the unlikely event that he happened to get it, he would simply comfort himself with the fact that he had already mastered his rock throw and wouldn't be easily subdued.
True love though? Bilbo didn't know if he was ready for it at the ripe old age of sixteen, but one thing he knew for sure; If true love was anything like the one his parents exhibited for each other he would most certainly like to experience even a slice of it.
Anxiety pooled in the pit of his stomach when his mother reminded him yet again that he was born just after sunrise and that it would happen any second now.
He opened his eyes to look at his mother and tell her to please stop making him any more nervous, when his gaze caught on his hand, laying on the dressing table.
Neatly tied around the ring finger of his right hand was a bright crimson string.
There was no holding him back when he rushed out of the door, out of Bag End, following the thread.
He held his hand out in front of him with no regard to his surroundings or the yells of his mother mixing with those of the party goers he roughly brushed past on his mad chase.
His father used to tell him it took him a mere ten minutes to figure out exactly where the string was leading him, and another ten to walk there, and while he never boasted by calling it a Record for True Love or anything of the sort, Bilbo was determined to break that record.
While his father had taken a leisurely stroll to meet Belladonna Took on her morning walk, Bilbo was running. Sometimes through the streets, sometimes through a part of the forest, but steadily going west.
Half an hour passed, Bilbo still ran, despite not making it on record time.
An hour passed, Bilbo had stopped running and walked instead.
The sun was setting when Bilbo slumped down next to a tree on the hill overseeing Hobbiton.
He'd walked and walked, nearly all the way to Needlehole, but realised the string still stretched on much further.
It was unheard of that a hobbits fate was supposed to lie beyond the shire. He'd put his family to shame and his future in jeopardy if he even so much as attempted to find whoever this "true love" of his was supposed to be.
He was completely, thoroughly and utterly distraught.
Much like the Hobbits and Men, the Dwarves are gifted with a string of fate, which is revealed to them on the day of their Ones birth. Given to them are slender chains of precious metal, entirely unlike the color-coded fabric strings that another small race possesses.
A dwarfs One was never necessarily a romantic partner, or even someone they would consider a friend. Instead they are someone who understands the others inner workings to a terrifyingly high degree, of course only once the soulbond is made complete.
"You may understand how another is built, but never their core, mizimuh."
A still beardless Thorin was sitting next to his mother at the fresh young age of 10 years old while his brother, the foolish little thing, was napping bent over on her footstool.
"Only their One can see and understand it. And only your One can see your core."
Understandably Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, cared not about what he or other dwarves were made of at that point in time. He continued not to care until a dragon took away his home, until his people were slain in battle next to him, until he became Thorin Oakenshield.
On her 30th birthday his sister told him of a beautiful chain made from gleaming silver that was firmly wrapped around her pinky finger. At first she complained about how it annoyed her, disturbing her work in the forges.
She did not have to seek out her One at all, it turned out.
A young, well kempt but dangerously mischievous looking dwarf arrived one fateful day, son of a merchant looking to sell his wares, and it was over for her.
This particular arrangement brought about the two bundles of joy and source many troubles he called his nephews.
How truly blessed they were to grow up with two chains of gold encircling them at all times.
Thorin envied them.
It took 144 sodden, painful and lonely years until the day Thorin's envy was put on halt...temporarily.
It happened suddenly, truly in the blink of an eye; As one second Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, was glancing at the first rays of sunshine and in the next his gaze fell on the brilliant, shimmering chain on his left hand.
Mithril.
He would not admit it to his nephews, for the reason as to why he was so insistent on taking a walk through the hills instead of hunting with them on that day was an incredibly personal one, but he was eager to leave, to search, to find.
For even he admitted to himself: a One as pure and honorable as to be marked by a chain of the unbreakable mithril ought to be found as soon as possible.
Ought to be, yes, but could they be?
For sure, Thorin thought when he stepped outside.
I do hope so, Thorin thought as he passed through the valleys and hills.
Maybe, Thorin thought when he passed a caravan of merchants and his One, again, was not among them.
It was hopeless. The king in exile simply didn't have time to go on some boisterous quest to find someone who, for all he knew, could be all the way in the Iron Hills.
He had to find his place with his own people, his friends and his family.
And it broke his heart.
Strings and chains, despite the difference in material, have something in common: deterioration.
The less care the link receives, the less a person thinks of their soulmate, the less solid the link becomes.
This is a non-issue for most dwarves and hobbits, of course, but not for one hobbit and one dwarf in particular.
Throughout the years both Bilbo Baggins of Bag End and Thorin, king in exile, had quite some trouble keeping the strings connecting them in a mint condition.
So much trouble in fact that they stopped altogether some 20 years down the road.
It was only when Bilbo was already going on 50 that something even more unexpected happened than his string of fate leading into nothingness: A wizard in a grey robe and a blue hat appeared in front of his lovely picket fence one morning and promptly set him up for the most trouble any hobbit this side of Bree had ever gotten into.
It started with a broad, balding dwarf knocking on his door and simply disposing of Bilbo's dinner plans. Next up was an old, white-bearded dwarf, who greeted the first one with the familiarity of siblings. Another set of siblings, younger this time, appeared, and Bilbo thought he was in the process of losing his mind.
When he opened the door to an avalanche of dwarves, closely followed by Gandalf the wizard he was sure he had long crossed the line of insanity.
Any thought of a soulmate had been completely banished from his mind for the next hour, as it had been for the past 20 years.
Instead his evening was filled with yelling and laughter from his uninvited guests, silence only arising when all 12 dwarves were downing pitchers filled with Bilbo's precious, expensive beer. Naturally the ruckus merely started back up as soon as they were done, but they found themselves interrupted once more, when a sharp and booming knock made quiet fall over the room.
Then Bilbo saw that face in the doorway of his home, his Bag End, and a mere thought started to form in his mind. Maybe. Just maybe this could be it.
It was no lie, Thorin, dwarven king, rightful heir of the throne beneath the mountain, found himself getting lost twice on the way to the hobbit village...on purpose.
His mind was occupied, even though he would have preferred to call it focused, but there was no denying that there were just far too many things on his plate to actually pick one out and focus on it. Lucky for him the whole One-deal, supposedly the most important part in a dwarf's life, had been banned from his mind for the last 50 years.
And still he felt the pull, the gravitation towards the east, like he had felt it 50 years ago.
Only this time he tried to avoid it.
Because there was no way, simply no way on this great green middle-earth, that his One, the One with the core of mithril would be a simple, tiny hobbit. Not a doubt in his mind. This could not be it.
The trolls were reason for doubt of his initial impression of the master burglar, but a little cunning and buying time couldn't sway Thorin.
It was the stone giants, though, that changed something. When he saw the halfling dangling from that cliff, sure to fall into an abyss of cold stone, Thorin's heart simply could not bear the thought of losing him.
Like instinct his body took over and he flung himself off the edge of the cliff, grabbing hold of the hobbit to keep him from falling to his death. To keep him safe.
As soon as the hobbit's small figure was out of his grasp Thorin's mind took back over and he felt only one thing: repulsion.
Repulsion he needed to speak out loud to get rid of.
"He was lost as soon as he left his home."
There. That should do it.
Of course the handsome dwarf king turned out to be a prickly douche. Just Bilbo's luck. Must be his Took side.
While he learned to admit to his own stuck-up behavior after a long, long time of traveling with the dwarven company, there was not a day on this perilous journey that Bilbo didn't feel like Thorin was singling him out, mocking him or putting him down.
At least until he first felt the dwarf's strong arms holding him in a tight embrace on top of a rock higher than the cloud Bilbo's mind resided on for those few blissful seconds.
It couldn't be, probably shouldn't be- but overnight the string tied to his ring finger had extended about roughly the length of a finger...