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In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. Not a dirty, nasty, wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Or, it would, if poor Zira were not forced to share it with four other hobbits; specifically, the Featherwings.
At the tender age of 42[1], Zira Featherwing was the youngest of five hobbit children. His sister, Uriel, was the second youngest, followed by the middle brother, Sandala, then the second oldest, Gabriel, and finally the oldest, Michael.
His siblings were all hobbits of good moral standing, as is expected of living in a place called “Hobbiton”. The five of them loved each other dearly, though Zira had his moments where he wished they weren’t quite so stuck-up and boring.
Never was this wish so keen than on one fine, spring morning when Zira returned from gathering mushrooms along the border of the Old Forest, a short walk east of their little hamlet. He had hoped that he’d be back before any of the other four noticed he was gone. Judging by the way Gabriel stood in the doorway, all titanic 4’3 of him glowering angrily, it had been a moot point.
“Just where have you been?!” Gabriel demanded. “You missed Second Breakfast! Uriel was worried!”
Zira kicked at a bare patch of dirt outside as he clutched his satchel of mushrooms to his chest, eyes downcast.
“Just thought I’d do a bit of gathering,” he answered. “You can’t really get good mushrooms anywhere outside of the Old Forest, so I thought I’d just… pop right in!”
Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“As true as that may be, you can’t just go wandering off on your own still dressed in your nightclothes. It’s improper! What would the neighbors think?!” he said, fighting the urge to raise his voice at his younger brother. Thankfully, he didn’t, as the last thing any sensible hobbit wanted was to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.
“I didn’t want to dirty my good clothes!” Zira objected, gesturing at his cream-colored nightgown, now thoroughly smeared with mud.
Gabriel rolled his eyes and gripped Zira by the back of his collar to frog-march him through the open door.
“Come on then, sunshine,” the older brother scoffed. “Michael saved you some potatoes.”
After a thorough scolding by Michael, a continuous disapproving stare from Gabriel, a judgemental tut from Sandala, and a lecture on safety from Uriel, Zira elected to retire to his room for the rest of the foreseeable future (which actually wouldn’t be that long, as Elevenses was soon to arrive).
He flipped through his books, pouting heartily and staring out his room’s one circular window into the fields of the Shire beyond.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself. “I shouldn’t be treated like some youngling! 42 is a respectable age!”
The rational, mature part of Zira understood where his siblings were coming from. Had one of them snuck off before dawn without so much as a note, he would have been worried too! In his mind, however, it still didn’t justify them treating him like a misbehaving child, rather than the grown hobbit he was.
Zira closed his book with a sigh, rose to his feet, adjusted his waistcoat, and crossed the room to his window. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to crawl out his bedroom window to avoid a confrontation with his family, who were no doubt just waiting to give him another scolding.
As he had so many times before, he pushed his nightstand beneath the window, climbed on top, popped the latch, lifted the pane, and began fitting his stocky body through the narrow hole. To his great dismay, however, he got stuck halfway out.
He went limp with a whine; so close to freedom, yet so far. “This is what you get for eating too many pastries,” he huffed, twisting and squirming in an attempt to get loose.
He’d just started to successfully inch forward, when he heard footsteps coming down the path towards his smial. [2]
Oh no!
Zira tried desperately to scoot back inside, but found that he could go no further, as his lovely buttons had snagged on the sill. He sent up a prayer to all the Valar (and the Maiar - it’s good to keep all of one’s bases covered) that the hobbit coming around the corner wasn’t one of his siblings.
Unfortunately, as soon as Zira saw who it was he immediately rescinded his prayer and re-doubled his attempts as getting unstuck.
“Zira? Bless my soles! What on Arda are you doing?!”
Zira groaned and hid his face with his hands.
“Good day, Lobelia. How are you this fine morn?” he asked pitifully.
Lobelia’s lip curled up in a sneer and she placed her hands on her hips.
“Better than you, evidently,” she said condescendingly.
Zira gave another wiggle of his own hips in an attempt to free himself, but to no avail. He was well and truly stuck.
“I don’t suppose you would be kind enough to pull me out and not mention this to my family?”
Lobelia eyed him critically before letting her hands drop to her sides.
“You’re a bit too high for me to reach. Give me a moment and I’ll fetch a footstool.”
“Oh! Oh thank you, my good woman!” Ezra said, hands clasped in gratitude.
Lobelia grunted in acknowledgement, then walked off to deliver on her promise. As Ezra dangled there, awaiting her return, he hoped nobody else would see his shameful situation…
Twenty minutes later, after half of Hobbiton had gathered around to gawk at Zira’s predicament, the youngest Featherwing was deeply regretting asking Lobelia for help. In hindsight, he should have known better; the woman was an incorrigible gossip!
All he could do was fight down a mortified blush as the whispers and stares around him increased in frequency.
“How do you think he got stuck?”
“Knowing little Zira it was probably because he forgot how to use the front door…”
“Will he ever learn?”
Right as Zira thought his humiliation couldn’t get any worse, he heard Gabriel’s booming voice above the crowd.
“What’s going on? Why is everybody back here?"
“Oh no…” whimpered Zira.
He squirmed and wriggled with renewed vigor, ignoring the way his waistcoat buttons popped and stitches split.
Almost there…
Then, with a sound like a cork being shot from a bottle, he popped loose, dropping a terrifying four feet to the ground with an ignoble thud. The crowd burst into raucous laughter and Zira shook the stars out of his vision. When he was finally able to see straight, he found himself looking right up at his older brother’s baffled stare.
What truly hurt, however, was the visible disappointment in his eyes.
Gabriel opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head, and walked away with a frustrated, “Zira…”
The hobbit in question climbed slowly to his feet. All around him were jeering faces, displeased frowns, and scandalized gossip. Quite against his will, Zira felt stinging tears spring to his eyes. He scrubbed at his face with the heel of his palm and shoved his way through the gathered crowd. He didn’t know where he was going, or what he was doing; all he knew was that he needed to go.
He ignored Michael calling his name, he ignored Uriel asking him why his clothes were tattered and dirty.
Zira just ran.
Hours later (long after elevenses, luncheon, and afternoon tea had passed) Zira was somewhat contrite about running away from Hobbiton.
Somewhat.
Mostly he was upset that he hadn’t packed any supplies or even so much as a map, so quick was he to flee. He was also rather dismayed when he realized that his favorite coat (one he had kept in tip-top condition for many years) was now tattered so much as to be almost unrecognizable.
Zira stopped walking for a moment to wiggle his fingers through the holes in his clothes. He cast a fitful glance to the sky. The sun was setting on the western horizon and it would soon be night.
He glanced back in the direction he had come from. While he didn’t relish the idea of sleeping outside, he liked the idea of returning home to his judgmental family even less. Zira looked towards the setting sun, attempting to triangulate the direction he’d been walking for the past several hours.
“Alright then, let’s see…” he paused for a moment, trying to remember his cardinal directions in relation to the others. “...I’ve been heading west, towards the Grey Havens… If I go east, that will take me to Bree… oh, but I’d have to go back through Hobbiton to get there… hm…”
To Zira, it was clear that the only way through was forwards. An elvish port-town wouldn’t have been his first choice for starting a new life, but it was better than the alternative. In the back of his mind, he knew he was being childish. Shame, however, can drive even the most intelligent individual to feats of foolhardiness, so one could forgive Zira for being somewhat irrational.
Destination in mind, he then set about trying to find a bit of shelter for the night.
Alas, the plains of the Shire were just that.
Plains.
Zira supposed he could rest under a tree, but then he caught sight of a sizable grass-covered mound with a small, cavern-like entrance that would be more suitable for a proper hobbit. He hurried on over and crouched down near the hole.
It was set low to the ground to where Zira had to bend over to reach it. The entrance was short, but wide enough for at least three of his kin to stand abreast. With what little daylight remained, he could see a few feet inside, but the remainder of the tiny cavern was shrouded in darkness. He deliberated for all of a moment, wondering if, perhaps, this little burrow belonged to a predator.
Zira quickly dismissed the notion, however, as he hadn’t seen any animal tracks around the entrance. No, he was certain that the burrow was abandoned. The hobbit got down on his hands and knees and crawled forward until he was subsumed entirely.
The first thing he noticed upon entrance, was how warm it was inside the cavern. The air within was surprisingly heavy, like he’d stepped out onto the marsh on a scorching summer day.
The second thing he’d noticed was a faint, flickering light from somewhere further inside, beyond the darkness. It almost looked like a miniscule ember. Zira shuffled closer to it, then found he could stand, as the ceiling remained level, but the floor sloped downwards. Despite the gloom, which made it impossible to see his own hand in front of his face, he moved towards the feeble glow.
“What is-?”
“Come no closer, halfling."
Zira shrieked and landed hard on his rear. The voice from directly ahead made a strangled “ngk!” noise that sounded vaguely concerned. “Are you alright?”
“W-who are you?” Zira demanded, scooting backwards.
“That is no concern of yours. All you need to know is that you’re trespassing, and you need to leave!” the gravelly voice snapped.
The light intensified for a moment, and Zira caught a glimpse of gleaming yellow eyes in the darkness.
“I… I can’t I’m afraid,” the hobbit said quietly, gaze resolutely trained forwards.
The thing in the cave with him made a soft, inquisitive noise.
“You can’t? Why not?” it asked, and Zira could hear something dragging across the stone floor towards him.
Zira let out a long sigh, drawing his legs to his chest.
“I rather made a mess of things back home. I humiliated myself in front of my entire village and I’d really rather not return.”
“Why? What happened?” the voice asked. “You killed someone, didn’t you?”
Zira gasped, scandalized.
“No! I… I got stuck in a window.”
“You wot?!”
“I got stuck in a window!” wailed Zira. “I tried to crawl out, got stuck, asked the wrong person for help, and then half of Hobbiton showed up to mock me for it!”
The voice produced a strange noise that sounded like a wheezy hiss, then it cleared its throat.
“Ah, er, sorry to hear it. But are you really running away from home because you got teased?”
“I don’t know where you’re from, my dear, but to a hobbit, reputation is everything!” Zira scoffed. “Once you start getting a bad reputation, you may as well just gather your things and set out for the nearest elvish settlement! Which, coincidentally, is where I’m heading now.”
“That’s still a foolish reason to forsake your kith and kin,” the voice said apprehensively. “You should go back, face your fears, and make a better name for yourself! It’s what I did…”
“What is your name, by the by?” Zira asked the darkness.
“Ancal- er… ey?”
“Ancrawley?”
“No, no, no, An-Crowley. Yeah. That’ssssss it. You can just call me Crowley."
“An-Crowley? That sounds like a mix of Mannish and Elvish,” Zira smirked. “You wouldn’t happen to be half-elf, would you?”
“Ah… erm… not exactly,” Crowley replied nervously. Though his form was hidden, Zira could picture the nervous twist of his mouth.
“Dwarvish, then?” Zira speculated. “I must admit, I know so little about the other races beyond what I’ve read in books.”
“Not that either…”
“A fellow hobbit?”
A frustrated hiss, like the sound of a white-hot piece of metal being dunked in water, filled the cave and the temperature somehow increased. Zira watched, in growing horror, as the glow from further in brightened, revealing a Man’s face framed by long, red hair. A pair of yellow eyes, bisected down the middle with a slit pupil, reflected the flames flickering from between the Man’s clenched teeth.
Zira scrambled backwards. “Y-y-you… what-?!”
Crowley pursed his lips as if he were blowing a kiss, and a blue-white flame sprang to life in the air in front of his face. The ball of fire twisted for a second, before hovering where it was conjured, filling the cave with light.
Zira was unable to suppress a moan of despair.
His cave-mate was Man-shaped from the waist up. Everything below his belly button, however, morphed into a long, black, scale-covered tail with a blood-red underbelly. His hands were tipped with rending claws and a pair of onyx-colored leathery wings jutted from his back to take up nearly the entire width of the cave in their span. “D-d-d-d-dragon…” Zira whimpered.
He had no time to react, as Crowley’s tail lashed out to seize him around the middle and drag him forward until they were practically nose-to-nose. The dragon’s gaze intensified and he whispered, “You will return to your home and forget you ever saw me.”
Zira began feeling a touch foggy, like he would whenever he ate too much and became rather sluggish. He quickly blinked away the unpleasant sensation and, perhaps against his better judgement, blurted out, “I doubt that very much! One does not simply forget that there’s a fire-drake living right outside their village!”
Crowley reared back in shock. Then he seized Zira’s face in his hands and brought their foreheads together so he could stare directly into the hobbit’s cornflower-blue eyes.
“How were you able to resist my dragon-spell?”[3] he asked, voice mottled with confusion. “You must have an exceptionally strong will, little halfling.”
“I should say so! Any Featherwing worth their coat is as stubborn as the day is long,” Zira sniffed dismissively.
Crowley shook his head dazedly as he pulled away. “What’s a ‘Featherwing’?”
Zira frowned at the dragon (half dragon?). “I’m a Featherwing, you great beastie! Zira Featherwing, youngest of the Featherwing clan of Hobbits.” He thrust out a hand for a shake.
Crowley stared at it unblinkingly for a moment, then gingerly covered the relatively diminutive hand with his own claw-tipped one. They shook.
“Er, An-Crowley. I’m from the Iron Mountains."
Zira whistled lowly.
“Goodness, you’re quite a ways from home, aren’t you?” he said, and wiggled loose from Crowley’s slackened grasp.
The hobbit cleared his throat and straightened the tatters of his clothes.
“Well then, Crowley, it’s a pleasure to meet you. If you would be so kind as to permit me the use of your cave for the night, I shall be out of your hair first thing tomorrow morning,” he said haughtily.
Crowley narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“You expect me to believe that rubbish? How do I know you won’t simply run to the nearest settlement and bring back a contingent of soldiers to slay me?” He seized Zira by the front of his waistcoat, hefted him up, and pinned him against the cave wall. “No. I don’t trust you. Better that I devour you now…”
Zira, instead of screaming, crying, or otherwise begging for his life, simply looked mildly put-out.
“But you won’t, my dear, will you? I think we both know it,” he retorted with an upticked eyebrow.
Crowley sputtered angrily, then pressed his face closer to flash two rows of interlocking, needle-like teeth.
“Are you certain? What makesss you so sure of that?” he scowled.
Zira’s eyes flickered down to where Crowley’s mouth was curled up in a sneer around a few smoldering embers which produced the hissing.
“Because if you had wanted to kill me, you would have done so the moment I entered your cave,” the hobbit answered.
Crowley’s jaw went slack and he numbly lowered Zira back to the floor.
“You- you little… you really don’t think I’ll harm you, do you?”
Zira beamed up at him, his smile lighting up the cave better than Crowley’s summoned fire ever could.
“Pardon my rudeness, but you don’t really seem like the type to run about murdering innocent hobbits all willy-nilly,” he replied, somewhat smugly.
Crowley crossed his arms petulantly, a small forked tongue darting out.
“Yes, well, if you can trust me not to burn you to cinders, then I suppose I can trust you not to send soldiers after me once you leave,” he mumbled, looking away.
Somehow, against all known laws of reality, Zira’s smile grew brighter.
“Thank you, dear boy,” he said. “I’ll pick a spot for the night and you shan’t hear from me again after tomorrow.”
Crowley grunted in affirmation, then crawled back to his own corner of the cave before curling up and tucking under his wings.
Zira woke some time later, shivering. The flame Crowley had summoned earlier was now gone and the cave was completely cold and dark. The hobbit could hear his scaly acquaintance letting out slow, even, hissing snores from somewhere nearby and he briefly considered scooting a bit closer to leech off some of his body heat. Zira, however, being a hobbit of propriety, quickly discarded the notion and simply curled tighter in on himself, dragging his ruined coat closer around his shoulders.
He gave a shuddering sigh and prepared to attempt to return to slumber, when he felt a leathery wing drape over his body.
“Get some sleep, alqua[4]…” Crowley mumbled sleepily.
Zira lifted a tentative hand to Crowley’s wing, tracing feather-light fingertips across the membrane. The texture was soft, like there was a thin layer of duckling down covering it. Zira allowed himself a tiny smile and burrowed deeper into its pleasant warmth.
Zira wasn’t sure what time it was when he finally awoke, but he certainly felt more well-rested than he thought he’d be. A bit of sunlight filtered in from the cave entrance; not enough to illuminate, but enough for Zira to be able to see by.
He still had Crowley’s wing draped across his body and he was loath to part from the comforting weight of it. He rolled onto his side, back turned to the light, and came face-to-face with Crowley, whose eyes were wide open. Zira opened his mouth to ask how long the other had been awake, when a tongue darted out to tickle his nose, bringing with it a tiny snore.
Evidently Crowley slept with his eyes open.
The sight unnerved Zira far less than it should and he placed a hand on Crowley’s shoulder to lightly stir him to wakefulness.
“Psst, awaken, my dear. I must depart and you’ve got me rather pinned,” the hobbit whispered.
Crowley’s pupils went from slits, to ovals, then slits again as he slowly returned to consciousness.
“Mmm… Alqua? Wha’s goin’ on?” he muttered.
“I said that it’s time to get up,” Zira repeated.
Crowley lifted away his wing and stretched languidly, like a cat. Despite the dim light and cramped conditions, Zira could see that his other wing (the one that hadn’t been used as a makeshift blanket) had a ragged tear through the membrane and was caked with dried blood. The hobbit gasped sharply. “Crowley!” he exclaimed. “You’re injured? How did I not notice that?!”
Crowley drew his injured wing forward to inspect it.
“‘Course I’m injured. ‘S the whole reason I’m this far south,” he stated. “I was in my mountain when a pack of goblins found me. Normally, they would not pose much of a threat, but there were so many that I was unable to fend them off. One of them got a decent hit with his sword in before I could flee. I flew as far as I could before crashing down here a day ago.”
“You poor dear. That must hurt something dreadful,” Zira said somberly, his hand hovering over the wound.
Crowley’s wing recoiled for a moment, then he allowed Zira to take the membrane into his careful hands and inspect it.
“It… it’s not so bad,” Crowley began, clearing his throat nervously. “It’ll heal up on its own in time.”
Zira tutted.
“But look at it, it’s filthy! You could get an infection!” He stood up, the cave ceiling high enough for any hobbit to move comfortably, and dusted his hands on his trousers. “There’s nothing for it; I’ll simply have to return to Hobbiton, and fetch my medicine kit.”
“What?! I thought you didn’t want to go back there!” Crowley exclaimed.
“I don’t!” Zira responded indignantly. Then, his voice and face both softened. “But you’re hurt. You said it yourself, you’re in no shape to fly back home. So, really, I can think of no worthier cause to face my family for than a friend.”
Crowley’s shoulders slumped and he stared at Zira with a look akin to reverence.
“ ‘Friend’...” he breathed.
Zira gave a little “m-hm!” and a bob of his head.
“Indeed!” he said happily. “I most likely won’t be back until this afternoon, so try to rest up as much as you can and I shall return posthaste!”
Zira then dropped to his hands and knees and crawled out of the cave and back into the sunlight. He poked his head back in one final time for a jaunty wave, then disappeared. Crowley caught himself still waving even when the hobbit was out of sight.
By the time Zira returned to Hobbiton, Luncheon was already well underway (a small mercy, as that meant his neighbors were all indoors). He ran down the path towards the smial he shared with his siblings. Zira knew he’d have to face them and shame-facedly explain where he’d been the past day and he wasn’t relishing having to do so.
The sight of Crowley’s rent wing re-surfaced in his mind’s eye, and Zira found himself no longer caring about his family’s judgmental attitudes. He walked up to the blue-painted door of their home and rapped smartly on its surface (three quick ones followed by two small ones - the proper way of knocking in Hobbiton).
Almost immediately, the door was yanked open. Uriel stood under the arch, her dark brown eyes alight with uncharacteristic concern.
“Zira? By the Valar, you’re alright!”
She flung her arms around her younger brother in another uncharacteristic display. Zira patted her back awkwardly.
“O-of course I’m alright, dear sister,” the younger hobbit said nervously.
“Is that Zira? Has he come home?” shouted Gabriel from further in the house.
“He has!”
There came the sound of thunderous footsteps, and then Gabriel was flinging his arms around both Uriel and Zira.
“Thank the Valar, we were worried sick!” Michael scolded as she rounded the corner. Her voice, however, held none of the usual disappointment in it and was instead warm and heavy with relief.
Even Sandala, who usually had very few good things to say about his brother, was fidgeting in place with barely contained happiness. Zira carefully extricated himself from his family’s grasp.
“You… you were worried about… me?” he asked evenly, in a tone that had gone soft with wonder.
“Of course we were, sunshine,” Gabriel retorted shortly, arms crossed.
Zira blinked dumbly. He had been convinced that his return to Hobbiton would be met with frosty disapproval at best. He shook his head to clear away the confusion.
“Well, I must apologize, but I shan’t stay long,” he said, still somewhat reeling. “While I was gone, I met a friend who is in need of healing. He has a- erm… he has a gash on his arm from a goblin attack.”
Uriel and Sandala gasped sharply.
“Goblins?! Near Hobbiton?!” Gabriel practically shrieked.
“Oh goodness no!” Zira reassured him. “My friend’s name is Crowley and he’s a… a Man. A ranger, specifically, from up north. He’d been travelling for some time and was wounded. There are no goblins here, however, I assure you.”
Sandala peered over Zira’s shoulder, as if expecting to see the Man standing behind him in the still-open doorway.
“Where is he, then? Did you leave him out in the wilds?”
Zira gulped, scrambling for a convincing story. Thankfully, he’d always been adept at thinking fast on his feet.
“Yes, unfortunately,” he admitted. “The poor dear was too injured to walk, which is why it is of the utmost importance that I get back to him!”
Gabriel crossed his arms, looking less concerned for the wounded “Man” and more worried about his youngest brother’s safety.
“Are you sure, sunshine? Perhaps it would be safer if you took Michael with-”
“No!” Zira interrupted. He caught the stunned looks on his family’s faces, and quickly schooled himself back to propriety. “No. Thank you, but I fear that more Hobbits would simply slow me down. I’ve just popped in for some food, a fresh change of clothes, and our healing kit.”
Gabriel clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“If you’re certain, we won’t stop you,” he said. “Just come back home safe to us, alright?”
Zira patted Gabriel’s hand and smiled. It was strange to see his normally so strict sibling acting with genuine concern, but it was welcome nonetheless.
An hour later, clean clothes on his back, food in his belly, and a pack of herbs and bandages slung over his shoulder, Zira set out in the direction of Crowley’s cave, promising his family that he would return as soon as he was able. On the western path out of Hobbiton, he paused when he caught sight of his neighbor lounging under a shady tree with a smoking pipe dangling from his lips.
A thought came upon Zira, and he jogged closer.
“Good afternoon, Master Baggins! How are you today?”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Zira: it’s just Bilbo,” the other hobbit answered without opening his eyes.
“Y-yes. Terribly sorry about that,” Zira said, his voice taken off-guard.
Bilbo opened one eye to peek out at him.
“Where are you heading off to this fine day?” he asked, and pushed himself upright.
“Taking some healing herbs to a friend of mine who was wounded outside Hobbiton."
Bilbo made a noise of consideration as he emptied the ashes out of his pipe onto the ground. Zira screwed up his nose distastefully. His dislike of pipeweed was just another thing that set him apart as an “eccentric” like dear old Bilbo.
“You be careful out there, young Zira,” the older Hobbit said, his voice carrying a no-nonsense tone. “Your family was quite panicked when you never showed last night.”
Zira cast his eyes away, to the west.
“Yes. I see that now. My friend, Crowley’s his name, allowed me shelter for the night.”
“Good on him,” Bilbo said with certainty. “Is there anything I can do for you before you head out to meet him?”
Zira’s eyes darted around, as if searching for spies, and he dropped his words to a whisper as he approached his neighbor.
“Tell me… what was Smaug like?”
It was, in hindsight, a tasteless question (one does not simply ask a hobbit about one of their more traumatic experiences - courageous as Bilbo may be). Bilbo ran a hand through his curls, shaking a leaf loose.
“I suppose my first impression of him was ‘big’,” he muttered. Zira thought back to Crowley. The dragon had been larger than him, certainly, but not more than a Man on the taller side would be. Bilbo continued his description. “He was also surprisingly eloquent in his speech, if a bit boastful for my tastes. He loved his pilfered treasure hoard more than anything else. I hear that’s quite common amongst dragon-folk, the love of stealing and keeping what is beautiful.”
Zira pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Anything else you could tell me about dragons?”
“Hm… well, Smaug was, to my surprise, a bit on the small side,” Bilbo answered, tucking his pipe into his belt loop.
“What?!”
“Oh, yes. To hear Lord Elrond of Rivendell tell it, his father, Eärendil, slew a mighty beast named Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of all the winged dragons,” Bilbo replied, pausing to allow the weight of his words to sink in.
“How… how big was Ancalagon?” Zira whimpered.
Bilbo arched a single eyebrow, his gaze trained over the horizon.
“Smaug came out of the Lonely Mountain,” he said, then glanced at Zira. “Ancalagon would have been the mountain.”
The sun had long since gone down by the time Zira returned to Crowley’s cave. Thankfully, he’d come prepared this time with a torch to see by. He poked his head into the small entrance. “Hello? Are you in there, my dear? I’ve brought my healing herbs, as promised!”
“Zira?”
From the light cast by his torch, Zira could see Crowley hunched in the back of the cave, his wings drawn close around him like a blanket. He quickly swiped at his eyes, as if he’d been crying. “You’re here. I thought…”
“Yes, terribly sorry about being so late. I got held up a bit on my way,” Zira said casually, crawling back into the cave as he did so and leaving his torch spiked on the ground outside. “I’ve got all that I need to mend your wing. Unfortunately, given the size of the tear, it will most likely be some time before you fully regain the ability to fly.”
“That’sss… um… that’s alright. Don’t plan on returning to the Iron Mountainsss anytime soon,” Crowley said, running his claws through his hair.
Zira held out a hand to the dragon, who extended his injured wing.
The hobbit tutted affectionately and withdrew a wineskin of clear water and a rag from his pack. “I’m going to clean out your wound now. It may smart a bit, so I would appreciate you not eating me in retaliation.”
Crowley chuckled. “I promise, AlquAAAAAA!!”
The dragon raked his hand against the wall, gouging a thick furrow into the rock with his talons as Zira scrubbed the damp cloth over his wing injury.
“I know, poor dear. I know. Just a bit longer and then I’ll give you something to dull the pain."
Crowley grit his fangs with a pitiful “hnnng”, bits of dried blood flaking off. Once that was done, Zira cast aside the red-streaked rag. “There we are! Nice and tidy!”
He pressed a quick, dainty kiss to the injured wing and began rummaging through his pack for the medicine he had prepared, heedless of the blush spreading across his friend’s body from the unexpected peck. With a triumphant cry, Zira held aloft a spoon, and a small glass vial of a strange green paste. Crowley recoiled at the sight of it.
“What is that foul substance?” he asked, body leaning away from it.
Zira poured a spoonful of the mixture and held it out. “Powdered willow bark and mashed Kingsfoil. Normally, Kingsfoil is little more than pig-food, but my neighbor Bilbo swears by its medicinal capabilities, and he has yet to lead me astray.”
Crowley frowned and sucked his lips behind his fangs to keep the medicine from passing them. Zira huffed and pressed the spoon closer. “Stop acting like a youngling and take it. It will help.”
The dragon made a rumbling noise of protest, but acquiesced, accepting the spoon into his mouth.
He almost immediately regretted doing so, however. The taste of it somehow managed to be indescribably bitter as well as overpoweringly sour. Crowley keened and slammed his fist against the already weakened wall.
As it so happened, that was all it took to send the small cave crumbling down around them.
Zira yelped and dove out of the way of a falling chunk of ceiling.
“Crowley!” he wailed as he was showered in a hail of dirt and pebbles.
“Zira!”
The dragon lunged forward, scooping Zira up in his arms. With a thrust of his powerful tail, Crowley propelled the both of them into the still night air as the cavern collapsed, bringing the knoll atop it down with it with a thunderous crash.
Crowley stared at the ruined entryway, now clogged with boulders, then down at the trembling hobbit clutched to him. “Are you alright, alqua?” he asked.
Zira coughed, wincing at the grit in his mouth.
“I’m quite alright, my dear."
Crowley’s shoulders slumped in visible relief.
“That’s good. Sorry about that,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the plains of the Shire around them.
Zira gasped like he’d been stabbed and seized Crowley’s face in his hands and dragged it down until they were eye-level.
“Oh, Crowley! This is terrible! Y- your hole!” he babbled, gesturing wildly. “We have to get you somewhere safe before the sun comes up! If you get spotted, well… it doesn’t bear thinking about. Put me down; I know of a few abandoned smials outside of Hobbiton that could serve you well.”
“Uh… alright,” Crowley mumbled, allowing Zira to climb out of his arms.
The hobbit wrenched his still-lit torch out of the ground and brandished it to ward away the night’s gloom.
“Let’s see… I do believe it was…” he mumbled, spinning in place to orient himself. “Ah! Yes! Right this way, my dear. Come along!”
Torch in one hand, Zira reached up with the other to thread his diminutive fingers through Crowley’s much larger, claw-tipped ones. The dragon cleared his throat nervously.
“You’ve got short legs,” he pointed out. “You should ride me.”
Zira made a choked, sputtering noise.
“P-pardon?!”
Crowley groaned in mortification, his cheeks heating up with a literal glow.
“Not like that!” he hissed. “I meant that you should climb on my shoulders and direct us where to go. Even without wings, or legs, I can move faster than you.”
“Oh! Yes, that would be an excellent idea!” Zira breathed, and Crowley tried not to be offended at the hint of relief in his voice. The dragon simply grumbled and hooked his hands under Zira’s arms (mindful of his talons) and deposited the smaller being atop his shoulders. Zira made a little “ooh!” of delight and held his torch higher. “I’ve never been quite this high up before. Is this how winged beings such as yourself view the world?”
Crowley chuckled and held onto Zira’s shins, keeping him from tipping backwards.
“No, alqua. You have not truly seen the face of Arda until you’ve seen it as my kind do. Once my wing is mended, I shall take you far above the clouds to experience the world as it was meant to be seen,” he said, setting off in the direction his friend indicated.
Zira hummed happily and leaned down to rest his cheek on the top of Crowley’s head.
“I should like that very much, I think,” he said softly.
“Here we are!” declared Zira some time later.
He swept out his hand in a wide arc of a gesture at the hobbit-hole before them.
The sloping grass roof and walls were overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. The windows had been smashed out, and the door wrenched away, but the interior had clearly been undisturbed for many decades. It was far enough from Hobbiton to ensure that no nosy trespassers would come snooping by, but also close enough to ensure that Zira would be able to visit Crowley every day to check up on his wing. “What do you think?” the hobbit asked, angling his head down so he could look into his friend’s eyes.
Something seemed off about them, however.
Crowley’s pupils had contracted into ultrathin slits to the point where Zira questioned whether he could see at all.
“ ‘S lovely, Zira. I need to… to go inssside now. ‘M feeling a touch odd…”
The hobbit slid off his friends shoulders and down to the ground.
“Oh dear. It seems the Kingsfoil is starting to take effect,” he said nervously, twisting his hands together. “To be quite honest, I’m surprised that it’s taken this long.”
“ ‘M I going to be alright?” Crowley asked, swaying on the spot with a blissed-out expression.
“Yes, you’ll be just fine,” Zira remarked off-handedly. “Let’s get you inside and put you to bed… er… ground, I suppose. Do dragons even sleep in beds?”
Crowley didn’t answer. He simply let his head loll back on his shoulders as he was dragged clumsily through the low doorway and into the empty smial. It took a fair bit of pushing and shoving before Crowley flopped to the ground in an unsightly pile of limbs and tail.
“Oh no…” the dragon moaned with a wobbly smile. “Zira… there’ssss three of you! I don’t know which one to keep…”
Zira straightened up, patting his inebriated friend on the shoulder.
“There’s only one of me, my dear. It’s the medicine that’s making you a touch silly, is all-”
He was cut off when Crowley’s tail yanked him down into the dragon’s waiting arms. Crowley buried his face in Zira’s hair with a rumbling purr.
“Mmm… your hair issss the color of mithril… alwayssssss preferred mithril to gold…” Crowley sighed happily. His eyes were still wide open, but they had taken on a glassy appearance, indicative that he was beginning to fall asleep. “Gonna keep you inssstead o’ gold…”
“Crowley! Unhand me this instant you… you terror! I’m not some pretty bauble to be added to your hoard!” Zira huffed. He squirmed, trying to wriggle out of the dragon’s grasp, but Crowley only tightened his hold, draping his uninjured wing over the hobbit, and curling his tail around them both. Zira felt quite like a doll being clutched by an overly-attached youngling.
“Mithril and… and sapphires,” Crowley mumbled sleepily, and then he was unconscious, releasing little hissing snores.
Zira sighed and went limp. Crowley, impossibly, pulled him closer. The hobbit would have preferred reading a nice book, but he supposed an early bed-time was almost as good. He blew a puff of air out of his lips in a “pfbfbfbt” sound, then hugged the large arm across his chest.
Once again Zira awoke the next morning to a pair of golden eyes watching him. This time, however, Crowley had evidently awakened first. As for why he was simply staring at him, Zira couldn’t say.
“Good morning, my dear,” Zira yawned. “Are you feeling better? How fares your wing?”
Crowley swallowed and sat up, relinquishing his hold on the hobbit. His injured wing flared out as much as it could in the relatively cramped quarters of the empty smial. The gash was still sizable, but was no longer an angry red color and had already begun to knit itself closed. True to Zira’s word, Crowley would fly again.
“It’s… um… it’s good,” he finally answered, tucking both wings against his own back. “Thanks for the help, alqua.”
Zira smiled and climbed to his feet.
“Excellent news, my dear. I’ll be off, then!” he chirped.
Crowley ran his claws through his hair, his eyes downcast.
“I sssuppose this is it, then. It was nice having you as a friend, Zira,” he said quietly.
“Oh don’t act like it’s the return of Sauron,” the hobbit scoffed, slugging Crowley’s shoulder playfully. “I’ll be back tomorrow, sure enough!”
“Y… you will?” Crowley asked, eyes alight with cautious hope. “I thought that-”
“That I would just leave you out here, injured and alone? Certainly not!” Zira declared, mildly affronted. Then he added on, with a faint blush: “It so happens that I’ve come to enjoy our time together as friends.”
Crowley didn’t blink in surprise (the vast majority of his kind were unable to - Smaug being a notable exception), but answered with a fangy grin that could have lit up the darkest of caves.
2 Months Later
“Crowley, my dear, I’ve come bearing gifts!” Zira shouted happily into his friend’s smial.
“For Morgoth’s sake, alqua, I was asleep!” Crowley answered grumpily.
Zira tutted and stepped under the archway, now separated from the outside by a purple bed sheet that the hobbit had pilfered from his older brother’s bed to serve as a makeshift door. (Gabriel still had no idea where it had gone and swiftly replaced it with a softer, lilac-colored one).
“You’ve been asleep since last night, you lazy serpent. You will survive an early morning with me. Besides, as I’ve said, I brought a gift!”
“Is it more of that lovely Dorwinion wine for us to share?” Crowley asked hopefully.
Zira chuckled, sitting down beside him.
“No, my dear, not this time. I’ve brought these!”
Saying so, he produced a bouquet of yellow irises from his pack. They were bundled together with a pink ribbon that smelt faintly of perfume.
“Where… uh…” Crowley began carefully. “Where did you get these? Did you grow them for me?”
“Oh, goodness no!” Zira laughed. “I can’t garden for a whit, much to my family’s dismay. No, these were gifted to me by a neighbor of mine, Brunhilda. I have no use for them, but I felt that you would appreciate them more, seeing as you enjoy reading about plants.” He leaned forward, voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “From what I hear, in the region near the Anduin, these flowers symbolize passion.”
He threw back his head in a bark of laughter and Crowley swallowed, throat bobbing with words unspoken.
“Do you…” he gulped again. “Why is this Brunhilda giving you flowers?”
Zira pursed his lips. “I suspect the poor girl is rather sweet on me. She’s quite lovely to look at, and I’m certain that she would be a wonderful wife, but I’m afraid that I don’t hold her in that regard.”
Crowley gave him a nervous smile. “Would you… um… is there anyone else that you might want to, er… marry?”
Zira gripped the bouquet hard enough to snap a few stems, the paper crinkling under his fingers. His cheeks bloomed crimson, and he began fiddling with the flower petals, refusing to make eye contact with his best friend.
“Well… I mean… there’s…” he began nervously, running his empty hand through his own curls. “There is, but I- he’s- I mean they are… um- it’s… I... oh blast it all!”
Zira threw down the bouquet suddenly and stomped off, leaving a very confused and concerned dragon in his wake.
Crowley scrambled after him.
“Wait! Zira! Hey!” He grabbed the hobbit by the wrist to keep him from leaving the smial, and spun him around so they could face each other. “I… I’m sorry for prying. It was never my intent to discomfort you.”
Zira moaned in despair and covered his face with his free hand.
“It’s… you weren’t prying, my dear.” He lifted his head, smiling weakly. “I simply… there is someone I love, but I fear that confessing the depth of my feelings would drive him away.”
Crowley looked stricken, but he managed to school his expression into one that was supportive.
“You should, um… you should tell him. If he’s got half an inkling of sense, he’d hold you close and never let you go.”
“You really believe so?” Zira asked quietly, looking up into a pair of eyes that had become as beautiful to him as the dawn.
“Indeed,” Crowley answered. “You, alqua, are the greatest, and most wondrous of Eru’s creations. Nothing that has come before, since, or ever will come again, could compare to the beauty in your eyes alone.”
Zira sucked in a shuddering breath and Crowley winced, stiffening like he’d suddenly been stabbed.
“Oh, Crowley!” he gasped. “Come down here right this instant! I simply must kiss you!”
“What? Why? I thought-”
“Just kiss me!”
Crowley yelped and hastened to obey.
Crowley kissed him and it wasn’t slow, or graceful, or any of those other nonsense words one would use to describe a first kiss. First kisses are rarely, if ever, beautiful. No, they are usually things filled with clacking teeth, too much spit, and one partner almost inevitably ends up opening their mouth too wide.
What it was, however, was warm.
Zira reached up to cup Crowley’s face in both hands, like the treasure he was. Due to sizing constraints, they were unable to press chest-to-chest to feel the frantic lub-dub of the other’s heart against their own, but it mattered little. Zira felt his heart was racing fast enough to be heard outside his ribcage.
Crowley, for his part, pressed deeper into the kiss, his mouth too preoccupied to spill out the messy thousands upon thousands of words he had been desperate to say since that first night they met.
“It’s you. It’s only ever been you,” Zira whispered breathlessly, words pressed against Crowley’s mouth as if they could somehow be pressed inside the dragon to become internalized thoughts.
“You… you love me?” Crowley asked excitedly, his hands coming to rest on Zira’s hips. The hobbit was so small compared to him, that his palms were able to encircle his waist almost completely.
“Of course I do!” Zira answered. “It’s not as if I go about requesting kisses all willy-nilly.”
Crowley’s face lit up like the sun (literally, as he had a tendency to glow when blushing).
“I love you too, alqua. So much.”
He hoisted Zira into his arms to press their faces together cheek-to-cheek, then wrapped his wings around the pair of them. The hobbit laughed, loudly and freely. His eyes alighted on his love’s wing and he gasped in delight.
“Dearest! Your wound’s healed!” he pointed out.
Crowley made an inquisitive noise and flexed the joint experimentally. Sure enough, the tear on the membrane of his right wing had stitched itself closed, with nothing but a thin, silvery scar to mark that it had ever been there to begin with. The dragon crowed in triumph.
“Yes! Come, Zira, let me show you Arda the way that only I can!”
“Wait, Crowley, what are you-”
Crowley burst through the cloth door. His tail coiled, then sprung, launching him and Zira straight up into the air with a beat of his powerful wings. The hobbit shrieked and clung to him as Crowley let loose a deep, belly-laugh. His wings propelled them higher and higher until the smial below was indistinguishable from the grassy plains surrounding it. Once they were both above a few of the lower clouds, Crowley extended his wings and levelled them out into a smooth glide.
“You can open your eyes now, alqua. I won’t drop you,” he chuckled good-naturedly, pressing a kiss to the top of mithril curls.
Zira trembled violently, but managed to peel open his eyelids. He glanced to the ground 3,000 meters below and squeaked in terror before hiding his face against Crowley’s chest.
“This was quite a lovely trip, though I would very much like to be returned to the ground now,” he exclaimed, words running together as they spilled out of his mouth.
“Come on, alqua, give it another look,” the dragon gently encouraged. He cupped Zira’s chin and lifted it up, turning his face slightly. “Don’t look at the ground. Look to the horizon.”
Zira whimpered, but obeyed. He followed the direction of Crowley’s gaze to where the sun hung high in the sky.
To the west, where they were facing, he could see the beginnings of the stark-blue waters of the Gulf of Lune, shimmering with sunlight reflecting off its surface. If he craned his neck backwards in the opposite direction, he could make out the jagged line of the Misty Mountains, beyond which lay Mirkwood, and the Rhûn region beyond that. Each were places that Zira had only heard about in stories, never seen with his own eyes. Here, in Crowley’s arms, they seemed closer than ever. Subconsciously, his hand twitched with the desire to reach out and touch the place on the horizon where the land met the sky, like he had done so so many times to the paintings in his books.
Crowley noticed, and shifted his hold so he could lean down and whisper into Zira’s ear, “Come with me.”
It took a minute for the words to sink in, but when they did, Zira looked up at him with eyes full of yearning.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Crowley replied. “I’m asking you, Zira Featherwing, to allow me to show you all the wonders of Arda. We could go anywhere, just the two of us. I could take you to the Bay of Belfalas to swim amongst its warm waters. If you so desired, I would carry you all the way to the furthest, most frozen regions of the north and keep you warm with my love and my fire. Just say ‘yes’, and all of Arda is ours to see.”
Zira’s chest heaved with a bone-deep want. Nothing sounded more tempting, but tears stung his eyes at the realization that he would be unable to simply leave Hobbiton.
He sniffled.
“Crowley, I… please understand that there is nothing on the face of Arda or beyond that I want more than this…”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’...” Crowley said, his face falling.
“I could never leave my family,” Zira sighed, clinging to his love’s chest. “I mean… I could, but… but they’d never allow me to.”
“ ‘Allow’?! Zira, you are your own halfling. You do not need to bow to the whims of your kin. If you truly desire to see the world with me, then do so,” Crowley stressed.
“I’m afraid it is not so simple, my dear…”
Crowley looked like he wanted to protest; like he wanted to rage and shout at the injustice of it all (maybe even potentially abscond with Zira anyways). They both knew, however, that he would not. He simply tilted his wings a little to alter the trajectory of their glide back to his smial. The rest of their flight passed in quasi-awkward silence until they alighted back on the ground. Crowley set Zira down, and the hobbit shuffled nervously.
“I… I suppose this is goodbye, then,” he said quietly.
“ ‘Goodbye’? Where are you going?” Crowley asked with deep confusion and concern.
“Oh, I… I thought that, since your wing was healed and I couldn’t… couldn’t go with you… you’d return to the Iron Mountains to reclaim your home?” Zira answered abashedly.
Crowley gave him a tender smile and reached down to cup his hobbit’s face in black, claw-tipped hands.
“Alqua, I would never go where you cannot follow. I would wait until the Second Song, Arda remade, if I must,” he whispered. He kissed him softly, then pulled away with a cheeky smile. “You’re part of my hoard now, and a dragon never relinquishes its most precious treasure.”
Zira offered up a love-struck, wobbly smile of his own.
“I love you, Crowley…” he said, and kissed his lover’s palm. “...more than potatoes.”
The pair of them quickly dissolved into peals of cackling laughter.
Zira returned to Hobbiton right as the sun was beginning to set. Though his steps were light, his shoulders felt heavy with guilt. Realistically, he had nothing to complain about. His best friend loved him, and was willing to continue living outside of Hobbiton so they could be together, his family had become kinder and more appreciative as of late, and the gossip about his unfortunate “window incident” had almost completely died down.
Why, then, did he feel so dreadful?
Zira sighed inwardly.
He knew why.
Crowley, his love, sat in an empty smial alone half the day, with little in the way of company or entertainment save the books Zira was always willing to bring. It was no wonder why he was asleep nearly every time Zira came to visit. It was also painfully clear that Crowley wasn’t thriving as well he should in such a stagnant, slow-paced environment.
But he stayed, all for the love of one hobbit.
By the time he reached the borders of his town, Zira was nearly choking on his shame. Bilbo, leaning against a fence post and watching the sun go down, seemed to catch it almost immediately.
“Little Zira!” he greeted. “You wear the look of a fellow who’s just made a regretful decision. I should know, I wore it myself once. Care to inform me as to why?”
Zira jolted, having not noticed the older hobbit there until that instant.
“O-oh! Good evening, Master Bilbo,” he said with forced joviality. Then his face fell. “Yes, I… I suppose you are correct in your assumption. I fear I’ve rather made a mess of things.”
Bilbo arched an eyebrow and waved with his hand in a “do go on” gesture.
“It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with your Man-friend that you’ve been going to see every day, would it?” he asked knowingly.
Zira turned to look back over his shoulder across the fields of the Shire, back in the direction of Crowley’s smial. “Indeed. He told me he loved me, and wanted to take me with him to explore the whole of Arda.”
Bilbo clapped excitedly, his smile stretching from ear-to-ear. “Congratulations, my boy! That is most wonderful news! When will you be departing? Will there be a party?”
“No… no party. And I shan’t be leaving Hobbiton."
“What? Whyever not?” the other hobbit asked, face falling in open confusion.
“My siblings would never approve of me… running off like that, and I think you know it just as well as I do,” Zira said primly. “Besides, it’s not the done thing for a hobbit.”
Bilbo hummed in agreement, fumbling around in his coat pockets for his pipe.
“Aye, can’t disagree with you on that account.”
“Then you see why this is so upsetting for me,” Zira mumbled.
Bilbo gave a derisive snort as he finally located what he was looking for. He placed the stem of his pipe between his teeth and shrugged, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Perhaps. But, then again…” he looked at Zira with eyes that had seen more than any self-respecting hobbit had a right to. “...when have you or I ever done the ‘proper’ thing?”
Zira froze, his entire body going rigid.
Could he…?
Could he simply turn right back around, run into Crowley’s arms, accept his offer and depart that very night?
It was inappropriate; indecorous even…
It was...
It was everything Zira wanted.
Bilbo gave him a discerning smirk and gestured at the expanse of the Shire.
“If a certain young hobbit were to go back and inform his Man that he’d changed his mind about leaving, well…” he slipped his hands back into his pockets, rocking back and forth on furry feet. “...perhaps a certain old hobbit would make certain that the younger one’s family understood. Provided, of course, he wrote often.”
Zira sucked in a trembling breath, his smile as watery as his eyes. Thank you, he mouthed. Then, he turned sharply on his heels and sprinted back in the direction he had come from, whooping, “I’m going to elope with a dragon!” the entire way.
Bilbo chortled and gave a departing wave with a shout of, “That’s the way, young Zira!” Then, the rest of Zira’s words sunk in.
“Wait. What was that about a dragon?”
Zira burst through the cloth door of Crowley’s smial, completely out of breath from his run. The dragon propped himself up on his elbows from where he’d been sleeping on his back. His eyes were bright with worry.
“Zira? What’s wrong? Has something hap-” He got no further as Zira practically flung himself into Crowley’s lap, seized his face in his hands, and crashed their mouths together with a desperate whine.
Crowley froze for all of half a second, before returning the kiss enthusiastically and noisily. His hands clawed hungrily at the back of Zira’s coat (who didn’t really mind, in all honesty). If anything, it served to spur the hobbit on.
Zira parted his lips to allow Crowley’s tongue entry. Before he allowed himself to become any further distracted, however, he pulled away. Crowley growled at the loss, but fell silent when Zira whispered into his ear a breathless, “Yes.”
“ ‘Yes’ to what?” the dragon asked, looking a little punch-drunk.
“ ‘Yes’ to running away with you, of course,” Zira smirked with a quick peck to his love’s nose. “ ‘Yes’ to seeing the world. Let’s leave right now.”
Crowley swallowed, his eyes wide. “Are… are you certain? What of your family?”
Zira hummed happily and wiggled in place. “It just so happens that I have a friend who was generous enough to intercede on my behalf to them. His only request was that I stay safe, and write frequently to keep them up-to-date on our adventures.”
Crowley’s eyes scanned Zira’s face, searching for any hint of disingenuity or regret. Finding none, he sat up completely and crushed the smaller being to his chest, hugging him tight enough to almost bruise a rib or four.
“Thank you, alqua,” he whispered fiercely. “Thank you for choosing me.”
Zira smiled and embraced him back with all the strength his shorter arms could muster.
“I’d choose you a thousand times over. I’ll choose you every morning and every evening until the Second Song and beyond. You’re quite stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
Crowley let out a noise that was half laugh, half sob, and scrubbed at the steaming tears which tracked down his face.
“So… what’s our first destination?” he asked.
“Rohan,” Zira answered wistfully. “I would very much like to see those riders they have.”
“Anything, alqua, anything,” Crowley breathed and claimed his mouth in another kiss.
Bilbo wiped at his brow with his handkerchief as he leaned against his front door. Informing the Featherwings that their youngest brother had eloped into the night with a Mannish ranger (but that he was in good hands) hadn’t gone as bad as he’d thought it would, though there had been quite a few scandalized gasps and outraged yelling. In the bedlam, Bilbo had managed to slip out the door and into the warm night.
Presently, he stood in his own garden, eyes trained upwards towards the full moon overhead. This summer had been unseasonably warm compared to the more moderate climate of the Shire. Bilbo moved to enter his home, when he heard a sound like displaced air, and a long shadow fell over him.
He gasped and looked up, expecting to see Smaug reborn and swooping down to lay waste to Hobbiton.
There was nothing there, however, save for a cloudless sky.
Bilbo scratched his head confusedly, and considered calling it an early night.
As he opened his front door, he thought he could hear the sounds of two distinct voices filled with love and laughter carried on the wind. The first one, he didn’t recognize, but the other sounded almost exactly like Zira.
Bilbo smiled, and hoped that, wherever his young friend had gone, he was happy.
And Zira was.
1Roughly 21 in human years.[return to text]
2Though most often recognized as being called "hobbit holes" by other races, amongst hobbit-kind, their partially below-ground homes were called smials.[return to text]
3Dragon-kind possess the ability to command lesser-willed creatures using a hypnotic gaze called "dragon-spell".[return to text]
4"Swan" in Sindarin. (Angels, as we call them, do not exist in Tolkien Canon)[return to text]