Archive of Our Own

“Do you like butter? Do you like cheese? Will a Bracegirdle sit on your knees?”

The pack of fauntlings crowded close around Bilbo dissolved into laughter, causing the buttercup aimed at his chin to instead poke up his nose. Bilbo sneezed violently, and batted the flower away.

“That’s not fair, Hugo!” Bilbo twitched his nose and crossed his arms over  his chest, doing his best to imitate what he’d seen his father do anytime he was serious, and Bilbo best listen up. “No one asked you if you would have a Took sitting on your knee!”

Hugo stopped laughing, and scowled back. “It wouldn’t’ve glowed yellow if’in you had! I ain’t gonna marry a Took.”

“If the Green Lady says so, you will.” Bilbo sniffed, resisting the urge to scratch his nose. Everyone knew that you couldn’t pick your soulmate. Hugo arguing otherwise was stupid, and really Bilbo felt like his eyes might cross if he didn’t stick a finger up his nose and scratch at the spot the flower stem had poked him.

Hugo planted two hands on Bilbo’s chest and pushed, causing him to stagger back a couple of steps into his cousins. His itchy nose  was immediately forgotten in the resulting scrum, as were the flowers the faunts had spent the morning collecting. In the end, it was a very disheveled fauntling that finally made his way home just in time for second breakfast, that morning’s errand entirely forgotten in his childish anger at Hugo Boffin.

“Bilbo Baggins! Have you been fighting?”

His mother was less than pleased when he presented himself sheepishly at the kitchen door. He could have snuck through the front hall, but the scolding he’d get for tracking mud on his mother’s carpets was infinitely worse than the one  for showing up at the back door after a little  fight.

“Hugo said the Green Lady was going to give me a Bracegirdle!” He defended himself. 

His mother sighed deeply, as her rough frown gave way to understanding.  “Bilbo, whoever the Green Lady sees fit to pair you with, you will love them as if they were your own heart.” She turned to swipe one of the rough towels that hung in the mud room from the hook, then began quickly brushing off the worst of the mud.

“But, mom!” Bilbo objected,  stray bits of mud getting in his mouth, as she ruffled the towel through his curly hair. “Not Lobelia! ”

His mother just hummed and picked up one of his feet, running the towel over his heel and up through his toes. Biblo spread his arms to balance himself as she worked. “She gave your father a Took, and I’m sure he wasn’t wishing for that in a field of buttercups!”

“The Green Lady gave me everything I wished for, and since that was you, I must have wanted a Took very much.”

His father appeared in Bilbo’s limited vision as he tried to twist and keep his balance while his mother grabbed his other foot. Bungo dropped a kiss on his mother’s bent head, and looked more closely at Bilbo.

“Fighting?” He asked with a frown.

“Hmmm…” His mother replied, finally setting his second foot down and allowing Bilbo to stand upright again. “And I’m sure not a daisy was picked.”

Bilbo’s heart sank at the reminder. He had gone out this morning with the other faunts to pick daisies for the Green Lady’s altar, but the field of buttercups and trying to predict who their soulmates were had thoroughly distracted them all.  Now it was almost noon and he had no offering for his soulmate!

Bilbo bit his bottom lip, fighting a tremble. “I forgot!” He moaned. “And now it’s too late, and it’ll be another year, and everyone will have gotten a daisy but me!”

It was enough to make him cry, where the scrape to his knee from  Tomburn tripping him and the bruise on his side from Alberic’s elbow hadn’t.

“Now, none of that!” His mother soothed. “There’s time yet, and I’m sure the daisies on the hill here are just as good as those by the river.” With a last swipe at the mud caked on his elbow, she snapped the towel and stood aside. “Hop to it! A quick change and quicker wash, and we’ll get your daisies yet!”

The morning’s drama momentarily forgotten, Bilbo sprang through the door and was off. He sped through the kitchen and grabbing the door jam, propelled himself on his way to the washroom. After the quickest wash and change he’d ever accomplished, he was back in the kitchen darting between his canoodling parents, and dashing out the door and up the hill.

“Be right back!” He called  at the top of his voice. He knew just the patch he wanted; a cluster of spring daisies that had popped up in the shadow of the oak on top of Bag End. The tree had lost a branch during a winter’s ice storm, and the resulting break in foliage had created an oblong slice of sun along the back of the hill that was full of wildflowers this year.

He carefully plucked the three best flowers. Examining a fourth flower, he decided to leave it because three of the petals had curled over, giving it a slightly lopsided appearance. Only the best for today.

“Bilbo! Hurry now!” His mom calling up the hill had him bouncing back down at speed, flowers carefully cradled in his hands.

“Got them!” He held the precious handful out for inspection as he skidded to a stop before the Bag End garden altar.

His mother and father leaned close, inspecting them carefully. 

“Good spread of petals,” Bungo spoke approvingly.

His mother leaned in even closer and gave an audible sniff. “Very fragrant.”

Bungo nodded back and Bilbo felt his chest expand with pride. “Very,” his father confirmed, “But a bit rough on the stems.”

Bilbo deflated, looking quickly at the stems. He had been a bit rough, and  had pulled an extra stem that now had no flower attached without realising.

“No worries though,” his mother offered with a smile. “Easily fixed.” She took the displaced stem and pinched off the rough edges. Then she expertly wound the flowerless green stalk around the stems of the other three, closing it off with a square knot and tucking the ends in so they couldn’t be seen.

“There you go.” She smiled at Bilbo, placing the small bouquet in the cradle of Bilbo’s cupped hands, and stepping back to his father’s side.

“Quite.” Bungo agreed with her, winding an arm about her waist. “Now it’s almost noon, are you ready?”

Bilbo nodded enthusiastically. He’d been practicing forever and ever, waiting for today; the first day of Summer of his 11 year. The first year he could petition the Green Lady to help find his soulmate.

He turned to the small statue of the Green Lady standing hands out, palms up, in the center of their garden. Reverently, he laid the tiny bouquet in her hands, and recited his prayer. “Green Lady, please hold my soulmate in your hands, and deliver to them this small gift. Let them know I’m thinking of them, and waiting for the day we meet.”

He gently ran a finger over a delicate petal, and stepped back. His father, and then his mother, both laid a token on the altar as well, although they said a prayer for a good year instead of the soulmate wish. Then they each took one of his hands, and they all went in for lunch. Although it was a beautiful day, his parents forbade him use of the garden for the rest of the day, instead keeping him to his studies, feeding him an early supper, and tucking him into bed.

The next morning, he was up with the sun, dragging his mostly asleep parents behind him into the garden to check the altar. Neither were awake enough to protest, and both smiled at him as the morning sun revealed another bouquet of daisies, this one with five blooms wrapped in a bit of blue ribbon.

Bilbo squealed much too loudly, if his father’s wince was anything to go by, but neither him nor his mother scolded him for possibly waking the neighbors. Bilbo carefully pressed his daisies between fresh sheets of parchment to save forever. He also proudly wore the ribbon all summer, covertly keeping an eye on his playmates, waiting for one to catch his eye. No one ever did, but it was the happiest summer of Bilbo’s memory; the summer when he and his soulmate connected for the first time through the grace of the Green Lady.

--- --- ---

Thorin wasn’t sure when the first flowers appeared. Summer was a busy season, and he was often on the road, and consumed with the daily minutiae of running a kingdom in exile. Thinking back on it, he’s sure he swept off the altar in their back courtyard clearing it of fallen leaves and dried flowers on more than one occasion. He worried that he must have offended Mahal many times in those early years, but dwelling on it only led to a sore head, as his sister said.

What he does know is that the first time he noticed the flowers, really noticed them, he thought that one of his nephews must have left them there. He wasn’t sure where they could have gotten them from considering they were summer fresh, and looked as if they’d just been picked. His nephews both swore up and down that they hadn’t been behind the prank, as well, but what other explanation was there?

He’d forgotten the incident, filing it away as childish exuberance, until it happened again almost exactly a year later. That summer an off season cold had kept him confined to his rooms for nearly a fortnight. When he’d finally started to feel better, his first small rebellion had been to escape to the courtyard just to get out of bed for one damn minute. Dís had strongly argued against it, fear at how long it was taking him to recover, turning her tone sharp, but Thorin had argued just as strongly that he would do as he pleased. His argument had come out more of a hacking cough then a true roar, but she’d sniffed, turned her nose up, and stalked away, leaving him to stumble outside to the bench by Mahal’s statue in his own time.

The bright yellow flowers had had a scent heady enough to fight it’s way into even Thorin’s blocked sinuses. Like the previous year, they looked as fresh as if they’d been cut that morning, but unlike the small white daisies (yes, he’d paused in the retelling to growl at his nephews, he knew what a daisy was even then) these were something strange and exotic and definitely not from the Blue Mountains.

Running a finger gently along the ridge of one petal resulted in a yellow sheen that burnished the tip of his finger gold.

“Thorin?” Dís had approached unnoticed. He quickly clenched his fist, hiding his finger as if he’d done something wrong in touching the flowers. Which was laughable. They were just flowers, not some precious gem.

“Where did those come from?” She asked, stepping forward and reaching out to lift the blossoms.

Thorin found himself snatching them up before she could touch them. Her raised eyebrows showed she was as shocked as Thorin by his strong reaction. “They’re mine,” he rumbled in the deep voice of the truly congested.

Dís blinked. “Yours? Where did they come from?”

Thorin could only shrug. The answer on the tip of his tongue didn’t bear speaking for how ludicrous it must sound. Mahal didn’t gift his dwarrow with flowers.

Dís stared hard at him for a long moment and then seemed to give it up as unimportant in the face of getting him back to bed with a bit of broth. He didn’t fight her too hard because he was truly exhausted by the short stint out of bed, but if he was just contrary enough to distract her from the flowers, then she certainly was none the wiser for it.

As he recovered that summer, a summer spent indoors with papers, rather than on the road with the trade caravans, he visited the courtyard often. No more flowers appeared, making the first event both more and less significant at the same time. There obviously wasn’t a common answer to the mystery, no raven or small animal losing the spoils of their scavenging, but if Dís hadn’t been with him, Thorin might have simply called it a fever dream. Honestly, even then he would have given it all up as an odd vision, but for the appearance of more flowers the next year again on the first day of summer.

--- --- ---

“Bilbo Baggins, what are you doing in here? It’s almost noon!”

Bilbo sniffed wetly, and twisted slightly to turn his back on his mother. Not the wisest choice by far but he really didn’t want to talk right now.

A sharp tug on his ear had him turning ‘round to face her right quick. His pained wince might have fooled someone else into thinking his wet eyes were the result of a smarting ear or pride, but his mother knew better.

“Bilbo, dear,” she said, tilting his chin up with a finger to study his face more closely. “What’s this? Why aren’t you out gathering flowers?”

Bilbo rolled his chin from her grip and looked off over her shoulder, unable to meet her eyes.

“What’s the point? We both know I don’t have a soulmate.” He meant for his statement to wound her, just as he had been wounded by his parent’s betrayal, but it came out with a bit more wobble than bite.

Rather than immediately deny the claim, his mother just stared at him hard enough that he could feel it even without meeting her eyes. He found the words pouring forth in self defense.  “It’s only ever daisies, isn’t it? I’ve sent daisies and buttercups, begonias and coneflowers. The brightest, the sweetest scent, even once a prickly thistle. Twelves years, but it’s always only daisies in reply.”

His mother sighed and sat down beside him, scooting close enough to make him give a begrudging inch or two so that she could fully sit on the window seat with him.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” He whispered in defeat.

He still couldn’t look at her, but he felt her take his hand in hers. “There’s always one loudmouth, isn’t there?” She grumbled under her breath. “I guess I should be thankful that we had as many years as we did.” 

She sighed and squeezed his hand tight when he opened his mouth to angrily reply. “Bilbo. Son. Your father is 9 years older than me.”

Bilbo’s head was clouded with  anger and hurt that kept her words from registering. He wanted to tug his hand free, but even angry he couldn’t bring himself to do more than increase the tension between their two hands.

“When he sent his first gift to his soulmate, I was two years old,” she continued.

Bilbo scowled at her hand holding his captive, but her words were winding their way between his ears, clearing a bit of the angry fog.

“For nine years, he sent tokens to a soulmate that couldn’t respond. But no one deserves to have their love go unanswered, my dear.” She finally let him reclaim his hand, instead reaching out to brush his curls away from his face, trying again to catch his eyes. Bilbo gave in, and leaned into her shoulder, hiding his expression in her collar.

His muffled words were barely loud enough for them to hear. “But it was a lie. The daisies are a lie.”

His mother sighed. “Not a lie, love. Everyone has their soulmate, but sometimes we need to wait longer than we’d like. The daisies your father and I leave for you each dawn are a promise. A promise that your soulmate is there, just maybe not ready to respond on their own.”

Bilbo sniffed. He didn’t want to feel better, wanted to hold onto his hurt and anger, but at the same time he couldn’t help but want to desperately accept the promise of her words. 

“You’re sure?”

His mother just hugged him close to her. He was a bit surprised to notice that sitting down, they were almost of a height. He’d never refuse a hug from his mother though, no matter how grown he became.

“I’m absolutely sure.”

Bilbo sighed then pulled away gently. “I should go choose my flowers.” 

His mother smiled at him. 

“Though, perhaps no daisies this year. I can wait until they send me their own bouquets.”

His mother’s smile turned a bit sad, but she nodded softly. “That sounds like a good plan.”

That year he left a single blue violet in the Green Lady’s hands - waiting for you - and tried not to be hurt when there were no flowers in reply the next dawn. His soulmate just needed time, and Bilbo would give it to them. After all, what else could he do?

--- --- ---

The first summer that he took Fíli and Kíli out as apprentices, he had to confess to Dís.

“The Maker is sending you flowers.” She said flatly, barely looking his way as she shuffled the papers on her desk, setting everything to rights before she called the day done.

Thorin growled. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” He dragged a hand over his face, praying for the strength to just get through this conversation; he had meant to have it sooner. Had planned to have it weeks ago, when they had first set the date for the summer caravan. But every time he’d opened his mouth, he’d imagined a conversation just like this, and redirected his tongue to safer topics.

Dís squinted at him, unimpressed. She needed glasses, if for nothing else than reading all the contracts that seemed to breed across their shared desks, but she refused to admit that she was comfortably hitting the back end of middle aged.

“Thorin. Do we have time for this? The caravan leaves tomorrow. If this is important, spit it out, otherwise there is plenty left to discuss before you leave. The new tariffs for example.”

“Hang the tariffs!” He barked, a bit more sharply then he should have, as Dís slowly lowered the papers to the desk and gave him her full attention.

“What I mean to say, is yes, this is important. I just don’t know where to start.” He began to pace quickly back and forth between their desks. “The first day of summer, every year, there are flowers at Mahal’s feet. At first I was sure they were there by chance, but they appear each year, regularly.”

“Alright.” Dís’ mouth twisted. “So there are flowers. But how does that mean that they are for you, and from our Maker, no less?”

This was the hardest part, the one that never made any sense, even as he laid it out in his head.

“I am no fool, Dís. When I recognized the pattern, I watched the Shrine, sure there was some sort of innocent explanation. But there was not. Each year, they are not there before dawn, but as the sun rises they are. I have no better explanation for you. But I know they are a message for me.”

Unlike the worst case scenarios in his head, Dís didn’t laugh at his words. But she certainly didn’t look convinced. “Thorin…”

“No.” He stopped before her, forcing her to turn her chair to look up at him. “I tell you the truth as I know it, and there’s nothing more I know, or can say on the matter. I have yet to determine why it may be, but it simply is.This year we are expanding the trade routes, and I will be away until almost the first frost. I am asking you, whether you believe me now or not, to keep an eye on the shrine the morning of the first day of summer, and send me a raven with what you see.”

Dís looked like she wanted to argue more, but something in the set of his face must have stopped her. Instead she sighed and agreed. “Fine. The first day of summer. But when no flowers appear, there will be a reckoning when you return, my brother. I don’t see how this joke is funny.”

Thorin sighed. “It is no joke, but you will see that in time.” He dropped a kiss on her brow, then beat a hasty retreat as she swiped half heartedly at him. “Thank you, sister.”

Dís just grunted and went back to her papers. No more was said of the matter and Thorin set out on the following morning, head full of the trip to come.

The first week of true summer, a raven tracked them down in a town of men at the farthest southern bend of their circuit.

As you asked, I visited the shrine on the first morning of summer. There I found a blue flower that my secretary promises is a violet. I have enclosed a brief sketch but there was nothing but the single flower.  You owe me a true explanation when you return.

~Dís

Thorin’s heart twinged at missing the gift in a way he couldn’t fully explain. It was, after all, just a flower, and what did dwarrow know of flowers? Nevertheless, he went through the day with a lighter step. The sketch he tucked into his travel journal, the first of many.

--- --- ---

On Bilbo’s 33rd birthday, he broke the rules. Perhaps it was the pain of finally reaching adulthood with neither of his parents there to celebrate; felled by a neverending winter, and a broken heart a year and a half ago. Summer that year had come so late, and his mood had been so black that for the first time, he’d forsaken the traditional soulmate gift. And, as every year before, he’d received no flowers in return. That year in particular, it seemed as if he might truly be meant to be alone.

The following winter had been mild though, and Spring had come with a blaze of flowers as if the Green Lady was making up for a lost year. So, as the last day of Spring approached, Bilbo’s mind had again turned to the soulmate gift.

And this year, well, this year, there was no one to see, no one to look at his offering with raised brows, and Bilbo really needed to not be alone, so he broke the rules. Just a bit, mind you. More of a bending than a breaking. He certainly didn’t write a letter as old Bettany Cotton was rumoured to have done. Although no one dared talk about it, everyone knew she’d gotten impatient and written to her soulmate declaring that she was quite ready to meet. The letter had never left the Green Lady’s altar and Bettany had not met her soulmate until well into her seventh decade. Of course, Sigibert Harfoot had grown up on the other side of Bywater Bridge and had never travelled to the West Farthing before the day he met Bettany, but her undelivered letter certainly hadn’t helped. No one wanted to test the patience of the Green Lady by being so crass as to send along an invitation with their home address.

But green things… growing things… Bilbo could work with that.

He carefully pressed a couple of leaves from the tall oak on the hill. There weren’t many oaks in the Shire, and the oak on the Hill was well known. To that he added a spray of aster’s from his mother’s garden. They were grown from elvish seeds, gifted to his mother while in Rivendell during one of her rambles. Try as anyone might, they only seemed to grow for Belladonna Baggins, and Bag End’s garden was the only place to find them. He tucked in the traditional daisies and buttercups, swapping out bluebells for a pink rose with the barest blush of red at the center and an equally daring pink carnation. He finished it off with a bold blue ribbon made from the same fabric as his favorite High Day coat and, as a daring addition, added a small acorn he’d saved from last fall. He’d spent the winter carefully drying and polishing it to a shine, then carved the subtlest of details along the side, curling lines of smoke that hinted at a round door.

He carefully laid the bouquet in the open palms of the Green Lady in his parents garden, now his, and sent out his prayer. Please let them see me. Please let them find me. Please let them love me.

The reply he received, his first in 33 years, was beyond baffling. He spent the rest of the summer waiting for a knock on the door and his soulmate to finally come calling but it wasn’t to be. Instead he got one Drogo Baggins, who happily announced his engagement to Primula Brandybuck. Primula had gotten tired of waiting as well and sent along a blossom from her father’s peach orchard even though she was still only 30 and not at all of an age to send anything other than the approved flowers. Drogo had taken one look at his gift and marched right up to her gate demanding that she marry him. It was all stupidly romantic and Bilbo loved it even as a small part of him was jealous that it wasn’t him.

Bilbo’d finally gotten a response, though, and that carried him through the disappointing summer, bolstering him against the worry that he was somehow missing something important.

--- --- ---

The spring evening was just creeping across the camp when Thorin sat down with his first meal of the day. The day had started with a surprise rain shower and by the time they’d all shivered their way out of their bedrolls to grab their oilcloths, it wasn’t worth bedding back down. They’d started on the road before the sun had fully risen and arrived in the city of men with enough time for a few of their merchants to set out some tables and catch the late afternoon crowds. The rest of the caravan, Thorin included, had spent the waning hours of the day getting a head start on setting up the wagons and folding stalls in the large field where the city’s annual spring festival would start in a few day’s time.

It had been a long, hard day, and Thorin was mind numb with exhaustion. It took Fíli’s elbow nudging him in the side to notice that his nephew had joined him with his own dinner and was speaking to him.

“Why don’t you leave an offering of your own?”

Thorin blinked, the words not registering as if he’d missed part of the conversation. Which he had.

“The flowers,” Fíli prompted attention half on Thorin and half on his own dinner. 

Thorin sighed, and refocused on his food. Fíli had overheard one of his conversations with Dís before they’d left Ered Luin several weeks ago. He no longer needed to travel with the caravans as a smith, as he had in the first years, but it was a convenient way for Thorin and Fíli to make some long overdue diplomatic visits to dwarven settlements to the south and east. He may be a King in exile, but he was still King and Fíli his heir. There were diplomatic ties to maintain, and dwarrow to remind that the Line of Durin endured.

And yet, Thorin had been reluctant to travel this year, only committing to the trip once he and Dís had worked out a route that would bring him and Fíli back to Ered Luin for the first day of summer, before they set off again for the second leg of their trip. Dís knew how disturbed he’d been by last year’s events, and even shared his concerns to some degree, so she’d easily agreed to rework the trade route. In doing so, they’d fallen into again speculating over what had gone wrong last year, and whether it was a sign of disfavor from Mahal that no flowers had appeared. Neither had noticed Fíli entering the room and his nephew had shrewdly not announced himself until too much had already been said. Much like his mother when she’d first learned of the flowers, he wanted to talk it all through with Thorin anytime they had a moment for a private conversation.

Thorin had tried to put him off, but every time he shut down the conversation, Fíli would move on for an hour or a day, before the topic inevitably resurfaced. Over long days in the saddle and nights by the fire, Thorin found himself worn down by Fíli’s questions like limestone in a cave, drip-dripping bits and pieces of the story until it was all washed out of him. Everything from the first summer to the most recent, when for the first time in years, there had been no flowers.

For all the time he’d spent thinking over what the gifts might mean, and why Mahal would choose to speak to him in this way, from discussions he’d had with Dís and now with her son, this was an entirely new approach. Why hadn’t he ever offered a gift in return?

“I had never considered it,” he honestly confessed to Fíli. He pulled out a cloth to wipe his hands and knife, before packing everything away again.

“The giving and receiving of gifts can build a mountain or crumble it,” Fíli quoted his teachers, a tart glint to his eye.

It was a lesson Thorin had learned young from his own tutors, the giving and receiving of gifts being an integral part of his life as the Crown Prince. A lesson he and Fíli would be putting into practice with their meetings this summer. But for some reason, he’d never considered his flowers in that way.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he agreed. Fíli tried to hide his smile but Thorin could see his pleasure in the line of his shoulder. Perhaps, he mused. “One must understand the gift giver and the value of the gift to determine its purpose and therefore the proper response. What value are flowers? What purpose do they serve?”

Fíli was silent for a time, cleaning up after his own dinner and pulling out a dagger he had been working on decorating. In light of the fire he took up his work again. Thorin left him to it, picking up his leather jerkin and digging out a thick steel needle from his travel pack. One of the shoulders had gone loose from a stretched seam. He worked to repair it, while Fíli thought through the question.

“I don’t know.” Fíli finally offered. He looked up from his work and shrugged apologetically. “The Smith made the dwarrow of stone, and metal, and minerals. Even for his Lady Wife, he mined the most precious of gems, not flowers.”

Thorin sighed. It wasn't fair to ask, of course, when he didn’t know either. Over the years, he’d worried many times that he was missing some message, failing his Maker in his obliviousness. But the flowers had appeared each year until the last. He may not understand the meaning of the flowers, but they were a gift from the Maker, that in itself was a sign of favor, right?

“But doesn’t the gift giver override all other considerations?”  Fíli carefully wrapped his palm around the hilt of the dagger, testing that his work had not affected the grip. His eyes were fixed to Thorin though.

“A gift from the Maker is the highest gift we will ever receive. Anything we give back will pale in comparison, but that does not mean we do not strive to give something worthy.” He looked down at his dagger. “I am not the most gifted engraver, but in using my skills to etch a bit of my heart into each work, does that not make the work worthy?”

Thorin’s heart caught in his chest and for a moment it felt as if his pride might crack him in two. “Fíli,” he husked. “You are a gift.”

The moment broke with Fíli’s bright smile. A smile Thorin couldn’t help but return.

That evening Thorin carefully sorted through his lock box of precious stones and gems looking for one in particular. Blue like the depths of the mountain lake, flecked with enough metal to shine like the stars in the deep night sky.

He had been carrying the stone since Erebor. Had found it on his first trip to the mines with his father, when he was still too young to be confined to meetings and learning the duties of a Crown Prince. It had been in his pocket the day they lost Erebor.  No matter how often he’d looked at it in the years since, never once had it spoken to him. This though, this was something worthy of his craft.

He carefully carved and polished late into the night sat at the fire, or rarely, in borrowed rooms after a long day of diplomacy and glad-handing. Fíli watched silently when they were together, and the topic of the flowers was set aside in favor of Thorin’s focus on the gift.

They left the caravan on a hot, late spring day and arrived back in Ered Luin with barely a day to spare. Dís gave him a questioning raise of an eyebrow when he greeted her with a smile and more gentle than usual head knock, but she didn’t ask.

She and Fíli did materialize early the next morning as he was placing the small stone token at Mahal’s feet. Her eyes missed nothing, from the choice of stone to the striking likeness of Thorin’s violet. Carved by his own two hands from memory, polished so that the blue of the stone fairly glowed. The proportions were a bit off, and he thought perhaps the petals should be a bit more rounded, but the resemblance to the sketch he kept in his journal was unmistakable. He hoped his heart made it worthy.

He laid the stone flower at the feet of the Maker, murmuring a small prayer. Stepping back, he and his family stood watching silently for long minutes as nothing happened. "Perhaps we need to give it some time?" Fíli spoke tentatively. "There is still a full day until the flowers arrive, yes?" Thorin nodded with a decided confidence he didn't feel. "Tomorrow," he commanded and then forced himself to turn away. There were always things to do and if it kept him from worrying about the gift before tomorrow, all the better. In the morning his gift was gone, replaced by the most astonishing collection of greenery he’d received to date. Looking at the eclectic mix of plants, Thorin wasn’t sure what he was meant to think but the missing stone and the presence of a cluster of oak leaves seemed propitious. As he had every year since he’d received the violet, he left the offering in place long enough to be sketched by Dís, then took it back to his room. The ribbon was tucked into his journal to hold his place. The acorn took the place of his blue stone in his lockbox.

--- --- ---

On the first day of the summer of his fifty-first year, Bilbo found himself once again in a garden, albeit one like none other he'd ever seen.

Beorn’s garden was a thing of wonder. The flowers shone with saturated colors that defied description. Their heady scent perfumed the air so heavily that Bilbo could almost see the late spring sun glinting off the fragrance like light off a summer stream. The wild grass grew so thick it tickled Bilbo’s knees, and against all rules of nature, heavily laden fruit tree boughs bent low to tempt guests with ripe apples and pears.

The overwhelming feeling of life and bounty in Beorn’s garden soothed some part of Bilbo’s soul that had been scraped raw by dark tunnels and grasping, twisted hands. But for all that Bilbo took solace in the land, there was something too wild for it to really remind Bilbo of home.

As he rambled through the greenery, no path beneath his feet, and no destination in mind, Bilbo couldn’t help but miss his own orderly garden. The wildflowers on the hill would be giving over to clover right about now, while the first of his summer vegetables would be growing on the vines. A garden is always in transition, shoots to leaves to flowers to fruit, but a Hobbit garden was an orderly thing of weedless rows, paved paths, and straight fences. Nothing like Beorn’s wild space.

Bilbo snorted to himself at the peevishness of his thoughts. It wasn’t the wildness of the garden, or the out of season fruit that pricked him, it was simply that it was almost summer and for all that Beorn’s garden might remind him of home, it was missing an essential part; there was no altar to the Green Lady.

So here Bilbo was, wandering a garden flush with flowers that would put any in the Shire to shame, the day before summer began, with no way to share them. Bilbo sighed heavily to himself again. Perhaps he should just return to the hall.

“What has the garden done to offend you so, Master Baggins?”

Bilbo jumped like a hare startled by a fox, his heart rabbiting away without him. From the deep shadow of a weeping willow, Thorin’s smile flashed.

“Thorin!” Bilbo pressed one hand to the center of his chest, as if to steady his heart. “Why?” He asked plaintively.

Thorin smiled unrepentantly. “Why what, Master Baggins?”

Bilbo was oddly charmed by the sight. Thorin so rarely smiled, it was startling to be the recipient of one.

“I have seen that smile on your nephew’s faces. Why you should think it will work on me any better when it comes from you, I don’t know,” he huffed in mock offense. He could feel a smile tipping up the corner of his own lips though, and Thorin’s smirk clearly indicated that he saw it.

“I have quite a bit more practice in using it,” he demurred. “But you’re right, it was impolite of me to take advantage of your distraction.” He stepped out from under the trailing branches of the tree, moving much more easily than should be possible after only a few days of convalescence.

Taking in the strong set of his shoulders, strangely bare-seeming in only a loose linen shirt with rolled sleeves, and the steady brace of his legs in equally shocking thin cotton pants, Bilbo fought a sudden rush of blood to his cheeks. There was no question that Thorin was striking, but Bilbo had gotten used to the remote, regal King of furs and leather. This Thorin was something of a shock. A pleasant one, almost certainly, but a shock nonetheless.

“Do you mind if I keep you company on your walk?” Thorin had stepped quite close, and motioned in the general direction Bilbo had been traveling.

“No, of course not, please.” Bilbo’s manners took over his tongue, whilst his mind was still preoccupied with inane questions; such as where Thorin had been carrying these clothes to have made it through the goblin tunnels.

In what was perhaps the most profoundly odd experience of this adventure to date, Bilbo found himself walking side by side through the long grasses and wildflowers with a king of dwarves. At first Bilbo was at a loss for what to say, but as they continued on, the silence settled on him much like the aura of Beorn’s garden, soothing his ruffled edges.

“What type of flower is this?”

Bilbo came to an abrupt stop as Thorin somehow managed to startle him for the second time that afternoon, while walking next to him no less.

Thorin quirked an eyebrow at him, waiting. 

“Um, which?” Bilbo dug his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, searching for cool stone to rub between his fingers, and distract himself from the embarrassment of being inattentive.

Thorin’s eyes tracked the movement curiously. Watching as Bilbo snatched his hand back from the empty pocket.

Of all the things Bilbo cursed himself for leaving at home in his mad dash to join the dwarves, the blue violet token was what he missed the most. When he’d realized it wasn’t in his pocket where it always sat, a charm against loneliness, he’d almost bruised the poor pony's mouth bringing it to a halt. He’d made up some nonsense about his handkerchiefs when Bofur had asked, unable to explain. What would dwarrow know of flowers, or soulmate gifts? As far as he knew, Hobbits were the only ones to be so blessed in finding a match. In the end, he’d said nothing.

Now he was just glad it was safe in Bag End waiting for his return.

“Have you lost something, Master Baggins?”

“Bilbo,” he huffed, redirecting the conversation. 

Thorin tilted his head a bit to the side, studying him intently as if debating with himself if he would allow Bilbo’s clumsy redirection. “Bilbo,” he conceded slowly. It was then that Bilbo caught sight of the flower cupped in one of Thorin’s hands. He hadn’t picked the blossom, just tilted it towards Bilbo for his inspection.

“It’s a buttercup.” Bilbo answered with a smile. “Look.”  Bilbo reached out and, extending one finger, lightly traced a path along the inner edge of the flower from edge to center. He then held his finger up to the light, tilting it to ensure Thorin could see the gold dusting.

“As children, we would paint our chins and noses with the pollen and recite small rhymes.”

Thorin blinked at Bilbo, thoroughly distracted. He narrowed his gaze on Bilbo’s finger. “Rhymes?”

Bilbo laughed at his serious expression. As if a bit of pollen dusting and children’s rhymes were incomprehensible. Perhaps for a dwarrow, flowers really were a bit of an unfathomable mystery.

“Yes, rhymes. Dwarrow young surely cannot be so different from Hobbit young as to not make up little songs and games?”

Later Bilbo wouldn't be able to explain to the confused company why an offhand mention of pebbles by Thorin was enough to have him toppling off Beorn's larger than necessary bench. Objectively the comment hadn't been in the least bit funny, but the absurd memory of Thorin reciting a mildly alarming children’s rhyme about stones and a lost ram, warranted no less.

For the second time in his life, Bilbo missed the soulmate ceremony, but that year he was in good company.

--- --- ---

Dís arrived with the Spring. It had been a black winter starting with the battle that almost killed them all and dragging on for months of unending clean up, too cold hands and not quite full stomachs. The first caravan arrived sooner than should have been possible bringing with it necessary supplies and the promise of a new beginning for Erebor.

In the rush of resettlement, it took Dís two whole weeks to broach the subject of Bilbo with Thorin. She had to have known everything she needed to know before she’d even stepped foot on the path back to the mountain, considering the number of co-conspirators she had in his company. Between Dori, Dwalin and her own sons, Thorin was sure she had the whole story before she’d even crossed the Misty Mountains, but she had probably wanted to assess the situation for herself before cornering Thorin. Making him worry about it for two weeks though bordered on petty.

“I’ve asked Dori and Ori to explain dwarven courtship to Bilbo.” His sister was a master of the conversational ambush. 

“That’s not funny,” he grumbled. Thorin rubbed tiredly at his brow and stepped back from the door, opening it fully for her to enter. “It’s been an obnoxiously long day, sister. Are you really choosing now to have this discussion?”

She sniffed dismissively, and seated herself on the lounge in his study. Another dwarrow followed closely after her with a tea service, that they sat down on the table before departing just as quickly. Thorin’s stomach rumbled at the sight of the sweet bread and fruit,it had been a long time since he’d last eaten. It was a trap, of course, a baited lure to bring him to her side and occupy him while she interrogated him. He caved immediately.

She poured them both a cup of tea, then waited patiently for him to take a few bites, before she continued. 

“I assume you’re working on your first gift.” 

First gift, because the mithril chainmail would forever be tainted. “Yes,” he swallowed a bit of bread down with a sip of tea. “I’ve had the Queen’s Terrace cleared, and stone beds laid with soil from Lorien to ensure there is no dragon’s taint.”

“You should add greenhouses.”

Thorin nodded. “Yes. I’ve ordered cuttings and seeds from the Shire that will be arriving with the summer caravan.” It was a long way to transport such delicate things, but he had faith in the ingenuity of his dwarrow.

She hummed in agreement. “And yet,” she sat back, and looked at him hard. “You’re worried.” 

Thorin’s throat clicked as he swallowed down the reflexive denial. He carefully set his cup back on the tray, and looked towards the fire. “There is much between us.”

“And yet, he stays.”

Thorin nodded. Some days that was all that was allowing him to keep faith. “I’m still not sure that we…” He wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence, so instead he started again. “For so long, the only call I heard was the call of the Mountain. Then even that was drowned out by the call of the gold.”

His sister made a wounded noise, and reached for him. He took her hand, patted it once then set it carefully on the lounge as he got up.

“Now I’m not sure I can trust,” here again he ran out of words. Trust his mind. Trust his heart. Trust himself. Any or all of them? “Hobbits don’t have Ones.”

His sister’s face went blank in shock. “You asked?”

“No.” Obviously such things were forbidden, but Thorin had been tempted more than once. Instead of confessing, he simply added, “We have travelled for almost a year, shared many fires and now a mountain. He has spoken often enough of his parents to know that Hobbits are not like dwarrow.”

Besides, what would it matter if he did? Thorin’s attachment to Bilbo was not the overwhelming destiny of a fated bond. It was the comfort of a home and a hearth that stayed with him no matter where he stood on the path Mahal had given him. The question was if Bilbo felt the same. 

“Thorin, look at me.” 

He blinked and focused on her face rather than the thoughts running through his head.

“Can you let him go?”

“No.” The answer was swift and sure.

“Then take heart in that.” She stepped close again and leaned into his space, offering him comfort that he gladly accepted. “Have faith.” She spoke with firm confidence - from her lips to his heart. “Brooding just gives you a sore head.”

She laughed at his sour look, and turned the conversation to other things. Thorin gamely went along with her obvious manipulations, but his path was set. He just had to wait for the summer caravan’s to arrive so he could finish the terrace. Then he would ask Bilbo to stay.

--- --- ---

“Come on,” Bilbo ordered in a huff as soon as he tracked Thorin down in one of the anterooms. “We’re going out.”

Thorin looked at him blankly for a moment, then back down at the paperwork he had been sifting through. There was always paperwork in the mountain. Sometimes Bilbo was sure it was breeding and stalking them.

“Out?” Thorin asked distractedly. Bilbo could see he didn’t have his full attention.

“Yes. Out. Out of these halls, out of the mountain, outside.”

Thorin shook his head regrettably. “Unfortunately, I need…”

That wouldn’t do at all. With a deft hand Bilbo removed the papers from Thorin’s grip, dropping them discreetly on a nearby table, while using his other hand to tug Thorin around back the way he’d come. Once you got feet moving, the battle was won with his dwarrow.

Thorin allowed himself to be tugged across the room but he didn’t look convinced at all. “Bilbo,” he tried again.

“It’s a lovely day. The first day of Summer, in case you’d forgotten.”

There were entirely too many doors between the royal halls and the summer air, but Bilbo knew he’d won when Thorin waved away a gaggle of pages who were all too obviously looking for him.

It was the first day of summer, and a strange restlessness had gripped Bilbo this morning; for the first time in a long time, he’d woken on this day and not rushed to the Green Lady’s altar. He’d said all he’d needed to say yesterday as he’d laid Beorn’s acorn on the elegant little altar the dwarrow had set for him in his scraggly, balcony garden. 

Bilbo was staying, and he was happy. Somewhere between the end of his adventure, and the life he now had in the mountain, Bilbo had found his home and he was going to hold onto it as hard as he could.

His restlessness today was the itching of his feet to get on with a new day, and if he needed to drag Thorin into it with him, so be it.

Thorin had been behaving as if he had a sore head for weeks. From what Bilbo could pry out of him, he’d been anxious about the summer caravan, but even a raven arriving on Market day with the news that the caravan would arrive at the end of the month hadn’t seemed to lift his spirits. So here they were, nodding to guards, side stepping a few industrious traders with carts, and walking out into the sun.

It was a beautiful day. Bilbo marched them a good quarter of an hour up the slope without a word, Thorin gamely keeping pace, before he finally stopped on a small ledge, turned his face to the sky, and took a deep breath.

A snort came from his right. He cracked one eyelid open just enough to squint at the dwarrow standing next to him. Thorin’s expression was innocent enough to melt butter, his words mild as a spring day.

“Feeling better?”

Bilbo twitched his nose and closed his eyes again. Just for his cheekiness, he kept Thorin waiting for his reply another long moment while he breathed deeply and enjoyed the sun.

Far from being put out, Thorin just stood quietly, seemingly as at peace in this moment as Bilbo was. Hands in the pockets of his long summer coat, feet firmly planted on the slope of his mountain, he looked content. Happy.

“I think I shall be staying,” Bilbo finally said. 

Thorin startled hard, his shock wide eyes snapping up to Bilbo’s face, hands fumbling for a moment in his pockets. There was a sharp tap as whatever he’d been holding slipped from his coat and fell, chiming on the rocky ground.

“Staying?” Thorin choked out. His shock would almost be alarming, except that Bilbo saw the fierce joy that took its place.

“Yes, I think I rather might,” he laughed, looking away to give Thorin a moment. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out in such an blunt way, but now that it was out there, he suddenly felt as if he could breathe deeply for the first time in months.

Thorin took a step closer, hands reaching out to grip Bilbo’s forearms warmly. The edge of his coat caught a small brown object, and sent it spinning into Bilbo’s feet.

“Bilbo.” Thorin’s hushed voice pulled all of Bilbo’s attention for a moment. “You’re staying.”

This time it was a statement. One Bilbo was happy to agree to.

“Yes, staying.”

Thorin laughed and almost crushed him in a hug. Staying for you, Bilbo thought, throat suddenly tight. Laughing a bit wildly, Bilbo pulled away before he could do something entirely too forward. There was time for that later.

“Wait!” He laughed. “You’ve dropped something. Hold on just a tic.” His hand closed around the lost bauble and he found himself frozen. There was no mistaking the acorn he now held in his open palm.

“Thorin,” he asked, voice strained. “Where did you get this?”

Thorin sensed the shift in mood, even if his confused frown showed that he didn’t understand why. “It was a gift.”

Bilbo choked on a shocked laugh. “A gift?” He couldn’t imagine how Thorin had come by it. Surely he hadn’t followed Bilbo yesterday and picked it up from the Green Lady’s altar.

“Yes. A gift from the Valar.”

Bilbo felt an overwhelming need to sit down. Was Thorin admitting to taking his acorn from the altar? Or was something even more impossible happening that had Bilbo’s heart suddenly thudding against his ribs.

“Bilbo!” Thorin’s hands were on his arms and suddenly there was patchy grass and an inconvenient rock beneath his bum.

“I need you to explain this to me, Thorin. I need to understand.”

Thorin flicked his hand to the side as if sweeping away Bilbo’s question. “It’s a bit of an odd tale, Bilbo. Surely it can wait until you’ve recovered from whatever shock this is.”

Bilbo didn’t know how to explain to Thorin that this was the shock. That him explaining was the only way to move past this.

“Thorin.” Disregarding all propriety, Bilbo gripped his shoulder hard, hand tangling in Thorin’s loose hair. He held him still, staring back at him. “Please.”

And so Thorin told him a story. An unbelievable, wild story, about a gift of flowers from the Valar of Stone. In return Bilbo told him a story. A wild, unbelievable story about how Hobbits find their soulmates.

In the end, Bilbo found himself back inside, sat on the floor in Thorin’s bedroom surrounded by sketches of flowers. Violets and buttercups, posies and roses. One drawing for almost every year of Bilbo’s waiting, barring only the small childish bouquets of daisies.

He’d have to write Drogo. Ask him to pack up some items, and put them on the next caravan to the mountain, before he could share his own treasures saved from long ago summers. Before the summer ended, he would have a stone flower to share with Thorin in exchange for his sketches and acorns, but for now, he satisfied himself with kisses.

Kisses tentatively returned. Kisses passionately bestowed. Kisses stolen in busy moments. And kisses gifted like daisies on the first day of summer.

The End.