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The healer Belba had visited – stealing away like a thief in the night because she knew that if she went during the day word would spread like wildfire across the mountain – had confirmed what she pretty much already knew. She was a hobbit, and there weren’t many things of this type that went hobbits by.
She wasn’t quite certain how to solve the issue, however, and things didn’t get much clearer while she walked back to her rooms. She was as always accompanied by a guard, something Thorin had insisted on for every member of the company. In the end, only Ori and Belba had actually been saddled with one, Ori mostly because Dori hadn’t let him protest. Belba hadn’t even tried.
The guard had remained silent as he followed her to the healing halls and back to her own, private rooms, but she could almost feel his worry as a palpable thing. She gave him as reassuring a smile as she could, knowing full well it was shaky at best, before slipping in through the heavy door to her rooms.
Belba considered her options as she brewed herself a cup of tea. It was past midnight, of that there was no doubt, but she had always solved problems easier when sitting with a cup of tea in her hands. If nothing else, she thought, tea wouldn’t make anything worse.
Once she’d sat down in her little armchair, the cup of steaming tea set down on the table next to it, she stared out into nothingness for a while, trying to accept the truth that she knew even before she’d been told.
She was with child.
She would bear a child, a half-dwarven child at that, and it did pose some challenges. Belba wasn’t certain what the dwarven stand on bastards was, but she thought it couldn’t be too heavy-handed – the Ri brothers were all born of different fathers, after all.
Maybe she could move to Dale? That would give the fauntling the chance to learn his dwarven heritage, all while she didn’t have to stay in the mountain and play happy while ignoring pitying looks. She couldn’t go back to the Shire, obviously – as if running off with thirteen males hadn’t been bad enough, coming back unmarried and quickening? She’d be a pariah, and while her Baggins name would protect her from a stoning it wouldn’t keep her from being shunned.
Even if she didn’t much care for her reputation – or that of the rest of the Baggins family, at that point – she did care for the child she was carrying. Belba hadn’t meant to fall pregnant but she couldn’t bring herself to regret that she had. If she went back to the Shire, the child would have to weather abuse from almost everyone around, and she would not put her child through that.
Yes, Dale was probably the best idea, she nodded decisively to herself, setting the teacup down on the saucer to underline her own point. Bard would be happy to help her get settled, he’d nagged her about coming for a visit for quite some time – and if the visit happened to be permanent, well, he’d only have himself to blame, really.
Dale also meant that she wouldn’t have to leave the Company behind entirely – she’d miss them all too much to ever do that, one of the primary reasons she hadn’t gone back to the Shire. The other reason had been him, of course, but that one she had very carefully kept to herself.
Belba headed to bed, a bed that was, as it most often was, empty. She had hoped, after the Quest and the battles were over with, that he would perhaps consider settling down, but then she’d heard about the dwarven Ones, and she’d quickly realised that her hopes were quashed before they’d even properly taken root.
No dwarf had ever found his One outside the dwarven race, and why she’d thought she’d be the exception to the rule she didn’t know. She didn’t live in a fairytale, something her father had told her quite a few times during her whimsical youth; there was never an automatic happily ever after, people would lie, get sick and die, but somehow she had fallen into the trap of it anyway.
Nori hadn’t ever shown any inclination that he loved her, that she was his One, even though he had been more than happy to tumble her. She hadn’t minded it either, not at first – during the journey they were all too preoccupied with staying alive and reaffirming that they had managed to bother talking about anything as useless as feelings, and after… after, she had been informed of Ones, and knew what his lack of saying anything meant.
He was her cariad, her Heart’s Love, but that didn’t mean she was his. It happened, even back in the Shire, that cariads weren’t matched, but it was always a tragedy when it happened.
Well, my girl, her father had told her, having her sit on his lap. The ending worth having is worth fighting for, but remember; three things you cannot influence, and those are Fate, Faith and Love. Trust in them, and things will turn out for the best.
She had trusted in them, but she couldn’t help but feel that this was all punishment for running out her door after thirteen male dwarrow – despite that, despite that adventure being the ruination of everything she had worked for since her parents died and left the Baggins estate to her, she couldn’t regret a single thing. Belba had, for the first time in many years, done something for herself, and she had had rather good fun while doing it.
She hadn’t counted on falling pregnant, of course, but sometimes fate intervenes and you have to trust faith.
She’d been lucky, really, luckier than other unpaired cariads – she’d known his touch, had known what it was to share a bed with someone she loved more than life itself, even if she didn’t know the feeling of sharing it with someone who loved her back.
In a way, she was desperately happy to be carrying Nori’s child – this way she’d always have a bit of him with her, a tangible proof that they had shared something, even if it had meant more to her than it did to him.
She couldn’t stay in the mountain, however – she couldn’t put herself through the heartache of seeing him ever so often, but always at a distance, having to explain to her child – their child – why she was always so sad after seeing Uncle Dori’s brother.
She fell asleep after what felt like hours of thinking, and if her pillow was damp and her cheeks were tearstained, there was no one there to see it.