Chapter Text
Belladonna Baggins waits in the shade of the party tree for her son to wake up, looking out across a landscape that is almost Hobbiton. It’s Hobbiton, but more so, in little ways. The birds sing a little more brightly, the bees don’t sting, crops never fail, and the weather is always exactly right. In winter the snow is never too deep and melts before it turns to slush, in spring the rains are light and refreshing. In summer, like today, the sun is never too hot, and a soft breeze brows. It tickles Bella’s hair, and sends the smoke of Bungo’s pipe drifting gently away into a cloudless sky.
Soon it will be Midsummer’s Eve, and they will celebrate it as a family, together.
Barnabas Proudfoot passes on the road below them, driving his pigs before him, and the only scent to assail Bella’s nose is of apple-blossoms and clover.
“He awake yet?” asks Barnabas, waving.
Bella shakes her head.
The old gaffer chuckles. “Slug-a-bed, in’ee.”
“Takes after his father,” she calls back, and Bungo huffs beside her in mock-offence. Indeed, Bilbo took after his father in most respects, from pleasing looks to practical temperament, and of course a finer hobbit he could not have hoped to emulate. It’s true his father is dark-haired and aimable of face, whereas the figure that still rests against the tree has lighter hair and a stubborn, Tookish chin. He’s also rather slimmer than his father, but perhaps a little home cooking will remedy that.
She watches Barnabas as he and his pigs make their gentle progress down the lane until Bungo nudges her shoulder gently. “He’s wriggling, look.”
Bella looks, and indeed, Bilbo’s nose is wrinkling, his eyelashes fluttering gently, and with a squeal of excitement she scrambles to his side. She takes up his hand and smiles with delight as her beloved only son blinks up at her and slowly smiles back.
“Mum?”
“Oh, Bilbo!” cries Bella, throwing her arms around him and squeezing as hard as she can. “I waited so long, my darling Bilbo!”
“Mum!” cries Bilbo, returning her hug just as hard. “And Dad?”
“Here I am, my boy!” chuckles Bungo, sitting himself down on the grass for a hug of his own.
“Where am… am I dreaming? This feels a bit real for a dream. Am I dead?” he asks, looking around himself a little wildly. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
They wait as the realisation sinks in. “I’m dead,” says Bilbo at last, and Bella nods, smiling.
“It’s not so bad,” says Bungo. “Rather better than the alternative, you may find.”
It might not be the funniest joke, but any excuse for laughter will do at a time like this, thinks Bella, feeling so full of joy she might burst with it, and she giggles until she is wiping tears from her eyes. Bilbo is looking at her with such astonishment she has to laugh again.
“You both look so… so young!” marvels Bilbo, beaming. He glances down at himself, running his hands down the smart green waistcoat he’s wearing. “Wait, how old am I?”
To Bella’s eyes, he mostly just looks well, and happy, his smile so open and pleased, just as she remembers. “Late 40s, perhaps? Not much more than that,” she suggests, her head on one side as she considers. He is here, at last, and she cannot tire of looking at him.
“Thank goodness! Looking at you two I was afraid I’d be no more than a faunt.”
“More than 40, dear. A solid 50, I’d say, the prime of your life!” says Bungo, slapping his son’s back heartily.
Bella sees Bilbo’s smile slip sideways at bit at that. “50,” he says. “Well. It certainly was.”
“And will be again! Now then!” says Bungo. “No hurry, of course, but there’s a few folk waiting to see you, I know.”
Now Bilbo’s face is alight with happiness, his smile wider even than before. “Thorin?” he asks eagerly.
There’s no-one called Thorin that Bella knows. When she glances across to meet Bungo’s eyes she can see he doesn’t know the name either.
“Who’s Thorin?” she asks.
Bilbo stares at her for a minute, eyes searching her face for some clue she can’t give. His smile starts to droop, and suddenly he sags, his excitement melting away at once. He’s like a souffle taken from the oven too soon.
“Well,” mutters Bilbo, apparently to himself. “Of course. I see. That’s that then.”
“Oh, my honeybee,” says Bella, smoothing his hair back to press a kiss to his forehead. Bilbo was always her honeybee, buzzing around so busy and full of sweetness. “Perhaps they’re just not here yet. It’s hard, I know, to leave folk behind us, but I promise, this Thorin will be here soon.”
“No, he won’t,” says Bilbo, looking at his hands. “He won’t come here.”
“He will,” she insists. It’s heartbreaking, how all the joy has drained from him.
“He was a dwarf. A friend of mine. It was a long time ago. I always hoped,” says Bilbo, but doesn’t finish the sentence. Bella and Bungo share an anxious look over his head.
Dwarves don’t come to Yavanna’s pastures, they have the Halls of Aulë. Surely Bilbo would know that? She wants to ask more, but her son all waves questions away.
He is smiling again, but it’s not quite right. A mother knows, and this smile is forced, for all it doesn’t falter, as if he’s had plenty of practice pretending happiness. Bilbo doesn’t want to talk about it yet, that’s clear enough, and so Bella leads her family down the field towards their home. They can see all the friends and relations another day. There’s plenty of time.
The road is sandy underfoot, weaving gently down past meadows full of flowers, and the sun is just starting to drop in the sky. This blasted dwarf aside, it ought to be perfect, and Bella is determined to make it so. As they round the corner, she watches Bilbo’s face, and hopes.
“That’s Bag End!” exclaims Bilbo. “And my oak tree!”
Bella sighs in relief. “It wasn’t there last night, you know. That’s how we first guessed you were coming.”
The tree shades the front of the smial entirely, quite blocking the view from Bilbo’s old bedroom. It seemed an odd place to have planted it, and dear Bungo had not been at all pleased. They can ask about that later too, she thinks, for now just enjoying the sight of her son approaching the old tree with such amazement.
“My goodness,” sighs Bilbo, laying his hands on the bark. “I haven’t seen this tree in more than 20 years.”
Bungo raises his eyebrows. “How’s that?”
“Well, not since I left to live in Rivendell. And then Valinor, of course.” Bilbo’s hand slides down the trunk and falls back to his side. He’s eyeing the green front door of their house with the most peculiar expression on his face.
“You left Bag End?” says Bungo, and Bella can hear the hurt in it.
Bungo built their smial himself, put all his love for the family they would have one day into every little detail. After they’d married, the two of them had lain in bed together talking into the night, making plans, imagining the whole place filled with at least a dozen faunts, and the rooms ringing with laughter for generations to come.
But as it had turned out, there had only been Bilbo, and now they find even he hadn’t stayed.
Her dear, generous Bungo, with his grand ideas and strong clever hands, that fiddle awkwardly now with the bowl of his pipe. He won’t meet her eyes, and it’s a struggle not to sigh out loud in frustration. She’s waited for this day so long and it’s really not turning out very well.
“Yes,” admits Bilbo, with at least the grace to look abashed. “Still, I’m back now, aren’t I. Forever.”
“Yes,” agrees Bella, grabbing both her boys’ hands and dragging them indoors, where there are three fresh trout in the pantry waiting for dinner, Bilbo’s favourite, and apple pie for afterwards. “We’re all together now.”
She will make this a happy ending. It has to be.
--
The first night after Bilbo comes home, Belladonna wakes and goes to fetch herself a glass of water. Having drunk it, she tiptoes down the corridor to her son’s door, telling herself it’s only because she’s so pleased to have him back.
The door has been left slightly ajar, and the sound of ragged breathing and a sniffly nose drifts through it. Bella pauses, her hand already raised to knock, and returns to her own bed instead.
It happens again the next night, and the next. “It takes some folk a while to settle,” says Bungo. Bella wishes she could believe that.
Bilbo has been shown around most of their corner of the pastures now, and he seemed pleased enough to catch up with his uncles and aunts, and cousin Drogo especially. They had talked for a long while about Drogo’s son, and Bella felt so cheered by it. He’s been fishing with his father, and helped her in the garden and the kitchen, cutting out pastry together as neatly as she had always taught him.
But he picks at his food, and goes to bed early every night, and she’s caught him too often staring into nothingness with such a terribly sad look on his face. It won’t do.
So Bella puts together a little picnic one day and seizes Bilbo’s arm without a word, whisking her son out of the house to a pretty meadow just over the hill, where there are plenty of trees for shade and a hedge of wild dog-roses. She’s brought a salad with sliced radishes from their garden, and some sausage rolls, and three sorts of pie for afters. The wind stirs gently in the grass and birds sing overhead under a cloudless sky.
“This is nice,” she says, eyeing Bilbo for his response. He’s sitting against a tree with his pipe, blowing smoke rings.
“Yes,” he says dutifully. There’s still half of two pies left, and she doesn’t believe him in the slightest.
“Tell me about Thorin,” says Bella firmly.
Bilbo coughs on a mouthful of smoke, looking startled. He hasn’t mentioned the name since that first day, and deflected all her previous attempts to ask. She will brook no arguments this time, folding her arms and fixing him with her most Motherly look.
“He was my friend,” says Bilbo dismissively, sounding tired and irritable. Then he stops himself, and tips his head back, a smile on his face that has no mirth in it at all. “No. That’s not right, not really. I suppose it hardly matters now. I loved him. I love him.”
She reaches out to lay a hand on Bilbo’s arm, and sees the tears filling his eyes. “I love him, Mum,” says Bilbo, his voice breaking at last. “I am, I am in love with Thorin, even now, and it’s awful, and I wish so much that I wasn’t.”
Bella gathers him into her arms and strokes her son’s hair as he collapses onto her. He weeps, face pressed tight against her bodice just like when he was a faunt, great racking sobs that shake his whole body, and she shushes and soothes him as best she can. She wonders if it’s the first time he’s ever told someone out loud.
“Bilbo, my darling, my honeybee,” murmurs Bella, feeling her own eyes prickling. It’s dreadful and she hasn’t the least idea how to fix it.
“The worst thing,” hiccups Bilbo, fists clenched in his mother’s skirts, voice hoarse with misery, “I think the worst thing, Mum, is knowing he’s out there! He must be, because I’m here, so he must be somewhere, and I can’t reach him. I can never see him again.”
Bella narrows her eyes. “Never” is not a Tookish word, as her father used to say. In fact he still does. She strokes Bilbo’s hair until he can get his breath back, but she’s thinking quietly all the while.
--
She tells her idea to Bungo first, of course. It wouldn’t do to make him feel he hadn’t been consulted. First, she makes some scones, his favourite, and chooses the largest to smear with clotted cream, a perfectly ripe sliced strawberry, and just a small drizzle of honey. He eats it without the least suspicion, and once he’s started on the cup of tea, she airily announces the plan.
To her relief, he isn’t shocked for long, leaning back in his chair with an expression of amused defeat after only a little spluttering.
“You’re a Took, Belladonna, you always were,” says Bungo, wagging a finger at her, though his eyes twinkle merrily nonetheless. “Not a scrap of Baggins in you, even after all these years.”
There’s a smear of cream at the corner of his mouth and she reaches across to tidy it up, then licks her finger clean. Waste not, and all that. Bungo’s eyes have widened a little, watching her.
Bella smiles, wrinkling her nose. She knows that look, and she is terribly pleased with him, so she perches herself in his lap, twining her arms around his neck and kissing his ears ‘till he’s blushing.
“Not a scrap of Baggins? Perhaps you should put a little in. More than a scrap, I think...” she says playfully, running a hand along the front of his shirt, feeling the heartbeat under his thin shirt. He’s so very handsome, such dark, kindly eyes, and that wry little smile of his when she teases him.
Bungo’s hold on her waist tightens a little, and he turns his head to kiss her, so sweet and deeply that she moans a little into it. His mouth tastes just faintly of honey and strawberries. His hand drops down and she feels him grasp her calf, sliding his fingers up under her skirts. There are little callouses on his fingertips from his woodworking and gardening, rough against her skin. Behind them is the sound of a door opening out in the hall.
“Ah,” says Bilbo a moment later, frozen in shock in the doorway.
Bella leaps to her feet and smooths down her apron. In their defence, they’ve had Bag End to themselves for 80-odd years.
“Hello!” she trills.
“I’ll just...” says Bilbo, and runs back into his room.
“Oh dear,” sighs Bella, and hears the scrape of Bungo’s chair on the floor as he rises to stand behind her, his arms about her waist once more. “That won’t have helped, will it?”
“No,” agrees Bungo, resting his chin on her shoulder. “It’s a bit of a pickle, isn’t it?” He sighs. “I don’t like it at all, you know, but I think perhaps you’re right, Bella.”
“I always am,” she agrees, but there’s no real joy in it.
--
By morning, Bella has most of the packing done. It’s a great deal easier now that food isn’t actually a necessity, although of course she packs a few snacks as well, to ease the journey.
Once Bilbo has emerged from his bedroom she’s quite ready to be off. It’s like old times, when she used to go off on all sorts of little escapes. Then after Bungo died there was Bilbo to take care of, and then she got sick, and Bella feels she never did quite finish her adventuring, before. As silly as it seems, she’s looking forward to this.
To Bella’s chagrin, Bilbo looks more suspicious than delighted. “How?” he asks flatly, once she’s explained the general idea.
“You know what they say - Never Go East,” says Bella. “So I propose we do just that, and see what happens. After all, Yavanna is the wife of Aulë. It would only make sense that it won’t be far.”
Bilbo rubs a hand across his eyes in a manner very much like his father’s. “Nothing about this makes sense,” he grumbles. “And what if we do find it? I very much doubt we can just knock on the door.”
“We’ll have to see when we get there,” says Bella.
“Can’t argue with that!” calls Bungo from the kitchen. “Do you want a cup of tea before you go? This pot’s cold, but I can always brew a fresh one.”
“I don’t want a cup of tea, thank you!” snaps Bilbo.
“Well, I only asked,” mutters his father.
Tea is not going to help matters, decides Bella. She hands Bilbo his pack. “Or you can stay here, and know you never even tried. Really, what’s the worse that can happen? It isn’t as if we could die.”
“I suppose that’s true,” admits Bilbo. He rocks on his heels, frowning, and then a corner of his mouth begins to twist upwards. “Hum. Did you pack handkerchiefs?”
“Two each, one for use, one to wash.”
He shoulders his pack nonchalantly enough, and nods. “We’d better get off, then.”
It’s a fine day, naturally, and the mist is just burning off the meadows as they step out of Bag End together.
Bungo sees them off at the door, kissing and hugging them both with tears in his eyes, as if they were leaving forever. He’s such a sweet, sentimental old thing, thinks Bella fondly.
--
Bella has always travelled alone, or sometimes with Gandalf, but it is pleasant to have Bilbo’s company. He’s very good at telling stories, and she listens with alarm to his extraordinary recollections of battling Trolls and giant spiders and Orcs. How he survived to such a ripe old age she cannot guess, since he seems to have been so foolhardy, but it transpires that all his adventures were only one, after all. He travelled after Thorin’s death, but never so far again.
It takes three days before Bilbo’s tale is ended, and Bella still has questions, so that they have been travelling for a week before the conversation begins to slow.
The landscape around them is changing, as more trees and rocks appear and the open meadows become scarce. Fewer curious faces pop out to watch them pass, and she has not seen a round, friendly smial door since yesterday. The sandy road under their feet has narrowed to a path. They make their camp under pine trees, not the friendly Western forests of oak and beech, and light a fire, for the night air is chilly.
“Tell me of Thorin, then,” says Bella next morning. Their walking pace is brisk enough to warm them, but not so much that they cannot continue to talk. She’s heard the bones of his journey, but it was impossible not to notice how Bilbo skimmed over the details of the company’s leader.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” replies Bilbo, squinting ahead into the sunrise.
“Begin with his looks, then,” she suggests. “So I can picture him a little.”
“Well, he’s tall,” says Bilbo. “For a dwarf, anyway. A good head taller than you or me. And his hair is long and black, a bit grey at the sides. His eyes are very blue.”
“And has he a great beard and fat nose?” asks Bella, who has met a few dwarves. “And vast hands like a rack of lamb?” She waggles her hands in imitation, and Bilbo chuckles.
“Not a very great beard, no. He always kept it short when I knew him, in mourning I was told. And not a very fat nose, either, though it wasn’t small. Beaky, I suppose. I always thought he looked a bit like a raven. He did have enormous hands though, you’re right there.”
“And was he kind, and merry?” she asks. He sounds a rather strange sort thus far.
Bilbo laughs out loud. Something is clearly very funny, since he is laughing a long while, until at last he stops walking, folded over with mirth, wheezing and wiping tears from his eyes. Bella fears at first that she has made him sad again, but it isn’t so.
“Merry? He was the most stubborn, curmudgeonly, rude, irritable, high-handed oaf you could possibly imagine,” grins Bilbo. “He walked into my house, last thing at night, entirely uninvited and told me I looked like a grocer.”
“Bilbo, please.”
“No, no he was!” insists Bilbo cheerfully, setting off once more beside her. His pace picks up and he begins to gesticulate with his walking stick, words tumbling out of him. “For the first month or so of our journey, he never missed a single opportunity to tell me I was weak, and lost, and unwelcome.”
“But he sounds horrid!”
“Oh, he was,” says her son, looking positively lovesick. “He was horrid, he growled at everyone, and he smelled like wet goat. Mind you they all did. Not that I went around smelling them, I just remember it, from when he hugged me once, and I was squashed up against him, I couldn’t help it then. And smoke, he smelled of woodsmoke. And old leather, and metal, and dirt.”
Bilbo’s voice becomes distracted, lost in his memories. “And sometimes he smiled, and it was like the sun coming out from behind a thundercloud. But when he didn’t smile, and he wasn’t frowning, he’d look so sad, and alone. He was so brave, Mum, so good, and he just, he cared so much about all of us. He would have died to protect any of us, even me. Even at the beginning when he thought I was just a pest.”
There may not be a better moment than this one, so cautiously, gently, Bella asks, “How did he die?”
Bilbo keeps walking. “At the Battle of the Five Armies. There was a great white orc called Azog. He was huge, and terrifying, and his skin was all grey, he looked like a great side of spoiled pork. Thorin had fought him before, actually, and they were sworn to kill each other or something.”
He sniffs, and brings up a hand to rub his nose, swallowing hard. “He killed Thorin’s nephew in front of us, and then Thorin killed him, and died of his wounds. I was with him, at the end. Just at the end.”
“My poor darling,” says Bella simply, and slips her hand into Bilbo’s. She holds it, and he doesn’t stop her, as they walk on in silence.
What horrors he has seen, her sweet baby boy. What she would not give to take them all upon herself, and give him happiness back instead.
--
Mountains begin to rise from the plains ahead a few days later, and Bella feels her heart leap. Perhaps they will find Aulë’s Halls, after all, though even she can scarcely believe it. Within another day they reach the foothills, and the rocky crags and snow-capped peaks are now resolving themselves into something quite different, more ordered than they appeared from a distance.
As they approach it seems that huge sections of the mountain have been carved into the shape of statues and pillars, towering figures of dwarves that must surely be hundreds of feet high. Around them wheel flocks of black birds, diving and swirling and flitting in and out of dark, arched windows cut into the rock all over.
“It can’t be,” murmurs Bilbo, but surely it is. Bella claps her hands in glee and runs forward.
What they do not see is a door. Even the windows only seem to begin a dozen feet above their heads, and as they draw nearer to search, the ravens notice their approach.
At first only a few swoop down, eyeing them with interest and cawing to each other. For a few more hours Bella and Bilbo examine the stone before them, pressing their hands to it, wandering up and down in search of runes or clues.
The ravens watch them carefully, larger groups now, circling over them for a while before drawing back, their places taken by comrades at once. Still neither Bilbo nor Bella can see any way into the mountain.
As the sun is beginning to drop behind them, there is a sudden change. A great black cloud of ravens rises up from the top of the mountain and plunges swiftly towards them, cawing loudly, their intentions clearly hostile.
They dive upon the hobbits, all sharp beaks and claws, and attack.
“What has got into these birds?” exclaims Bella, arms above her head as more of them descend, pecking and scratching. They’re going to have to run before they actually get hurt, at this rate.
“Well I suppose,” confesses Bilbo, flapping his arms wildly in a futile attempt to drive them off. “I suppose I wasn’t on the best terms with Thorin last time these fellows saw me. I’m told they have very good memories. They must have worked out who I am.”
“Oh, Bilbo!” groans Bella, picking up her skirts and fleeing. Her son follows close behind.
By the time they’re both out of breath, the ravens appear to have stopped chasing them and the black flock is back sweeping and circling around the peaks and pillars of the great mountain hall. They look like midges from that distance, although Bella has a few pecks and scratches that amply demonstrate they’re not. It’s not a problem. By morning, she promises Bilbo, they will all have healed as if they never were. One of the many benefits of being dead.
It’s getting dark in any case, so they lay out their bedrolls and roast a few apples from her pack. The smell is wonderful, and Bella pokes the fire happily. It’s been rather nice to sleep in the open air again, although it’s a shame they didn’t have room in their packs for a few cushions. She just wishes Bilbo didn’t look so sad.
“We’re so close,” he mutters, his chin on his knees, staring over to where the sun is setting below the mountain range. His fingers are in the dirt beside him, fiddling with a pebble, turning it over and over distractedly.
“We are,” she agrees, pulling their dinner out of the fire with a stick. The apples in the pan are sizzling nicely, hot juice leaking in caramel beads across the skins, so she rummages in her pack for napkins. “Ever so close, my honeybee. Don’t lose heart.”
He smiles as she hands him his dinner, and it does her good to see it.
--
It’s barely dawn when Bella wakes. Something black is fluttering around their camp, but she can’t make it out against the brightness of the sunrise. Suddenly it caws loudly and she groans. It’s one of those blasted ravens.
“Shoo!” says Bella, flapping at it. “Get away, you horrid bird!”
The bird scampers back, wings outstretched, and now Bilbo’s awake too, rolling over and rubbing his eyes. “What now?” he asks, and then sits bolt upright. “Where did you come from?” he asks, eyes wide in wonder, as if the bird could answer.
It does a creditable impression of something like speech, Bella will concede. Neither of them have any idea what it might think it’s saying, however.
“That sounds like Khuzdul,” says Bilbo excitedly, scrambling to his feet and pulling on his coat. He picks up his pack in one hand without looking at it, his bedroll apparently forgotten and his eyes fixed on the raven. “Doesn’t that sound like Khuzdul?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Bilbo dearest. What are you doing?”
The bird flaps away a few feet, towards the mountain, and stops. Bilbo walks cautiously towards it, and just as he’s about to reach it, the raven flies off, not far, as if it’s a game. Bilbo follows.
“Bilbo, what about breakfast?” asks his mother, sternly.
“Can’t wait for breakfast!” he cries, starting to run, and the raven takes wing in earnest, flying slowly back towards the mountain with her son’s small, sprinting figure chasing after.
“Can’t wait for breakfast?” However, she doesn’t want to be left behind out here, so tutting to herself, she begins to pack up their camp. A mother’s work is never done.
--
The mountain is still there when she catches up, and so is her son. The raven is long gone, as are the rest of its flock, which is surely a mercy. Bilbo is running back and forth across the rocks, tapping on stone and chewing his lip exactly as they both did yesterday, to no effect whatsoever.
“How perplexing,” says Bella, swinging down her pack to set it beside Bilbo’s, and regards the mountain with irritation.
A few yards away, she spots a golden, glowing spot low in a shadowed corner of the rocks. As she watches, it draws upwards into a line through the stone, then describes an arc, and then falls down to the ground again. It’s very like the gleam around a doorway to a lighted room.
“Bilbo,” says Bella, pointing. “What’s that?”
The question answers itself. It is a door, after all. The rock shifts, slowly at first, then slamming back against the mountain with a thud, and there is a hand pressed to it. The hand is followed by an arm, and then the rest of a body which is unmistakably dwarven, tall and dark-haired. The dwarf steps outside, and Bilbo moves like lightning past her.
“Carc told me, he said he had seen you, Bilbo, ekûnê, amrâlimê,” stammers the dwarf, catching Bilbo in his arms so tightly it looks as if it might hurt. His accent is terribly thick.
She isn’t quite sure which one of them starts the kissing, but neither seems willing to stop. Bella looks away indulgently. Bilbo didn’t mention that their relationship had been at quite that stage, but she isn’t about to let it bother her. There are murmured words between the kisses that she is glad she cannot hear, and she inspects the horizon for a while.
When they’re still kissing a good while later, she decides a small cough may be in order.
“Oh,” gasps Bilbo. “Oh, goodness, Thorin, where are my manners?”
“Lost at the back of Mister Thorin’s throat?” asks Bella.
Mister Thorin notices her presence at last and treats her to a truly alarming glower, eyebrows thick as caterpillars drawn close over distinctly flinty eyes. He isn’t quite as described, but then few are once they arrive.
There’s no silver in the thick black hair that is tied at the nape of his neck, and his beard falls to half-way down his chest. Moreover, his expression is far from friendly and his features look rather sharp to Bella’s eyes. She can quite see that he might be curmudgeonly and oafish.
“This is my mother,” explains Bilbo, shooting her a glare of his own. “She came with me to help find you.”
“Belladonna Baggins,” says Bella, holding out her hand. Thorin takes it in one of his own truly enormous paws, and holds it lightly a moment before he kisses her knuckles, which is a pleasant surprise, if a little prickly.
“Thorin Oakenshield, at your service,” he says, bowing as deeply as if she were a queen, and perhaps he isn’t so bad. The resemblance suddenly clicks in Bella’s mind, and she gasps aloud.
“The blacksmith! From the Blue Mountains!”
Thorin looks up in surprise. His eyes really are very blue.
“We have met before, I’m certain, Mister Thorin,” she says. “I bought a skillet and two knives of you, and very dear I thought them, though they lasted wonderfully. Why, the skillet hangs above the fire even now, and one of the knives is still going!”
“Indeed?” asks Thorin, brow furrowing.
“The other broke,” says Bella, smiling at the memory. “Or rather, my son here broke it. He took it for his sword and snapped the blade against a rock that was standing for a Troll, I believe. Hurt his hand for his trouble and gave him quite a shock. Oh Bilbo, you were only a little faunt, barely into double figures! Do you remember, when we went to the far market at the Downs, and you first met Mister Thorin?”
Bilbo has blushed to the very tips of his ears, hearing this, and Thorin is staring at him in stark wonder. How strange it is, how very strange, to think this dwarf was already an adult grown when her Bilbo was so young.
“I think I might,” he says thoughtfully. “There were toffee apples, weren’t there?”
“Yes,” she laughs. Trust Bilbo to remember the toffee apples.
“I regret, I do not,” admits Thorin. “Though I recall those markets well enough, and certainly I sold many pans and knives made of my own hand. I am glad they served well.”
Bella cannot help it, she is warming to this fellow. The skillet has been a most treasured bit of kitchen equipment since the day she brought it home.
“I’ve cooked fish on that skillet all my life,” says Bilbo in confusion. “I used it the night you all came to Bag End. I never would have dreamt it was made by you.”
Thorin smiles, and perhaps Bilbo was right, for it is rather charming now she sees it, far softer than expected.
“Come, Belladonna and Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.” He lays a hand again upon the small door in the rock. “I bid you welcome to my Maker’s halls.”
--
The tiny doorway leads to a short, cramped tunnel, and then opens into a more enormous open hall than Bella could have dreamt. She could swear that the place is bigger inside than the mountain was outside, if such a thing could be possible.
The floors are plain stone, but the pillars that reach up to dizzying heights all around the great hall are all sorts of pretty colours, marbled in green and white and red and yellow and others besides. There’s more light than she expected, filtering through high windows and reflecting off a ceiling panelled all over in beaten silver metal. It illuminates rooms and stairways and colonnades and mezzanines that stretch in all directions, seemingly for miles. Everything is carved gemstone and polished metal and precious jewels. She had expected a dark, shadowy place, but instead wherever her eye falls, it’s dazzling.
Enough to be overwhelming. Bilbo seems to like it, however. His eyes are like stars, staring all about him open-mouthed with wonder. He’s holding Thorin’s hand, and the dwarf is watching him with such tenderness that Bella feels she ought not to look.
There are long stone tables near to them where dwarves eat and drink, and further away an open space with more dwarves hurrying to and fro across it, and further yet she can see the gleam of forges and hear the the chime of hot metal against hammers.
A voice cries out in the dwarven language that she doesn’t understand a word of, and suddenly half-a-dozen fellows are running towards them. They’re happy, so far as she can tell, but they are also very large and very lumbering and every single one of them is as hairy as Gaffer Proudfoot’s great orange cows. Bella smooths her skirts and smiles brightly. Not that it matters, since no-one is looking at her.
Bilbo dashes forward, and Bella watches him flit between them all, radiating a happiness she hasn’t seen in him since he arrived. He knows all their names, and they greet him with delight.
“Fili! Kili! Why, I almost didn’t recognise you! Your beard, Kili, you look wonderful!” he cries, greeting a pair of dwarves who stand together, one golden-haired, one dark. Their tunics are as simple as those of all the rest, but the geometric embroidery trimming their sleeves is in golden thread, like Thorin’s, so Bella supposes they must be his two tragic nephews.
The dark-haired one strokes a hand down the long, thick beard that reaches past his belt. There are several fancy braids woven into it, fastened with silvery beads. “Grew in all right, didn’t it, Mr Boggins,” he grins bashfully.
“It’s wonderful, Kili, you look magnificent,” says her son very firmly, before turning to the next dwarf. “And Balin, is that you?”
“Aye, Laddie!” crows the dwarf. He has a high forehead and long, dark hair in a single braid down his back. Thank goodness for those braids, thinks Bella, or it would be quite impossible to tell them all apart. “Not quite as you saw me last, but it is me!”
“And Dwalin? Is he here?”
“No, he lingers yet in Arda. Tough old bugger, always was!”
“He was,” agrees Bilbo cheerfully. “Oh, and Oin! And Ori!” Another dark-haired dwarf and a redhead come forward to manhandle her poor boy into back-slapping hugs that look fit to break his bones, and yet he looks gladder than ever.
“It’s so good to see you again, Bilbo!” says the red-haired one, sounding terribly earnest. “Are you staying?”
And suddenly, she sees Bilbo’s face fall. He turns back to stare at Thorin with such naked fear and longing, it pierces Bella’s heart. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know if I can.”
There is silence then, and when Thorin holds out his arms Bilbo rushes into them, clinging to him like he’s a raft on a raging sea. Bella feels the joy around her dissolve as if it had never been.
“Bilbo,” murmurs Thorin, his chin resting on her son’s head, arms tightly wrapped about his body. He doesn’t look so forbidding and sharp-faced at all, now. He looks heartbroken.
The dwarves all stand about shuffling their feet, no-one speaks, and Bella is entirely at a loss.
--
All at once, there is a dreadfully loud crash, like thunder, and the very air of the place seems to darken.
“Who enters my halls speaking with the tongue of Men!” roars a voice, and its source comes striding towards them.
Aulë is tall, taller even than his wife, whom Bella has only seen once, and broad as a barn. His hair and beard are scarlet and gold, crackling around his head like the flames of a forge. His footsteps fall like the ringing of hammers and he is upon them in a moment.
Belladonna may be a Took, but she is not a fool. She dives under the nearest table and peeps out in terror.
“You!” bellows Aulë, pointing to where Bilbo stands. He still stands out there, realises Bella in horror, and he stares back up into Aulë’s fiery golden eyes as if he isn’t even afraid. Thorin stands behind him, one arm across Bilbo’s chest, and it’s patently clear neither of them intends to back down.
“What business can you have here?” Aulë’s voice is deafening.
“I’m visiting,” says Bilbo, his voice small and shaky. The dwarves that filled the hall have scattered, and only the half-dozen who came to greet them are left. They stand their ground, crowding close behind Bilbo and Thorin.
“You are trespassing!”
“No, indeed!”
“Shire-rat!”
“Sir, I am a hobbit, the fruit of your wife’s hand!”
Mahal looks as if he might actually explode, thinks Bella. There is lightning flashing about the roof of the hall now, blinding sparks of it flashing over the silver ceiling, and Bella feels very small.
But the dwarves are out there, facing down their maker, and she is not. She has to get to Bilbo, she has to do something before he gets smote to smithereens by an angry Valar, she thinks, and scrambles out from under the table.
“Enough.”
This voice is as quiet as a falling leaf, and yet everyone present seems to hear it. Bella recognises it, and so does Aulë.
An archway has appeared within the rock wall nearest to them, not a dark passageway this time but a glowing golden window. Green vines and sunflowers burst outward from its confines, sprawling out across the stones, and before it stands Lady Yavanna.
“You are far from home, little hobbits,” she says.
The long green robes ripple like wind-blown grass around her bare feet as she walks lightly towards them, and her smile is white as a bitten apple against her nut-brown skin. She bends low as she approaches, and Bella drops into a curtsey.
“Belladonna and Bilbo Baggins,” says Yavanna warmly. Her eyes are green as leaves, her hair a cascade of curls as golden as wheat fields in the sun. Even in those sparkling halls, she glows with a living beauty that mere stone could never surpass, and the sight of her gives Bella hope. “Why, Bilbo, I have not yet welcomed you and already you wish to take your leave. Will you not give my pastures a little time? It is the place I have made for you.”
Bilbo gently detaches himself from Thorin’s arms, and takes a step forward. He kneels at Yavanna’s feet.
“For hobbits,” he says. “But not for me.”
She laughs softly. “What are you, then, if not my hobbit?”
“Oh I am, my Lady, I am a hobbit. I would not be other than you made me, but all the same, I love Thorin. My heart lives here. I don’t scorn your pastures, I swear, but I want to stay here. For love.”
“For love,” replies Yavanna, and looks directly at Bella. “Does not your mother love you, Bilbo Baggins?”
The words are like a blow. Bilbo turns, aghast, staring at her in utter consternation, and with that look Bella feels herself struck anew, harder. On the way here she wished to take his troubles for her own, and if she does, this is how it will feel.
“I do,” she says. “More than anything. I want to see him happy, my Lady.”
“Ah,” says Yavanna softly, and smiles.
There isn’t really a choice to make. Bilbo is her son, and she loves him. What sort of mother could tear him away from this happiness, now that she’s seen it? What sort of person at all? Her poor boy, kneeling there on the cold stone. He looks ruined, so confused and upset and exhausted.
Bella glances over to Thorin, but he doesn’t see her, too busy staring at Bilbo, hands in fists at his sides, and there is such agony in his expression. What a pair they make, she thinks suddenly. How glad she is of her good, sensible Bungo and their simple, loving home.
“For love, indeed,” says Yavanna sadly. “If this is truly your wish, Bilbo, I will grant it.”
She turns to lay a hand upon Aulë’s arm. “It seems I have a gift for you, my husband. This good, beloved hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, to dwell in your halls henceforth. You must cherish him in my stead.”
“Never to see his kin more,” growls Aulë.
Bilbo’s head is bent again, and his face hidden in his hair. Bella sees the tear roll down his nose to splash on the floor.
It is quite the last straw, and she dares to move at last, falling to her knees beside him and wrapping his shoulders in a fierce hug.
“I’m so sorry, Mum,” sobs Bilbo. It can’t be helped. He can’t be in two places at once, the silly hobbit.
“My honeybee,” she says, and if her voice breaks on the last word it’s only a little bit.
“And Dad too, oh, no, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right, Bilbo,” she whispers to him, petting his hair. “We love you very much, your Dad and me, so be happy, my honeybee. It’s all to no good unless you remember to be happy.”
She rocks him a long while in her arms, remembering times long ago and far away, when they were both very different hobbits. Folk change, she supposes. She is not enough for Bilbo now, but she can comfort him this last time.
Thorin still stands beside them awkwardly, and Bella feels a swell of affectionate pity for him.
“As for you, Mister Thorin,” she says, as firmly as she can. “You take the very best care of my son. He’s the finest hobbit that ever lived, and you don’t deserve him!”
Thorin bows his head. “Yes, Mrs Baggins.” Oh, he sounds painfully sincere.
She helps Bilbo back to his feet, and smiles, though it takes every ounce of bravery she has to do it. If she is to make it through this without crying herself, there seems no point to drawing things out.
“Good. Good,” says Bella, feeling the tears prickle and blinking them back. She takes Bilbo’s hand and lays it in Thorin’s, noting with satisfaction the little smile that passes between them at once.
“Well, goodbye then,” she says. It isn’t the first time she’s had to leave him.
“Mum, I...” starts Bilbo, but she shakes her head. There couldn’t possibly be time enough or words for all of it, whatever he means to say. He nods, and she will hope he’s understood. “Goodbye,” he says.
The Lady waits, her arm outstretched, and Bella takes a deep breath. They step through the golden archway, and are in the pastures once more.
--
The golden light deposits Bella alone, under the party tree, beside the pack she left on the mountainside. She swings it onto her shoulders and fails to take a step forward for several long minutes. It looks to be after lunch, already, by the way the sun is falling across the road, and it won’t walk itself, so she must begin.
Bella knows she is dragging her feet. In any case, the round green door of Bag End is before her before she is ready for it.
With a deep sigh, she pushes it open and slips inside. “You’re home!” cries Bungo delightedly, and runs to greet her. How can she face him now, and spoil such joy?
“I am,” she says awkwardly, setting down her pack and unbuckling her travelling cloak, wondering where on earth to begin.
“Bilbo stayed, then,” says Bungo, reading her mind as ever. His smile is gentle and a little worried, a tiny crease between his eyebrows as he tries to meet her eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, and her tears cannot be held off any longer. “He was so happy there, Bungo, I never thought...”
“Ah, lass,” says her husband, folding her into his arms as she cries. “I suspected as much. That boy, my gracious. Well, good for him. And good for you. We’re all in the best place for us, eh?”
She can hear the concern lying under the comfort of his words, and looks up to place a kiss on the end of his dear, beloved nose. He doesn’t blame her, or hate her, and she’s so grateful for his goodness.
“We are, Bungo,” she whispers. “The best place for us all.”
That night she makes a stew while Bungo chops the vegetables, and the view outside their window as they eat is the same as it’s been since they arrived. Bella doesn’t mind that at all, she finds. She recounts her journey over dinner, skating easily past the more terrifying details for now as she always used to do, and smiles up at the skillet over the stove as she tells Bungo that it turns out to have been made by the mysterious Thorin. He is a good dwarf, she thinks. She will trust him with her son.
After the dishes are done, they retire to sit beside the fire, and her crochet sits in her lap as she looks into the flames and considers, blowing the steam from her teacup. She ought to be sadder. After waiting so long, she’s lost her only son to dwarves, and will not see him again until Arda is remade.
Instead she finds a soft contentment settled in her belly, only a little bittersweet. The best place, she thinks. How wise dear Bungo is, sometimes, though goodness knows he hides it well.
“I think,” she says thoughtfully, “I might be done with adventures, Bungo. I think that one last time really was.”
Bungo looks up in surprise, and the smile that spreads across his face is the most beautiful thing she has seen in all her travels. However did she leave him so often, before?
Even heaven may not be perfect, thinks Bella, but it can be good enough.