Work Text:
There are many odd and wonderous things that Gandalf has found in the Shire. Granny Bracegirdle's garlic butter potatoes are one of those things. No-one knows who the original Granny Bracegirdle was but her recipe keeps living on. It's so delicious that sometimes Gandalf visits the Shire purely to eat them. He wonders if he may be addicted to them every time he does so but there's definitely no way a maiar could become addicted to a food!
Right?
Definitely not!
He was fine.
He didn't dream about eating his own weight in them at all.
Granny Bracegirdle's garlic butter potatoes were not why he was in Hobbiton today but that didn't mean that he didn't take a small diversion in order to get some.
What he was here for was something... 'worrying' would probably be the best way of explaining it. Worrying... yes. So worrying in fact that Lord Manwë had in fact sent him an express message via giant eagle to rush himself back down to the Shire and pick up something important for them.
Gandalf grumbled. He might have volunteered to come to Middle Earth, but he hadn't been expecting to have to do so much heavy lifting alone.
Radagast was busy bumbling around the woods getting high on random mushrooms.
Saruman lived in a tower and prided himself in being wise but outside of political machinations he didn't meddle in the lives of the children in the way that Gandalf can see the world needs them to be doing.
The blue wizards... the less said of them the better. Gandalf wasn't even going to dignify them in his thoughts by using their names. The two had fucked off into obscurity the moment that the five of them had stepped foot on the shores of Middle Earth. Hopefully they were doing SOMETHING wherever they are. It didn't cost anything to check in once and a while. Let people know they were still alive.
No everything fell on Gandalf.
He'd been doing overtime for centuries, if not thousands of years at this point and no matter how much he begged, pleaded or threatened the Valar refused to come themselves or send further Maiar as back up. Gandalf had to do the duties of five wizards almost entirely alone across a vast continent and he did it because he loved the children and he couldn't bare to see them suffer.
He was allowed to grumble about it though. If he wasn't going to get his PTO, he was allowed at least that.
Buttery and warm, the potato he had just popped into his mouth was perfectly seasoned. The inside was delicate and fluffy and entirely too hot. He choked, rushing to swig from the water flask he carried in an attempt to save the skin on the roof of his mouth. Several hobbits stared at him, looks of judgement on their faces for rushing his food.
It didn't matter though, Gandalf was a weirdo in their eyes normally. He was irredeemably strange to them and had embraced that fact for a long time by now.
He wished Manwë's orders had been more explicit in what it exactly it was he was supposed to find and collect from the Mathom House. The place was literally a warehouse for a thousand years of bric-a-brac stacked haphazardly in piles that were at least three hobbits deep. Getting anything out of it was a nightmare.
Anything Gandalf so much as looked at began to slip causing a veritable landslide of mementos.
Then he pulled at the edge of a handkerchief.
One Silmaril being here was shocking.
.
.
Two almost impossible to comprehend.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The third one? The third one made him pass out.
"What the actual fuck is the star of Earendil then?" He screamed when he woke but the Valar offer Gandalf no explanation, only amusement at his strife.