Chapter Text
excerpt from Bilbo Baggin’s journal;
My Mam’s name was Belladonna Took and she was exceptional. Being as how she was one of the three daughters of the Old Took from Tuckborough, Virginia, adventure had been passed along in her mother’s milk with healthy doses of common sense, sass and curiosity. The Tooks are a playfully dreadful family and while not the scourge of West Farthing, they had an unerring ability to land in trouble of the most interesting sort. I am a Baggins of Bag End, we just land in trouble.
My grandfather, Gerontius, or Old Took as he was favorably nicknamed, had been the Thain of Shire County or sheriff, mostly in charge of keeping his wild family out of too much trouble. It was a tradition that the sheriff be called Thain but no one could remember why. So many customs traveled with the original founders of our fair county, that the wheres and whyfors have been forgotten or were legends from the beginning.
The Tooks in this part of the Shire had the distinction of brewing the best beer in the area. That would have been alright, but they didn’t stop during prohibition, or after its repeal. Some say it is the local water, others cite that the process they use is softer on the hops and grains. Whether it be the process or the water, the results cannot be disputed. West Farthing was for brewing as the South Farthing was for pipeweed.
My Mam would say that the crazy cousins did what they had to do to support the family because family was important. I think my Took family likes the danger and would chase it like a deranged squirrel for a laugh. A relative of mine nicknamed Bullroarer, if you could believe that moniker, had been a great military man, fighting in several campaigns in the World Wars before my birth. Apparently, he was fond of beating the enemy with a club; even in modern times we could be crazier than an outhouse rat.
But back to my Mam. She had traveled a great deal in her youth, many faraway places in the world. She would tell me stories before bed with my father chuckling in the doorway. They were funny stories of people I didn’t know or would probably never meet, but I had always thought of them as just that. Stories. It was only later that I learned that most of what she had told me was true. Even at a distance from the subject, they were still horribly true. My mam, you see, had been a covert spy, something I found out not from her but an adversary.
One day, we were laughing about something as I helped her cook dinner at our home in Bag End. I remember it clearly for it was a beautiful day in western Virginia, leaves snapping in the afternoon breeze. There was a special trick to asking my Mam direct questions, evasion was something of an art form to her. But some questions need answers, so I asked one that had been on my mind for a while. Why, if she had been to so many places in the world, did she settle down in Shire County with my father, Bungo Baggins? My father was a good man in his own way, I meant no offense in the asking. It just seemed that for someone with such a thirst for life to live here in Hobbiton, West Farthing part, of an otherwise unknown backwater in Virginia would be incredibly stale.
My mam looked at me quietly for a moment and told me. “When I was a young girl, I met your father at a local fair. He was kind and sweet, just the kind of man I wanted to grow old with. But I had not lived yet, not really. So when a friend of my Da’s asked me to go on an adventure, I jumped and didn’t think twice. Thinking of your Da was what got me through some tight spots on my adventure, made me want to come home.”
It isn’t hard to reconcile my Mam using my Da as her beacon in the night. They were always hand in hand in my life. The sun was warmer then, and they were everyday together. It is a fundamental need in all of us to not live alone. Some animals mate for life, as do some humans. Others take it one step further, like my parents. It was a love that transcended life, breath or reason. A love that breaks you when you aren’t looking. My dear Mam gave me a lot of advice over the years, but one piece resonated in me even after her death.
She told me. ”Guard your heart, Bilbo. Guard it well, for no one will do it for you. If by chance you lose it, you may never find it again or if you do, you will never be the same.”
So I guarded my heart well as the long years passed, afraid of that kind of romance. I remembered the lessons my mother had taught me on survival too, the fun tricks that made me laugh at the time but saved me in my darkest hours later. After my parents passed on to the next life, I took in a cousin’s child who was now an orphan. Frodo, a sweet boy that I adopted as my own.
I had thought my Mam’s lesson was of the physical or passionate love one bears for another and to have that love return or not depending on the person in your life. But the love I had for Frodo was neither of these, it was the love one bears for the child of your heart or a child of your flesh. The love I bore him was for a child that I had failed to conceive but it was love just the same. It still destroyed me just the same when he was kidnapped.
I remember that day clearly, too. Frodo ran to the mailbox after the postman had just done his round up Bagshot row. I was in the kitchen, cutting some of my prize winning tomatoes for roasting, not watching the row or Frodo. It never occurred to me to watch, it was a quiet day in Hobbiton. Everyone knew everyone and everyone’s business down to the amount of fertilizer used on one’s vegetables. Even my arch enemies, the Sackville-Baggins down the street might snipe at my ward but never hurt him.
Time passed and Frodo had not come back inside. Off with Samwise again that boy, I remember grousing as I walked to the door. Pulling it wide, I almost ran into a very tall, very scary man. He had a skinned head with a small ruff of red at the very top, very military. His suit was expensive looking but simple, the cut was tailored, with soft costly shoes on very large feet. He stood an impressive height, well over six feet, which meant he was towering over me.
He spoke quietly with an accent that I couldn’t place, a mix of inflections on words that didn’t fit from any one country. Introductions were made, identifying him as Smaug Drake of New Hampshire. Mr. Drake offered me a job with a handsome salary, health benefits, the whole works. He said all the right things at exactly the right times, answering my questions to allay my concerns. But something started nagging me during this whole interview. When I put it together, I was so scared I almost pissed myself in my father’s favorite chair.
My Mam had taught me how to read people, more importantly to get a feel for them. It was a daily exercise that we did where she strengthened my observation skills but also train my brain to see patterns in behavior. Years later, Gandalf told me that my Mam had been the best in the business because she managed every situation effortlessly, giving her mark exactly what he or she needed. She always knew what the situation required at any given time. I watched Mr. Drake with a sense of growing horror because I had no idea what he could want with me.
The scars on the hands from fighting, the slightly off center nose that had been broken one too many times. He moved sinuously as if his bones were liquid, able to shift his thick muscle on the fly. Jungle cats have that same walk, a lazy feel as if they have all the time in the world when you have been plated up as what’s for dinner. Mr. Drake walked into the study. He noted the window, the kitchen door and the poker at the fireplace. Escape, retreat, weapon. But more than any other indicator, he had the coldest eyes. A dark amber brown that were as flat as a mill pond. Mr. Smaug Drake, for all his urban sophistication, was a killer and I had just invited him inside Bag End. Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Only I wasn’t the spider now.
When I refused his offer however politely, he smiled. Cold fear tickled down my spine at that smile. It was malice made flesh. My heart sped up to a thousand beats a minute but hopefully it didn’t show on my face. One didn’t show fear to the hungry monster, else you get eaten one leg at a time. It went on for a moment, that smile, until he pulled an envelope out of an inside pocket, handing it to me. I opened it slowly, revealing a picture.
It was Frodo in his favorite Superman t-shirt outside by the mailbox about an hour ago.
The monster across from me, pulled out a cellphone to dial a number. He put the phone on speaker, so that we both could hear my ward screaming and crying on the other end. They had Frodo and my heart shattered in that moment.
Smaug advised that he knew who my mother had been, knew what she had been capable of in the field. If I was even half as good as she, I would have Frodo back and our lives would go on as planned. No fuss, no further intrusion. He wanted my services, you see. He wanted something very badly, but to make sure he got it I would have to perform for him like a trained monkey in the circus. A few trial runs to make sure I could acquire what he wanted.
The ensuing two years were an absolute rape of my soul. Though the prick never touched me, kept me out of Azog’s playpen, it was a violation nevertheless that went on and on. I had left that day with Smaug, walked out of Bag End and the safety of the Shire. My family, I never contacted them, preferring to limit my body count, though Lobelia was an exception. The places I went with him, the things I did, I was sure that I would never be able to look at myself in the mirror again. Just when I thought there was nothing left of who I was, Smaug brought me to Dale. Then the real fun started.
I remember the first time I saw Thorin Oakenshield. It wasn’t at the MC’s Devil’s Night. Oh no, that was research which became something else. No, the first time was at a coffee shop in Dale. He breezed in the door, handing something to a rotund lady in a veil behind the counter. I forgot to breathe for a moment, my body simply shut down and kissed me goodnight. I gulped my coffee in order to cover my face as he left, a beanie covering my curly hair.
Thorin was handsome, I knew from the 8 x 10s Smaug had rammed down my throat on a daily basis. Know thine enemy, blah blah. Seeing him in the flesh got my attention and my body’s attention in a big way. He had a long black beard. Gods, I’m a sucker for men in beards. The scraping feel on your skin is like having another set of hands on all the fun places. Light blue eyes with the crinkled corners and all that long black hair.
I knew he was my mark, knew that it was wrong to feel like this. But gods I wanted him long after Devil’s Night ended, wanted to know he was mine for more than just an interlude in the long passage of our lives. It was a hard road but if it were easy, everyone would do it. So I fought and fought for what I wanted. Frodo, Thorin, a life where I wasn’t ashamed of my past or the horrible acts I had committed. The battle, however, swept all my dreams away.
Writing this hasn’t dulled the ache for me, it is still a sharp knife in the drawer. But it just reminds me that now, at the end of all things, I loved and was loved in return. I see others: Tauriel, Dis, and Sigrid who have known that same kind of love and became better for it. It reshaped their lives and everyone’s around them, but they fought for it, with everything they had. What they carry with them as a result, what they justified to themselves, is anyone’s guess.
Love is there, a powerful force that endures until the ending of the world and beyond. It is neither hungry nor sated but consuming you completely. Mam was right, once you lose your heart in love, you are never the same again.