Chapter Text
The Fell Winter was one of the most taboo topics of conversation in the Shire, and it had been ever since the mess of it had been swept under the rug. Nightmares of beasts and claws and teeth and knives had been studiously soothed and then ignored. And those families who had lost the most ended up wanting to forget, if only to bury the pain. One of those was the family of Bungo and Belladonna Baggins, and their young son Bilbo. Belladonna had long been the topic of gossip, ever since her adventuring and rambling in her youth. It wasn’t proper, especially for a young female, and when she returned only to chase after Bungo everybody—prompted by Lobelia Bracegirdle’s meddling—agreed that she was acting incredibly improperly and he would be a fool to participate in such unhobbity behavior. Nobody was truly concerned, though. After all, Bungo was the epitome of a proper hobbit gentleman. The whole town was shocked when he accepted her suit and built her the most impressive smial in all of Hobbiton in preparation for their life together. After the wedding things seemed to settle, the two falling into the more usual patterns of matrimony. Then Belladonna fell pregnant, and even the Bagginses fell in love with little Bilbo. Twenty happy years later, the Fell Winter hit. And Bungo was killed. And nothing was the same after.
The Fell Winter brought the Baggins family back into the gossip mill when, shortly after the large-scale attack that took Bungo from them, the young Bilbo came across a bundle tucked between two large roots of a towering oak, protected from the snow and chaos surrounding it. It was only once the tween pulled open the wrappings that he saw that it was a hobbit baby. That was that. Belladonna, despite her despair, took the child in and Bilbo looked after her. As soon as she was well they tried to locate her family, but quickly found that nobody was left to claim her. She was only about two or three they determined, and as Belladonna faded in her grief Bilbo raised her into a vibrant, beautiful kind young hobbit. Petite, even for the Shire folk, with tumbling auburn curls, big hazel eyes, and buxom in the way only young hobbit lasses were. She also had her own little quirks that, unfortunately, only made life more interesting for poor Bilbo.
My earliest memories were of Bilbo. I did not remember my original parents, or if I had had siblings in the time before. I loved Belladonna, it was impossible not to, but even as a child I could tell her heart was gone. Bilbo was my world, and he did his best to make me happy, though he was little more than a child himself. He could be stuffy, and tense, and he could panic about the silliest of things, all to maintain propriety. Then, the dreams started. When I woke, screaming in the middle of the night, he was there to listen to me babbly mindlessly about the miller’s son being run over by a cart. I had been friends with the boy, so his presence in my dream was easily explained. Then, a month later, the boy was killed. A series of similar premonitions occurred, and with the recklessness of children I did not hide it as well as I should have. Eventually I was ostracized, and when Belladonna passed and Bilbo still stood by me he joined me on the outskirts of society. I was seen as something unnatural, perhaps with elf blood far back in my bloodline. Bilbo was encouraged to leave me to them, but my sweet guardian insisted I was his family. For a while, it was the only outward sign of defiance he showed.
By the time I reached my tweens my inklings of things to come came at any point during the day, sometimes without my even noticing. I still had dreams of specific events, but it was more usual for me to get a sudden urge to go one place over another, or to avoid a specific hobbit, and the like. It was one such instinctive urging that saw me bullying Bilbo into whittling us two practice swords. He indulged my wild stories of orcs and bandits and wolves, remnants of the fear of the Fell Winter reminding him that, even in the Shire, bad things still happened. Then I brought home a Ranger.
I had been on the borders of the Shire, farther than my usual rambles took me, and encountered one of the mysterious men. My curiosity got the best of me, and I had had an inkling that my urge to walk on that particular day led me to him. He was kind enough to come to Bag End under cover of darkness, and so began mine and Bilbo’s proper fighting lessons. Our instructors rotated, as the Rangers themselves did, and while some were better teachers than others, none ridiculed us for our very unhobbitish hobby, as our neighbors might have.
Bilbo taught me Sindarin, as Bungo had taught him, and everything it was to be a good hobbit. I did my best to fit in, for his sake, but something deep within me insisted we didn’t belong. It wasn’t too much longer that we were pulled away, for something much, much bigger.