The Breaking of Threads

by Criticallyinneedofadar

Summary:

Lyra never meant to fall into a world of dragons, dwarves, and destiny.

Pulled from her own time and place by a power older than memory, she finds herself in Middle-earth—a stranger bound by a secret purpose: to save a bloodline fated to fall. One year before the Quest for Erebor begins, Lyra must learn to survive, to keep her heart guarded, and to walk alongside legends without losing herself in the process.

But fate is never kind. And when love kindles in the most unlikely of places, Lyra must face a cruel choice: protect the lives of a few… or the hope of millions.

Chapter 1: Prologue

A hush lay upon the ruined stones of Dale. The wind had stilled. Smoke drifted skyward from the chimneys of Lake Town on the horizon, and the mountain loomed behind them like a shadow cast into eternity.

She stood at the edge of it all, the hem of her cloak brushing the ash, her eyes bright with sorrow. Before her, the Company waited in confusion, some in anger, others in aching silence. But none more silent than he.

Thorin Oakenshield did not speak. Not at first.

His gaze was fixed upon her, as if she were some dream that had slipped between his fingers. The weight of the oncoming battle hung from his shoulders, but this—this was the wound that cut deepest. She saw it in his eyes.

Beside her stood a figure cloaked in light—neither man nor woman, clothed not in fabric but in radiance, shaped as though the stars themselves had woven form and purpose into one.

“This is the hour,” said the being. The voice echoed in the stillness like the breath of a mountain. “The thread is severed. The time has come.”
She did not speak.

Thorin took one step forward, and the pain in his voice struck her like a blow.

“You would leave us now?” he said. “After all we have endured? After all that you have done?”

She could not lift her eyes to meet his.

“You stood with us,” he said, louder now, disbelief bleeding into fury. “You stood beside me at the gates. You gave hope where none could be found. And now—now you turn away?”

The light at her feet began to glow, creeping outward in a silent tide. She could feel it gathering, reaching for her soul like the tide pulling from shore.

Thorin surged forward—but a hand caught his arm.

Bilbo.

He said no word. There were tears on his face, but he only shook his head and held fast to Thorin’s cloak with both hands, his grip fierce for one so small.

“Let go of me!” Thorin snarled, trying to wrench free.

But Bilbo would not.

The others remained still, stunned. Grief sat heavy upon the Company, but it was Thorin’s voice that broke it all apart.

“No!” he roared, struggling in vain. “Do not do this!”

Her name left his mouth then—a cry torn from deep within, echoing across the stones, filled with everything he could not say.

And she heard it.

It hollowed her. Shattered her.

But the light had risen past her hands now, past her heart, until the world was nothing but white. The wind returned, keening through the ruins.

And when it passed—

She was gone.

Chapter 2: The Beginning

Three Years Earlier
There is a place beyond the circles of the world, where no sun rises and no shadow falls—only endless light and endless silence. It is not for the living to know, save in dreams or death, and even then, few remember.

The Halls of Mandos.

Here, the spirits of Elves rest in waiting, and the echoes of the world’s sorrow drift like snow upon the windless air. There are no walls, yet the space is bounded. No doors, yet none may enter unbidden. The light is neither day nor flame, but something older, deeper, woven from thought and memory and the will of Ilúvatar.
Within these halls, two of the Valar walked alone.

Nienna, Lady of Mercy, moved with the stillness of mourning rain. Her eyes were veiled, though she wept not now. She had wept long, and her tears had carved quiet paths through ages unnumbered. Grief clung to her as a mantle, and yet there was no weakness in her—only patience, and the strength of one who has borne the sorrow of all things and still stands.

Beside her walked Irmo, whom Men name Lórien, master of dreams and visions. He was as a breeze in a sleeping forest—gentle, elusive, but filled with vast and knowing silence. His thoughts drifted like leaves, and yet in his gaze burned the clarity of starlight.

They passed beneath an arch of singing silver, where no mouth moved and no breath stirred, and paused before the Veil of Fate—the place where the Music of the Ainur still echoes, hidden in the threads of the world.

“He mourns them already,” Nienna said at last, her voice as soft as distant water. “Though they yet live.”

Irmo inclined his head. “He feels it in the roots of the stone. The fall of his firstborn craft. The breaking of Durin’s line.”

“Aulë loves all his children, but the Dwarves were his first sorrow. He does not forget.”

“No,” Irmo agreed. “Nor do we. Yet what can be done?”

There was a pause. The Veil shimmered—images glinting like motes in a beam of light. Mountains, fire, war. Gold and ruin. The shadow of a dragon. The mourning of a king.
And one face that did not belong.

A woman—strange, still, unknown. Neither of this world nor shaped by its song.

Nienna’s gaze lingered on her.

“She does not belong here,” Irmo said quietly.

“No,” said Nienna. “But she weeps in her sleep. And listens, even when no voice speaks. Perhaps that is enough.”

Irmo considered. “Eru forbade it.”

“He forbade the sight of other realms. Not mercy.”

“And what is this, if not interference?”

Nienna turned. “A kindness. A small defiance, for the sake of love.”

He did not answer at once. Then, softly:

“Would you change the Music?”

“No,” she said. “Only… add a harmony where dissonance will soon reign.”

They stood in silence once more. Then Irmo raised a hand, and the Veil parted slightly. Beyond it, in the distant folds of another world, a woman named Lyra walked beneath gray skies, unaware that fate had turned its eye upon her.

Nienna closed her eyes.

“Let her come.”

…..

Lyra often felt like she was made for a world that no longer existed.

Not in the grand, dramatic sense—she wasn’t born in the wrong century, or dreaming of castles and corsets-though let’s be real, who would turn down a castle? But there was something about the hum of modern life, all its noise and momentum, that made her feel like she’d been left behind in the rush. Too slow. Too still.
She worked. She cleaned. She called in prescriptions. She picked up dry cereal for her sister, who always forgot breakfast. She kept the kitchen quiet after 9 PM because her sister’s migraines were getting worse. And she read. Lord, how she read.

Her copy of The Silmarillion was more annotation than paper now. Pages worn soft at the edges, corners turned, spines re-glued more than once. The Unfinished Tales lived under her pillow. And The Return of the King—her third copy, the one with gilded edges and onion-thin paper—had wept beneath her tears more times than she could count.
She never thought of herself as particularly brave or adventurous. But there was something about Tolkien’s world—its pain, its quiet valor, its long, slow sadness—that mirrored something inside her she didn’t know how to name.

And then there was her sister. Clara.

Bright-eyed, sardonic, brilliant Clara who once played violin on street corners and now refused to go outside unless it was cloudy. Some autoimmune thing the doctors couldn’t agree on. Chronic fatigue. Something systemic and cruel. Lyra had never asked too many questions. She just… stayed. Learned how to help. How to care.
It was only the two of them now. Their mother had been gone for years, and their father had left long before that—if not in body, then in every other way.
Clara needed her.

And Lyra needed Clara.

It made her world small, but safe. Books, tea, the low hum of old music. Her sister’s laughter on good days. The silent steadiness of love on the bad ones.

That night, Clara had already gone to bed—too tired to talk, her limbs aching again. Lyra sat curled up on the old couch with a blanket across her lap and The Silmarillion open in one hand. She wasn’t reading, not really. Just rereading the part about Lúthien and Beren. Again.

She thought of Clara sometimes when she read about Lúthien—someone who shone even in stillness, who endured what others could not.

Outside the window, the stars flickered behind the trees. A late summer wind brushed against the glass.

She turned the page—and sleep crept in like a shadow.

…..

The floor beneath her shifted.

She was standing, barefoot, in a place that was not her living room.

There was no ceiling. No walls. No sky—only mist and light and the breathless sense that something ancient was watching.

Before her stood a woman, veiled in gray and moonlight, though no features could be seen. Yet the sorrow that radiated from her struck Lyra like cold water down the spine.

“Where—” Lyra began, then stopped.

Her voice sounded small here. Smaller than usual.

The woman did not move, but a voice—soft and endless—filled the air around her.

“Why do you grieve?”

Lyra blinked. “I don’t. I mean—” She paused. “I suppose I do. But so does everyone, mine is not special.”

“It is. Your sorrow echoes in more than one world.”

That made no sense.

But dreams rarely did.

She did not move, but Lyra felt watched—not unkindly, but with the weight of an understanding too deep to explain.

“I must be dreaming,” Lyra murmured.

“You are,” said the voice—not heard aloud, but felt deep within her chest. “And you are not. A mirror has two sides, and both are the reflection.”

Lyra frowned. “I’ve had vivid dreams before. This is just stress. Or exhaustion. Maybe both.”

The figure didn’t reply.

A kind of pressure filled the air, like the stillness before a storm. And with it, something stirred in Lyra’s chest. A sense of… loss. Of being pulled from something important. Someone.

She pressed a hand to her heart.

“I feel like I’ve forgotten something,” she said quietly.

“Not forgotten,” said the voice. “Only left behind.”

It wasn’t quite memory—more like a shadow of one. A face blurred by distance. Music from another room.

Lyra closed her eyes. She could feel the shape of someone’s laughter if she reached for it, hear a voice that once fit beside her own. Someone had braided her hair once. Someone had cried into her shirt. Someone had said I love you and meant it.

But the name wouldn’t come.

“She matters to you,” said the figure beside her. “The one you cannot name here.”

Lyra’s voice caught. “Yes.”

“Would you carry her absence, if it meant others could be spared sorrow like yours?”

She hesitated.

Then, slowly, she looked down at her hands—calloused now, smudged with travel and wear. "Why are you asking me that? I’m not anyone. I can’t…”
There was silence, soft as snowfall.

“You think small of yourself,” said the figure. “But even the quietest soul carries weight. And you—Lyra of the other world—yours is heavy with love.”
A flicker of memory rose then, sharp and golden.

Clara’s arms wrapped around her after the accident. The way her voice cracked when she said, I need you to stay.

Lyra flinched. Her heart clenched like something caught between gears.

“I can give her something better,” the figure said. “Not healing—no. That is not the path laid for her. But ease. Kindness. A life with less pain. A home with more light. All of it can be hers.”

Lyra looked up, eyes wide. “But she won’t remember me?”

“No,” the figure said gently. “And neither will you.”

There was a beat. Then another.

And then something in Lyra snapped.

“You’ve already done it,” she said, her voice cracking with fury. “Haven’t you?”

The figure said nothing.

“You’re taking her from me,” she said, louder now. “She’s still alive, and you’re ripping her out of me like she never existed!”

A surge of heat rose behind her eyes, wild and sudden. Her fists clenched at her sides. “You can’t just—take her. You can’t just undo her.”

Light flickered within the flowing robe, almost imperceptibly. “She is not undone.”

“She is,” Lyra hissed. “It’s already happened. I can't hear her laugh. I can't remember the shape of her hands. Her name was on my tongue and now it's gone.”

The fear hit next, a cold wave behind the anger. Her breath caught.

If this being could erase Clara—this fundamental, sacred part of her—without warning, what else could she lose? Who else?

“What are you?” she whispered, stepping back. “What are you?”

“I am sorrow,” the figure said, calm and eternal. “And mercy.”

“Then show some,” Lyra spat.

But her voice faltered.

Because beneath the anger, beneath the fear, a deeper truth curled itself like a thorn in her chest:

If forgetting meant peace for Clara—real peace—could she bear to remember alone?

“You would keep the love,” the figure said softly. “It would remain in your bones. But not its name. Not its face.”

Lyra’s hands trembled. Her voice was quiet now. “I don’t want to forget her.”

“And yet,” said the Valar, stepping nearer, “you want her to be free.”

The ache was unbearable now. Nauseating.

“She has suffered enough,” the figure said. “You would not have found your way here if you did not believe that. You would not have been chosen.”

Lyra’s legs felt unsteady. Like the ground beneath her had shifted. Like something vital was already missing.

And in that emptiness, Clara’s voice echoed again—soft, broken, fading.

I need you to stay.

“You feel the weight of the world, even when it does not notice you.”

She sneered, “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“It is a truth.”

The light around them brightened—not harsh, but vast and endless. She felt suddenly small. Unseen. Meaningless in this harsh landscape.

“There is a place where you are needed,” said the voice. “A thread not yet woven. A chance that has not yet been taken.”

Lyra stepped back instinctively—but there was no ground to hold her.

“I’m not the kind of person who—” she began, and then stopped. The words fell flat.

“You fear you are not brave,” said the voice, soft as a lullaby.

“I know I’m not,” Lyra whispered.

The figure tilted her head, as if listening to something far away. Then, almost kindly:

“You are not asked to be fearless. Only to be willing.”

Before she could reply the light surged, filling her vision.

And everything else fell away.

…..

The glen was quiet.

Lyra sat up slowly, her head spinning. The air smelled of pine and damp earth—crisp and clean, like the first morning of the world. Sunlight filtered through tall trees, casting shifting golden patterns across the mossy ground.

She blinked hard. It didn’t make sense. She looked down at her hands. Her sleeves hung looser than usual. Her boots were slightly too large. The earth felt strange beneath her—too low, somehow. As if gravity itself had shifted.

It was a dream. That was the only explanation. She must’ve fallen asleep on the couch again. That’s what this was. A forest dream. She’d read about Doriath or the woods near Rivendell and now her brain was piecing together some immersive dreamscape. That had to be it.

And yet…

The trees didn’t feel like a dream. They felt old. Real. Not conjured by the subconscious, but carved by time.

A rustle of movement snapped her head toward the tree line.

There—stepping through the ferns, leaning on a wooden staff, came an old man in a grey cloak and wide-brimmed hat. His beard was long and grey, his boots muddied, and his expression curious beneath the brim of his hat.

He paused when he saw her.

“Well,” he said, his voice deep and amused. “This is a rare thing indeed.”

Lyra stared.

Something in her head gave a jolt. She didn’t know his face—not really—but something about him felt known. Like a warmth on a winter morning. Like a voice heard long ago.
She gripped the edge of her too-loose jacket. “Right,” she murmured. “Dream wizard.”

He chuckled lightly. “If that is what you believe, you are welcome to keep believing it. Dreams are safer company than the world, I find.”

“I’m asleep,” she said quickly, more to herself than to him. “I must be. Because you’re not real. None of this is real.”

“Isn’t it?” He tilted his head. “And yet here we both are. Curious, isn’t it?”

She took a step back. “No offense, but I don’t usually dream about strange forests and… wandering fantasy gamers.”

The wizard looked delighted. “Gamers?”

“Never mind.” Lyra ran a hand through her hair, only to find her fingers catching on a different texture—thicker, rougher. Not her usual curls. She froze.

The old man’s eyes twinkled. “You’ll find things may not be quite what you left behind. Dreams are like that. Sometimes, they show you what you truly are.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Only a little.”

He turned, as if to walk away, then glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, are you coming?” he asked. “The path is safer with two.”

Lyra hesitated.

Logic told her none of this was real. She’d wake up on the couch, probably with a stiff neck and her cat knocking over a water glass.

But her feet moved anyway. She followed him into the trees.

…..

Lyra had never dreamed anything quite so detailed before.

The glen, the light, the birdsong—they lingered even after she began walking. The dream refused to dissolve the way dreams usually did. No jump-cuts. No surreal edges. Just long stretches of forest trail under her boots and the company of a wizard who, apparently, didn't know how to give a straight answer.

“I don’t suppose you have a map,” Lyra asked as they crested a hill, brushing a hand against a bramble-thick hedgerow.

“A map?” His bushy eyebrows lifted. “Of the dream you mean?”

“Sure,” she said dryly. “Dream cartography. Seems legit.”

He chuckled, and his walking stick thumped along the dirt path. “Alas, dreams rarely come with such conveniences. But the road always leads somewhere. Especially when it’s not trying to avoid you.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like an answer, but I’m not sure to what.”

“Precisely!” he said cheerfully.

They walked on.

To her credit, Lyra adjusted quickly. That was one of her better traits: when reality shifted, she played along until the rules made sense. She had done it after her mother died. After her father left. When every other "normal" cracked beneath her.

And now, here she was, taking long strides to keep up with a wizard she half-suspected was plucked straight from The Fellowship of the Ring—though the resemblance wasn’t exact. His face was less Ian McKellen, more... timeless. Kind. Sharpened by secrets.

“So,” she ventured, “do all my dreams include folklore wizards and fairytale woods, or is this just a special occasion?”

The old man gave a considering hum. “I do make rare appearances in people’s dreams. Usually at times of transition. Great turning points.”

“Like a sleep-deprived internal crisis?”

“Something of the sort.”

They shared a stretch of companionable silence.

“How far are we walking?” she asked eventually.

“Not far,” he said. “We’re headed west. A celebration draws near.”

Lyra blinked. “A party? In my dream?”

“A very good one,” He assured her. “I’m expected. Fireworks and all.”

She almost laughed. “Of course there are fireworks. What’s a dream wizard without pyrotechnics?”

They crested another hill just as the sky began to tint orange with the approach of dusk. Far off, Lyra could just make out rolling green fields—and beyond that, something quaint and quiet nestled among the hills.

“That’s…” she frowned. “Are those hobbit holes?”

“If you like.”

She squinted. “Okay, that’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”

But he only smiled.

They turned down a narrower lane, and the trees grew sparser, the land more open. Lyra had just begun to wonder if the dream might let her taste hobbit food when she heard the voices.

Rough. Male. Laughter that didn’t belong to anything kind.

Three men stood ahead, near a bend in the path—dusty travelers, armed with knives and clubs that looked too worn to be ceremonial. One leaned against a cart with a bored expression; the other two stood in the middle of the road.

Her companions posture changed almost imperceptibly. “If you would be so kind as to stand behind me,” he murmured.

Lyra nodded at once. “Gladly.”

He stepped forward with a calm that surprised her.

“Good evening, friends,” he said warmly. “The road is wide, and it seems you have taken up a great portion of it. Perhaps you’ll allow us to pass?”

One of the men straightened. He had crooked teeth and small eyes that glittered unpleasantly. “Passin’ ain’t free these days.”

“We’re but two travelers,” The wizard said. “And not carrying much of value. You’d do better to rob elsewhere.”

“Maybe,” said the leader, “but I’ve never had the chance to meet a dwarven lady before.” His eyes slid to Lyra. “Always wondered what they were like.”

The air changed. Cold. Tight.

The old man’s expression sharpened into something steel-hard.

“That,” he said, “was very impolite.”

The man smirked. “Just talkin’, old man.”

Then the fight broke.

It wasn’t like the brawls she’d seen on television or in movies—no slow motion, no choreography. Just noise and violence. The man moved with startling agility for someone his age, swinging his staff in powerful arcs that knocked weapons from hands and sent men sprawling. Light flared at the tip once—just briefly—and one attacker cried out, clutching his face.

But there were three of them. And one of them grabbed her.

Lyra struggled. She elbowed him in the ribs—hard—and screamed. His grip shifted, trying to hold her tighter. Her knee slammed into his thigh. He cursed and dragged her sideways, and they both fell hard against the packed earth. Her shoulder slammed into a rock, and pain blossomed down her side. Then he was gone—flung backward by a sudden surge of force she couldn’t explain.

The man in gray stood above them, staff glowing faintly, his cloak torn and his eyes storm-bright.

It was over.

The men scrambled to flee—limping, cursing, vanishing down the hill with bruised pride and empty hands.
Silence settled again.

Lyra stayed where she was, heart pounding. Her arm throbbed. Her shoulder ached. There was blood on her sleeve. Not a lot, but enough.

She stared at it.

Then she looked up at the man, and the world tilted.

She could smell the smoke from the cart’s broken wheel. She could feel dirt caked beneath her fingernails. She could feel pain.

Real pain.

“This…” she whispered. “This isn’t a dream.”

The wizard knelt beside her, his tone gentler now. “No. It is not.”

She drew a shaky breath. “Then where the hell am I?”

He gave her a long, searching look.

And for once, he did not answer with a riddle.

“My name is Gandalf, Gandalf the Gray, and though I do not know how you came to be here, you are in the lands of Eriador, just on the edges of the Shire.”

Chapter 3: The Wizard by the Fire

Lyra stirred again to the crackle of firelight.

For a moment, she didn’t open her eyes. She was tired—tired in a way that reached deeper than her bones. Tired of waking up in strange places. Tired of having no idea where she was, or why. Tired of slipping into unconsciousness like it was some sort of cosmic reset button.

She really had to work on staying conscious.

With a quiet sigh, she opened her eyes and blinked into the flickering orange glow. Shadows danced across the bark of tall trees. She was lying on a bed of moss and leaves, nestled beside a rock in a shallow grove just off a narrow road. It was night now. The stars blinked above through the tree branches, and somewhere beyond the glen, an owl called once and fell silent.

A small fire burned a few paces away.

And there—seated before it, pipe in hand, as though this were the most natural thing in the world—was Gandalf.

He was packing the bowl of his pipe with a pinch of dried herb, humming softly to himself in some language she didn’t recognize. When he noticed her stirring, he glanced over and gave a small nod of approval.

“Ah. Awake again,” he said. “That’s good. You gave me a bit of a worry there.”

Lyra sat up slowly, her muscles stiff and her shoulder still sore from the fight. “How long was I out this time?”

“Not long,” Gandalf replied. “You lost consciousness when the pain caught up with you. It happens. A knock to the side, a spill against the rock. You’ll bruise, but you’ll live.”

Lyra made a face and flexed her fingers. “Wonderful.”

Gandalf struck a match against a flat stone and lit his pipe. The scent that rose was surprisingly pleasant—earthy, spiced, calming. It curled into the air like a sigh.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Still near the East Road, not far from the borders of the Shire. This little nook seemed a fair enough spot for resting. The trees here are kindly, and the stones remember old silence.”

Lyra stared at him, blinking. “The stones… remember?”

He puffed his pipe thoughtfully. “You’ll find that the world speaks more than you’re used to, if you’re willing to listen.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to listen to anything,” she muttered. “Everything already feels like it’s shouting at me.”

There was a pause. Gandalf leaned back on one hand and looked at her more closely. “You truly don’t know how you came here, do you?”

“No.” Her throat tightened. “One moment I was in my living room, and then I was... somewhere else. And now here.”

He nodded slowly. “I felt it. When I came upon you in the glen. Something not of this world. Something—woven. I cannot say by whose hand, but the thread is bright. You are not meant for this land, and yet you are here.”

“Brilliant,” Lyra said, hugging her knees to her chest. “That’s just what I needed to hear.”

There was silence between them, filled only by the quiet hiss of the fire.

And then the panic hit.

It crept in slowly—first as a cold in her fingers, then a flutter in her chest. And then it bloomed fully: They don’t know where I am.

“My world…” she breathed. “They’ll think I vanished. They’ll call the police, search the woods, check the hospitals—I just disappeared, and they won’t know why.”

Gandalf’s brows drew together. “Your family will do their best to find you, I am sure.”

“I don’t have family,” she snapped, the words cutting sharper than she meant. Her voice cracked. “I have a cat. A stupid, spoiled, neurotic cat who hates everyone but me. And she’s going to be hungry, and alone, and think I left her.”

To her surprise, Gandalf laughed—a deep, amused, genuine laugh that echoed through the trees like warm bells.

“A cat!” he said, smiling around the stem of his pipe. “That’s what you mourn most?”

“She’s the only one I had left,” Lyra said softly.

He sobered at that, watching her through the rising smoke.

“If you were meant to come here,” he said, “then I believe things in your world will shift to meet the absence you left behind. Sometimes, when the world moves strangely, it leaves kindness in its wake.”

Lyra stared into the fire. “What if no one even notices I’m gone?”

“Then perhaps,” Gandalf said gently, “there is something here worth being found by instead.”

She didn’t reply. Her mind was full of questions, scattered thoughts that seemed to vanish as she tried to snatch them.

The fire cracked.

Gandalf looked at her with something like quiet certainty. “There is a purpose to your presence here. I do not know what it is. But I feel it in the wind. In the way the world tenses around you. There is a thread running from you that has not yet been tied.”

Gandalf took a long draw from his pipe, then exhaled a stream of smoke shaped vaguely like a ship with sails.

“You could look at it this way,” he said, his voice low and companionable. “Whatever force pulled you here didn’t mean to leave you stranded. It set you down neatly by the road, wrapped you in starlight, and placed you directly in the path of a wizard. That hardly seems accidental.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “So I should be… what? Grateful?”

“Not grateful,” he said. “But perhaps… curious. The world has a way of unfolding toward those who move forward with purpose. Trust your instincts. Something wants you somewhere. You just have to find where that is.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she did neither. Instead, she let herself lean back against the stone and tipped her head toward the canopy above.

“We’ll rest here tonight,” Gandalf said. “It’s a gentle place, and the night will keep to itself. At first light, we’ll head into the Shire.”

“The Shire,” she repeated, almost numbly.

He grinned. “I’m expected at a party.”

“A party,” Lyra echoed. “Of course you are.”

“It’s a very notable one,” he said with some pride. “Marigold Tunnelly Brambleburrow is celebrating her seventy-seventh birthday. There will be dancing and rhubarb pie and far more pipeweed than is entirely proper.”

“Marigold Tunnelly… Brambleburrow?” Lyra repeated, lips twitching. “That sounds like someone who bakes excellent scones and has Opinions about butter.”

“You’re not far off. She’s a good sort—stubborn, bright, fiercely kind. She married into the Brambleburrow family, and their hole is practically overflowing with cousins. She’ll be able to help you into some clothing better suited to wandering.”

Lyra glanced down at her own clothes. Her oversized sweatshirt hung oddly on her frame now, and the leggings she'd once bought to "stretch and breathe" now sagged slightly at the knees.

“It wasn’t exactly a planned wardrobe,” she muttered.

Gandalf chuckled. “No, I suppose not. You wear it like armor, though—stubborn and soft all at once.”

He tapped out his pipe, then went still.

After a moment, he turned to look at her more closely. “You never told me your name.”

Lyra blinked. “Oh.”

A strange shiver went through her. Something about the question felt too large.

But she answered.

“Lyra.”

She didn’t offer a surname. She wasn’t sure it would matter here.

Gandalf tilted his head. “Lyra,” he repeated. “A star’s name. Fitting.”

She furrowed her brow. “Why fitting?”

But he only smiled and rose to his feet, reaching into a leather satchel. “Are you hungry?”

She didn’t answer right away. Because standing, she realized something felt off—again. Her body felt smaller than it had before. Lighter. Her center of gravity had changed, and the world suddenly looked taller.

She stood.

And gasped.

“What in the hell—” she looked down at herself, eyes wide. Her legs, her hands, her entire frame—everything was shorter. She reached for her jacket and held it out—far too long in the sleeves now, her hands swallowed by fabric. She turned in a circle, almost stumbling.

“I’ve shrunk!”

Gandalf, who had produced a small pouch of dried berries and a hunk of stale bread, gave her a sympathetic look. “Yes, I rather suspected.”

She rounded on him. “You suspected? And you didn’t say anything?!”

“Well,” he said, rubbing his beard, “you had quite a lot on your mind. I thought it best not to add to the list.”

Lyra opened and closed her mouth, utterly at a loss. “How much?”

“Ten inches, give or take.”

She stared. “I was five-six. That makes me—what, four-eight now?!”

He offered her a berry.

She ignored it. “I’m tiny.”

“You’re still taller than most hobbits.”

“I wasn’t a hobbit!”

“I never said you were,” Gandalf replied mildly. “Though I had to consider the possibility. You’re not nearly hairy enough about the feet, of course—and your soles wouldn’t last a half-mile barefoot. But still.”

Lyra stared at him in horror.

“Then I wondered if you might be a dwarf,” he went on, unbothered. “You’ve the temperament for it. Sharp and spirited. But you lack the… stoutness around the middle. And there’s not even a whisper of facial hair.”

A flicker of memory cut across her mind—the rogues in the road. One of them leering, calling her a dwarven lady.

Her stomach twisted.

“No,” Gandalf finished. “You are not quite either. Nor elf, nor orc, nor man.”

He looked at her again—truly looked—his bright eyes flickering like coals.

“So what, then, I wonder… are you?”

.....

The fire had long since burned down to embers.

Gandalf snored gently from his corner of the glen, one hand still loosely curled around his staff, his hat tilted forward over his eyes. Lyra sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, cloaked in an oversized coat that didn’t belong to her and a silence that did.

She couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t just the hardness of the ground or the unfamiliar stars—it was the hollow feeling in her chest. That sense of absence. Like a word left off the end of a sentence. Like waking up from a dream that had mattered deeply, but dissolved the moment her eyes opened.

Something was missing.

She didn’t know what.

A memory, maybe. A name. A person. No matter how hard she reached for it, her mind slid past it like oil on glass.

It was maddening.

Her chest ached, but she couldn’t say why. The pain was real—it pulsed with her heartbeat—but it had no source she could point to. Just a heaviness, like she was carrying grief she had no story for.

Whatever she had lost… she knew this much:

She had loved it.

Loved them.

She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, curling against the earth as the night wore on. Her body still felt foreign. Shorter. Lighter. Looser in the joints, as if she’d been reshaped without permission. The grass whispered against her cheeks in a voice she didn’t recognize.

She blinked up at the stars.

They were different here.

Closer. Brighter. Older.

But one of them—just one—shimmered with a cold blue clarity that stirred something deep within her. Like a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Like the very edge of a memory that refused to step forward.

For a fleeting moment, she felt less alone.

Then the wind shifted. Morning crept into the sky like a secret.

And the world moved on.

Chapter 4: Seedcake

By the time they reached the hill, the morning mist had burned off and the sky was a soft, forget-me-not blue. Lyra followed Gandalf along a winding garden path that wound beneath flowering trellises and between neat rows of lavender and thyme. Bees hummed lazily over the blooms. Somewhere ahead, a dog barked once, half-heartedly.
Then she saw it.
The hill wasn’t tall, but the round green door tucked into its side was unmistakable. A hobbit-hole. And not just any burrow—it was brimming with life. Children’s voices rang out from the garden beyond, and tiny feet pattered in circles around a gnarled fruit tree. A pair of toddlers chased a chicken in delighted chaos while a harried older hobbit tried, and failed, to regain control of the coop.
Lyra stepped closer just as one of the children—barefoot and berry-stained—sprinted past her, giggling wildly.
“I told you not to feed the rooster jam!” a tiny voice shouted.
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
Gandalf chuckled as he stepped up to the round door and gave it a firm knock with the butt of his staff.
“Brace yourself,” he said to Lyra with a wink. “Marigold’s hospitality comes with an occasional storm.”
The door swung open almost at once.
Marigold Brambleburrow stood framed in the doorway, cheeks pink, apron dusted with flour, a small hobbit child clinging to one knee and another peeking shyly from behind her skirts.
“Gandalf!” she exclaimed, brushing a curl from her brow. “Bless the stars, you’re early—and you’ve brought—oh, oh my—”
Her eyes landed on Lyra and went wide.
Lyra offered a small, uncertain wave. She was exhausted, covered in road dust, and still wearing clothes at least two sizes too large for her now-shrunken frame. Her boots were mismatched. Her hair had given up hours ago.
Marigold looked momentarily horrified.
“This is Lyra,” Gandalf said smoothly, placing a hand on Lyra’s back. “We crossed paths on the road. She was set upon by a few unsavory fellows. Required a bit of… redirecting.”
Marigold’s horror shifted instantly to motherly indignation. “The nerve! Bandits this close to the Shire? I ought to write a letter to the Bounders, see if they’re actually doing their jobs.”
“She’ll need a bit of rest,” Gandalf added. “And, if it’s not too much trouble, perhaps something a touch more… hobbit-sized to wear.”
Marigold clucked her tongue. “Oh, you poor dear. Yes, of course. Come in, come in. Children, move your feet before I trip over them—Milo, that includes you.”
The little ones scattered like windblown leaves, and Lyra found herself gently ushered through the round door. Gandalf ducked to follow, nearly knocking his head on the low frame.
“Mind your hat!” Marigold called over her shoulder. “And go on to the kitchen, you know the way. There’s tea and yesterday’s seedcake still on the counter—though the jam’s off limits, I mean it!”
Gandalf grunted something agreeable and shuffled off toward the back, muttering about needing a stronger doorframe.
Marigold turned back to Lyra and gave her a brisk once-over. “You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No,” Lyra said. “Just… a little rattled.”
“Well, you’re safe now. Come on then, let’s find you something that doesn’t hang like laundry on a line.”
She led Lyra down a narrow corridor that turned twice before opening into a bedroom—small, sunlit, and softly chaotic. Baskets of folded linens, half-mended socks, and a quilt in progress lay across every surface.
Lyra paused in the hall for just a moment, taking it all in.
The Brambleburrow home was cozy in a way that didn’t feel staged or aesthetic—it felt earned. There was warmth in the worn wood of the floorboards, in the nicks on the doorframes, the hand-stitched curtains, the herbs hanging from the beams. It was not a grand place, nor an overly large one, but it was full of life. Everything here had a place. And everything had clearly been loved.
It was, Lyra thought, the kind of place where nothing terrible could happen. The kind of place where grief was held at bay by the smell of bread and the scuffle of children’s feet. She swallowed hard.
Marigold muttered furiously as she dug through an overflowing basket of linens and mismatched socks. “Honestly, you’d think someone else in this house could take five minutes to help fold something once in a season. I love that girl to pieces, but if Clover leaves one more apron under the bed, I’ll stuff it with goose feathers and call it a pillow.”
She pushed aside a pair of striped trousers, two damp kerchiefs, and finally let out a triumphant “Aha!” as she plucked a neatly folded dress from the bottom of the pile.
“There you are, you stubborn thing.”
She laid it out across her arm—a soft slate-blue homespun, well-loved but clean, with careful stitches at the hem. Next came a pair of cream-colored stockings and a knitted shawl the color of clover honey.
“There now,” Marigold said, balancing everything expertly in one arm. “This should do. Come along, dear.”
Before Lyra could object, Marigold gathered up the bundle and ushered her toward the bedroom, the door swinging shut with a gentle click behind them.
Without preamble, she turned and took Lyra’s hands in hers—small, warm, and flour-dusted—and tugged her over to the vanity stool.
“Sit.”
Lyra sat. Rough, certainly, but not unkind. And oddly… comforting. She blinked hard, not from pain, but from something like gratitude that rose too quickly and without warning. She hadn’t been mothered in years. Not since long before—Well. Long before whatever it was she couldn’t remember.
Marigold’s reflection appeared behind her in the mirror, her curls pinned back in a quick twist, her eyes scanning Lyra’s tangled hair with an appraising frown.
“Mercy,” she said, reaching for a comb. “This poor mop’s been through something, hasn’t it?”
“You could say that,” Lyra muttered, wincing as the first knot gave way.
“I’ve seen worse,” Marigold said cheerfully, tugging a bit more gently. “My youngest once got a whole skein of embroidery floss knotted into her curls. Took me an hour and a full cup of tea to get it loose.”
Lyra gave a weak smile.
The comb moved steadily through her hair, and for a while, neither of them spoke.
Then, as if she were simply asking about the weather, Marigold said, “So what brought you to the Shire, then? Bit of an odd time for travel, especially alone.”
Lyra stiffened.
Her gaze met her own reflection—pale, exhausted, borrowed—and panic scratched behind her ribs.
She couldn’t tell this woman the truth. Couldn’t say, I woke up here after bargaining away a piece of myself to a goddess made of sorrow. Couldn’t say, I used to be taller and I think I’ve forgotten something that once meant everything to me. Couldn’t say, I’m not supposed to be here at all.
So she did what most people do when they’re cornered by kindness and terrified of the truth.
She lied.
“I was heading toward Bree,” she said, trying to sound offhand. “Thought I might have better luck finding work there, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
Marigold’s hands never faltered in their work, but Lyra saw her eyes narrow slightly in the mirror.
“I see,” she said politely.
The pause stretched just long enough for Lyra to feel the weight of it.
And then—nothing. No questions. No prying. Just a gentle tug as the last knot gave way.
*****
The dress fit better than Lyra expected, though the process of getting into it was nothing short of humbling.
She tried to take it from Marigold with a mumbled “Thank you, I can manage,” but the older hobbit was already undoing buttons and waving her toward the washbasin like a sheep that had wandered off-course.
“Nonsense,” Marigold said, flapping a hand. “You’re half-shaking and haven’t seen a hot meal in who knows how long. Arms up.”
Lyra hesitated, then obeyed—mostly because arguing felt futile.
The too-large sweatshirt was peeled off with efficient ease, leaving Lyra in a mismatched undershirt and leggings that sagged at the knees. Her cheeks flushed crimson, but Marigold was entirely unfazed, moving around her with the practiced ease of a mother who’d wrangled too many squirming children to count.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Marigold said briskly as she worked. “My middle boy once fell into a pond in the middle of a wedding. Had to get him out of his sopping clothes right there on the lawn.”
Lyra laughed—just once, quick and involuntary.
The stockings were soft and warm, the dress comfortable despite the unfamiliar cut. The woolen shawl settled across her shoulders like a promise. When Marigold finally stepped back, hands on her hips, Lyra turned slowly toward the mirror.
And stared.
It was her. And it wasn’t.
Her face was still her own—she recognized the lines of her jaw, the familiar slope of her nose, the tired set of her mouth. Her eyes were the same shade, though they seemed larger now, rounder in the smaller frame. Her proportions hadn’t changed… just the scale. Like she had been resized to fit some storybook dimension.
It was uncanny. Unsettling. She reached up and touched her cheek, half-expecting the reflection to waver.
“I don’t—” she began, but the words caught in her throat.
Marigold said nothing. She simply moved behind her, opened a small wooden drawer in the vanity, and pulled out a brooch—a silver clasp shaped like a curled fern, delicate but sturdy. She fixed it carefully to the left side of Lyra’s shawl. Then her hand came to rest on Lyra’s arm—gentle, grounding.
“I don’t know where you’ve come from,” she said quietly. “Or what you’ve had to walk through to end up here.”
Lyra blinked hard. Her throat burned.
“But I do know,” Marigold continued, her voice as warm as the hearth, “that there’s nothing in this world quite so healing as a good cup of tea.”
She gave Lyra’s arm a squeeze, then turned briskly toward the door.
“Come now. Let’s find you something hot and strong, and maybe a second slice of seedcake if you ask nicely.”
*****
The kitchen smelled like rosemary and rising bread.
It was small, but full in the best way—lined with shelves stacked high with crockery and half-labeled jars, bundles of herbs drying over the window, and a sideboard overflowing with cloth napkins and mismatched spoons. The sunlight pooled across the stone floor in lazy swaths, catching on motes of flour still hanging in the air.
Gandalf sat at the round table with one knee awkwardly propped to the side to avoid knocking it against the leg of the chair—clearly too tall for the space but entirely unbothered. His wide-brimmed hat hung on a peg by the pantry, and his gray cloak had been folded haphazardly over the back of a second chair.
He was in the middle of sipping tea and watching two younger hobbits argue over whether or not honey should go in everything.
“I’m telling you, Uncle Petey used it in stew last week,” one said, slapping the table for emphasis.
“And it was disgusting,” the other replied.
“Boys,” Marigold called as she entered, shooing them out with a well-practiced sweep of her apron. “Off with you—go poke the compost heap or organize the carrot bins, I don’t care which.”
The boys grumbled but obeyed, and a moment later, it was just the three of them.
Gandalf looked up and gave Lyra an appraising nod. “Ah. Much improved. I was beginning to worry you’d be mistaken for a wandering ragpile.”
Lyra tugged at the edge of her borrowed shawl. “Thanks. I think.”
“She’ll want something hot,” Marigold said, already bustling toward the hearth. “And something sweet. Gandalf, pass me that pot, would you?”
The wizard complied, and soon enough a fresh cup of tea was pressed into Lyra’s hands. It was too hot to sip right away, but she clung to it anyway, letting the steam curl against her face.
There was something disarming about it all—the cozy clutter of the kitchen, the low hum of distant conversation, the smell of spice and earth. It felt… normal. Deeply, achingly normal. And for someone who had just been bodily removed from her world, whose own reflection had become unfamiliar, that normalcy felt both like a blessing and a trap. She wasn’t sure whether to settle into it or recoil.
Gandalf, sensing something in her silence, leaned slightly across the table.
“Strange, isn’t it?” he said. “To find yourself in a place that’s too good to be true—and know it’s real anyway.”
Lyra looked up.
“Everything’s so small,” she said softly. “But it doesn’t feel less. Just… closer.”
“Well said,” Gandalf replied. “That’s the Shire for you.”
Marigold returned with a plate of dense seedcake and a pot of apple butter.
“Eat,” she said, placing the plate in front of Lyra with finality. “You’ll feel more like yourself with something in your belly.”
Lyra wasn’t sure that was possible—she didn’t quite know who “herself” was anymore—but she took the plate anyway and offered a quiet, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Marigold said, settling into her chair with a theatrical groan. “There’s washing to be done later and I may press you into service if you linger too long.”
Gandalf laughed at that, and Lyra—somewhat to her own surprise—smiled. Just a little.
But it held.“So,” Gandalf said, setting down his teacup with a quiet clink, “where shall I make things explode this year?”
Marigold arched an eyebrow over the rim of her own cup. “If by explode you mean your usual fireworks display, we’ll want you on the north end of the meadow just past the orchards. That way the wind won’t carry sparks into the table linens again.”
Gandalf chuckled, entirely unrepentant. “That was one time.”
“One time too many,” Marigold said with a sniff. “My Aunt Tansy hasn’t worn silk since.”
“I can help, too,” Lyra offered suddenly, surprising herself with how natural the words felt. “With setup, I mean. If you need extra hands.”
Marigold’s eyes widened a little, and then softened into something pleased and utterly matter-of-fact. “Well, I can’t say no to that, can I?”
She stood with a clap of her hands. “Right then. Finish up your cake, Lyra—there’s bunting to be strung, benches to be carried, and several tables that still need polishing. If you’re truly brave, you can help Clover organize the pickle jars. They’re in a state.”
Gandalf gave Lyra a sympathetic look over the rim of his cup. “You did offer.”
Lyra grinned around a bite of seedcake. “I did.”
Outside the window, the sun was beginning its slow descent, turning the hills gold and the garden shadows long.
And for the first time since waking in this strange new world, Lyra felt like maybe—just maybe—there was space for her in it.
*****
The meadow behind the Brambleburrow home had been utterly transformed.
Lanterns hung from every tree branch, glowing gold and amber against the deepening blue of the evening sky. Long tables overflowed with pies, cheeses, breads, and no fewer than three varieties of pickle. Hobbits in every hue of waistcoat and bonnet swirled around the field in noisy delight—singing, dancing, balancing plates in one hand and mugs of frothing ale in the other.
Lyra stood at the edge of it all, eyes wide.
It was chaos—but happy chaos. Hobbits laughed so easily, their joy loud and contagious. Somewhere nearby, someone had produced a fiddle, and a reel had broken out near the main table. Several children chased a goose through the far orchard, and someone had tied ribbons to the ends of their hats.
She turned in a slow circle, trying to spot Gandalf’s tall frame amid the crowd, but all she caught was the tail end of his cloak disappearing through a cluster of children near the bonfire. A moment later, a spray of golden sparks lit up the air—small, harmless fireworks that popped like dandelions and left trails of light behind them. The children shrieked in delight.
Lyra smiled faintly, but it didn’t last.
She scanned the crowd for Marigold next, but the birthday hobbit was positively buried in well-wishers. Cousins clung to her skirts, old friends handed her garlands, and a flute player had perched on a stump nearby, playing a cheerful (and slightly off-key) tune in her honor.
Lyra hesitated, then stepped away.
She didn’t want to intrude.
She wandered past the pie table, sidestepped a very intense jam-spreading competition, and skirted a group of elderly hobbits in matching shawls loudly debating the superiority of gooseberry wine. Eventually, she found the edge of the meadow again, where the light dimmed and the music softened beneath the rise of the hill.
There was a table there—smaller than the rest, with only a few chairs, tucked under a tree that looked like it had been planted long before the Shire was mapped. A lantern hung above, swaying gently in the breeze, casting a quiet circle of gold.
And someone already sat there.
He looked to be in the prime of his years by hobbit reckoning—broad-shouldered, tidy, with dark curls that caught the lanternlight and a waistcoat of forest green embroidered subtly in gold. His features were keen and thoughtful, and though he wore a pleasant expression, his eyes were observant—too sharp for someone simply enjoying a mug of ale in peace.
He didn’t seem caught up in the revelry like the others. He watched it instead—like someone reading a familiar book for the hundredth time and still somehow wondering how the next page would turn.
He turned as she approached, polite but alert.
And Lyra, who had grown up on stories, felt something shift in her chest.
She didn’t know his name.
But she recognized him.
He looked up as she neared, his expression open but mildly curious—perhaps wondering whether she meant to join him or was simply lost in the tangle of celebration.
“Evening,” he said, offering a courteous nod. “You’re welcome to the rest of the bench, if it’s peace you’re after. Not many come to this side of the meadow once the dancing starts.”
Lyra hesitated. “Thank you,” she said quietly, and slipped onto the bench across from him.
The quiet here was a relief—only the muted echo of music and laughter drifting from the hilltop, the rustling of lanterns overhead, and the occasional pop of Gandalf’s smaller fireworks still sparkling near the orchard.
“I take it you’re not a fan of noisy parties either?” he asked after a moment.
“It’s not that,” Lyra said, clutching her cup. “I just—needed a moment.”
He smiled slightly. “Then you’ve found the right table.”
He took a sip from his mug and leaned back again in a posture of familiar comfort. It wasn’t the kind of silence that demanded filling. But Lyra’s gaze lingered too long on his face, and her expression—though she tried to hide it—was unmistakably stunned.
She’d read about him. Dozens of times. Knew the riddles in the dark, the trolls turned to stone, the dragon’s hoard, the ring—
Well, she didn’t quite know if that had happened yet. But still.
Bilbo Baggins. Real. Right in front of her.
He raised an eyebrow. “Have we met before?”
Lyra blinked. “No—no, I don’t think so.”
There was a pause.
She flushed. “I’m sorry. That was rude. It’s just—I didn’t expect to meet you.”
“Me?” he asked, perplexed.
“Yes. I mean—” she scrambled. “I didn’t expect to meet someone like you.”
He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I assure you, I’m not so very impressive. Just a Baggins at the end of the day. We’re quite ordinary, despite what Gandalf might have told you.”
That only made her eyes widen more.
“Oh,” he said slowly, watching her expression. “You’re one of his, aren’t you?”
“I don’t—I mean—” Lyra fumbled. “Sort of?”
Bilbo looked faintly amused, though a pink tinge had crept into his cheeks. “He does like to collect unusual folk, doesn’t he? Says it’s for the good of the world, but I suspect it’s more for his own amusement.” Lyra laughed softly. She couldn’t help it.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I think I’m just a little overwhelmed.”
“Well, that’s understandable,” Bilbo said, nodding toward the glowing meadow. “There are a great many Brambleburrows, and every single one of them has an opinion about pickles or pie. It’s a wonder we’re not buried in biscuits.”
“Or jam,” Lyra added.
He chuckled. “That too.”
The silence between them turned companionable again. And for the first time since she’d stepped into this world, Lyra didn’t feel out of place. Not entirely.
He glanced at her sideways. “So… if you don’t mind my asking—how did you come to be at Marigold’s birthday party? I don’t believe I’ve seen you in Hobbiton before.”
Lyra hesitated. Another lie, or another evasion? But his gaze wasn’t prying. Just curious. Friendly.
She settled for something that was true enough.
“I was passing through,” she said. “Gandalf found me on the road and brought me here. Said the party would do me good.”
Bilbo smiled faintly. “That sounds like him.”
He didn’t press further.
And for that, Lyra was quietly, deeply grateful.
Bilbo took another sip from his mug, then glanced at Lyra from over the rim. “You don’t sound like you’re from anywhere nearby.”
Lyra stiffened just slightly. “I’m not.”
“Far, then?”
“Very.”
He gave a short nod, as though that settled it.
“I’ve always wondered what lies far beyond the Shire,” he said, absently swirling the last of his drink. “It’s a strange thing—most folk here are perfectly content to let the world spin out there without ever setting a foot past Bree. But I don’t know…” He leaned forward slightly, voice quieter. “There’s a part of me that wants to see it. Just once. The mountains, the sea, old trees that remember things.”
Lyra looked at him, startled by how earnest he sounded.
“And yet,” he added with a rueful smile, “I’ve never made it past the borders. Not really. A few trips to Michel Delving, Tookland, once to Buckland. But the rest of the world? Just stories and maps.”
“But still,” she said, “you want to go.”
He met her gaze. “Yes.”
She looked down at her cup, unsure how to respond. She wanted to say, you will, but the words caught in her throat.
Instead, she asked, “Do you think stories ever prepare us for the real thing?”
Bilbo huffed a soft laugh. “I think they try.”
From across the meadow came a bright pop, followed by a chorus of delighted squeals. Bilbo turned his head toward the sound, and his expression shifted to something boyish.
“Well, there he goes.”
Gandalf stood on the north side of the field surrounded by children, crouched beside a carefully arranged display of small fireworks. A fuse sizzled, and a stream of blue light shot upward, bursting into a spiral of stars that flickered and danced like fireflies before fading to gold.
“Oh, very clever,” Bilbo murmured, clearly impressed.
More fireworks followed—playful, precise, and impossibly intricate. A goose made of smoke chased a fox that exploded into a burst of confetti. A mushroom cloud shaped like a hobbit hat twirled three times in the air before vanishing with a cheerful pop.
Lyra couldn’t look away. It wasn’t just beautiful—it was unreal. But not in the dreamlike way that comforted, it reminded her of how far from her world she truly was.
She glanced sideways, watching Bilbo instead of the sky. He didn’t seem caught up in it the way she was. His face was thoughtful, almost quiet, like someone looking through a window at something they didn’t know they wanted until it was almost too late to ask for it.
She whispered, “How does he do that?”
“Gandalf?” Bilbo smirked. “I suspect he keeps secrets even from himself.”
Another firework soared into the sky, unfolding into a crown of golden leaves that tumbled softly through the dark, and Lyra found herself clutching her cup a little tighter. She didn’t know why it made her want to cry.
“Are you all right?” Bilbo asked, gently this time.
“I think so,” she said, though her voice wasn’t entirely steady. “It’s just… a lot.”
He nodded, looking back at the fireworks. “The best things usually are.”
The last spark launched high above them—a silver tree whose branches shimmered and bent with the wind, blooming against the stars. It lingered longer than the others before dissolving into a cascade of glowing petals that rained down like snow. All around them, the meadow fell into awed silence. And for the briefest moment, Lyra forgot how lost she was.

Chapter 5: Settling In

Summary:

This is just a short little chapter to get us to a place to jump forward!
Don't worry- Thorin and the company are arriving soon!

The morning after the party dawned slow and warm, with golden light spilling through the round windows of Marigold’s burrow. The scent of chamomile and leftover blackberry crumble lingered in the air, carried on the faint summer breeze sneaking through the open kitchen door.
Lyra sat on the back step, her legs pulled up beneath her, nursing a second cup of tea. Her borrowed dress was a little too loose at the shoulders, and the socks had fallen in scrunched folds around her ankles—but the sun was on her face and the garden was buzzing with life. Bees floated lazily from bloom to bloom. Somewhere to her right, a pair of young hobbits bickered cheerfully over who had stolen the last strawberry tart.
She was beginning to understand what Gandalf had meant about the road leading somewhere.
And then, almost as if summoned by thought alone, the wizard appeared.
“Ah,” he said, stepping lightly around a laundry line. “I had a suspicion I’d find you hiding near a kettle.”
Lyra gave a tired smile. “I didn’t realize I was so predictable.”
“Not predictable,” Gandalf said, settling beside her on the grass. “Just sensible. You’ve had quite a beginning, child. It’s no small thing, crossing into another world.”
She let that sink in. “It still feels… impossible. Unreal.”
He studied her with that keen, unreadable expression. “And yet, here you are. Realer than most, I’d say.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, the garden stretching out before them like something out of a painting. At last, Gandalf said, “You needn’t decide all at once. About who you are. Where you’ll go. But I think you’ll find answers come more easily when you stop running from the question.”
Lyra looked down at her hands. “It’s not the questions that scare me. It’s the answers I can’t take back.”
He reached out and patted her arm gently. “Then perhaps begin with the simple ones. Where do you feel most at ease? What brings you peace?”
She nodded slowly. “I’ll try.”
____________________________
Later that afternoon, Lyra found herself in the kitchen with Marigold, who was battling the aftermath of a truly heroic party. Dishes were stacked high in every corner. Crumbs littered the floor. A pie tin had mysteriously vanished.
“You don’t have to help,” Marigold said, though she didn’t pause in her scrubbing.
“I want to,” Lyra replied, rolling up her sleeves.
Marigold handed her a towel with a grateful sigh. “Bless you. My Clover vanished the moment she saw a tea towel.”
As they cleaned, Lyra found herself asking small questions—about the Shire, about Marigold’s family, about the customs of birthdays and second breakfasts and elevenses. In turn, Marigold asked about Lyra’s homeland.
Lyra had learned quickly to hedge. “It’s far,” she said, drying a plate. “Different. A bit colder.”
“Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” Marigold said, nudging her with a hip. “We’ve made room for stranger folk than you- heavens knows Gandalf seems to be the collector of strange things.”
Lyra smiled—though it faltered a little as that now-familiar pang returned. Not a memory, not quite. Just the shape of something missing.
That evening, as the sun dipped low, she wandered the path that ran alongside the hedge at the edge of the village. The sky was painted in streaks of lavender and rose, and moths had begun to flutter among the firefly-lit fields.
She came upon Bilbo Baggins seated on a bench beneath a flowering tree, a pipe in one hand and a book open in his lap.
He looked up at her with a small, welcoming smile. “Evening.”
“Evening,” Lyra echoed, unsure whether to approach.
He gestured to the bench beside him. “I don’t bite, you know.”
She laughed, and took the seat. “I’m sorry again. For last night. I didn’t mean to be weird.”
“You weren’t weird,” Bilbo said, though a faint flush rose to his cheeks. “Just… a touch enthusiastic.”
“I’m not usually like that,” she said. “It’s just—” She hesitated. “You’re Bilbo Baggins. You’re not exactly obscure.”
His brow furrowed. “You say that as though I’ve done something of note.”
“You… will,” she murmured, then winced. “Sorry. That probably sounds even weirder.”
He chuckled softly. “Well, you’ve ruined the surprise now. Whatever grand destiny I was meant for, I suppose I’ll meet it with a little less mystery.”
They sat in quiet again, and the comfort of it surprised her. Bilbo was younger than she’d imagined—more boyish in the curve of his cheeks, more restless in his gaze. But there was a spark of cleverness in his expression. A kindness not dulled by age or regret.
“You know,” he said after a while, “I think you might be the strangest person I’ve ever met.”
Lyra groaned. “You really don’t have to say that.”
“It’s a compliment,” he said, grinning. “Strange is interesting. The Shire could use a bit more strange.”
She looked sideways at him. “I could probably supply that.”
“I look forward to it.”
Lyra stood at the edge of the garden behind the Brambleburrow home, still wrapped in the borrowed shawl, watching the mist roll low over the hills like seafoam.
It had been a week.
Seven days since she’d woken in the glen. Seven days of being called “dear” and handed hot drinks. Seven days of pretending she wasn’t waiting to wake up again.
But she hadn’t.
The Shire was still here. Real. Tangible. Gentle, and maddeningly constant.
She’d meant to leave—really, she had. Gandalf had offered to bring her to Bree or beyond, but something about Marigold’s kitchen, about the tiny bed by the window, about the way the garden buzzed with bees and the smell of blackberry jam, had made it easy to say “just one more day.”
And then another.
And another.
She wasn't ready to face the rest of this world yet. But the Shire... the Shire made no demands.
________________________________________
Bilbo started visiting the Brambleburrow hole two days after the party. He claimed it was only to return the borrowed book Gandalf had forgotten. Then again to share a pot of particularly good honeycomb. Then to discuss fireworks logistics for next year.
By the third visit, Marigold gave him a key to the back gate and a dishrag to dry the mugs after tea.
He and Lyra fell into an easy rhythm, though neither could have explained exactly how it began.
They didn’t talk about magic. Or the world beyond.
Instead, they shelled peas together on warm afternoons. They exchanged riddles in the shade of the plum tree. They read aloud from old books by lamplight while the house bustled with distant laughter and clattering pots.
Lyra found herself laughing more. Sleeping better. Eating too much seedcake.
Sometimes, late at night, she still felt the ache—the hole left by something she could not name. But it was softer now, dulled by the warmth of second breakfasts and Bilbo’s dry wit and the way Marigold huffed every time one of them tracked mud into her clean kitchen.
She wasn’t healed. Not by a long stretch.
But she wasn’t unraveling anymore.
________________________________________
One morning, Gandalf announced he was leaving.
He said it casually, over tea, as if it were a given. “Time to be off,” he said, dusting crumbs from his robe. “There’s a bit of unrest in the south, and I promised to look in on a particularly forgetful owl near Bree.”
Marigold handed him a satchel stuffed with biscuits and muttered, “You’d best not bring back anything breathing.”
“I make no promises,” he said cheerfully.
When he turned to Lyra, his expression softened. “You’ll stay?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “For now.”
“That’s enough.” He smiled and touched her shoulder. “You’re where you need to be.”
Then he vanished over the hill, cloak snapping in the wind like a flag.
________________________________________
The days rolled on.
The leaves began to turn.
Marigold began hinting that if Lyra insisted on staying, she might as well start learning to knead bread properly.
Bilbo took to showing up with ink-stained fingers and poems he claimed weren’t worth reading aloud, though he always did anyway.
And Lyra, for all her strangeness, began to belong.
She still didn’t know why she was here.
But for the first time in what felt like a very long while, she was no longer in a hurry to leave.

Chapter 6: The Year Between

Summary:

I swear the company will show up next chapter. I just need Lyra to be comfortable in the Shire before I throw her to the wolves.....

A year settled into the Shire like flour into a well—slowly at first, then all at once, until the dough of days held together without thought.
Lyra had learned the rhythms. Market on Highday, laundry strung like bunting between apple trees, seedcake for good news and seedcake for bad, because there was never not a reason to slice another piece. Children came and went through Marigold’s round blue door like breezes, leaving scuffed boots and wildflowers and half-finished stories behind them. Lyra learned the art of catching stories mid-air and folding them safely into the quiet of evening.
She had a place now for her shawl on the peg by the pantry, and her fern-shaped brooch—Marigold’s gift—caught the morning light just so.
When she needed to feel useful, she went to Master Alder Burrows, the hedge-healer of Bywater.
Alder was a willow-boned hobbit with hair the color of oat straw and hands stained green year-round. He kept a tidy kitchen garden and an untidy workbench, and he spoke to plants as if they were neighbors who had popped by for tea. Under his eye, Lyra learned to call things by their Shire names: comfrey for knitbone, yarrow for staunchblood, plantain leaf for bites and stings, willow-bark tea for aching heads, marigold petals steeped in honey for wounds that wanted coaxing more than scolding. She learned to splint a wrist with hazel twigs and a torn linen strip, to thread a needle neat through skin and pride both, and to lay a cool hand where fear had risen hotter than any fever.
“You’ve nimble fingers,” Alder would say, passing her a jar to label. “And a soft voice. Half of mending is in the voice.”
Lyra believed him. She wasn’t a fighter. She knew that now as plainly as she knew the turn of the path from Brambleburrow to the mill. Middle-earth held perils she could name too easily on lonely nights, but when she tried to imagine a blade in her hand, her stomach went cold. This—herbs, hot water, clean bandage, a steadied breath—this she could give. When darkness came, she would be ready with light of a different kind.
Sometimes she saw shadows in the way the clouds massed over distant hills. Sometimes she woke with her heart pounding, sure something vast was drawing nearer by inches. On those mornings she went out early, picked thyme and rosemary until the steadiness returned, then filled Marigold’s kettle and set the kitchen to rights before the little ones tumbled in.
There were always dishes. Marigold swore crockery multiplied in the night.
“Mind that bowl,” she would call, elbow-deep in suds. “It chips if you look at it crooked. And for mercy’s sake, you two—shoes on the mat, not under the table! Lyra, dear, pass me that towel. No, the other one—the towel, not my Clover’s apron.”
Lyra passed things without being asked by the second week of autumn. By winter she had learned which drawer hid the cinnamon and which boy would admit to spilling it. In spring she could lift a sleeping toddler off the hearth rug with one arm and stir porridge with the other. There were days her back ached and nights she fell asleep before the last story ended, a warm weight tucked against her side and a smear of jam on her sleeve. She did not mind.
And then there was Bilbo.
Their friendship had grown like ivy over a garden wall—quietly, persistently, twining into everything else until one could not imagine the bricks without the green. He was “Mr. Baggins” to most, “Bilbo” to a few, and to Lyra he became the companion whose silences felt like blankets rather than closed doors. On clear nights they carried their tea to the bench near the hedge and watched the stars arrange themselves. Bilbo pointed out the constellations as hobbits named them—The Ladle, The Farthing Pins, The Scythe—while Lyra traced shapes she half-remembered from a sky not quite the same.
“Do you ever feel,” she asked once, “that the stars are… watching back?”
“All the time,” he said, almost cheerfully. “I try to drink my tea like a respectable hobbit so they won’t judge me.”
He brought her books to read—lore and poetry and travelogues that traveled farther than their authors ever had. She brought him herbs and excuses to walk the long way home. In winter they argued—gently—over whether second breakfast should include mushrooms and bacon on ordinary days or only on feast days. In spring they experimented with lemon in tea and decided together that it was either genius or heresy depending on the hour.
Once, when the wind was up and the lamps burned low, he said, very seriously, “I think there’s a piece of the world that’s been saving me a seat. I don’t know where. I don’t know when.”
“Seats don’t run out,” she said, equally serious. “Not for the ones they’re meant for.”
He looked relieved at that, and she didn’t examine too closely why she felt relieved, too.
He also confessed—more than once and in varying shades of embarrassment—that he was, in his own words, “a dreadful coward.”
“I like maps,” he said, “and tidy endings. The thought of trolls and goblins turns my stomach. Adventure sounds very well in a song; in real life, it seems damp and full of blisters. I should like to see the mountains, Lyra, but I shall be wretched the whole way there and back again.”
Lyra considered him over the rim of her cup. “Then perhaps,” she said, “someday the mountains can come looking for you.”
“That’s worse,” he said faintly, and she laughed until the steam from her tea blurred the stars.
Days stacked themselves into a year. Lyra’s dress hems bore the faint green of herb rooms and the flour-dust of six dozen loaves. Her hands knew the measure of a fever without needing the kettle’s hiss. The Brambleburrow door kept opening; she kept answering; it kept feeling right.
Sometimes, in the late blue of evening, she would pause with a dishcloth in her hand and listen to the house: the clink and hum and thrum of it, the place alive as a heartbeat. A longing would touch her—brief as a moth’s wing—and pass. Whatever she had loved and lost in another life, the shape of the loving remained, and it had found places to fit again.
When word drifted in with the traders from Michel Delving—rumors of stirrings far away, of strangers on the Great East Road, of talk in Bree that had the Prancing Pony pouring cider a little heavier—Lyra set another jar of marigold in the window to steep and asked Alder for more willow-bark. She was not a warrior. But if the world tilted, she would be something steady to lean against.
Bilbo and Lyra sat amid tidy stacks of books and the remains of seedcake, cups cooling in their hands, fresh from an argument that had circled the same hill three times and declared itself satisfied.
“It was genius,” Bilbo said, for the fourth and final time, tapping the spine of the slim poetry book.
“It was arrogant,” Lyra replied, for the fifth and truly final time. “And at least a third of those metaphors could be composted.”
“We must agree to disagree,” he conceded, trying not to look wounded.
“We must,” she agreed, trying not to look triumphant.
They smirked into their tea, truce declared.
Silence settled—a comfortable one—punctuated only by the tick of the clock and the tiny sigh the house made when the evening breeze found the right crack.
Bilbo set his cup down. “If we are putting all our honest opinions on the table,” he began, carefully casual, “I should like to submit one more.”
Lyra arched a brow. “Oh dear.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said, eyes studiously on his saucer, “that several pairs of eyes in Hobbiton have been straying your way of late.”
Lyra blinked. Then laughed. “Have they.”
“They have,” he said primly. “At the market. At the mill. At the party last week—Twice. Possibly thrice.”
“Bilbo.”
“What? I’m merely an observer of social currents.”
“You’re a gossip,” she said fondly.
“A conscientious one,” he countered. “And as such, I feel obliged to inquire: is there anyone you… fancy?”
Lyra snorted. “As flattered as I am—not even a little.”
He looked genuinely perplexed. “Not even a little little?”
“Not interested,” she said, softer now. “Truly.”
He leaned back, considering her. “You might try branching out. Your only friends cannot be me, Marigold, and her brood of—what was it you called them?”
“Screaming cicadas,” Lyra said promptly, and they both smiled.
“Those,” Bilbo said, pointing. “You need variety. A walking club. A reading circle. A—”
“Bilbo,” she laughed, “you’re just not used to the chaos. It grows on you after a while.”
“Does it,” he said dubiously.
“It does.” She wrapped both hands around her cup, gaze drifting to the round window and the darkening sky beyond. “And… the noise helps.”
“How so?”
“It’s loud enough that I can’t hear my head as much,” she said, almost to the window. “Home. The not-knowing. How I’ll most likely never go back.” She shrugged, small and a little crooked. “The clatter keeps it from echoing.”
She didn’t look at him when she said it.
Lyra rose, smoothing her shawl. “I should get back. Marigold will have my hide if I’m late for washing-up.”
Bilbo stood as well, fussing with the tidy stack of books as if they might complain about being left alone. “At least let me walk you to the lane,” he said. “I can fight off any evil bugs that accost you.”
She laughed. “Heroic, truly. But my lantern should do the trick just fine.”
“Very well,” he sighed, performing injury. “If you are determined to face the hordes alone, I shall stand here and… make tea about it.”
“At least two cups,” she said, lifting the brass-lidded lantern from the peg. The flame bloomed; warm light pooled across the green threshold.
They paused at the round door. For a heartbeat the night felt like a held breath—Bag End glowing behind them, the path curving away beneath hedgerow shadow and star-silver.
“Good night, Bilbo.”
“Good night, Lyra. Mind the… ah… larger evil bugs.”
“I’ll sing at them,” she promised, and his smile followed her into the dusk.
—
The lane down from Bag End knew her steps now. Gravel yielded with a soft crunch; hedges breathed with crickets and the small, busy secrets of night. Far off, a window-candle guttered low; nearer, a cat flowed like smoke across the path and vanished beneath a gate.
Lyra lifted the lantern and let its circle of light travel ahead. She thought of how far she had come—measured not in miles but in mornings and mugs, in children’s laughter and quiet chores, in the way the Shire had settled around her like a quilt. A year ago she had woken in a glen with her own name feeling too large in her mouth. Now there was a peg for her shawl and a place at Marigold’s table where hands reached for bread without asking if she meant to stay.
And ahead—
Ahead she knew the road that would knock upon that green door. She knew it in chapter and verse: trolls among the pines, cold fires in a cave under the mountain, a riddle whispered to something with moon-round eyes, spiders and dark trees, a dragon asleep on gold, a sky over stone gone black with wings, a battle where banners would fall. She had loved these stories once with the fierce, private love of a reader who underlines every margin. Now they were not stories. They were the future, and the future had a face—many faces—she could not bear to see broken.
Bilbo’s gentleness made it worse. The thought of those hard miles beneath his soft, stubborn feet twisted something in her. And beyond him, farther east, names that would matter more than breath: Thorin. Fíli. Kíli. A fate that would break his heart.
Not telling him gnawed at her. But telling him would be worse.
She had asked, once—days after the Brambleburrow party—when Gandalf was shouldering his satchel at the gate, rain in the air and crumbs in his beard.
“I wasn’t just a reader,” she had said, voice low so only the wizard would hear. “I was obsessed. I know the turns of this road. Not by sight—by story. It feels like I’m carrying someone else’s tomorrow in my pocket.”
Gandalf had stilled. He looked at her then not as a curiosity but as a tinderbox.
“Keep that pocket buttoned,” he said, unusually grave. “The lore you bear is not quaint here; it is contraband. There are eyes in this world that would do anything to drag that light into their hands—tear it out of you and twist it to their work. Speak of what you know only if your silence would let the shadow lengthen. Otherwise—lock it behind your teeth, and let your kindness do the talking.”
“And if I say the wrong thing?”
“Then you will say another,” he’d answered, a flicker of old twinkle returning. “Words are arrows and seeds both. Be careful where you loose them. Be careful where you plant.”
Now, lantern in hand, Lyra held that warning close. She would not be the wind that bent a road the wrong way. She would be steadiness where she could. Tea where she could. Healing where she could. And when eastward songs began, she would go—because that was why she had been brought, and because love, even without a name, had always made her brave.
The lane opened to Marigold’s garden. The burrow’s round windows glowed butter-warm; someone inside laughed—the bright, trilling sort that meant a card game had gone magnificently sideways. The sound filled the hollow places in her chest like steam fills a kettle.
Lyra paused at the gate and looked back once more toward Bag End, a small green door against the night.
“Hold fast,” she whispered to the dark, to the stars, to the pages she had once turned. “Seats don’t run out. Not for the ones they’re meant for.”
She lifted the latch—only to see Clover sitting on the front bench, her long red hair catching the lantern light. Her face was blotchy, her eyes swollen, and the sound of a sniffle broke the soft night air.
“Clover?” Lyra hurried forward. “What’s happened?”
The girl swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand but the tears came faster. “It’s—” She hiccupped. “It’s Percival.”
Lyra crouched in front of her. “And what about Percival?”
Clover’s voice wavered with wounded pride. “I saw him at the market today… with Poppy.” She spat the name as if it tasted sour. “Poppy, Lyra. My former best friend.”
Ah. Matters of the heart. Lyra’s chest softened with both sympathy and the faintest flicker of amusement. She took the girl’s hands, squeezing them before pulling her into a tight embrace. Clover collapsed into it, shoulders shaking.
“Mmm,” Lyra murmured against her hair, “matters of the heart are always tricky. But if that persimmon fellow couldn’t see how beautiful and kind you are, then he is very much undeserving of your attentions.”
Clover made a muffled sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Persimmon?”
“That’s his new name now,” Lyra said firmly.
They stayed like that for a moment, the hum of the summer night around them, until Clover’s tears finally slowed. She kept leaning into Lyra’s arms as they gazed out over the sleeping lights of Hobbiton. Lyra rubbed her arm gently.
“Come on,” she said at last. “I’ve a mind to sneak you an extra slice of cheese bread.”
Clover sniffed, looking up. “But—”
“As long as you swear not to tell your mother,” Lyra interrupted with a mock sternness. “If Marigold finds out, she’ll have my ear.”
The ghost of a smile curved Clover’s mouth. “I swear.”
Chuckling together, they rose from the bench and slipped inside, the door closing on the night behind them.