Chapter Text
Everyone respectable in Middle Earth would have stopped in a cozy tavern to listen to grand stories of ancient elegant elves, or about war thorn battle men, or even the passionate and crafty dwarrow that splurged on trinkets inside mountain cores. Every race mystified and celebrated for their contributions. All but one. Hobbits, Middle Earth's tiniest tenants had gone through history very quiet and demure. Peaceful folk who in comparison to elves weren't as mystic, in comparison to men weren't as aggressive and in comparison to dwarves, weren't as handy. Hobbits were a tranquil bunch of rows of individuals whom didn't much raise the curiosity of scholars and slowly got discarded as far too daft and inconsequential to even bother with. Living in a land of fertile sprouts and a seemingly everlasting spring, Yvanna had blessed her children with boundless greenery in a safe environment to keep her sons and daughters happy, social and warm.
All but one of them felt this way, but without this little oddity the story wouldn't begin. Bilbo Baggins Took, son of Belladona Took and Bungo Baggins had always been a smaller fauntling than the rest, this fact didn't bother Bilbo to stop chasing adventures while he was a wee one. During his infancy you could always find the small coppery golden haired faunt whirling around giggling chasing fairies and elves with leaves and forestry in his head like a crown. This sort of behavior was slightly strange for a hobbit, when other families saw their children drift to the little Baggins they quickly ushered their young under their skirts, but Bilbo only needed to get close to them, wide eyed, with an innocent pout while holding his own tail for the other families to relinquish their broods to play. Bilbo was a known charmer, be it his youthfully round face, his pouty pinkish lips, the round greenish brown pools that stared at everyone almost fascinated, or merely the Took blood that coursed through his veins.
This fact didn't sway as he aged, but one thing did. His parents passing at a young age did let him to inherit Bag End and it's tenant business quiet early in his faunt years. At merely 21, still a faunt for a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins had become the largest home owner in the Shire. In the midst of his grieving, unsavory parts of his family spoke with the Thain to see if the will could be disputed so their branches of the family could win a piece of that tasty inheritance, they so desired. The Sackvilles Baggins were the worst thing the Shire had bred, if not family, Bilbo would have already sent them on their way without any welcoming tea a hundred times if necessary for them to leave the premises of his home once and for all, but if the Sackvilles were one thing beyond pretentious was they were persistent.
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had always been a wretched little thing. Bilbo's oldest cousin and the first real interaction with a nightmarish, award winning tomatoes stealer of a creature. She started young, pestering a little Bilbo when the both of them weren't bigger than a particularly nicely shaped cauliflower. All teasing smiles, and snide remarks about our hobbits heritage and looks. She was in that time the Shire's little songbird. So everything she chirped to her friends or family traveled as far to where the message dissolved into truth and came back as a known fact. Didn't matter if it even began as a truth. It started with the little firecracker accusing Bilbo innocently of stealing Miss Marigold's windowsill pies while she pranced in her pristine dresses like a doll, later on she tattle tailed on just one of her friends that Bilbo had kissed another hobbit and they were going out, she gossiped that the halfling was a deviant and that he was poisoned by his Took blood.
Of course, as the raunchy words of an envious girl of just 25 enveloped the Shire like the clear, fragile film of an egg's first layer it ended up reaching the subject of the matter.
One clear summer afternoon, after a particularly well meaning storm, the tween hobbits reunited under the Party tree to reveal in each others presence. Bilbo skipped to the area happily, far to young to understand that, as his padded hobbit feet rejoiced on the moist moss covering Bag End's pathway, the end of this way would bring him in front of a covenant of puny jurors. When he arrived all smiles to the underside of the Party tree he watched as his friends stared at him as if they saw a particularly undeserving of attention weed on their pea plants. Bilbo tried edging closer to them, but the whole group reacted like a pod of cod around a predator.
—"What's happening? Have i done something friends?"— Bilbo tenderly asked under the dappled light of that ancient oak tree that was hung with paper lanterns and other celebrating garlands as if approaching a frightened bunny.
—"Bilbo we do not want to catch whatever you have. Lobelia has told us everything."— One of his dear friends told him. It was a hobbit lass with small wispy braids and a green apron dress stuffed with flowers on it's pockets. Gloria.
—"What…?"— Lobelia's lips breached into a show of smug teeth while Bilbo slightly stammered trying to understand the situation at hand. Before the little Baggins Took could another interrupted him.
—"Yeah Bilbo we know you have a disease. Tooks aren't normal already so a mix of a Baggins and a Took wouldn't have possibly made a normal babe."— Otho calculatingly derided in a chortle as he gnawed on some honey suckle flowers through his last fallen milk teeth.
—"What is this even about? I am a normal hobbit!"—He proclaimed grabbing at his own green shirt embroidered with little acorns. His fingers digging into the fabric in frustration as the soft fabric his mother had sown distended.
—"Come on Cousin, I know what i saw, and it wasn't normal"—The one and only hobbit gossip announced dramatically as she looked over her shoulder.
—"…"—In that instant, Bilbo felt himself go lax. His prideful tail limped on the floor frozen and defeated. His healthy tan disappeared into a white sheet and even his freckles lost their vibrancy. He knew what he had done wasn't bad. Not if his heart enjoyed it so much, and he was usually brave, just as his mother told him, but right then and there, with all his friends looking down at him like he was nothing more than a vile vermin he almost felt as if they were right.
In a perfect world, Bilbo would have rebutted them right there, he'd had shown them that loving was never wrong and he'd call on their hypocrisy too, but in this world, our world, he let out a shaky breath and sprinted out of that dappled light. Running as fast as his legs permitted him with his long tail tucked between his legs and a myriad of evil laughter following him behind like a mocking cape. That night, when Bilbo got home sobbing that he was a mistake he understood the shire didn't want him. Belladona took him into her warm arms and cuddled her only son into the hearth of their home so he'd feel safer. She told him stories of her voyages, of the people she met, and of how close minded some people were because of fear.
—"Darling, even if they shout and corner, you those silly hobbits will never be right, for they are smaller than they'll ever be. You shan't cry my dear. You shall remain fearless in their stupidity. What could a nasty girl like Lobelia do if not simply bare in front of you which other hobbits are as nasty as her?"—Belladona Took's melodic voice cut through his worries easing his pain as he sniffled into her chest one last promise.
—"Okay mama… I will remain fearless and kind too."—His mother's fingers tousled his loose curls with a soft appreciating hum as she smiled at her soft child.
—"That's a very good thing Bilbo, you'll be the best hobbit the Shire has seen."—She claimed good naturally as she rubbed his back until Bilbo's sniffles quietened into just the memory of saline tears marring her only son's cheeks.
Bilbo ended up breaking this promise more or less one year later. When the Brandiwine river froze over in the harshest Winter the Shire had seen in a 1000 year. That same cruel reckoning of nature took both his parents as well as 71 other hobbits, be it wolves that crossed into their unprotected lands and filled themselves with their young and old, that seeping cold that took over everyone's soul and rooted itself into the survivors, the sickness that death unburied brought, or the hollowed out cheeks and tummies of those whose pantries had dwindled into nothing beyond scraps. That winter. The Fell Winter, Belladona Took was killed by a pack of wolves trying to protect their own home, and Bungo Baggins found himself perishing to the hands of an undisclosed sickness that his saddened heart ceased to beat a couple weeks later.
When finally spring nibbled on the frozen lands on the Shire gently melting the ghostly paramount, from Bag End resurfaced a changed hobbit. The amicable and brightly spirited Bilbo Baggins was gone, and in his shape a void tween, grown beyond his years appeared. Bilbo upon opening the round door and meeting the sun for the first time in months felt completely disengaged, hobbits thrived under Yvanna's care, but how could he when his courageous and strong-willed mother and his kind and knowledgeable father were gone from Middle Earth all together? He ambled aimlessly, like a spirit following a forgotten path before returning back home after checking the cemetery and finding enough place for his parents. Usually funerary acts were becoming of a grand family gathering for his kind, yet Bilbo carried on the commemoration wordlessly, and when it was finished he retracted back home where he would usually stay at. Bilbo started isolating himself, diving into his father's maps or his mother's cooking recipes.
He spend years barely getting outside while he managed both his family's estate, his father's business, his hobbitish responsibilities and his insufferable cousin's whines to bend the will. Slowly going back to his former self and engaging more with the community. Somedays he'd go down to the market to buy fresh foods, he'd even interact with his neighbors pleasantly under the radiant solstice sun, even if Bilbo tried his best at 51 everyone could notice he was still a bit odd, they still loved him of course, but he gained some quirks after the winter and nobody (beyond his unsavory family) blamed him for not emerging from his home that spring totally sane. That afternoon Bilbo decided tho sit on the bench of his barred porch where he could smoke on his pipe peacefully under his grand willow tree. He closed his eyes, inhaling the familiar blend that numbed his rambling mind to simply feel the moment. The wind through his curls, the smell of petrichor after the early morning dew that coated the shrooms in the shade, the feel of the wood under his thighs, his tail gracing the fresh grass, his soft and fashionable reddish vest that kept him just warm enough to enjoy the air, the stomping sound of someone approaching his peace.
He cracked open an eye to see if this interaction could be skipped by him acting oblivious, but as his greenish eye opened he found both his cousin Lobelia and the Thain, Fortinbras on his closed garden door looking in, clearly with the intent to enter. Bilbo got up with a groan, pipe still secured between his teeth as he walked in front of them with a calm gait. There Lobelia stood all dressed in a frumpy light purple dress appearing all coiffed and smug as if she had a card up her sleeve and by her side Fortinbras Took, an old hobbit leaning on a cane and looking at him with an unspoken warning that came with the wisdom he gathered with his age. His uncle didn't usually visit him, in fact due to both of them being more recluse the last time they even spoke was in Primula and Drogo's weeding.
— "Good morning cousin, what brings your unwelcome presence here?" — Bilbo asked feeling his forehead vein twitch knowing she was up to no good while he licked the pipe's wood.
Lobelia scoffed like a mad woman, outraged as she fanned herself, coating the surroundings in that saccharine jasmine, lung clogging scent of her perfume.
— "Bilbo Baggins! That is no way to welcome a family member! Even less me. Your elder." — She said as her voice went shrill and her feathery and ugly palm hat crooked itself in embarrassment to be seen with her. "Odd Took." She said under her breath pushing Bilbo aside as she stepped in, followed by Fortinbras Took, the current Thain. Now this was slightly puzzling. What was Fortinbras doing at his home if this not meant that his meddling cousin had finally done something. Bilbo bristled, feeling his spine shiver with a bad feeling, but decided to greet the Thainship the same way.
— "Uncle Fortinbras, how come you're visiting my home? Not that I wouldn't be happy from your visit, of course but…" — The confused lilt didn't escape Lobelia who smiled with sufficiency, whilst Fortinbras only looked downcast and forlorn as they both made way inside Bilbo's home with small to no hesitation.
— "I- I apologize my boy, but me and Lobelia must bring up something that she's found-"— Before even Fortinbras could finish a loud thump was heard, making everyone jump out of their skin to see that wretched smiley woman that had stamped what looked like dust piled into a book and held together by the breath of a thousand ghosts into his living room table.
"The Shire Law - 1324 TA" A book so rusty and old it was literally written by the hobbits who first started populating Bree before the Shire was a concept. After their nomadic period the first Harfoots did settle in Bree, but why had Lobelia snuck around to retrieve what could be considered a relic or an artifact of old Hobbit history to prove a point in this day an age? Bilbo thought realizing this book was more than 1500 years old. Bilbo rushed into his home, setting his pipe down, and with it all his tranquility.
Lobelia didn't lose her stride, as with the prideful strut of a decadent peacock she opened the book tenderly careful to not disintegrate the pages by just touching them and went to page 674 where a small line of Hobbitish could be read:
"Stipulation 17.3 -Section 9. A hobbit must care for their family as they would their young. If a single individual holds a bigger estate than an elders' home who's trying to conceive, they shall rescind their property to the blooming family as a sign of familiar piety."
Bilbo could frankly not believe what his eyes were seeing, his cousin's finger underlying every wrecked word like an oat. Was an old tattered manuscript forcing him through some obscure traditions to give his home and business away? Impossible. Not even in his worse nightmares, that usually consisted of this same woman stealing his silverware, could he give credit to this. Bilbo wracked his hands through his curls as his brows creased with worry, his tail batted against the tables legs like an ominous cymbal. In this moment of utter discombobulation from Bilbo's part Lobelia chimed in sweetly.
—"Thank you very much Bilbo for this opportunity, I've always wanted Bag End a bit more full and lively, and since you've been a bachelor all your life you wouldn't mind exchanging homes now would you?"— Said Lobelia batting her eyelashes as she cradled her stomach even if it was the same pudgy it always had been. No pregnant tummy in sight.
As Lobelia delivered her perfect molasses acting Bilbo felt his neck tighten with fury. It was every day that he was mocked or called out as an oddity, but Bilbo Baggins Took had been a perfect neighbor and landlord for the past 30 whole years of his life. Building his own life after his parents passing when none of his oh so kind relatives let him in. How could this woman parade into his home as if it was hers already. He was tired of being a proper Baggins, for he knew if his mother Belladona had heard Lobelia uttering this words she'd be rolling on her grave. He looked at the Thain with utter beffudlement only to see the old man's head bowed submissively. Less like a leader and more like a bystander in this encounter. Bilbo's tense and rachitic mannerisms were a major telltale of how crossed and utterly befuddled he was. His eyes racked over his own living room. His father's armchair in front of the fire, perfect for reading late at night; his mother's crocheted mantels, delicate yet resilient enough to stand the pass of time; the gypsum ornaments over the drawers, a testament of his mother's traveling; the maps that his father spend years piling and making…
For once in his life Bilbo Baggins didn't backtrack. In front of the uncertainty and the desperation of loosing his last ties to his late parents Bilbo decided a calm mind would help him plan. He sighed masterfully polite regaining his bearings and leaning into his colding mind for a solution. He wasn't the Shire's charmer for nothing. He pressed forward. A tight smile blossoming from his lips as in the heat of the moment, his adrenaline spiked brain came up with a slow and surely failing plan from how simple it was.
—"Congratulations Lobelia. A child will surely brighten your face. I'll be sure to congratulate your husband Otho later, and I'll make sure to bake you some of my recipe winning blueberry scones, but I'm afraid to tell you I cannot give you the will of Bag End."— Bilbo said with his sharp tongue working in his favor, seeing both Lobelia and Fortinbras' faces look at him surprise was a slight thrill he needed to keep for himself.
—"Bilbo do not start some of your tomfoolery now."— Lobelia said snarling as she gripped her dress leaving stress marks on the fabric.
—"I'm sorry Bilbo, I know Bag End means a lot to you, but the traditions-"— The old hobbit chimed in slightly firm but not enough to dissuade Bilbo into marching forward.
—"Well this record does specify this law to apply only to single hobbits doesn't it? Well you see, I was already planning to eloping with my partner."— Bilbo said acting almost coy as he rubbed his freckled nose.
Both Lobelia and Fortinbras gaped at the news. Bilbo Baggins Took, the everlasting Bachelor planning to elope with someone would be hot gossip morning came. Eloping with someone for a year in hobbit customs meant an unofficial wedding, which would protect Bilbo's estate from the Sackville-Baggins' dirty grabby hands. Bilbo was now slightly smiling seeing Lobelia's prideful demeanor disappeared as her temper fried.
—"You're lying Cousin. You're just trying to steal from me my right-"—
—"Lobelia Sackville-Baggins! If Bilbo is planning to marry he should keep his home. I'm sure Belladona and Bungo would have wanted it that way."— Fortinbras finally said growing a spine even if only after Bilbo nudged him towards one. This made Lobelia shut up and glower in silence.
—"Well Bilbo who's this lucky person? Have we met? Oh i can't wait to see how many fauntlings will fill this with their laughter!"— Fortinbras said laughing with that grandfatherly warm tone he had gotten with age. And meanwhile Bilbo could only panic inside knowing he had bitten more than he could chew. He had one year to travel and find a spouse before they'd take his home, but for now he only smiled in complicity and nodded like his Uncle was in on the story.
The afternoon passed slowly, exactly the opposite of Lobelia's temper that after finding she wasn't getting what she wanted from Bilbo quickly fled accusing Bilbo of "Bad manners". This didn't phase our derelict hobbit who simply smiled and waved at her while he helped their Uncle exit his smial, all smiling and glowing like he was told the best news possible. He also knew that the moment he closed his door the whole Shire, from Hobbiton to Frogmorton would know of his little white lie and would expect him gone for up to a year. He sighed to himself once alone, sliding down his round, just-painted green door to the ground as he held his head troubled and his tail wisped nervously.
—"Oh Bilbo, what have you done. How will i find a partner in less than a year and convince them to live in the Shire, in Bag End…"— Bilbo moaned to himself racking his brain for an answer that he so desperately needed. He knew hobbits were all slightly wary of him due to his prior precedence so he'd have to go travel outwards at his 51 years of age. He clicked his tongue, but nonetheless got up and dusted his marigold vest.
—"I'm a Baggins for Yvanna's sake! I cannot keep whining. I better start packing if I want to keep Bag End"— Bilbo said lifting himself up mentally as he started fumbling around packing what he thought might be necessary for his journey. He had always been more of a homebody after his parents death so this was all very new and disconcerting. He packed some vests, some trousers, he cleaned his pantry bringing anything that was non perishable, some of his maps, his herbolary, some gold he had racked from men trading and a handkerchief.
That night sleep didn't escape him, and he fell asleep promptly with his bag already secured, knowing that if he wanted to escape past the gossiping ladies that morning would bring upon his door he had to leave really early. And so he did. When morning came an all hobbits congregated near Bag End to pull Bilbo's ears out with excited questions and juicy answers, the smial had been emptied and the protagonist from the story had already left only leaving a note behind.
—"Dear family members, neighbors or whomever reads this note morning come, I have set out towards a journey for love. I plead of you to respect my home this period I'll be gone from it's premises. Do not worry for I'll come back but for now the Gamgees have full roam of my estate to take care of it and use it if they need. I'd hate to come back and be one spoon short of what i had. Your eternal Bachelor, Bilbo Baggins Took."—
Bilbo Baggins Took had and would always be The Shire's most charming and eloquent poet and scholar.