Hidden Treasures
I'm going to stay as close to the Timeline as I can, but the dates will be a bit skewed. ; )
Ink…
Prologue
Bungo Baggins was dead.
It happened so swiftly, so suddenly, that Belladonna stared on, still thinking that he would jump back up and laugh at her face claiming it all to be a farce, a joke.
It wasn't.
She heard her throat squeeze as a scream ripped out of her mouth. With a rage she had never felt before, she hacked at the wolf which had killed her husband.
It was in the Fell Winter of the year 2912 of the Third Age. 1312 in Shire Reckoning. Belladonna Baggins watched as the Hobbits buried their dead. Her dead. Her husband.
He wouldn't laugh again.
His lips would never smile again.
Bunga was gone.
Gone.
Suddenly, the Shire, which had been so comforting when Bungo had been alive, was stifling. She couldn't stand it. She had to leave.
She had to escape!
She had to leave the Shire.
And so she did. Five days after Bungo was buried, she left the Shire, heedless of the wolves still attacking her lands, heedless of the dangers.
Belladonna Baggins, widower and favored daughter of the Thain, left the Shire and traveled to Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains. She left her home in the safe hands of Drogo Baggins and out of the clutches of other money grubbers.
It took many days of travel, but she finally arrived. It took many more days of starving, but she finally got a job in a teashop, under the name Bella Baggins. She baked sweets and helped grow the tea bushes. As a Hobbit, she had an affinity for growing things. She knew her teas and her tobaccos, and her cooking and baking quickly became famous throughout the Halls.
It was actually her fame that brought him to her. It was her cooking that lured the Dwarf into her shop, for it was her shop. She had bought the previous owner out and had named it The Silver Leaf.
She hadn't noticed him immediately. She hadn't cared enough to see who the newcomers were to her restaurant and shop. She was too busy with the rest of her regular customers to really care.
When she did have a chance to come round to their table to make sure that they placed their orders and were satisfied, she didn't feel the alleged lighting bolt of love.
Instead, she felt outrage that these Dwarves tracked mud into her restaurant!
"Sir, I have to know, can you read?"
The blue eyed Dwarf looked up at her, as if surprised that she would dare address him. "Pardon?" His voice was deep, gruff.
Belladonna rose to her full four feet and five inches of righteous indignation and expounded on the grievous injury he had carelessly caused. "Your boots have tracked mud into my shop! There is a sign beside the door that says wipe your boots! Can you not read? Are you illiterate or an idiot?!"
The Dwarf didn't even deign to look at where she was pointing. He frowned at her. "You speak too much. Silence is much better from a serving woman. Go get our food and be done with it."
Everyone was silent. The companion of the rude Dwarf took note of the silence and started to grow uneasy. "Thorin, I think it'd be best if we did as the Lady Hobbit says, eh?"
Thorin glared at his bald friend. "I will not lower myself to obey the orders of a foreigner."
Belladonna growled and whipped a menu off the table and whacked the impertinent Dwarf on his arrogant head.
Everyone gaped. Thorin stared at the she-Hobbit, who was shivering in rage. He blinked slowly in shock and then…
He knew he was in love with the prim and proper creature.
Chapter 1
Belladonna never spoke to Bilbo of his father. All Bilbo knew was that his father was a Dwarf.
Whenever he gathered the courage to ask, she would only smile and laugh and shake her head, saying, "There are some things in a person's adventure, Bilbo, that you never ask about. Some things are meant for only the adventurer to know and remember with fond happiness."
Bilbo would sometimes notice his mother staring wistfully in the direction of the Blue Mountains.
Belladonna Baggins came back from those mountains changed, both physically and emotionally. She was pregnant, wealthy, and she knew how to wield a sword and throwing blade.
Bilbo soon learned those skills as well. Belladonna was insistent that he learn how to perform metalworking. She made him travel to Bree to learn how to use a forge, ensuring that he learned from the best Dwarf there.
Bilbo knew that he was different, but he soon found that he didn't care. As long as he was his mother's son, that was all he cared about.
However, Belladonna Baggins died. She died quite suddenly during one of her travels to the Elven fortress of Rivendell. Bilbo hadn't been with her, already in Rivendell to study from Lord Elrond.
They heard her blow her horn, a gift of Lord Elrond, too late. They arrived to help her too late. Bilbo watched in helpless rage as his mother's soul soundlessly left the world he was still bound to.
He watched as her secrets died with her.
After slaughtering the Orcs that had dared come so close to the Elven Land, he left Rivendell. He packed away all the maps, and the books, and the traveling gear that he and his mother owned, and never looked upon them again.
Until…
The day, when a Wizard came walking up to his round, green door…