Huge mastiffs with teeth like steal knives and eyes that glowed like sullen embers were hunting. They ran through the sunlit woods made unnaturally silent by their presence like canine specters and the eyes of the creatures that lived in the woods watched with fearful hearts from their burrows and nests.
The prey ran. Dodging trees and felled stumps panting out of breath, hearts beating like drums but still not daring to stop the prey ran.
"Hurry the hell up, Sammy!" The elder of the two boys shouted.
The younger glared even as he ran, "It's Sam!"
The younger boy was eleven years old, all dark hair and coltish grace and long limbs. Leather and flannel covered did nothing to keep the chill from his skin. He had come to the conclusion that this was naturally all his elder brothers fault. Why else would they be running through the woods with hellhounds nipping at their ankles without anything resembling a weapon?
For his part, the elder brother whose was fifteen years old and was named Dean blamed the entire thing on his younger brother and his insatiable curiosity. Dean was all cocky confidence and charm packed into a lean muscled form.
Sam cursed when his foot found a rock hidden by moss and tripped. Dean stopped and trotted back to help his brother up.
"Crap. I'm bleeding," Sam said not bothering to whisper. Being quiet wouldn't save them.
"We've got to keep going," Dean said roughly pulling the younger boy to his feet.
Sam went still and stared at something behind Dean's shoulder. Sam's eyes went wide in a fashion that would be comical if not for the circumstances.
Dean turned slowly and took in the sight of three grinning hellhounds and failed to keep a particularly foul curse from escaping his lips. He pushed Sam behind him and looked around for a weapon.
The lead dog made to leap when the silence of the forest was broken by a voice.
A loud joyous voice that pealed like a church bell; a voice that made the hellhounds flitch as one…a voice that was singing. It was singing the most weird ass song that Dean had ever heard.
"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!"
The hounds whimpered and covered their ears with their paws trying to escape the relentlessly cheerful song.
Suddenly out of a long string of nonsense-words (or so they seemed) the voice rose up loud and clear and burst into this song:
"Hey! Come merry dot! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is. River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing"
Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked at Dean. This was different. Never had they seen something like this. The hellhounds made one last agonized whine before hightailing it out of the woods. It was the weirdest song either boy had ever heard…and yet. It was somehow comforting and all unwillingly Dean felt calm and peace settle into his chest.
"Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! deny dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom's going home again water-lilies bringing.
Hey! Come derry dol! Can you hear me singing?"
A man burst through into the clearing. He was short, bearded and with the brightest blue eyes. He looked like he'd recently escaped from a gathering of the Society for Creative Anachronism. He wore a bright azure coat and even brighter yellow boots, and a hat with a feather stood atop his head.
He was neither young nor old but looked as if he had settled on a certain age and just had chosen not to move.
He held a large dew sprinkled leaf with a pile of white water lilies that were still sprinkled with dew.
He looked at the boys. He took in Dean's protective stance and the way both boys held themselves like they were poised for trouble.
"What's the matter here then? Do you know who I am? I'm Tom Bombadil. Tell me what's your trouble! Tom's in a hurry now. Don't you crush my lilies!" the man exclaimed.
Dean blinked. Who in the hell talked like that? And what was up with the flowers? "There were some dogs…but, ah you scared them away."
Bombadil smiled wryly at him. "Dogs…really. Is that what had you running as if the hordes of Mordor where chasing you down."
Something like three drops of dark blood sleepily rippled at the back of Sam's mind the moment he had heard Bombadil's voice…but, now at the mention of Mordor that liquid surged and he felt nauseous.
"Hmmm…must have been some dogs," The stranger commented looking over the two brothers with a keen intensity.
"Sure. Whatever dude," Dean rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. There was something…strange about this guy.
"My name is Tom Bombadil," the stranger laughed at their nonplused expressions. "Now I don't go much in the world; but, I do not think that common courtesy has changed that much."
The older boy stood straighter, "Dean. That's my brother Sammy."
"Sam," the younger said with exaggerated patience. "It's Sam." He gave Bombadil a suspicious look from under his lashes. "I don't suppose you know where we can find a phone?"
The man smiled jovially, "At my house you can find one of the blasted contraptions." He looked up at the steadily darkening sky. "We best hurry if we want to make it before dark and to avoid any wild dogs that might be lurking about to accost the unwary."
Dean and Sam exchanged suspicious glances.
"Christo," murmured Sam.
Bombadil didn't so much as twitch just arched a brow. "Well, we mustn't dilly dally. Goldberry is waiting!"
Dean wasn't sure what had happened. He knew that Bombadil wasn't a demon. However, the young hunter knew that something was up with this guy. First there was the outfit and the whacked out singing that had scared off the hellhounds. 'Course the singing was enough to scare Dean off.
Dean wasn't all that keen on following the nut job to his house; but, the facts were these as much as he hated to admit it, he and Sammy were lost.
"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!/ Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!/ Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!"
Sam kept stealing glances of the anachronistic nutball that was bounding before them like an overgrown cow. Bombadil had known that the dogs were really hellhounds, Sam was convinced of that. But, the man had no fear whatsoever.
A cottage that looked like something that something out of a fairy tale or a Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light calendar was nestled in a picturesque clearing. The boys cautiously followed the unknown variable inside.
The inside of the house was just as improbable as the outside. A woman in a white dress with a silver broach set with blue stones on her shoulder and a silver belt girded around her slender waist stood barefoot in a loose circle of white bowls filled with water.
"This is my lady," proclaimed Bombadil with unabashed adoration.
She was the most beautiful women Dean Winchester had ever seen. Her eyes were as green as fresh grass and her hair which flowed down past her waist was like sunshine. And her smile was like the first day of spring.
She reminded Dean strongly of his mother.
Sam tensed up and tried to think of rituals that involved bowls of water and lilies.
Sam's concentration was broken when a happy voice shouted 'Daddy!' and plowed into Bombadil.
It was a small girl of about ten years old whose bright blue eyes and golden hair left no doubt as to her parentage.
"Ho there my Lily barne!" Bombadil said and swung the girl around.
The girl unlike her parents was dressed like a normal person in green corduroy pants, scuffed sneakers and a white shirt with a sparkly Pegasus on the front. When she was done hugging her father she gave the Winchester boys a critical once over, "I'm Lily Bombadil."
"Sam," said Sam grudgingly.
Dean smiled charmingly, "I'm Dean."
The girl's eyes narrowed, "I didn't catch your last name"
"We didn't throw it," Dean returned.
The girl broke down into a fit of giggles.
The beautiful lady in white walked up to the boys. "Come dear folk!" she said, taking a very happy Dean by the hand. "Laugh and be merry! I am Goldberry, daughter of the River." Then lightly she passed them and closing the door she turned her back to it, with her white arms spread across it. "Let us shut out the night!"
"Maybe," Lily said taking in Sam and Dean's stunned expressions at her mother's dramatic moment, "You're still afraid of ghoulies, ghosties, long-legged beasties, and things that go bump-in-the-night."
The girl rolled her eyes as the hunter boys inched away from her and her family.
"Fear nothing!" Goldberry continued for her daughter, "For tonight you are under the roof of Tom Bombadil."
"Do you have a phone we could borrow?" Sam asked with a strained smile.
-----
The Bombadil's did indeed have a phone. And a laptop computer that sat incongruously on their kitchen table where Lily was doing her homework.
"Tom Bombadil?" came Bobby's disbelieving voice over the phone.
Dean leaned against the wall of the kitchen, "You've heard of this guy?"
"Yeah, old stories of some guy with yellow boots whose singing scares off demons. They don't say who or what he is just that sometimes he helps people." Bobby replied.
"So a supernatural something that's not gonna want to eat our livers?" As per usual Dean boiled down the situation to its bare bones.
"Yeah, Dean that's the gist of it." Bobby's voice got a strained edge to it. "But, you might want to…"
"Make a run for it while we still can?" Dean finished.
"No. Be polite." The older hunter clipped.
Dean put down the phone and exchanged a few terse words with Sam and then they wandered over to Lily.
She was apparently writing a report about aardvarks.
Sam pointed out some spelling errors and then asked "How much did you overhear?"
Lily didn't look away from the screen as she rolled her eyes. "You think we might be evil…"
"You're not," ventured Dean.
"Not remotely," Came Lily's curt reply.
"Who is Tom Bombadil?" Sam wondered.
Finally, Lily looked at them and smiled broadly, "He is!"
Sam stared at his dinner plate in suspicion as Dean heartily dug in. The Bombadils set a full table, there was fresh baked bread, huge platters of fish, fried mushrooms, salad, and a three berry cobbler with fresh cream for desert.
Tom and Goldberry talked to Lily about school and attempted to draw the brothers Winchester out of their shells.
Sam sat in a semi-sullen silence and Dean talked a lot about nothing.
"Mr. Bombadil did you know that we needed your help?" Sam finally asked.
"Did I hear your trouble? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine, though I was waiting for you." Tom Bombadil replied.
"Dude, that made no sense," Dean said in wrinkling his nose.
"The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing." Lily chimed in. "Blaise Pascal."
Sam blinked at the girl, "I don't think that's applicable."
Goldberry sighed and smiled, "Tis more applicable to the situation than you know."
----
Sam thoughtfully took the plate that Goldberry handed him and decided to try his luck again, "Who is Tom Bombadil?"
"He is," said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.
"Lily said that," Sam paused and gave her a look. "I have no idea what that means."
"He is, as you have seen him," she said in answer to his look. "He is the Master of the wood, water, and hill."
Sam scrunched up his nose, "Then this is his forest?" Then the younger hunter thought of nature spirits and how Tom Bombadil was far more European seeming than Native American. "No indeed!" she answered, and her smile faded. "That would indeed be a burden," she added in a low voice, as if to herself. "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves. Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master."
The three drops of dark liquid that hummed in Sam shuddered.
-----
The Winchester boys sat in the living room with the Bombadils. Dean seemed relaxed; but, that Sam knew was a front. Being in the home of a supernatural whatsist who was known for sometimes helping people was really bizarre.
Bombadil told stories of far and long ago lands of a far city that sank beneath the ocean's waves. He told of old battle between the Light and the Darkness; of creatures that hid and prayed on the unwary, of the little folk who alas had passed into memory. He spoke of twin trees that shed light at the morning of the world and of a dread evil in the shape of a great spider. Tom Bombadil spoke of a ring that ensnared the souls of whoever looked upon it…
Goldberry sang. She sang of ships that sailed the stars and old wars and great loves. She sang of love found in a moonlit grove and a queen of the stars.
Years later Sam would hear her voice in his dreams.
While Dean only really liked heavy metal even he had to admit that Goldberry had an awesome voice and her songs were…pretty. And as Dean hardly admitted to anything save girls and cars as being pretty it was really saying something.
"So, you two are like rangers?" Lily wondered.
"Texas Rangers?" Sam asked in bewilderment.
Dean blinked at her, "Army Rangers?"
"No. Dúnedain." Lily sighed at their blank expressions.
"Few now remember them," Tom murmured, "yet still some go wandering, sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness, guarding from evil things folk that are heedless."
The boys didn't understand what that ment, but as Tom spoke they had a sense of a great span of time and they could almost see striding shapes of Men, tall and grim with bright swords, and last came one with a star on his brow.
Dean shook himself like a dog, "Dude! Who are you?" "Eh, what?" said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. "Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wrights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless –before the Dark Lord came from Outside."
Goldberry laughed at the freaked out expressions on their faces. "That's the clearest answer you will ever receive."
Dean glared at Bombadil. Okay, so the guy might not be evil…just really annoying. Also, who the hell talked like that outside of a King Arthur movie.
---
Lily saw them to a guest room. "Fear nothing! Have peace until the morning! Heed no nightly noises!" She laughed at their exasperated expressions. "And don't let the bed bugs bite."
"This is weird," Sam murmured.
Dean rolled his eyes, "Ya think."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
That night they dreamed.
Dean dreamt the sleep of the just. For once no nightmares; for all the young hunter's exposure to the supernatural he had all the mystic sensitivity of a toaster and so the stranger qualities sleeping under Bombadil's roof never came into play. Dean dreamed of his mother. He held her hand and walked with her through a sun drenched grove of blossoming trees and just talked about his life and how much he missed her.
Sam dreamed of Dean being shot to death by a bunch of arrows. It was odd because he was dressed like an extra from a sword and sorcery movie. Apparently, he was trying to save a couple of little boys with big hairy feet. He dreamt of his father going crazy and trying to burn the both of them up on a funeral pier, he was saved by an old guy with a long white beard. He dreamed of marrying a beautiful blond girl who really liked horses.
The next morning they ate breakfast with the Bombadils. Lily gave Sam her e-mail address and made him promise to write her. It's unfortunate that he would lose it in a month.
Goldberry hugged both boys eliciting a blush from Sam and a smug smile from Dean.
Tom Bombadil walked them to the road singing nonsense all the while. When they reached the blacktop he said, "I'll leave you to find you way. I trust you'll avoid any wild dogs that happen to be about. Tom has his house to mind, and Goldberry and Lily are waiting."
With that he waded back into the forest.
"That was different," Sam said in the ensuing silence.
Present Day
Being chased by ghosts through a forest was not Dean Winchester's idea of a good time. Especially, since the ghosts seemed really keen on drinking his blood. Although, he wondered how they planned on going about that. Wouldn't the blood just sorta drip out of their transparent stomachs?
Ah crap. It was in front of him. He was flung heavily to the ground when it backhanded him into a tree.
Sam trotted up and helped him to his feet. "I have an idea," there was an unsettling lack of confidence in the younger man's voice.
"Hell, Sammy at this point at I'd try throwing hummus at them." Dean said shakily.
Hummus? "It's worse than that. Sam ducked a ghost and began to sing in a loud warble.
"Ho, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water, wood, and hill, by reed and willow,
By fire, sun, and moon, hearken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!"
Dean was flabbergasted, "What the hell?"
Nothing happened.
And then
The specters began to shriek as a bright voice arose out of the dark.
"Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow,
Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow.
None has ever caught him yet, for Tom, he is the master:
His songs are stronger songs, and his feet are faster."
"Sam?"
"Yes, Dean."
"Let's not tell the other hunters about this. They'd make fun of us."
"Shut up Dean."
If you can't tell what's me writing from what the Great One a.k.a JRR. Tolkien had written get thee to a library.
Also, can't you just see the resemblance between the brother Winchester and the sons of the Steward of Gondor?
The hummus attack belongs to the Joss.