Fate

It is a strange twist of fate that sends Bungo Baggins and his son off the path on their journey home. Well, fate and a youthful hobbit's insatiable curiosity. It is early spring and the past few days had been particularly blustery. This was more than one felled tree across the road. Now Bilbo Baggins at this time was a particularly adventurous young fellow, undoubtedly taking after his Tookish mother, Belladonna. What could be a more amazing sight than the crown of an immense tree brought down to the ground standing dozens of times his own size? Not much, Bilbo thought, and Bungo had never been one to refuse either of his two greatest loves anything.

So there they were, father and son, hobbits from a respectable and distinguished family, padding softly through the undergrowth with the stealth that only hobbits possess. Young Bilbo had gotten it into his mind that surely a wondrous creature indeed must live in the vast, majestic treetops, towering over the world. Perhaps elves lived up there! But they must be quiet lest the fanciful creatures take flight from their downed refuge.

"Isn't it huge Papa!" Bilbo exclaimed, though he was far too old to be enthralled by such things, coming into his twenty-seventh birthday as he was.

"Indeed!" Even Bungo, quiet, stoic, respectable Bungo had to confess that it was an exceptional sight, the immense canopy of the tree towering over them even after having come crashing down to earth. "But we must hurry along Bilbo, we have dawdled enough and your mother will be wondering where we are."

Bilbo pulled a wry face, knowing exactly how his mother got when she was worried. "Fine."

The hobbits were halfway around the fallen crown of the tree, avoiding the long shards of fractured wood and immense branches that had snapped off and flown in every direction upon the trees decent when Bilbo stopped and cocked his head to the side. Bungo carried on regardless.

"Papa! Can you hear that?" he called, his words strangely soft but astute. Bungo halted and looked back at his son who was stood, mid-step, with a look of intense concentration on his face. Humouring him Bungo stopped and forced his keen, pointed ears to listen to whatever sound in the forest had captured his son's attention. He waited.

And heard nothing.

"Just wait," Bilbo waved an exasperated hand at his parent, too enthralled in the strange sound to remember to be respectful. "It's not constant. Just listen for a moment."

Bungo rolled his eyes but said nothing and did as his son demanded. He had learned from the long years living with his wife that sometimes it was just easier to humour them. He waited again, only half concentrating on listening now. The other half of his attention was on the second breakfast his wife had no doubt prepared for them –

"There!" Bilbo exclaimed in an excited but still hushed tone. "Did you hear that?"

Bungo nodded a little dumbly. He most certainly had heard it and it sound like someone was in pain nearby.

"This way!" Bilbo called to his father even as he turned and slipped further into the depths of the forest.

"Bilbo!" Bungo called anxiously before throwing all respectability to the wind and galloping after his wayward, foolish soon. Sometimes Bungo regretted having married one of the Took women. It had seemed like a good idea at the time…

"PAPA!" Bilbo's voice called loudly, torn between a yell and a scream. Bungo plied on more speed and frantically raced after his son's voice, his heart pounding every bit as fast as his feet.

He was no more than several feet from the lad when he spotted him, crouched down at the head of some poor soul. The figure was trapped beneath a tree from just above their hips to halfway down their thighs. It looked painful, and the figure was perfectly still, sprawled on their stomach.

They were still breathing though, he noted quickly as he threw himself down opposite his son at the figure's head.

"Hello!?" he asked frantically, trying his utmost to keep his voice under control. "Can you hear me?"

A muffled moan was his only response but it was enough. Bungo glanced up at his son but continued to address the figure trapped beneath the tree. "I'm going to send my son to fetch help. We'll get you out of there, just you see."

"T-Than-k-yo-ou," was the breathy and hitched response. Bilbo asked no questions and dashed off quickly through the trees in the direction they had come from.

"Hush now, you just sit quietly and we'll have out of there in no time," Bungo laid a gentle hand on the figure's head as he had done to a young Bilbo so many times before and gently ran it over the tousled, leaf-ridden, tangled locks of thick, coarse brown hair.

They took his advice and said nothing more, laying frightfully still and focusing on nothing but each breath that they forced themselves to take. Bungo found himself twitchy and unable to sit still as he waited. Waiting was the worst thing about a situation such as this, he was beginning to believe. He could only imagine how this poor trapped person was feeling. How long had they been there?

To satisfy some of his need for movement and a little action, Bungo took to glancing around the little space of forest they were in.

The storms from the previous few nights had certainly done a number on their surroundings, for this wasn't the only fallen tree in the nearby vicinity, there were several others also, and a couple of them were torn and twisted so badly that they looked like spiny, spiky spirals. One of the fallen trees was several feet from where it had had broken on halfway up the trunk. It was almost like a furious whirlwind had torn through and ripped the place apart.

What could anyone have been doing out in weather like that?

As Bungo sat there puzzling over it there was a harsh cawing. The hobbit glanced upwards, along the trunk of the tree that had fallen on the unfortunate person. A crow –or was it a raven? What was the difference again? – watching him with dark beady eyes before cautiously hopping along the trunk towards them. Bungo watched in morbid fascination, knowing he should shoo the bird; even the slightest change in weight on the trunk could cause something unforeseen to happen and the result could be catastrophic for the person they were trying to save.

"Krohk," the bird cawed in its guttural way. It cocked its head to the side and shot what Bungo, in his frightened hobbit mind, took to be an approximation of a glare towards the hobbit.

"Kro-ohk," the trapped figure echoed in a breathless sort of way. The black bird gave to sharp shrieks before hopping of the trunk and alighting beside the figures feet. It pecked at the person's trouser leg twice.

"Hey!" Bungo exclaimed, waving an arm. "Shoo! Get out of here!"

The raven – and Bungo was fairly certain by now that it was a raven. The dark eyes were the indicator – made no movement to do so. Instead it hopped in that curious way its kind has and set itself atop one of the figure's boots. "Krohk!" it screeched again.

Bungo quickly resigned himself to the fact that the bird would not be shooed. Indeed he had a nagging suspicion from its behaviour and the trapped person's response to its incessant cawing that it was some kind of pet. Rather, Bungo was more focused on the figure's boots.

They were large, was the first thing he noted, not as big as hobbit feet, but far larger than any of the Men kind he had seen during his scarce travels. They were heavy, with iron toes, nailed soles and unyielding leather. There were more straps and buckles up the calves than the hobbit had ever seen. Bungo's head was filled with suspicion and he quickly hauled himself to his feet and looked at the downed figure from a birds-eye perspective.

It was indeed a dwarf. Even without looking for a beard Bungo could see that. The figure was too short to be human, and its stature too stocky and solid to be of any other race. Bungo though back to when the figure had spoken and realised that it hadn't been the weight of the tree and pain that caused the figure's voice to be so low and harsh, it was because, from what little Bungo knew of dwarves, their voices were always deep and snarly. Though this dwarf seemed to be more husky than snarly, its voice not as much as a baritone as he might have imagined it.

But what in the name of Yavanna was a dwarf doing there in the Shire, outside in the midst of a horrible storm?

There was no time for answers for at that moment Bilbo returned with several sturdy hobbits and a plan to set free the stranger.

Something I wrote today whilst the rain clouds came out to play. I felt a strange need to upload it. I hope you like it and let me know if you do. I promise it will get better.