AN: I do not own The Hobbit, I'm just playing around with it a little.

Prologue

Belladonna smiled as she watched her son, her little Bilbo, as he pretended to be fighting an orc with his wooden sword, being wary of all of the plants in the garden so Bungo wouldn't be cross with him. She watched him for a couple more minutes before the timer sitting on the counter beside her elbow dinged and she moved over to the oven, removing their dinner, setting it on the stove. Turning back to the window, she felt a shiver of fear move down her spine when she realized that Bilbo was no longer in the backyard. "Bilbo," she breathes before rushing out the backdoor, standing in the backyard, she looked every which direction until she heard a child's laughter from farther into the treeline behind the house and sighed before heading in that direction.

"Aren't you a little cutie," she heard Bilbo say and her brows furrowed before quickening her pace, not wanting her son to get bit by another wild animal because he tried to pick the poor creature up. "My name's Bilbo and yours?" She stopped at that, her heart constricting as she thought of all the creature's that her son could be conversing with. "You don't have one, that's unfortunate, hmm, let me think." Belladonna quickly began moving forward again, intent on reaching her son before something harmful could happen. "How about Inglor, it means golden heart in Sindarin?" Bilbo suddenly let out a loud giggle and Belladonna got a bemused expression on her face as she tried to think of a way to talk her husband into letting their son keep the creature he'd found. "Are you hungry, little golden one, I might have a few biscuits left from afternoon tea?" Belladonna was close now and, not wanting to startle her son and whatever creature he'd found, peeked around a tree. Her eyes widened as she saw the golden dragon hatchling, almost the same size as her fifteen-year old fauntling, happily eating biscuits from Bilbo's palm.

Belladonna immediately began looking around for any signs of an older dragon, brows furrowing when there wasn't any.'A golden dragon, a protector of Middle Earth and said to have all been killed by Sauron because they refused to bow to him, even fought him,' she thinks as her mind whirled in shock. 'For there to be such a young hatchling, by itself, means that it was lain before Sauron killed them all.' A bright light suddenly filled the clearing where Bilbo and the hatchling had been and when it faded, only Bilbo remained and he was unconscious on the ground. "Bilbo," she cried out running into the clearing and kneeling at his side, frantically searching him for injuries until her eyes fell on a golden rune on the back of his shoulder. Gathering him up into her arms, she quickly made her way back to the smial, gave her worried husband a small smile before taking Bilbo through to his room and cleaning him up. Once he was cleaned up a bit, she sat on the bed beside him and took a closer look at the rune, or runes as it was. The same rune was on each shoulder blade on either side of a golden dragon between his shoulders and what looked like two Dwarvish runes on the back of his neck. Instantly recognizing that the two on his neck were her son's mate mark, the one that had been missing when he'd been born she began to calm some.

"What's going on, Bella?" Bungo asks from the door and she moved a little so he could see around her, causing her to roll her eyes when she heard a quick intake of breath before a thud.

Turning to see that her husband had fainted, Belladonna chuckled before shaking her head and stood to move her husband into the chair beside Bilbo's bed. She grabbed a clean piece of parchment as well as charcoal from Bilbo's desk and quickly sketched out the rune that was on either side of the golden dragon between his shoulder blades. Belladonna gave the two unconscious males a small smile as she retreated from the room to go through her books in the library for any clue as to what the rune meant.

After a week of looking through her library and being unable to find anything, Belladonna was almost at her wit's end while Bungo still fainted every time he saw the dragon mark on their son's back. Bilbo, once he woke after a two-day long nap, didn't seem too bothered by any of it and went back to being his normal fauntling self, fighting invisible orcs and dark lords with his wooden sword. There was only two noticeable changes on her son that couldn't be covered up, Bilbo's eyes were now gold with cat-like pupils and his hair, that had been a sandy-blond was now golden. Most Hobbits, other than the fauntlings, the Tooks and her husband, now avoided her son because of the eyes and it made the boy feel even more different. She sent the sketch, along with a letter, to Lord Elrond of Rivendell, asking if he knew what the rune meant before settling into watching her son like a hawk to make sure he was fine. It was a few weeks later that she got a reply letter, informing her that the rune was from a very old language and one that meant protector before asking where she'd seen it. Not wanting anyone to know about the dragon hatchling or that her son now had golden symbols on his skin, she wrote him back saying that she'd seen it carved into a tree not far from Bree, just outside the Shire.

Everything settled back into normality for a couple of years and Bilbo never lost his Tookish behavoir, even going so far as to train with the Rangers and soldiers of Bree so he knew how to fight. This caused no small amount of fright for his Father and made Belladonna extremely happy. He even listened to everything Bungo wanted to teach him, enjoying being able to spend time doing the simple things with him before joining his Mother in a tiny adventure into the woods.

Then, at the age of twenty-one, tragedy struck during the Fell Winter, leaving Bilbo without both his parents and alone in Bag End, as he refused to allow his Father's family to remove him from his home. The Thain, Old Took, allowed Bilbo to remain where he was and wouldn't hear of anyone trying to talk him or his grandson into moving from Bag End. On his thirty-third birthday, Bilbo's coming of age was celebrated, as well as the completion of his training with the Rangers and that night, he dreamt of dark black hair and piercing, blue eyes that seemed to see right through him.