Merry Christmas, everyone! I come bearing a new chapter that I hope is a bit more interesting than what you guys have been getting—and for that, I apologise, but it's a necessary evil.
When I think about it, The first three chapters of SWBSW could have been combined into one chapter, but it would have been a HUGE chapter that might have been a little daunting and it would have looked a little unbalanced compared to the chapters that would follow :3
I hope you guys have a very merry Christmas!
Disclaimer: AndromedaAI does not own The Hobbit or anything related to Middle-Earth. I do not own Bilbo Baggins, the Shire (though I tried to make a version of it called the 'Clydesdale' when I was twelve), or anything else that is mentioned. That all belongs to Tolkien. I only own Marcelle T. Bowman and her family.
4 - Warnings That Make You Homesick - 4
Soon, a month had passed, and Marcelle found herself slowly beginning to lose hope.
She realized that Hobbiton—the Shire, even—was so far removed from the rest of this place called Middle-Earth that hardly anything ever happened. Day in and day out the same things seemed to occur. Hobbits got up and went to work or did their chores and tended to their animals or their gardens or their fields, they had their seven meals a day, did whatever they wanted to in their free time, and then went to bed at night. Marcelle watched this over and over, and couldn't help but wonder what her family was doing.
Did Mitchell graduate and get that Ph.D. that he wanted? Did Jason stay on the basketball team after he hurt his fingers? How are Mom's knees? Is Dad still working for that trucking company? Did they go through with that plan to get that condo down in Banff? There were so many questions, and none of them could be answered. It made her so frustrated.
Marcelle took to taking walks before first breakfast every morning in order to use up some of the pent-up energy she had inside. She would make a circuit of Hobbiton, power-walking as fast as she could go the whole time. She was alone with her thoughts when she walked, and sometimes she would focus on them so hard that she would find herself back on Bilbo's doorstep before she even realized that she had started walking.
The gossip that passed between Bilbo's neighbors irked her as well. On her walks, she could hear them talking amongst each other because they didn't even take the effort to lower their voices. Some hobbits believed that she was some distant relative of Bilbo's, some thought Bilbo had adopted her, while most believed that she was secretly Bilbo's lover and that she was doing some…well…very inappropriate things with him.
It made her so angry that people wouldn't keep their noses out of other people's business.
Even here, she found she could not accomplish one thing. Her room still, somehow, managed to become messy when she wasn't looking, and she had to tidy it up so that Bilbo wouldn't find out that she was careless enough to let things get dysfunctional.
It was during this that she found something that felt like a strike to the face.
She was unloading one of the plastic Walmart bags she had brought from her car and a book slid out and fell to the floor. She quickly set the bag down on the dresser and bent down to pick it up. She hesitated when she saw the cover of the book.
The cover was orange, and the image of a large red dragon with green wings lying on a pile of treasure took up most it. In large green letters, it proclaimed: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien.
Slowly, Marcelle lowered herself to her knees and reached down with one hand. Part of her didn't want her to pick it up, but it was like she couldn't resist the urge to do so. She picked it up and she opened it to the first page.
'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.'
Marcelle nearly dropped the book, but she didn't. Instead, she slammed it shut again as she thought back to how it had gotten into that bag.
She had stuffed her copy of The Hobbit into the shopping bag after she had found it lying in the back of her car, after she had finished shopping, where it could get trampled on and the pages bent. She had figured her brother had left it there after she had let him borrow it when she drove him to the next town over for a dentist appointment.
But why had she forgotten about it? She used to love reading The Hobbit—she used to read it over and over and over it again. She would barely finish it before she would start at the beginning again. So why had she not recognised the names 'Shire', 'Hobbiton', and 'Bilbo Baggins'?
She knew the answer. Life had gotten in the way. She hadn't read The Hobbit since she was fourteen when her mother told her she had to stop focusing on what was fantasy and focus on reality. She had listened, focused on school and real life, and had forgotten about the adventures she had when she read a good book. In The Hobbit, she had been able to go on an adventure as a hobbit, where she placed herself in Bilbo's hairy feet and found the One Ring in the depths of the Misty Mountains. Where she traveled to the Lonely Mountain and showered the dragon Smaug with made-up praises as she looked for the Arkenstone.
Right there, her thoughts came to a grinding halt and her eyes widened. Bilbo's going to go on an adventure… but when?
Her thoughts didn't last for long before a large crash and the sound of Bilbo letting out a curse ripped them from her. She quickly got up and shoved the book under the mattress of the bed before she rushed out of the guest bedroom and made a bee-line to the kitchen.
"Bilbo, are you alright?" she called as she ran into the kitchen.
Bilbo waved his hang erratically as she came into the room, "Wait—stop! I dropped the milk jar and there are pieces of glass everywhere!"
Marcelle slid to a stop, glad that she had good reflexes while also wishing that she had worn her boots inside like Bilbo had suggested (he didn't mind the thought of boots tramping through his home for some reason).
"What about you?" she asked. "What if you cut your feet on the glass?"
"Do not worry about me, Marcelle, I've got it all under control," he said seriously. "The soles of my feet are as thick as shoe-soles, the glass will not be able to hurt me." He offered her a small smile. "Why don't you go and get a new jar of milk from the market?"
Slowly, Marcelle nodded. She turned and walked into the foyer and shoved her feet into her purple boots before she zipped them up. She picked up the shopping basket sitting by the door before she stepped outside. Pulling the door gently closed behind her, she walked out through the gate and took the path down to the market.
The walk down to the market was not long, but it was not long enough. The fresh air helped her think and get over what had just happened. She had just discovered one of the last real ties that she had to her world, her life, and it felt like it had recoiled and slammed into her so hard that it made her want to cry. She had become friends with Bilbo Baggins—Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of The Hobbit, and soon, someday, he was going to go on an adventure.
She knew that Bilbo hadn't gone on the adventure yet, Sting wasn't hanging over the fireplace in his sitting room.
Once she got to the marketplace, she made her way along the stalls until she made it to the one that belonged to Farmer Dill Dogwood.
"Hello, Farmer Dogwood," Marcelle greeted as she stepped up to his stall.
Dogwood tipped his hat to her. "Well, good morning, Miss Bowman!" he returned cheerfully. Dogwood was one of the few hobbits that seemed to be alright with her presence in Hobbiton, and she liked him. "What can I do for you? Does Bilbo need another round of cheese?"
Marcelle shook her head with a smiled. "Oh no, Farmer Dogwood," she said. "Bilbo just dropped the jar of milk we had, so we need some more."
She quickly picked up a new jar of milk and put it into the basket. After a little persuasion on Dogwood's part, she also put a stick of goat cheese in the basket. She quickly paid him and left before he could persuade her to buy anything else.
I'm not supposed to be here, she told herself as she began to walk back to Bag End. I'm not in the book. Why am I here if I'm not in the book?
"You appear as though you are lost, daughter of Men." The sudden sounding of a man's voice made her freeze in surprise. She turned and looked in the direction of the voice's source, and saw a tall man standing in the shadow of a store. He was very tall, around the same height as her brother, Mitchell.
"P-pardon?" she stuttered. It was a shock to see someone so tall in Hobbiton. She hadn't caught sight of any humans other than herself since she came to live amongst the hobbits.
Slowly, the man stepped out into the light. "You appear lost," he repeated once she was able to see him fully.
He had short black hair reminiscent of a military cut that had been allowed to grow out a few inches. His skin was pale, almost unnaturally so, being a few shades paler—at least—than her own. He looked like someone who spent all his time inside, like herself—back before she came to the Shire. His ethereal eyes were gold in colour; and he was wearing a red jacket and black pants. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet together.
Marcelle gripped the handle of the basket tightly, and mentally prepared herself to run. "What do you want?" she had never felt all that comfortable being around men she didn't know.
The man brought his right hand up and cupped it over his heart, pretending as if he was hurt by her words. "I merely stated that you appear lost, milady," he answered. He looked her in the eye with those strange eyes of his and he took a step closer. Marcelle missed it, for she could not break eye-contact.
Adrenaline pumped through her veins as her instincts told her not to look away lest he strike when she was not looking. There was something about the man that she felt was not right, not…natural, to put it simply. "And if I was lost?" she was now gripping the basket's handle with both hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "Which I'm not, thank you."
Another step closer. "You are lost, my lady, and are far, far, from home," he said. The way he said it sent chills running up and down her spine. He was so tall, and he was now too close—now she understood how Bilbo must feel with her around. The man was a few feet away, and yet she had to crane her head back in order to look him in the eye. "I felt it when you arrived—it was hard to miss your arrival by its intensity." he let out a low chuckle.
Marcelle narrowed her eyes and steeled her resolve, determined to not allow him intimidate her even though her heart was galloping away in her chest like a wild mustang. "I crashed into the side of a hill. My entrance into this place wasn't all that 'intense' as you say." Maybe I was wrong about this not being a dream, she mused. The way the man said he felt her enter into here—wherever here was, wherever Middle-Earth was, for that matter, raised goosebumps on her arms. If this isn't a dream, then it must be a nightmare.
"It was intense enough for me to sense, and that means that others have sensed you as well," the man proclaimed, his tone dropping to ominous levels as he informed her that he was not the only one who knew that she was there. "There are powers out there that stronger than I am, and they know where you have come from."
At that, her heart jumped to her throat and her eyes flew open wide. A cunning smile tugged at the corner of the man's mouth and she knew that he knew that she understood what he had just told her.
There were many who were probably powerful enough to sense subtle changes in the reality that surrounded Middle-Earth—but there was only one that she felt was powerful enough to know exactly where she came from. And she had an inkling that he would want to know how she had gotten here.
When she grew up reading The Hobbit, he was known simply as "the Necromancer", but if she remembered correctly, he was mentioned only once in the entirety of the novel when Gandalf mentioned visiting Thorin's father, Thrain, where he was imprisoned.
But the Necromancer had a name, one she didn't discover until she watched the Lord of the Rings (she never made it through the books, unfortunately). Sauron. His name was Sauron and he had the power to bend the hearts of those around him who did not have the will the resist the temptation of the power of darkness that came with siding with him.
Is that what he's saying? That Sauron knows I'm here? her breath caught in her throat. Does he know that I know what will happen?
"Do you know where I came from?" she asked him shakily.
"No," he answered almost immediately. "That was one thing I could not sense."
Marcelle frowned. She was done talking with this man, and she had to get the milk back to Bag End before it spoiled. "Who are you?" she demanded.
That cunning smirk was larger than ever as he answered her. "I am merely one who is concerned. You will find out who I am soon enough." And with that, he walked off, and disappeared around a the corner of a nearby shop.
Marcelle practically sprinted all the way back to Bag End. She burst in through the front door and stopped in the foyer to catch her breath.
Once her breath was fairly regular, she called, "I'm back with the milk, Bilbo!"
There was a beat of silence before she heard him call back, "I'm in the sitting room!"
Marcelle went to the icebox, located in Bilbo's main pantry, where she set the milk down amongst the slabs of ice before she shut the lid and continued on to the sitting room. She sat herself down in one of the chairs by the fire and looked over to where Bilbo was sitting in the chair across from her, reading a book.
She was there for several minutes before he lowered the book and gazed at her. "So, how was it?" he asked.
Marcelle decided in the blink of an eye to not trouble him with the encounter she had with the strange human man who had caught her off guard. "It was good, as good as fetching milk from the market can be, that is."
Bilbo chuckled at her answer and went back to reading the book. Marcelle smiled a little, glad that he had accepted the little lie she had just fed him. She hated having to lie to him since he had been so nice and friendly and helpful to her, but she didn't want to worry him about anything.
She just hoped that that was the last time she ever saw that mysterious man, though something in her told her that wasn't going to be the case.
Notes about this chapter:
Now, if you guys haven't chucked bricks at me yet, I would like to explain a few things in this chapter so it doesn't quite make it look like my story has fallen into another cliche.
1) From my "adventures" through the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit wiki, I've discovered that Tolkien wrote about Middle-Earth and created his stories as pseudo-fairytales for England—or ancient history that was lost to time. In this story, this is the case. The 21st Century Marcelle comes from is not our 21st Century. Marcelle hails from the Seventh/Eighth Age of Arda, but humanity has forgotten the planet is called Arda and they call it "Earth" now. (I hope this makes sense?)
2) Marcelle is not a walking encyclopedia—when she was younger, like described in this chapter, she enjoyed reading The Hobbit and she enjoyed watching the Lord of the Rings movies, but outside of that, she knows hardly anything about Middle-Earth. She hasn't read The Silmarillion, or The Lost Tales, either. On another note, she also doesn't know how to fix her car, so its doomed to rust and become a relic to be dug up by an archeologist in the future, lol.
3) "Milady/my lady" – the strange man addressed Marcelle as so because she is different and a foreigner. Normally, she wouldn't have been addressed as such because Marcelle is not royalty or rich to the point that people would feel inclined to address her with the title. When I had him say it, I had it say it in way that he was saying it as if to secretly mock her. (again, I hope that makes sense).
