"Hello Bilba."
The voice came from behind her. Bilba whirled, and memory crashed down on her like a thundering wave.
"My lady, Yavanna," she breathed, immediately dropping to her knees.
The woman standing on the path with her laughed. "Rise, Bilba. There will be no bowing among friends, I think."
The words mirrored the ones she'd spoken the last time they'd met, as did the location. The only thing that was different was the lady herself. Whereas, the last time she'd had green tinged skin and hair the color of the sun, her skin was now a golden brown and her hair had turned into a mix of reds, golds and honey brown.
Autumn, Bilba realized with a start. They were just entering into that season, and the lady reflected it. Even her gown, which had been shimmering and adorned with flowers the last time, was now a muted gold, and adorned with leaves of all colors.
"I can't believe I forgot you," Bilba said in slowly dawning horror, "after all you've done for me."
Her memory, now complete, reached all the way to the awful days after the troll attack, when a quiet voice inside her mind had led her to a pair of Rangers who'd protected her and seen her home.
"It was as I wished," Yavanna said simply. "I could not aid you on your quest, and I feared how reckless you might become if you knew I was watching."
She sounded both amused and exasperated, and Bilba couldn't help but smile a bit in response. "I blame the dwarves for that."
"They could not have brought it out," Yavanna said dryly, "had it not been there to begin with."
Bilba flushed. "Fair enough." Now that she thought about it, she had slapped Thorin the first time she'd met him, hadn't see? Granted, the rest of the dwarves had been driving her to distraction, but still...
She frowned, turning her attention back to the matter at hand. "Was that you then, just after the spider? The voice I heard?"
"Was it?" Yavanna asked innocently, tilting her head slightly as if trying to remember. "It seems I cannot recall." She refocused on Bilba, her eyes glittering as if someone had set the very stars into them. "Walk with me, dear one, for we have much to discuss and little time with which to do it."
She turned without waiting for a response, and started off down the path. Bilba scrambled to keep up with her noting, as she did, that she no longer felt any pain or fatigue from her journey, or the rather serious stab wound. An awful suspicion began to take root in her mind, but she stubbornly refused to look at it for the moment.
Instead she turned her eyes on Bag End as she rushed past, where it stood like a silent sentinel on the hill. When she'd been here last time, wherever here was, there had been noise and voices coming from inside as if a party were being thrown. She'd recognized a few of the voices, though it had been years upon years since she'd heard them.
"Where have they all gone?" she asked, as she caught up to Yavanna, falling in alongside the taller figure.
Yavanna didn't answer. Bilba hesitated, and then asked in a small voice, "Am I dead?"
There was still no answer, so she took the hint and stayed quiet, though a small, petulant part of her wondered at the refusal to answer questions right after insisting they had little time.
She wasn't Thorin, however, and knew better than to voice such things, so instead she simply looked around as they walked. There was a light breeze, she noted, rustling the tips of the grass in the fields and meadows, but aside from that there was nothing. No sound of birds, no buzzing of insects, not even the babble of the Brandywine as it made its way merrily through the midst of Hobbiton.
It was utterly silent.
"My father pointed you out to me," Yavanna said, breaking the silence suddenly. "on the day you were born."
Bilba looked up sharply, startled. "Your father?" Her father as in Eru, the creator of all? That father? "Why would he do that?"
"He said you and I had something in common," Yavanna said, "and perhaps I might be interested in watching how your story turned out." There was no mistaking the outright amusement in her voice as she added. "If I recall correctly, his exact words might have been 'you of all people should know, she'll need all the help she can get'."
"Because he knew what my journey would be," Bilba said softly. "What would happen to my parents, and the ring later."
"There are many who take on such hardships," Yavanna replied, "those who have come long before, and those who will come after. My father watches over them all." She glanced down at Bilba. "You were pointed out to me for a different reason."
"A different reason?" Bilba asked in confusion. "What other possible reason could there be?"
They crested a hill she didn't remember being in Hobbiton, and suddenly the landscape around her shifted, as if she'd stepped from one room to the next. Grass and dirt vanished to be replaced by craggy rock, and mountains towered in the distance. The sun overhead vanished behind clouds and, around them, came the smell of smoke and the clang of iron meeting iron. The air was colder here, and Bilba shivered as the breeze cut through her clothing.
A figure appeared from behind a mountain of rock, carrying a massive hammer over one shoulder. He held what looked like red-hot metal under the other arm, but the heat didn't appear to be affecting him.
As the figure neared, she could see he was shirtless, his chest covered in a sheen of sweat. He strode to where a large anvil was set up and dropped his load next to it. As he did, Bilba finally got a good look at him, and promptly felt her heart plummet.
"Thorin." she whispered. "Oh, no, not both of us. Please, not both."
She didn't want her sons to be orphans. It would be bad enough for them to lose one parent, but both wasn't something she wished on anyone, let alone her own children.
Yavanna knelt on one knee next to her. "Look closer."
Bilba gave her a nervous look, wringing her hands with anxiety. Yavanna simply stared back, face deeply serene. Bilba forced herself to take a deep breath, struggling to calm her nerves, and obeyed.
It took a few seconds but slowly things about the figure began to trigger in her mind. He was taller for one thing; a fact she hadn't immediately noticed due to how far away he was. His hair was somewhat longer too, she noted, and his beard was fuller. Even the way his body moved, and how he held himself, she slowly realized, was close to Thorin, but not quite.
"That-" Bilba said slowly. "That's not Thorin."
She looked at Yavanna, and found the other woman smiling in pride at her.
"Who is it then?" Bilba asked in confusion. She ran the Valar she knew of through her mind, and felt her eyes widen. "Mahal?"
"My husband created the dwarves," Yavanna said by way of explanation. "Amongst the first, he made one in his own image." Her eyes took on a look of amused affection and her voice dropped to a whisper. "He's a bit vain."
"I can hear you, woman." Mahal's voice rumbled across the rocky area, and sounded so exactly like Thorin in tone and word that Bilba had to bite back a giggle.
Yavanna smiled, and stood. "Every so often, another dwarf like this first one is born into the race. They share my husband's strengths, and his weaknesses."
At this she looked down at Bilba and mouthed the word, "Stubborn," which nearly caused Bilba to laugh out loud again.
"These dwarves also typically carry a heavy destiny," Yavanna continued, a somber note coming into her voice as she looked out into the distance. "One that some have shouldered with success, and others have not."
"Thorin succeeded," Bilba said, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. "He reclaimed Erebor, and held it against the orcs."
"And he holds it still," Yavanna said, eyes turned toward Mahal. "He is a child my husband can be proud of." She looked down at Bilba. "Still, the burden is not an easy one, not for him, and not for the one destined to be by his side. I have long since held an interest for the Ones of the dwarves made in my husband's image." She smiled down at Bilba again. "You could say I feel we are kindred spirits."
"I'm honored you would think so," Bilba whispered. It was hard to wrap her mind around it. It had been hard enough to wrap her mind around the notion of her, Bilba Baggins of Bag End, being in love with the king of the dwarves, much less bearing his children, but this? To think she'd been destined for such a role? Her?
So much for ever believing she could be respectable. As it turned out, she'd been born unusual. Once she might have been horrified, but now?
Now, she felt perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing.
Her mind latched onto something Yavanna said and she forced herself to smile, as a flood of relief washed through her. "He holds it still? Thorin's alive, then?"
"He is." Yavanna said. "And by destroying the ring, you have ensured he will win the day, as will all of Middle Earth."
"Good," Bilba breathed out. "Then at least he'll still be there for Frerin and Ash."
"Do you not wish to be?" Yavanna asked, and Bilba looked up at her sharply.
"Of course I do!" she insisted. "But it's not as if I can just snap my fingers and send myself back, now can I?"
The words came out much sharper than she'd intended, and she tensed, half-expecting Yavanna to grow angry. This was all Thorin's fault, she'd never have been the sort to yell at one of the Valar before meeting him.
"No," Yavanna said, calm as ever. "You cannot."
The world around them seemed to blur, and then they were back in front of Bag End, and the landscape was just as empty and silent as ever.
Or at least she thought it was.
After a few minutes, Bilba became dimly aware of the chatter of voices, but they were distant, and coming from the other side of the hill, possibly from down in the party field.
"Who is that?" she asked.
"All the ones you have ever lost," Yavanna said. "You can go to them, if you wish."
Bilba blinked. Everyone she'd ever lost? Did that mean her parents? Bungo? Adalgrim? She could see them again? Hold them again?
An almost nervous exhilaration rose in her at the thought of such a long separation finally being over and she took a step forward, only to pause as something in Yavanna's voice caught her.
"If I wish," she repeated. "And what happens if I choose to go to them?"
"Then that is where you will stay," Yavanna replied simply.
Bilba nodded, clasping her hands together in front of her tightly. "And if I choose to not go?"
Yavanna studied her for a moment, before saying, "then your journey may continue, if that is what you wish."
"You mean I can go back?" Bilba frowned. "But how? I kind of got stabbed, and you said you can't get involved..." She trailed off, looking up at the other woman helplessly.
"You are the ringbearer," Yavanna replied, "and have saved all of Middle Earth. In return, my father has decreed you are to be rewarded. Traditionally, we might offer you passage to the Undying Lands," here she gave Bilba a sideways look, "but I have a feeling it might not be what you wish."
"No," Bilba replied without hesitation. She looked in the direction of the hill, and the voices drifting over it. "I do want to see them," she said, "but I want to see my sons grow up more."
"Will you though?" Yavanna asked curiously. "The lifespan of a hobbit is so much shorter than that of a dwarf, even of one who is only half-dwarf."
Bilba flinched. Her vision grew watery, and her voice wavered. "I'd still choose all the time I can have with them." She forced a grin as she tore her eyes away from the hill to look at Yavanna once more. "Even if it's just for a little while."
"Perhaps," Yavanna replied. "That is your choice then? You choose not to see the ones you have lost?"
"Not just yet," Bilba said. "Someday, but right now I just want to go home."
"And where is home?" Yavanna asked. "For the Shire has rejected you."
Bilba gave a slightly choked laugh. "I remember." She took a deep breath, and her voice grew firmer. "Home is wherever my family is." Her sons, Thorin, Fili and Kili. The thought of those two brought a pang of fear to her heart. They had been beset on all sides by orcs the last she'd seen and even then could be -
No. She shook her head as if she could physically dislodge the thought from her mind. She had to believe they were all right. Yavanna said she'd succeeded. If that were true, then it meant Sauron was defeated and if that were true, then surely it must have caused chaos and disorder amongst his followers? Fili and Kili were the best there were. If given an opening, they would take it, she knew that.
"I just want to go home," she repeated. "Please."
Yavanna nodded, and Bilba could swear she saw approval in the other woman's eyes.
"As you wish." She said.
A wave of dizziness washed over Bilba, and she swayed, shutting her eyes for a brief moment.
When she reopened them, she was standing on the edge of the ledge overlooking the river of red down below.
Heat washed over her, and the ground shook beneath her feet.
Bilba blinked in surprise, and then gasped and looked down, hands automatically going to her side. She felt wetness, and a tear in her shirt and, through that...nothing.
She felt nothing at all.
No pain, no jagged, torn skin under her fingers, nothing.
A well of laughter bubbled up from her gut which, given the setting, might be premature but, even so...
Even so...
Her mind vaguely noted that something else was off aside from the fact she was no longer bleeding out. She felt...strange, different somehow.
She wasn't given any time to think on it, however, as, beneath her feet, the ground suddenly shook violently. Bilba stumbled back, and her foot went right over the edge.
She shrieked, falling back and frantically reached out to try and grasp something, anything to stop her fall.
Apparently, she wasn't yet out of miracles, as her fingers caught on a sharp edge of rock just beneath the ledge, and held. Her body slammed into stone and she grunted in pain.
"Damn it," she grumbled, "this wouldn't have happened if someone had thought to install railings!"
She struggled to find a foothold, feet scrabbling against the rock. She wasn't doing this, she told herself firmly. She was not dying, again. Not in the first five minutes after she'd come back.
That would just be pathetic.
She pulled, trying to get back up to where the edge of the ledge taunted her less than a foot away, and frowned as it occurred to her that her arms were holding her body weight a lot easier than she'd have thought they would. Not that she was complaining, of course. She wasn't an idiot.
The rock shuddered again and, just like that, she was loose, as if the mountain itself had shaken her off. Bastard.
She barely had a chance to scream, and then she was falling...
And then she wasn't.
Her body jerked to a rough stop and suddenly there was a hand wrapped like iron around her wrist, holding her in place with ease.
Bilba looked up, and Thorin grinned down at her from where he was stretched out on his stomach and leaning over the edge. On either side of him stood Fili and Kili, haggard but looking none the worse for wear. Behind them, she could just see Dwalin as well, watching for anything that might come up behind them.
"Did you miss me?" Thorin quipped, and Bilba spared the time to roll her eyes in exasperation, even as she smiled back up at him.
"You're late." She reached up and hooked her free hand into the sleeve of his shirt, anchoring herself. "Now pull me up, your Majesty. That's an order."
He laughed. "As you command."
He then proceeded to do exactly that.
