The trip to the Shire turns out to be exactly what Kíli needs to settle back into his usual cheerful self. They arrive in the middle of a warm summer afternoon, the air hazy and filled with the sound of laughing children, the low hum of insects and the cheerful chatter of hobbits going about their daily lives. The Shire is a peaceful place, even when its occupants are labouring industriously at their daily tasks, and it makes Nori feel lazy as she slowly strolls the paths and lanes which take her to Hobbiton and then on to Bag End. The last of the weight on Kíli's shoulders seems to melt from him as they walk, a wide smile crossing his face every time hobbit children cross their paths. The braver little ones will ask both dwarves streams of disjointed questions about where they are from, where they are going, their boots and coats, their beards and hair and braids. Kíli answers them all with good humour, the lilt of the Iron Hills brogue seeming to catch the imaginations of the children even more, and they seem to gather as many young ones as they lose to the calls of their parents as they make their way through Hobbiton. Even Nori, who knows that Belladonna was one of twelve, is amazed at how many children there are and how freely they roam with only the occasional exasperated older sibling calling for them to watch themselves.
It is good to see Kíli, however, as the younger and more approachable of the two of them, grinning and laughing. He is freer here than he is anywhere else, even on the evenings alone in Ered Nimrais or at home when it was only them, his brother and Dwalin, all of whom know the truth about his occupation and personality. It may be that no matter what happens in his relationship with Briar, whether this apparent fancy he has taken to her progresses into something real or fizzles out into a close friendship, the Shire will become the safe place that he needs when his work gets too much. It gets too much for them all sometimes, and even the Wolf of Erebor will need somewhere to decompress and be free.
"Nori!" She hears Briar shout only a moment before the hobbit lass flings herself over the garden fence.
"Careful," Nori laughs in delight as she catches Briar before the hobbit can make contact with her. "Don't want you getting stuck with anything." The hobbit grins a little sheepishly, but the warm welcome robs Nori of any desire to remind her further of the dangers of embracing armed dwarves.
"Don't I get anything?" Kíli asks with a wide smile. Briar flushes at the sight of him.
"I don't know," she replies, expression a little more coy than Nori would have expected, "is there anything I can stick myself with?"
"Nothing that will hurt," he winks. Nori rolls her eyes, and leaves the pair of them to greet one another however they want to as she lets herself into the garden and then the smial.
"Belladonna?" She calls as she enters.
"In here, dear," the elderly hobbit calls.
Nori makes her way into the sitting room after dropping her pack on the floor with a heavy thud. Belladonna Baggins is sitting in her chair by the fire in the sitting room. Despite the warm weather, the fire is lit and the hobbit has a shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she stares into the flames. She appears older, somehow, as though the year and a half, nearly, that Nori and Kíli have been gone has aged her more than it should have. The lines on her face are deeper, her eyes are distant, but with the occasional momentary shock of sharpness that Nori has seen in the more canny of her elders among her own people. Were Belladonna a dwarf Nori would think she has only has, perhaps, five years to a decade left before she returns to the stone, or whatever it is that hobbits believe in. She has no idea how long hobbits can continue in this state, although she suspects that it cannot be all that long, but she knows, somehow, that Belladonna Baggins is approaching the end of her life.
"How are you, Belladonna?" Nori asks, the question pointless really but she opts for politeness all the same.
"Old," the hobbit grumbles, "tired. Did you bring that handsome boy of yours with you?"
"Where I go, he goes," Nori confirms, settling in a chair without care for the dust of the road on her clothes. Belladonna does not call her on it.
"Well, that will make my daughter a little happier at least," Belladonna smiles. "She's been worried."
"I can't imagine why," Nori quirks an eyebrow.
"This was always coming, dear," the hobbit shakes her head, "I'm looking forward to joining my Bungo in the Gardens. It won't be long now."
"Not this year," Nori tells her, "we can't stay, I need to get my boy back for his tests."
"No," she agrees, "not this year. I'm not that tired yet. He will take care of her though, will he not? I would hate for her to be hurt."
"If they choose one another," Nori hedges, "I am certain he will take as much care of her as he is able. Cadan has a duty at home, however, that he can't put aside. Not even for love, hobbit, dwarf or otherwise."
"Briar calls him something different sometimes, when it's just the two of us," Belladonna muses.
"She knows a lot of his secrets," the dwarf confirms.
"Yes, I rather imagine she knows more of them than you realise," is the response. "Still, it would ease my heart to know that she is looked after once I have passed. Especially with the Proudfoot boy due to be released in a year or so if he continues to behave."
"So soon?" Nori asks in alarm.
"It is not in our nature to keep others confined away from the light and the green," Belladonna shrugs. "If there was some way to permanently keep him from being a risk to my daughter I would embrace it, but short of his death…" Belladonna huffed.
"There is a way for me to organise that for you," Nori tells her. "It's part of my craft and I'd only charge you a minor fee to keep it aboveboard."
"It would ease my heart to know that you would be able to keep her safe after I pass." The hobbit's easy agreement is a surprise, but a mother's protective love is always a dangerous thing.
"After you pass," Nori winces, "won't be so easy. Our contracts typically expire when the one who orders the hit dies. It stops people from ordering hits that only take place once they've died. Not to mention it clears out some of the backlog."
"That is a problem," Belladonna agrees. "I can't be entirely certain I will last long enough to be around when he is released." Nori tugs on her beard thoughtfully.
"There might be a way around it," she says. "You can order the hit, certainly, but if I put my name beside yours the contract will continue once you die. It means that it would have to be taken on by someone else though, and for it to work I'd need to…" she stops and pulls a face, realising that it means she will have to fully admit something to herself as well as to her friend. "I'd need to take Briar, and thus you, into my family."
"How would you go about that?" Belladonna asks, curious but not alarmed which is reassuring.
"Nothing sinister," Nori assures her. "It isn't an uncommon thing among dwarves to build a family beyond that of spouse and blood. Family is very important to my people, you need to know that you can trust the people you are with in battle and who can you trust more than your family, especially if it is one you have chosen for yourself."
"So you would adopt her?"
"As my sister, yes," Nori nods. "If she wants to accept, I cannot force it, but without the kinship I won't be able to keep the contract alive for you."
"Who would complete it, then?" Belladonna asked. "I don't know of anyone else I would trust with it."
"Cadan," Nori shrugs. "He's not registered yet, but his test is in a few years. I suspect if the Proudfoot boy were to so much as hint at harming Briar the lad would do the job for free and without either of us needing to ask." She leans back, eyes intent upon the elderly hobbit. "I'm more intrigued by the fact that you didn't turn my suggestion down flat. Briar would."
"Briar is innocent," Belladonna admits, "and still ignorant in many ways. She has all the confidence of youth, but so did I once. People often wonder why a bright and adventurous miss married a staid bookworm like Bungo. The truth is, I learnt a lesson that I never want Briar to be in a position to. If not for you, I rather suspect that she would have done so already."
"She would have learnt that a lot of Men are untrustworthy," Nori confirms. "But I think Proudfoot would have been a problem regardless of whether she had ever left the Shire." Of course, Nori cannot be as certain of this as she sounds since the Briar of her past never confided in her, but there are things that Nori has no influence over at all and the behaviour of the residents of this normally sleepy seeming place is one of them.
"He already was a problem," Belladonna admits, "not that Briar had bothered to tell me or her father. She is too confident that she can handle him herself. I worry that she will be hurt, or worse, in doing so and if she were to kill him… in defence of her own person or not she would be shunned at least. More likely she would be cast out entirely and although I know that she would have somewhere safe to go with you…"
"You would rather it did not come to that," Nori concludes. "We can make it look like an accident," she offers. "So that it doesn't come back upon you or your daughter."
"And she mustn't know," Belladonna insists.
"If Cadan is the one to do it," Nori glances at the door, wondering what has happened to her apprentice and her friend, "then I think it might be better for all concerned that she does know."
"She won't like it," Belladonna warns.
"She doesn't have to like it," Nori disagrees, "she needs to be safe."
"That I agree with," the hobbit nods. "Where is she?"
"With Cadan," Nori replies. "She's safe with him."
"Depends on what you mean by safe," Belladonna mutters, seeming to notice that Nori had sat down in the chair for the first time. "Go and get cleaned up, stop dirtying my furniture."
Nori laughs and heads off to do as she is told, stopping at the front door to see what Briar and Kíli are doing. The pair are in the garden, Kíli's pack abandoned next to him as they talk while Briar carefully uses a pair of scissors to cut some flowers that grow in one of the borders. He is relaxed and smiling as they talk, Nori does not bother trying to hear what they are saying as their voices are too low for her to catch easily. She almost hates to interrupt them, and she definitely does not like the thought that the lightness that has returned to her apprentice will dissipate when he hears what she and Belladonna have planned. It needs to be done, however, and soon. She only plans for them to stay a week, two at the most, before heading back to Ered Luin and Dís' fury.
A.N: Wasn't expecting Belladonna to take that path to be honest. The set up for Kili and Borden was always going to happen, but it was going to come to pass differently. Belladonna took matters into her own hands somewhat, but as a mother I know that I would personally do some pretty extreme things to stop someone from hurting either of my children if I could.
Last assignment for this module is in. Let the frantic exam preparations begin!