T.A. 2806 Rivendell
Hobbit maid and dwarf prince are both soaked to the skin when they finally cross the wide and, oh so, high stone bridge into Rivendell. The light is fading, although the thick clouds overhead have obscured it for most of the afternoon anyway, and even though it is barely evening it already has the appearance of early night. The pair have been wandering together for seven years, wintering in whatever settlement they happen to be near at the time and making a living from Frerin's smithing and Belladonna's more mundane healing knowledge.
The subject of Rivendell has come up a number of times and is always a source of contention between them. Frerin maintains the elves will turn them away without a care or thought. Belladonna argues that the hospitality of Lord Elrond is legendary even in the Shire and he would welcome them, even if only for a brief respite. Truth be told, she wants to look at the library and learn more of the history of her world and of the healing techniques she could use that wouldn't require her to draw on the Lady's Blessing. She doesn't want to have to wait another three years just to have the chance to see the place and that's only if Frerin decides to stick to the original plan and return to Ered Luin. Pledging ten years of your life to the protection of another just because they saved you is a little much in her opinion. She only did as Yavanna instructed. If she had known at the time of his offer the dwarf would turn out to be so secretive and suspicious and protective she would have gone back to the Shire and spent the next decade going slowly mad out of sheer boredom.
Next time, if there is one, she will do exactly that.
As it is, for all his irritating qualities she's grown quite fond of Frerin and enjoys having the company. He grumbles none too subtly while they wait to see if the Lord of the Last Homely House will welcome them and she elbows him in the ribs for it, for all the good it does since he's nearly solid muscle. She can't do much more, isn't even all that sure she could speak if expected to, she's too busy trying not to vibrate right out of her skin at the hum of elvish magic that has seeped so deeply into the earth around her that it seems to sing.
T.A.2941 Rivendell
"Well, that could have gone worse," Frerin says to her as they stride from the hall where a company of dwarves has managed to scandalise several elves, annoy Elrond on a level his twin sons would probably be quite envious of, entertain both Frerin and Gandalf, and embarrass Bluebell.
Not bad for only a half hour of poor behaviour.
Belladonna has long resigned herself to the fact that if one is to have dealings with dwarves, one must also accept that they will react to anything elvish with almost childish hostility. Belladonna can hardly expect more from the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, even if she had hoped he would reign them in rather than encourage them. It had taken three visits here for Frerin to be simply civil to Elrond and many more for any friendships to grow. She settles for a hum of agreement, there is still time for them all to be thrown out (although Elrond might be persuaded to let Frerin, Belladonna and Bluebell stay for a few days).
"Perhaps we should have dragged your brother around with us a few times," she muses and, although she obviously isn't serious, Frerin shudders.
"He's going to want those answers." The change of subject isn't unexpected. "How much will you share with him?"
"The necessary," she says with a sigh. "I doubt we'll get many more answers from him to our questions."
"But that's why you have me, atamanel," he points out with a smirk. "I will always tell you anything you wish to know should you but ask."
"At the moment I have no wish to know anything," she yawns, "I only wish to go to our rooms and rest." That Frerin agrees with.
The meeting, if it can be called that, happens a little after sunset. Everyone has rested and eaten, cuts and bruises have been tended to and filthy clothes exchanged for clean. For the most part the mood is light and easy, for all they are in an elven hall, and Bluebell seems to have forgiven her friends enough to sit among them rather than with her mother. There is an undercurrent to it all, however, that is difficult to miss. Gloin, Oin and Dwalin, specifically, are more on edge as they look at Bluebell and Fili. The pair are sat with Kili and Ori (who is rubbing pensively at one arm in a manner that makes Belladonna suspect her daughter has been sharing more secrets), but they aren't interacting with them as they usually would. There are no smiles, no laughter, no rumble of dwarf voices mixing with Bluebell's higher pitch. Their eyes shine in the early darkness, clear even in the lamplight, and their expressions are distant and distracted. Belladonna knows hers will be as well, just as she can see a wide ring of mithril around Bofur's eyes and flecks of it in some of the others. She probably should have mentioned the possibility of this reaction before now.
"It's the land around us," she says with a gesture to Bluebell and Fili. "The elves have been here with their magics for so long that it has seeped into the stones and earth. It sings with our Blessing and, apparently, with your Stone Sense too." She sits on the edge of a chaise that has been dragged onto the balcony they all occupy, most of her companions are settled on the floor but Frerin lounges next to her and Bluebell is close at hand.
"You've been here before," Dwalin glares.
"Belladonna used to drag me here quite regularly," Frerin tells him, pulling her back to rest against his chest and she's grateful for it.
They have been travelling together for a little over a month and Dwalin is still distrustful of her and her daughter. Events with the trolls won't have helped matters overly. Both races are secretive, and although she understands the why of it their habit of keeping so many of the differences between them close to their chests isn't helpful. She had learnt that in her first few years travelling with Frerin and even then it caused them constant problems right up until the day they parted ways and she married Bungo.
"I believe we were promised answers," Balin says, his tone is reasonable, but his bearing makes it clear that he would rather avoid an argument. Given the two subjects at hand it is almost inevitable that heated words will be traded.
"I offered an exchange of information," Belladonna replies primly.
Balin glances at Thorin, who is slightly removed from the group with his eyes on Fili. He is ill at ease here, as all the dwarves are. Except Frerin. His obvious relaxation hasn't helped in the slightest, probably because he has been gone for so long that they no longer know what to make of him. Thorin spares his brother a glance before nodding in agreement to the exchange. Belladonna leans forward, just enough so that she can touch Bluebell's arm and the girl startles as it pulls her away from the song of the valley. Fili also flinches when his brother does the same, but the shine of their eyes doesn't fade. It won't, Belladonna knows, until they leave Rivendell. With luck the pair will have adapted by morning. She has always found that a night of sleep helps it to fade into the background in the same way the song of the Shire (which is faint but there to those who listen) always does after a long trip away.
Belladonna starts by explaining their actions the night before, that the prayers of hiding are only one aspect of the Blessing bestowed on them in varying strengths by Yavanna. There's three ways of doing it, for an individual, a pair or a clan. The tokens she had insisted every member of the Company keep close to their skin are not some obscure hobbit good luck charm as she had told them. They are a symbol that, temporarily, the Company have become hers and Bluebell's clan and are under their protection.
"In the Wandering years there was probably as many of twenty of the Lady's clerics protecting hundreds of hobbits. Some of the tokens still survive in Brandyhall and Tookborough," she shrugs. "It's nothing to concern yourselves about, we aren't warriors and we had to have some way of surviving our migration from our original homeland to the Shire."
"What else can you do?" Nori asks, his eyes are narrowed, and he glances at Ori who has remained suspiciously silent. It makes Belladonna wonder how much her daughter has told her young friends.
"We can heal," Bluebell pipes up with a slightly guilty glance at her mother. "At least, I can. Mama used to be able to, but Papa died and some things happened and she can't anymore." Belladonna carefully keeps her face neutral, better that the others know she can't perform any healing. "We can encourage things to grow, usually faster and more potently than if left to nature. It's one of the things we do most often and takes the least effort unless it's winter. A small amount of precognition, Mama's better at that than me, we can enhance our sight, hearing and warm our bodies for a short time. And, if we choose, we can see the life lights of those around us."
"Life light?" Fili speaks for the first time that evening and the strain in his voice is clear. Elf magic is closer to the Blessing than the Stone Sense of the dwarves and she doubts he has ever felt anything like it.
"Yes," Belladonna takes over, more familiar with subject than her daughter. "Even orcs have one," she shudders. "It's like a glow around you. Elves glitter, hobbits are usually green, and dwarves are like the bright glow of a hot forge. It can tell us a lot about a person when we first meet them. If you could see ours, you'd see that we have the indigo light of the Blessing threaded through it. Yours confused me when I first saw it, Fili," she continues. "I've never seen so much silver, it almost overwhelms the rest of it."
She doesn't mention the touches of green and indigo that dance through it like vines, something she has only ever seen in Frerin in the past. Nor does she bring up the raw edges that, even now, are reaching for the edges of Bluebell's. Her life light is nearly all indigo, with blooms of silver, orange and green spiralling through it. It had been terrifying to see at her birth.
"What about the Stone Sense?" Bluebell asks when no one else seems inclined to speak. They all trade glances.
"If no one else answers, I will," Frerin rumbles. "The Blessing isn't spoken of outside the Shire. Can you imagine what might happen to the hobbits if the world found out about their ability to make things grow? Or to heal? If not for Belladonna I would have died at Azanulbizar. Had Thror known of the hobbit's talents I have no doubt he would have captured as many as he could and dragged them along with us. Belladonna is trusting you with a great deal and we would do well to repay it."
"It's isn't like your Blessing," Fili, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the one to speak. "We can't heal with it or anything like that," he casts a reproachful glance at Kili who looks poised to say something. The younger, in a rare display of wisdom, subsides. "We can feel the stone, what it's made of and all the stories it holds. The stone remembers everything that has happened and if you know what to listen for it can tell you, it's easy to lose yourself in it and drift too deep if you aren't careful. We can't lose our way underground and, if we have it strongly enough, we can use it to guide us above as well."
"Some of us," Bofur adds, "can find specific deposits or at least tell if a new tunnel is worth opening. We can feel all the cracks and flaws, we're the first to know if an area is safe and we can take strength from it far greater than we would have normally. We see pretty well in the dark too, but that's just a dwarf thing."
"There are other stories," Balin adds, "about dwarves with such a strong connection to the stone that they become it and it moves as they wish it. Or they can call any shape or form from it that they desire without the need to use tools."
"Tales for dwarflings. Algirk Stonesinger and the throne of Erebor is a good story but that's all it is," Gloin scoffs, but Belladonna sees the way that Balin's eyes turn upon Fili.
"I used to think so," he says. Then he stands. "Elf bed or no, I'll not turn my nose up at a chance to sleep without a tree root in my back."
The fire has dwindled as they have talked, leaving the balcony lit by only two small lamps and the pale glow of the moon.
"Walk you to your room?" Fili asks Bluebell and offers a hand to help her up. Belladonna exchanges a long look with Frerin. He had better be right, she will be very unhappy if her daughter's story takes a similar turn to hers.
As it is she hears Bluebell gasp when she takes the offered hand just as she feels the earth seem to lurch beneath her. The song shifts and, since she is still looking right at him, she sees a swirl of indigo in Fili's burning mithril eyes as the melody around her becomes a soaring harmony. From the look on Kili's face the opposite is true of Bluebell's eyes and in the corner of her eye she notices Bofur straighten and shift. The two tear their hands apart, staring at one another and Belladonna knows this can go one of two ways. She's dismayed when Bluebell wraps her arms around herself and darts away.
Belladonna doesn't wait for Frerin, she hurries after her daughter.
A.N: Posting two chapters today, you'll see why when you read the next one. I tried to avoid chapters that were too exposition heavy but Thorin was having none of it and in the end it became fairly necessary to everything I'm setting up.