Chapter Twenty: Belladonna
T.A. 2903 Bag End
Winter has already been the longest Belladonna can remember experiencing, and she has experienced far more of them than any hobbit currently living. Food is running low, fuel becoming increasingly scarce and more than one smial has been entered by concerned neighbours to find that the occupant, usually elderly, has passed in the night due to the cold. It is a sign of how desperate they are that the food left (if there is any) is taken from the home of the deceased and passed around to other families before the body is dealt with. The hobbits cannot be the only race suffering, in fact they probably aren't struggling quite as much as their nearest neighbours, but even with their gift for making things grow they are struggling to persuade the frozen earth to produce much at all.
Unfortunately, the Brandywine freezing over isn't something that they could have foreseen. Wolves have been seen in the Shire, already, taking the weak and poorly prepared. Worse will come, Belladonna knows it even before the earth beneath her rouses just enough to start screaming it at her. They need help and Frerin will come, she knows he will because he has already made the offer more than once when the message birds can make it through. Belladonna has lived long enough to recognise that they need help, her distant relative's pride as Thain notwithstanding, and if he won't send for help, she will.
She doesn't expect just how vehemently opposed to the idea Bungo is. She should have. More than once Bungo talks her out of sending a letter to Frerin asking him to beg his brother to help them. More than once she lets her fear of Bluebell seeing her parents' marriage falling apart convince her not to send to Frerin until she finally realises that she may have left it too late and announces that she is writing to Frerin anyway. Any mention of her old friend this past decade has caused heated arguments and long silences. If not for the fact that they are all sleeping in the parlour for warmth Belladonna wouldn't even be sharing a bed with Bungo anymore.
This isn't fair on Bungo, she knows it in her heart even if she will never admit it out loud. She chose him, but not for the right reasons. She only accepted Bungo because her first choice had been taken away and she had thought that if she moved forwards and started a new life the loss of her old one would hurt less. Bungo knows, as he always did, that if not for Frerin's arranged marriage he would never have stood a chance with Belladonna. She can't imagine how he must feel being constantly reminded of her old lover and, in the beginning, she had truly attempted to keep her friendship to herself. It's hard, though, and has always been. Frerin was very nearly the only person she had left by the time she met Bungo and throwing away that last person who knew her better than anyone had been too difficult to live with. Bluebell, too, came to adore the dwarf and even though she hasn't seen him in nine years she often attaches a line or two to the end of her mother's letters. Her daughter is a tween, old enough to recognise that Frerin is an upsetting subject for Bungo but Belladonna is also aware that her daughter holds some unnamed resentment towards her father with regards to the dwarf. Bluebell has never outright blamed Bungo for the fact that Frerin doesn't visit anymore, but Belladonna suspects that her daughter heard Bungo telling him never to return to the Shire.
So, she should have expected Bungo to be frustrated that she would turn to Frerin to solve their problem, but it still comes as a surprise how completely he dismisses it all. Not just her asking for help, but that it will even be needed at all. Belladonna's instincts may have softened over the years, summer camping trips within the boarders of the Shire to teach Bluebell survival techniques don't really count as travel, but she's sharp enough, still, to recognise the immediacy of the problem.
"You can't possibly know that," he snarls at her, "I'm not discussing this with you again, I'm not having this anymore. I can't compete against your past for the rest of my life and I'm tired of fighting it. I refuse to fight for your heart anymore when I don't think I really had it in the first place. You want your dwarf? Fine. Go to him as soon as the thaw comes."
His words stun her and she half starts a reply more than once because she simply can't find the words to form a response. He saves her from it by continuing himself
"I release you of our vows, I should have done it years ago." She can hear his resignation, but all she can feel is something in her shattering once more as she sinks into a chair and numbness fills her.
This isn't just the just the end of her marriage, a distant part of her can live with that because it has been coming for a long time. This is nearly thirty years of her life being ripped away from her. This is the life she built so carefully after everything she loved had been taken away from her once. This is a safe life with people she can love easily and dedicate her time to. This is a life with a permanent home and child just as she had so often longed for. If Frerin won't take her in, and after everything she wouldn't blame him for turning her away, she will be left utterly destitute and alone in the world. She had her family to come home to when she first started travelling and Frerin at her side for so many years after that. It has been a long time since the idea of being alone has been even remotely appealing. And Bluebell. Belladonna knows the laws of the Shire, Bungo will take Bluebell from her and keep them apart as long as he is able to do so. She begins to sob.
"I'm taking some food," he informs her. "I'll be staying with my brother and his wife until the thaw. After that you go to your dwarf." He spits the word with such distaste that she starts to plead with him, wanting to try and salvage at least her relationship with her daughter. "No, Belladonna," he cuts her off. "You will leave, and you will not see my daughter again as long as I am alive to prevent it."
There is a noise in the parlour and Belladonna turns horrified eyes towards the heavy blanket that hangs over the doorway. Bluebell must have heard everything, and she hurries to her daughter rather than continuing to attempt to reason with her now former husband. If Bungo thinks he can separate them he will soon learn otherwise. By the time the thaw comes the whole Shire will know that he has cast her out, Camellia Sackville-Baggins will see to that, but she will be long gone, and she will have taken Bluebell with her.
Her daughter runs from her and Belladonna doesn't blame her. She would follow but there is something else burning at the back of her mind, the kind of warning that hisses she is too late and that all there is left to do is douse the fire and hide her family. She hesitates, and it is that which will ultimately prove to be her undoing. If she puts the fire out, they may never get it going again and while she is debating it, she hears the door to the smial open. Bungo is already prepared to leave and she races to stop him. He pushes her away, striking her, and the violence of the reaction makes her freeze for the first time in her life.
She doesn't move again until she hears him scream, pausing long enough to grab her short sword and knives from beside the door where she has been keeping them in case of wolves. She emerges from the still open gate to see him bleeding in the snow and a snarling orc standing over him. Her arm isn't what it once was, but her knife still strikes the creature's shoulder and it takes a few steps back. Clearly it wasn't expecting any kind of resistance and it roars loudly enough to summon several others from other smials they have obviously been trying to break into.
Her only thought, as she attacks, is Bluebell. Her daughter has been told what to do in this sort of situation, but Belladonna knows that doing such isn't always easy. It has been years since she has fought orcs, and this small group can only be a scouting party, but she slips back into it effortlessly. Unfortunately, she is out of shape for such an activity and she also used to have Frerin at her back. The two of them could have dealt with this in minutes, but she is alone, tired and starving.
She makes a mistake.
The blade slides through her back and emerges through her stomach as a hot knife might cut through butter and her ears are filled with the delighted chuckle of the final orc. It is larger than it's fellows, blind in one eye, and it circles her while snarling in it's own language. Her only thought is Bluebell, her daughter, who will likely emerge from the smial to find her parents blood staining the snow and an army of orcs on the way to avail themselves of the soft folk of the Shire and an easy meal. Bluebell will lose both parents, and likely her own life if she leaves the smial to investigate.
Belladonna reaches for the earth, trying desperately to use the Blessing to heal herself. She knows it is forbidden but she can't die here, bleeding out into the snow and leaving her daughter alone to face the danger that is coming. The Blessing skitters out of reach, refusing to cooperate and she pulls harder. It lashes back at her, the pain of it lost in the numbness that fills her as her life drains away, so she reaches further and deeper until she finds something else. It is dark, black, vicious but so alive. It fights when she grabs it, tugging it into her body and twisting it to do what she wants of it, until she starts to heal. It isn't until she looks up and sees the frozen agony on the orc's face that she realises what she has done. She has taken every year that this orc might have had and claimed it for herself, ripped every part of it away from its body and taken it into herself. For her to live another must die and even though she will never mourn the fact that she has killed the orc she can feel its thoughts and essence mixing with hers.
She screams, her mind breaking away from the horrors that she is seeing. She screams and doesn't think she will ever be able to stop.
T.A. 2941 The Misty Mountains
Belladonna has never felt terror and hopelessness quite like the moment she saw Fili stabbed and Bluebell fall with him into the depths of the mountain. The only thing that had stopped her from losing control again as she once did is that she can't work through stone anymore. She knows her daughter well enough to have recognised that flicker of determination on her face before she fell. Bluebell let herself be caught up deliberately, Belladonna knows, the young pair might not have taken that last step that would tie them together but if Bluebell had been willing to risk dying with Fili in the fall then his loss would have affected her more deeply than Belladonna had realised. Frerin tries to offer hope, to her and Kili both, but much of the encounter with the goblins and the fight to get out passes in a grief blurred haze. Her actions are automatic, brought on only by the hopeless thought that if Bluebell and Fili survive, they will not be happy if anyone manages to get themselves killed.
Getting her daughter back is more than she dared to hope for. Happiness fills her and for the first time in nearly forty years the tiny bit of the orc that still lingers in the corner of her mind vanishes. Then she looks closer, unable to see any sign of Fili's injury and touches the earth just enough to look at his light. It burns bright and strong, he is obviously healed, but it's different too. Before it was all the white silver of mithril and the orange of a hot forge with tangles of green and blue at the edges. Those tangles would reach for her daughter in much the same way the little pieces of dwarf colours in her light would reach for Fili. Now, both of them just have a swirling mass of colour, an even mix that spirals and dances. Whatever happened to them in the mountain has caused them to bond more thoroughly and completely than any other pair Belladonna has encountered.
She always knew that if they ever got to the point Bluebell wouldn't survive losing Fili, but with how mixed together they are she doesn't think he would survive losing her either even though it's not the way of dwarves to fade. They are built to endure even the most extreme of griefs, such as the loss of the other half of your soul.
"Get the tunic up, boy," Oin says and startles the small family group. "Need to have a look at that scratch, goblin blades are filthy, and you don't need an infection. It's a wonder you didn't break your fool neck."
"Bluebell needs looking at more than me," Fili replies with a slight flush. "She healed me but apparently-"
"We can't heal ourselves," Belladonna finishes for him before turning to her daughter. "You managed to heal with all that stone around you?" She asks and Bluebell's eyes light up with pride as she squeezes Fili's hand. Belladonna wonders if she has even realised she's still holding it.
"I couldn't have done without Fili," she replies and the resulting questions from all directions have Bluebell shrinking into him given that she's still unaccustomed to being the centre of so much attention. Yet another result of Belladonna's actions that winter day.
The questions are cut short by a howl and for the second time that day Bellladonna finds herself running from a foe. This time, however, the earth is beneath her feet and she chants the hiding softly as they run, Bluebell, she knows, is likely too exhausted. With luck they will be able to find somewhere safe before the wargs smell them, they can't run forever and she knows their luck has well and truly run out when they find themselves on the edge of a high cliff with only tall pines to climb. Death, it would seem, has found them and it breaks her heart anew. Not for her and Frerin, they have had their time. It is for Fili and Bluebell who have just begun, for Kili who is yet to find the one his light searches for and Thorin who only wishes to bring his people home.
She hears the order to climb and obeys, she has little choice other than to die and she isn't certain she wants to consider the other alternative. She climbs and leaps through the trees and entertains the thought that hobbits are not squirrels. They are supposed to be on the ground or under it. It's probably worse for the dwarves, who live under stone, but she still doesn't like it. The alternative might well be the only option, however, and she reaches through the living tree for the earth it's connected to. At least she's unlikely to survive twisting her Blessing to a foul purpose this time, even if neither Frerin nor Bluebell will be able to bring themselves to end her future torment there is a cliff readily available to do that for her. She has barely begun to search for the dark taint of orcs and wargs when the tree, thanks to Gandalf's burning pinecones, catches fire and collapses out, threatening to send them all hurtling into nothingness and breaking her concentration. It makes her very grateful for dwarf strength when Frerin hauls her up before her fingers can lose their grip entirely. She's relieved to see Fili and Kili do the same for Bluebell, although their care of her daughter is likely futile in the face of their current predicament. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of a connection to the earth for her to follow through on her original plan any longer. She's so focused on that thought, in fact, that she doesn't notice the orc until she feels Frerin's fingers grip her arms so tightly it hurts. She knows about this orc, has heard about it from Frerin and deep in her mind is a memory from the orc she killed. She's known Azog survived Azanulbizar for years, told Frerin as much before she learnt to shut away the tiny piece of orc that lingers in her mind. If the devastation on Thorin's face is anything to go by, the information has never reached him.
Azog obviously expects Thorin to try and attack, much as Belladonna truly hopes he won't, and likely his goading of the dwarf king into doing something rash is all part of his enjoyment of the hunt. His focus, and that of his orcs, is so completely on Thorin, however, that Belladonna grabs onto the little bit of earth she can still feel through the tree and uses it to draw the hiding about them again. It won't work as it should, the orcs know where they are and the connection is tenuous, but it will make their eyes slide off the Company and that might give them an edge. Especially when Thorin succumbs to the taunts and charges from the tree to attack the pale orc, just as Azog had obviously intended. He spurs his warg into a leap over the charging dwarf and knocks Thorin from his feet with a laugh as he turns to face the struggling exiled king. They all watch in horror and so all miss Frerin as he charges duel swords in hand and takes a running leap. He lands, by some miracle, on the orc's back plunging one blade through his ribs and the other into its neck, cutting off Azog's roar and all but severing his head. The warg rears up, dislodging its now deceased rider and Frerin who isn't quite quick enough to release the hold he has on his weapons to get out of the way. He lands, crushed under Azog, with an aborted scream and it's that, along with the sudden surge of orcs around Thorin and his brother, that causes those of the Company who can to charge from the tree.
There are still too many orcs and they can't possibly win, but they're determined to take as many as they can with them. Then she's snatched up in the talons of a giant eagle and she can't think anymore as the breath is stolen from her. Thorin is also down, unconscious after being thrown like a rag doll by a warg, and Frerin is distressingly still in the grip of the eagle that holds him. They fly all night and in that time Belladonna watches and waits for the cold to come. The loss of warmth and the disinterest in life that comes and marks the beginning of the fading. It has to come at some point, Frerin is too still and quiet, and she has heard enough of the stories to know the signs.
By the time they are place high upon the Carrock she is beginning to allow herself to hope and she rushes to Frerin even as Gandalf kneels by Thorin to try and rouse him.
"Frerin?" She calls but he doesn't stir. "Frerin?" She tries again. He is alive, barely, his breath shallow and the flutter of his pulse hardly noticeable when she finally finds it. She reaches for the earth, to heal him as she always used to only to find it out of reach and her Blessing snaps back at her in retaliation.
"Bluebell! I need you," the words are almost a sob, but her daughter is already there, having ignored Thorin in favour of the one she calls Adad. She drops to her knees and takes a breath, ignoring the mutters of their concerned companions, and Belladonna watches as her indigo eyes shine in the early morning light. Her face scrunches into a frown and her eyes close and Belladonna fears that they are too far from the earth. She knows that Bluebell can find earth through the stone, she knows it because Fili is alive when he should be dead. Belladonna saw the scar, if only briefly, and Bluebell wouldn't have exhausted herself as she had for a mere scratch.
"He's bleeding inside," Bluebell whispers finally, and Belladonna hears horrified whispers behind her. This might be beyond even Bluebell. "I can try," she says and bows her head in concentration.
Everyone watches, barely breathing, and Belladonna can feel Thorin's uneven steps as he approaches. Eventually Bluebell makes a frustrated noise and her eyes open again.
"There's too much stone," she mutters, "it's fighting me." She looks behind her, eyes finding Fili as though she knew his exact position when before this he was at Thorin's side. "Fili, please," she whispers, and the golden-haired prince looks at her seriously.
"We weren't going to do that again," he says softly, so softly that if not for her sensitive hearing Belladonna might not have heard him at all. There is an undercurrent of fear there that she can't place. "The mountain nearly refused to let you go last time."
"Please," Bluebell's eyes are shining with tears. "You know what he means to me. If he- I can't lose anyone else, please." He sighs but nods and sits next to her.
"What do you want me to do?" He asks.
"Open yourself to the stone, take my hand and don't let me get lost in the song," Bluebell instructs. "I think that's what happened in the mountain."
"If you don't think this will work," Thorin begins.
"No disrespect, Thorin," Bluebell cuts in, "but Frerin won't survive the trip down if we don't do this. Just keep everyone quiet and let me concentrate."
It's a measure of how worried Thorin is that he doesn't comment on Bluebell's rudeness. If nothing else comes of this trip it has helped Bluebell truly grow into her own woman and Belladonna will die proud of that fact. Everyone follows her instructions, not daring to question it. They've been travelling together for long enough that the thought of the death of one of their own must hurt all of them. The young princes and Thorin, however, will feel it as keenly as the hobbits.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Frerin coughs and opens his eyes. Neither Bluebell nor Fili move, so she's obviously still working, but Frerin is conscious enough to meet the worried gaze of first his brother and then Belladonna. He gives her a weak smile and squeezes her hand, then turns his attention to the hobbit that he has taken as a daughter.
"Mahal," he breathes reverentially, "Nathith, your eyes."
Belladonna turns to her daughter in alarm. The indigo has spread, there is no white to Bluebell's eyes at all now and pale silver swirls through the blue as she looks silently down at him. Fili, too, has lost the white of his eyes, although it is less obvious in the morning light and she likely wouldn't notice it at all but for the indigo that spirals through his. If Belladonna needed any further proof that the bond between these two is greater than anything she has heard of before this would be it. Frerin goes to speak again and Bluebell chuckles.
"Hush, Adad, let me concentrate," she tells him. The strain of working for so long in such an unfamiliar way is showing. In truth, were they still in the Shire, where the earth is so saturated in hobbit magic healing is easy, this would be a strain. Frerin must have been closer to death than Bluebell had indicated.
She only continues for another moment, however, before she takes a shuddering breath and nods to Fili. The shine is already fading from her eyes as his also return to normal, locked on her daughter and Bluebell's answering smile is almost shy. Then her eyes roll back, and she faints into his arms. There is a moment of outcry, the bottom drops out of Belladonna's stomach and Gandalf is beside Bluebell muttering quietly. He casts a sidelong glance at Fili, who glares back almost defiantly, and arches an eyebrow, then he hums.
"She is merely exhausted," he reassures the group. "Some food and rest will do wonders in restoring her."
A.N: I know, Frerin dealt with Azog rather than Bluebell, I felt it was important for brothers that Frerin come to Thorin's aid so that their relationship could really begin to heal. Bluebell has proved herself in a different way and she was already accepted in any case.