Chapter Twenty-Five: Bluebell
T.A. 2913 Bag End
Bluebell has not braided her hair the way that Frerin taught her for a long time. After banishing the dwarf from their home on her fifteenth birthday Bungo had worked very hard to eradicate whatever influence Frerin might have had over her from Bluebell. She still resents him for that, even though he's been dead these last ten years.
He would be horrified, she knows, to realise that the first person Bluebell turned to when everything went wrong wasn't a Baggins, or even a distant Took relative. The first person that Bluebell turned to was the very dwarf whose existence had torn apart her parent's marriage. Bluebell blames both her mother and father for that, but never Frerin. When told to leave the dwarf did, out of respect for Belladonna if not for Bungo, and Frerin has been a better father to her this past decade than Bungo ever was.
She groans in frustration as her fingers tangle in her thick curls. Frerin makes it look so easy when he fixes his own in the morning, or when he weaves her mother's hair into complex patterns that calm the older hobbit in ways that Bluebell can't. She can't even manage this simple three strand braid. All because she had found that bead, the beautiful bead that Frerin had given her on her birthday some twenty years ago, tucked away in the back of a drawer she had been clearing out. Bluebell has never forgotten it, has worn it on a fine ribbon around her neck more than once when Bungo was being particularly vocal in his distaste for all things dwarven so that she knew it would be safe. Braiding, for all she knows how, his been left unpractised and like any skill left alone too long will have to be relearnt.
"Would you like some help, mizimith?" Frerin asks from the entrance to the kitchen. The rain is falling in sheets outside, a last late winter storm blowing through ahead of spring, and Frerin has opted to close the forge for the day. She smiles and hands her comb to him, his affectionate tone makes it clear that the familiar (and untranslated) word is an endearment.
"Where's Mama?" She asks. They are settled on the rug in front of the fire and Frerin is warm against her back as he draws fingers and comb through her awkward curls.
"Resting," he replies, "her recovery is slow. I wish she would allow me to take her to Rivendell.
"So do I." Bluebell turns her head when Frerin gently presses to indicate that she should, and quick fingers begin to weave a braid behind one ear. "Do you think that Lord Elrond would come if we asked him to?"
"He might do," Frerin muses. "He's decent enough for an elf," which is a ringing endorsement really, "but your mother would never forgive us."
"I suppose she wouldn't," Bluebell sighs and passes Frerin the little gold bead she has kept so close for so long. A long breath rushes out of him and he makes an almost broken sound. "What's wrong?"
"You truly wish to wear this?" He asks.
"Of course," she assures him. "I held onto it all these years so that one day I could. Irak-Adad? Should I not have?"
Her words seem to shock him out of his thoughts. She rarely calls him that these days, struggles to call him 'Uncle' even in his secret tongue when he has come to be so much more to her.
"I never really explained what it means," he tells her, and she hears regret in his voice.
"I remember you saying it would mark me as part of your family," she says.
"It does," he sighs and bows his head. "I had no right giving it to you the way that I did, Bluebell, and without explaining it properly even though you were too young to truly understand what I was offering you."
"Do you regret giving it to me?" She's surprised at how tiny her voice sounds.
"Never," he insists, "but I want you to understand before you start to wear it. It wouldn't just mark you as a member of my family. It shows you to be the daughter of my heart. Mine in all but blood, and I know that kind of adoption isn't something that hobbits hold with."
"It would make you my father?" She asks wistfully, remembering the day he gave it to her when she had expressed exactly that desire. A wish she has thought on many times during her life.
"Yes," he breathes heavily, and she can see the tension in him when she turns to look.
"Put it in," she whispers, "please?"
Her heart feels like it is going to burst from her chest. Frerin wants a daughter like her. Wants her and she sees the relief and joy in his dark eyes as he clasps the bead around the end of the braid. She squeals and throws herself into his arms, wrapping hers around him in a tight embrace that is fiercely returned. It's nothing like the hugs she would receive from Bungo. Bungo had tried, she knows, but there was always the doubt in the back of his mind that Bluebell was not his daughter. Always the disappointment that the only child Belladonna ever gave him was a daughter who would lose his name and his wealth to a husband. A daughter who was too much like her Took mother and not enough like her Baggins father.
"What do I call you now?" She asks.
"In public? Call me as you always have," he says firmly. "Your mother can't afford to have me chased out for adopting you." Taking her from Bungo is what the neighbours will say it is and Frerin knows it. "When it is just the three of us, call me 'Adad' if you wish, Nathith."
"Adad," she tries the word and smiles. "Father?" He nods. "Nathith?"
"Daughter," he supplies, and she can't help the happy cry that emerges once more.
Even her mother is thrilled.
T.A 2941 Beorn's Cottage
"Any luck, sweetling?" Belladonna asks as Bluebell approaches Beorn's house.
They have been there for nearly a week to allow the last of the injuries from the orcs and the goblin tunnels to heal and to give Bluebell time to recover from the two complicated healings she had performed. Beorn has also been good enough to allow them to raid his stores so that they can supply themselves for the long trip through Mirkwood. There is only one thing missing and a week searching the meadows around them has yielded nothing.
"No silphium," Bluebell pushes her new betrothal braid behind her ear, then pulls a leather pouch from her belt and looks inside. "I have enough for one or two cups left," she continues after a moment and shrugs. At this point there is little worth in drinking it. "We didn't think we would find any this far from the Shire."
"We didn't think we would lose all of our belongings either," Belladonna points out but Bluebell notices that she has gone a little bit pale.
Much as she dislikes the thought of her mother doing that, she isn't silly enough to think that Belladonna and Frerin haven't been taking advantage of the relative privacy of the safe haven afforded by Beorn's home. Not that Fili and Bluebell haven't, but a closer eye has been kept on them by the other members of the Company. Kili has been especially vocal in his desire not to be blinded by his brother's romantic exploits. Belladonna sighs and gets to her feet. There is a peace to this place that has been good for her mother and Bluebell will be sorry to leave it.
"You will be careful?" Her mother asks and Bluebell blushes but nods. "I suppose that's the best we can do," her mother sighs and goes back into the house.
"What was that about?" Fili asks as her comes around the corner. He has obviously been sparring with the other members of the Company, his face is flushed and his chest bare and the golden hair that covers it is damp with sweat.
"Nothing we can do anything about," she shrugs.
Silphium is difficult enough to cultivate in the Shire, miles away from its usual cliffside habitat, she had no hope of finding the contraceptive plant here so there is little use in worrying Fili with its lack. He grins and kisses her, something they have both happily taken to doing at every opportunity. They both know there will be precious little time for it on the road. As always, especially after Fili has been sparring, the kiss takes a more heated turn and since she only has enough of her herbs left for one more day of tea Bluebell thinks she might as well take advantage of it.
"Oh, Mahal!" Kili exclaims, making them startle apart. "Could you not?" He flings Fili's tunic at him and receives a rude gesture in return. "Put some clothes on, nadad, and don't let Uncle catch you." He darts off before Fili has his arms through the sleeves of his tunic and Bluebell sighs.
They begin to walk together, hands clasped as they make their way through the flowering meadow. Bluebell idly plucks the odd blossom, scattering them behind her as she discards them.
"What do hobbits do when they agree to marry?" Fili asks suddenly.
She looks up at him, startled by the question and not sure why. Frerin has always been considerate of the ways of hobbits, even if the three of them have flaunted and ignored them numerous times, it stands to reason that whatever influence he may have had on Fili in the early years of his life might have taught him the same.
"There's only one hobbit custom I would like to follow," she says after a moment of thought. "When a couple is betrothed, they cut take a lock of hair, the two are woven together and mounted into a pair of rings or other piece of jewellery." She pulls out a locket from where it rests under her bodice. She's honestly surprised she hasn't lost it. "This was my mother's when she married Bungo, my father."
"My mother has a broach like this," Fili comments. "It belonged to my grandmother and is a family heirloom from Erebor. This is a hobbit custom?"
"Yes," Bluebell smiles. "We have an old proverb that says a lock of your lovers hair worn near the heart can only increase the love between you." Her mother's locket is a simple piece, her parent's hair woven in a lattice that is quite striking given the difference in their hair colour. It reminds Bluebell of a chessboard in some ways and it is an observation that used to amuse her mother and frustrate her father. "I wonder how your grandmother came to have a piece," she muses, "it's considered bad luck to sell the piece with the hair still in place and worse still to lose it."
"My understanding is it belonged to a distant ancestor," he tells her. "You have no stories of hobbits travelling to dwarf settlements?"
"None," she shrugs, "but we lost a lot of our history during the Wandering. It's possible during that time any number of my people took refuge among other races."
"I will honour your tradition, of course," he tells her, fingers finding the braid that she wears in honour of his. "Uncle may not like it but Amad wears proof of a precedent for it often enough. Although the making of it-"
"Mama knows how to do it, she will teach me as she does so that I can pass it on to our children. It's the way of it."
Bluebell's words are soft, of all the hobbit traditions this is the only one that has really called to her. Flower crowns and betrothal dances have always struck her as flighty, although she understands how something that doesn't need to be carried and transported might have grown from the Wandering. Even the hair jewellery most probably came from that time, braids of hair worn as bracelets or rings to denote marital status when there was nothing much else available. If Fili is to be believed, however, there may be evidence that it may predate their migration and that could be a precious piece of her people's history to rediscover.
"You don't want a hobbit ceremony?" He asks after a moment.
"Hobbit ceremonies are well enough," she shrugs, "but the bonding is easily broken, and the vows skewed entirely in favour of the husband." Bluebell doesn't hide her bitterness at it. Though she will never say it aloud she has always viewed her mother's marriage as a mistake. Even as a young child she had often feared that Belladonna's love of travelling and dwarves would cause Bungo to cast her aside as he eventually did.
"Your father?" He asks.
"The day he died," Bluebell whispers. "It's why he was out there in the first place. No one in the Shire knows. I told them that Mama and Bungo had an argument. There was no one to say otherwise. Bungo was dead and Mama was lost in her own mind." It's the most she has said about that day to anyone in the Company other than Frerin. They all know that orcs came, and Belladonna somehow held them off but, for all their questioning, they don't know more than that.
"I would never sever the bond between us," he assures her, although both know it's unnecessary. "You're my One and even if you weren't, I couldn't imagine wanting to. Not to mention it's against all of our oldest laws."
"So is marrying a second time," she points out, "but that didn't stop Adad and Mama."
"Well, Frerin never married," Fili says with a wry grin, "and your mother is a hobbit and I understand that a second marriage isn't unheard of. The rule doesn't apply, or that's how Balin's intending to present it anyway."
"Balin's very good at his job, isn't he," Bluebell smiles.
"Yes, Mahal knows we'll never find anyone as good as him to replace him when he retires." Fili shudders at the thought. "Which will become our problem, you realise?"
"Ori," she shrugs, "he's Balin's apprentice and I suspect he's already begun his training. Besides, who else would we trust?"
He grins at her and they stop walking to share another kiss. Their plans are a wonderful fantasy, of course, but there is still Mirkwood to get through yet. And the dragon under the mountain. They may not survive that long and it's nice to spend time alone like this. There will be none of it on the road.
A.N: Silphium was once an actual plant used as a contraceptive by the Romans. We have no idea whether it actually worked, they obviously believed it did because it became extinct due to the amount they used and how difficult it was to cultivate. Jewellery made out of hair was a Victorian thing and is actually pretty incredible to look at if a bit weirdly morbid, and the proverb Bluebell references is Swedish. Also, I promise I haven't confused dwarves and hobbits with all these made up customs. It's all being done completely on purpose.