Disclaimer: I do not own the Hobbit.
Just a small little filler chapter with Marie and her papa. Thanks for all the feedback so far.
Darkness.
It swallows up everything into its cold embrace and leaves one frozen until numbness remains.
Maybe it was the same in death.
At least that's what Marie thought.
Instead of the void of death many expected when facing death, she found herself in a past memory of a particular Autumn morning many years ago.
Although she could not recall the sensations of scent of touch, and the sounds were softer than a mother's whispering to her child, the images played out before her as vivid as if she was there again, barely a day over nineteen, rosy cheeked and budding into a fine Baggins.
Herself and Bungo Baggins were sitting together on the little wooden bench in the garden. Bungo had his long pipe in hand and was showing Marie how to form smoke rings while she pondered on his riddles. The earliest parts of the conversation were hazy, but Marie remembered the smoke rings, and how they disappeared into the grey sky as the wind carried it away.
Why had she been hiding outside again?
Oh yes, she was supposed to help dust off the bookshelves once Belladonna was finished sorting out the jams from second breakfast, but the taste of another trip to Northfarthing had been sitting on her tongue all morning.
She was waiting for Alistair.
"Hobson Gamgee should be round later with 'the item'." Bungo said, his pipe wedged in the corner of his mouth.
"Oh, you mean the roses you ..."
"Hush dear Mar." He patted her knee. Marie was too excited for her mother's gift to remember it was a surprise. "Our last few weeks of secrets will be all for nothing."
"Sorry Papa." Marie took his hand and grinned. It should have been warm, yet it wasn't. "I'm sure Mama will love them. But where did Mr Gamgee find them?"
"His cousin out near Bindbole Wood brought down a few branches. I'm hoping that they can still be replanted." Smoke seeped out of his lips as Bungo spoke.
"I still can't believe it's Mama's birthday next week." Marie's feet swung back and forth, "It will be nice to see Aunt Mirabella and Uncle Isembard."
"Indeed. Now remember, no mischief. Herdrick Burrow is not happy about you and Alistair bullying his son."
"We do not bully Harold Papa. We're just making merriment ... at his expense. It's harmless fun." Marie said with as much innocence as she could muster to hide her laughter.
"Just promise me you won't cause trouble." Bungo gave her hand a squeeze.
"Alright, I promise. Mama will be happy to hear that."
"Yes she will. Now, have you an answer to my riddle yet?" Bungo grinned while Marie groaned, "I told you, let me think."
"It's really quite simple Mar."
"But you never give me enough time Papa."
"You've had plenty of time, but you spent it on what you will do today no doubt."
"Maybe I did."
Bungo's belly laugh was muffle and strange to Marie.
"One more time Mar. 'Lives without a body, hears without ears, speaks without a mouth, to which the air alone gives birth.' What is the answer?"
"It's ... oh ... uuggghhh. Damn!"
"Mariellena."
"Sorry." Marie apologized meekly. "It is a ..."
"An echo?"
Both father and daughter looked up at the owner of the voice standing at the gate with a devilish grin and hands in his coat pockets. "Correct young Alistair." Bungo pointed his pipe at the young hobbit while Marie beamed up at him and leaped to her feet. "Good morning Al." Marie passed though the open gate and looked back at her father. "I should be home by supper."
"And not a moment longer. It's getting colder in the evenings now." Bungo said.
"I will Papa."
"And you Alistair Took. If I hear word of you trespassing with my Mar as an accomplice one more time, you and I will have to have serious words." Bungo threatened him with the end of his pipe.
Alistair ran his fingers through his golden curls, "You have my word Mr Baggins. Marie will be safe with me."
Bungo's grin returned. "I believe I'm owed a riddle Mar." He popped the pipe in his mouth, anticipating the afor mentioned riddle.
Marie looked along the fence that encircled Bag End as she thought of a good one, the green grass appeared even darker in the Autumn and Winter, like a pure emerald.
"Bound so cold with stone, thatch and wood, yet holds more warmth than any hearth ever could."
Bungo's bushy eyebrows wriggled up and down as he processed her words. "I've never heard that one before."
Marie slipped her hand into the crook of Alistair's arm like it was mere fog, a smug grin on her young lips. "It's one I made myself."
"Oh dear. It's not a heart ... fire maybe."
Marie glanced up at the bare branches of the oak tree, their leaves sat around the top of Bag End like a rusted crown, "It's a home."
She had expected to hear a hearty chuckle from her father, to look down and see him rocking back into the bench with his cheeks ruddy red as Alistair steered her down the road like she remembered. But what she saw and heard caught her so off guard that the memory slowed down around her.
In her father's place sat Thorin, his strange pipe resting in his hand while the other braced itself on his knee. His face was soft and tired, partially hidden under his black hair. Marie had seen this side of him only once before, at Rivendell.
"A home," He murmured. "Indeed."
Behind his imposing frame, brooding attitude and overall roughness, Marie saw the decades of sadness, the bitter sweetness of memories recalled and the vulnerable position the hard dwarf was placed in, all in that tiny moment. All he wanted was to go home, to where he belonged.
'Do not think you are the only one to understand.'
How insensitive she had been. What was a few weeks compared to decades, centuries even, of wish for home? Marie now knew that she had been wrong to presume she was alone in her misery. She was just about to let herself be consumed by guilt until a pair of blue eyes flashed before her.
'You rarely look forward in life, only at what you had then and what you have now. The more you look behind, the harder it will be to move on'
As she was steered away further and further towards the memory, she looked back at the dwarf.
Or was she looking to the future?
She opened her mouth to call out to Thorin, but was overwhelmed by an earsplitting sound that reverberated in her head, like heavy metal colliding. Despite the pain it brought, there was a pleasant ring within the folds of its knell. The sound shook the foundations of the memory and the tree line behind Bag End began to fade away.
Thorin raised his head and look to the east. "We need to move."
The sound chimed out loud and strong once again.
Marie pulled away from the apparition of Alistair, who faded into the blurry past. She reached out with a bloodied, aged hand which Thorin grasped firmly. It was then she could once again feel something.
Pain ... and the cold.