Greetings, my lovely people! I am so blown away with how quickly you guys review after I post chapters, and I cannot be more grateful for your support.
A quick note on the last chapter- I did my best to combine all of my knowledge of Galadriel and Celeborn (surprise!) into the chapter, and drew off of several references for how they would address one another. Hopefully it came across okay!
ALSO-
If we reach 100 reviews, would anyone want a special edition chapter or one-shot?
Inspired by a prompt I stumbled upon by lateforerebor on tumblr.
Summary: Bilba "Bell" Baggins decides that she's waited quite long enough to take her mother's advice and old stories and go on an adventure of her own. What she didn't expect was to end up in Ered Luin and be adopted by dwarves! AU, Pre-Quest, Undecided Pairings.
-;-
The days passed, drawing closer to the autumn than Dori liked.
Despite all her odd quirks, he had come to love the little hobbit lass who had made herself quite at home in Ered Luin, and continued to wonder if he should officially adopt her into their small family and make her an official daughter of Ri. However, the more logical part of his mind scoffed at the idea. She was not a dwarf, and could therefore never truly be accepted as one should they adopt her into their House. And while others of Ered Luin had gotten accustomed to seeing her with himself or one of his brothers, it was entirely different if they were to suddenly change that status.
It left him with more sodding headaches than Nori even managed, and more than one night was spent lying in his bed contemplating the decision.
The conclusion he finally came to was to wait a bit longer- while she certainly had made herself welcome in the year that they had known her and then some, it still seemed too soon. So come the next year, when she returned from the winter in the Shire, perhaps then.
He knew it was almost time when their hobbit suddenly began her reverse nesting- in other words, mothering. He woke early, as he usually did to go and open the Goose, and as he entered the kitchen found the lass sitting there, hard at work knitting something in a lovely dark violet yarn that pooled around her, a small furrow between her brows.
"Good morning, Bilba." He said, mildly startled. Since he had told her that she didn't need to keep working at the Goose, she tended to get up shortly after he did. Rarely did he find her already awake and puttering about.
"Good morning Dori." She said absently, sticking one of her needles into her hair, which had been pulled back into a tail and secured with a leather tie- in order to detangle part of her yarn.
"Might I ask what you're doing up so early?" the silver haired dwarf inquired, going to look for his teapot only to find it already steaming with his chamomile tea prepared and his favourite teacup set out.
"Knitting." Came the short reply as the hobbit let out a small noise of satisfaction, pulling the needle she had tucked into her copper curls out and going right back to knitting whatever it was she was working on.
"It's still the summer months, Bilba. We hardly need any of that yet." Dori frowned, attempting to puzzle this one out.
"Yes, but I will hardly be here to make such things for you during the autumn." She snapped back, immediately ducking her head and looking sheepish. "I apologize. I shouldn't have snapped at you, Dori. My nerves got the best of me, I'm afraid."
"Oh, Bilba. You don't need to fret about us." Dori sighed, pouring his tea and getting another cup out for the hobbit.
"I can't help it." She replied, placing her work down and looking at him with a faintly lost expression. "I just don't know what I'm going to do all winter, wondering if you three are all right. The doves will hardly be able to travel in the weather we're likely to get in the Shire, and you have so few ravens and owls to send out as is…"
"Now, none of that." Dori clucked, placing her tea in front of her and seating himself down across from the lass. "We'll find a way. And if not, than I am sure that as soon as the snows begin to melt that you'll be on your way back to Ered Luin. After all, you certainly did in the spring."
That drew a smile from her, and the silver haired dwarf nodded in satisfaction.
"There's the smile. Now, I must be getting ready to leave, but I'll be home in time for the midday meal and then we can go out and get you some supplies to get back to the Shire. Does that sound acceptable to you?"
Bilba nodded.
"Excellent. Now if you'll excuse me I must go get Ori up. He has lessons with Balin, and I'm sure he remembers it quite well." Dori huffed, taking his cup of tea with him as he marched off down the hall.
A moment later, Bilba could hear his loud knock and call for the youngest of the brothers, as well as Nori's cranky yell from the other room to kindly keep the noise to a minimum.
-;-
"Bofur!"
Bilba waved enthusiastically at the miner as she caught a glimpse of him, nearly causing Dori to stumble into a passing dwarf as she stopped suddenly. However, he couldn't quite find it in himself to be irritated- this was simply Bilba being Bilba, and once the lass got an idea in her head it was rather difficult to get her to focus on anything else.
"Ah, Miss Bell!" the dwarf called back, wandering over with a friendly grin and bowing low. "A pleasure to see ye, lass. What're ye up to today?"
"I'm getting ready to head back to the Shire." The hobbit informed him. "I'm afraid I need supplies this go about- I'm carrying a bit more this time and a larger bag wouldn't go unappreciated, as well as some extra food in case I get stuck anywhere."
"A wise choice, lass. I suggest stoppin' at Alara's stall- they're the one ye'll want to talk to about it. They know more about fabric'n anyone."
"Thank you for the advice." She beamed at the hatted dwarf, to which he returned with a warm smile of his own. "I'm afraid Dori and I must keep going, but I'll be sure to stop by and say goodbye before I leave to you and Bifur."
"I'll be waitin' for ye, lass." He winked in return, bowing dramatically at the waist before continuing on, whistling cheerfully. Bilba shook her head, a smile on her lips, before turning back to Dori and dragging him further into the market, striking up conversation once again.
-;-
"And you're certain that you have everything?" Dori fussed over the hobbit as she checked once again in her room for anything that she may have missed following her thorough packing.
"Positive." Bilba grunted as she pulled back from checking beneath the bed. There was nothing of hers under there, but there was a couple of loose floor boards that she was sure contained something that Dori would not be pleased to know about. Not that she would tell on him. "When I get back I want to finish my bead- it still has a ways to go and I would rather wait to have you hovering over my shoulder to make certain I don't stab myself."
"Of course." he said, though he was still shifting back and forth uneasily. Up until the night before, Bilba had been the one to be mothering the trio of dwarves, but now that it had come time for the hobbit lass to once again leave, no one was terribly pleased to see her go. "Make sure that you find a ranger if you run into trouble, or hide somewhere that they can't get to you, and make sure you eat enough- I know you've been trying to wean yourself to fewer meals a day again, and I simply won't have it!"
She smiled as she glanced around the room, Dori's mutterings continuing as he rambled on. It was a shame that Ori had to go to his lessons today when she would have liked to have said goodbye again and spend time with the scribe. Though to be fair, she never had been very good with such things. Made it seem like she was never going to see them again when it simply wasn't true.
She had already gone to bid farewell to the Ur family as well. Bombur had been at the Goose, and the hobbit had gone by to wish the cook well and that she hoped that she would be able to see him again come spring. Bofur had taken it all with grace and cheer, singing her the beginning of a song he'd titled "What Bilba Baggins Hates".
She hated the song more than anything.
Bifur understood that she was leaving, but did not want her to go under any circumstances, Bofur translating that he knew that there were orc packs beginning to come up from the southern borders and that a lone hobbit lass would do better to stay in Ered Luin where it was safe instead of gallivanting off back to the Shire for the winter months. And after a long hour of explaining to him that she did have plans should the worst come to happen- running into said orcs, for example- as well as reminding him that there were rangers out nowadays, the older dwarf finally sighed and gave up on his attempts to convince her otherwise.
"Nori had better turn up again before you set out." Dori huffed, shuffling down the hall. "Else I'll have his head."
The redheaded dwarf had vanished the night before with an odd look on his face and hadn't shown up since. Bilba wasn't leaving until the following morning, but Dori was obviously not taking Nori wandering off very well, if wandering off could even be applied to Nori.
Something in her chest tightened every time she thought about leaving Nori behind now, and it was irking her to no end as to why. Well, the obvious reasons were that she and Nori got along the best, but that couldn't be true, for she and Dori were quite alike. But then there was Ori to consider and oh, if it didn't frustrate her to her wits end!
He was frustratingly charming, with the handsomeness to match, and his blasted grin and the way he called her "sweets" had her blushing and stuttering and tripping over things as if she were a hobbit in her tweens. Certainly not appropriate behavior for a lass well into her mid-life, no matter how far she had strayed from the traditional hobbit mannerisms. Her Baggins sensibilities were still well intact, thank you very much.
And then there had been the knife practice that he had taken up with her- giving her pointers and tips so that she might actually be able to use the things that she had gotten from the princess Dis. Not that she needed too much tutelage- conkers was something of a solid base to work from, and she had quickly picked up the other things Nori had had to teach her.
"Did you remember your belt?" Dori called from down the hall, breaking Bilba from her thoughts as she climbed to her feet with a sigh.
-;-
The journey home to the Shire had taken much longer than Bilba would have liked, she would admit.
And wandering straight into Hobbiton with a sodding injured leg and a pack of rangers was definitely something that would keep the rumors flying throughout everyone's smials for months, if not years. She, Bilba Baggins, the spinster, wounded and having to be carried to Bag End, inviting the Tall Folk in, no less! It was simply disgraceful, the hobbits muttered, watching through their windows as the Baggins heiress vanished within her smial.
Of course, Bilba didn't care one bit. She was extremely grateful for the help that the group had been able to offer her- especially after the trouble of running into an orc scout and warg on the plains between the Blue Mountains and the Shire, and made it well known by the way she had invited them to stay for the night, bringing out the large quilts and blankets she had commissioned in the spring and making sure that everyone in their group- numbering five- were well fed with the most warm and hearty dishes that she could prepare for them.
Three men and two women, all of them familiar with the orcs, all of them appreciative of the warm meal and a roof over their heads rather than the skies, which had begun to get rather unpleasant during the last couple of weeks of their journey. The autumn weather had begun rolling in at last, and it was such that their group arrived in the Shire a week into the autumn harvest.
"I must thank you all again for your help." Bilba winced as she seated herself carefully in her chair. "I'm afraid I am not the most graceful of creatures any longer, and I count myself lucky that you were near enough to hear my call for help."
"It was nothing, Miss Bell." Amarienel replied, dark hair pulled into a thick braid over her shoulder. "I am simply glad to see that no infection has set into the wound and that you have given us such wonderful comfort this evening."
As part of an almost expected conclusion, Bilba had, in fact, gotten into a conflict with an orc scout that had come across her small camp in the plains, and had gotten felled by a shallow but serious wound to the leg by the creature's blade. The warg it had been riding circled around the edge of the camp as Bilba had barely managed to hold off the beast, and then the rangers had tracked it to her and rescued her from what would have been a highly unpleasant death.
Her mind, strangely enough, still seemed to have not absorbed that she had nearly died, and the hobbit lass remained her usual warm self despite her injury for the rest of the journey home.
Baemir, Solomon, Jerikal and Minarea all nodded their agreements to Amarienel's statement, toasting their host with the mugs of warm cider that Bilba had stored in the kitchen.
"Yes indeed. And such bravery from yourself, lass." Solomon rumbled, his thick black beard moving as he grinned. "We will be sure to spread your tale to any who will listen- the Shire lass who took on an orc and won!"
"You were the one to slay it, Solomon." Baemir said dryly, sipping his drink and quirking a brow. "Though by all means, if that is the tale you wish to tell…"
"Bah. Hobbits deserve all the credit they can get." Solomon snorted. "Too many folk underestimate you, but you are clever tongued and clever minded enough to get yourselves out of most situations."
"But not those involving orcs." Bilba chuckled, rubbing her leg absently.
The night drew on, with the merry making continuing for several hours longer before the rangers and one hobbit retired for the evening, their bellies full and smiles upon their faces. However, Bilba could not seem to get any rest, and that which she did manage was filled with strange dreams of mists and shadowy figures.