I own nothing but the clothes on my back and this computer, and my expansive tea collection; most of the characters are creations of the lovely Tolkien (as if you didn't know).
Chapter One: Homeward Bound
Cold white tiles and bleached fluorescents.
Masked doctors roll away a bed. Surgery doors swing shut.
Forlorn, he stands alone in the room; his hands don't even tremble.
The scenery whips past at an unnerving pace. The weeks of rain recently- a mark of the onset of autumn- have painted the landscape a multitude of greens. It makes a pleasant change from the months of bleached browns and gold's; grasses that snap and crunch underfoot.
His driver is friendly, with a potbelly from what is likely to be one too many meat pies and a cheerful, ruddy disposition. Gloriously however, it seems as though- after a few minutes of stilted and awkward pleasantries- he is happy enough to drive in relative silence. Bilbo contents himself to shifting from eyeing the speedo of the delivery truck warily and listening to the quiet roar of the truck, watching idyllic scenes of homesteads and dilapidated barns speed past.
Although, really, it's less of a truck and more of a van. He hasn't taken much with him, only clothes, his tv, computer, stereo and a few pieces of furniture. The rest he sold or thrust onto friends- willing or not. He even gave some things to his dreadful cousin Lobelia, whom he knows has had her eyes on his crockery and silverware for years now. He makes a point not to feel resentment at the look of smug satisfaction on the bint's face when he handed over the box.
It took surprisingly little time to completely uproot himself from the Shire. After weeks of wallowing in painful memories and unwashed clothing (the will to stay indoors and away from normal people had greatly outweighed his need to stay clean), he found that most of the people he knew were simply happy to see him actually doing something. That he was leaving them all to start anew in a town several hours from the Shire seemed to be of little concern to them. He made a great effort to ignore the sensation of abandonment that his friends and neighbours elicited on him with their eagerness for him to leave.
Although he has been a miserable sot lately.
Anaya had been a boon of course. She had, as it turned out, already found a charming three-bedroom home on the edges of town, with a magnificent garden and an imposing section of forest that pushed against the back fence. Or at least that was the impression Bilbo had gotten from the photographs she'd thrust upon him as soon as he had agreed. She had also already placed a deposit on the house, out of what he knew to be her not-so-modest amount of savings, which Bilbo thought was quite presumptuous of her. He'd learnt later that it had been a bloke called Gandalf- a friend of her family's apparently- who had recommended the place, and had even weedled it out for her at a very reasonable price. Bilbo suspects there might be something wrong with the house given its ludicrously cheap price… several things, in fact.
Even so, this whole thing marks a new book in his life. He views the following weeks and months of settling into a new world with no small amount of terror, and maybe just the slightest hint of excitement. He's left everything behind for this… well, everything except his ridiculous excuse for a best friend, who cares far too much for him than he gave her credit for. After all, Anaya had agreed to leave her life behind for him too (though granted, she'd be uprooting her life a week later than he).
Time passes suspiciously quickly for all that he's staring blankly into the ridiculously picturesque countryside, and in what feels like the blink of an eye it's suddenly eleven thirty and Bilbo is starving. He pulls the Tupperware box filled with sandwiches (made by that angel of a neighbor Mrs. Gamgee as a parting gift) from the sad looking pack resting at his feet, takes a ham and cheese and on further inspection of the box's contents, offers a corned beef one to Gavin, his driver (it may or may not be his least favorite). Fortunately Gavin doesn't take this as an invitation to start another uncomfortable conversation, and merely thanks him warmly, taking the perfectly de-crusted sandwich from his offering hand.
The truck drifts disconcertingly close to the middle of the road and Bilbo begins to regret his spur-of-the-moment generosity. Especially when he sees how far over the speed limit van seems to be going.
In order to distract himself from Gavin's rather overzealous use of the accelerator, he turned his attention fixedly to his sandwich- also de-crusted (honestly, how did the woman know he still acted like a child and refused to eat his crusts?). In doing so he notices the pamphlet, lying crushed in the bottom of his bag. It's weeks old now; the same one Anaya had laid out determinedly on his kitchen table.
EREBOR it says in big shiny letters. On whim he pulls it out, carefully straightening it out on the lid of his lunchbox. It's a real-estate and tourism magazine- although he uses the term 'magazine' very loosely. The cover, underneath its obnoxiously lettered title, shows the obligatory shot of the best scenery the town has to offer, which if he must admit, in this case is pretty damn sweet. A quaint little town seated at the foot of a mountain, wrapped in forest and framed by a spectacular red sunset.
He kind of hopes the photographer got paid good money for that shot. As it is Bilbo wants to pin the picture up on his wall, but that would seem a touch too enthusiastic for his liking.
Especially because he doesn't want Anaya to feel as if she's won…
Turning the crumpled page shows a little blurb about the history of the town and it's at this point that Bilbo realized that he never actually read further than the name Erebor... the town where he plans to live a good deal of life in. The town that he consequently hasn't the faintest clue about.
It's also about this time that Bilbo realizes that he's a little bit of an idiot.
Because honestly, who in their right minds agrees to buy a house in a settlement that they've never even heard of and doesn't know the first thing about it?
Well, okay Anaya would, but that girl is in a completely different class of her own, and thus, Bilbo ignores that thought.
Ignoring the very likely conclusion that he is in fact as mad as his closest friend, he turns his attention back to the pamphlet. Erebor, it says, is a charming little town situated at the bottom of Mount Lone. Most of its success comes from mining the rich minerals that lie at the base of the mountain, which has been a major source of income for over two hundred years. Which sounds kind of cool, Bilbo supposes, but he rather hopes they don't expect him to do any of that. He likes his clean clothing thank you very much.
Their town, the shiny paper goes on to say, has recently acquired several vacant properties and a whole section of new estate to build one's 'dream home' in the country's 'most scenic county'- which tells Bilbo that they're looking for rich people to build their holiday homes here, and maybe a few of the less-rich too because we have a lot of empty houses whose previous occupants have died.
They've stuck in a map of the county on the next page. The only one he really recognizes is Rivendell- celebrated for its thriving arts community, and of course the Mirkwood is infamous for its tree-loving hippie community. But otherwise the townships of Rhovanion have fallen under his not so scrupulous radar. He flips his way through the various pictures of real estate, all carefully designed to show only the best bits of each property. Anaya had circled the one she'd decided would be theirs in bright pink…
It seems as though Bilbo had been staring at his future home for quite some time, because by the time Gavin asked- quite politely- for another sandwich, they were driving through incredibly dense forest (which he is quite sure just popped up out of nowhere) and the light had been reduced to a sort of perpetual twilight. Feeling slightly guilty he hadn't offered the driver another one sooner, he fished out a ham and cheese for the man, shiny pamphlet falling forgotten to the floor.
'Where are we?' he asks curiously, 'I don't think I've ever seen a forest quite like this.' It reminded him of that documentary of the rainforest David Attenborough had presented a few years ago.
'The Mirkwood mate.' Gavin says through his mouthful of sandwich, 'Or at least-' he swallows his food, 'That's what the GPS says. Hope we're in bloody Mirkwood anyway, or we're a bloody great bit off-course.'
Bilbo hums in agreement and wordlessly offers him another sandwich.
Now that he takes the time to look, he notices the occasional sign or placard sitting at the side of the road sporting unimaginative lines like 'Save the Earth' or 'Mines are Death.' There's also the occasional 'Protect our Fossils! Use Renewables' thrown in there too. Something makes Bilbo think that the hippies don't have the best of relationships with the people of Erebor.
It takes an hour for the forest to show the slightest hint of thinning, and another half for it to disappear completely.
When it does, the sight steals his breath away.
So much better than the picture.
It's been overcast all day, but the sun chose that point to emerge partly from the cloud cover, bathing the valley before him in ethereal white light and lining the clouds in the purest of silver. Everything is green and he can see Laketown (his map oh so helpfully shows him), perched next to the great swelling in the river that must span at least two kilometers before it winds itself into the horizon. It glitters in the sudden sunlight like so many diamonds, though Bilbo figures in normal light it would be a ruddy and unexciting brown.
Further on he can see just the slightest hint of the settlement of Dale, emerald fields spreading out from it every which way like an unevenly cut gem, rimmed in forest (calmer and less imposing than the Mirkwood) that heads to the north; a slow and steady march of trees, drawing his eyes onto the Pièce de résistance.
The Mountain.
'Cause really, that great monolith of rock takes the cake.
It erupts from the valley in a jagged, conic mass, towering above all with its commanding black stone. The forest wreaths it in lustrous jade but he can certainly see where the name came from. There are no hints of a swell in the land (except for maybe Dale) for miles around and the Mountain gives off a distinct air of loneliness that tugs at Bilbo's heartstrings. The silent watcher of the world, with nowhere to turn to hide from this awful world filled with death and trage-
Bilbo stops himself from going any further. Maudlin thoughts are for the confines of his home, curled into a couch and clutching at a steaming mug of tea. Even so, it puts him right off his appreciation of the Rhovanion landscape and he can't help but feel that heaviness that sits in his throat and weighs down his stomach settle back down, temporarily forgotten in his appreciation of the county.
He shuts his eyes, perches his feet up on the dashboard and lets Gavin drive them on through the rest of the day, northward and onto his new life.
Yeah, okay so I took some liberties with the geography (And renamed the Lonely Mountain, as is befitting a modernized setting)… well quite a few really (for instance, Rivendell is actually on the other side of the Misty Mountains and is therefore not a part of Rhovanion, but I couldn't resist putting it in anyway. And the Mirkwood does not live on a plateau- or at least I don't remember it being so), but hey! I'm an author dammit I'll do what I want. That's the beauty of AU's, I can do what I want :P
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