Disclaimer: I do not own the Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit, only my own characters.
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Beginning
For many in Middle-Earth, and for those who are not, the tale of a certain hobbit's adventure involving a company of dwarves is known far and wide, passed down from one generation to the next.
But what many do not know is how that tale truly began.
Sure, some think it began when Gandalf invited himself into Thorin Oakenshield's reluctant company one night in a run-down inn. Perhaps, as others argue, it was when the threat of the growing Necromancer grew.
And of course, most believe it began very simply–in a hole in the ground.
But they would all be mistaken, for while Bilbo's tale begins in a hole in the ground on what appears to be a very ordinary day, the tale of Middle-Earth's Third Age actually began long before, and yet at the same time, it would not begin until long after, far in a distant future and in an even more distant world…
XXX
"Son of a bit-"
Frustrated hands slammed down on a laptop's keyboard, sending worn black plastic keys flying across the small, cluttered desk space covered in coffee-stained papers and four separate thermos, all which hadn't been touched in the last two days. With a sigh, the hands retreated into a ball of brown messied hair, ruffling it further.
Katherine Marrow was at her wits end.
She had been this close to catching her would-be identity thief–THIS close. Yet, each time she had gotten close to tracking them down and pinning their location, the individual somehow escaped her, her trail on the scammer just up and vanishing, leaving Katherine no choice but to start over from scratch.
It was beyond vexing.
If it were just a passing scammer who had only used her ID once, Katherine would have been more inclined to ignore it. Sure, she would have reported them eventually, but in a once-and-done situation, well, she wouldn't have been in such a hurry to find them.
But this specific identity thief has consistently been using her information for over ten years–TEN YEARS, mind you–and yet each time without fail, they continued to evade Katherine and the law enforcement on her case.
Which was doubly as vexing, given she is going to start working for the same said law enforcement in a couple of weeks, and she couldn't let them start ribbing her on about a shoddy identity thief.
Katherine checked her notes she had on her desktop of everything she knew on her identity thief and exhaled sharply.
The only thing that Katherine had to go on after ten years of searching was that the individual tended to live in the mountainous middle-of-nowhere regions of the United States. Sometimes it was Colorado. Other times, it would be Wyoming or Idaho.
She'd gotten a postcard from Canada once, signed with only the phrase Wish you were here!
The absolute gull of this thief, honestly. She tried to grab the prints off of the postcard, but the only fingerprints that came back were her own, so it was a pretty fruitless endeavor. The scammer in question had a habit of disappearing just as she figured out their location, always two steps ahead of her, as if they knew how she thought.
Leaning back in her office chair, Katherine massaged her temple. How long had she spent on her latest research haul? Gosh, she couldn't remember. Five, maybe six hours? She glanced at the tiny window of her apartment.
It definitely hadn't been dark outside when she had started.
In the background, the young woman heard a loud clunk, followed by a high pitched sputtering noise that went off for about fifteen seconds before giving out altogether.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Katherine made a mental note to put in yet another maintenance request to fix her air conditioner. This was the third time this week that the darned thing had given out and died, and her cheapskate landlord seemed to think flex seal and duct tape were the best solutions to fix anything that needed immediate attention.
It was the kind of hot that had people baking bread in their mailboxes or frying an omelet on the roof of their cars. Even if it wasn't summer, the record high temperatures of Arizona weren't something to scoff at.
Eyelids drooping from exhaustion, sweat already starting to form uncomfortably at the base of her neck, the young woman contemplated whether she should grab a fifth cup of coffee.
Her eyes fell to another corner of her cluttered desk, where her bachelors' degree lay amongst the chaos of her life, and reached over two of her thermos to reach the piece of paper she had spent so many years to get, its corners slightly bent from the envelope it had arrived in.
The letters stared her in the face. Katherine Anna Marrow, Bachelor of Sciences in Forensics - With Honors From the University of Arizona, Class of 2023.
Working three jobs, attending college full-time, and having to pay off both her dorm rent and her loans, the woman had barely made it to graduation in one piece.
Holding her diploma in the air, the brunette snorted. What is the purpose of wasting six years of your life to get a certified piece of paper if most hiring jobs don't even look at it? She herself only got the job at the local police station due to a connection she made at a school function, not because she had some fancy degree that actually qualified her for the position.
Throwing the diploma back haphazardly on her desk, her attention lazily turned towards the only shelf on her left wall, nearly barren compared to the clutter of her tiny glorified supply closet of an apartment.
A dull and lifeless vase stared back at her. It was so drab and unremarkable that it almost blended in with the color of her tan wall.
Next to it was a lone picture frame, which had a sizable layer of dust on top of the black wooden frame. A toothy young girl filled with hopes of a better future sat inside it, caught laughing with hearty dimples, dark brown hair in wild curls around her cute face, and eyes gazing at the photographer that she no doubt charmed the pants off of. She wore a bright green and purple multi-colored sweater, the one she excitedly been planning to wear for weeks–even though her mother had tried to get her to don her scarlet sequin dress to no avail.
It was a shelf Katherine did not touch often.
She had no right to.
And yet, as she looked at the shelf, her eyes wandered back to the urn sitting in the corner, sweat continuing to soak through her ratty college t-shirt as the temperature of her tiny apartment continued to rise.
She made a promise to someone many years ago but had failed to deliver on it. It was always I'll do it next year, or Next year, I will find the time.
Utterly defeated, Katherine sighed, pulling up a new window on her laptop.
Perhaps it was time to take a trip.
Perhaps it was time to bring her mother home.
XXX
Katherine had forgotten what a forest looked like.
The road ahead stretched in winding curves, flanked by towering trees ablaze in the autumn atmosphere. Somewhere beyond these dense woods, lost beneath the hum of Katherine's car's engine, was a river that ran deep in more than just her mind.
She hadn't been back to Wisconsin in years. Not since the move. Not since…
Her gaze shifted to the urn in her passenger seat, buckled in with a seatbelt, smooth and unassuming. Two years. She had held onto it for two years now, unable to bring herself to do this–to come back.
But she had made a promise.
The car slowed as she pulled into a small gravel clearing just off the main road. The trees swayed in the crisp breeze, the air thick with the scent of damp dirt and decaying leaves. This place, her mother's place–it was as if it was untouched by time.
Katherine cut the engine and sat in silence, hands gripping the steering wheel. The wind whistled through the trunks of the trees, stirring a whisper of memory.
XXX
A kettle hissed as steam curled into the air. The warm glow from the overhead light painted the quaint kitchen in soft hues of amber and gold.
Fourteen-year-old Katherine stood by the stove, removing the kettle from the burner on the old stovetop and turning off the heat. Two mugs sat side-by-side, ready for the hot water that Katherine had spent the last fifteen minutes warming up.
Carefully pouring the water and placing the tea packets into the mugs, she waited one moment before stirring the tea water with a spoon, taking her time with each mug. She was no expert in making tea, having to figure out how to do it on her own, but no one had complained so far, so she couldn't be that bad at it.
She stopped stirring and put an ice cube in each drink, softly blowing on the top of the tea to cool it down. When she determined it was cool enough, the girl grabbed both mugs and brought them into the next room.
The dining space was small, but it was something that Katherine had gotten used to ever since she and her mother had been living on their own.
She approached the wooden table, seeing the figure of her mother sitting down on one of their few wooden chairs. Though Katherine's footsteps made noise on the wooden floor, her mother had no reaction.
"Mom?"
Her mother sat by the window, her thin frame turned away from Katherine, arms slack in her lap, and a mug held in her hands. Katherine approached slowly, not wanting to disturb her mother in her current state.
She placed the two mugs of freshly brewed tea on the table and kneeled in front of her mother, hands reaching for the mug currently in her mother's lax grip. The tea in her hands had long since gone cold.
The girl's hands gently removed the mug from her mother's grip, placing it on the table as Katherine observed her mother's gaze out the window.
Katherine had learned to recognize that look. That distant, unfocused gaze that went far beyond the view of their shabby, rocky backyard, and even beyond that of the present.
"Mom?" Her voice was soft, careful, trying to bring her mother back from wherever her mind had retreated to.
"I made some fresh tea," Katherine tried, her eyes hoping to meet her mother's. "It's a little warm, but it should be good to drink in a few minutes."
Her mother blinked, as if she was waking from a daydream, but she didn't turn towards Katherine.
"There's this spot on the Marengo River," Katherine's mother murmured instead, her hoarse voice like a half-formed thought. "I used to sit there for hours, just watching the water."
Katherine shifted, uneasy. "Yeah?"
"I took you there once, back when I was…" the woman trailed off. "You wouldn't remember. You were barely a toddler, but you loved to play by the water. It was…peaceful. The most alive I've ever felt."
She smiled, but it was a distant thing, like a reflection in rippling water. There, yet distorted and warped.
Katherine swallowed, her hand hovering awkwardly over her mother's, not quite touching. "Maybe we should go back sometime."
Her mother gave the smallest nod, but the sadness in her eyes lingered, deep and quiet. Not resentment–it was never resentment. But it was something Katherine couldn't fix, no matter how hard she tried.
"Maybe."
Katherine reached for one of the mugs she brought in and guided it into her mother's hands, making sure her mother had a decent grip on the ceramic handle.
"When I die, you should put me there. Let me be part of it again."
Katherine tensed.
"Mom…please don't say stuff like that."
"Everyone dies eventually, Kat–"
"Mom, DON'T!" Her hands trembled around her mother's, voice trembling as well. "Not now. Please…not after…"
Her mother finally looked at her then, really looked, and for a moment, the veil of her memories lifted from the fog in her mind. She reached out, brushing a hand through Katherine's hair.
"I…I don't want to lose you too."
Her mother smiled faintly at the young teen.
"You'll understand one day."
XXX
The wooden bridge groaned beneath Katherine's careful steps. Below, the river wound through the trees, reflecting the sun and sky in its glittering, rippling surface. The colors of autumn burned along its banks–reds like embers, golds like the warmth of an evening sun, and oranges like fading firelight.
The young woman stood at the center of the bridge, the urn feeling heavy in her grasp.
10 years.
She hasn't returned to Wisconsin in 10 years. Hadn't faced the past.
Hadn't let go.
Not really.
She took a slow breath, unscrewing the lid. The ashes within were so light, so unlike the woman she had once known. A woman who had carried so much for so long, even when the weight of grief tried to break her.
The same grief that had threatened to break both of them.
Katherine tilted the urn, watching as the wind caught the ashes, scattering them into the water below. They drifted, dissolving into the current until ash and water became one.
The river carried them away, further than the human eye could see, and beyond that of the horizon.
A lump formed in her throat.
Katherine reached into her pocket and pulled out an old polaroid photo with a young woman and her two children, the oldest standing next to her mother, and the youngest sitting happily on her mother's lap. She shakily breathed out, her finger lightly tracing the edge of the photograph.
"Well, Mom, I guess this is it," she said, her eyes tearing up from more than just the breeze. "I did what you asked. I'm just sorry it took so long."
The young woman laughed softly to herself. "I'm just a coward, it seems."
The cool breeze picked up a bit, ruffling her hair.
"I hope you finally are at peace," she whispered. Looking at the photograph one last time, she let go. The picture flew in the wind, floating into the distance. She watched it until she couldn't see it anymore.
"Both of you."
The wind sighed through the trees.
She leaned on the railing, arms wrapped around each other, staring at the sky. The water rushed below, endless, unbothered.
Life moved forward. It always did.
Just like she had to.
But she wanted to take this moment first.
Fainly, Katherine recognized the sounds of footsteps approaching and young voices in the distance. Those sounds started to get closer.
Great, teenagers, she thought. Still, she stayed where she was. Likely, they would pass by, and she could watch the water in peace again.
"Come on, just go!" A young voice cut through the stillness of the moment. "Or are you all talk and no show?"
The group of teens walked onto the wooden bridge, their stomping moving the bridge slightly. Another voice answered back, just as young.
"Oh, fuck off, Jamie!"
Katherine continued to ignore the group, rolling her eyes at their childish antics. Based on how they were behaving, she guessed they hadn't really noticed her either.
The group continued to walk closer, playfully bantering with each other.
Then, it happened.
A scuffle. One of the girls was shoved just a tad too harshly.
The girl collided into Katherine's back, knocking her off balance, and before she could stabilize herself, before she could react, Katherine went soaring through the air.
Correction–she was falling.
The world flipped around her. Sky and trees blurred as Katherine's brain rushed to process what was happening.
And then water rushed to meet her, swallowing her whole within its strong current.