Help, I've fallen into Bagginshield fandom and I can't get up...
This is what comes of making dwarves sexy and giving them stirring soundtracks. It's just... there's... I mean... oh bother. And there's some writers out there who've done some serious Tolkein research. Not me, I'm winging it, but they're out there.
God, I wish I didn't know how things end.
This, btw, has spoilers for how things end. Which I wish I didn't know.
A Simple Question
622 words
Bagginshield
G
A Simple Question
"I swear I did nothing encourage her, Uncle Bilbo, but she say she loves me and I've broken her heart."
"As far as I could see Loreeta Treehollow needs no encouragement," Bilbo muttered, stroking an hand through his nephew's curls to comfort him. "She reminds me of her father, too quick to place her interest where it is not desired." Haren, Loreeta's father, had dogged Bilbo's footsteps for months, certain persistence would win out no matter how often he'd been told his suit was hopeless.
Frodo shifted where he sat on the floor beside Bilbo's chair, his head pillowed on his arm, his arm on Bilbo's lap, his gaze locked on the flames dancing in the fireplace. "She cried when I told her I didn't love her back."
"I'm sure she did. But she is too young to be talking of love. You are both too young, my lad." Frodo was barely more than a child and, if he remembered correctly, which he most assuredly did, Loreeta was a year younger. "You'll have plenty of time for love when you are grown."
"No." Frodo shook his head. "I shall never fall in love. It seems too... complicated."
Complicated. What a word for the young hobbit to use. Bilbo's lips twitched, but he held in his amusement. Frodo was a sensitive lad and it would not do to laugh at him. Particularly not over such a sensitive topic.
"Have you ever been in love, Uncle Bilbo?"
And laughter fled in the face of so simple a question.
"Uncle Bilbo?"
He wanted to say it was complicated. But it hadn't been. Many, many things had been more complicated than a simple hobbit had the wisdom or the experience to deal with, but his feelings were not on that rather extensive list. He thought about lying, but he had never lied to Frodo in all the years his nephew had been living with him and he wouldn't start now.
So he said, "Yes."
"Did they not love you back?" Frodo twisted out from under his hand to stare up him, dark brows drawn in, a fierce light in his blue eyes. "Because if they didn't, they were a fool. You are the best of all hobbits! Kind and smart and strong and... and... and you make the best apple crisp in the whole of the Shire!"
"Thank you, Frodo." Bilbo laid a hand on the boy's shoulder before he ran off to avenge the slight on his uncle's honour. "He never had the chance to eat my apple crisp, but... but I think he loved me back; for a little while, at least."
"What happened?"
He could see Smaug in the flames. And the fires of the five armies spreading out around the Lonely Mountain. "He died."
"That," Frodo said softly, certainly, "is not all that happened."
The boy had always been more perceptive than his years allowed for.
Biblo could feel the weight of the Arkenstone in his hand, the cold of the gem matched by the cold in Thorin's voice. Banished. He could hear the war horns and the cries of the dying. Smell the blood. Burning flesh. Hear the carrion birds circling lower.
With an effort, he brought himself back to his comfortable chair, in front of his fire, in his sitting room, in Bag End. He met Frodo's worried gaze and managed to banish memory far enough he could find his voice. "No," he said,"that is not all that happened. But it's where it ended."
"Oh, uncle..." Frodo sighed and laid his head back on Bilbo's knee. "Love is horrible."
Bilbo stroked a hand through his nephew's curls for comfort and said, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door..."