Genre Challenged: Shortcut

[strangerian]

Author: strangerian, Stranger on Dreamwidth
Title: Shortcut
Challenge: Genre Challenged, Time Travel
Rating: Gen
Pairing/Characters: Bilbo, Frodo, Radas
Summary: Bilbo and Frodo find an unexpected inn tucked into a bit of forest outside Woody End. Bilbo goes to the loo and doesn't come back immediately.

Shortcut

Bilbo and Frodo rambled through Woody End on a warm late-summer morning only a few days after their second mutually-celebrated Birthday. Bilbo recalled a splendid dinner, and a number of heartfelt toasts, from his cousin and himself, that never had Bag End had happier occupants.

They came out of the shade of the forest and found themselves at the top of a downslope to more open ground, showing grass and rushes and a few late-summer flowers. In the distance Bilbo could see the Stockbrook meandering toward the Marish. The Brandywine would lie beyond today's haze. A bit closer, where oak and elm trees formed a darker strip in the spread-out landscape below, he thought he spied a chimney and a shimmer of well-mannered smoke. "What's that?"

"Where?" asked Frodo.

"Perhaps young eyes can see whether that bit of gray stone -- over there--" Bilbo gestured with his walking stick, "is a chimney or a tall rock."

"You've a sharp eye for a chimney, Uncle." Frodo's eyes narrowed and then widened. "Is it smoking, on a day like this?"

"If it is," said Bilbo solemnly, "we should make sure it's doing no harm. And if it's doing no harm, it's likely an inn. With--"

"Ale," said Frodo, quite as quick as Bilbo to seize the prospect, and quite as delighted. "And nuncheon. We should go and look."

"We should," agreed Bilbo. He set off down the slope, and Frodo followed.

They strode down the slope and toward the trees with leisurely haste, and in due course discovered that the chimney did indeed belong to a small inn fashioned above the ground around a tree-trunk, with the stone chimney they'd seen at the far end of the oblong building. Leafy lettering over a circular door into the inn itself announced The Shady Taproot.

It was evident, however, that most business occurred in the inn-yard, where tables and benches, clustered in the shade of spreading oak branches and other nearby trees, of which the inn appeared to be merely the most elaborate. Birds on the roof called and were answered from the trees in a continuous background twitter. One table already supported an elderly hobbit couple flirting at one another over tankards.

A bright-eyed landlord greeted them from the doorway as they arrived in the circle of cool shade. "Greetings, sirs." He stepped out, revealing bark-brown clothing and an abundant head of brown hair. "Fine morning today, wouldn't you say?"

"So it is," agreed Bilbo. "We've had a good morning's walk and now we've a noonday thirst."

"The Taproot can offer you ale and mead, shade and rest and refreshment."

"We'd be pleased for some--" began Bilbo.

"Ale," said Frodo promptly, "and a seat for an hour."

"As my hasty young cousin says," finished Bilbo, "although you mentioned mead also, did you not, sir?"

"I did. I'm Radas, at your service today." He nodded and straightened up quickly as a finch landed on his head.

"Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton," said Bilbo, "and my cousin Frodo." He tried not to stare at the bird, which had settled on Radas' head like a small, colorful hat.

"Would you be pleased to try a cup of Woody End mead?"

"Yes, indeed. I had no notion there was a meadery hereabouts."

"A few bottles of it come my way on occasion. It's rare stuff."

"Thank you most kindly. Please, ale and mead and food for two."

Frodo had already seated himself at a neat round table under a leafy oak bough, looking thoughtful. "This place should be familiar, by name at least, if it's so close to Buckland, but I've never heard of it."

Bilbo agreed, but he said, "Perhaps Master Saradoc saves up the knowledge of it for special occasions. I am certain an inn where mead can be had will be too dear for frequent visits."

"You may be right. Brandy Hall is a world to itself in any case." Frodo slanted a glance at him. "But it's not, for you."

Bilbo felt himself smile, recalling the recent Birthday good wishes. "I'm more content in Bag End, and well you know it."

The mead, when it was presented in a wooden cup, proved to be delightfully refreshing, with a scent of honey from a meadow of different flowers. Bilbo drank the cup dry, and did not turn down a second to accompany bread and soft cheese.

In due course, Bilbo found occasion to take himself into the inn itself. The first room was dim and very quiet, lit only by the roof-hole around the tree trunk. "Radas? Might I request the use of your necessary?"

A figure turned from the cupboard housing cups and mugs and bottles. Radas, no longer bird-hatted, gave a nod toward the back of the room. "Use it and welcome."

"Thank you." Bilbo found a narrow-oval closet door marked with a leaf-decked chalice. He wondered if it signified the drink one imbibed, or the receptacle in which it eventually ended, in such a closet as this. Both, perhaps.

He opened the door into a tiny room with its own skylight and the usual overly warm smell. There was nothing untoward about it, not even the neatly-painted leaves curling around him on the walls, and yet Bilbo felt suddenly odd, as if a cloud had covered the sun.

When he was lighter of the morning's drink, he opened the door again --

-- into a rain-wet forest under a cloudy sky. There was no inn, although the wide, sturdy oak tree and its surrounding brothers remained. There was no landlord Radas, no murmur of birds, and, Bilbo realized in rising disquiet, no sign of Frodo. When he turned back, the closet, too, had disappeared behind him.

Bilbo swallowed. He would find Frodo, or know the reason why, in this place where something had stolen Bilbo's pack and stick and an inn and the sunshine itself. He had coins in his pockets and... he patted the vest pocket where he kept the old talisman... the ring that got him out of trouble now and then. Maybe it would be useful in unraveling this... puzzle. That was it, Bilbo told himself, swallowing, he had a puzzle to solve. A new adventure.

There was no question that he stood in the same place he'd found the inn. The large oak, the cluster of four smaller oaks on one side, the two elms standing guard on the other, all now dripped with rain, but stood in their exact places. A boulder he and Frodo had had to circle on their way downhill still sat beyond the elms, so that was west. The cloudy sky meant he couldn't find the sun precisely, but the light seemed to be near midday.

Bilbo began a slow walk around the site of the erstwhile inn, keeping his bearings on the boulder and the broad-trunked oak. The land would slope into marshes on the east. Where would Frodo go? There had been a dip just beyond the inn, like a stream-bed: sure enough, now it was a chain of puddles that could become a rain-fed streamlet.

He'd always told the lad to follow water, to go downhill. In the Shire, a stream led to a farm, sure as sure. Bilbo walked along the thread of a stream, noting a patch of grass and late brown-eyed yellow daisies in one clearing, a lone yew tree in another, all under the inexplicable incursion of low clouds. Two drops of rain hit him.

Through a screen of elm branches, Bilbo saw three hobbits making their way through the woods ahead of him. He hastened -- stealthily, as befitted an experienced hobbit-adventurer -- to follow them. When the time was right, he would introduce himself and ask for directions, or even for help in finding Frodo. A disappearing inn might be only a thirsty hobbit's fancy, but a disappearing cousin was quite a more serious matter.

As he came nearer to the trio, he could see that one of them looked a bit like Frodo, like an exhausted Frodo who'd missed a night's sleep, or more than one night. It couldn't be Frodo, surely? He'd left the lad had hale and cheerful, just minutes ago.

Even so, the oddity inclined Bilbo to follow them for a bit longer and listen, rather than declaring himself. The other two were a sturdy hobbit in a plain shirt and trews, and a tween lad who might be a Took. All three wore backpacks too large for an overnight ramble. Where were they going, and who was the one who wasn't Frodo? Bilbo could not have missed a Baggins cousin born in the Shire, surely?

When the rain freshened to a spatter, the trio obliged him by ducking under the cover of an elm with thick foliage only just going yellow. Bilbo crept silently closer, the soft leaf-mold underfoot abetting his purpose, and soon he could hear their voices clearly.

"How far are we from the crossing?" The youngest lad's voice proclaimed him definitely a Took, but Bilbo still couldn't place him. Ah, well, Took blood ran in a number of directions, not all of them documented in the family trees.

"How far are we from a road wider'n a footpath?" asked the other unknown hobbit, in Hobbiton speech as clear as Bilbo's, if less refined.

"Not far, I imagine," said not-quite-Frodo, and Bilbo was startled to hear something very like his young cousin's voice, but a touch deeper and speaking nearly pure Hobbiton speech. Frodo himself still had a strong Buckland twang. "Perhaps not far enough."

"We've heard nothing strange since we came out of Woody End," argued the Took lad.

"Better we hear no more of it," said the second voice. That's a Gamgee, thought Bilbo, for it echoed Hamfast's words and tone. Didn't Hamfast have brothers, perhaps nephews, who might be journeying in late summer?

"Better indeed," said the one who wasn't Frodo. "Perhaps our visitors will oblige us by losing their way somewhere else in the woods, and leave us alone."

"We may hope, sir," said the other Hobbiton voice.

There was a yawn. "We had a late night yesterday -- that is, two of us did." There was a splutter of Tookland-accented protest. "We haven't time for a long rest, but perhaps a lunch from the food we were given will make up for it."

Bilbo was glad then that he'd had his own meal, no matter if it was a disappearing dream of food, for his stomach did not growl when the hobbits under the elm tree unwrapped a feast smelling of meat pastries and honey.

"This is lovely!" exclaimed the Took, after the sound of eager chewing and swallowing. "I almost didn't believe last night's dinner could be real."

"Nor I," said one Hobbiton voice. "It's a wonder to me still."

"To me also," said the other Hobbiton voice softly. "But we should speak no more of it now." There were sounds of eating and drinking, and more delicious smells, of apples and mead not unlike the exceptional mead Bilbo had tasted this very morning.

That was a puzzle, but it made no more sense to Bilbo after reflection than before. At length, the Took lad said, "That for our followers! I believe we've lost them, and it can't be half a day's walk to the river."

There was a sound as of one hobbit scooping a flask from another's hand, and a swallow. "Here's to that, may it be true."

A chuckle. "And may the rain dry up!"

The trio of hobbits, it seemed, were digesting their well-made nuncheon and its well-made drink. One of them hummed the beginning of a walking song and began to sing.

Bilbo suddenly heard it more clearly, for all the birds had gone silent. Inside the tree's shelter, the hobbits must not have noticed, for two voices started singing, with raucous cheer.

This couldn't be good. It was past time for Bilbo to introduce himself to these hobbits who had to be his kinfolk and neighbors. He drew breath to call a Hulloa! at them.

Before he could let it out, a long-drawn wail sounded, perhaps from down the hillside, perhaps from beyond the next further rise. It rose to a shriek and thinned high into silence without stopping. Further off, it was answered by another horrid wail.

Bilbo didn't like it, and the three hobbits hidden under the tree suddenly sounded worried and hurried, scrambling their packs together -- nearly quietly -- and whispering. "...not a bird or beast," came the voice so much like Frodo's, barely audible, and then, "... no hobbit has such a voice."

No hobbit did. A huge black horse and cloaked rider big as a Man appeared between two trees on the hill to the south, where the wail had sounded. It was nothing like an orc or goblin, and less like a dragon, but Bilbo knew again the hair-raising fear he'd known under a distant mountain and never since.

He decided, in a split second, what he had to do. The three hobbits were sensibly and silently creeping out from under the other side of the elm tree. They might not be his cousins Frodo and Adelard and his friend Hamfast, but they could have been. They were hobbits, two of them from Hobbiton and the third a Took. If he could keep them safe from harm, he would.

And, he could do something they couldn't, he was reminded by a twitch in his waistcoat pocket.

He could disappear. He had a ring in his pocket that let him play tricks on his relatives, and the thought of tricking larger pursuers had a curious appeal right now. If he were to rush at the black horse and its rider, they'd follow him instead of the three travellers, but they would never catch him. He patted his pocket. The ring seemed almost alive, eager for a bit of chase-and-hide.

Three cautious pairs of hobbit feet were moving away from where the awful wailing cries had sounded, shielded by the elm and quickly fading into the forest. The cloaked rider might find them if it had hearing as keen as Bilbo's... but not if it saw Bilbo first.

Nimble as a hobbit half his age, he danced down the hillside away from the elm, not troubling to hide himself. Recalling a much younger hobbit who had dared wolves and goblins and spiders, he smiled. Did the cloaked shadows on their big horses want to play a hunting game? Bilbo brushed a young branch he would normally having been far too canny to touch, letting it spring and rattle its leaves, noisy in the unnatural silence.

An ominous silence prompted Bilbo to freeze. A black horse like a mountain, bearing a looming dark shadow, appeared between two trees not all that far from Bilbo. The dark rider paused, but did not dismount. Whiffling sounds, almost snuffling, came to Bilbo's ears.

He froze still as a Troll at dawn. He'd planned to taunt these creatures and lead them on a chase. He'd wanted, like a foolish child, to play. Now that he'd seen one and been seen by one, all he wanted was to flee and never stop.

Bilbo ran for his life, away from the three hobbits' journey, and away from the awful horsemen. He ran west through the forest, up and down the land's ridges. He leapt across rain-brooks to avoid splashing and he ducked under branches to avoid disturbing them.

Steady motion started him thinking again. The rider had seen him and would follow him. He was travelling away from the three hobbits' path. Those three hobbits were safe enough, and now he had to save himself as well.

If the huge black horses and their snuffling, whiffling, terrible riders came too close, he could always slip his ring onto his finger and disappear. He almost took it out, just to have it ready, but muffled hoof-sounds behind him reminded him instead to keep running, faster.

He could feel the ring in his pocket ready to be used, but he also wanted, perversely, to outsmart the riders at their own game. Frighten his cousins, would they? Interrupt his morning walk with Frodo and turn the weather to rain, would they? He ran, spry and sly and quiet as a hobbit through the woods, looking for the way back to where he'd come from.

He passed two thickets still wet with rain, pursued by barely-audible hooves and the snuffly hissing. The third thicket was marked by a yew, the next by a patch of daisies. He must be going in the right direction, toward the oak clearing. It seemed as good a direction as any. If he could find it, perhaps the sunlight would come back.

He spied the streamlet of rain-puddles, and then, as if framed in a window made of two close-set young oaks, their branches arching together above and their roots spreading below, Bilbo saw sunlight. A bright clearing beckoned, elms and four oaks and a broad-spreading oak crown above them all. From behind came a keening moan, cold as a goblin. Bilbo hurtled over the puddles and between the pair of young oaks with his last turn of speed, and the wail faded away.

The forest quieted... or perhaps it wasn't a matter of quiet. Leaves rustled as a bird hopped from one branch to another. Bilbo slowed to a standstill, wheezing, as he found himself staring at a circle of shade-dappled inn-yard, tables peaceful in September warmth. There was no sign or sound of pursuit by Men riding horses. Not by so much as a field mouse.

At a bench under a tree, just touched now by sunlight, Frodo and Radas sat over their ale-mugs. A flock of birds rose from inn-roof into the tree as Bilbo stumbled, still panting, into the clearing.

Frodo -- indubitably his Frodo, the young cousin who had come to be so very like a son to him -- waved at him. "Hullo, Uncle Bilbo! Did you explore a bit without me?"

"Er," said Bilbo. The sun had moved by perhaps an hour. What had happened? Where had he been? "It was a curious thing..." The cloaked Men on horseback were gone. As he patted his pocket once more, he was sure of it. He thought of unknown cousins journeying about the Shire, and he wanted to consider the matter before telling it all to Frodo.

"...but, well, I thought I had mislaid my walking stick." He spotted it where it leaned against a tree-trunk. "Ah, there it is! Excellent!" It was as if good cheer and easiness of spirit came to him on the breeze, his fear melting away. He'd never been in danger, for he could have used his ring to hide from the horses and riders, and saved himself some running.

Perhaps another time, he'd do that.

He dismissed the matter from his mind. "Good Radas, might I drink one more cup of your mead today, before my cousin and I journey on?"

The inn's landlord, again wearing a sparrow in his hair, smiled. "I'm very glad to see you well, Bilbo Baggins."