The Holbytla, 1/?
Title: The Holbytla
Author: Claudia
Pairing: None
Rating: PG13
Summary: A hobbit finds himself in a village in Rohan, with no memory of anything, except for his name.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and make no money from them.
The hobbit pulled the warm and scratchy coverlet up to his chin. Frayed at the edges, worn thin in spots, it mostly did a fine job of keeping him warm - just so long as he stayed asleep. Shivering, he gazed at the criss-crossed wooden beams on the ceiling. An icy wind out of the North rattled the windows, and the hobbit’s breath came out in visible puffs. He lay on a narrow cot beside young Eothain’s straw bed in the humble cottage of Eothain and his widower father Eorl.
Frodo, my name is Frodo.
Frodo lay quietly, focusing on the wooden beams, silently repeating his name. Nothing else came back to him, not even a glimmer or faint stirring. He had remembered his name from the moment he had awakened, bruised and near to death, in the tiny cottage. He had endured such grievous injury to his abdomen that the healers of the village of Dunbourne had washed their hands of it and left for Eothain herbs to make Frodo’s dying days less agonizing.
But Frodo had surprised and charmed them - well, he had not charmed Eorl, this he knew -- by making a full recovery, at least in body. Weeks had passed, and still, of his life before Dunbourne, a tiny village near the Gap of Rohan in the tall grass country of Rohan, he remembered nothing more than his name. He closed his eyes and again thought about what he knew, just as he did each morning, hoping for a glimmer of something new.
My name is Frodo and here they call me a Holbytla. I am different from them. I have tough feet, hair on top for warmth, and though I am full-grown, I am much smaller than those with whom I abide. The third finger from my right hand is missing, though that injury seems to have occurred before that which took my memory. Holbytla means hole-dweller, and it seems I’ve come from a green, hilly land in which folk live in holes like rabbits, although I have no memory of it.
Eothain, a kind young lad of fifteen summers, and two of his friends found me near to death, lying in the road outside their village. I had been robbed, my pockets turned inside out, and I had been badly beaten. I do not know from whence I came or where I planned to go or whether I had other travel companions. A bloody handkerchief was found nearby.
Frodo kept his eyes squeezed shut, but nothing new came to him. He had no memory of a journey or of being waylaid.
Eothain burst in the front door, and cold air rushed in the cottage. His ruddy face was cheerful as he stamped his boots in the doorway. His long blond hair he had pulled back in the style of his people.
“Good morning, Frodo! Come, let us have a bite to eat and then you can help me with the morning chores!”
“I am sorry,” Frodo said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, shivering still. “I slept too long. I do not know how I slept through your father bumping around in the morning. Was he much irked that I was asleep?” One of Frodo’s given duties was to help Eorl feed and water his horse.
“Aye,” Eothain said, rolling his eyes. “But fear not. Father’s memory is short and it will be long forgotten when he arrives home. ‘Tis not a wonder that you slept late. It is dark outside. A fierce snowstorm’s on the way.”
Frodo cringed inside as he dressed, imagining the displeasure that would have surely been on Eorl’s face as he watched Frodo sleep that morning. He would not see the unusual morning darkness as an excuse for laziness.
Eorl plainly did not think the holbytla guest should stay any longer than necessary and made that plainly clear in his daily grunts and ill-mannered comments. Toward his son, his eyes twinkled with warm affection, and his voice galloped along like war drums, like those that rallied armies to want to die for their captain. Frodo yearned for such a smile from Eorl. They were rare, but they filled him with warmth, like sunlight after days of dark rain.
Frodo dressed quickly, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. The air was unbearably cold, and the tips of his fingers were numb. Eothain threw more logs in the hearth and stirred up the dying embers.
“There is a chill to the morn,” Eothain said. “Are you warm enough?”
“With my jacket on.”
“Alas there is nothing warm to eat for breakfast.”
Eothain and Frodo ate hard-crusted bread and cheese. A loud rattling against the window caused them to jump and peer out the window. They watched pinpricks of ice hit the windowpanes.
“Come,” Eothain said, pushing his chair back. “We must make haste to finish the chores before everything freezes.”
***
When Eorl came home, soaked from freezing rain and snow, he grunted a greeting to his son and nodded curtly at Frodo. He took off his cloak, soaking wet, and pushed it into Frodo’s waiting arms. Snowflakes had melted on his chain mail, and a puddle of water dripped around him in the front hall.
He did not appear like the other tall, fair Rohirrim of the village. Instead he was broader, a little shorter, with a swarthy complexion and thick, bushy eyebrows which made him appear as if he were always scowling. Eothain had told Frodo that his mother had been one of the Dunlandings.
“Someone can help me, if it pleases,” he said irately.
“I am sorry, Father,” Eothain said, helping his father out of the chain mail. “I see that you are cold and wet. Frodo and I have prepared hot stew with potatoes and bread smeared with fresh butter.”
Eorl smiled and tousled Eothain’s hair.
Frodo could not reach the cloak hooks, but he held Eorl’s heavy, soaking wet cloak in his arms until Eothain relieved him of it. Frodo was uncomfortably damp and chilled, but the fire in the hearth now roared, and for the first time that day, pleasant warmth emanated throughout the room.
Eorl glared toward the fireplace. “Who stirred the fire so high?”
Frodo’s heart sank. “It was I. It was cold when we came in and we thought especially that you would be chilled-“
“Are you trying to burn the cottage down?” Eorl asked fiercely. He almost never came home in a pleasant mood. After he ate, he would be more agreeable and would ask what they had done during the day. Eothain stepped beside Frodo, as if to shelter him. “Father-“ he began. “I told him to.”
Eorl grunted and proceeded to take off his boots and settle into the wooden chair. Eothain and Frodo made haste to put the stew and bread on the table.
Eorl ate without speaking, glowering under his thick brows.
At last, the table was cleared and preparations were made to settle in front of the hearth. Frodo worked to scrape mud off Eorl’s boots, while Eorl whittled away at wood that he planned to build into the legs of a stool. Eothain had retired to sleep already.
“My boy is fond of you, very much so.”
“Is that so?” Frodo asked, blushing. Eorl almost never spoke to him.
Eorl cleared his throat and continued. “I do not know what sort of trouble you’ve run into that got you so badly set upon, but sometimes I wonder that perhaps you only act at forgetting yourself.”
Frodo swallowed, and he felt as if he had been punched in the belly. Normally he allowed Eorl’s jabs to slide over him. After all, he was at the mercy of his hospitality. But this was too much.
“Eorl,” he broke in, meeting the man’s grimace. “I would give much to remember more than my name. Perhaps I am one who should be forgotten, I do not know. But my own body remains hidden to me. How did I lose this finger? I might never know. This scar between my toes - it came not from my recent injury. There is a tale there, too. This bump behind my neck that aches sometimes in the night and gives me dreams of…” He stopped, unwilling to relate the dark dreams of cobwebs and spiders with malicious eyes. “…foul dreams. And if indeed I am a hole-dweller, then I should very much love to see my home, even if for some reason I find I am not welcome there.”
Eorl was silent for a time before he managed a grim smile. “You must forgive me, Frodo. Life has not always treated us with kindness, and I am perhaps far quicker to see ill where there is none. Your eyes do not flicker like a liar’s might. I believe you. It is only that Eothain is all I have, understand.”
“I know,” Frodo said. He swallowed. “I am very fond of him, too.”
“He will go soon to Edoras, to train as a warrior of Rohan.”
“He is too young,” Frodo said, looking up in alarm.
“He is fifteen, nearly sixteen,” Eorl said. “The King wishes to start training young. He remembers too well the battle of Helm’s Deep. Aye, he fought there. All of us who fought there, knowing that we would likely all be slain, along with our women and children, remember it too well. King Eomer knows that any boy strong enough to wield a sword was forced to fight, and many times it went ill for these boys who had had no training. I am only glad that then Eothain was only thirteen and not much bigger than you.”
“King Eomer,” Frodo muttered aloud. There was something in that name that nearly sparked something inside. It was like remembering that a person played a role in a dream but being unable to recall even one part of the dream.
“He is a good king,” Eorl said. He set down the pieces of wood he had been working on. “I am going to bed. Tomorrow I shall need you in the morning.”
“I shall wake with you tomorrow,” Frodo said. He helped put out the fire.
TBC
Author: Claudia
Pairing: None
Rating: PG13
Summary: A hobbit finds himself in a village in Rohan, with no memory of anything, except for his name.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and make no money from them.
The hobbit pulled the warm and scratchy coverlet up to his chin. Frayed at the edges, worn thin in spots, it mostly did a fine job of keeping him warm - just so long as he stayed asleep. Shivering, he gazed at the criss-crossed wooden beams on the ceiling. An icy wind out of the North rattled the windows, and the hobbit’s breath came out in visible puffs. He lay on a narrow cot beside young Eothain’s straw bed in the humble cottage of Eothain and his widower father Eorl.
Frodo, my name is Frodo.
Frodo lay quietly, focusing on the wooden beams, silently repeating his name. Nothing else came back to him, not even a glimmer or faint stirring. He had remembered his name from the moment he had awakened, bruised and near to death, in the tiny cottage. He had endured such grievous injury to his abdomen that the healers of the village of Dunbourne had washed their hands of it and left for Eothain herbs to make Frodo’s dying days less agonizing.
But Frodo had surprised and charmed them - well, he had not charmed Eorl, this he knew -- by making a full recovery, at least in body. Weeks had passed, and still, of his life before Dunbourne, a tiny village near the Gap of Rohan in the tall grass country of Rohan, he remembered nothing more than his name. He closed his eyes and again thought about what he knew, just as he did each morning, hoping for a glimmer of something new.
My name is Frodo and here they call me a Holbytla. I am different from them. I have tough feet, hair on top for warmth, and though I am full-grown, I am much smaller than those with whom I abide. The third finger from my right hand is missing, though that injury seems to have occurred before that which took my memory. Holbytla means hole-dweller, and it seems I’ve come from a green, hilly land in which folk live in holes like rabbits, although I have no memory of it.
Eothain, a kind young lad of fifteen summers, and two of his friends found me near to death, lying in the road outside their village. I had been robbed, my pockets turned inside out, and I had been badly beaten. I do not know from whence I came or where I planned to go or whether I had other travel companions. A bloody handkerchief was found nearby.
Frodo kept his eyes squeezed shut, but nothing new came to him. He had no memory of a journey or of being waylaid.
Eothain burst in the front door, and cold air rushed in the cottage. His ruddy face was cheerful as he stamped his boots in the doorway. His long blond hair he had pulled back in the style of his people.
“Good morning, Frodo! Come, let us have a bite to eat and then you can help me with the morning chores!”
“I am sorry,” Frodo said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up, shivering still. “I slept too long. I do not know how I slept through your father bumping around in the morning. Was he much irked that I was asleep?” One of Frodo’s given duties was to help Eorl feed and water his horse.
“Aye,” Eothain said, rolling his eyes. “But fear not. Father’s memory is short and it will be long forgotten when he arrives home. ‘Tis not a wonder that you slept late. It is dark outside. A fierce snowstorm’s on the way.”
Frodo cringed inside as he dressed, imagining the displeasure that would have surely been on Eorl’s face as he watched Frodo sleep that morning. He would not see the unusual morning darkness as an excuse for laziness.
Eorl plainly did not think the holbytla guest should stay any longer than necessary and made that plainly clear in his daily grunts and ill-mannered comments. Toward his son, his eyes twinkled with warm affection, and his voice galloped along like war drums, like those that rallied armies to want to die for their captain. Frodo yearned for such a smile from Eorl. They were rare, but they filled him with warmth, like sunlight after days of dark rain.
Frodo dressed quickly, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. The air was unbearably cold, and the tips of his fingers were numb. Eothain threw more logs in the hearth and stirred up the dying embers.
“There is a chill to the morn,” Eothain said. “Are you warm enough?”
“With my jacket on.”
“Alas there is nothing warm to eat for breakfast.”
Eothain and Frodo ate hard-crusted bread and cheese. A loud rattling against the window caused them to jump and peer out the window. They watched pinpricks of ice hit the windowpanes.
“Come,” Eothain said, pushing his chair back. “We must make haste to finish the chores before everything freezes.”
***
When Eorl came home, soaked from freezing rain and snow, he grunted a greeting to his son and nodded curtly at Frodo. He took off his cloak, soaking wet, and pushed it into Frodo’s waiting arms. Snowflakes had melted on his chain mail, and a puddle of water dripped around him in the front hall.
He did not appear like the other tall, fair Rohirrim of the village. Instead he was broader, a little shorter, with a swarthy complexion and thick, bushy eyebrows which made him appear as if he were always scowling. Eothain had told Frodo that his mother had been one of the Dunlandings.
“Someone can help me, if it pleases,” he said irately.
“I am sorry, Father,” Eothain said, helping his father out of the chain mail. “I see that you are cold and wet. Frodo and I have prepared hot stew with potatoes and bread smeared with fresh butter.”
Eorl smiled and tousled Eothain’s hair.
Frodo could not reach the cloak hooks, but he held Eorl’s heavy, soaking wet cloak in his arms until Eothain relieved him of it. Frodo was uncomfortably damp and chilled, but the fire in the hearth now roared, and for the first time that day, pleasant warmth emanated throughout the room.
Eorl glared toward the fireplace. “Who stirred the fire so high?”
Frodo’s heart sank. “It was I. It was cold when we came in and we thought especially that you would be chilled-“
“Are you trying to burn the cottage down?” Eorl asked fiercely. He almost never came home in a pleasant mood. After he ate, he would be more agreeable and would ask what they had done during the day. Eothain stepped beside Frodo, as if to shelter him. “Father-“ he began. “I told him to.”
Eorl grunted and proceeded to take off his boots and settle into the wooden chair. Eothain and Frodo made haste to put the stew and bread on the table.
Eorl ate without speaking, glowering under his thick brows.
At last, the table was cleared and preparations were made to settle in front of the hearth. Frodo worked to scrape mud off Eorl’s boots, while Eorl whittled away at wood that he planned to build into the legs of a stool. Eothain had retired to sleep already.
“My boy is fond of you, very much so.”
“Is that so?” Frodo asked, blushing. Eorl almost never spoke to him.
Eorl cleared his throat and continued. “I do not know what sort of trouble you’ve run into that got you so badly set upon, but sometimes I wonder that perhaps you only act at forgetting yourself.”
Frodo swallowed, and he felt as if he had been punched in the belly. Normally he allowed Eorl’s jabs to slide over him. After all, he was at the mercy of his hospitality. But this was too much.
“Eorl,” he broke in, meeting the man’s grimace. “I would give much to remember more than my name. Perhaps I am one who should be forgotten, I do not know. But my own body remains hidden to me. How did I lose this finger? I might never know. This scar between my toes - it came not from my recent injury. There is a tale there, too. This bump behind my neck that aches sometimes in the night and gives me dreams of…” He stopped, unwilling to relate the dark dreams of cobwebs and spiders with malicious eyes. “…foul dreams. And if indeed I am a hole-dweller, then I should very much love to see my home, even if for some reason I find I am not welcome there.”
Eorl was silent for a time before he managed a grim smile. “You must forgive me, Frodo. Life has not always treated us with kindness, and I am perhaps far quicker to see ill where there is none. Your eyes do not flicker like a liar’s might. I believe you. It is only that Eothain is all I have, understand.”
“I know,” Frodo said. He swallowed. “I am very fond of him, too.”
“He will go soon to Edoras, to train as a warrior of Rohan.”
“He is too young,” Frodo said, looking up in alarm.
“He is fifteen, nearly sixteen,” Eorl said. “The King wishes to start training young. He remembers too well the battle of Helm’s Deep. Aye, he fought there. All of us who fought there, knowing that we would likely all be slain, along with our women and children, remember it too well. King Eomer knows that any boy strong enough to wield a sword was forced to fight, and many times it went ill for these boys who had had no training. I am only glad that then Eothain was only thirteen and not much bigger than you.”
“King Eomer,” Frodo muttered aloud. There was something in that name that nearly sparked something inside. It was like remembering that a person played a role in a dream but being unable to recall even one part of the dream.
“He is a good king,” Eorl said. He set down the pieces of wood he had been working on. “I am going to bed. Tomorrow I shall need you in the morning.”
“I shall wake with you tomorrow,” Frodo said. He helped put out the fire.
TBC