Chapter Text
It was nearing elevensies and Bellflower Baggins, a hobbit of the Shire, was taking the air on her garden bench, as was her habit. She had an embroidery hoop on her lap but she wasn’t working on it, rather she was staring out over the rolling hills and verdant plains of the Shire, allowing herself to be mesmerized by the far off glint of light off the Water.
Her eyes were turned towards East Farthing, and though she had no real expectations she could not help but hope that perhaps this would be the day that her sister came trotting back up the Hill thinner and dirtier but filled with eagerness to relay the tale of her latest adventure in the far flung reaches of the outside world.
She had been waiting and wishing for a year and a half now, by Shire Reckoning, and she had little true expectation that today would be the day that her sister would return home. But she continued to wish because although Bag End was her beloved home, filled with good food and blessed with a warm hearth and her father’s large library of books and maps and other curiosities it was also distressingly empty.
Lonely without her sister’s stories and laughter.
Bell supposed she should be used to it by now, but each year that passed Clarabelle stayed away for longer, and Bag End became emptier. Filled with ghosts of the family that had all left her one way or the other.
As a well-respected hobbit lass of fair wealth and good birth perhaps the obvious solution was to do as the hobbit-wives all suggested and settle down. Marry and birth a half-dozen faunts of your own, her aunts would say, and you’ll find yourself missing the peace and quiet.
But Bell wasn’t keen on any of her suitors, not really.
Muro Burrowes was nice enough, of course, and they could speak on the subject of literature for long hours, and Baradoc Brandybuck made her laugh as easy as breathing, and Bonnie Harfoot and her husband Bolo had offered her a place within their formerly dyadic marriage tempting her away from Bag End for days at a time with picnics and pies and flowers and their adorable twin faunts, Mollie and Dottie.
And while she had a great deal of fun with each of them at the end of the day she didn’t fancy herself to be in love with any of them. Not the way that her mother had loved her father, certainly. And not even the way that the other eligible lasses of Hobbiton described their infatuations and dalliances.
She couldn’t see herself marrying if there wasn’t love involved. She wasn’t Lobelia. She had all she truly needed in her life already and she wasn’t going to make a rash decision based on a bit of blue feelings. That would be unkind and unfair to herself and her partner or partners.
But by the green lady she was lonely, so pervasively lonely that some days it felt like there was a wall of fine clear glass between herself and the rest of the world allowing her to see it but not to become a part of it.
A foolish thought, of course, but she often felt alone even in the middle of a crowd. Enough that she’d declined a number of party invitations and was beginning to attract nascent mutters about a lack of sociability.
She sighed and closed her eyes.
That would have to be addressed soon, she was aware, lest the gossip-mongers start spreading about wild speculations about why she was the way that she was. She had no patience to hear them bad-mouthing her mother or sister on her account, or indeed at all.
Belladonna and then Clarabelle had been affected by the Tookish wanderlust to an abnormal degree, it was all too true, but they were both so brave. Greeting their dawns in far-off places alongside foreign peoples, making friends, seeing sights untold and helping unfortunates.
She sometimes wished that she were that brave. Maybe then she would have followed Clarabelle out the door one dawn and even now be sitting next to her, perhaps somewhere out there in the untamed wild or maybe taking a rest in some city of men or elves or perhaps even dwarves.
She didn’t allow herself to think of reasons other than an adventuresome spirit that might be keeping Clarabelle from returning home.
She never did, for they were all far too painful to contemplate.
She was broken out of her musings as a long shadow passed over her and something tickled at her nose, making her sneeze.
The shadow belonged to an old Man.
He was tall, taller than a garden tree, dressed all in grey from the tip of his pointed hat to the hem of his long robes and he leaned heavily upon a gnarled walking stick. His eyes though were blue, clear and bright and filled with a sharpness that suggested a keen mind, at least to Bell. And they were fixed, quite firmly, on her.
“Good morning?” she offered after a bit, when the Man continued to stare.
“Is it now?” he replied, “You don’t seem terribly sure of that, but then perhaps I have mistaken your meaning. Perhaps you meant to inquire as to the nature of my own morning rather than commenting on yours.”
“Or perhaps I meant to prod you into introducing yourself and stating your business, good sir,” huffed Bellflower, hopping up off the bench so that the Man would not loom over her quite so thoroughly, “We don’t have many Big Folk pass through the Shire and you seem to have some business with me, staring as intently as you are.”
“Am I indeed?” said the Man, “And why shouldn’t I stare? To think that I would live to see the day when a daughter of Belladonna Took would bid me off with a too-politic ‘good morning’ as if I were selling buttons at the door.”
“I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
“Well, we have met before and you certainly know my name, though perhaps you do not remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me.”
Bell felt all the warmth drain out of her face and hands, and groped for the bench behind her, sitting heavily.
“You’re Gandalf?” she repeated. “If you are he, you must know—please, where is Clarabelle? Where is my sister?”
The Man—Wizard—Gandalf, frowned heavily.
“I had hoped to find her here,” Gandalf admitted, “We agreed to meet here before we embarked together on our next journey.”
“But you’ve heard from her?” Bell persisted.
“Not for some long months,” he said, “She was on the trail of a particular artifact that I had bade her to keep an ear out for, at her last letter. I assumed it had come to nothing and that she had elected to wait until our next scheduled meeting to tell me so.”
“She hasn’t been home,” Bell said, “There’ve been no letters, no word, not for over a year!”
“That…that is troubling.”
“Troubling? Troubling!” hissed Bell, “My sister is missing! She has never, never, gone so long without a word and she wouldn’t miss an appointment without an extremely good reason.”
“Of that I am all too aware,” Gandalf said, “And it bodes ill, except that I would like to think I know Clarabelle quite well. She is careful and clever and most resourceful, perhaps there is a good reason for her delay.”
“Or maybe she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere, cursing herself the fool for ever following after the whims of a Wizard!” She dearly wished at that moment that there was something to hand so that she could throw it at the presumptuous Wizard! “You have some nerve, Gandalf Greyhame! Showing your face at my door after you lured my sister off on one of your damn fool adventures! Damn you!”
And then to her eternal embarrassment she broke down and began to cry. Great heaving sobs that wracked her entire body and the Wizard in question was forced to all but carry her back indoors. Patting her shoulder and then disappearing only to reappear after a bit with a cup of tea and a fresh handkerchief.
She did throw something at him for that. The novel that she’d been reading wasn’t the ideal projectile but it did hit the Wizard square in the chest which brought her some small satisfaction.
For his part Gandalf seemed quite willing to take it in stride. He let her cry and curse his name until she was wrung dry. Slumping limp and exhausted into one of her kitchen chairs.
“Is there any chance that she is still alive?” Bell asked plainly, a good while later while the exhaustion still gifted her with a peculiar kind of nerve.
“There is every chance, my dear,” the Wizard answered immediately, “Hobbits are the most extraordinary and resilient creatures that I know of and Clarabelle uniquely so. Do not give write her off so readily.”
If the Wizard did not truly believe that Bell could find no sign of it in his face or manner. His blue eyes bore into her lit from the inside with a fire of conviction. Of faith.
Bellflower couldn’t imagine where the Wizard had obtained such surety from, but if he held to it then perhaps she too could afford to hope that she would see Clarabelle alive again. Perhaps worse for wear, but whole at the end of whatever trials she’d face.
He reminded her of her mother. She was a great proponent of the importance of having faith. That carrying hope and kindness along with you could carry you through whatever trials life could offer. Clarabelle had always taken those words to heart. Bell had always thought herself more like their father. Practical and reliable. Realistic. But perhaps the correct word was cynical because the fact of the matter was that against all evidence Gandalf believed that Clarabelle was alive, and Bell rather had not. Not until she’d looked into the Wizard’s eyes.
“Alright,” she said, dabbing at her watery eyes and running nose with a handkerchief. “Alright. I think you’d best explain to me just what you and my sister have been up to all these years you’ve apparently been in some sort of cahoots. And don’t spare the details.”
“As you wish, my dear Bellflower,” he said, “Well, the true beginning of this tale stretches into the Ages long past when the world was new and it tarries with the purpose of the Order of the Istari here on the physical plane in Arda, but all you need know to be situated is that I and my brothers have taken on the task of safeguarding this world from the forces of darkness.”
Bell nodded, her understanding. Her mother had spoken a time or two of such things and she was familiar with Gandalf’s meddling nature from her stories.
“I have the great good fortune of being well-travelled, and long in memory. And I have endeavoured since the fall of the Great Enemy to use that to the advantage of the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth, for always does evil seek to find a foothold in the world. In Rohan and some other towns and cities of Men they call me Stormcrow, for it seems I am always riding with the tide of bad news. It has made me unpopular to say the least, and recognizable. I discovered while travelling with Belladonna how useful a hobbit companion could be. For all folk seem well able to recognize the simple nature and good intentions of hobbits. They never questioned her motives for somehow your race is able to make it very clear that they only have in mind the good of all.”
Here Gandalf paused thinking over how to continue.
“She was well-beloved, your mother, by myself and a great many others for her kindness and courage. And I was deeply sorry to lose her to love and then again to death for she did more good in her short time on this Earth that I was able to accomplish in centuries alone. Her incisiveness helped me to see more clearly, her compassion help me to keep my priorities, and her bravery gifted me always with courage. She was extraordinary. And so is Clarabelle.
When I first met your sister, I had heard tale of a hobbit lass taken up with travelling performers and was taken up by such nostalgia that I sought her out. She was young then, just past her majority as you are now, but she gamely assisted me with my ventures in Eriador, freeing slaves from orcs and goblins along the way.”
“She never told me that,” Bell said faintly.
“No, she would not have.” Gandalf said, more than a tad ruefully, “She spoke of you to me often, of how you would worry yourself sick if you knew what she’d been doing. ‘Gandalf Greyhame,’ she would say, ‘If we had half the sense that my baby sister has in her littlest finger we would never have done such a ridiculously dangerous thing as that.’ And yet she never hesitated.”
“And the pair of you were fools together, many times over, I expect.”
“Quite right, my dear,” agreed Gandalf, “But the world sometimes has need of fools. Perhaps especially in Eriador and the Lonelands to the East. In the past, before the coming of the dragon Smaug, before the War of Dwarves and Orcs, the Longbeard clans worked alongside, if not exactly in tandem with, the men and elves of the East. Safe-guarding that flank of the world. But for nearly two centuries now there has been no one. The dwarves that once belonged to Erebor and their descendants are scattered nomads for the most part. The colony in the Blue Mountains is little more than a waystation for them, for they cannot make their home there without settling for the barest kind of existence. And dwarves do not settle for anything less than what will give them true happiness and keep their kith and kin safe.”
“That’s all well and good Gandalf, but what does it have to do with my sister’s disappearance?”
“I am getting to that my dear, presently,” the Wizard assured her, “It begins with the Longbeards, the Line of Durin, descended directly from the Lords of Khazad-dum. Of Moria.
During the time of the Great Enemy they were gifted, as all the seven leaders of the dwarf clans were, with a ring of power. The strength to rule was said to be inherent in the rings of power but it was a lie for each was tied to the One, which answered only to the Enemy himself.
It was a ploy to bring all the free peoples of Middle-Earth under his sway. None of the dwarves fell to the Enemy the way the great Kings of Men did, and nor were they forced to run and hide away like the elves. They endured. Solid as the stone from which their maker forged them a twice as stubborn. As the years past the rings were lost one by one, to death or more often the bane of dragons. All but one.
The Lords of Moria and then the Kings of Erebor passed their ring down from father to son and so on, until Smaug. After the dragon came the line of Durin began to chip and fracture. King Thror died on the field of battle, his son Thrain went mad with grief and disappeared into the Misty Mountains, of his two grandsons one also perished in the War of Dwarves and Orcs and the other knew nothing of his family’s double-edged heirloom. It seemed to me that I must accept that the forces of the Enemy had somehow acquired it, for they held the Misty Mountains against the dwarves that were birthed there time and time again.
But while many of the dwarves claimed that Thrain was lost and dead and hailed his son Thorin as the leader of the Longbeards and now as the somewhat less impressive King of Ered Luin, there were always rumours.
I was on the other side of the world when I received some small evidence that the rumours of Thrain’s survival might be more than just that. So I asked Clarabelle to investigate in my place. She was after all, brave, quiet, and clever and not known to the wider world as well as being well placed to act with haste. She knew the secret paths through the Misty Mountains and I had spoken to her often enough of my concerns that she had some measure of the gravity of the situation. It was the next best thing to ideal and I knew she would more than agree to help, she was likely to insist.”
“Fool of a Took,” Bell muttered, but it had little heat.
Lady help her but she was abominably proud of her big sister, who had all these long years been helping the wider world. Confronting untold dangers and misfortunes that never seemed to make it into the tales of her so-called adventures.
“Perhaps, perhaps we were both fools,” Gandalf admitted, “But we saw little more danger in this plan than any of our others. And in fact I secured her agreement to help with the second stage of the plan long before she ever reached the mountains. We agreed that whether her search bore fruit or not that the shadow and threat of the dragon in the East needed to be dealt with in good time. And that we should meet at Bag End after the last of the spring thaw before putting it into action.”
“And here you are,” said Bell.
“And here I am,” agreed Gandalf, with a long sigh that seemed to settle over his shoulders like a weight, “I had not counted on Clarabelle not returning in good time for I believe she is sorely needed for this venture to succeed.”
“And what venture, is that exactly?” asked Bell, “And for lady’s sake, Gandalf don’t hedge so abominably. I can see you circling around whatever point you’ve conjured. And I’m sorry but I feel I must speak frankly. I’ve no time for it. It’s coming in clear that with Clarabelle gone you have some fancy or favour to request and I’ll hear it, if only for the friendship my mother and sister and grandfather all bear you.”
Gandalf arched one bushy brow at her thoughtfully, but there was the suggestion of a smile in the corners of his eyes.
“As you like, then, I shall speak very plainly indeed,” he said, leaning forward over the kitchen table as if to include her in some confidence, which Bell supposed, he was, after a fashion, “I have said repeatedly throughout my tale that the dragon must be dealt with, he has weighed heavy on my mind these long years until finally I was persuaded by good timing to seek out Thorin Oakenshield. He is the only other being on the green of the earth that I could conjure as having as much or more motivation than myself to undertake such a task. And more to the point he has the means at his disposal that I do not. Durin’s ring might be lost but there is another artifact that might hold equal sway over the dwarf-lords of the seven kingdoms. When Thror ruled under the mountain he uncovered a gem that he came to call the Arkenstone. The so-called Heart of the Mountain. I suspect the gem was long ago birthed in the heat of a dying star. It is beyond equal, and in the golden age of Erebor when Thror was still a young king the other dwarf-lords swore their allegiance over its glow. If Thorin, the rightful King Under the Mountain, was able to lay hands on that stone it is possible and even likely that the other dwarf-lords would be obliged to muster their armies and face Smaug for control of the mountain. And given the dragon’s age and inactivity I have a great deal of hope that they would succeed in such a venture. The Firebeard clan has ancient methods of dealing with dragons. The tactics set down in the days of Narvi when drakes were far larger and far more numerous. The dwarves know it can be done and they have the means to do it.”
“And what was Clarabelle’s role to be in all this?” asked Bell, a horrible sinking suspicion coming over her.
“Clarabelle was to be the one to retrieve the Arkenstone from the hoard of Smaug.”
There was a ringing silence over the kitchen table at this pronouncement, while Bell reeled at the implications.
“Are you mad? The pair of you?” she demanded, as sharply as she was able with her words feeling so flat and far away, “You wanted to have Clarabelle go into the lair of a living dragon and steal from it? Where she’d be caught and eaten for certain? Either you both are completely out of your minds or you had to be at the leaf for the whole of a day and a night to conjure such a ridiculous plan!”
“Beg pardon but I think it is an eminently sensible plan,” huffed Gandalf. “Smaug has never been further West than the lands around the Mountain and if he ever encountered a hobbit before it would have been in ages long past, during the Wandering. Hobbits are incredibly light on their feet, they pass unseen by bigger folk as soon as their of the mind and they are each of them so instinctively light-fingered it is fortunate they tend to prefer filching cooling pies to coins. The plan was for Clarabelle to journey from the Shire to the Lonely Mountain with Thorin Oakenshield and whatever immediate aid he could muster and slip the Arkenstone out from under Smaug’s sleeping snout. Without a scent of danger to penetrate his dreams Smaug would not sense that aught was amiss until the armies of the dwarves were already upon him and unsealing the Front Gate of Erebor.”
“And what if the blighted dragon was not asleep?” Bell demanded, “What then?”
“Then Clarabelle is small enough and swift enough to escape into Erebor’s depths, where Smaug would be unable to reach her and she’d be able to escape at her leisure and the dwarves of Erebor would likely fight bitterly regardless,” said Gandalf more solemnly, “You must believe me Bellflower neither Clarabelle, nor myself had any intention of being reckless with her life.”
“And what about what the pair of you did not intend? Hmm,” Bell snapped, “What about those things that your oh-so-carefully laid plans did not account for? Such small details as the fact that my sister is yet to return from her last blighted mission, perhaps?”
“And here we come to the point,” said Gandalf, equally as sharp.
Bell frowned heavily, “You can’t mean—surely not?”
“And why not?” said Gandalf, “You are a hobbit and a Took. The youngest and most practical daughter of Belladonna, you are a perfect candidate for the task.”
“Dear lady, I do believe you are serious,” muttered Bell, incredulous, “I am a Baggins! The Baggins! Of Bag End! I’m not like my sister, nor even my mother—Gandalf, I am the Mistress of an estate not a brave warrior or an intrepid adventurer. I’ve never been farther past the borders of the Shire than Frogmorton, and frankly my idea of a challenging pest is a dandelion, not a dragon!”
The Wizard made a harrumphing type of noise and gave her a very stubborn look.
“Even if all that were entirely true, which, mark me, I’m not convinced that it is, the fact of the matter is this; you have a kind and tender heart Bellflower Baggins, and a remarkable sense of duty that is at the core of a Baggins. The dwarves of Erebor cannot succeed in this venture without you, they crave above all else the return of their homeland, the safety of their kin, and they will march on the Mountain now regardless of anything any other being might have to say on the matter. Without the advantage you can provide them they will fail. They will wake the dragon in their attempts and it will lay waste to his neighbours in his fury and perhaps woken and riled and terribly cunning he will ally with the shade of the Great Enemy and be used to terrible effect.”
“I do believe you are trying to make me feel guilty for not wanting to be eaten,” said Bell, jumping up from her seat in indignation, “And I will say I don’t appreciate being spoken to in such a manner in my own home!”
“You yourself bade me to speak my mind and I have Bellflower Baggins,” snapped the Wizard, “I have explained as plainly and fully as I am capable, what I feel must be done and why I feel it must be done.”
He was right of course, as he laid it out before her like a seamstress with a bolt of new cloth to sell Bell could see the consequences of such a failure rolling out before her into a bleak, dark future. And perhaps if Bell was a Bracegirdle or a Proudfoot she might stubbornly refuse to believe that any of that darkness could touch the Shire. But she wasn’t. She was a Baggins of Bag End, sturdy and practical to a fault, and she was a Took and one of the few hobbits outside Tuckborough who truly knew how the wider world did in fact touch on their borders and just what was required to keep that contact so blessedly minimal.
“And why should I have to be the one to do it?” she asked quietly. “Why did you come to me?”
Gandalf deflated somewhat at that.
“I wish I did not have to, Bellflower, believe you me, I would like nothing more than to stand shield between darkness and the world. But that is beyond me, and not for me to decide in any case. Many believe that it is only great strength that keeps darkness at bay, but I have found that this is not so. Kindness, courage, selfless acts of friendship and love—in the end it is always these small acts of people doing the best that they may that do the most good. Once I would have overlooked you, sought to shelter you, perhaps, from the seriousness of the path now laid before your feet. You are needed on this quest Bellflower Baggins, I know it as I know my own name. The truth of it feels writ upon my very bones, but to help or to not…it is your decision to make. I should not have pushed you so, my dear. I am sorry.”
“I—I need a moment,” she said, fleeing into her father’s study.
Bell felt her breath speeding up and her head going foggy. She pressed her hands against the desk there until her knuckles were white and aching from the strain hoping to find some solid ground.
In the hall the clock chimed the hour for luncheon, but for once Bell had no appetite. Standing there, at the desk looking down at the ledger she’d been studying yesterday afternoon but not really seeing it Bell felt as though the rest of the world fell away, leaving her on her little island of Bag End. Safe, safe at home as she’d been for nearly twenty years while her sister went on adventures and faced untold dangers and she was so, so alone. And Clarabelle was gone.
For all the Wizard’s talk of dooms both long past and yet to be that was the thing that struck her the hardest. Her sister had disappeared and she hadn’t known that anything was seriously amiss, and now that she did know there was not a blighted thing she could do about it. Except that that wasn’t true. Not exactly. Whether Clara was dead or alive the fact of it was that she had decided to do this insane task, and she’d want it seen to.
Bell wasn’t like her mother and sister, she didn’t itch to get the road under her feet, nor did she crave excitement. But she knew a great deal about duty, and love and doing the right proper thing even if it wasn’t the done thing. Even if she was afraid.
She’d never let fear stop her before, not when it mattered. When the petitions came in to have her removed as Mistress of Bag End and the Hill she’d been so terribly afraid that she would lose it all while Clara was away, her home and her purpose snatched away. She’d though there was no greater fear than the one she felt standing before the Mayor and pleading her case. And then a pack of wild dogs had made free of one of her protectorates sheep and she’d thought then that she would faint from terror even as she stood with the Bounders and shot the big feral beasts full of arrows.
She’d never let fear keep her from doing what she thought needed doing before, and she wasn’t about to start now.
There was a small portrait of her mother and Clarabelle sitting on the desk in easy view. Her father had placed it there and Bell had never been able to bring herself to move it so much as an inch. She picked it up now and smoothed her thumb over the bumps and ridges of the paint.
“I know what I must do but I’m afraid,” she told them, voice softer than a whisper. “Help me be brave.”
There was no answer from the painting of course, but Bell still felt a little better for having made the decision. Better to have a purpose, a directive, then to flounder about in guilt and grief. She dashed her sleeves over her eyes though she didn’t remember crying and calmly as she was able she sent herself back down the hall to the kitchen.
Gandalf was still there, a cloud of pipe smoke brooding around his head like a storm cloud.
“Alright,” she said, catching his attention, smoothing her hands down the front of her skirts and standing up a little straighter as his keen blue eyes settled on her.
“Alright?”
“Alright,” she repeated more briskly, “I agree to take part this raving lunacy. I will help you and these dwarves as best as I may. What needs to be done?”