Chapter Text
Chapter One
Thrain, or so he had introduced himself, had been an old dwarf (distinguished, Belladonna liked to call it, he had been distinguished). He had a beard and was very dwarf-ish in his doings, even if he was as batty as a rock. He would talk of mining and gems before jumping to orcs and how, if the sun stood slightly-so, the grass was wont to grow oddly.
So Thrain was fun, very fun.
He wasn't even that wrinkly, so when she saw him shed his armour (a dwarfish masterpiece, she was told) to bathe in a creek she didn't waste a moment to pounce.
Oh-so fun, that Thrain. Oh-so fun.
And then they split ways and sometime later she began to show. She was home, by that time, because she loved her husband dearly (and he her enough to forgive her promiscuity when on adventures outside the Shire). She told Bungo, because she owed him that much, and he had shrugged and said "okay".
"Okay?" Belladonna had repeated incredulously.
And her husband had merely shrugged again, "I can't do much about it now, can I? And you're here now, with me. So it's okay, I suppose."
The love she felt for Bungo could not be described with words, for they would sell it short, but if she were to try it would be that he was her air. He was the home she could return to, the arms that would hold and cherish her and a presence that would never waver no matter what she did. He was every breath she took and he was as unwavering in his devotion of her as if he were the sun, he was always there when she needed him most. He accepted her quirks and her bad habits, and she loved him for it.
And then Bilbo was born and Belladonna found that, perhaps, her love for her child eclipsed that what she felt for her husband.
Belladonna had expected the midwife to crow: "it's not her husband's child, look at its deformities! It is a dwarf-hobbit child! Woe is the unfaithful wretch who bore this monstrosity!". But the midwife didn't, merely handled her the wrapped bundle with a raspy "it's a boy!" before dragging Bungo into the room and leaving them to their peace for a moment.
And Bilbo was as normal as any other fauntling, down to the brown curls on his head and the wisps of hair on his feet. A proper hobbit babe, if you didn't know better.
And when Bungo held him, proud as new fathers were wont to be, all was right in her world.
Bilbo had been a quiet babe, a bit fussy but otherwise a content little fauntling. He was the envy of her cousins, who had children of their own who wined and kept them up late at night. But Bilbo slept through the nights and could stare at shiny baubles and mathoms for what seemed like hours on end (unless he could get his pudgy little hands on them, then he would chew on them for a few minutes and cry horribly when she or Bungo tried to take them away).
And he didn't suddenly sprout a beard or a moustache or even some sideburns. He had been a big babe though, bigger than any other, the midwife had said. He seemed to grow a bit slower than his peers, but Belladonna simply told the other mothers that was so that the others could catch up in size. He was, after all, quite a bit bigger than his cousins.
Bilbo had been a solemn child, which was odd compared to his quite rambunctious toddler years where he seemed to turn from a pudgy, calm fauntling to a goblin-changeling. He spoke a bit oddly sometimes, his words not always coming out right in old-fashioned Hobbitish and some of the words he said in Westron even her grandfather hadn't heard of.
He was diligent and kind but he was as sharp as her sister Mirabella's kitchen knife and, when angered, seemed to carry on his grudges for ages. Where other fauntlings forgive-and-forget he seemed to nurture his grudge to the point where it should be given its own smial so it could have the room it desired.
But he still didn't sprout that beard his true father had had (and what a beard it was!) or suddenly decide that he was best off mining for gems instead of playing conkers in the fields.
But he knew things even she and Bungo didn't know. He told stories of Khazad-dûm and its grandness. He introduced 'war' to the fauntlings ever-growing list of games and would divide them into two teams before the brawl started. And Bilbo would be the general whose loud voice carried down to Bagshot Row shouting instructions to his army as they fought and grappled and, occasionally, bit.
Bilbo would hum songs she hadn't ever heard before and could recount poetry she though made no sense. He would weave tales of dwarves and elves and gods. There were countless more things Belladonna could not explain, like how his words would sometimes have a certain weight about them as if he were king addressing his people. Or like how sometimes she'd catch him blinking owlishly as he was reading a book before clambering over to her asking "this isn't right, is it?".
But he was a solemn child in all else, he would treat an 'injured' playmate like a delicate doily. Would bow low and ask for forgiveness and swear vengeance on those who hurt them and offering whatever help he could to rectify the situation. And when he come, face as solemn as an elf's she'd ask him what was wrong.
"Bess fell," he would declare, meeting her eyes dejectedly and saying the words slowly.
The he would go on about how she had skinned her knees and how he understood if Bess's mother wished to exact vengeance or wanted him to undergo some sort of punishment for harming her daughter.
Belladonna laughed about her wonderful, odd son for a long time that day.
Then the Fell Winter came and Belladonna refused to cry for what was lost in those horribly-cold months. She refused to mourn the loss of Bilbo's innocence (sometimes, she'd sit in her rocking chair and wonder if he ever had been truly innocent in the first place).
Because when she saw her boy, barely a tween, rush towards the wolves with a torch in one hand and old Roper's axe in the other she swore she'd kill whoever dared hurt her little boy. And when she saw him cut a clear path through fur and filthy hide she'd later swear up and down that no, she hadn't taught him that.
And then Bilbo would bellow that war cry of his, roar words neither she nor any other Hobbit understood as he cut down all those who dared stand in his way.
And when he returned home, hours after the ‘battle’ had already been won and all other Hobbits who had dared make a stand gone home as well he came back bearing the skins of the wolves he'd slain. He would later spent hours in a far corner of the sitting room, cursing with those odd words of his as he tried to fashion a cloak out of the hides. His eyes squinting as he refused to get close enough to the fire so that he'd not hurt his eyes as much.
Bilbo was twenty-three when he first went to the market in Bree to purchase shaving cream and the best razor blades Man could make. He would shave his face daily but sometimes Belladonna would catch him looking in the mirror longingly.
When asked he would always respond with a shrug, "I suppose I am a Hobbit, am I not? And Hobbits don't like beards very much."
Looking back, she should have known that that answer meant more than she thought it did.
Bungo died and Belladonna knew that she would not last long either, not when the very air in her lungs had been taken from her. So she told him, and he held her when the sobs wrecked through her body. He patted her back and sang softly to her as she hiccupped her story and cried about how Bungo had lovedlovedloved him like his own. How she loved him, how he was perfect and beautiful and so wonderfully odd and right in every way that counted-
And he held her when the tears had passed and she would catch her breath in between tales of Bungo and how she met his true father and he held her when she dissolved in sobs again.
Later he would look her in the eye and smile kindly before leaning forward to whisper "I already knew" to her.
Belladonna died knowing she had raised a wonderful son but she also mourned that she would have to leave him so soon. But her Bungo was waiting for her, and she so wished for her lungs to fill with fresh air once again and to be held by her husband's arms that she almost didn't mind that much.
Almost.
And then, one sunny morning, Gandalf returned to the Shire.