Chapter Text
There is so much Everything
that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.
(from “Reality Demands”, Wislawa Szymborska)
1: THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER
Bilbo Baggins never forgot a story told. That was not to say he was in any way associated with the gossipmongers at the market and at the flower stalls, with nothing better to do than to make up nonsense out of even more incredulous nonsense. He did not care a whit what Percy Periwinkle and his strange city-Hobbit companion wore to the faire in summer, nor did the drastic haircut Medallia Proudfoot saw fit to wear bother him the least.
The stories Bilbo Baggins took with him were stories told in great halls he had never actually been in. There were Elves there, and Big People, roaring and raving and going on quests. There were all sorts of strange and wonderful things that did not of course exist in the Shire, but that Bilbo conjured up in his mind instead, as he spent hours upon hours out in the midmorning sun climbing trees, exploring borders, discovering muddy rabbit holes. A typical Took boy, if there was any, maybe only slightly Tookier than his kin.
He fought a smirk as he regarded the vaguely Hobbit-shaped assortment of twigs and mud before him.
“Not a page until you run a bath, and scrub yourself pink.”
“But I—“
“I had thought it was a bog monster come at my door and sit for supper.”
“No, see—“
“To the baths.”
Blue eyes twinkled at him, disconcertingly familiar, and, as it was wont to happen more often these days, Bilbo thought he was looking at a younger version of himself. Surely the Took in small Frodo had been tempered by the more sensible Baggins side of his family? Or perhaps it was the Brandybuck in him, quick-thinking and not a little sly, though the boy would not have known it.
Your nephews' tracks are still apparent on the floor, if you must know. I am still waiting for remuneration.
Twigs trailed Frodo to the backroom baths, and Bilbo only shook his head and smiled. Of course they boy would crest the Hill, venture to the outskirts of Overhill (he would have a word with the boy, it was rush snake season in the light woods), where the best trees for climbing swayed.
There, hidden in the branches of trees already ancient when the first Thain of the Shire opened his eyes to the world, Nattlebrook the Nimble hid, daring no breath, no movement, until after the entire Elven entourage had passed underbranch. For there were scores of them; in shimmering velvet hoods, in scintillating traveling cloaks, astride mounts with manes like spun silver.
Of course there would be nothing but rolling hills and Hobbit holes as far as the eye could see, even when one was perched on the Overhill's tallest tree, but that was hardly an impediment to a young Hobbit lad's imagination.
The splashing of water and a high-pitched voice singing summer songs could be heard faintly from behind the door. Sweeping Frodo's trail clean, Bilbo made for his study, allowing himself perhaps a good hour or so before the boy would finally wind down and, bleary-eyed, be ready for bed, ready for his story. There would be time enough for Bilbo to tell his story first.
A storyteller's time was never his own. Not even after years and years of waiting.
From amongst the parchments and Correspondences Of The Utmost Importance scattered about his desk, beneath the hefty leather-bound tome with maps and strange words on them, Bilbo extricated a simple grey-bound book. No markings adorned its cover, and when he opened it to the page he had last been in, there were no captivating drawings in ink to accompany what was written.
Just as I thought, this would be good for three seasons. Soon, as autumn comes along, I shall have to acquire a fresh journal.
There were others like it, from countless summers and autumns past—had it been already been past twenty years!—discreet in their keeping, hidden in the many chests he kept around the house. This would be one of many.
“By Old Took's foot,” he mused, the reality of all the years passed sinking into him heavily like so much sand. The ghost of all the Bilbos who had sat on this chair all those forty years, faithfully putting quill to paper seemed to brush him lightly, so that he shivered, even if it was only a passing breeze.
But I shan't keep you waiting, he thought. My own. I have much to tell you about the metalcraft the Bree folk brought with them for Trading Day. The entire Shire approved. No doubt you, with your skill, would have been thoroughly offended at the careless make of even their 'finest' blades.
Bilbo never forgot a story told, as not all stories are revealed in words. Words are only necessary to piece together fragments of what had been lost, and even then, they change as they are written.
There are stories of an impossible affection, the strain it would bring, and the triumph, from a single brush of a hand against hair. There is a story in a king's eyes when they search you quietly, and you can hear the same in the thud-thud-thudding of his proud heart against your ear, as he presses you flush against him.
Bilbo set down his quill, squeezed his right hand into a fist and slowly opened it, so that the little crescents of his nails marked his palm.
The gentians are a riotous blue in the backgarden, but they are of a deeper and far more brilliant variation than they were last season. Strange. So deep, in fact, that in the twilight they seem to glow.
A whimsical thought occurred to Bilbo, and he chuckled softly to himself even as he wrote it down.
Perhaps they glow blue because the Sackville-Bagginses have come by so very often. Worse than orcs, and far more consistent. You are lucky to be removed of their attentions.
Yet even as he wrote it, the words changed: instead of the casual jibe it was meant to be, it also said: you are not with me and my kin cannot be yours.
“Uncle?”
The boy crept up to his elbow so stealthily, Bilbo had not noticed. The little burglar, he thought, though the voice that said it in his head was not his own. Frodo had dressed himself for bed, scrubbed clean of the day's grime.
“Well what is this! I had taken you for a small hobgoblin, crashing the baths. You actually now do resemble a certain nephe—”
“Uncleeee,” Frodo whined, grinning, recognizing the tease. He clung to his uncle's sleeve tightly, pulling him up from the chair. “I wan' hear about the Elves!”
“Goodness gracious Frodo, we had the Elves yesterday!” Feigning grumpiness, Bilbo nevertheless allowed himself to be tugged away from his desk.
The smaller Hobbit pinched his face in annoyance. “I had forgotten. How their ships looked like. Right down to their dresses, I had it. I could even tell where West was—“ and he licked his finger and held it out as if to feel the wind— “but I'd forgotten the ships, and the songs they sing! I had it all set up proper!”
“Properly.”
“Properly.” He deflated. “They disappeared by the Bridgefields, before they could get to the water.” The boy looked cross with himself.
So he had been on the treetops imagining Nat the Nimble. Bilbo tucked the boy in as Frodo clambered onto his bed, and with a long-suffering sigh, lit a fresh candle to let stand by the bedside table. Oh, this boy's heart had wings, Bilbo felt, and he prayed dearly that Frodo should never find occasion to clip them, as he himself once did.
And if he does, Bilbo thought quietly, may a stranger with a quest find this door one fine evening, as you did, and take him away to live his own tale.
Big blue eyes blinked at him owlishly in the semi-dark. From the half-opened windows, a light breeze slipped in, quiet as a thief, rustling the pages of his journal and the curls on his head. When briefly Bilbo closed his eyes, he thought he could hear, instead of the wind-sweet elven melody he was prepared to speak of, the deeper, timorous humming of an unexpected dinner guest smoking by his fireplace.
“The ships then,” he began, and Frodo curled into the bedclothes eagerly. “The ships they sail for home. Why, of course we must begin again with home.”