Chapter Text
A long time ago, in a land now forever changed, there lived many species that are lost to the world today.
We know of the hobbits of course, and the dwarves. Of the men and the elves and the orcs, but today our story begins with a pixie.
In our world of Disney and modern fairy tales pixies are portrayed as beautiful women no bigger than a thimble, but this was not the truth of the pixies of yore.
They were small of course, this is true, but not so small as to measure with your thumb.
No, in truth the height of pixies could range from the waist of the average hobbit or even to his shoulders— but never did they stand taller than this. Never had a hobbit and a pixie stood eye to eye.
So you can see, pixies were indeed quite small— and it is with a pixie our story today begins.
It was a good morning, a very good morning indeed as Kleeia walked up the path to Bilbo Baggins’ house. Like a hobbit, she was barefoot.
Unlike a hobbit, her feet were not leathery nor covered in hair. They were actually rather dainty. Instead of the protection offered by the large, leathery, hairy hobbit feet, the earth itself seemed to accommodate her every step. Thorny plants withdrew from her path and rocks and stones rolled out from underfoot before she could step on their sharp edges, with the warm soil of the path seeming to rise up to meet her halfway.
“Good morning!” Bilbo was settled comfortably on a seat in his front garden, a long pipe clutched in one hand. He greeted her cheerily, smiling that warm smile he inherited from the Bagginses.
“Good morning, Bilbo! Isn’t the weather just lovely?” She swung his gate open in a move of familiarity before joining him on the bench with a grin, pulling the basket she’d had tucked against her hip into her lap.
“Quite quite! What a morning.”
She couldn't help the amused grin that crept across her face and quickly looked away.
Hobbits and their small talk.
“Well, I’ve brought you those herbs you requested.” She pulled the cloth covering her shallow basket aside, revealing several neatly bundled herbs tied with simple twine. “I threw in a couple good for the nose. The sniffles are going around you know.”
“Your kindness is unnecessary but much appreciated, Kleeia.” He took the basket from her and rustled through it as he beamed. “My meals will taste splendid with these herbs and my nose will not run. Brilliant, just brilliant.”
“Your many, many meals,” she teased with a laugh, crinkling her nose at her friend’s offended look.
“We hobbits eat a proper amount, thank you very much,” he sniffed. “Here in the Shire you are the outlier.”
“I’m well aware.” They grinned at each other, neither noticing the shadow that fell over them at that moment.
“And just what is wrong with standing out from the crowd, Bilbo Baggins?”
Both their heads snapped to the tall, oh so very tall, man standing outside the gate of Bag End, his stature apparent despite the way he leaned on his walking stick. His voice was jolly but firm, a grandfatherly tone that commanded both love and respect, one she’d only ever heard the Old Took manage to master and even he fell short of this gray-bearded man.
“Oh–” Biblo replied, a tad wary of the stranger. He shared a glance with his friend before his Baggins upbringing took effect. He greeted this newcomer with a mild smile and a dip of the head as courtesy demanded. “Good morning.”
“What do you mean? Do you mean to wish me a good morning, or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I wish it or not? Or, perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning, or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?”
Bilbo Baggins looked bewildered, and Kleeia couldn’t help the snicker that snuck from her lips that her hand quickly tried to cover— her kind were known for being mischievous after all, it was only in her nature.
The hobbit’s eyes were wide and flickered from the strange man’s face and the woman beside him a few times before he managed to scramble together a response.
“Uh… all of them at once I suppose.”
Another snicker earned her a quick glare.
The stranger was clearly far from pleased with the reply and gave Bilbo a look not at all unlike the ones Kleeia had seen many a woman give her misbehaving faunts at the marketplace. She tightened the hand covering her mouth to stifle another laugh threatening to break free.
“And you, Kleeia of the Fire and Flesh! Sitting there snickering like a fool or a child. Which is it?”
The color drained from her face at the way in which he addressed her.
Fire and flesh?
The flesh part she understood, as she was a healer like her mother before her and therefore her trade was in flesh, but fire? No. She was not of the Fire.
“What?”
“Which are you? A child or a fool?” It bewildered her the way in which this man looked at them both with such familiarity, scolding them as if he were their kin.
When she simply narrowed her eyes and didn’t answer he gave a distinct hrumph and turned back to Bilbo who looked just as confused as she felt.
“I’m sorry, can I help you?”
“That remains to be seen,” his eyes twinkled now, mischief dancing in their depths, and Kleeia almost thought she saw him send her an impossibly fast wink. “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure.”
Bilbo’s jaw dropped and his pipe fell into his lap as a result—or, well, fell into her basket of herbs as a result, tipping on its side and spilling tobacco ash onto the fresh green herbs she’d so carefully selected for him.
Kleeia sent him a scowl that had him quickly snatching his pipe back up and dusting off her basket and herbs with an apologetic look sent her way.
“An adventure?” He turned back to the Stranger, frown etched deeply into his face. “Now I don’t imagine anyone west of Bree would have much interest in adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner,” he huffed as if this was the worst possible outcome of a dangerous adventure in the wild… that one might be late to dinner.
The horror.
Bilbo passed the basket back to Kleeia who pulled it into her lap and took to ensuring none of its contents had been burned or spoiled by the hot ash that had escaped her hobbit friend’s pipe. When she glanced up Bilbo was now at his mailbox rifling through the letters there and pointedly not looking at the Stranger who turned from the small hobbit to wink at the even smaller woman perched before him.
So she hadn’t imagined that wink from before.
Still pretending to sort his mail, Bilbo made his way back through his gate—decisevly latched it— and then moved towards his house with a prompting gesture towards his friend and a “Good morning” tossed over his shoulder to the Stranger.
Kleeia bit back a smile at the politely rude dismissal so favored by hobbits, sucking her lips into her mouth as she stood and moved to follow Bilbo into his home. He clearly didn’t want her left with this stranger— this disturber of the peace; he might suck her into an adventure after all! And then she might be late to their regular dinner appointment!
She nodded politely to the Stranger as she went, earning a loud snort as he straightened up and arched a brow.
“To think I would live long enough to be ‘good-morning’d’ by Belladonna Took’s son as if I were selling buttons at the door.”
Bilbo stopped walking and turned so suddenly at the sound of his mother’s name that Kleeia nearly ran headfirst into his chest and only a graceful side step spared her the embarrassment.
“Beg your pardon?”
The old man’s eyes roved Bilbo’s form, narrowed in scrutiny and mouth twisted slightly in an unnamable emotion. “You’ve changed, and not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins.”
Kleeia watched as realization dawned on Bilbo, a realization she herself had been attempting to ignore.
How did he know their names?
His eyes were assessing now too as he looked the old man over. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
The taller of the three huffed and leaned once more against his walking stick— it looked expensive, Kleeia noticed in an aside to herself, beautifully but naturally carved of a twisting branch— and pointed his own pipe annoyedly at Bilbo before puffing on it.
“Well, you know my name, although you don’t remember I belong to it!” Another puff of his pipe. “I’m Gandalf, and Gandalf means me.”
Kleeia laughed delightedly at that and bounced on her toes. She remembered the last time the renowned Gandalf had passed through Hobbiton. It had been maybe twenty years past, at one of her first Midsummers Eve celebrations as a woman grown and the party had certainly been one to remember.
Bilbo too seemed somewhat delighted, in his own mild-mannered way, and he smiled around his pipe. “Not Gandalf, the wandering wizard, who made such excellent fireworks! Old Took used to have them on Midsummers Eve.” He paused and his brows furrowed and he turned to give a look to Kleeia before turning back to the man now known as the wizard Gandalf. “I had no idea you were still in business.”
“Bilbo!” Kleeia once more let out a laugh at the way in which her dear friend put his foot so firmly in his mouth, the wizard giving him a scathing look in response.
“And where else should I be?”
“Well…” Bilbo trailed off awkwardly and scratched at the back of his head as he became aware of his social blunder.
Kleeia stepped forward. “Nowhere of course, dear Gandalf. The world would be much poorer without your marvelous fireworks to celebrate with.” Kleeia sent him a smile, patting Bilbo on the back reassuringly and allowing him a moment to recover as the wizard focused on her instead.
His eyes twinkled at her once more and a soft smile curled up his lips before those old, old eyes turned back to the hobbit.
“Well, I’m pleased to find you remember something about me, even if it’s only my fireworks.” He paused for a moment and looked them both over as if searching for something unknown and, after a minute, he seemed to find it as resolution hardened his face and he gave a firm nod. “Well then, that’s decided. It will be very good for you and most amusing for me. I shall inform the others.” His focus turned solely to her. “Hmmm. Yes, yes. It’ll be good for you as well, my dear. Sixteen it shall be.”
Before he’d even finished his sentence, Bilbo was already furtively shaking his head, clearly flustered. He took several steps back, mail tucked under his arm and hand wrapping around Kleeia’s elbow to draw her backward alongside him.
“Inform the who? What? No, no, no! We do not want any adventures here, not Kleeia either, thank you! Not today!” His words tumbled from his mouth in a clumsy, hurried rush as he continued pulling Kleeia up towards the round, green door. “I suggest you try somewhere Over-the-Hill or Across-the-Water! Good morning.”
That last ‘good morning’ held no more pretense of politeness like the others did. Rather, it was quite clearly a dismissal and made no attempt to seem otherwise which Kleeia could not disguise her grin at.
Bilbo Baggins had always been different from his kin. A little more Took than Baggins she felt, not that she’d ever tell him so. It made sense— they were friends for a reason after all.
The door closed solidly behind them and Bilbo wasted no time sliding the lock home as Kleeia simply shook her head and moved to place her basket on a nearby table.
“That was rather rude.”
She was answered with an aggressive “Shhhhhhh!” and rolled her eyes, turning to see Bilbo pressed against the door as if the wizard would try to break it down and he would need to hold it close through his own strength.
She huffed and opened her mouth to chide him only to be interrupted by the most peculiar sound.
It was almost a kind of scraping, grating, carving sound— somewhat high pitched and unnatural.
Bilbo’s head whipped her way and his wide eyes met her own as they shared a bewildered look before they both scrambled over to the window. Smushed together, with shoulders crunched uncomfortably against each other and noses pressed to the glass, the pair of friends held back the curtains and craned their necks in an attempt to view the backset door only to be able to see nothing but the blue, blue sky.
And then a large, wide eye was pressed to the other side of the glass, scraggles of grey hair dangling before it as it took them in sharply.
Its sudden appearance startled the smaller folk tucked within the hobbit hole— a warm hole, one that meant comfort and food and home— and they both squawked in a rather undignified manner as they flew backwards onto their arses and hands, chests heaving with heavy breaths.
“Well then,”Kleeia panted, and the two shared a baffled look as the eye of Gandalf disappeared and left nothing but the blue sky within sight once more.