Chapter Text
Back in her rooms, swaddled in the softest blankets Dori could find, curled up in her favourite chair dressed in her coziest pyjama’s, one arm in a sling and her free hand holding a steaming cup of molten chocolate mixed with milk Belba waited. There was a vibrating tension in the room, as slowly her home filled with Dwarrow. Court was over, though the Lords still deliberated, her presence was no longer required as they awaited the verdict and sentencing. That part of the proceedings was not open to public display, and for that Belba was grateful. As soon as she’d been dismissed, the brother’s Ri had spirited her away and out of public view. Those not held to the courts slowly trickled in, as they always seemed to, and they assisted Belba in re-Hobbit-ing herself. Dori helped her Store the magnificent dress and Nori undid her braids, except for her adoption braid. Ori checked her wounds until Oin could return and bullied her into the sling she was supposed to be wearing but refused to do so in public. None of them mentioned her revelations, no-doubt awaiting the inevitable family meeting.
Belba was grateful for the time to decompress and process her sudden onslaught of memories, when she left her bedroom, she was bundled up and deposited in her chair like an invalid. She would have squawked her disgruntlement but as soon as she tried Bifur swept Frodo away, Bombur placed a teacake in her open mouth and Bofur shoved the cup of ‘hot chocolate’ in her hand. Too stunned to do anything Belba chewed the cake mechanically as she watched her Dwarrow prepare the seating around her living room into everyone’s preferred spots, each taking turns to fuss with Frodo and regularly feeding both Hobbits cakes and treats. If it weren’t for how emotionally exhausted, she was, and the way her head was finally starting to clear, she might have protested or been offended.
When Oin arrived he gave an approving harrumph at her, clearly pleased she was wearing the sling, Dwalin ruffled her hair affectionately before being unceremoniously shoved out of the way by Dis who hugged her firmly yet carefully. The rest, including the princes, just milled around pottering clearly keeping busy to distract themselves from their burning curiosity or disgruntlement over her testimony.
Thorin and Balin were the last to arrive, and as it often did when the King entered, the room stilled and went quiet. Thorin took his seat and the other’s followed, everyone waiting for his next words.
“There was some… disagreement amongst the council.” Thorin began, he looked tired. “But we expected that. Most of the pushback came from the older advisors, Dwarrow more angry about the damn Arkenstone than the assault. They wanted to punish Belba rather than her attackers.”
“Damn shortsighted fools,” Gloin grumbled, and the rest of the company nodded.
“A fact Balin eloquently brought to their attention,” Thorin gave his cousin a side-eyed smirk which told Belba that perhaps her friend and kin had lost his temper during the exchange. “In the end it came to a vote, and while we won the vote to convict” a cheer went up but was short lived as Thorin’s grim expression. “My concern is that 3 of the 10 are still adamantly opposed, and while they will abide by the vote, they represent a greater percentage of Erebor. It shows that our war is not truly won.”
“Maybe so but today ended in victory and that at least should be celebrated.” Dis reminded and Thorin reluctantly nodded, before his eyes swung to Belba who tried to disappear into her mountain of blankets.
“Though it, I think, it not our only concern for this meeting is it gratifying that they will be punished. The bastards will be exiled and barred from return to Erebor, the shearing will stand as justified compensations paid. Sadly, I could not inflict harsher punishments as they are not Ereborian citizens. I hope that this outcome is acceptable to all, if less than desired.”
A grumbling of agreement went through the room, each of the Dwarrow wanting to tear the pair apart, and yet they were forced to follow protocol. All eyes fell to Belba, as the wounded party the final say was hers.
“Taking their lives benefits no one but continues the cycle of bloodshed, let them limp away with their tattered pride, living with the shame will hurt them more than a swift end ever could.” Belba announced, she had no desire to be the cause of another death… but she was okay with being cursed from afar as the cause of a wounded ego.
“Then we shall rest the matter there,” Balin nodded, eyeing Belba cautiously. “Now I am sure we all have many things to say or questions to ask here however…” an exasperated huff escaped the older Dwarrow’s lips, “it is important not to overwhelm our dear Hobbit so I suggest a limit. One question per person, and only one at a time so there are no arguments.”
Balin looked pointedly around the room and though Belba knew there was no escaping her family’s interrogation she was glad Balin put in some boundaries, at least then she might now have to answer the same question 13 times.
“I’d like to put in a condition also,” Dis announced, as she eyed the males around her. “Belba holds the right of refusal, she will not be forced or coerced to answer anything she is not willing to share, but if she does choose to answer she does so honestly.”
There was a shared look of surprise that rippled through the room, perhaps because they were all male or perhaps because they were Dwarrow, the concept of privacy was always a foreign on to them. The younger members seemed inclined to argue but Dis stared them down and a collective nod when through the room, Belba felt her lungs relax and her breathe became less strained. She hadn’t even noticed the extra tension, nor how much she did want to be honest with her family.
The Dwarrow in the room went silent, knowing they only had one question made them pause to ensure they only asked the one that really mattered to them.
Oin went first, his question probably the easiest to anticipate but perhaps not the easiest to answer.
“Are you in pain, lass?” His look told her not to answer if she couldn’t do so honestly, and somehow, she knew he wasn’t speaking only of her physical pain so Belba paused a moment. Took a sip of her hot chocolate and shook the blanket barricade off just enough that she could take stock of her body.
“The simple answer? Yes.” The room was silence bar Frodo’s happy babbling. “But I doubt that’s what you’re truly asking. Yes, I am in pain, between the new wounds and the old I am always in pain, it is just the severity that differs. Some days are good days, and it is a dull ache I can ignore, a familiar throb or itch that I’m so used to that I forget to notice it. It doesn’t affect my daily life, but it is still there. On the bad days, it’s a battle of get out of bed, but I try not to let it rule my life so I shove it into a box and ignore it. Why should I let the pain of the past keep stealing the joy of the present?” Belba gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“So, are all of your memories back now?” Ori asked, looking at Belba cautiously but the Hobbit shook her head.
“I don’t think so, there are gaps… but it’s started coming back at least. I’ve been having dreams for a while, nightmares really. Some of them were old memories I recognised and others… well I am starting to think that they are the memories I’d lost. I can’t know for sure if I have them all, or if I even want them back… but it seems they’re coming through regardless.”
“What do you remember?” Balin continued
“Well, it’s all a bit fuzzy but I remember everything in the mountain clear enough. Thing get choppy after the parapet. Its like walking in a dream, like my body was in one place but my mind another. I remember being taken to a tent, it felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my chest was being ripped apart by wolves. I remember Ori singing to me, I don’t know when he arrived by the burning in my chest lessened when he did.” Belba looked to Ori, the pain in his eyes mirrored her own and she did not wipe at the tears which fell.
“But then I woke up and he was gone, I was cold and alone again. I heard a noise, I thought… I thought you were all fighting with the elves again, I thought I could stop it maybe. When I tried to leave the tent, I saw the Orc and Goblins. I was afraid, because I knew you’d be out there, risking your lives like fools and I couldn’t… I couldn’t stand the idea of living in a world where you all weren’t. I couldn’t find you but when I saw Azog I knew, I knew that he would be looking for the line of Durin and if I could follow him I could find you…
“I ran through the field doing as Dwalin taught me, slicing at vulnerable points but never stopping, I just kept running to that hill. My body hurt, my lungs were burning, I was so exhausted, but I just kept running. I just needed to see you wall again, safe, that’s all I was thinking about. Things get a little fuzzy there again. I remember leaping from the brush trying to ambush Azog, but his Warg got me by the shoulder,” Belba would have rubbed the old wound if her arms weren’t both occupied.
“It didn’t hurt, I remember thinking it was strange that nothing hurt. I remember swinging at the Warg, I remember a flood of blood and being thrown. Then everything is hazy again, like I was floating in the sky. It was so blue, so peaceful, I didn’t want to leave. Then it’s all darkness until Beorn’s…” Belba shrugged, it didn’t really need mentioning that within that darkness she’d thought herself to be in her own endless afterlife of loneliness and pain. That… that wouldn’t help anyone to know and was not something she wished to dwell on, especially when she still wasn’t sure if it was real.
Dwalin looked at the Hobbit, his angry body language and gruff voice an attempt to hide the wetness in his eyes. “Why? What were you thinking running into battle alone and unprotected? No armour, not shield, nothing!”
Belba knew this was less of a question for her and more of an admonishment to himself for failing to provide her those things, she gave him a soft smile.
“I needed to find my family, it was all I could thing of. Besides I wasn’t unprotected, I had the two most powerful weapons I could have. Hobbit swiftness and Dwarven training directly from the Captain of the Guard himself. A shield and armour would have slowed me down and we both know it. Stop blaming yourself, we’ve all done enough of that.”
Bofur, eyes watery, looked at Belba and asked the question she’d been waiting for but didn’t know how to answer. “The fading… is it… are you… dying?”
“That, is not so easy to answer.” Belba paused and looked into her mug for a long moment, feeling that aching numbness in her chest which she fought to ignore. “The easy answer is yes, but then so are we all.” Belba didn’t look up, she knew the grief she would see if she did.
“While the fading cannot be stopped, it cannot be erased it can be fought and slowed. If you have something to night for. My mother held on for me after the loss of my father but every day was a battle within her very soul, it is hard to explain the fading but it is like a dumbness within the core of your being that wipes everything else away, washes the world in grey until there is no joy or light left, until there is no difference between waking or sleeping, until there is nothing. Luckily the cause of my fading was not the same as my mother’s, who could never again see her greatest love and could not image a life without him. Mine was triggered by the loss of family, a family I have not only regained but grown. While there is no cure for the fading and it is something I will likely battle for the rest of my days, I am no longer in a world without light. All of you here give me something to hold on for, something to fight for, and with that I do not believe I will fall to the fading anytime soon. I’ve heard some Elves can last centuries through fading, I’m sure I can hang on for at least 50 years…”
“50 years… but you are only 48… Belba how long do Hobbits live?” The fear in Dori’s voice made Belba look up, he sounded like he would be sick, and she was certain this was not what he’d planned to ask.
“Well most Hobbits live to around 100 years, unless something happens, however my grandfather, Old took lived to a wonderous 130! So there is hope for longer.”
“Wait… he’s dead? You speak of him as though he were still alive!” Ori burst out, the others glaring at him for asking a second question.
“I supposed I do… he was my biggest supporter growing up and pushed for me to be given the rights of Matriarch even before my Majority without being married…when he… died…” Belba tried to hold back her tears, “There was so much grief, my Took family became so distraught, and a new Thain needed to be appointed and there was so much happening that the Baggin’s side took over and forced the marriage. It was underhanded but without the protection of Old took, I couldn’t really oppose the Baggin’s family elders. My uncle tried to get the marriage annulled when they realised what happened, after he became Thain but there was nothing to be done by them… Then he too passed the same year I… well by that point the annulment was no longer necessary.
“My second Uncle, Isumbras, is currently Thain but he is in his 90’s now so soon it will pass to his son, I’m sure. I don’t like to think of them as gone, it is easier to think they are simply away. In the fields of The Mother, or across the seas or somewhere else still living happily. I know they aren’t but it was such a comfort to believe that they may return one day that I suppose it became a habit.”
“How old were you? When he passed, when you were forced to wed?” Bombur looked at her, she could see him doing calculations in his mind. “If you’re 48 now…” and the room went still once more.
Belba sighed and braced for impact. “I had not long turned 30 when I was married, I remained so for 10 years. Then I met all of you and you whisked me away on an adventure and here we are.” She tried to lighten the blow with cheerfulness, but it wasn’t going to stop the mayhem that erupted throughout the room.
Cries of “30?!” and “Practically a babe!”, “predatory scum” came from somewhere along with threats of violence and vicious curses in Khudzdul she hadn’t learned yet. Thorin was silent and looked sickeningly pale, Oin’s eyes were on Belba, and she knew he was aging her wounds and his eyes darkened. Ori, Fili and Kili, all older than her and yet still barely more than children in the eyes of their family all looked as though someone had punched them in the stomach.
“There’s little point being angry about it, when there’s nothing that can be done to change the past.”
“That may be so Belba, but there’s always something to be done. Dwarrow are not used to letting things go, they hold grudges for generations, they get frustrated when they can’t destroy or fix things with their own hands. You know this…” Dis said with fondness as she looked at the males still chucking a fit. “So, give them something, what can We do to help?”
“That’s just it, you’re all doing exactly what I need. I just need you all with me, family is everything to Hobbits and while once I felt like a stranger to my own back in the Shire, now I have a new and stronger one. And while you can’t be with me all the time, as much as you want to…” a very pointed look around the room, “you are being everything I need. You’re there when I call for you, you help me with Frodo, you make me forget the darkness and remember the light just by being yourselves and being near. I know you want to fix things, want it to be solvable but not all things are easy to mend.”
“Do you regret it? The journey… if not for us, you wouldn’t be fading, you wouldn’t be a target in the mountain…” Bifur asked, voice near silent.
“I wouldn’t have a family to live for either. In the Shire I was an outcast, a murderess, a disease that they were ready to cast out the moment they could. If not for thirteen boisterous Dwarrow descending on my doorstep I would have lived each day in silence and solitude. No, I do not regret it for a moment. Yes I may have a few more scars to add to my collection, but honestly at least the Dwarrow are more open about their dislike, Gentle Hobbits can be far too twofaced about such things.”
“What about Frodo… will you truly send him back there alone?” Gloin asked, the faunt asleep in he lap, fists clenched around beads.
“If he wants to. Bagend is not protected until he comes of age, at which point he will need to journey to either claim it or pass it on to one of his cousins I suppose. However, the choice will be up to him. It will be good for him to take a trip, though I hope perhaps some of the younger lads might choose to go with him. Might even be a good bonding trip for he and Gimli?” Belba smiled as the father beamed at the mention of his son being given such a responsibility. “His parents are gone but he still has much family there, and they will be remembered fondly enough that my reputation shouldn’t tarnish him overly.”
“What happened to them, Frodo’s parents?” Fili asked, eyes sad.
“They drowned. As you are aware Hobbit’s are not great swimmers, we are not particularly buoyant despite being so well cushioned.” Belba laughed, thinking of her own barrel-riding adventures. “But Frodo’s parents had a touch of adventure about themselves too and loved the water. I’m not too sure of the details but I know they died in a boating accident. In truth, it was my fault Frodo fell into the hands of the Sackville-Bagginses. I’d named he father as my heir in absence, when he passed that became Frodo and so guardianship defaulted to the Baggins side. If not I’m sure his maternal family would have raised him lovingly. I feel such guilt denying him that and often wonder if I should send him to Brandy Hall with his, the Master of Buckland Rorimac "Goldfather" Brandybuck. As it is I must stand by my decisions until he is old enough to make his own, and from there we will handle it as a family.”
Belba looked to the three that had yet to ask a question, Thorin shook his head slightly, Nori had refused to look at her for some time now but his clenched fist was not unnoticed. Kili just looked so incredibly lost and sad.
“What is it Kili?” She asked gently, this had been a lot for the young lad but at least the air was clearing.
“It… it just feels like you don’t tell us the important stuff, you didn’t even tell us it was your birthday, it’s like you don’t trust us or something.” Belba’s heart stuttered and she gapes at the young Dwarrow.
“Oh Kili, it’s not like that…” but Nori interrupted her, finally looking directly at Belba and where she’d expected anger instead she found a deep hurt and betrayal.
“But it is though isn’t it? You’re always hiding things from us Belba, hiding all the sadness and the pain behind your Happy Hobbit mask, lying and telling us things are ‘Hobbit ways’ so we stop asking and just accept things. You knew what people were saying long before the rest of us and you hid it. You know there are threats to you in the mountain but you still insist on going out alone, and keep getting hurt because of it then pretending you’re fine. Hells, you knew we’d have issues with your gender when we first met, and your age and you lied even back then.” Nori exploded, all eyes flicking between he and Belba.
“It’s not lying if I don’t tell you and you don’t ask…” Belba retorted, her own defences rising despite herself. She knew he had a point; she had been less than honest with them even from the beginning, but she had her reasons.
“Oh course, my mistake. You clearly don’t trust us, whether it’s because you don’t think we’ll keep our tempers in check, don’t think is matters or just that you don’t want us to be upset you keep lying and hiding things to ‘protect’ us, treating us as strangers not as Kin. So fine…” Nori began to storm out of the room, his heavy bootsteps echoing even as Ori stood and called after him. Dori put his hand out to stop the younger and shook his head even as the door slammed.
“Do not mind him Belba, lad becomes self-destructive when he’s upset. I’ll go check on him, but do not take his bluster to heart.” Dori said getting up slowly to follow Nori with an exasperated sigh. “He’s not entirely wrong though, you are our sister in all the ways that matter to us but sometimes lass its hard to see that through the walls you’ve built to protect yourself.” Dori gave her a sad smile before he too disappeared.
The others didn’t linger long but Belba didn’t really notice either as her mind fixated on Nori’s words and the cord they struck within her. Even as he put Frodo and then herself to bed, his words rang in her mind.