Chapter Text
‘There can be beauty in winter, too, Bilbo,’ Gandalf commented as they stared out of the door of Bag End. The snow had started not long after Gandalf’s arrival, and now a white coat covered the fields and had begun to hide the road as well.
It was a guest even more unwelcome than the wizard, in the opinion of the Master of Bag End, but he had little hope that either guest would leave him in peace.
‘There are those who will choose to see beauty in anything,’ Bilbo said, instead of “Oh, go away and leave me be”. He would have much preferred the latter, but not even all that he'd suffered could completely erode the manners he'd grown up with.
Bilbo had not quite apologised to the first orc he'd ever killed, but it had been a near-run thing.
‘Just because they choose to see beauty in approaching death doesn't mean I must do the same,’ he continued, tone as sharp as he ever dared to be with the wizard.
‘You are not the only one who lost, Bilbo,’ Gandalf said in return. ‘Why can you not find acceptance as others have? The world does not allow us to keep those we love forever. It is hard, but it is the way of things.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Bilbo replied bitterly, ‘I must be a true hobbit, mustn’t I? We cannot have one of the Shire-folk with his eyes actually open to reality! You would much prefer that I cower from what comes. That I hide in my home and wait for someone else to save me. Never mind that they will not come until it is too late. Well, I am afraid I will not cower. I will not hide. I will not rely upon others. I do not ask you to worry for me, Gandalf!’
‘How have you come so far from her?’ was Gandalf’s only response. ‘From all she taught you and all she believed? I would never have credited it had I not seen it with my own eyes.’
‘I have not come far from her,’ Bilbo answered bleakly. ‘Not at all. It was she who went from me.’
To that, finally, Gandalf had no reply.
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