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Chapter Text

“It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures." - The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien 

The first glimmers of dawn were just coming to the clear summer skies and the stars were still vivid above a subtly lightening horizon. Hobbiton slept, very soon, the farmers and laborers would rise to go about the work that they had been doing for many peaceful generations. The gentle lapping of water against the quiet machinery of the mill broke the stillness and somewhere a frog croaked in the river grass.

The passing of four incongruously tall figures, over the bridge and up the hill, went unnoticed by almost everyone. The wizard went first, to break the blow and was quickly followed by the other three; two grey cloaked elves carrying an unconscious ranger between them.

The wizard lead them on in confident silence, Elrohir’s gentle healing song was barely a whisper in the tall man’s ear, one of his hands was over the wound on his lower back, skillfully stabilizing the broken shaft of an arrow, strong elven hands applying pressure over a hasty, blood soaked field dressing.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Mithrandir?” Elladan whispered, adjusting the man’s arm across his shoulder. His bright eyes scanned the sleepy village with more than a little curiosity, “they say that the perianath fear strangers.” In truth he had a great curiosity for the lore of the small folk who were considered mysterious even by the eldar. Mad Baggins himself had become instantaneously legendary after his appearance in Rivendell several decades earlier among a gaggle of dwarves and subsequent unprecedented escape from the dungeons of the king of the Greenwood Thranduil Orpherion himself. The twins had not been present for the original event but the songs and stories of his misadventures had quickly caught up with them.

But at this minute Elladan’s interest in Hobbit lore was eclipsed by his concern for his foster brother who had an orcish arrowhead caught between his lumbar vertebra. The Shirelings knew little of the price that their quiet peace was bought with, the Dunadain had guarded their borders in secret for many long centuries. Those dark powers which had overrun the ancient realms that used to dominate the Western parts of Middle Earth had not yet swept through the carefully tended gardens and fields of the little people, and that peace was largely purchased with the blood of the Men of the West.

“This is the safest place for him Elrondion,” the wizard admonished, reaching around the small white gate to unlatch it, “or would you rather remove the arrow in the wilds?” the wizard raised his bushy eyebrows. Forgoing the bright round front door, he carefully lifted his robes and navigated the expansive flower beds to rap his staff on the leaded windows of the master bedroom.

“Awake, Master Baggins!” the wizard said in a voice that was quiet but commanding. The cool stump of a beeswax candle on Bilbo’s nightstand flared to suddenly illuminate the room.

There was a groan and a string of colorful expletives from the suddenly awakened master of Bag End. “Gandalf?!” there was a sound of shuffling. “what time is it?”

“Awake! Master Hobbit!” there was a sound of swiftly opening and closing doors and they could see the light of his candle move between the windows on the side of the hill. The light passed through the kitchen and the dining room with its round fireplace before stopping to illuminate the cheerful yellow windows on either side of the green front door.

“Master Gandalf?” the sleepy Halfling pulled the door open a crack, still tying his striped red dressing gown. His brown eyes became round as he looked from the wizard to the twins to the ranger. The two identical elves seemed terrifying, their dark figures looming up against the lightening East, their eyes bright as the stars in the sky behind them. Was one of them singing?

“I am afraid that I must impose upon your hospitality once more mister Baggins,” Gandalf pushed open the door further with his staff and stepping aside, he motioned for the three tall figures to enter. “lie him on the table.”

Elladan hesitated for a moment, and glanced at the wizard, Centuries of Noldorin courtly etiquette clashed momentarily with the urgency of their situation, was it not rude to enter a stranger’s house without proper invitation or introduction? Sensing his unease, and only subtly rolling his eyes, Mithrandir made a hasty introduction.

“Masters Elladan, Estel, Elrohir, I believe you know their father, the lord or Rivendell,” then gesturing to the Hobbit, “Master Baggins, we have need of your table.” Without any further formalities he pushed past the still sleepy hobbit and sweeping into the dining room, he began removing everything from the long chestnut dining table. Elladan bowed his head, still supporting Aragorn’s weight and smiled in a way that he hoped seemed non-threatening.

“At your service Master Baggins.” His voice was gentle and melodic even as he dodged the chandelier.

The hobbit bowed helplessly.

 With the exception of Gandalf, who didn’t seem to count, Bilbo had never seen one of the big folk across the river, let alone inside Bag End, and this one was especially tall. The cluttered accumulation of flowers and candles and his mother’s silken table runner that usually covered the long dining table were hastily swept aside. The rangers cloak was thrown into a corner with Gandalf’s hat. In the end, Aragorn’s feet still dangled over the end of the table as he lay his pale face against Elrohir’s shoulder who knelt on the floor. He smelled wild and mannish and the smell of blood reminded Bilbo sharply of some very unpleasant memories. The man looked ridiculous in the cramped space. Bilbo sent the wizard a pained look, this was not what he and been planning to do today.

 If it wasn’t for the constant urgency of Elrohir’s healing song, which had increased in volume and power as they came inside, the Hobbit would have been quite afraid. He watched numbly as Gandalf filled a kettle and a stew pot on his hearth, which was suddenly alight with a merry fire, the wizard seemed perfectly at home in his kitchen. The hobbit shook his head wondering whether two elves a man and a wizard ate as much as twelve dwarves.

“What happened to him?” he asked.

“Orcs.” Was Elladan’s terse answer, he dropped a bag to one of the chairs and produced a few clear bottles, a rolled leather case full of gleaming mithril tools which he laid within arms reach across the man’s backside and a white roll of cloth bandages.

“Near the Binhole wood.” Gandalf finished, knowing that the Hobbit would feel assured by specifics.

“So close to the Shire?” Bilbo made eye contact with the elf who held his gaze with his terrible eyes for a moment. Elladan assessed the hobbit, one of the halfling’s hands nervously fidgeting with something in his dressing gown pocket. He had expected hobbits to be somewhat clueless but this one seemed shrewd and well informed, “should we alert the Shire wardens?”

“They will not be bothering you,” the elf said with a hint of violence in his soft voice, “that I can promise.” He frowned, watching Gandalf using Bilbo’s poultry shears to cut away the ranger’s tunic which was soaked with blood, “Something has been making them stronger, they never used to come down this far.” He made tense eye contact with the wizard.

Bilbo nodded, feeling helpless. “What can I do?” he looked from the elf to the wizard hopefully.

“We have to remove the arrow now.” Elrohir said, breaking his song for the first time. “the barb is hooked behind his spinal cord.”

The wizard and the other elf both cringed.

“Ai valar!” Aragorn gasped, moved slightly and screamed into the elf’s shoulder as Elrohir’s singing lapsed and the agony hit him all at once. “Ai Eru!” he sobbed.

Elrohir stroked the man’s hair.

“Hold him still!” The wizard put his weight over the man’s hips and Aragorn found himself completely immobilized by deceptively thin elven arms even as Elrohir started singing again, strong fingers rubbing the back of his neck and the man gasped and sobbed weakly. The younger twin tried to soothe the cacophony of pain in his brother’s body, pulling him back into forgetful unconsciousness.

“This is the furthest we dared move him. We will need somewhere for him to recover when its done.” Elladan said, looking hopefully from the wizard to the hobbit.

“Well I’m sure he won’t fit on a hobbit bed…” Bilbo said somewhat forlornly.

“How long?” the wizard asked the elf.

“about four fee…” Bilbo was about to say but he was interrupted by Elladan and felt very stupid.

“Even with all our skill I cannot say.”

“Lets make sure there is a recovery to be had first.” The wizard looked grim as he watched Elladan removing a vial of some milky substance from his bag and pouring it carefully into a cup that Bilbo recognized as his Grandmother’s.

-That’s a lot.- Elrohir warned, his brother with a look, not daring to break his song again.

“If he moves an inch he will never walk again.”Elladan said frankly. The twins exchanged a look and a synchronized breath. “monitor him closely.”

They both coaxed the liquid into the ranger’s pain clenched teeth. The second elf joined his brother’s song and somehow their slightly harmonized voices created a palpable resonance in the small kitchen that sent the leaded windows to trembling. Bilbo could not recognize any distinct words but he knew it was a song of hope and healing and home and even to those who did not understand the weaving, dancing power of the twin’s interwoven music it brought a sense of deep and joyful healing to the mind and body. After a moment the ranger seemed to sag, his face pressed against Elrohir’s shoulder.

“Let’s begin.” Elladan closed his eyes in a brief prayer.

Bilbo saw one of the elves, without hesitation, plunge his long fingers into the wound and blood ran across the man’s back and onto the table.

Bilbo was ready with a hand towel which he was sure would be ruined after all this, the wizard took it and used it to catch the blood. With utmost care and barely seeming to breathe, the elf manipulated the tissue around the wound so that he could assess the damage to the ranger’s spine. The arrow had only gone in a few inches, but it was the wrong few inches. Aragorn twitched and his face tightened but the fog of drugs was heavy over his mind and he could not twist away from the horrible wrenching vortex of pain, clenching his whole body around the base of his spine.

 “The third vertebra is fractured…” Elladan exhaled slowly, “it’s very close to his spinal chord, the bone is broken, im not sure how much damage there is.” He reached for the tools and his brother handed him a tweezers, barely breathing as he extracted a knife sharp shard of bone. Gandalf held out one of Bilbo’s good dishes and he dropped the shard into it with a clink. Then he drew out another, and another, then five more splinters and chips, too small for Bilbo’s eye to catch.

After a few tense moments of careful exploration, Elladan paused, teeth clenched. It was bad. He knew it was bad, he could feel the bloody mess of nerve fibers and broken bone under his fingers. If they were in Imladris his father, and his team of healers would have customized mithril hardware to stabilize the bone. But home was weeks of hard riding away.

He put one delicate, bloody hand on the man’s ribs, it was shaking, Bilbo had never seen an elf shake. After steadying himself for a moment he spoke again, “Ah… Varda Elentari… I have to push it farther in to get it out.” He looked from the wizard to his twin with fear in his eyes.

“Go prepare a place for him to recover!” Gandalf reminded the transfixed Hobbit sharply.

Bilbo nodded, looking around helplessly as if bed linens were something he kept lying around the kitchen. He averted his eyes as he heard the human cry out weakly again. Bilbo turned back into the hallway, wringing his hands and considering which of his linens should be sacrificed for the wounded human. He would have to make a bed on the floor. Could the man die? He had known the wizard for years but had never seen the fear in his eyes that had fixed on the man.

A cool morning breeze blew in through the open door and turning to look towards the red-pink lightening sky, Bilbo turned to regard the shocked form of Hamfast Gamgee in the circular portal. The gardener stood in the door, his brown eyes were bright with tears as he gazed into the dining room. The music that echoed through the tunnels had swept him away to a place where his simple, hardworking mind had never imagined or dreamed of. He saw flowers bursting into bloom in the gardens of Aman, gleaming trees with white branches crackling in lightning bright fractals through newborn stars. He looked as if he was about to swoon.

“Hamfast!” Bilbo snapped, trying to bring his servant back to reality. “mister Gamgee!” he grabbed the Gardener’s arm as he swayed.

“Elves, sir?” was all the stunned gardener could manage to say.

“Do you have a spare bedroll!” he only blinked at Bilbo for a moment, “Tell nobody what you’ve seen here.” With what seemed like an enormous effort, the portly gardener tore himself from the sound of elvish singing and rushed to where his wife had left a line of clean laundry to dry on the roof of their hole.

Bilbo turned back to the dining room, hearing Elladan’s cry of triumph as he held up a crude iron arrowhead between his fingers. He dropped it into the bowl with a clink. The Ranger did not move.

Without wasting a moment, both twins laid both their hands across the wound and Gandalf put his hand on top of their’s. A flickering light like red, living fire emanated from the pile of hands. The twins locked eyes and the music changed. The dishes and windowpane rattled and a wind seemed to blow through the halls. It rose and within it was the sound of life and hope and healing and peace.

Chapter Text

“I must investigate the source of this attack, warn the other Dunadain.” Gandalf dragged on his pipe, filling the kitchen with smoke.

Elrohir frowned down at where he stretched out awkwardly in a hobbit sized chair. Bilbo had gone down to Bagshot Row with the gardener the elves had immediately set to fastidiously cleaning the whole room, a process which by their deft coordination took all of twenty minutes, wiping blood from the floor and the table and then setting about dusting every item and knickknack and wiping cobwebs from the eye-level wood beams.

 It was a brilliant summer afternoon and, after the painful and slow process of getting the ranger from the table into the library had exhausted them all, the Hobbit had declared it Dinner Time and, looking around his ruined kitchen and connecting dining room from the morning’s desperate, delicate surgery, he had informed them that he would fetch vittles from elsewhere and promptly disappeared.

“He will not walk for at least a month,” Elrohir picked up a framed etching on the mantle, looked at the kindly faces of the two Halflings and passed a damp rag over the glass. “Perhaps if we were in Imladris, I have some skills but I fear that I am not my father.” A look of guilt and worry twitched across the elf’s dark eyebrows.

Gandalf made a grumbling sound, “it cannot be helped.”

“the arrow missed his spinal chord but…” He paused for a moment, rotating a decorative carving of a toad playing a lute.

“He will be safe here, as safe as in Imladris. And your skills as a healer are not to be dismissed, but one of us must tell the Rangers what has befallen their chieftain.”

“And the Halfling? Will he begrudge us as his guests?” Elrohir passed his rag along the decorative molding above the fire place.

“Baggins is as trustworthy as they come, but I would try to keep your presence here quiet, the Shirefolk are wary of outsiders and our friend already has a reputation…” clouds of smoke filled the room earning the wizard a disapproving frown and a performative cough from the elf.

Elrohir opened the kitchen window to clear the smoky air, when he looked back the wizard had vanished.

Elrohir sighed at the place where the wizard had just been, it was a curious form of exit, although, he supposed, not entirely unannounced or unexpected.

And here they were, alone with these strange little folk Elrohir ran one hand down his long braid uncomfortably.

 Pushing the round leaded window further open with one hand the elf watched as Bilbo opened the gate, he was carrying a large basket covered with a gingham cloth. To the elf’s horror he was followed by the rotund gardner. He had yet to see a Halfling with a beard but this one had curly sideburns and a good natured red face. He carried what looked like a heavy roasting pot on his belly, it was visibly steaming through the lid.

Behind the gardener came a hobbit woman, beautiful in the way that only an experienced mother could be, carrying a curly haired infant on one hip and a smaller basket in the crook of the other arm.

“Come along now Sam, hurry up!” She shouted back down the path as in a perfect line there appeared five curly heads above the luscious blooming passion vines. The hobbitlings were all plump and cheerful and none of them seemed to have passed their tenth year, they came up the path babbling about elves and scaring each other with stories of the Big Folk. Each one carried a precariously covered dish and their cheerful voices raised in hungry music.

The elf would have preferred a goblin war band.

“Elladan!” Elrohir called for his brother, who appeared from the room where the ranger lay, ducking around the rounded molding, drying his hands on his tunic and peering suspiciously through the window beside the door. Quickly reading his twin, Elrohir knew that their patient was stable and still very unconscious, they locked eyes in a silent moment of sheer panic. Hobbits were meant to fear Big People. Right?

They had no time to further discuss as the door was pushed open and a troupe of Halflings poured inside. The twins found the comfortable gravity of each other’s proximity in the front hall and offered identically innocent bows and smiles through the chandelier as the hobbits piled in.

They had met Master Hamfast earlier in the morning when he had brought the long wooden board which they had used to move the insensate Strider, having been bound by song and gauze, into Bilbo’s library where he lay on his stomach drooling and snoring into a pile of hobbit made blankets, in a sweet drugged sleep beyond pain or movement.

“Masters, May I introduce the fairest lady in all the Shire, Bell Gamgee,” Hamfast bowed deeply and Elrohir offered a genuine smile but Elladan had been enchanted by the lively ginger infant who dangled at her hip.

“And who is this!” He met the baby's gaze and she shrieked with delight, bouncing and reaching for his braid.

“This is Marigold!” Bell seemed more than pleased to surrender the baby to the elf, who seemed to be able to set the child to hysterical giggling by his mere presence.

Elladan expertly cooed and rocked her as if he had done it a thousand times. Something in the back of her mind recalled a legend about wicked fairies rising up to bewitch unsuspecting mothers and snatch babies from their cribs, but she was very tired after all and he seemed like a nice enough elf.

The Hole filled with delicious smells as dishes were unloaded onto the dining room table, Elrohir suddenly realized he had not eaten in a day his fear for his foster brother had driven all thought of nourishment out of his mind.

The children each came to stand in front of the twins and with carefully, if not confidently practiced Sindarin offered a, “Mae govannen hír nín.” Which were rewarded with gracious smiles and a polite response.

Elrohir carefully committed them to memory.  Hamson was the eldest, Halfred had red hair, like the mother, Daisy was blonde, May had freckles, Samwise seemed quiet for a three year old and Marigold, who had completely stolen his twin’s heart. Elrohir repressed an eye roll as Elladan lifted the baby to his chest, singing softly and smelling the crown of her head.

They crowded around the same table where surgery had been performed the night before, the wood had been scrubbed and it was covered with a flower print table cloth. A massive glistening ham emerged from the pot that the Gaffer carried, accompanied by cheesy spinach pastries, three kinds of potato, roast carrots, mushroom pie, cream of mushroom soup, sautéed mushroom stuffed quails, a whole basket of fresh steaming rolls and beer from Bilbo’s basement. The Hobbit did not mention the Wizard's absence.

“Surely our arrival doesn’t call for this kind of feast?” Elrohir watched in awe as the dishes were laid across the table.

“Well don’t be silly!” Bell laughed, fluffing the potatoes, “of course we would have you for dinner!” Her hand landed fearlessly on Elrohir’s shoulder and he felt her surreptitiously test how thin he felt. “When Hamfast told me you two looked near starved, poor thing.” She ladled him a generous scoop of glistening potatoes with a soft smile. "You can put some butter on it if you'd like," She encouraged the elf brightly, "freshly churned this morning!"

Elladan and Elrohir were sat at the center of the table across from one another, as it was where the ceiling was the highest.

“Master Elladan,” asked Bilbo politely, “as the eldest would you bless our evening meal?”

Elladan reluctantly handed the baby back to her mother and solemnly folded his hands, he sang a few choice verses of a very old Quenya hymn to Yavanna, which seemed to fit the occasion. When he finished, the food seemed to smell even better and the beer in the goblets glistened golden in the beams of afternoon sunlight. For a moment he felt bad that Aragorn couldn’t join them but it was quickly replaced by the relief that for now his foster brother was alive.

A moment later all concerns were pushed from his mind as he was immersed in the euphoria of the best scalloped potatoes he had ever tasted in nearly three thousand years.

Chapter Text

Methodically, clinically, gently, Elrohir checked Aragorn for nerve damage. He had rolled the drugged man onto his back. Soft candlelight casting the elf’s concerned features into warm chiaroscuro as he knelt on the gleaming hardwood with the man’s feet in his lap. He sung gentle melodies, seed and tree and leaf, encouraging the man’s nerves to heal and branch and arborize.

The library, with its curiously concave bookshelves stacked with haphazard volumes, maps and scrolls, had a smell of old paper and leather. The makeshift bed was made from three hobbit sized sleeping rolls and the floor was covered in a thick Daleish carpet. The door was open and he could hear merrymaking from where the dinner had devolved to company and the children had been banished to frolic about on the roof.

Its just shock, Elrohir told himself only half believing it, testing the reflexes in the sole of the humans limp foot.

Just give him a few days. Elrohir pressed his lips together. Running one hand up to the back of his patient’s knee. He exhaled a long, slow breath of a note up the man’s sciatic nerve and into his groin up where the trauma sent the harmonies of his body into discord, and beyond that back to his brain. Elrohir tried to channel his father who he had seen heal similar injuries with finesse, but the knot of fear in his chest remained.

He had drugged the man with poppy milk before he had turned him. He could get a better idea of the damage when they could let him wake up enough to tell them if he retained sensation in his legs. Elrohir let his eyes close in prayer for a moment. “Ai, Valar.” He whispered.

 Moving around his patient, he threaded one hand into the right side of his dark hair. The Dunedan's eyes were flickering as he fought against the drugs, the intrusion on his consciousness was enough to pull him back to a vague, sludgy state close to waking. Aragorn grimaced and one of his hands found his brother’s, grip strong and healthy as ever.

“Estel?” Elrohir watched him thoughtfully, “shhhhh, don’t wake up yet, you’re safe.”

Elrohir hummed from deep in his diaphragm and was able to feel the subtle resonance between the tension in the man’s hand and his motor cortex, how the subtle networked harmonies flowed together. Quiet music, he had the reflexes of a trained swordsman, every nerve and tendon in his calloused hand was a weapon. The elf articulated the slack fingers in his hands. There was still a callous where he had worn his ancestral ring, now hanging at his sisters breast.

Using that connection as a guide, Elrohir carefully sang gentle harmonies to reconnect the broken branches of his body. They sat like that for a long time, but Elrohir began to despair in his heart that the Heir of Isildur could be crippled permanently by his own failing as a healer. He reminded himself that the man had only been injured yesterday and that human bodies took time to heal even with elven assistance. He took the hand from Estel's hair and ran it across his own brow wearily.

There was a soft sound behind him. The hobbit woman had appeared as quietly as any mirkwood scout. She held a covered bowl and a spoon wrapped in a napkin and she peered around Elrohir at the man with wonder.

“How can I help you, Bell?” the elf asked kindly.

“How is he, my lord?” she came in on bare, silent feet, settling herself on the ground in with the comfortable authority of a healer.

“He,” Elrohir hesitated for a moment before he decided he liked this hobbit woman and would be frank with her, “he broke his back and I’m trying to heal the nerve damage.” He looked at the man’s pale face, “but I don’t know how much I can do.”

Bell nodded gravely, Elrohir noted the absence of both the infant and his brother wryly. She clapped her hands to her knees with an air of finality, “Hamfast said as much.” She gave him an appraising look, Earth brown eyes sparkling, “I don’t know much about this Elvish Medicine you star-folk use and I reckon that you know best…” She shifted uncomfortably, arranging her petticoats underneath herself nervously.

She took Elrohir’s silence as an invitation to continue.

“But my mama always told me that there’s nothing for the nerves like mushrooms, and begging your pardon sir but a good thick cream is said to help too.” She settled the covered dish into Elrohir’s hands, a slow grin was spreading across the elf warriors face.

“Brought up some I had dried from my foraging cellar, the paper stem pepper caps were particularly good last spring, and I had white cordies and of course just enough of the poolypores to lift the spirits, we won’t be talking to the valar today,” she laughed, “They say the mushrooms have nerves like a hobbit, go all through the forest like spider silk in the Earth and some will wake up the nerves right quick, or settle them down, if you hear me.” She gave him a knowing look, then turned to Aragorn and clucked. “make sure he finishes that now.” She admonished the elf and tapped the lid of the dish. “And I’ll have more tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Elrohir studied her with wonder. The smell wafting from the dish in his hands was making his mouth water.

She stood with a sigh. “now I must go find out what sort of toadstool that fairy prince has turned my daughter into!” she straightened her skirts, “good night my lord.”

“Good night, Lady Gamgee.” The elf watched her leave. He opened the dish and stirred it with the spoon she had left, breaking through a thin skin of floating fat into an opaque swirl of finely ground brown and white bits and herbs.

Rousing the drowsy ranger, Elrohir carefully fed him an experimental spoonful of creamy soup. Expecting the bitter poppy milk, Strider at first cringed away and then with a paused, he focused pinprick pupils on the spoon, inhaled and let his brother feed him. Noting, how everything around him was downsized except for the dishes which easily held mannish portions.

“Hm?” Aragorn swallowed, frowning, swallowing, and blinking in surprise up at the elf.

“What is that?” he asked blearily.

“It’s… hobbit medicine.” The elf offered only a bemused shrug.

“it’s delicious?” ignoring the discomfort it caused, the ranger reached out for the bowl that his brother held and drank half of it in a mouthful. He lay back as his body shook in pain. Elrohir carefully arranged the pillows to support him as he took shallow gasps of breath.

“I was shot?” he looked around the room and then down at his body with bewilderment.

“Yes…” a question hung on Elrohir’s lips.

“Where are we?” The ranger looked around, the memories of the last few days hitting him.

“Safe,” There was some fear in the elfs voice that called the mans gaze to meet his own.

“Hobbit medicine?” He found himself raising the bowl to his lips again and smelling and then drinking it slowly. He laughed as his addled mind put something together, his gaze found the round window with its curtains of nasturtium flowers.

“Aye, and I hope it’s the best.” Elrohir had to repress the tremble in his voice as he looked his sweet baby brother in the eyes. “because I’ve had my thumbnail in the arch of your foot for thirty seconds and you haven’t pulled away.”

Chapter Text

Aragorn frowned up at his brother, struggling to comprehend what he was saying, “how long was I out?”

“About twelve hours.” Elrohir removed his hand from the useless limb. 

“It’s just shock.” He mumbled confidently, “can feel sparkles… s gonna be fine.” He yawned and a vague look of euphoria passed over the man’s features. His hand went to play with the tassled hem of the blanket, relishing the sensation of wool rolling between his fingers.

“I hope you’re right, little brother.” Aragorn seemed to drift and doze. The elf sat and watched the man for a long time. He could hear Hamfast from the next room, politely drunk, complaining about the neighbors in the hole below his who were doing some ill-asvised digging. A breeze came in through the open window, setting the candle to flickering.

Eventually Elladan appeared in the doorway, coming up silently to look down into the man’s sleeping face.

“Where’s your little friend?” Elrohir teased.

“Alas,” the elf replied smiling wistfully, “there are some things for which the child requires her mother. How is he?”

“The same.” Aragorn stirred, blinked eyes with pupils like black dinner plates and looked up at them with a furrowed brow.

“Hello little brother.” Elladan knelt beside his twin and the look that Estel gave him was one of childlike concern. The ranger reached up one hand to touch his brother’s cheek, his gaze caught in elven eyes and he looked at Elladan as if he had never seen anything as beautiful.

“You’re full of starlight…” The man observed, the twins shared a bemused look.

“Aye, brother.” Was all Elladan could think to say, oddly embarrassed by the intensity of the scrutiny. Aragorn ran one thumb over Elladan's lips, fascinated by the texture of his skin.

“I’m full of starlight too.” He put his hand on his chest thoughtfully, fingers playing with the embroidery on his tunic, “my legs… are full of fireworks." He took a deep, bracing breath, slowly exhaling through a sudden rush of sensitivity that crowded his senses.

This gave Elrohir some hope, he put one hand on his brother’s knee, meaning to ask if he could feel it but he ranger continued, mumbling vaguely, "all the little falling stars, that’s how he makes them, puts the stars in little boxes, lights them with a match.” He paused, making sure that both of the elves were paying attention, “We should tell Mithrandir, these are wonderful fireworks."

The elves looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

 Aragorn looked from Elladan to Elrohir, he was trying to parse their twinnish thoughts, “You’re so different, everyone is different, every single person. That’s amazing.” He raised his hand to his vision, “I… am as different to you as you are to each other.” He explained in a way that he hoped sounded authoritative but their was a nagging concern in the back of his mind that neither of them would be capable of understanding. He sighed and shook his head.

That motion made the dancing lights that had been kindling in the shadows of the bookshelves and the arching woodwork leap to sudden brilliance. He closed his eyes against the sudden assault and found that the stars that had been lurking in the corners of his vision poured into his pupils and he felt himself suddenly and violently transported into deep space. The man's hands went to his face and his mouth opened in a silent gasp.

“Get Bell.” Elrohir ordered his twin as the man’s gaze went wide and blank with wonder as he stared out into another plane of reality. His fingers found the front of Elrohir’s shirt and his lips parted.

“Oh, Varda Elentari.” Aragorn gasped and lay back, a look of dumb euphoria on his face.

“what’s wrong with him?” Elladan asked.

“just… get Bell.” Elrohir had his suspicions.

In a moment, his twin was gone, Elrohir frowned and checked his brother’s pulse. He leveled a concerned look at the hobbit woman as she was gently lead into the library. She looked rather flustered and intimidated.

“How much poolypore did you give him? Exactly.” Elrohir demanded.

“Oh.” She seemed relieved, “just a quarter dose sir. Just enough to lift the spirits. Hobbit sized dose mind you, I’m sure he would need more he’s near the size of a pony and they’re always eating em when they grow on the dung. Measured real careful sirs, I take my healing work serious.”

“And how much is a, ah, hobbit sized dose, Bell?” Elrohir rubbed his brow, fearing what he would hear.

“Twenty fruits sir?” she looked at him with round eyes.

“So you gave, this adan," he choked on laughter, "five whole poolypore mushrooms?” the elf’s incredulity crackled in his words. He dragged two long hands down his fair features.

“Yes m’lord, should hardly effect him.” The hobbit woman declared confidently.

Elrohir was frozen in shock for a moment and then, finding his twin's gaze, burst into laughter. Elladan looked concerned as he watched Aragorn slowly pass his hand through the air as if it was passing through sediment in a stream, marveling at the articulation of his finger joints.

“I don’t think this is a laughing matter.” Elladan protested, his concerned gaze found his brother’s.

When he had recovered his wits Elrohir shook his head, “He’ll be fine but he’s in for an... adventure.” Then, turning to the hobbit woman with an air of tutelage. “the big folk are more sensitive to certain things. They do not tolerate magic as readily as other races.” He looked down at Aragorn but the man was far beyond speech, utterly absorbed in whatever was playing before his senses. "The poolypore mushroom, known as the Kathiwâthé by the elves and the sponge cap to the men of the South, is believed to have strong medicinal properties... by some," he shot the hobbit woman a glare. 

"Is it not known in your fair peoples healing arts, m'lord?"

"Look at him, Bell." Elrohir scolded gently, Aragorn was transfixed by the lines in his palm, the creases of care and pain had dissolved into the childish face of the boy who used to run wild around the Last Homeley House. 

“Well I suppose it’s for the best,” she said, more than a little defensively, “it’s the best medicine you can want for nerve damage, or so the old lore says. And it wont hurt him, sept for making him a bit more, close to the stars as they say.. ” The three of them looked down at their charge who had folded his hands on his chest reverently, dilated wide eyes fixed far beyond the ceiling, lips slightly parted. His external stillness belied the oceanic symphony of sensation that was pouring through his brain. Somehow he was not anxious or worried as something - or someone very gently knocked on the barriers of his consciousness. He smiled gently as his mind dissolved.

The twins looked at one another and silently decided that they would walk the ranger through this new wilderness the same way they always had, singing. They took their places at the man’s head and feet, using their subtle harmonies to balance the signals in his legs and his brain.

 Soon Bell produced a rough, but sweetly tuned, clay ocarina and Bilbo and Hamfast appeared with the baby who, upon seeing Elladan, added her musical shrieks and giggles to the strangest rendition of the lay of Elbereth that either of the twins had ever heard.

Chapter Text

Aragorn was running. Roots and drifts of leaves turned his ankles as he stumbled between the boles of ancient trees. Branches and leaves whipped at his face as he went, piles of rocks slid under his feet. The cool forest air pierced his thin clothing and a clear, starry sky peaked now the then between dark, tossing branches overhead.

Somewhere in the obscurity of the forest he could hear soft elven singing, yet whenever he turned to find it, it seemed to change direction. The stars blended to a shifting iridescence of fireflies and gleaming bioluminescence. There were voices on the wind, in the song of frogs and insects. He wanted to stop and listen to them but some great hope or terror told him that he needed to run, run, run run until his legs ran out.

Now and then he would catch a glimpse of someone between the trees, a white hand slipping around the bole of a silver birch, the echo of laughter, the bright reflection of cautious eyes as bright as stars. But always she was just beyond him, her face just too distant to make out.

She led him to a river, the tinkling music of its clear rushing water added its chorus to the distant voices and he stumbled down the steep bank into the shadows of a mossy rift where a swift spring was pouring out of the hillside.

He was about to reach for the water when a black mass leapt from behind him, all chittering teeth and furry dangling limbs of terrible arachnid strength. The beast hit him in the back and he felt the shock of its sting hit his lower back, throwing him forward into the stream, sliding, muddy rocks collapsing as he hit them.

Rolling over to defend himself, Aragorn reached for his sword but found its place empty. Drenched in the onslaught of the rushing water, he managed to roll onto his back and throw out an arm in self defense. Suddenly a second spider leaped from the shadows and grabbed his legs. He could hear the terrible rasping, hissing voice of the predator in his ear.

“Esssssstel, you have to drink.” It hissed, he looked up and to his horror the spider had eight, wide, grey, star bright eyes. He wanted to scream but the spider was gently cradling him in its hairy limbs and pressing the rim of a fancy teacup to his lips and clicking in a way that he supposed could be soothing.

He blinked and the spider became his older brother. “You have to stay hydrated.” Elrohir was frowning down at him, his dark braids falling like spider legs around his face, from the angle Aragorn deduced that his head must be on the younger twin’s lap.

His eyes drifted around the room for a few moments as he allowed the elf to feed him sips of water. He squinted up at the curved beams on the ceiling, feeling helpless as a gutted fish, the vaulted depths of hobbit architecture proved a baffling puzzle to his addled mind and they seemed to breathe and warp like the ribs of some strange predator that held him in its belly.

His eyes found the Hobbit woman, who was holding one of his hands in both of hers. She seemed to grow and morph into something very ancient and wise and strange. Hanging moss grew in her fluffy hair and her cheeks turned to apples and for a moment she seemed just as powerful as the elves. But this was a different sort of power, a humble, comfortable, quiet power locked away in this little corner of the world that seemed so miraculously resistant to the evil that beleaguered it. A power, Aragorn’s slow thoughts concluded, that could shake the very foundation of Barad Dur. Wanting to communicate this vital piece of information he turned his gaze to Elladan who reverently held Aragorn’s bare feet on his lap, massaging sensation back into the soles, but the words would not come.

“Hello, little brother.” Was all the elf said, smiling brightly.

“Hobbit medicine” Aragorn muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. Then suddenly it - she - was inside his chest, a white mycelial web reaching out its cool tendrils through his body. He had seen, occasionally in the woods, bugs that would be attacked by a fungus that would invade their bodies and force them to climb up trees to spread their spores, all while their bodies were helplessly eaten away. He often wondered what those poor creatures felt as they helplessly crawled to their own doom, whether they felt the decay as their limbs turned to dust, whether it hurt, or felt like ecstasy. At last he knew.

He screamed as the invading consciousness grew over his own, mummifying his mind in a blanket of cool, bright, mycelium. Aragorn felt Elrohir catch his wrists as the white fibers of searching, branching light filled up his brain and his vision, seeking their way down his spine, filling his ears with an overwhelming static and his throat with cotton.

He was vomiting, the voice of the hobbit woman was gentle and reassuring, this was part of the healing, this was good. He did not feel Elrohir turn him onto his side and rub his back. Concerned that his brother’s body temperature had cooled dramatically. There were tiny webs of white fibers around his mouth and nose and clouding his fully dilated grey eyes like a shroud of cobwebs, something very powerful had claimed his brother’s body as its own and would not easily let go.

Elrohir looked up at Elladan with worry but the older twin was holding the man’s legs with a widening smile, he had to hold them by the ankles to keep them from kicking.

“He’s running.”

Chapter Text

 “Let’s make a deal.” Bell Gamgee’s sweet voice came through the fog. She was seated on his mind like a throne, surrounded by the soft fungal architecture of her absolute dominion. Stronger than any shackle, more secure than any dungeon, Aragorn realized through the fog if his jumbled senses that he was completely at her mercy.

Delicate shell pink gills of rising fruiting bodies canopied her and bounced under her gentle weight. She stretched out to her full three feet of height in a cat-like movement that displayed the shining green stone on her finger. She had the ring of Barahir, she had everything. He took a deep breath, he had trusted this woman and now he wondered why.

“I know your secret… Strider.” Her brown eyes gleamed holding him in careful appraisal for a long moment. Her curly hair spilled over her soft bosom and she idly played with one lock of it.

“What do you want?” Aragorn asked, he knew when he was outmaneuvered, helpless and unarmed. He couldn’t destroy her in a way that mattered, she was as eternal as the Earth.

Bell stood in a graceful movement, approaching him on silent feet. She stepped onto a conveniently opening mushroom cap to stand at eye level with him.

“I hold your body in my hand, Dunedàn.” She closed the hand that held his ring and he felt the cottony fibers of mycelium close his throat, binding his tongue and filling his sinuses. He fell to his knees, choking, somewhere in his awareness he saw Elrohir panicking, rolling him onto his back and feeling for a pulse.

"Estel?" Came the voice through the soft, webby wilderness.

 But just as quickly as it had come he found that the fibers were suddenly gone and he could draw a few quick breaths. “I have the power to heal, or destroy.” She looked down at him gently, motherly, hard as the earth.

“I think,” Bell studied him, then looked at the ring on her finger like it was a pretty trinket, it sat loose and ill fitted to her hand, “that one day, you will hold the whole Shire in your hand. Very similar.” There was a flash, and he could feel the cool texture of fine mithril mail passing through his fingers, he could see the crack of fiery doom as the black gate opened. “What will you do with us then? Oh conqueror.” He knew this was a test, but also that he had been dragged before some fey court to answer for the dominion of men.

 “You will be free.” He looked at her evenly from where he knelt, seeing a woman desperate to protect her children from an encroaching darkness that she was far from ignorant of. A healer, shaman and servant of the valar. “Your borders will be your own, no men shall pass this land unbidden. I swear it on the White Tree.” His kingdom's survival was the Shire's survival, he was sure of it, the hope of Middle Earth was here.

“Good.” And even as she spoke the word, darkness and sleep overwhelmed him and he fell into an ocean of healing mist.

Chapter Text

Elrohir let his little brother’s head fall back against the pillow as he seemed to finally settle into an undisturbed sleep. It was nearly dawn. The twins and Bell, who had not left the ranger’s side all evening, sat around him. The Hobbit woman looked sleepy but unbothered. Bilbo came and went, asking questions and bringing tea and snacks, at some point Hamfast left to see the children to bed. He and Bilbo spoke quietly in the front hall about Sackville Bagginses and tunnel digging, but the master of Bag End had returned and set his vigil for the night over the sleeping Dunedan.

 So it was that he was the one who noticed the shadowed face peeking in through the open window. With an “oy!” and a surprising speed he was out into the hall and outside. Elladan stood and, peering through the window, was just able to see a dark shape slip below the edge of the hill.

The Dwarvish curses that arose from the hallway and the rage taken out on the umbrella stand announced the hobbit’s return.

“If that wasn’t young Lotho Sackville Baggins then I’m an elf!” he stomped into the library, “oh there’ll be trouble now,” he shared a knowing glance with Bell, “bad enough your husband can’t keep his secrets, ‘let the children practice their Sindarin’ the whole hill will know by morning, blimey…” He was pacing up and down the library, glaring. The twins shared a nervous glance.

“And with all this digging undermining the aquifer this is just the distraction she needs.” Bell cringed visibly, glancing at the elves. She winced as Bilbo stubbed his toe on one of the book shelves and sat down heavily in a reading chair with a gasp of pain.

“I’m sorry, what?” Elrohir looked at the Hobbit woman in bewilderment.

She huffed a breath through flared nostrils. “it all started,” she explained patiently, “a few years ago,” she smoothed out the dainty white aprin she wore above her dress. She looked at Bilbo for permission to continue, for this story involved his personal business, the Hobbit gestured with his hand.

“this, side of the hill, is occupied by the Baggins family property, Mister Bilbo's father of course, built this whole place,” she explained, pointing as she spoke, “ and when he did... he discovered that, on the far side of the hill there is an ancient, underground aquifer, built…” She looked to Bilbo for a clue.

“Nobody knows.” He shrugged.

“Nobody knows how old it is,” she repeated, “you can pump water up from the river into the aquifer and then every hole in the Hill is hooked up with running water.”

Elrohir’s mouth opened as understanding hit him.

“Which is why digging permits are so important!” Bilbo nearly shouted, rubbing his bruised toe, “and why they were denied one in the first place!”

“I take it they didn’t listen?” Elrohir looked between the two halflings.

“Oh, that would have been too simple!” Bilbo’s sarcasm was on full display, “they’re illegal tunneling has put cracks in the aquifer, caused leaks all through the Hill and is effecting everyone’s water pressure!”

“And Mister Baggins heads the planning committee.”

“So of course it’s MY fault.” Bilbo laughed. Elladan and Elrohir looked at one another, wondering if Hobbit politics could be as treacherous as Hobbit medicine.

“How can we be of service?” Elladan asked the incensed hobbit as he went to a small cupboard and produced a carafe of red wine.

“I have a troop of dwarf engineers coming out to assess the damage as we speak,” Bilbo confessed, pouring a glass and offering one to his guests, “some might want me to hire more close to home but… this is heavy stone masonry, not like the way we build,” he handed Elrohir a shining, diminutive crystal goblet, “its not Elvish, nor Dwarvish, least not like anything I’ve seen them build.”

Elladan and Elrohir shared a look. They turned identical pairs of grey eyes on the hobbit… “can we see it?” they asked in unison.

Chapter Text

It turned out that the access to the aquifer was through Bag End. Specifically, it was through a false wall in the white-painted wainscoting of the guest bathroom. It only took Bilbo a few moments to remove the false panel, opening up a two-foot by two-foot opening into a black void beyond.

“We have to get back there sometimes to fix the pumps.” He explained, placing the piece of paneling behind the toilet. Elladan crouched low while his brother watched from the door to the hallway, inspecting the aperture. The air smelled damp and cold.

The edges of the opening were finished and the elf let his fingers explore the inner surface of the tunnel as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. It was made of heavy slabs of rough granite, starkly contrasted with the skillful finish of hobbit building; this was clearly made by a different, much older hand. The tunnel only went a few feet before it opened into a space that echoed with the sounds of dripping water

It was a room at least as large as the library in Bag End; a beam of morning sunlight pierced the darkness from what looked like a metal grate buried in the grass at the top of the hill. 

“What do you see?” Elrohir asked.

“It looks like an aquifer…” came Elladan’s muffled response, perhaps a bit disappointed. All that they could see of the older twin was his backside.

“There’s a ladder,” Bilbo suggested, “if you’d like to look around.” The hobbit looked up at the younger twin. “I used to sneak down there as a hobbitling.” He confessed, “Ma hated it, had it nailed up." he shuddered, "there’s not much down there but…”

Elladan disappeared through the hole. He dropped about fifteen feet, only using one rung of the rusted, hobbit-sized metal footholds that had been installed in the stone. He landed on a narrow ledge. There was a deeper recess in the floor that was filled with water, but it was clear that the normal water line would have been above the elf’s head. Relatively new-looking copper pipes went all the way from below the dark water up to where a pump stood on the top of the hill. He had expected Numenorian or at least Arnorian architecture, something from the later kingdoms… but this? His eyes scanned the vast mossy stone blocks in curiosity. He let his fingers explore the rough surface.

“See over there.” Bilbo pointed from the hatch, and Elladan followed his finger. The damage was immediately visible; in one corner, the masonry was sunken and a pile of loose soil had accumulated where the great, monolithic blocks of the wall had been disturbed. “we can only fill the lower part of the aquifer until it gets fixed. Or else every house on Bagshot Row leaks. It’s quite selfish, what she’s done, you know; I hope Lobelia has a plan to pay for the repairs.” Elladan assessed the damage, quietly agreeing with the Hobbit, this was indeed irresponsible.

“You said you have a team of Dwarven engineers coming in?” Elladan’s voice echoed in the open space. He made his way around the featureless chamber. Peering into the dark water.

"Aye," Bilbo squinted but could barely see him, “An old friend owes me a favor.”

The elf laughed, “Then you have good friends, Master Baggins.” He crouched by the side of the water, peering at something below its smooth surface. “And what about this?” he pointed, eyebrows raised, looking up at Bilbo with eyes that shone like a cat's in the dark. The Hobbit shook his head.

“The tunnel?”

“What tunnel?”

“I can see some light down there; it looks to be a tunnel; know you not it’s origin?”

“Begging your pardon, sir but I can’t see nothin' in that dark.”

All at once, Elladan was removing his shoes and the pouch he kept on his belt. He bundled them up in the tunic which he had suddenly removed, and, climbing a few rungs on the ladder; he pushed the bundle up to the opening into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” the worried voice of his brother came through the wall as he replaced Bilbo with a scowl.

“I’m gonna have a look in the tunnel,” Elladan shrugged up at his twin, a light of adventure in his eyes, “and you’re gonna look after Estel; he should be waking up soon.” He made sure that his knife was secure on his belt.

“The mysterious ancient glowing underwater tunnel?” Elrohir snapped even as he took the bundle of his brother’s belongings.

“We’re in The Shire, little brother,” he hopped back to the edge of the water, “what’s going to happen?” As the words left his mouth, he feared that they represented a fatal jinx, but the sparkle of adventure and discovery was on the young Elf Lord, and perhaps some darker pull of a magic that he did not fully understand. With a laugh and a deep lungful of air, he pencil dove backward into the still surface, and with a gentle schlop he was gone.

“Elladan!” Elrohir’s voice rang out into the chamber; he smacked his hand unto the stone in anger, mentally strangling his twin. He only had a few moments to stare in horror at the black water where his brother had vanished before they heard a thunderous and insistent knock at the front door.

“Bilbo Baggins I know you’re in there!” Elrohir and Bilbo stared at each other in horror.

It was Lobelia.

Chapter Text

The dark surface of the water rippled and silently split over the dark haired being that rose from its still depth, first just the eyes, darting around the small chamber, their dark lashes beaded with water, before he drew himself up onto an outcropping, fingers lacing through forests of thick moss and tiny, swaying mushrooms. The soft blue-green glow of clustered fungi reflected off the moist pallor of his skin, dragging rivulets of water from his trousers, the elf crouched low, listening. Only a soft buzzing like insects met his sensitive ears, his long braid dripped rivulets of water onto the undulating stone. The tunnel was softly illuminated by bioluminescence, tiny sparks seemed to flow around his hands, caught on his breath, sticking to the moist surface of his skin. Elladan felt a shiver run through him and drew his knife.

He crept forward into the narrow passage; his blade held up along the line of his forearm. Gently he pushed aside tiny forests of bobbing mushrooms, as he disturbed them, they released clouds of sparkling spores that clung to him as if by a static charge. The walls were made of packed soil and if the passage had ever been cleared, it had been for a body smaller than his. The tunnel, he soon discovered only went about ten yards until it ended in a very pretty but otherwise uninteresting grotto, thick with varied and exotic subterranean plants which seemed to be pollinated by a variety of luminescent bee. Ecologically fascinating, but ultimately a dead end. Elladan shrugged in disappointment and turned to go back to the aquifer.

Turning back and retracing his steps down the tunnel, Elladan shook his head. Re-sheathing his knife, he experimentally wiped at some of the tiny, glowing specks that had gathered on his arm; they did not budge. Curious, he stopped to rub harder at them, but the bright spots clung to his skin like a tattoo.

Somewhere in the soft buzzing sound, he thought he heard the sound of malicious laughter.     

“Who’s there?” A wave of claustrophobic unease swept over him as he reached the other end of the short tunnel.  Predictably, Elladan sighed as he saw his foolishness in hindsight, the still pool from which he had emerged was nowhere to be seen. In its place, there was another passage, also lit by softly humming mushrooms, buzzing with an alien sort of life.

“Come.” A strange voice said, trailing off into distant giggles; the particles in the air seemed to swirl and murmurate around him. Landing as indelible glowing marks on his skin. One of the glowing insects buzzed around his face while another tugged on his braid. “Come, this way.” A sweet voice insisted. Elladan took a step backward, drawing his knife.

“I don’t want to go with you.” He held it up but did not really think that the short blade would do much good against whatever it was controlled these halls. He flinched as the glowing specks slammed into his skin with more force, in a moment, he was covered in shimmering speckles and what started as a vague tickling started to burn. They pulled strands of hair from his braid and zipped curiously up his pantlegs, causing the elf to yelp in surprise. In a few minutes the creatures had formed a swarm that flew in his eyes and all around him in a hostile cloud. He swiped impotently with his knife but the creatures clung to the blade, he felt them wriggle under his fingers and the weapon was jerked away and flung into the darkness. “Please, just let me…” but his words died in his throat as just beyond the next turn in the passage, he heard the distinct, unmuffled cry of an infant in distress.

“Marigold?” Elladan’s nurturing instincts took over and he rushed forward, batting away the molesting creatures. She was screaming, not the cry of a hungry fussy infant, but the unmistakable scream of pain and distress. He dashed forward, as he ran the cavern opened up, he could see winding, inhumanly small passages opening up on every side. When he came to the place that he was sure the screams had come from he froze, there was nothing there. Then all at once, the lights went out.      

Chapter Text

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, dear cousin.” Bilbo smiled pleasantly, casually packing his pipe. He had slid past Lobelia with his pipe weed pouch in one hand and settled himself down on his usual spot. If he was seen enjoying a pipe then surely he would not be expected to welcome her inside.

“Are you calling my boy a liar Baggins?” She put her arms around the weaselly tween, the crowd, which had assembled behind the hobbit woman seemed to think she had scored a point. Lotho nodded in taciturn support.

Bilbo crossed his feet expressively, “Well, twasn’t I who came up with such nonsense.” He made an attempt to spark his pipe. “Big Folk hiding in the hill, twas just mister Gandalf and you knows it.” He continued before she could get a response in, “Now everyone knows what the real trouble is in this town and its those of us who would endanger everyone with their diggin’ where they shouldn’t be! Blimey Lobelia, making up fairy stories to distract folks from your negligence!” he shook his head.

There was a moment of tension in which Bilbo managed to light his pipe, before Lobelia retorted, “Where we dig is none of your concern Master Baggins, n’ that’s a fact. A few leaky pipes won’t mean nothin’ when were overwhelmed by big folk settling our land.”  Her face was as red as one of the Gaffer’s beets.

“Now that’s just absurd, Lobelia…” the beet-master himself appeared across the roof of his hole with his wife, assessing the crowd and adjusting the baby clinging under his arm. “Our whole cellar is flooded. Stores for the winter, ruined, I want compensation!”

“Aye but its true, there’s strange folk about, Gaffer!” Another hobbit spoke up, Jeb Sandyman, the cantankerous old miller, he held a hayfork like a spear, “I Seen some folk going up the hill aways towards Bag-End not two days hence. All quiet in the wee hours like they know we don’t want em.”

“Now hold it right there mister Sandyman!” Bell passed her husband to stand defensively in front of the large green door, a rolled bundle under her arm. “Mister Bilbo hasn’t done nothing but treat people decent, he’s callin’ on the best stone masons this side of the sea to make sure we can sleep at night and keep our holes dry. And you’d rather stand about gossipin, spreading these, vicious… conspiracy theories! I won’t have it!”  the crowd seemed to tremble before the diminutive woman’s wrath. “there ain’t nobody who cares so much about this community and you can be sure, I was here last night for supper, and I ain’t seen nothin’ of concern. Off with ye!” She shook her hands and it was a sign of the enormous respect that the people of Hobbiton held for their healer, that they nearly all went on their way.

“This isn’t over, Baggins.” Lobelia grabbed her son and husband by the wrists and stormed off down the path. Bilbo frowned after them through a trail of smoke rings.

“This isn’t over, Baggins” he mocked, silently.

“Very unpleasant lot.” Bell frowned watching Bilbo smoke.

“What’s this?” he nodded at the bundle under her arm.

“Something for the human.” She let the bundle unroll, “I’m not sure if he will like it.” it was a finely made leather girdle, stitched with whale bone and embossed with a border of yellow flowers - certainly about the right size for a plump hobbit woman who wanted to make her figure more shapely, or a thin human with a broken spine.  

Chapter Text

“He just, jumped?” Aragorn frowned up at his Elven brother, pacing the library in clear distress. The leaded windows had been drawn shut despite the heat of the day and the beams of sunlight passing through them refracted in a display of rainbows that fell on Bilbo’s bookcases.

“Oh!" Sarchasm dripped from Elrohir's very soul, "he’s actually insane, you know.” The Elf rounded on him. Anxiously clawing the braids out of his hair which fell in uncharacteristic waves around his shoulders and down to the small of his back. “Oh, spooky, glowing underwater tunnel – why not?!” he gestured wildly.

“Can you…” the Ranger lay almost flat on his back, the only position that didn’t cause him stabbing pain. “I mean do you know if he is well?” Aragorn had woken to the morning light playing golden on the eves of Bag End, the gentle song of a lark coming through South facing windows and the sweet smell of second breakfast in the air. The euphoric energy from the previous night had settled into a steady glow in his chest. He had allowed himself a moment of peace, knowing that as soon as he moved he would be assaulted by pain. He wondered if the halflings knew the price of this peace. His mind dwelled on his vision from the previous evening, one at least, did. Bell Gamgee knew everything, she had held his mind in the palm of her tiny hand, knowing his heritage and all the whispers of destiny that surrounded him, and she had asked only for freedom.

“Oh, he’s alive, I think I would know," Elrohir shrugged, “he’s never been dead before… but… I hope I would know…” the elf leaned against one of the rafters drumming his fingers on it, tension vibrating through him, “there’s no sign of the tunnel Estel.” They looked at each other in bewilderment. Aragorn was about to offer some useless placation when the door to the library was opened and Bilbo, Hamfast and Bell came in. Hamfast had the baby propped on his belly, who was focused on fitting her whole, tiny fist in her mouth. They could hear the other children from the kitchen.

“Can you believe her, Hamfast?” Bell slapped her palm with the bundle she was holding, “the nerve of that woman!” she sat down by her patient’s side, shaking her head and assessing the man. “How goes it?” she asked him kindly. There was a crash from the kitchen and Bilbo ducked out into the hallway.

“Put that down before you…” there was another crash and both he and Hamfast rushed into the kitchen.

“I can feel my legs again,” he answered her quietly when they had gone, wondering how the immense power he had felt last night fit into such small form. “sort of.”

“Tingly?” she asked and he nodded in assent. “Lovely,” she smiled a charming smile, “it should take a few days for the medicine to be fully effective.” She instructed, then with a knowing smile and a glance at his hand she added a quiet, “m’ lord.”

“And I stand by my word, Bell,” He wasn’t sure if diplomatic agreements made while psychedelically compromised were binding, but he wanted to reassure her. The Shire needed no king, the Shire needed no Humans.

“Well, you won’t be standing by anything until we get you on your feet,” She brushed off his gravitas and shook out the bundle she had been holding. “I know its not the normal dress of a ranger, but keep this on under your shirt, it will help you heal.”

Aragorn laughed and took the supple leather garment from her, measuring it to his torso. With a bemused smile he ran his thumb over the embossed flower border.

“It suits you,” teased Elrohir, but there was a light of concern burning behind his face.

“Maybe I’ll get out of here before Lobelia catches me,” Aragorn laughed.   

A sudden idea struck the elf, “Bell, do you know anything about a tunnel that connects to the aquifer?”

Bell looked up at him in bewilderment, “no I don’t believe so, sir.”

"Because my brother and I were investigating back there. Elladan saw a tunnel under the water and went to investigate... he has not returned," There was a moment of silence.

"Well, I dont know about all that," she looked around at the others, “but there are… fairy stories,” she whispered the last two words furtively, her eyes darted around the room.

“Folk see doors in hills sometimes that disappear,” Bell whispered as if she was revealing a terrible secret, “they vanish forever to dance in the forests, they’re not like elves sir, not like your folk. Neither do they serve the enemy, they are… unaffiliated.”

“Feral.” The Gaffer shook his head as he returned to the library, a dark look in his ruddy face and the baby on his hip. “I chase them off my tomatoes every year, they’ll bite back if you aren’t careful.” He handed the child to his wife, “Viscious buggers. Few folk go missing every few years. You best hope they don’t have your brother.”

.

Elladan took two steps in the dark before something strong and writhing wrapped its way around his ankle. He fell with a cry, twisting away from whatever had caught him. His flailing hands met rock, he was momentarily airborne before something wrapped itself around his chest and slammed his head into the ceiling.

For a moment Elladan’s vision went white and his body went limp in the savage, twisting grip of his attacker. The lights came back on gradually, specks of phosphorescence swirling wildly, his hands dangled above his head as he was held immobile from the ceiling. He experimentally squeezed his eyes shut, there was a sweet smell like jasmine, and he realized, just as the foliage securely covered his mouth, curling tendrils grabbing onto locks of his hair, that the thick vines tying him in place were covered with shining white flowers.

Gradually the floating specks of light seemed to coalesce into a figure what hummed and buzzed on shining wings. It grinned and its teeth were razor sharp.

“What a disappointment…” the creature hissed, “this one will not do.” Another being pushed aside the first, it too seemed to be made of a collective of tiny shining specks of light.

“Why not?” it sniffed Elladan’s neck, zipped around his head and flicked the point of his ear, “Sssssmellss like an elf to meee, my darling.”

The first creature appraised Elladan for a moment, making a rattling noise with its wings.

“No…” it inverted itself so that it could look its prisoner in the eye, “poor sad baby dark elf, there is no light in this child of Middle Earth.” He looked genuinely upset. “He has not the light of the treeeeeees my love.”

“So the plan is…”

“The plan is over!” the first creature seemed to explode into a thousand particles in rage and then coalesce again, this time focusing its wrath on Elladan. It slapped him across the face with a suddenly clawed appendage, snapping the elf’s head to the side and slashing lines of red across his cheek. “you ruined everything!” Elladan felt sudden fear rise up his back, these beings were clearly unhinged.

“Thissss went better than your lasssst plan my love.”

“I don’t know why she stopped digging!”

“And when has sssssswitching a baby ever ended well?” Elladan felt his breath speed up. They had Marigold, and whatever had been left in her place could be incredibly dangerous. She had been screaming and the silence that pressed in behind the slithering voices of his captors was somehow worse. He struggled helplessly.

 “Perhapssss,” a voice hissed in his ear, “the dark elf is delicioussssss, my darling?” Elladan cringed away from the voice, squeezing his eyes shut, calling out to his brother in his mind. He could feel the distinctive sting of tiny, sharp teeth nibbling his earlobe.   

“Or…”  Elladan felt his head forced in the other direction, one of the beings was very close to him. They seemed to swirl and intermix and he wasn’t sure where one stopped and the next began. “perhapsssss it knowssss ssssomething.” Elladan shook his head, eyes wide. The vines blocking his mouth pulled away and Elladan found himself choking on a mouth very full of flower petals.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said quickly, spitting out more petals.

“Our home is corrupted!” came an enraged voice from one side.

“Filthy magic!” shrieked another.

“Filthy dirty, evil, bad magic, bad, bad magic.”

“Doom to Isildur!” That caught Elladan’s attention, where would one of these creatures have heard such a name?

“We must cleanse our home, we catch elvses and they will helpsssssss usssss.” But then the voice wavered and shook, “Help us!”  

“But we only catches filthy dark elf.” He felt something tug on his braid and was sure that it had come nearly loose by now.

“Wait wait,” Elladan held out his hands before they could work themselves into a frenzy again, “I can cleanse your home, I will take the man away. No more bad magic, no more heir of Isildur. We should have never brought him here I’m so sorry.” Elladan couldn’t shake the feeling that he had missed something. Something right in front of him. “Just.. give me the baby.”

“it’s not enough!” suddenly one of the creatures was holding Elladan’s face, bulging round eyes and sharp teeth, very close to his, “we needsssss, the lightssssss, of the treeses. It killssss us my love. It burnssssss.”

“hellpsss us, the baby dark elf helpsss usss?” another creature crowded close to him.

“So… you were going to kidnap a High Elf,” Elladan laughed, “and… and keep them prisoner here… under Hobbiton?” Elladan looked around at the dancing specks, thinking that they were not particularly clever. “b- because we brought a human here? That was your plan?” the creatures buzzing sound increased and they shot in angry parabolas around Elladan’s face. “Because it’s a bad plan.” He said frankly, imagining the absurdity of Glorfindel tied up like he was. This seemed to enrage the creatures which flew painfully at his face and shook his already pounding head by the hair. With a disorienting swirl of light, a patch of mushrooms throbbed to glowing light, far off on the other end of the cavern, there sat Marigold in her yellow onesie, looking soiled and miserable, her tiny face screwed up in tears, her wails echoed around the cavern. “MARIGOLD!” the elf cried, renewing his struggles for freedom.

“You will cleansssssse our home of the curse of Isssssildur, elfling, or we will EAT the child.” The being settled in a nebula of painfully vibrating points of light all around him, “Or you will bring us one of your pitiful Valar forsaken race who can,” bony, otherworldly fingers, certainly more than ten, clutched at Elladan’s face, “We NEEDSSSS THE LIGHTSSS OF THE TREESSSESSS.” It screamed and shook the elf violently.   

“Wait, wait!” Elladan struggled to form a coherent sentence, his hands flew up to protect his eyes and he realized that they were covered in painted, scribbled splotches of phosphorescence, “I have a better plan.” He said in a voice that he hoped didn’t sound like begging. The spots of light seemed to still a bit, listening suspiciously. “I… I know people.” He pleaded even as he felt a vine tighten around his throat. “Powerful people, powerful elves.”

“HE LIES!” one of the creatures shrieked.

“Pull out his entrails!”

“Elf meat!”

The vines tightened and Elladan choked. What he assumed to be the first being that had spoken hovered in his line on vision, studying him hungrily.

“I..” Elladan choked, “I can help you.” He mouthed silently. His upside down position and what he was sure was a mild concussion, and the pressure on his throat made his head swim and pound and for a moment he felt darkness begin to close over his eyes. But then, at a gesture of swirling light from what he assumed to be the leader of the group, the pressure suddenly released.

“And how would you help us baby elf?”

“First,” he said slowly, “you give me the baby and let us go. And then, I will get rid of the human, no more curse of Isildur, and finally, as compensation for all your trouble, I will get you…” he spoke slowly so that the impact of his words would be felt, and he had no doubt that these beings, Faeries, demons, minor, half fallen Maiar tucked in the secret places of Middle Earth, would know exactly of what he was speaking, “A Mallorn tree.”   

Chapter Text

“Ai Valar!” Elrohir swore and kicked the molding, raking one hand through his hair

“Aye and when I says feral I means it technically,” the Gaffer looked around with an air of sagacity he usually reserved for gardening advice. “there not from around here, if you know what I mean.” He gave the elf a level look, “stowaways from the Blessed Land, or so they say.” Marigold started to fuss in Bell’s arms and her mother deftly turned her to nurse.

“So they’re,” Elrohir shrugged looking at Aragorn for confirmation, “some kind of minor, fallen Maia that hides in elf luggage?” Bilbo got up to offer Bell his reading chair.  

“I don’t know about all that m’lord,” the Gaffer crossed his ankle over his knee, smoothing down the curls on his foot nervously, “All I knows is they love chewin’ my tomato stems.”

Elrohir drew a deep breath, he knew better than to go after his brother, he knew better than to explore fairy tunnels, he was the sane twin and he knew well that this was a foe much greater than himself. Where was Gandalf when one needed him. He knocked one fist on the wooden beam. “He’s still alive.” He whispered to himself, drumming his fingers once and spinning theatrically, his crimped hair fanning out around him, he settled a manic gaze on the human.

“let’s try it on.” One eyebrow and one side of his mouth quirked up and his eyes flared.

It took another dose of Bell’s poppy willow tea and a lot of uncomfortable rolling and lace pulling. The ordeal was only hindered by Elrohir’s relentless teasing, but in the end a very pale, harassed looking Strider was able to sit up straight and pull on a freshly laundered and mended tunic with only minimal pain. He leaned against the wall under the window, panting and holding one hand to the stiff girdle.

“The Girdle of Melian endures!” Elrohir snorted but Aragorn only shrugged.

“If it looks silly, and it works, it’s not silly.” He pulled down his shirt all the way, the garment was surprisingly well fitted, and functional, if a blow to his nonexistent pride.

They had luncheon in the library, apparently Hobbit children learned to cook before they learned to read and Halfred was very proud of his roast duck dumplings which were followed by a watermelon mint salad and a barrage of questions about “Big people”, most of which Aragorn dodged skillfully. Throughout the day the elf brooded and became more and more deeply concerned for his twin. Not even doing the dishes and trading gardening tips with Hamfast (which would be referred, verbatim to Glorfindel) made the air of foreboding lift. Indeed it seemed that Hobbit children learned to clean up well after they learned to read.

Elrohir went down to the aquifer once more, stripped his clothing and dove in. He went down to the bottom, some twenty feet deep into black water, but there was no sign of a tunnel, nor, in fact any seam or mark in the stone face. Dressing himself again he leaned against the dried weeds that had been submerged before Lobelia’s unfortunate excavation and stared at the black rectangle of water that had swallowed his brother. A thought occurred to him then that perhaps the water was not there accidentally, perhaps this was one of those disappearing doors that had so frightened the Gamgees and the water was put there to keep people from wandering in… or out. A shudder ran down the elf’s back.

“Are you down there my dear, it’s nearly Supper time.” Bell’s cheerful voice came drifting down from the bathroom.

“Coming,” he answered politely. The elf placed one hand on his stomach with a grimace, feeling a bubble move around in his guts, he had eaten more in the last few days than he normally ate in a month and he was realizing that, although it was a gift in many ways, the Hobbit diet did not agree with the Elven constitution.

Dinner was breaded river bass with pickled beets and creamy yogurt sauce followed by strawberry rhubarb hand pies with fresh whipped cream and berries – all of which they ate in the library. Bell insisted on letting Aragorn hold the baby, but Marigold immediately cried when his large hands closed around her and she was quickly returned to her mother with a rushed apology.

Afterward Bilbo even consented to letting his guests smoke indoors. The children, except for Marigold, who was still too little for bedtimes were sent to sleep and the adults gathered in the library. Bilbo opened the window and went to fetch everyone ale. Wary of exposing the infant to the smoke, Bell walked up and down the outer corridor with her fussing and squirming in her arms.

“The pipe weed smoke will keep the worms out of your books.” Hamfast informed him with a knowledgeable nod; propping his feet on a stool and blowing a single sturdy looking smoke ring.

“Aye just watch your coals on the carpet.” Bilbo frowned at his old friend, handing him a heavy glass tankard of ale.

The elf had gone very quiet. The hobbits had noticed how little he ate and did their best to distract him from thoughts of his brother. He folded his lanky limbs into himself and seemed to not notice that the human was rubbing circles on his back. He looked up when Bilbo approached him with the other tankard and a smile. For a moment there was a raw vulnerability and anxiety in his eyes before his manners took over and he graciously took the drink. He took a performative sip and immediately forgot about it, propped, as it was on his folded knee with his delicate fingers threaded through the handle.         

Elrohir had forbidden the Ranger any ale with the painkillers that he had been given and had instead found a tin of dried chamomile in Bilbo’s pantry which he steeped and pushed into the man’s hands in a tiny hobbit teacup. Elrohir came very close to refusing the Ranger the opportunity to sample the Gaffer’s home-grown pipe weed, a decision which the first painful cough had him almost regretting.

“Do you sense anything?” the human asked, trying to cough as gently as possible.

 The elf just looked at him sadly and shrugged. “he’s not dead.” But the round grey eyes were full of apprehension. All the stories that Lindir used to scare him with as an Elfling came rising to the surface with sharp teeth, folk who stepped into a mushroom circle and danced until they collapsed, or followed little lights into the forest never to be seen again… he took a deep breath.

Just then a knock on the front door echoed down the hall. Bilbo frowned, motioning for the two strangers to stay concealed below the window. Elrohir could clearly hear the conversation that transpired. Bell stopped her walking in front of the open library door bouncing the baby in her yellow onesie, she glanced at Aragorn with trepidation.

“Good evening Mister Baggins.” This voice was not one of the hobbits from earlier. Seized by reckless curiosity Elrohir stealthily peered through the distorted glass, he could just barely see the front doorstep where a group of hobbits was standing with torches.

“How can I help you Warden Hardbottle?” for all his comical fussing, Baggins was a good liar.

“Sorry to bother you Master Baggins,” came the rather gruff response, “but I’ve been getting some strange reports of suspicious folk hiding out up here, and folks have asked me to take a look around.”

“W-well of course…” He was about to lie again but a commotion behind him suddenly commanded everyone’s attention.

Bell Gamgee was holding out her infant at arm’s length, a look of horrified confusion on her face, the child’s fussing had turned to screams, and then to strange, animalistic snarls and the child started to glow. In seconds her tiny body had dissolved into a buzzing swarm of glowing insects which zipped around her as the child’s weight vanished from her mother’s arms.

Bell Gamgee screamed. A horrified sound of pure rage and loss that came ripping from the small woman’s body. Pursued by visciously burning sparks of living light the warden, and all those who had followed him to the gates of Bag End, scattered in terror into the night.

Bell fell sobbing against Hamfast’s chest, her hands still frozen as if the child was still between them.    

Chapter Text

Arwen Undomiel twitched awake on a flet barely large enough to lie down on. She scowled into the shifting light of the hot, summer sun as it filtered through the glinting silvery undersides of the mallorn leaves. She pushed herself halfway up, still scowling, one hand going to the ring that hung around her neck.

A gentle breeze made the foliage whisper and way up in these thin branches the heat was almost pleasant. The day was bright and clear and sweltering and the mood in Caras Galadhon was subdued. Far below her she could hear distant voices raised in musical laughter and the general sound of elven bustle. The phosphorescent insects which enjoyed the shelter of the higher canopies buzzed softly, playing in her dark hair as it laid about her on the straw sleeping mat.

She squeezed shut her eyes trying to remember her dream, the dream had been long and complicated and the only image she could hold onto was Elladan, bare chested and smeared with what looked like glowing paint, messy hair half braided with a halo of white flowers, blood pouring down his face, clutching onto a… halfling baby? She covered her eyes with one delicate hand. He had one hand held out to her and was asking for something, pleading, but no matter how hard she strained to hear him, his voice, when he tried to speak only mouthfuls of flower petals fell from his lips. What to do?

She rolled onto her stomach and peeked cautiously over the edge of the platform. She could observe almost everything that transpired on the lower levels of the palace from this place that she had discovered centuries ago. It was also the best place she had ever found for afternoon naps. And sneaking.

She fidgeted with the ring on her necklace, zipping it back and fourth.

She watched her grandmother cross the entrance hall escorted by Galhadrim nobles, greeting the guests from the Greenwood with a courtly sweep of her billowing sleeve. Arwen wondered, had she been expected to greet them? for a split second, as Galadriel turned to lead the elves inside, her bright eyes flashed up to the canopy as Arwen disappeared. Where was Celeborn?

She would not go to her grandmother with this dream.

Instead Elrond’s daughter escaped through the canopy. Her goal was an ancient and isolated Mallorn Tree outside the city. It had been struck by lightning and its ancient heart was all but burned away. Many centuries ago her grandfather had poured much of his own living energy into it in an effort to save the tree which now flourished but had a burned empty hole straight through the trunk. It was here that the Lord of the Golden Wood went to meditate.

Celeborn sat on the beaten earth with his hands in his lap, white butterflies and glimmering phosphorescence dancing around his head. His long pale hair lay loose around his shoulders in the style of a philosopher and he wore only a simple grey robe. As Arwen approached him the broad smile that spread across his face seemed to intensify the otherworldly light that haunted his body and his hands closed around something that he had been contemplating.

“Good afternoon grandfather.” Arwen approached him respectfully, his luminous sky blue eyes looked up for a moment from his contemplation and indicated a place on the ground to his right.

Arwen took the example of his silence and sat beside him, arranging her garments to cover her knees and breathing in the heady smell of thirsty mallorn trees in the fullness of their summer foliage. Birds sang in the high swaying branches of her grandfather’s tree, which alone of all the trees in the wood had no rope or flet or alteration. This was a sacred place, and Arwen found that the soil was cool beneath her and her mind began to drift to the strange and troubling dream of her brother. Her hand soon found the ring beneath her tunic. Looking up she suddenly realized that she was being watched, studied.

“it’s going to rain soon,” was all her grandfather said, smelling the air.

“it usually does when it gets this hot.” Arwen observed. Celeborn hummed as if this had never occurred to him. He let the silence open a gentle space between them, into which she could safely deposit whatever was darkening her spirit.

“The emissary from the Greenwood is here.” She told him, he knew how he could completely psychically isolate himself in these trances.

“Are they.” He noted thoughtfully, peeking his fea up out of his meditative hermeticism just enough to attempt to spy on his wife. She would be fine for a few minutes. For now his focus was on Arwen who appeared positively vibrating with agitation. “and you are… hiding from your grandmother.” He observed, “and failing to do so.” He sang the last five words. “she knows exactly where you are my dear little sapling.” Arwen snorted. “alas.” He studied her intensely, her small hand held something under her dress at her chest, “you have doomed us both.” He breathed deeply of the perfumed summer air, a breeze lifted his hair and Celeborn turned the object he held in his hands.

“What is this?” Arwen reached out as he handed it to his granddaughter. It was a mallorn nut, large and shiny and brownish red. As smooth as if polished by Aule himself. Similar in shape and color to those that lay all around the forest floor and were made into every sort of confectionery by the chefs of Caras Galadhon.

“Do you notice anything strange about it?” The Lord of the Golden Wood asked her, studying her as she turned it and her hair fell down to her lap.

“What’s’ this?” she pointed to the seam where the two halves of the nut met, a tiny trace of silver as bright as purest mithril ran along it.

Celeborn leveled a searching gaze at his grand daughter before saying, “it’s fertile.” He let the significance sink into her for a moment, Arwen shook her head so he continued, “I found it this morning, on the path, just there, he glanced outside of their shelter.” He took the nut back thoughtfully, it fit comfortably into his palm. “I haven’t…” something caught in his throat and he blinked, holding the seed to his heart, “I haven’t seen a fertile mallorn nut in almost three thousand years. They are not born idly, these trees must be pollinated by a powerful will.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Then nurtured through germination, until the silver covers the whole thing,” he rotated the nut between thumb and middle finger, “and planted somewhere peaceful and given clean water and starlight.” He tossed the nut deftly up into the receding darkness of the great empty trunk above them and caught it between his hands, suddenly Arwen saw the resemblance of her brothers in him and her dream from her nap came rushing back.

“Elladan.” She breathed, “the twins are in trouble.”

“The twins ARE trouble.” He nodded, “I know, for I have had the same dream.” He twitched an eyebrow, “I believe they were... what is the old song? 'Meddling in the affairs of Wizards' and mortals...” He shook his head, wholly bewildered as to why some elves seemed to be drawn forever towards the business of the Second Borns. His woods were secret and largely considered hostile and as long as the rest of the world stayed afraid of his wife and out of their business he was a contented elf. But now that they had gone and gotten involved, something told him that his grandsons plea through the shifting bonds of dreams and families was sincere.

Still, his thumbnail traced the silver line on the nut. “It belongs to the Shire.” He breathed, some trembling of premonition sweeping over him, “but its fea is yet but a spark, in half a yen, perhaps, it will be ready for planting, until then,” Celeborn pulled a silken pouch from under his robe and slipping the nut inside, he returned it to hang at his chest. “hope.” He put one hand over his heart and with the other he stroked down his granddaughter’s hair.

Suddenly emotional, he ran his hand down to gently pull the chain from the collar of her dress. He looked for a long moment at the ring before the tears took him with a shaking sob and he pulled his sweet Arwen into a crushing embrace.

Chapter Text

 Elrohir and Aragorn watched in horror as the baby vanished into thin air. Bell’s screams stretched on until she was shaking and hoarse in Hamfast’s arms, both of them collapsed on one of the hallway benches. The Gaffer had frozen, brown eyes slick with tears as he clutched onto his wife in mute horror. Elrohir stood frozen in the middle of the library, which is why he didn’t see the hobbit with the crossbow come to the window behind him.  

“You better come outside real slowly, elf.” A trembling voice said from the window and that single moment was the bravest that Warden Regi Hardbottle would ever feel in his life. Elrohir turned around, his dark hair spilling over his shoulders, he raised his hands and realized that, from the angle he was looking, the hobbit could not see Aragorn. If he went with them they might not see his injured brother, he had no desire to hurt the little folk and idly he wondered how many hobbits he and his twin could take in a fight. He bet the number was lower than he guessed, but he would rather not find out.How would the little people punish a murderer if he was blamed for the child's disappearance? He desperately did not want to hurt these gentle, terrified people.

“We know you’re in there baby snatcher!” Sandyman yelled from the front door. A wave of dread swept through the elf as he heard Bilbo's high pitched answer.

"I swear I don't know anything, honest."

“Move aside Baggins, you’re in enough trouble already!” said another voice. With a wink at Estel, who gleaned his plan moments before the elf acted, and tried to stand up in frustration only to silently cuss his way through the searing pain. Elrohir wheeled into the main hallway of Bag End, locking the library door behind him.

“Come on now baby snatcher.” The miller glowered at him with his pitchfork. Glancing at the Gamgees as they clutched onto each other. Bilbo had run to catch Frodo as he came out of his room to investigate the noise and was now holding onto the boy for dear life.

Elrohir looked around at the terrified faces, with a sigh he unbuckled his sword belt, letting the graceful mithril weapon clatter to the tile floor. Then he got to his knees and held up his hands.

.

Elladan felt the vines that had been holding him upside down suddenly release. He fell on his face with a crunch in a patch of mushrooms that dissolved into brilliant blue slime when they were disturbed.  He gasped in pain as his head throbbedas he pushed himself up. The little lights that swam and churned around him seemed to have doubled in number and a wave of nausea hit him as he tasted blood flowing down his throat from somewhere in his nasal cavity. He reached up to his hair only to find that the flowering vines that had grown all through his half destroyed braid also had vicious, tiny burred seed pods which were now matted into his dark tresses.

“MAWIGOL?!” he cried out, spitting blood and his shattered front two teeth and blinking away the double vision. He heard a gurgle behind him and saw her in the middle of a mushroom ring in the center of the cavern. “so you’ll accept my deal?” he said to the air, lisping through the damage to his mouth, his incisors would grow back in a few weeks.

“Not your word,” a soft voice emanated from a dense swirl of lights, “the word of the lord of the Golden Wood.” Elladan smirked, sending messages in this way was risky, but his grandparents were always listening. They would get their tree.

“Hello thweet girl.” Elladan bent to pick the infant up and her whimpering immediately calmed, he lifted her diaper to his blood clogged nose and cringed, “Are you hungry? Yeah? doeth thomeone need changing?” he smiled at her through his bloody mouth, trying to elicit a laugh as he stripped her soiled diaper and did his best to wipe her clean in one of the still shimmering pools that littered the cavern. He splashed his own face and his hands came away in a blurred smudge of blue and red. 

Elladan held closely to the naked infant looking around he saw a path was lighted before him.

At first the tunnel was similar to those he had wandered through earlier, cramped, labrynthine and lit by the eerie glowing mushrooms and bioluminescent insects and particles. Suddenly they came to a place where it looked like the tunnel had collapsed. Taking one step further than he should have, Elladan felt the ground shake again and was suddenly aware of the floor sliding away beneath him as he and the baby were violently sucked into a lower chamber in a tumbling cascade of rocks. Thinking only of the tiny being in his arms, Elladan threw his limbs around her, shielding her tiny skull in his hands and tucking her into his chest as she screamed in terror. They landed with a terrible crash of a collapsing ceiling into an open tunnel filled with picks and shovels and tools. Riding the edge of the sliding cascade of dirt and rocks, Elladan rolled to an inelegant stop, covered in a fine layer of dust and mud and curled around the screaming, terrified baby in his arms.

“Ith alright,” He lay there panting, “you’re fine, were alive.” he was dimly aware of the child wailing in fear. He pressed his aching head to the tile floor and tried to focus his vision. His visual field was mostly filled with a pair of large, hairy, feet.

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins screamed and raised the skillet in her hands defensively. The being that rose up from the debris that had been her new cellar was one of nightmares, its hair was a wild, tangled mass full of flowers and leaves, it was covered in strange glowing symbols and splotches of dark blue, it smiled through bloody, gaping fangs and it clutched the youngest Gamgee child in its claws.

 Lobelia sobbed and shook, standing with her feet apart and the skillet raised. She made a desperate sweeping notion with the pan which the elf dodged. Rolling past her he saw that the front door was open and without hesitation he made his escape. Lobelia stayed fixed to the spot, watching them exit with dismay. She had a sudden urge to make sure that the new collapse had blocked whatever passage he had emerged from. 

The scene that met Elladan’s horrified eyes when he came up the hill was pure chaos. There was a large crowd of hobbits around the door to Bag End. At their center he saw Elrohir with his hands tied, being led away without resistance from the front door by a group of terrified and very angry looking halflings. There was a distant, shocked look in his brother’s eye as what seemed like an enraged, and fully armed mob of little people lead him down the Bag End stairs. He could hear Bell Gamgee’s horrified wailing from inside. 

The wardens were not gentle and soon, as the fear of the elf waned and the crowd realized that he was not about to fight back, they became boulder in their demands for justice. Elrohir felt himself grabbed by a dozen tiny hands, he had the physical strength to throw the halflings off as easily as mice, but Elrond's son knew that these were no vicious orcs but merely terrified people who's home had been invaded and whose children had been threatened. 

“Baby snatcher!” One of the crowd yelled, brandishing a torch. Where was Estel? had he gotten away?

"Fell demon!" Elrohir turned to try and see what was happening through the open door of the hole, but at that moment searing pain struck him in the side. He gasped, unable to even scream as the shock hit his body like a battering ram. Otho Sackville Baggins had been the town butcher for long enough to know where to stick a knife to hit a kidney. Turns out it was the same spot in an elf and a pig.

Elladan watched in horror as his brother collapsed into the arms of his captors with a choked gasp. "Elohia!" he shouted, but nobody heeded him and his voice was slurred by the damage to his face.

"Throw him in the river!" this seemed like a popular idea and soon the chant of "THROW HIM IN THE RIVER!" "THROW HIM IN THE RIVER!" was taken up by everyone and the elf's limp body was grabbed by six halflings and half dragged along the path. The baby in Elladan's arms began to whimper in hunger.

Elladan hiked Marigold up on his hip, and fully aware of how ridiculous, and frankly demonic he looked. He went up the path.

“Ethcuse me,” he managed, in his most polite tone as he approached the hobbits, “I’m ooking fo thith child’th mother…” he risked a glance at his twin, who hung between the hobbits with his hands bound and his hair loose over his face. 

The Warden, who was holding one of Elrohir's arms by the sleeve, turned around slowly and regarded him with trembling awe. One by one the halflings caught sight of the elf and so strangely altered was his appearance that they let him pass from sheer bewilderment. The baby in his arms fussed hungrily.

He walked between rows of silent hobbits, each wondering what this fey apparition was who appeared so suddenly, holding the child that they had just seen dissolve in its mother’s arms. 

Elladan climbed the stairs, through the wide open front gate and even as she heard her hungry cries Bell ran to the door, her face still swollen and contorted with grief.

"Padon me, my 'ady," Elladan got her attention gently, "I beliebe I hab thomething of yourth." With a look of numb wonder, Bell took Marigold in her arms and leaning heavily on her husband, the Hobbit woman sat down on heavily the floor, holding her daughter in a tight embrace and looking up at the strangely dressed elf in awe. 

"How many more of these strange folk you got  around here, Baggins!" Warden Hardbottle asked from where he stood in the door, he held his crossbow trained  Bilbo was watching the scene unfold from the dining room with an open mouth, he held a kerchief in his hands which he wrang nervously. 

"Just one." came Aragorn's tired answer, with what seemed like great effort, legs visibly shaking, the man stepped through the living room door  

Chapter Text

Gandalf the Grey gently encouraged the pony that was pulling his cart with a soft traveling song. The glow of his pipe illuminated his aged features in the deepening night. He scowled as they rolled up the path to Hobbiton. The familiar lights and music of the quiet village seemed disrupted this evening and the light of raised torches illuminated the tree above Bag End from below.

"THROW HIM IN THE RIVER!" "THROW HIM IN THE RIVER!" the sound of the chant came over the water. Frowning, the wizard snapped the reigns and the pony trotted forward. It took him several more minutes to reach the bridge, but as he did he smiled grimly.

Staggering over the water, a few paces in front of a mob of very angry hobbits were the three who he had left here only a few days ago. Elladan seemed to be the only one of them who could walk steadily, but the heir of Rivendell was barely recognizable. He held his twin in his arms, Elrohir was clutching at his bleeding side with his wrist still wrapped in tightly knotted rope. The Dunedan staggered, holding one of Elladan’s shoulders for support and cringing with each step as they fled the village.

One of the hobbits held out his arms at the center of the bridge, telling the crowd to stay behind him.

“We don’t need your kind round here!” Warden Hardbottle said in a voice that he hoped sounded authoritative. From somewhere in the crowd a tomato flew and exploded in a rotten mess at Elladan’s feet, followed by a second one that hit Aragorn squarely on the head.

“Stay out of the Shire!” came a woman’s voice.

“Good evening my young lords.” The wizard puffed on his pipe. Aragorn looked up, clear relief sweeping his features as he looked over the pony cart that the wizard was driving.

“Mithrandir!” the man nearly sobbed, “You brough a cart!” the wizard had dropped from the driver’s seat and as he saw the human’s legs about to buckle, he rushed forward to catch him under his arms.

“Aye, my boy,” he guided the ranger to the back of the cart, as he helped him up his hand passed over the leather brace he wore around his middle, surreptitiously, he pushed up the human’s tunic and smiled. “A wizard is never late.” The Ranger lay on his side on the floor of the cart, rubbing his furiously tingling legs and cringing, the Hobbit Woman’s medicine had been effective, but the experience of sensation returning to his lower extremities was an unpleasant one.

Elladan laid his brother, who was drifting in and out of agonized consciousness, his hands red with blood, down on the floor of the cart as he heard Gandalf tell the pony to move. The wound was bleeding badly and Elladan quickly staunched it with his bare fingers. Elrohir gasped and trembled at the pressure, pressing his face into the floor as wave after wave of pain hit him with every breath. Gandalf climbed back into the driver's seat and with a flick of his reigns, the cart lurched into motion. 

“I’m thorry, Wo.” Elladan shook his head, sniffing back blood from his nose and valiantly attempting to get his brother’s face to come into focus.

 “There’s water and bandages in the right side bench chest.” Gandalf told him calmly, looking back and assessing the younger twin’s injury. The cart rocked gently and Elrohir gasped in discomfort.  

Aragorn rolled himself to the side, he lifted the lid on one of the benches and retrieved a fat roll of fresh bandages and a full water skin. He pushed Elladan, who had begun to sway and blink rapidly, out of the way and carefully cleaned and bandaged the wound.

"Did you hit your face?" Aragorn asked the elf, reading the telltale pattern of bruising around his nose and eyes. Elladan watched him work in an uncharacteristic daze, grinning horribly through his shattered teeth, Aragorn cringed. The human still had bits of rotten tomato in his hair and the elf had to blink at him a few times before answering thickly.

"I dink do." he leaned against one of the benches, eyes drifting shut in exhaustion. 

“How did you enjoy your time in Hobbiton?” Gandalf asked with a dark chuckle.

“Neber again,” Elladan picked a bur out of his hair, gazing at his twin’s unconscious face with concern. “Neber again.” He spat blood over the side of the cart.

Far away the lights of Hobbiton receded from their sight, a single voice following them on the wind, "Stay out of the Shire!"