Chapter Text
It was a morning like any other in the Shire. The market was bustling and hustling. The scent of fresh baked goods and the sounds of cheery conversation drifted up from every home and entryway.
Within a particularly green hill with a particularly robust garden, Bilbo Baggins leaned out his bedroom window. A flock of songbirds were nestled in the shrub just beyond. They looked at him with intelligent eyes and Bilbo smiled at them.
“Well, go on, ladies and gents. What songs do you have for me today?” Bilbo closed his eyes as the birds began their tune. A beautiful harmony that sang of spring and warm winds that carry you home to your nest. The hobbit began puttering about his room, getting ready for the day. It wasn’t that the birds sang words in the common tongue but Bilbo had always been able to hear their meaning. Always been able to understand with his whole heart the intricacies and beauty of the nature around him.
His mother often said that he was touched by Yavanna. That the green goddess herself had smiled on Bilbo’s birth. Bilbo didn’t know about all that but he knew he was an odd hobbit. As many of his childhood friends and neighbors had been quick to point out to him.
He would spend hours communing with rabbits, squirrels, field mice, and what was brushed off as the behaviors of an imaginative faunt turned to the odd idiosyncrasies of strange Master Baggins of Bag End. Bilbo was fine with that though. He was happy with his friends, the woodland animals and the songbirds. Happy with the knowledge his garden was the most luscious and bountiful of the Shire. And not just due to Hamfast Gamgees sturdy, talented hands but due to his nightly sessions feeling the vibrations and whispers of the Earth as he smoked his evening pipe on the garden bench. He urged his plants to grow to their most beautiful and plentiful, making note of what they needed to mention to Hamfast in the morning.
Again the plants didn’t speak in such words as ‘water’ or ‘richer soil’, but Bilbo knew what they were communicating nonetheless.
Bilbo could sometimes, though it was an exhausting experience and made him feel as if he needed to sleep a fortnight, grow things within a shortened amount of time. His mother had been surprised to no end one day in the dead of winter when Bilbo had come inside, snow-dusted and rosy-cheeked, a fresh bundle of daisies gripped in his hand as if it were the middle of spring. All because Belladonna had mentioned earlier that day how desperately she missed seeing the flowers and hoped spring would come soon. The faunt had collapsed and slept for three days after the fact. It wasn’t a trick he much attempted to perfect as being exhausted for days on end was very inconvenient when he could simply pop into the garden or the local apothecary for whatever plants he needed. Though, he could manage some rare tea leaves when the mood struck him without too much effort or strain.
It was one of those such moods that Bilbo found himself in that morning. He’d waved a goodbye to his frielding songbird chorus then pattered his way into his kitchen. He kept a small flower pot filled with rich soil in a cupboard for just this occasion. He felt like tasting the sweet, bitter tea his mother had brought back from a chance run in with a trader from the far north. He couldn’t remember the name but he remembered the look and the taste and he hoped that would be enough.
He held his hands over the pot and closed his eyes. A feeling came over him like the feel of fresh air and dew and that feeling one gets when they know rain is coming. He breathed in, imagining he could feel the seed forming and taking shape in the soil, then breathed out, imagining the passing of days and nights and the drops of rain that would have naturally fed the plant. A moment passed and he opened his eyes. Tickling his fingertips were the familiar shapes of the leaves he remembered his mother dropping into a kettle so long ago. He picked one and smelt it, the aroma robust and dark.
Bilbo smiled and wiped a small amount of perspiration off his brow from the effort. He picked off a few more leaves from the plant and proceeded to brew a pot. He gathered some scones, butter, and jam while it heated.
In a few minutes, he sat down at his table with a pleasant breakfast spread with a perfectly brewed cup of tea. Just as he’d made to bring the cup to his lips, a knock sounded from his front door. Bilbo frowned. He’d not been expecting anyone this morning.
He shrugged and headed to the door, assuming Hamfest or one of the neighbors were coming by for a morning chat and glad he had plenty of scones to go around.
He was therefore very surprised when he opened his door to find a tall figure clad in gray standing on the threshold. A wrinkled face with bushy brows and piercing blue eyes leaned into view, a staff gripped in his weather hand.
“Goodmorning,” Bilbo stuttered, a bit thrown as to what business this stranger would have to do with him.
“What do you mean?” the man said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
Bilbo blinked, “Uhhh, all of them, I suppose.” The man snorted and continued to stare at Bilbo as if waiting for something. “I’m terribly sorry, but is there something I can help you with?”
The man seemed to roll his eyes without doing so before answering, “I should hope so, Master Baggins. To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!” The hobbit felt instinctively chastised as if his mother was behind him about to pull his ear for being inhospitable. Before he could let out another apology the man continued, “I am Gandalf and Gandlf means me. And you, gentle-hobbit, should let me in so I may rest my road worn bones.”
The man pushed into the door, his form taking up the whole of it as Bilbo stepped back. Bilbo’s host manners kicked in while his brain still lagged behind in confusion. He took Gandalf’s scarf and hat, something niggling at his brain about where he’d heard the name Gandalf before. It came to him in a rush as he hung the man’s things.
“Ah! Gandalf! The wizard with the lovely fireworks and a great traveling companion to my mother if I’m not mistaken.” He turned with a smile, proud to have recognized the man only to find he’d moved to his dining table. Bilbo hurried to fill a cup for him and dish out some of the scones.
“Indeed, the very same. Though it has been a long time since I’ve been in the Shire.” Gandalf thanked Bilbo and took a sip of the tea. His eyes widened. “And even longer since I’ve tasted the cleansing tea of Lake Evendim. How on Middle-Earth did you come across such a delicacy?” Bilbo blushed and stuttered before taking a sip of his own cup.
“My mother had some stashed away. I’m not sure where she got it.” Bilbo lied. Gandalf nodded.
“That sounds like Belladonna. She had the ability to find the oddest things on her walking holidays and adventures, for better or for worse.” Gandalf frowned and set his cup down. “Speaking of adventures, I have a proposition for you, Master Baggins.”
“Bilbo, please. An old family friend shouldn’t stand on such formalities.” Bilbo looked at his hands then back to Gandalf. “Though, I’ve no idea what you’d want with me when it comes to adventures.”
Gandalf smiled and pulled out his pipe. He packed it in silence for a moment before stating, “No, I’d imagine the great Master of Bag End would have no need for wondering, safe here in your hill.” The hobbit was unsure if he should be offended or not by the statement.
“No, I’d think not. I’m quite comfortable here in my home. My home built by my father for my mother and I to live and grow old in, I might add.”
“And is that all you seek from life? Comfortability and a place to grow old in?”
Bilbo was puzzled by the question and stood to grab his own pipe from the window sill. “I should think so. What else could an ordinary hobbit want from life?” When he turned back to the table, Gandalf’s bright eyes were on him, a soft twinkle in them.
“But you are no ordinary hobbit, are you, Bilbo Baggins?”
The hobbit felt his heart pick up a furious pace, his eyes wide as if he were a rabbit caught in the stare of a hawk. “I-I beg your pardon, I’m not quite sure what you mean.”
Gandalf snorted and lit his pipe, trails of smoke rising from his nostrils. “I think you know quite well what I mean, dear Bilbo.”