The Free Peoples (VII)

The Ranger captain studied them as they approached before addressing Bilbo Baggins once more. "I must admit I am… stunned at the reality and sheer scale of this endeavor. If it were anyone else that sent me that message, or any other choice of messenger, I would never have taken it seriously. But here you are, and in quite august company if I am not mistaken." The man met the eyes of the ones in front of him, then did the same with Thorin who'd finally taken his spot alongside the others, his solemn, grim manner not quite masking how rattled and discombobulated he'd been left by the song of mere minutes past.

"A round of who's who, then!" Bilbo clapped his hands, gesturing at everyone as he played host, as he seemed prone and ever so delighted to. "Arathorn, son of Arador, Chieftain of the Dunedain Rangers of the North." Ori suddenly felt rather faint. "Allow me to introduce Robin Whitfoot, the Mayor of Michel Delving, my uncle Isumbras Took, Thain of the Shire, and Gorbadoc Brandybuck, Master of Buckland. And here we have Thorin Oakeshield, Son of Thrain, son of Thror, king of Durin's Folk."

"At your service," the last Arhedain king's descendent offered with all the courtesy that Thror would have been shown by other visiting monarchs when he still ruled under the mountain.

The last king's descendent.

Because it bore repeating.

"At yours and your family's," the three hobbits answered, followed by Thorin only half a moment later. Thorin, who was looking between Bilbo Baggins and Arathorn, son of Arador, as if he had never seen living creatures of their species before.

"Peace, King Thorin," Arathorn said warmly. "You need fear no traps or enemies here. It was in no way intimated to me that you or any dwarves would even be coming. In fact, if it will ease your fears, let us be not foreign dignitaries but instead as friends and fellow warriors against the forces of Darkness. It is rare indeed that chance conspires to bring friends together from so far away, let alone for their reunion to be crowned with so bounteous a feast as what is being made here. Besides," he looked to Bilbo again, then. "We are all at the service of someone tonight, isn't that right Small Brother?"

"If you say so, Tall Brother. You are the one in charge here after all."

"Am I though? Me and mine seem to be rather neatly outnumbered. But I suppose I shall humbly accept this fiction of me having any sort of control on current happenings and introduce you to the rest of the relevant parties."

That, for the first time ever in Ori's experience, saw Bilbo Baggins taken by complete surprise.

"Alright," Bilbo said warily. "What happened this time?"

"Nothing of concern, I don't think," Arathorn replied, sounding far too amused for anyone's good. "However, your decision to go on your trip weeks earlier than you originally indicated does mean that certain people who planned to surprise you there did not make it all the way yet. In fact, by complete chance they happened to be sharing our fires the night our mutual friend notified me of your sudden change in plans. Naturally, they chose to linger, largely due to the tireless entreaties of someone you might not know, but surely know of very well."

"Is this it then?" A new voice cut through the descending twilight from among the last of the riders that had finally arrived. "Well don't just stay there! I will not have you loitering in the background when you made a vow to meet my nephew."

"Nephew?" Bilbo mouthed in bewilderment.

Bewilderment that instantly turned to shock when it wasn't a man that emerged from among the riders that everyone had ignored until then. It was a hobbit.

Bilbo's intake of breath surprised all of them, but that reaction was nothing compared to that of Isumbras Took.

"I-Isengar?" The hobbit gasped, and it suddenly struck Ori that, more than anything else, the Thain was old.

"Well now, who else could it be?" the new arrival asked loftily. "Why, I can't imagine what-"

His words died in his throat.

From one moment to the next, Isumbras Took made as if to take a staggered step only to sway dangerously with a weak, rattling sound of distress as he held one hand out to the stranger and the other over where his heart was in his chest.

Fortinbras was at his side before anyone else, Bilbo not a step behind him unstoppering a hip flask which he held up to the Thain's mouth while rubbing his throat to coax him into swallowing. Then even Arathorn was kneeling over them, barking for a dish of hot water to be brought to him and murmuring over his hands while he crushed a handful of flowers. They went into the water the moment it was delivered, releasing a strong fragrance along with the vapors. The Ranger Chief then all but tore open the Thain's waistcoat and undershirt to rub the hastily prepared lotion over his lungs and heart. All the while Gandalf loomed over the four and looked like he would have gotten to some work himself if there had been any room left.

After a lengthy, weighty silence, Isumbras Took shuddered and started swallowing small mouthfuls of whatever Bilbo Baggins was feeding him without assistance, blinking dazedly up at the others and looking confused as to the change in height while his son practically held him in his lap.

"Oh dear," the newly revealed Isengar fretted to the side. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

"Peace, uncle," Bilbo sighed. "He won't be leaving us yet."

"I-I thought y-you'd d-died," Isumbras croaked weakly, hands shaking around the flask. "I thought you'd died."

"What's this poppycock then? Me, dead? Why, the very idea! And after I had Gandalf-"

"Like I'd ever trust anything that Wizard says!" The Thain roared, shaking from head to toe as he all but forced Fortinbras to lift him up.

Gandalf did not rear back as if struck, but he did not seem surprised or dismissive either.

"He t-took you f-from us!" Isumbras swayed dangerously as he turned, but turn he did to glare all but hatefully up at Tharkûn. "You t-took him from us! You filled his h-head with nonsense of seas and boats and adventures," he spat. "You made him go off on a… a… Made him leave like you made Belladonna leave and she almost died herself before she… She never would've felt responsible later during that damned winter if not… she'd never have gotten…" The old Took's tirade broke with a sob and the man almost broke down entirely. "I can't look at you, Wizard." He instead stumbled away from the grim grey man, held up only by his son and nephew as tears broke down his face. "I thought you'd died…" He wept, weakly reaching out.

"Brother, I… I…" Isengar Took didn't know what to say though, so he just rushed over to give Isumbras the embrace he so desperately pled for.

"You selfish, self-absorbed loose," Isumbras sobbed. "I thought you'd died… You sent a bunch of flower seeds then washed your hands of our whole family and I thought you'd died!" The Thain kept weeping and repeating that line, over and over and over. "I thought you'd died."

"Well this is some pickle, ain't it," Gorbadoc Brandybuck quietly muttered to Thorin from where he'd backed off and now stood next to their company. "Came all this way only to have a heart attack."

"Been sayin' for years that Wizards are bad news," Robin Whitfoot muttered into his pipe, scowling at Tharkûn and confirming beyond doubt that Tharkûn was not, in fact, universally loved in the Shire. "Don't see why Bilbo's so willing to put up with his nonsense myself."

"'Put up' is a strong term," the hobbit in question said as he approached them with a grave expression. "I suppose I should apologize for this upset of the situation," he told Thorin. "I know it was not an entirely popular decision to let yourselves be so diverted from your own course. I hoped that a proper sendoff and cultural experience might make up for the inconvenience of having had the existence of your expected fourteenth companion disproven. Subjecting you to private family drama, and putting you in the situation where you could not avoid being exposed to such strong emotions, was never my goal."

Thorin watched the hobbit silently for several weighty moments.

But then he looked away from him and back to the emotional pair, now on both their knees as the Thain cried unashamedly. "It seems we have both misjudged each other, Master Baggins," he said lowly before meeting their host's gaze straight on, for once not at all confrontational. "I would never begrudge you or them this. Not when it is something I have myself yearned after for decades upon years." The king turned back to the two and the crowd that was rapidly congregating around the two emotional brothers, both of them now sat in what had to be a loveseat, of all things.

No one laughed.

"… They are blessed," Thorin finally murmured, seemingly to himself, before abruptly facing Bilbo Baggins once more, face once again closed. "I expect they will join freely in the planned celebrations once they have suitably composed themselves. It is, after all, only to be expected of such as they."

It made Bilbo behold Thorin with something that could almost be called a shade of the respect he held for Dwalin. "I will convey your best wishes to them."

"And so will I," Arathorn added, having finally joined them once more. "And I will add my apology to Bilbo's, belated as it is." The man turned to the hobbit himself then. "And I apologize to you also. In hindsight, a forewarning would have served everyone. But I fear I was certain that the most shock would come not from your uncle, but from those he was traveling with."

"At this point I think I can guess who they are," Bilbo sighed, then turned away from them all and faced the group of travelers that, now that Ori thought about it, not only held themselves apart from the Dunedain but were dressed differently besides.

It was then that the tallest and foremost of them stepped out from among them, and Ori could not even think to keep himself from gaping at the sight of him. An elf he was, ancient beyond imagining, clad in vestments the color of the sea. Aquamarine blue and sea green blended seamlessly into each other and glimmered in twilight as he strode towards them, the weight of years like a cloak around his shoulders and silver hair flowing in the north wind.

Yet his eyes were keen as stars and his face bore the burden of years in a way that left the dwarf completely awestruck and unable to muster even the thought that he could speak.

It was at that point that Bilbo Baggins, after a frankly impolite bout of staring, turned on his heel to glare at Arathorn, and more precisely the small bird perched on his left shoulder. "You knew about this."

The bird chirped.

The hobbit's glare intensified.

That was when, out of nowhere, Gandalf cleared his throat.

"Confounding Eru!" Bilbo groaned up at the universe. "Bebother and cofusticate Wizards and their need to be the center of attention!

"Yes," the ancient elf murmured before Gandalf could cut in, voice layered with good humor and compassion for newly reunited siblings, both seemingly carried forward by the echoes of waves upon the shore. "I suppose they can indeed be quite vexing."

Bilbo Baggins snickered and hung his head in defeat, though what it could have been for Ori hadn't the foggiest clue. "Well!" Finally the hobbit straightened all at once, shucking off all vestiges of discomfort. "Being the nominal host in all this mess, I suppose I may as well do this properly, then."

And just what was that supposed to mean?

His answer, of course, was as immediate as he'd come to expect from their fastidious host.

Bilbo Baggins faced the ancient Elf and bowed to him and his near retinue. "Mae g'ovannen." The elvish flowed from his tongue as easily as every other word he ever spoke. A flow that did not change once he straightened and looked the ancient elf in the eyes as a king would a visiting peer. "Na vedui, Nowë! Ciryatan! Well met and be welcomed, Círdan, Lord of the Grey Havens of Mithlond which lie on the fringes of the world."

"My thanks for your reception. And may good fortunes meet and follow, as indeed they already must for all of the free peoples in Middle Earth to come together under so auspicious of chances."

Yet even in the expectant silence that followed, none of the dwarves of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield could muster words to return his greet. Ori most of all. For the keen-eyed ancient Elf lord bore the burden of years in a way that left the dwarf completely awestruck and unable to muster even the thought that he could speak.

Which, for better or worse, was not true of the line of Durin.

"Fili."

"Yes, Kili."

"That...."

"Yes."

"That… that is..."

"Yes. Yes it is."

Quiet like the maw of the world in which all hopes and dreams went to die, for the Elf's face bore the weight of years to a length that not even the grandest and largest of dwarves would ever be tall enough to grow.

"That… is a beard!"

Despite the thick skin he'd developed over the past few days and in spite of the emotionally-charged moment of moments before, Ori, son of Bori, suddenly found himself feeling vaguely cheated.