Chapter Text
In a smial, there lived a hobbit. That hobbit was Bilbo Baggins, and he was alone. Ever since his parents passed, grief had shook him to the core. No longer was he attending parties and visiting relatives. In his smial he stayed, dusk to dawn, only leaving for essential purposes.
Word had spread of the odd Hobbit. Some had pitied him for his loses, while some had found him mad. He soon found his close relatives had given up on their attempts to aid the Shireling. He didn’t blame them. But it still hurt him, more than he would like to admit.
Months pass, Drogo Baggins, Bilbo’s cousin, regularly visits and checks on his dear friend, occasionally bearing fruit or bread. He knows Bilbo hasn’t been eating. He knows Bilbo hasn’t been sleeping. But he thought he knew it all. It was just grief, it would pass soon. How mistaken he was.
”Bilbo?” Drogo knocks at the door. “Bilbo?” Again, no reply.
He opens the door, “Bilbo! I know for a fact you are most certainly at home! I shall leave this basket with you. I will also be taking your spoons to give to Lobelia!” Drogo threatened.
No response.
Surely that should’ve worked. Lobelia was dreadful, Bilbo would’ve at least been somewhat upset. This was odd. He decided to take a look around to find his cousin.
Not in his bedroom, Drogo notes. The bathroom door is wide open so obviously not. He stands at the kitchen doorway, all the blood drained from him. There Bilbo was, laying unconscious in a pool of crimson.
Bilbo had blamed himself as the cause for his parent’s untimely death. Why could he not have been useful? He knew where they had grown, he knew where they were. Why could he not say it while his sickly mother lie on the brink of death? The markets were sold out, the disease plagued the Shire.
Not soon after, his father had also fallen ill. It was only a matter of time before they were to die. This disease was fatal unless treated, and the only known treatment had sold out. Bilbo had left to recover the required herb for this medicine. Unfortunately, even the most obscure patches of this herb had been harvested. If only he had gotten them earlier, he feared his father would go out of his way to find the damned plant, even risk death in this frigid weather. He could not go either, for he was just a faunt, even less immune to the Fell Winter.
He had blamed himself for years on end, labeled himself a murderer, keeping distance from his companions. Slowly succumbing to guilt and loneliness, he crawled into a deep disparity.
He was tired.
Writing a note, he addressed his farewells, leaving behind Bag End and all his belongings to his dear cousin, Drogo and his future family. He leaves the Sackville-Baggins nothing.
He feels the sharp pain of the cold metal tearing his skin. He drops the kitchen knife,giving in to his weak knees.
Ten years later, ever since the incident, Drogo had paid more frequent visits. The hobbits of the Shire had not turned a blind eye to the changes in the now sickly thin hobbit. “Mad Baggins” they called him, “I heard he’s gone mental, doesn’t even talk anymore.” “What hobbit doesn’t eat?” “Keep away children, he’ll curse you to live as he does.”
Bilbo is well aware of the rumors, no matter how much Drogo tries to keep the insults out of his ear.
During the ten years since he was found in his kitchen, a knife and death note within reach, Drogo had made attempts at assisting Bilbo’s recovery. Soon, the Hobbit’s guilt began to extinguish, and Drogo’s company had aided him greatly. Occasionally, however, his mind had gotten the better of him, tearing scars down his forearms.
Years later, Bilbo sits on his front porch, smoking a pipe of Old Toby. A butterfly made of smoke flicks his nose. He stares up, attempting to find who it had come from.
He did not have to look long, for it was none other than a tall man in shabby grey clothing.