A Fairy's Tale

Chapter Two

Bilba kept her promise.

Paladin's recovery was slow, but steady. It soon became clear that whatever spell or magic laid upon him that kept his mind bound would not be wearing off but, as time passed, he healed in other ways. He put on weight, his bones vanishing under layers of muscle, natural to a dwarf even without exercise. His open wounds closed and vanished and his hair and beard grew back out, thick and healthy. Bilba kept his hair at just below his shoulders, the average length for a dwarf as far as she knew, and put in two braids on either side of his face to keep it out of his eyes. His beard she allowed to grow out until it was a true beard but kept it trimmed up to his chin, unsure of how to care for it when it got longer.

Her parents ordered better clothing and shoes for him and, once he was feeling better, Bilba began taking him with her on her explorations. His leg and back were still injured so he couldn't move fast but Bilba didn't mind. She would dance and swirl around him and chatter to him endlessly about her day. It soon became commonplace in the Shire to see the two together and, eventually, no one thought anything of it.

Bilba's friends welcomed Paladin into their midst and would take him along on fishing trips where they would set him up under a tree or on picnics where Bilba helping him eat was so common that no one, not even she, took notice of it any longer.

In the evenings Paladin would have dinner with them and sit in the living room as Bella, Bungo and Bilba played board games or talked. Sometimes they would read. When this happened Bilba would curl up next to Paladin on the couch and read out loud to him, telling him great tales of heroes and heroines and their epic quests.

No one in the family ever treated him as anything less than a person perfectly capable of hearing and understanding every word they said.

Bilba, to her surprise, found she no longer had any of her disappearances. She still danced almost constantly, day and night, but she didn't vanish even once, not even for a few hours.

Paladin needed her to stay, and so she did.

***

Eleven years passed.

Bilba, at thirty-three, looked no different than she had at twenty-one. Her parents appeared no older either and even Paladin, hurt as he was, seemed not a day older than when he'd arrived.

Belladonna felt a sense of impending doom settle over her as she watched her tiny daughter dart about the Shire, Paladin her constant companion.

Eventually, and sooner now than later she felt, people would stop dismissing Bilba's oddities as simply being eccentric. They would realize the girl wasn't aging and that those around her also seemed locked in time. Soon they would start remembering all the many, many unusual things over the years and realize it wasn't all overreaction, exaggeration or tall tales.

Once they did, and word started to spread once more, would her daughter be safe? Would the protection of the Rangers continue to keep strangers out or, would more rumors, now backed by proof, cause them to come in spite of the warnings to stay away?

She knew she needed to start pressuring Bilba, gently, about Rivendell once more. The stories Elrond had told her of what had happened to fairies in the past repeated endlessly in her head, always just below the surface. She couldn't tolerate the thought of such things happening to her daughter who remained as gentle, kind and friendly as she'd ever been. The girl treated all like her friend and if a stranger bent of doing ill arrived in the Shire, Bella had no doubt her daughter would be the first to welcome them. They had tried to teach her to be wary, warned her of the dangers without going into such depth that it would scare or traumatize her but it never seemed to stick. Bilba's nature simply did not allow her to see things with a paranoid or suspicious eye.