Once Upon A Contract

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 13: 𝕺𝖚𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖊

Bilbo knows the moment they reach the boundary of the Shire. Unlike what some of his more curious Took cousins have wondered, the boundary between the Shire and rest of Arda is not so much gradual as it is instant. Bilbo stands on the boundary line and watches as the dwarrow and wizard clop along as if the line from cobble to dirt was nothing more than a slight inconvenience.

Only the Urs slow, and Bilbo knows that their look of concern is more to do with his sudden silence and refusal to move than anything to do with the boundary. Their concern was touching but Bilbo was more focused on the stark switch between Shire cobble and Arda dirt. Unlike his Took cousins, to Bilbo, the boundary is something permanent and a bit more terrifying.

Bilbo has left Shire a few times since he came of age. Bree is close enough to the boundary that he can still feel the blanket protection while he wanders the markets. In Bree he is still too far for the Shire to protect him. But he can still hear the hum of contentedness and safety floating on the breeze and trembling through the earth. If his father had lived, Bungo would have brought him to the boundary the day before his coming of age. He would have stood his son on the boundary line and whispered of broken contracts and dying hobbits.

He would have spoken of torn worlds and bloodied palms.

But Bungo had not lived and Bilbo had stood alone.

It is instinct to flip a silver coin and a handful of seeds into the box hidden in the hollowed out tree beside the boundary, firmly on Shire land. It does not protect him from misused words or contract, but a Baggins knows of debt and favours, and the Shire has done much for his people. Hobbits do not pray, not like how other people do. They do not beg to Yavanna for rain, barter for good weather, or bargain for good luck. Hobbits rely on paper and contract and there are stories of holding even the gods to their words.

Bilbo does not leave coin and seed to bargain, he leaves it as an acknowledgement of paid dues.

He hears the tsk of silver hitting the bottom of the box and, morbidly, he wonders who else has left coin here. (If he opened the box, would he find his mother's coin? His father's?) With a shake of his head Bilbo takes a step over the boundary with a fearlessness he had inherited from his mother and a ruthlessness he gained from his father.

Immediately, his blood sings.

It would take absolutely nothing for him to call out. It would take nothing for him to beckon a dwarf over and to bind them.

One little agreement.

One itty bitty little trick.

(It wouldn't take much.)

(He already has Bofur's name. )

There is a crackle of power in his blood and the hum of contract in his bones. Bilbo can almost taste the words of agreement on his tongue. He can almost savor each individual word of promise and oath. He is a starving man brought before a feast. Oh, the contracts he could make!

(The bonds he can shatter.)

Bilbo breaths in a shuddering gasp and takes another step. The boundary, he reminds himself, does not just protect hobbits and Baggins from Arda, it protects Arda from the Baggins.

There is an insidiousness in his blood, a creeping malice that wishes to bind and to savor the chaos created by word and deed. Family records tell that his fae ancestor was a kind woman. A beautiful lady who graced power into her bloodline and descendants. Bilbo does not know any Baggins who does not thank Yavanna every day that it was only contract and word that curls through their blood.