Chapter Text
Bilbo Baggins was fourty, and the itch in his heels, long suppressed by the comfort of Bag End, had finally become unbearable. He was a Baggins, yes—orderly, predictable, and fond of six meals a day—but the Took in him was roaring. He longed for something unpredictable, something that required a truly large adventure.
His mother, Belladonna Took, had fed that longing since he was a lad, telling him tales of her own younger days. Not just stories of Elves or travel, but detailed, glorious descriptions of Erebor, the Kingdom under the Mountain. She spoke of vaulted halls, rivers of gold, and friendships forged in fire and stone. Belladonna had a particular fondness for Queen Fionn, a Dwarf-lady she’d met on a youthful escapade involving a misplaced troll heirloom.
“She was sheer, magnificent force, my love,” Belladonna had told him. “And the light in the Mountain, Bilbo, the light! It makes the gold sing.”
That memory, coupled with a rare visit from Gandalf, was all the push he needed.
“I need a proper anecdote for the next time the Sackville-Bagginses ask what I’ve been up to,” Bilbo insisted to the Wizard, strapping his finest leather satchel. “I want to see the sheer scale of Dwarven ingenuity before I settle down to write my memoir.”
Gandalf smiled, a puff of perfectly shaped smoke leaving his lips. “Ah, Bilbo, my dear boy. You are not searching for an anecdote. You are searching for a destiny. And I believe Erebor is precisely where you’ll find it.”