Fell Winter. by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

   "To my mind" said Bilbo "The real hero of the Fell Winter was my aunt Rosa."
Frodo looked at Bilbo over his steaming goblet of spiced wine "Your aunt? But you’re always telling us about Fortinbras and Fosco slaying wolves!"
   "Ah, yes, that is true. Those are the kind of stories to tell young hobbits, tales of adventure and excitement, of courage and valour! But Rosa was little older than you are now when she took on the running of Great Smials, and was still new to the job when the snows began."

   Bilbo kicked the struggling pony, and hated himself at once. But they must get through, his mother was counting on him. The lights of the Smials were glittering on the snow, but he had lost all taste for such beauty, and longed only to be able to stand on firm ground, ground that did not threaten to freeze him to the spot. People had stopped complaining about the cold, or even mentioning it. Strange birds, woodland birds, had taken refuge in barns, and those who could scattered seed for them. Other birds, less wise or less fortunate, froze where they perched, or dropped to lie briefly on the snow, untroubled by aught for a brief time, until the next fall buried them. 
   But the shivering pony had seen the lights, he patted the rough neck "Almost home!"
  
   The hobbits had adapted their ways more swiftly than he had supposed possible, but one of the kindlier new ways was to let a visitor adjust to the shock of the warmth before trying anything complicated like greetings. Bilbo stood in the busy hall of the Smials as the painful tingling signalled the return of warm blood to his fingers, toes, eyes, and every part of him at once. He gasped and spluttered, his eyes watering, (or melting!) standing as near to the roaring fire as he could get, moving this way and that as hobbits came and went, taking away great pots and cauldrons of hot water and squeezing as many freshly filled pots onto the fire as they could fit. Underfoot, squealing hobbit lads and lasses ran, skipped, tumbled and crawled, while at two long tables clothes and jars and brown-paper packets were being sorted through by his aunts, under the direction of his aunt Rosa. 
   There was a constant stream of hobbits with questions tugging at her elbow (or in the case of younger hobbits, at her skirt). Her face had set into a frown, which was odd, thought Bilbo, because she was always very kind, if a little stern.
   His uncles were nowhere to be seen, but he knew where they were, in the smoking room, where they had always been, plotting against each other in ever-shifting alliances for or against whatever Old Gerontius was planning to do. And the old hobbit laughed at them and ignored them, as he had always done, and they put their heads closer and closer together, while he sat back, his family gathered where he liked it, under his watchful eye. 

   "Bilbo! How is your mother? Wait, will you, I must write her a note, there's so much... Wait, what is it? Not more ill news?"
   "Aunt Rosa, it is... Everything is fine, well, as well as... I have brought this from my mother." He handed over the satchel, small bottles clinked within, though nothing to drink (he had asked) "What is it, anyway? My mother just told me to hurry along when I asked her."
   Rosa smiled, her tired face transformed, she looked almost young for a moment "Did she now? Well, I might say the same thing! But there, you’re a bright young hobbit... These are medicines, young Baggins, and if you wish to know more you might ask your uncle Isengrim, though he’s far too important to do anything useful with all his knowledge, like brew up remedies for times like this!"
   Bilbo gaped at his aunt, he had always thought of his uncles as figures of vast importance in the Shire, parading proudly through the streets, and then retiring to the Smials to discuss matters of great significance. But for a moment, just for a moment, it looked rather like his aunt Rosa and the others were doing all the actual work, while his uncles sat listening to the sound of their own voices (for everyone knew that none of them paid the slightest heed to anything any of the others said).

  His aunt put a hand on his shoulder "How about a glass of ale? And a bite or two? What’s that, Issy? No, no, here, give it to me! Sorry Bilbo" she carefully prised a knife from the hand of one of the little ones "What was I... Oh yes, a note for your mother. Yes, how are things at Bag End? Is she managing? Of course she is, of course she is, Belladonna is a hobbit who knows her own mind! No, Poppy, that’s for the Chubbs, not that one. Bag End, yes, and how many have you there now?"
  "Fourty-two!" said Bilbo proudly. He was still young enough to enjoy the excitement (once inside) and did not mind sharing his room with eight others. It was easier to keep warm! But it was also a matter of life and death, for Bagshot Row was completely snowed under, no trace remained of even the chimneys, the snow swept up to the very porch of Bag End as though there had never been a Bagshot Row at all.
   A mug of ale was pushed into his hand, and a slice of pie into his other. Rosa cleared a space at one end of a table "Didn’t we send a shawl to Granny Bracegirdle last week? I think young Daisy might benefit, she’s expecting. Yes you did, I told you this morning. Didn’t I? Sorry Bilbo, here, mind out, let the lad sit down to his pie."

   
   Halfway home he saw the door of Winky Twofoot's smithy open, and heard a burst of laughter. The frozen pony looked eagerly towards the smithy, and Bilbo paused, knowing that if he once went into that warm crowd, he’d be late home, and worry his mother. But the pony turned its neck and looked pleadingly at him and he laughed, and slid to the ground.
   Once he had thawed he saw the reson for the laughter, Fortinbras, hero of the Shire, was there, with his faithful shadow Fosco. Fortinbras was good with a tale, though he had no need to brag, and always managed to make Fosco sound like the hero, and himself like a bumbling apprentice, hence the laughter. 
   They had the skin of a wolf, Winky was examining it, his lazy eye almost as wide as his good one. It was so unlikely that the best smith in the Shire should have only one good eye that people said he was just winking at them. Bilbo thought of his mother’s medicines and wondered if she had anything to fix Winky's eye. Then he wondered if she had already given him some, and made him the best smith...
   "Well lads" said Winky "This is awful big... Whatever do you plan to do with it?"
   "By the stars!" said Bilbo, and the room fell silent. Bilbo blushed "Sorry, it’s just, I've been reading an elvish story." Jaws dropped, though whether at the elvish, or the reading, he could not say "But never mind that" he looked excitedly at Fortinbras "Did you really kill that great beast?"
   And Fortinbras, never shy, had told the tale again, and Bilbo had marvelled "You have saved the Shire!" he exclaimed at the end.
   But Granpa Cotton had tutted and knocked out his pipe on the hearthstone "Ah, you young lads, thinking only of killing and death. But there’s more lives been saved by the likes o' my wife, and your mother, young Bilbo, and your aunt Rosa too, Fortinbras. Not but what you've done isn’t praiseworthy, these wolves are a menace, no doubt of that. 
   But these women, chiefly your aunt Rosa, have been round to everyone with more than two sticks to rub together, getting them to give whatever they can for those who'd otherwise freeze to death out there." He waved at the window, and they all turned to look. It was snowing again.