Work Text:
There was a poster beside the door of the Water Raft. Although posters in the Water Raft were not unusual. For this part of the Garden, the Water Raft was the gathering point, the port of call, the place everyone went for a touch of home. This specific poster had been there for nearly as long as anyone could remember. Once, there had been a few dozen, all of different faces and different notices. Then, as time marched on, a small handful.
Then a few.
Then just the one.
Missing.
Everybody Addy knew had entered the Garden. There was little choice after all. Every hobbit went to the Garden. Some took a bit longer to get there and a few arrived far too early. But everyone went to the Garden.
Sure, some skipped out. But those were the children of Men and Dwarrow, the children who went with their other parent and shunned their heritage. They weren't hobbits. Hobbits went to the Garden. That was a fact. The sky was blue, the Green Lady was their mother, and all hobbits went to the Garden when they died.
The Water Raft was an old inn. Grubber Jr, (Who she supposed was Grubber Sr now, by many Many greats) ran it along with his son, and his son's son. When it had been built, the hill surrounding the inn had been the healing field, the old place hobbits entered the Garden and dealt with their hurts. The field moved of course, shifting with the newer generation. The soft roll of Gladding Field had moved to something else.
Something to do with a Party Tree.
Things had been different back then, back before the healing field had moved. Addy remembered toddling after her mother, confused and baffled in equal measures. The world had been cold, wet, and full of screams. Someone had been shouting, her mother had held her close, and then there was a field and the merry old inn.
It had been Addy who commissioned the first poster of her cousin. Years down the line when she was old enough to understand that everyone she knew would eventually end up with her, if she was just patient enough. There were other posters of course. Drawings of relatives who were still alive, noted with the details of their deceased loved ones’ smials and clan locations. A ready note for kin to come find them when they were ready.
Nobody stayed near the Water Raft if they could help it. The inn was a relic, something from home. But the wood was different and the carvings didn't hold the same dents, and you could only imitate home for so long before you went crazy. Everybody went to the Water Raft but nobody ever stayed.
Addy's mother hadn't liked her cousin, but Addy remembered him. He was a good fisherman, a good Stoor, patient and kind. He had a temper, but so did Addy. He had known all the best stories and all the best tricks. He could do a handstand, even though their hobbit feet made the trick near impossible, and he could swim just as well as any old river man. She had several fond memories of sitting on his shoulders as he wandered down the road, skipping and humming a song. He had been the one to give her the nickname, shortening her mouthful of flower to ‘Itty Bitty Addy”. He was always ready with a riddle and she had never felt stupid or too little when she was with him.
Addy remembered her cousin.
She just…
She just didn't remember what came next.
Her mum didn't like to talk about it, even all these centuries later. And her neighbours had been kind enough to keep their mouths shut. But Addy had been a faunt and closed doors were hardly more than a suggestion most days. Which meant nobody said anything but everyone knew something. Which of course meant that Addy figured it all out anyway.
Her cousin had killed Addy's Uncle Deagol. Her mother's younger brother. Her cousin's best friend. He had been exiled and the Bounders had chased him away.
And then things around the Gladding Hills had become fraught and tense. And then, well… Addy had woken up in the Garden.
She missed him. Although sometimes she wasn't sure if she missed her cousin or the idea of her cousin. And sometimes it seemed she was the only one who did.
Deagol said he missed Smeagol. But Deagol was a bit cracked, still coughing water from his lungs all these eons later. Everybody knew Deagol hadn't forgiven Smeagol, not when the river water dripped through his teeth with every breath. But Deagol swore it wasn't true, that he had forgiven his cousin. But then, Deagol swore that Smeagol had been magicked, possessed, corrupted.
(Nobody said anything but everyone knew something, and Deagol was wrong.)
(He was wrong wrong wrong…)
But Deagol was a Stoor and he was Addy’s Uncle.
“Put your back into it girl!” Uncle Deagol shouted with a teasing grin.
Addy wanted to smack him. The morning had been poor for good fishing. She had caught just enough for one lunch, but not nearly enough for the dinner her father had planned. Uncle Deagol was supposed to be helping her, but by the Green Lady, he was being a nuisance. By which, she meant he had gotten bored and tipped her boat.
Addy twitched.
Uncle Deagol’s grin widened, the water and blood bubbling around his teeth as he laughed. “Come on girl, best get to it!”
“You go get the boat, you wilted thorn bush!” Addy shouted back as she slogged up to the bank. To be fair, the water was barely up to her chest and Addy was a Stoor, she could swim just as well as anyone else. That didn’t mean that she wanted her skirts to drag mud all the way back to her smial or that she wanted to have another bath today. Being dunked in the river was enough for one day, thank you very much!
“You’d say that to me? After what happened?” Uncle Deagol gasped in a mockery of a scandalized tone.
The first time he had done this to her, Addy had burst into tears and sobbed until her vision had blackened and her chest hurt. Uncle Deagol’s teeth were always filled with river stones and blood, water bubbled in his lungs, and she had thought he was dying.
Again.
Near two-thousand years later and she barely even blinked.
“You tipped it, you can get it.” Addy choked as some water splashed up into her mouth. She was already soaked, having dived straight for her pole and her bagged catch. If Uncle Deagol wanted to be entertained, then he could go do the work he caused!
Reaching the shore, Addy climbed out and shook like a dog. At least it was a fair day, the sun was shining, the wind was brisk but not too cold. The day was pleasant, perfect for fishing, if one’s uncle didn’t decide to tip your boat.
“I’m going to change. And then I’m going to the Raft.” Addy declared, her gear tucked up against her shoulder as she gathered up her skirts and tucked the soaked mess into her belt. “You can explain the lack of food to your sister.”
Her uncle made some kind of complaint behind her, but Addy didn’t care. She was heading home, thank you very much. To be fair, the path back wasn’t too bad, hardly more than a brisk jaunt, but that wasn’t the point. She was going to have to pass her neighbours and her cousins. She was going to be the talk of the town, and by tea there would be half a dozen of her mother’s best friends tittering away in their kitchen about how ‘Itty Bitty Addy’ just couldn’t stay afloat.
Which was to say, by the time Addy had made it back to the smial, her mother was ready at the door with crossed arms and a smile that kept sneaking into the corners of her mouth. “Took a bit of a tumble?”
Addy scoffed, but handed her mother the small catch she had managed before Deagol decided to be a nuisance. “Your brother…”
Her mother laughed, carefree and wild in the way she never had been when they walked Arda. “I’ve already sent your father to the market. Don’t you worry.”
Addy frowned, but didn’t argue. Her uncle had disturbed the river to such an extent that she doubted the fish would be back before noon tomorrow. If her mother wanted to have dinner as she had planned, then the market would be the only option, unless someone hurried up and ran down to Ruby’s Pond. But even then, that would be a poor catch. Too many hobbits had taken from the pond in recent years, and the population had yet to reach a point that anyone felt as though they could leisurely fish at the pond again.
“Don’t you even think about it!” Her mother snapped, and Addy shot her a bewildered look.
“I’m not going to the pond!” She said defensively.
Her mother frowned and shook her head, tossing an errant hand towards the trough set up in the garden. “You are not entering this smial covered in muck! I just washed the floors and if you so much as scuff the polish, you’ll be redoing the whole place!”
For a moment, Addy could only stare at her mother. Then she looked down at her sopping skirts and ruined top. “Ma.” She said as she placed her gear beside the door. “Ma, what am I supposed to change into? I’m not a faunt anymore!”
“You’re my faunt.” Her mother sniffed.
Addy sighed and resisted the urge to scrub at her face. “Ma, what are the neighbours going to think?”
“They’re your cousins!” Her mother exclaimed in a scandalized tone.
Which, yes, the neighbours just so happened to be her cousins, several times removed and they also happened to be people she didn’t want to meet while she was covered in mud and indecent. Mostly because they’d never let her live it down, but that was besides the point.
“Well, then you had better get cleaned quickly.”
Oh, Addy saw that smirk and for a moment, she contemplated if running through the freshly cleaned smial would be worth the wrath she would incur. To be fair, Addy did have her own door, on the other side of the hill mind you. But she did have her own little access point to her own rooms. She may have been a faunt when she arrived, but she had spent long enough in her mother’s halls. Sometimes having a door between them was the best way to ensure eternity did not seem too long.
The problem was that Addy had just laid out some lace across her floor that she was working on blocking in. Which meant if she walked through her own door and staggered to her bedroom, then she would have to step over the tension board on the floor and would turn her white lace into a riverbed covered mistake.
“Can I have a towel and some clothes at least?”
The smile on her mother’s face was identical to Deagol. “They’re beside the trough, behind the privacy screen.”
Oh. Well. Her mother could have just started with that. Addy did not stomp her feet, but it was a close thing. “I’m going to get cleaned up and then I am going for tea!”
Her mother’s giggles followed her all the way through the front garden.
…***...
The Water Raft was a large inn. The building was much larger than anything else in this end of the Gladding Hills Garden and as such, it was never quiet. Surprisingly, for the size of the building, three whole stories (!) it was actually rather well hidden. Once, it had been part of a plain field, but that was before the Garden shifted. Instead, now the Raft was nestled in a valley between the hills to such an extent that it nearly disappeared if one did not know where to look.
But everyone knew where the Raft was, so the inn’s disappearing act was hardly a problem except for on days where one drank far more than was advisable.
So, when Addy walked the well worn path to the Raft she almost wondered if she had taken a wrong turn. The Raft was quiet and for a moment, Addy was almost sure the Garden had expanded again and the Raft had moved. Nobody stayed at the inn, but there were always people around. The Raft was where you went to meet distant relatives, to talk with those you didn’t see all that often but couldn’t bear to part from. The Raft was home, in a way that kith and kin didn’t always feel like.
Barring a cold winter or a rainstorm, the windows were always open. The door was flung open, and the fireplace roared just inside. The Raft was cozy, welcoming, and noisy. For it to be still and silent?
Addy paused on the road.
There were no wagons or horses, no donkeys or cows left by the hitch post. Sure, the Grubber’s chickens clucked and bawked and Addy could hear a sheep from just over the hill. But this was The Raft. There should have been more.
There were three generations of Grubbers in that building, the Raft never closed.
It was strange, and Addy didn’t like strange things. Strange things meant pain, hurt, and conflict. The Garden was routine. Nothing new happened and the festivals and dinners went off without a hitch. The ale flowed, the food was plentiful, and no one ever went hungry.
Addy didn’t like ‘strange’ at all.
Still, Addy was a Stoor and that meant something, even now.
Her hair dripped down her back, and Addy desperately wished that the neighbour’s dog had continued to follow at her heels. There were few things in the world, Arda or the Garden, that could make you feel uneasy when there was a dog the same height as your shoulder at your side. Still, Addy was alone and what could she do?
There was no danger in the Garden. You couldn’t drown or be run over by a wagon. Violence never seemed to reach its intended targets, farming accidents never happened, and the worst thing that could happen was raised voices and accidently hitting someone with a ladder.
There was no reason to be scared of the Raft. There was no reason to be uneasy. Besides, what could she tell people? The Raft was empty, that the inn was quiet, that the Grubbers had decided to take an eons long deserved vacation?
No, to be uneasy was foolish.
Drawing herself up, Addy walked up to the door, the closed door, and raised a hand to knock. Only when her knuckles hit the door, it creaked open…
The fire was out. Addy didn’t know why that was the first thing she noticed. The fire was out. The embers still shone and the ashes weren’t yet cool, but the fire was out. She had seen the fireplace empty before. The annual spring clean and ash festival meant that the fire in the Raft went out often enough that she had seen those stones scrubbed and scraped down. She had lost count how many times they had been replaced over the centuries.
The fire was out, but the embers were still there.
There was wood stacked in the corner and as Addy tracked the path needed to stir up the embers, she realized the table and the chairs were overturned, as if someone had gotten up and left in a hurry. As if everyone suddenly stood up and left in a hurry.
This wasn’t the debris from a fight, she had seen rowdy crowds, been in more than a few at this point, but this didn’t look like that. There wasn’t broken glass or spilled drinks stained onto the floor. There was just discordance, chaos, the aftermath of rushed movement and panicked thoughts.
Addy took a step into the room.
In the darkness, far from the light that streamed through the windows, there was a whimper.
The hair on the back of Addy’s neck stood up and she was suddenly hyperaware of every water droplet sliding down her back.
“Hello?” She called out, feeling a bit foolish.
Sometimes hobbits came to the Garden jumpy and scared. Sometimes they spent months in the Raft, unsure of where to go, or who to see. There had been a committee once upon a time, to help with new arrivals, to gather supplies and hand out schematics for new smials and clan fields. But the problem, Addy thought, was that most hobbits lost that look after a few decades. Addy herself hadn’t had a nightmare in a century.
So, yes, cowering forms in the Raft had once been a regular sight. But that had been long ago. There hadn’t been a new permanent resident in their sector in centuries.
Nobody new to the Garden arrived in the Gladding Hills anymore. Last Addy had heard, there was something about a Shire? Something about wandering, and leaving the hills for somewhere far away. Addy didn’t care much for the news, to be honest, the Gladding Hills had been where she was born and where she died. Her family was here, those dreadful Tooks hardly ever walked to this part of the Garden, and she spent her days down by the river or spinning yarn and weaving with her mother. In the evenings she went out to spend time with her friends, and Addy liked it.
There was nothing strange here.
But there was someone in the Raft. Someone new. And that didn’t make sense.
“Hello?” Addy called out again, wishing she had a lantern or that the figure had the kindness to step into the light. “Are you lost?”
Perhaps this was a Took from the ‘Shire’. Perhaps one of them was new and had gotten lost. Stranger things had happened, just…not here.
“Hello?”
There was a strange guttural cough, like the one Uncle Deagol sometimes gave when he had laughed for too long and the water in his lungs tried to join in. But, Uncle Deagol was at the river. He could have beaten her here, but he never would have persuaded the Grubbers to close the Raft, not even for a particularly strange prank.
“I’m going to come closer.” Addy said, not waiting for a reply before she slipped a bit further into the inn and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
A lot of people said the Garden was stagnant, that nothing happened, nobody ever changed, and that the seasons just repeated. But Addy knew that wasn’t true. She had grown up, even dated a boy and fancied a lass or two. She wasn’t a naive little faunt anymore and she knew the Garden could change oh so easily. But what brought that little fact into stark relief was the strange hobbit’s clothes.
There was a hobbit wedged into a corner, tucked so far into themselves, she couldn’t see much at all. But she did see the binders on the calves and boney wrists, and that made her pause. That sort of binding had fallen out of style in this sector of the Gladding Hills Garden a few years after her death. There was a better technique now, a style of stitching that meant you could tuck clothing closer to the skin and keep it near watertight with a strap on the inside of the cuff. The style was easier to make and took less material in the end. It meant you didn’t have to make an extra skein of cloth strips for the fishermen to strap down their clothes.
The older parts of Gladding Hill still favoured such styles, but Addy didn’t think this hobbit came from there.
To be blunt, she thought he was too new.
So, here was something strange. A new hobbit in an old part of the Garden. A new hobbit, but an old one. There was, of course, a readily available answer, but Addy didn’t want to make that leap. Couldn’t make that leap. Near two thousand years she had waited for her cousin. He was lost lost lost…. But, well…
There was a poster Addy had commissioned, weather worn and faded. She had a standing contract for the recreation, made every year during the ash festival. She was no artist, had trusted a cousin who had never really known Smeagol personally but had known of him. She pinned the poster up herself, every year, without fail.
There was a poster in the Raft and Addy rather thought perhaps the poster was wrong.
She had forgotten Smeagol had a broader nose and a scar that curled the corner of his mouth up ever so slightly. She had forgotten his eyes were so blue, blue like his Harfoot mother, rather than his Stoor father. She had forgotten his hair curled and twisted, puffing up in the humidity, just like her own.
She had forgotten.
She had forgotten many things.
“You’re late.” Addy stated after a long moment of staring at the way Smeagol’s calloused fingers twisted in the threadbare knees of his pants. “You were supposed to come for tea with Deagol at Grandmother’s.”
She hadn’t forgiven him, she realized a bit distantly. She hadn’t forgiven him for missing tea, not coming for dinner, for leaving. She hadn’t forgiven him. She hadn’t…
Smeagol coughed, a sputtering thing that was so much like Deagol it hurt to hear. He coughed and he coughed and he coughed, and all Addy could do was watch helplessly. His ribs had to have hurt, curled up as he was, but he didn’t move. He coughed and Addy watched in horror as water and ash spilled out onto the floor of the Raft.
“Where have you been?” The question came out before Addy could stuff the words back down.
And there, on the floor, Smeagol began to laugh.
…***...
Lily-Bell Grubber Sr slammed through the door so fast Deagol thought she was going for a record on cross hill sprinting. There weren’t many things worth running for, not here in the Gladding Hills. Most everything could wait and what couldn’t deserved a brisk walk at best.
“Wheres the fire?” Deagol couldn’t help but joke with a grin, the blood in his mouth making the words a slurred mess. A long time ago, when the bruise around his throat had been much worse than an ache, he had hated the way his voice had changed. He had hated how the blood curled in his smile and the water bubbled on his lips. He had hated the grit of the river stones in his molars and most of all, he hated the way people stared.
Hobbits hardly ever died a terrible death, baring a farm accident. But Deagol’s death had been ruled a murder. He had been told much later, when more than just his sister and niece had arrived in the Garden, that Smeagol had been found guilty in absentia. Murder by inaction. Murder by deliberate inaction on behalf of a drowning person.
They were Stoors, afterall, they both knew how to swim.
But Deagol remembered that day much differently, and perhaps that was why blood still stained his teeth and water bubbled in his lungs. (He didn’t care much for the reason the blood stuck around. He remembered a glint in the water and diving down, completely ruining the chance for further fishing. He remembered being hauled back into the boat by his startled cousin. He remembered the Precious.)
(He remembered the way his cousin changed.)
(Here was a secret, something Deagol had never told anyone. If Deagol hadn’t been the one to die, then it would have been Smeagol. But it was Deagol who carried the blood in his teeth and the water in his lungs. And it was Smeagol in the end who had been declared a murderer.)
Acadia, for her part, had climbed to her feet in alarm. Deagol couldn’t help but be thankful that the verbal thrashing had paused. His dear sister was still tetchy about the rivers and tipped boats after what had happened to him. (Not that he had told her the truth, that it wasn’t the water that had killed him. No, it had not been Smeagol’s inaction that killed him.) And she had not appreciated the fact that Itty Bitty Addy had come slogging home with a small catch and nothing for dinner.
Still, the sheer look of vexation on Addy’s face had been worth the thrashing, even if it was starting to get a bit tedious.
“Hobbit.” Lily-Bell gasped, hands on her knees as she leaned on the door. “There’s a hobbit.”
“There are a lot of hobbits.” Acadia snapped, the anxiety making her mean. “This is the Garden.”
Lily-Bell was shaking her head before Acadia had finished, and this time when she looked up, Deagol froze. The Garden was peaceful, for all that those damn Tooks occasionally ran wild through town, screaming about Adventures and Quests. Violence didn’t reach the intended target, farm accidents simply passed through the unfortunate hobbit as if they didn’t exist. Pain and hurt had been eliminated from day to day life, and the worst someone could expect was a sudden smack to the shins by a walking stick.
There was nothing worth running for in the Garden.
“Deagol.” Lily-Bell gasped, her eyes wide and her cheeks bloodless, “There’s a new hobbit.”
His chair hit the ground before Deagol even registered he was standing.
…***...
Addy had always been useless when there were tears involved. The moment someone started to cry, she panicked. Was she supposed to pat their back? Give them a hug? Maybe some tea? What was she supposed to say? Demanding someone ‘stop crying’ only ever made it worse.
Addy hated tears.
So when Smeagol burst into hysterics in front of her, Addy froze like Old Maggie's Pond in the winter. Every bit of her, down the marrow, was still.
“I didn't want to!” Smeagol wailed as he rocked back and forth, hands gripped in his hair. “It was mine, my birthday present!”
Abruptly, Addy remembered that fateful day all those years ago had in fact been Smeagol's birthday. The party was part of the reason Deagol's body had been found so quickly. When the two cousins hadn't come back in time for the celebration, the clan had already been gathered. Spreading out across their little section of the Gladding Hills had been easy and strictly organized. The same Aunts and Uncles who had set up the tables and the feasts, and sent out the family in droves and with military precision.
And then, of course, they had found Uncle Deagol.
“We can never go back. Never go back. No, no, never go back. Not to home or hearth. No more.” Smeagol moaned, his fingers twisting to the point of bloodless strain and Addy was suddenly worried she'd see the first instance of a bloodied scalp in the Garden.
“Don't do that.” Addy snapped, the distant realization she sounded exactly like her mother, making her shiver. “You'll hurt yourself.”
“I don't want it! Don't want it! No more. No more, Precious! No more, no more, no more, no…” Smeagol's pleas devolved into a muttered croon that all the Harfoots seemed to manage. If he were more of a Stoor, the rant might sound like a series of croaks.
“Happy Birthday!” Addy blurted when it seemed all Smeagol could manage was to rock back and forth and wail. Mercifully, Smeagol stopped dead and Addy found herself pinned under blue eyes and a bewildered expression that was so much like Deagol, it hurt.
“What?”
“Happy Birthday.” Addy repeated, hands on her knees as she crouched down. Yavanna's compost heap, she hated tears. “I never got to say it back then, did I? So, Happy Birthday.”
There. That made sense didn't it, Addy thought with a frown. Obviously there was a story here and there was the whole stumbling block that was the murder charge but the tears had stopped at the very least.
“I did a bad thing.” Smeagol whispered, looking at her as if she were able to do a damn thing about any of this. “I did many bad things.”
“Yes.” Addy tentatively agreed with a sharp nod. There was no doubt Smeagol had done some ‘very bad things’, but that wasn't for Addy to deal with. She wasn't on the Council of Thains nor was she an Elder for their section of the Garden. What Smeagol may or may not have done, was not her problem. Not right now at least.
No, what was important was something else entirely.
“You did a horrible thing.” Addy said, deliberately ignoring the actual problem. “You skipped afternoon tea.”
Smeagol stared at her and well, at least wasn’t crying anymore.
And then, behind her, the door hit the wall with a thud that shook the whole inn.
…***...
The thing was, Deagol couldn't help but think as stared down at his cousin, was that once upon a time they had been SmeagolandDeagol, DeagolandSmeagol. The whole farthling had said their names like that. ‘Oh, there go the Stoor boys. SmeagolandDeagol.’
Their names rolled off tongues and dropped down in conversations without a pause or a thought. Once, you couldn't have found one of them without the other. From cradle to grave had been their promise.
Their mothers had gone into labour on the same day. Smeagol a week early and Deagol a week late. Once, there had been a joke that Deagol had waited for his twin, his partner in crime. All of Gladding Hill had known one couldn't do anything without the other, and that had started out at their births.
Once, they had been everything.
And then Deagol had been left with nothing.
His mother had been in a bit of a feud with her favourite cousin over baby names. Not that either would admit it now. But Deagol knew, had always known about the fight. And when they had been born their parents hadn't known who won the feud. The midwives had refused to say who had been born first, sick of the two mothers arguing even while in active labour.
So they split the difference.
Deagol and Smeagol, the same name with their father's first initials.
(Deagol was older, obviously, no matter what Smeagol had argued. It had been his job to look after Smeagol. His job was to watch over the other boy, to guide and lead and…Yavanna forgive him.)
Deagol had never imagined a world without Smeagol in it. They had spent time apart, they couldn’t live in each other’s pockets all the time. But, they had sworn ‘from cradle to grave’. They had promised.
And Smeagol had not come after him.
Deagol’s knees hit the ground and he choked on the water in his lungs. It bubbled over his lips and Deagol knew if he were to look, his teeth would be stained red.
“You’re late.” Deagol managed after a long moment, his hands outstretched but falling short. Always falling too short.
“That’s what I said!” Addy cut in a bit desperately. “Cousin Smeagol, tell him! That’s what I said!”
Honestly, Deagol hadn’t even realized that Addy was in the Raft. He knew she had mentioned going to the Raft, but he had been a bit preoccupied by Lily-Bell’s message to put together the fact Addy was where Smeagol had showed up.
Smeagol didn’t respond to Addy, and Deagol hadn’t expected him to anyway. Appearing in the Garden was tricky, he didn’t know how else to explain it. But he remembered, he remembered his first breath in the Garden, how his mind had cleared, how the anger and desperation had been lifted from his bones. Deagol had only held the precious for a moment and appearing in the Garden had sent him into instant hysterics.
Two thousand years Deagol had waited for his twin.
Hobbits were not meant to wander Arda for that long. No, they were not meant to walk Arda and lose everything, to be separated from kith and kin. They were creatures of the hearth, of the home and the family. They were not meant to be alone. Never alone. Never ever ever alone.
There had been a discussion a few years after Deagol had appeared in the Garden, regarding what was to be done to Smeagol when he reached their borders. Murder was rare, kin-killing even more so. But eternity was long, longer then one could fathom, and to separate kin forever?
No.
There was a policy, a law you could say, that mandated a separation of offender from victim for a period of time. The offender was to be held in a smial a town over, a generation removed from the issue. Their time served would be decided upon a number of factors, but Deagol had been told repeatedly that he would not have to see his twin if he did not want to.
But no one had ever asked him what he wanted.
No one had ever asked him what happened.
Two thousand years.
Two thousand years.
Deagol missed his brother.
In front of him, Smeagol looked up. His eyes were so blue, one of the only things that set him apart in their Stoor family. He had Harfoot eyes and Stoor hair. His cheeks were covered in ash, his hair from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, was singed. Behind his bloodied lips, Deagol could see broken teeth and a charred tongue that dripped ash.
“What glints and glimmers in the shadows? What shines and sings? What is the one that rules them all?” Smeagol’s voice was ragged, cut through with ash and bubbling water.
Deagol laughed, eyes watering as he shifted closer. Oh, even after all this time, a riddle. Smeagol had liked them. He always had a new one for Addy and often spent hours on the river with him trying to figure out new ones that were perfect for the little faunt.
But this one…
Well. Two thousand years gave Deagol a long time to wonder what he might have found. Two thousand years and Deagol had spent a good portion of time wandering the Garden with a family called ‘Took’. Generation after generation, he had walked back through the Garden until he had found archers.
Archers who had marched under the banner of a king. A small contingent really. But, well, hobbits were small compared to Big Folk, and that meant sometimes they were overlooked. There was no ring offered to hobbits, Deagol had learned, but then they wouldn’t have taken one if it had been offered. Who needed another manthom anyway? Just one more thing to dust.
But there had been a ring. Just one. One that fell into the hands of Men and then later, into the depths of history. And Deagol had always wondered. What if… See, Deagol knew magic wasn’t something that any good hobbit played with. It was much too tricky and took you away from home far too often. But Deagol had heard it, heard him. And if he had just kept the precious, kept it close, held it tight and went for a walk, he could have had the world.
Normal rings didn’t talk to you and Deagol knew he had found something wrong. Something evil.
“What happened?” Deagol asked, his fingers finally brushing the threadbare patch of Smeagol's knee. (He was real. He was real. He was here. He was real.)
Smeagol opened his mouth, and for a moment, Deagol thought there would be an answer. Then Addy’s hands landed on both their shoulders.
“No.” Addy was stern, and she was so much like Acadia it hurt. “No. We are not doing this without tea and a fire. I am soaked,” at this, she glared at him and Deagol found himself being ushered up and towards the hearth. “I am soaked, Smeagol is tired, and everyone has been rude not to offer elevenies.”
Blankly, Deagol stirred up the embers and drew up a fire. The Grubbers always had logs inside, and the kindling was hardly needed once the dry timber caught. Behind the bar, Addy had filled a plate of mugs and loose tea. From the prized jar on the top shelf, she also managed to draw out a handful of Grandfather Halfinks’ biscuits. Deagol’s mouth watered just looking at them.
Between them both, Smeagol sat at the only rightened table in the Raft. His hands were flat against the wood, and he looked a bit like a faunt, turning his head between his young cousin and his brother. There was an honest sort of bewilderment on his face, and something in Deagol’s stomach curdled and churned at the expression.
Hobbits weren’t meant to be away from family for so long.
(Oh, Smeagol, what have you been doing?)
Addy bustled around the bar, dropping the biscuits in front of Smeagol, and hauling a kettle up into the hearth. They probably could have lit the stove and waited in the kitchens, but… Hobbits weren’t meant to be alone for so long. Addy’s hand clamped down onto his wrist and Deagol was dragged from the fire to drop heavily into the chair beside Smeagol.
“Now.” Addy said as she prepped their cups, all three of them preemptively made to taste before the water was even boiled. “Now, we will speak of what has happened.”
Her gaze turned towards Smeagol, and Deagol couldn’t help but follow her. Between them, Smeagol had curled up on his chair, knees against his chest and his heels braced against the edge of the seat. Above his knees, Smeagol held a biscuit in both hands and a mouse would have taken larger bites if given half a chance.
But Deagol didn’t dare say anything about the strange behaviour, not with the tear tracks on his brother’s cheeks and the mixture of delight and devastation that crossed his face every time the biscuit passed through his lips.
“I don’t hate you.” Deagol blurted when Smeagol had taken his fifth miniscule bite. The riverstones in his teeth and the water in his lungs begged to differ, but Deagol knew the truth. He knew the truth. “I don’t blame you.”
“It was an accident.” Addy agreed, as if that statement alone wasn’t wildly different then the line paraded by the courts and perpetuated by the blood on Deagol’s teeth.
Smeagol had fallen still.
Deagol leaned forward, head tilting as he tried to catch his brother’s eyes. “You and I, we know what happened. I don’t blame you.”
The Raft was silent but for the crackle and pop of the fire behind them. Smeagol’s fingers dug into the biscuit, the treat crumbling apart on his knees. “You should.”
“But I don’t.” Deagol cut that line of thought as quickly as he could.
“You should.” Smeagol rebutted, head tilting even further down, the biscuit now nothing but a mess of crumbs and sticky glaze.
“You took the ring for yourself.” Deagol agreed, realizing where this was going and desperately trying to think of any other way to spin the story, especially with Addy sitting right there. Because, this wasn’t going to stay a secret, not really, not for long. But the two of them had been through too much, and whoever had said ‘dead men tell no tales’ was a filthy liar.
“Yes.” Smeagol’s head shot up and for the first time in far too long, Deagol was able to see the little boy who he had tumbled through the hills with. He could see the boy who had helped him hide tangled fishing lines and lied about where broken vases had gone to their parents.
“You took a ring of unfathomable power and you kept it for yourself. You didn’t use it to rule, or to conquer. You ran away.” Deagol leaned back and crossed his arms, daring his brother to tell him otherwise. Because even after all this time, Deagol knew his brother. He knew him.
Smeagol wouldn’t have hurt anyone if he had just been left alone.
“I did terrible things.” Smeagol gasped, hands flashing out quicker than Deagol had expected, and hauling Deagol closer.
Smeagol’s fingers were sticky from the biscuit, even while his fingertips were scarred and twisted. His eyes were far too big in his head, and Deagol shuddered from the scent of smoke, but didn’t let that stop him from leaning back and hauling Smeagol towards himself instead. His brother went willingly, not fighting as he once would have. Instead, Smeagol practically collapsed into his arms, going boneless as Deagol did his best to shield him from the world.
Deagol’s nose was in Smeagol’s hair and the smoke was nearly overpowering. But he had his own blood in his teeth and water in his lungs. Some wounds never healed.
“You ran away.” Deagol whispered.
“I didn’t want to hurt someone.” Smeagol whispered back, as if this were some big confession he needed to give, as if there was any doubt about his reasoning. (Killing Deagol would have been like cutting off his own arm and tearing out his own heart. They weren’t two people, not really. They were SmeagolandDeagol, DeagolandSmeagol. You could almost argue that Smeagol hadn’t done anything more than kill himself.)
“You took a ring that was meant to make the world bend at the knee, and you ran away.”
Smeagol choked.
“How long did you delay a war by running away?”
There was water dripping onto his collar and Deagol couldn’t tell if it came from the water and blood in his teeth, or the tears on his cheeks.
“Come home.” Deagol begged. “Come home to your room and your pipe. Come home and we’ll go fishing, walking, singing. We’ll do puzzles and riddles, work on your whittling and whatever else you want. We’ll go far from here, if you need it. We’ll go somewhere else, until no one knows who we are or what we did. Just, come home.”
Smeagol’s head rested against his collarbone and Deagol held his breath, waiting for an answer he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear.
“I’ve done terrible things.”
Deagol didn’t sigh, but it was a close thing. “Come home anyway.”
Smeagol just shuddered.
Lifting his head, Deagol watched as Addy silently pulled the kettle from the fire, steam just beginning to rise from the spout. She gently placed the kettle on the table, but she did not immediately pour out the tea. Instead, Deagol watched as she looked at him and very silently walked to the front door of the Raft. There, she reached up and paused.
Her hands shook and Deagol would have stood, would have gone over to her, asked what was wrong. But he had his brother in his lap and there was very little that mattered more to him then this moment in time. So, instead, he watched. He watched as little itty bitty Addy reached up and tore down a paper from the wall.
She looked at it for a long moment before she nodded once and swiftly turned on her heel and marched back towards the fireplace. She didn’t have to pass directly beside them, Deagol noted with a slight smile, but she did, her fingers trailing over Smeagol’s back as if in reassurance he was there.
Then, without any sort of fanfare, she ripped the paper in half and threw it into the fire.
“Come home.” Addy said, her gaze still on the burning paper. “Come home Cousin.”
“Alright.” Smeagol whispered into his collar. “Alright.”
Deagol didn’t stand and rush home. He didn’t twitch as Addy walked past them and retrieved the kettle. He didn’t reach for his mug, or insist that Smeagol drink his own. He didn’t push and he didn’t move.
They had forever now, and everything else could come later.