morgynleri | Mar. 10th, 2015

Mar. 10th, 2015

Originally posted over on tumblr for the break time fic stuff, posting them here for a different audience. They may or may not go up on AO3 as they stand, and at least one of them is going to wait until after Hobbit Story Big Bang is over. I will post the first chapter of the third one in a separate post.

Into the Fire: Mahal and Artoo

Word Count: 206
Characters: Mahal and R2D2
Timeframe: about five years after TPM, and roughly four months since Obi-Wan went missing in this AU
Here on tumblr

One meddling Valar and one Force-sensitive astromech meet while the Jedi in the shuttle try to repair the navicomp. For the third time in as many days.

----

You are a fascinating little droid. Mahal crouches down in the tiny hold of the shuttle, next to the astromech droid that seems to be far more aware of him than droids ought to be. He’s never seen a droid that can perceive the Song before, though the astromech doesn’t seem to be capable of creating its own melodies. What’s your name, little one?

It chirps and blats at him, the name both a numerical designation and something more. Certainly the little astromech doesn’t seem bothered that it has more than one designation. As well, it seems curious about him, about what it hasn’t picked up from its scans - and unconscious perception of Song.

Some call me Aüle, others call me Mahal. I prefer the latter, myself. It’s what my children call me.

He shifts, settling down to lean against the bulkhead, keeping half an ear out for the Jedi in the cockpit. The navicomp is fried beyond any hope of even Anakin repairing it, so there shouldn’t be any concern about them finding Arda, and snatching up Obi-Wan before he’s been a help to Thorin and his Company. Time enough to talk to Artoo, and find out what he can about the unusual little astromech.

Just Another Case

Word Count: 359
Characters: David Rossi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Spencer Reid, some background clones and Plo
Here on tumblr, which has additional notes and plotting conversation.

The day - and the case - are getting weird enough that Rossi would very much like to just have a good glass of scotch. And it promises not to get any less weird.

----

The day is getting weirder by the minute, and Rossi is very nearly ready to find a stiff drink. It isn’t that the case is particularly gory or distressing, beyond the high body count, though that’s stressful enough on its own. It’s not even that they have strange witnesses or relatives or potential UNSUBs - well, so far they can’t pin down much of a profile on the UNSUB, and no one who’s witnessed any of the murders can agree on any of the details.

No, it’s the group that he’d love to dismiss as cosplayers in very good Star Wars clone trooper and Jedi costumes. That aren’t. Because he’d caught a glimpse of an actual, lit lightsaber, and the alien - Reid and Garcia are going to keep him awake gabbing about it on the plane home - is certainly not a human in makeup and prosthetics unless someone has gotten their hands on the original costumes from the movies and haven’t enshrined them.

"And you’re certain our UNSUB is some shapeshifting spree killer from Arrakis?" Rossi looks over the small group again, raising an eyebrow at the Jedi who seems to be in charge of the group.

"Aargonar, actually." Obi-Wan is barely hiding a smirk, and Rossi resists the urge to answer with one of his own. He’d always liked the snarky, arrogant bastard in the movies, especially the newer ones. "A Clawdite assassin, though we’re still not quite certain who they were hired to kill, since this clearly isn’t a planet involved in the current conflict."

"The UNSUB wouldn’t be from Arrakis - they’re too wasteful of resources to be a Fremin. They’d have been far more likely to come from Geidi Prime, if they were from that particular universe in the first place." Reid smiles cheerfully when Rossi gives him a long look.

"Of course they would." Rossi sighs, shaking his head a moment. "So, why are you chasing this shapeshifting assassin, again?" He pauses, glancing at the rest. "And why don’t you introduce your friends, while you’re at it."

Obi-Wan chuckles, and tilts his head, before launching into the explanation and introductions Rossi had asked for.

Crossposts: http://morgynleri-fic.livejournal.com/185321.html

Warrior Son

Chapter: 1/?
Word Count: 651
Characters: Boromir, Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Thorin’s Company, Gandalf, others added as I get to them later
Timeframe: Begins about two weeks before Gandalf shows up to recruit Bilbo for Thorin’s Company.

Boromir finds himself in the past, and sees a chance to meet a childhood hero and to perhaps, too, save friends grief in the future.

Gondor’s son slips on mists and the tide from Anduin’s flood to the waves, wandering beyond the shores of his people on the bent seas. There he is seen and welcomed by the mighty lord of the waters, with murmured words.

Great-son of sunken Numenor, why do you forbear to go in the wake of your forefathers beyond the ken of the world? What bonds would keep you with your broken body and shattered sword that have been entrusted to me?

To this he gives no answer, for his shade speaks not but that his death has not earned him rest. More listen than only the lord of the waters, and rough hands direct a kinder fate. One brings the ship softly ashore where gray light holds sway, the other mends rent flesh and shattered steel, that breath begins anew and heart beats once more.

Walk the lands again, oh warrior son, and make for yourself a new destiny.

Boromir retreats to the room he’s taken at the Green Dragon, sitting on the edge of the two beds that have been pushed together to make something he can sleep on, and resting his arms upon his knees as he stares at the wall. The youth in Bilbo’s face, by comparison to the old hobbit he remembers from Rivendell, is startling, and more so is the innocence, the lack of sorrow about him. Could it be Bilbo has yet to travel on his journey into the East, the quest upon which he had acquired the Ring from wretched Gollum?

He blinks once, drawing in a swift breath as another thought follows on the heels of the first. If this is before that quest, then the dwarven king that Gimli had spoken of in the reverent tones reserved for a legend still lives, not yet felled by orcs at the feet of his own home. Thorin Oakenshield, whose story had traveled even to Gondor, where Boromir had avidly listened to a dwarven merchant tell of when he could escape to the markets. The sort of hero and king that Boromir had built up an idea about what king might return to Gondor - and who Aragorn had at first fallen short of, because who could live up to a child’s hero of legend?

A quiet laugh escapes him, and Boromir curls one corner of his mouth up in a small smile. Aragorn must be a small child now, living in Rivendell. He perhaps might have met Thorin, and Boromir cannot imagine but that Thorin made an impression on Aragorn then. A king to aspire to be, that Aragorn would later emulate, and it took too long for Boromir to see that beyond the whispers and shadows of the Ring.

But if this is indeed before that quest, than Thorin will come through Hobbiton, will be at Bag End, perhaps even as soon as tonight. A chance to meet that hero that Boromir had always wished to meet, though he had known he could not.

A knock on the door startles him from his thoughts, and Boromir smiles to himself as the hobbit on the other side - for here, there are none who are not hobbits, save a few travelers from time to time - speaks. “The Missus said to remind you that tea is at four, and dinner is promptly at seven, and you’ll need to come fetch your own if you’ll not be eating in the tap room.”

"Thank you, young master Hob." Boromir isn’t certain if it would be rude to go find Bag End and visit Bilbo for tea, but he knows it would be rude to show up uninvited for dinner. It hasn’t been so terribly long since he heard the tale of the dwarves arriving so rudely to Bilbo’s home. It might, indeed, be best if he waited until tomorrow to visit, and to do so in the morning.

Next Chapter

Crossposts: http://morgynleri-fic.livejournal.com/185537.html

Warrior Son

Chapter 2/?
Previous Chapter
Word Count: 1517 (2168)

It doesn't take long for Boromir to find Bag End, with Bilbo outside smoking a pipe on a bench. A quiet morning, and Boromir is reluctant to break that peace, though he knows Gandalf will do so himself well enough - when, though, he does not know. Not yesterday, or he'd not have found Bilbo here, and not today, as Boromir has not seen the wizard while walking here from the Green Dragon.

"Good morning." He finally breaks the quiet, smiling a little when Bilbo starts. "I was told I could find a Mister Baggins here."

"I am Bilbo Baggins. Do I know you?" Bilbo frowns, studying Boromir intently, though Boromir knows there will be nothing to recognize in his face. Bilbo has not yet met him, as they will again in Rivendell, a lifetime of men in the future.

"I do not believe we have met before, Mister Baggins, though we have a friend in common." True, in a sense, for all that none of the hobbits which Boromir had traveled with are yet born. "I was told if I was ever in the Shire, I could do worse than to be invited to tea at Bag End, by Mr. Baggins of that address."

"Oh." Blinking, Bilbo looks over Boromir again, a smile crossing his face briefly. "Well, tea is at four, and I would appreciate the tale of how you came to hear of me."

Perhaps, too, some tales of Boromir's travels, to learn of the world beyond the Shire that he has yet only seen in maps and books, if Boromir reads the hint of wistfulness in Bilbo's voice right. He can think of many to tell him, though some will have to be kept secret - he does not know what telling of the Ring and the quest to destroy it would do, and that must yet be kept secret that it not be overheard by agents of Sauron. It will do no harm to tell of his deeds in battle, though, nor to speak of a journey with hobbits, of Merry and Pippin, though perhaps not of Frodo nor of Sam.

"What I can tell of it, I shall speak of." Boromir smiles, drawing an echo of the same from Bilbo. "Until then, Mr. Baggins."

"Good morning, then."

Boromir can feel Bilbo watching him as he walks away, and imagines the hobbit is terribly curious what brings a Man to his door when he has yet to step outside the bounds of the Shire. A story that Boromir does not know the whole of, most especially that which fell between his death on Amon Hen, and his waking whole as the swan boat in which he lay scraped against sand on an unfamiliar shore.

His day is spent exploring some bit of the Shire, before he returns to the Green Dragon to inquire after a bath, and laundering his clothes, though he has only those which he wears until he has a chance to speak with a seamstress who is acustomed to making clothes for Men. He is directed to a back room with copper kettles and tubs for the former, and told he might wash his own clothes there, or leave them outside the door for the laundry girl.

It won't be the first time he's cleaned his own clothes, and Boromir tends to them first, hanging them from a line which stretches across the room that they might at least begin to dry while he bathes.

There are new scars on his body since his wakening to renewed life, small ones where arrows had pierced him littering his body, and he touches the one just to the right of his breastbone. A reminder of the failure he'd given his life to amend, though he had not, in the end, saved even Merry and Pippin. Nor shall he live long enough to know their fate.

Snorting quietly, Boromir reaches for the soap he'd bought in the market the day before, cleaning the grime of the road from his skin. Perhaps he shall not live to know what fate they might have had after he had died, but he shall do what he can for Bilbo, and for the quest which will bring Isildur's Bane to light, for all that it might be long years after this that it would be known as such.

Or not as long, if Boromir can find some manner of convincing Bilbo that the Ring is the evil that he knows it to be, when the hobbit finds it. Then perhaps once this quest is complete, and the dwarves once more have their home - and Thorin has the crown and throne he will have taken back - Boromir can find some means to remove the Ring to its birth place, where it can be destroyed.

He shivers despite the pleasant heat of the water, ducking down to rinse away the soap. What will the Ring do to him this time, when he is near to its influence? How will it try to entice him when all that it spoke to him last time is moot?

Shaking his head, Boromir finishes his bath swiftly, pulling the cork stopper from the base of the tub to allow the water to drain down the center of the room. Wrapping himself in his cloak, he takes the clothes to be passed outside to hang on the line in the sun, and retreats to his room while he waits for the shirt and trews to be dry.

"Who did you say mentioned tea at Bag End?" Bilbo sets a small plate of sweet cakes next to the cup of tea he's served Boromir, before settling into the chair next to the fire.

"I didn't." Boromir smiles, taking a sip of his tea. It's not one that he's encountered at home, but a distinctly northern drink that lacks the bitterness the drink has in Gondor. "Merry was all the name I knew of him, and I have not seen him since we were parted by trouble." He won't lie and call the trouble anything but orcs if pressed, but for now, there's no need to mention exactly what the trouble is.

Bilbo grimaces a little, but does not ask what sort of trouble, at least. "I don't recall a Merry among my acquaintances, unfortunately. Are you quite sure your friend meant to send you here?"

"He never meant to send me anywhere, just spoke often of home, and all the good things the Shire holds. Usually when no one else was paying attention to meals beyond breakfast and supper, with dinner eaten as we traveled." Of all the hobbits, Merry and Pippin had most often loudly - if good-naturedly - complained about missing meals. Boromir would have to remember to purchase extra supplies of food - and perhaps an extra pony or two - before he volunteered to join the quest.

"Hmm." Bilbo sips at his tea, watching Boromir for a long moment. "What was your name again?"

"I am Boromir of Gondor." If no longer her Captain-General, nor the son of her Steward. Ecthelion would yet be the former, and Turgon the latter.

"What brings a Man of Gondor where he encounters a hobbit?" Bilbo is watching Boromir with a skeptical expression, bordering on suspicious.

"I came north seeking answers to troubling dreams from the Lord of Imladris. For a while after, I had Merry as a traveling companion." Boromir shrugs, setting his tea aside in favor of taking a sweet cake, dense with oats and sticky with honey. "I do not have a great need to return south and home now, though perhaps in time. For now, I find I am content to spend some time where there is true peace."

As long as he need wait for Thorin to arrive, and give him the chance to volunteer to accompany the dwarves to Erebor.

"There is certainly plenty of peace in the Shire." Bilbo smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You still have not truly explained why you came looking for me."

"Curiosity. I wished to meet the hobbit spoken of so kindly by my friend." To meet the hobbit who would leave the comforts of his home to follow thirteen dwarves into uncertainty for unknown reward. The hobbit who would carry the Ring for so long with so little effect that Boromir had ever noticed, though he'd known little of Bilbo during the time he'd spent in Imladris.

Too, now that he is certain he has been sent to some time before the reclaiming of Erebor, to meet Thorin, and to do what he can to ease the sorrows of the world - and in doing, ease too the burden upon Gondor, that she will flourish once more.

Bilbo takes a sip of his tea, hiding a moment of frustration, and after, doesn't seem inclined to try to pry more answers from Boromir for the moment. He does invite Boromir back for tea again the next day, curious himself, perhaps. It will hopefully be enough to keep an eye on Bilbo until the dwarves arrive.